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learned to flirt and flatter, to dance and tease, to kiss and caress. If not for the countess of
Heath, he might have gone on quite happily debauched for years.
The memory galled. Rain streamed over his face as he stared at her, remembering
the painful lust that had consumed him. He d thought himself so very sophisticated and
polished, all grown and experienced at the age of nineteen. She was older, more
experienced, and taught him all manner of new and astounding things. For one whole
winter, they were inseparable, and quite the talk of the town.
Much as Jonathan and Juliette were now.
Love made Lucien s music live. He composed for her sonatas and ballads, light
and lively little pieces he played in private. It amused her.
Inside the salon at Whitethorn now, she danced with one of the squires come in
for the evening from the outlying farms in the district. Her powdered face was as flawless
now as it had been when Lucien was nineteen, and her body as dangerously curved, but
Lucien felt only hatred when he looked at her. The memory of her betrayal stung
deeply his earnest composing, her laughter when he dared to give tribute in public.
Even ten years later, the emotions lingered. He d been humiliated and pained, and
even though he understood how that she d been trying to calm her husband, the facts
gave no help for the damage she d wrought. It didn t help that he d further humiliated
himself with a challenge to duel her husband, who d managed to just graze the flesh of an
overwrought boy.
It didn t bear thinking on. That night, his music had died he d stuffed it deep
into a reinforced trunk in his mind and left it there. And there it had stayed, with rare
outbursts of need that he wrote deep in his cups and burned before he slept.
Until now. Until Madeline and her blasted gardens and her blasted eyes.
With a soft whooshing roar, the rain doubled in intensity and Lucien was driven
within. He took the stairs to his chamber, stripped off his sodden boots, and dried his hair.
The music that had been dancing at the edges of his mind now rushed forward, as
if to torment him, loud and insistent and beautiful. So beautiful and seductive and
sorrowful. He slammed a fist on the table and buried his head, covering his ears to shut
out the sound, but it came from within and did not cease.
Sweet and light, so easy at first, then darker and darker it grew, until the light
moments were blotted out, as if stomped, squashed
With a groan, he found his pen and sharpened it roughly, and began to write,
humming, dreaming, listening. Once he gave in, the pressure in his chest eased and he
could breathe, and his head did not ache. But he wrote with sorrow, wrote the sound of
the last days of Pompeii, so light, then dark, and at last destroyed in a great, inescapable
violence. Pompeii. Pompeii.
He wrote until dawn crept into the room. He filled page after page with the notes
he could not escape. When the first full fingers of sunlight broke over the eastern horizon
and splashed onto his composition, Lucien halted in surprise. All night he d written. All
night. There was in his body a curious lightness, as if he were unwell, and he stared at the
dawn with a feeling of confusion. All night.
With a sigh, he stood and gathered the sheaves of paper and carried them to the
fire. It had fallen to embers, but they burned well enough once he stirred them. The paper
caught with a satisfying blaze.
Suddenly into his daze broke the memory of Madeline standing in this room,
humming the notes she d read on the paper, fighting with him to keep the papers out of
the fire and the taste of her a few moments later, heated and unwilling, aroused and
furious. He had been almost mad with want of her in those moments, and yet she had
resisted him. There was an immovable integrity about her he wondered if he could crack.
He wondered if he would, after all, be able to seduce her.
Idly, he poked the sheaf of burning paper, smelling the acrid scent with a sense of
relief.
And with the audible click that so marked inspiration, he saw the answer that had
been eluding him all along music was the key to seducing Madeline. It was the only
tool against which she had no defense. He frowned, thinking of her face as he d played
her violin yesterday overwrought, overwhelmed, wide open.
Yes. He pursed his lips. Yes, music would woo her to his bed even against her
own will. But could he do it? Could he twist even that to his lust? Was he willing to
sacrifice his last holiness? He knew with utter certainty that it would also destroy him.
And that he would do it anyway.
&
Madeline worked in the gardens the next morning. No one joined her, for it was
Sunday and the workmen did not come. Nor did Lucien appear, which was no terrible
surprise, considering how deep in his cups he d been the night before. She doubted he d
leave his bed at all today.
It was a relief. Mainly. A tiny shudder passed through her every time she
remembered the look of him last night in her room tall and soaked and wild. He was so
fierce and free. It was almost impossible to imagine such a life. She wondered, as she
weeded, if he appreciated it.
By the time the scents of breakfast began to tease her, Madeline had finished a
considerable amount of weeding. All four of the lace beds were now cleared and properly
trimmed. She admired the yellow daisies blooming amid circles of silvery lamb s ears.
Exquisite.
Beyond the lace gardens and the tall dark edges of the maze, the rose gardens, too,
were neater than they d been two weeks before. She with Lucien s men and his own
hard work had made much progress.
Walking now back to the house, she puzzled over that. Why he bothered. The
obvious, that he meant to seduce her, was only a part of it. He seemed to take great
pleasure in doing, in being busy, challenging himself. He possessed an almost inhuman
level of energy, which was a large part of his charm.
Her stomach flipped. Charm. Yes. He had more than his fair share.
Last night there had been one terrible, illuminating moment in which she
wondered if it would really be such a disaster if she allowed him to have his way with
her.
The thought made her feel vaguely faint and flushed. She saw a sizzling memory
of his cambric shirt clinging, wet and thin, to his chest, and his dark male nipple showing
through.
It didn t bear thinking of. To touch Lucien Harrow, to let him touch her in return,
would mean betraying Charles in a most vile manner. She would not do it.
In the safety of her room, she washed her face. The troublesome attraction she felt
toward Lord Esher and the alarming moment at which she d nearly capitulated to his
seduction might not have been so terrible if it hadn t been for Charles, actually. She d
never been married to virtue for the sake of virtue; it just seemed the liaisons she d
witnessed were unclean somehow, distressing in ways she didn t really understand.
Charles would be a good husband to her, a man she could trust. One on whom she
could depend not to be out on the town or in a carefully appointed house with his
mistress, or chasing opera dancers. Madeline could not bear a life like that.
So, until Charles returned, she had to stay as far from Lucien Harrow as
possible which might, considering his persistence, mean hiding if necessary. It could [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]