[Samuel Barbara] The Black Angel(Book4You) (25 page)

Tynan felt Adriana's tight gaze on him, and he held carefully to a neutral expression, but the news hit him hard. "I see."

"Oh, you'll find another," Cassandra said briskly, bustling back to settle uneasily on the edge of the sofa. "If not now, within a year, the scandal will have died down and someone short on funds will leap on the chance to profit from his unpopulous seat." She arched a brow. "Who knows? Should Julian be transported, perhaps you'll be a lord in practice if not truth, and won't need the Commons."

"Enough, Cassandra," Gabriel said, rising. He looked at Tynan and cocked his head toward the door. Work to be done.

"You have a very low opinion of me indeed." Tynan stood, stiffly. "I must go. Riana, will you do me the honor of accompanying me?"

Startled, she blinked, and against the paleness of her face, her eyes were huge, aggrieved. Her hands fell to her skirts and she nodded. "Of course."

Cassandra, evidently regretting her sharp words, followed the trio to the foyer. "What will you do?"

Gabriel lifted a shoulder. "We must find a way to influence the vote, I should think." He tugged on a pair of gloves. "See what you can accomplish among your set."

A servant brought their cloaks, and gave Adriana one Tynan had not seen, of a dark, rich blue. "An improvement,'" he commented. "What did you do with that awful mustard-colored thing?"

The faintest glimmer of amusement lightened the dark expression. "I left it in an alley yesterday."

"Good riddance."

Gabriel nodded at Cassandra, and the trio stepped into the cold evening. "I've an appointment I dare not break," he said. "Will you take the news to Julian, and I'll meet you there?"

"But we can't—" Adriana began.

"We can." Tynan handed her up into the waiting chaise. "Leave it to me. Mere Irishman I may be, but I've a way with prison guards." He nodded at Gabriel and climbed in behind Adriana.

Dark was falling, and Tynan realized he was quite famished. "Shall we visit the tea shop and take him some buns? I'm quite hungry, and I noticed you did not take your tea."

"If you like."

He gave directions to the coachman, deciding in an instant to sit beside her instead of across. There was a curious pleasure in feeling her arm against his, in the sight of her skirts squishing up to his thigh. Spying her gloved hands, the fingers worrying each other, he reached over impulsively and took one in his own. "You must stop fretting so, Riana," he said.

"I'm terrified, Tynan." She closed her eyes tightly. "I had no idea it could come this." A little breathlessly, she said, "We were both, Julian and I, foolish in our way. But it isn't as if this has never happened before!" She looked at him. "I can't bear the thought that he might hang for this."

He tightened his fingers around hers. "He will not hang. We won't allow that to happen."

She straightened a little, blowing out a breath as if to steady her nerves, and nodded. "And what about you? Does this man's refusal thwart your plans? Have you another option?"

"I'll not lie to you—that seat means the world to me, and I am sorely grieved to have lost it over this. But your sister spoke the truth: in a year's time, this scandal will be over, and there'll be some seat for me."

"Still, it will go easier for you if you press for an annulment," she said with quiet dignity. "No court would deny it."

A pain pierced him. "Is that what you want? For me to walk away and leave you to all this?"

Her lashes swept down. "No."

And as if the word were some honeyed balm to the just inflicted wound, his heart lifted absurdly. With a subtle shift of his body, he faced her, and took her chin in his free hand, lifting it toward him. She kept her eyes downcast for a moment, then took a breath and lifted the long, dark lashes.

"Nor I," he said quietly, and cupped that pale cheek in his hand, drawing warmth from it. In the wide, troubled eyes, he saw a wild mix of gratitude and sorrow and even… tenderness.

Which lead to a wave of tenderness of his own. He leaned close and put his forehead against hers, respecting her wish that their mouths should not kiss. "We'll stand together," he said.

Her fingers tightened almost painfully around his. "Tynan, you are too good. I pray no more of my past sins tarnish your plans. I do."

His heart ached in that moment, ached with an emotion he dared not examine too closely. He was nearly relieved when the chaise pulled to a halt and the coachman tapped on the roof. "Here we are!"

"Come," he said, as lightly as possible. "Let us feast on hot cross buns and clotted cream, then take some cheer to your brother." His smile was grim. "Doubtless he needs it as badly as we do."

