[Samuel Barbara] The Black Angel(Book4You) (32 page)

"Oh, I am so sorry." She stroked Phoebe's hair. "And you? What damage is there?"

"My leg is broken, but it's properly set." A sudden ripple of pain contorted her face, and her fingers closed convulsively over her sister's. "It is… my back that aches." She closed her eyes, going pale, and Adriana felt real fear. But Phoebe opened her eyes again after a moment and said, "It is not broken, however. I'm sure it will heal."

An unaccountable sense of dread filled Adriana. But brightly she said, "Of course it will. Rest now, my dear. I'll sit with you as long as you like."

Tynan returned to the town house at mid-afternoon, whistling cheerfully under his breath. The day had gone very well and he had a dinner engagement for himself and his wife slated for this evening. A dinner, he thought, jauntily taking the steps to the front door, that might at last net him the Commons' seat he pursued.

John Marsh, Marquess of Cockfield, had sought Tynan at Barclay's coffee shop, and without preamble said that word was Tynan wished to buy an open seat. The price was high—seven hundred pounds—and Tynan suspected the Marquess was offering the local seat in order to raise funds, but that suited him fine.

So it was with no small amount of dismay that he read Adriana's hurried note. Alarmed, he found the housekeeper. "What do you know of this?"

"Only what she said, milord. The Countess and Lady Cassandra hurried out of here mid-morning like the devil was after them."

"Have you seen Mr. St. Ives?"

"Not since yesterday."

Torn, Tynan paced. There was naught for him to do with Phoebe, and though a part of him wished to join Adriana, he could not afford to miss this chance this evening. He would have liked having her with him much better, but it would not do for him to miss this dinner, especially if events conspired to prevent them from attending the rout at the Duchess's.

No. He could not afford to miss either. He would have to attend both, even without his wife.

But as he stood before the long windows that looked toward the back garden, he thought of her fencing with Gabriel there, thought of her laughter and her hair, thought of her white breasts and the low cry she made when he came to her, and he did not want her so far away. He wanted her here, wanted her on his arm, his lovely, intelligent wife.

A creeping sense of doom edged into his mind, and he pushed it away fiercely. When he could not longer avoid it, he would tell her the truth—that they were not, under the Catholic laws that bound him, truly married. That in order for their marriage to be true, she would have to convert.

And not only convert, but hide that conversion.

What a tangled mass of lies politics had forced on his life! His father, forty years before, had ostensibly converted to Protestant, had taken a public oath renouncing his faith. He'd done it to safeguard his lands, and since no Catholic could hold property of any sort, to safeguard the small holdings through the county on behalf of his neighbors. It was not uncommon, but that did not make the act any less subversive.

He pinched the bridge of his nose. He had no inkling of how Adriana would receive the news. She did not appear to be particularly devout, one way or the other, but it was a large step, a conversion. And a dangerous one.

He was not entirely sure he could ask her to take that step.

And not for the first time, he wondered at the motives of his benefactor, the elder Earl of Albury, James St. Ives. Why had the man written to him, specifically? What had the Earl had in mind when St. Ives requested his consideration of this marriage?

The Earl had known of Tynan's political aspirations. It had, in fact, been St. Ives's wise tutelage that provided the clarity of his decision. If he bought a seat in the English parliament, he could influence the vote on his own land. Perhaps he could even begin to influence other things, over time.

Still, by the time Albury had written to Tynan, Adriana's fate had been sealed. The brothers were missing, the earldom in danger of being lost. Had St. Ives somehow imagined he would petition and be granted that seat?

Highly unlikely, Tynan thought, even given the tenuous connection between the families.

With a physical shake, he put the thoughts aside. The motives of a man now dead were likely never to be uncovered. And he had much to do. In the meantime, Gabriel would want to know the news about Phoebe.

But he had no luck finding him, and returned to change for his dinner engagement. Lord Cockfield and his wife were agreeable and quite understanding about Adriana's absence. The lady, a round woman with merry brown eyes, teased him a little. "I had so hoped to meet her, you know. She must be very beautiful indeed to have the gentlemen"—she said the word with great irony—"in such a tizzy."

Tynan laughed and bowed over her hand. "She is the star of my heavens," he said extravagantly.

She laughed. "Bring her to me when you can."

He promised he would. The three shared a companionable dinner with free flowing wine and a full complement of courses, and afterward he retired with Lord Cockfield to his study, where they downed another bottle and Tynan underwent a subtle grilling about his politics. It amused him to lie so boldly, but the plump lord was so eager for his funds that it wasn't even much of a struggle.

By the time he left, the deal was very nearly sealed. Whistling cheerfully, he decided he was not at all in the mood to return to the town house if Adriana was not there, and set out for the Stag and Pointer, where he found Gabriel at last, engaged in a vigorous debate with a black scholar with whom he disagreed most heartily and with great enjoyment whenever they met. By the grinning men surrounding the two, they'd been at it for a while.