She smiled. "Worse, I'm sure."

Adriana suspected it was a hefty bribe that bought them entrance to the Tower. She waited in the chaise, the package of warm buns in her lap, and peered out the window, made faintly apprehensive by the damp seeping into the air from the Thames and the sight of the forbidding walls of the old fortress. The waters of the moat eerily reflected the cold light of the moon.

Tynan came back. "We're in, love." He helped her down and offered his arm, and Adriana took it gratefully. A wet gust of wind, laden with fallen leaves and small bits of debris, slammed them suddenly and she winced away from it, turning her head into the shelter of Tynan's body until it passed. He lifted a hand, protecting her face, his own head bowed against it.

In the strange way of sexual appreciation, Adriana found herself suddenly and acutely aware of him. Even with the sharp fingers of wind buffeting them, she noticed a thousand details—the crook of his arm, taut above and below her hand on his elbow, the protective way he pressed her hand close to his ribs and put his long, graceful hand up as a shield for her face. In some odd way, she sensed the whole of his body in relation to the whole of her own, limbs and torso, shoulders and hips, and knew that he sensed the feeling between them, too. With a swift intensity, she ached for his hands to be on her, exploring her body as she longed to explore his, in the silence of a room lit only with a brace of candles, a long night's exploration of shared pleasure and discovery.

When the gust died, as abruptly as it had begun, Adriana lifted her head, a liquid sense of hunger in her belly and breasts. His hand, hitherto a shield only, came in and touched her flesh, slid down her neck, rested against her shoulder. In the darkness his eyes were shadowed, unreadable, but his mouth parted ever so slightly, and she saw the flare of his nostrils as he leaned in. She raised her chin, ready to meet that kiss, that mouth, at long last—

"You coming in or not?" cried a voice from the gate. "I ain't got all night!"

Tynan jerked his head around. "We're coming." He dropped his hand and urged her forward, and Adriana, trembling faintly, moved with him through the gates and into a dimly lit street. Along the walls were windows, most with glass, but not all, and behind them was the guttering, uneven light of cheap candles. A shadow loomed at one, and Adriana looked hurriedly away, fearful suddenly of what she would see. As if the ghosts of all those held here over the centuries lingered, the air was immensely cold, even when they were led across an open courtyard and past the ghostly gray White Tower to another farther on.

The guard led them up a tight, medieval stairway and to a heavy locked door. "Ye can't stay long," he said, and opened the door for them.

"Thank you," Tynan said.

Adriana entered first, and made a sound of dismay before she could catch it, for her brother was truly not himself. His hair, unbrushed and unbound, lay in a tangle down his back, and his face and hands were none too clean. He'd evidently been dozing with his head on the table, for he looked startled and confused, and an impression in the shape of his ring marked one cheek. He'd not shaved in several days.

"Adriana!" he said, and became aware of his appearance, smoothing his shirt front and touching his hair. "How did you get in?"

She did not stand on ceremony. "God!" she cried, and flung her arms around him, pressing a kiss to his head. "You are despairing, Julian! Do not despair." She stepped back and showed him the package. "Look what we've brought."

"And more," Tynan said, taking a bottle from his coat.

"Port?" Julian said in surprise.

"Aye." Tynan shrugged and turned away, settling himself on a three-legged stool in the corner.

"And look," Adriana said. "I even thought to bring a pot of clotted cream." She put the small pottery crock on the table. "It's even cold, still. We paid for the pot, and I swear the woman would sell the shirt off her back to my husband." Her hands fluttered. "Have some—"

Julian snared her hands in one of his own, and she was relieved beyond measure to see the smile on his mouth. "Adriana. Please sit."

She closed her mouth and nodded, doing as he asked.

"I have no visitors," he said calmly, taking a bun from the package. "So there's been no call for me to—" He shook his head. "Open that, will you, Riana?" He pointed with his chin at the bottle. "I apologize for my appearance. I'm half mad with ennui. If it weren't for the direction of my window, affording me a view of the street, I'd be full insane now."

"What can we bring you?"

He shook his head. "You've done well." As if to illustrate, he bit into the bun and savored it, then washed it down with a swig from the bottle. "It will only be another week. I spent longer in the hold of a ship."