The scholar, with a skin so shiny dark that Tynan had stared—rudely and with astonishment—the first time he'd seen him, smiled now. "Ah, my rescue!" he cried, getting to his feet. "Lord Glencove, you must take your brother-in-law far from me. I'm too old to spar with the likes of him."

Gabriel turned. "Tynan! Join us."

Tynan was a bit in his cups, but he saw Gabriel was far beyond that, for all that his oratory had been perfectly and incisively executed. Hectic color burned in his cheeks, and his eyes were over bright. There was despair beneath the brightness. "Let's have a bite," Tynan said, gesturing toward an empty table.

Gabriel's friends, who'd obviously formed a protective circle about him, gave Tynan understanding glances and moved away. The scholar clapped Tynan briefly on the shoulder as he left. "He's heard a bit of bad news, I think," he said quietly.

Tynan nodded. Settling across from Gabriel, he motioned to the barkeep and ordered the shepherd's pie for two. Though he'd eaten himself, he would keep Gabriel company.

"You heard about Phoebe, then," he said cautiously.

"I did." Gabriel swallowed. "And my mother has a fever. I'm here drowning my fear that the third curse will be my brother."

"Is there any news?"

"No." Gabriel wiped a hand over his face. "Nor will there be till Tuesday."

Strain showed on the man's mouth, and in his shoulders, held at an aggressively straight angle. With sudden inspiration, Tynan said, "Forget the pie. Let's go to your sisters."

Throughout the day, Cassandra and Adriana took turns sitting with Phoebe and Monique, and managed, finally, to calm them, and then begin to teach the younger girls how to manage a crisis. "You cannot accomplish everything all at once," Adriana said quietly to Cleo as they returned to Monique's room, bearing fresh towels and cool water, "so you take one thing at a time, and complete it, and move to the next."

"We were quite lost without Phoebe and Monique."

"I know. But if you wish to manage your own household one day, you will have to keep your head in an emergency."

Soberly, the girl nodded. "How are my brothers?" she asked.

"They're very well." She opened the door and found Monique shifting with some annoyance.

"I am weary of this bed!" she cried in her French-accented English. "Let me out of here."

"Not today," Adriana said breezily. "If you'll behave yourself, perhaps tomorrow."

Monique gave her a dark look. "How are my boys? How is Gabriel? He wrote me a letter that Cleo read to me, full of the gossip." Pulling her deep bosomed torso up, she added, "Does he have a woman?"

"Not that I've seen." She thought of Gabriel's words, that he would not take a wife. "I think he is simply too busy. He did tell me he's loath to ever leave England again, so at least we'll keep him close by."

"Ah. He said that?"

"Yes. He's quite busy, and Lord Glencove said he's enormously popular with everyone."

A fleeting sadness danced over her eyes, then disappeared. "He'll make the most of his talents, you'll see."

"Of course he will." She opened a copy of The
Castle of Otrano
. "Where did you stop?"

"Page one hundred ninety-one," Cleo said, and yawned mightily. "Mama, can I crawl up beside you?"

"
Oui
, child."

Worn by the drama, the fourteen-year-old curled up around her mother, the roses and dusk skin seeming all the more youthful against the white counterpane. In minutes she was fast asleep, her mother's arms locked around her. Adriana read for a long time, until Monique, too, drifted into sleep, then she marked her place, put the book aside, and tiptoed across the room.

At the door, she paused, oddly moved—and strangely, missing her own mother. Though Monique would gladly have made room for her, Adriana left them alone, cuddling, mother and daughter. And out in the passageway she wondered if she might one day have a daughter of her own.

She was unexpectedly weary. The long day and the cold weather, on top of her lovely but not so restful nights, had drained all the energy from her. Dutifully, she checked on Phoebe and found her resting comfortably after a dose of laudanum, then without so much as a block of cheese, she made her way to her sacred, special place—that bedroom under the eaves of the old part of the manor.

With more than a little gratitude she saw that a fire had been lit and her covers turned down, a foot-warmer in place below the coverlet. The same young maid who'd been waiting on Phoebe now waited in a chair for her. She'd evidently been nodding off in the chair, for she blinked owlishly when Adriana spoke her name. "Jenna. You may go to bed, child."

"I'm supposed to help you," she said. "I'm sorry I fell asleep."

Was the manor so shorthanded? "Where are Jean and Minna?"

"Minna's down with the fever. Begging your pardon, milady, I'm not supposed to speak of Jean."

"Ah." She turned to offer her laces to the girl. "I'd wager it has to do with a handsome blacksmith, but you needn't break your vow of silence. I'm sure I'll hear of it somewhere. Help me off with this, and then you may go."

The girl did as she was told and would have lingered to assist her into bed, but Jenna nearly swayed on her feet, and Adriana dismissed her, making a mental note to see to more help.

She brushed out her hair, donned a long warm woolen nightrail, and with a jaw-cracking yawn fell into bed and almost immediately into sleep.