Adriana's eyes widened. "The pair of you had quite a lot of adventures!"

"We did at that." He ate heartily for a moment. "Tell me, what news of outside?"

Tynan answered. "It's that very news we've come to discuss." His tone was grave enough that Julian lifted his head and waited. "There's a move afoot to make an example of you."

"I see." Julian lowered his eyes, then gave a nod. "Malvern's mother, I suppose?" he asked Adriana.

"That's what they say." She gave him a puzzled look. "Though she certainly has lost her beauty. Gabriel said men of certain tastes still find her appealing?" She looked from Julian to Tynan. "What does that mean?"

The men exchanged an alarmed glance, and it annoyed her. "Oh, please. What do you think you're protecting me from?"

Julian chuckled. "There are things you'd rather not know, my dear."

"No, there isn't." Seeing that Julian would not answer, she looked to her husband. "Will you tell me?"

Oddly, a bar of color showed along his cheekbones. "Later."

"For now, let's change the subject, shall we?" Julian spread a bun with cream. "Amuse me with something besides the tale at hand."

"Well," Adriana said lightly, "I have had an adventure of my own."

"Indeed?"

Across the small room, Tynan chuckled. "She did."

Adriana, pleased by this small encouragement, spun out the tale of her outing in men's clothing, deliberately enhancing the more amusing aspects, exaggerating her voice and putting on a bit of a swagger when she told of entering Child's. As she'd known it would, the story made Julian smile, then laugh.

"And what possessed you to do it at all, Riana?" he asked, down a quarter of the bottle and considerably more mellow by the relaxed set of his shoulders.

Momentarily at a loss, for she did not want to tell of the satirical drawings, she glanced at Tynan. Smoothly, he said, "It was a dare, I'm afraid. She won."

In that moment, with that easy lie, Tynan Spenser stole her heart. She gave him a beatific smile.

"She never could resist a dare," Julian said.

"Is that so?"

As if this reminded him, Julian turned to Tynan. "I have heard tale of your brother, Spenser."

Adriana would have sworn Tynan paled, but she could detect nothing unusual in his voice. "Have you, now?"

Julian lifted the bottle, drank deeply, put it down. "In a letter from a woman in your village, as it happens. She told me of his untimely death."

Adriana felt the mood in the room shift. Both her brother and her husband were lazily alert, eyes hooded but sharp, bodies sprawled but wary. "And how is it, Lord Albury"—there was quite a roll to that R, a sure indication of Tynan's ire—"that you came to be writing to a woman in my village?"

"I was checking on you."

"Ah." A bitterness came on his mouth. "And have I passed your inspection, my lord?"

"I'd say so." He lifted the bottle. "If you hadn't, the port would have done it for you."

Adriana had the sense that they were discussing more than it appeared, and a needling of sharp curiosity stuck her. With effort she kept her mouth closed and simply looked between them, trying to gather clues. Tynan's face was uncommonly passive; even that mobile mouth was still. Julian wore not an expression of triumph, as she might have expected, but one of deep speculation.

The guard unceremoniously opened the door. "Long enough," he growled. "You've another visitor. These two have to go." In the shadows of the tiny landing, Gabriel's gold-embroidered coat glittered.

"So soon?" Adriana protested. "We've not—"

Tynan took her arm smoothly. "We'll be back, if we can."

Understanding him immediately, Adriana said, "Oh." With as much grace as she could gather, she bent to kiss her brother's head. "Do not despair, Julian. I think of you every moment."

He nodded, rising to extend a hand to Tynan. "Thank you," he said simply. And then, inexplicably, "I suppose it never hurt a man to be prayed over."

"True enough," Tynan said.

Julian winked at Adriana as she passed, and gave her arm a quick squeeze. With a heart considerably lighter than it had been, Adriana went down the stairs in silence.

During their short tenure a fog had rolled into the fortress from the river, bringing with it a smell offish and salt. Stepping into the courtyard, Adriana shivered and tugged her cloak closer to her. "This is an evil place," she said. As if to underscore her words, a raven flew out of a hidden spot by the walk, crying out in harsh censure. Adriana, startled and repulsed, huddled close to Tynan, grasping his coat with a small cry.

He looped a strong arm around her shoulders. "Aye," he said. "I'll be as glad to be gone."