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sky and ground and trees and shrubs a colorless gray. Crickets sang in the underbrush,
and the lawns were littered with birds dining on the worms soaked out of the ground.
Their whistles and coos added sweet music to the evening. With a strange twinge in her
chest, Madeline thought of Lord Esher, closing his eyes by the windows, telling her to
listen.
"Madeline," Charles said, "I must return tomorrow to Kirkton. This hail will have
devastated many of the crops, and I ll have to see what I can do about all that."
Surprisingly, Madeline felt a small pang of regret.
She looked up at him. "Will you come back when you ve finished your business?"
"Would you like me to?"
"Yes."
He paused. In the creeping darkness, with shadows obscuring his plump face,
highlighting only the strength of his nose and brow, and the surprisingly firm lines of his
strong chin, he looked almost handsome. The sherry-colored irises darkened. "Madeline,
I think it s no secret I d like to marry you." He held up a hand. "Don t speak yet. I want
you to think what it would be like, truly, to be married to a man as dull as I am."
"You aren t dull!" She touched his arm. "You re exactly the opposite concerned
and caring and passionate. I love that you re willing to return to your estate to look after
the farmers who ll be fretting. Many lords would not bother with such squirish chores."
"Still," he said with gravity, "I mean what I say, Madeline. Think on it. Think if
you may be fond enough to make a solid marriage between us. I only wish it if it makes
you happy."
He bent quickly and pressed a kiss to her mouth. It was not without expertise.
Madeline waited for the congestion she d felt when Lucien put his hand on her shoulder.
It didn t come. Charles s kiss was pleasant and tender, but not at all arousing.
She missed most of all the scent of Lord Esher. Somehow, she d thought it was a
smell men all carried when a woman got close enough to them. Foolish of her.
Disappointed and trying not to show it, she lowered her head. "Perhaps we d best
get back," she whispered.
"Yes, perhaps we should."
At the top of the stairs that led inside, Madeline paused. "I ll think on it," she said,
and lifted on her toes to kiss him again, allowing her body to come into contact with his.
Again the sensation was pleasant, nothing more.
At least it wasn t repugnant.
&
From the shadows of a turn in the wall, Lucien watched the marquess and
Madeline.
Sweet the way they made protestations to each other. The marquess was so
earnest a man could almost feel sorry for him, and would, if the woman he courted were
anyone else. Not Madeline. At any other time, she d be the perfect wife for the
marquess honorable and kind and good. Responsible, intelligent, pretty. Together they
would tend the vast estates of Kirkton and Whitethorn with democratic grace and care.
Cynically, Lucien leaned on the balustrade above them, confident he would not be
seen, as they paused on the steps to the hall. Yes, he could see them in their old age,
clucking over the antics of the children, a pack of hounds sprawled at their feet, relics
from the ancient world littering the mantelpieces.
Madeline bent her head, and the last dying gleam of day caught on the column of
her neck, white and curved, unbearably tender at the nape. He thought of her standing in
the muddy, sopping-wet greenhouse in her fine brocaded gown, her breasts near to falling
out of the bodice in spite of the careful placement of the fichu. In memory, the scene was
rendered in green and gray, rose, and cream and sable.
Desire moved in him. What could she hope to gain with such a bland alliance with
the marquess? How could she hope to ignore the passion that seeped from her very pores
like the fragrance of a moonlit night?
He narrowed his eyes. She did not know it lived in her. Nor would she ever unless
Lucien led her to it.
How would the marquess have handled that little scene in the greenhouse, with
Madeline looking so delectably wanton in her ruined gown, a muddy smear across her
chin and another adorning the swell of one nearly wholly exposed breast? Or worse, the
one in the hallway, when Madeline had witnessed the sybaritic scene in the library?
When Lucien had come around the corner, she was staring like an owl, two bright
slashes of color on her face, her bosom rising and falling in quick pace. The tiny
scratches on her cheeks and the bloody lip, together with the pounding of the hail
overhead and the love cries from the library, had aroused him as nothing had in more
years than he could remember.
And in the greenhouse, he d fully intended to begin his earnest seduction. He
prided himself on exquisite seductions of great care and great rewards when she fell to
him, it would be a moment she remembered for the rest of her life, a moment of such
passion she would not truly be able ever to regret it. Ever.
There in the moist, gray-colored greenhouse, with her hair coming loose, her
mind filled with sexual images of an extremely passionate nature, Madeline had been ripe
for the plucking. He d planned to rouse her so thoroughly she couldn t breathe the first
step in any true seduction.
And yet, he had not done it.
The reason terrified him, sent him pacing here tonight. When he d touched her
plump lower lip and watched her eyes drift closed, a bolt of music so pure and clear he
almost wept for the beauty of it had sounded in his mind. It was made of the sound of the
gray-green rain, and the sharp red of Juliette s cry, and the umber warmth of the smell of
damp earth and humid growth in the greenhouse. The violins and cellos hummed low.
It was exquisite and whole, and meshed in some way with the ravens on the grass
the morning Madeline took him into the maze. And while it was on him, he could not
bear to be cruel.
The trouble was, he had not written the other bit down and burned it, as was his
habit. He let it play when it would, let it ring as he lay awake at night. He was afraid if he
wrote it down, he would not then burn the music. And he didn t know what that meant.
Now, with both pieces humming, twirling, dancing in his brain, he was getting
drunk. Only drinking could let him sleep on such a night. Only drunkenness could
completely drown the sounds. Gratefully, there was already a blunting to the shimmer of
colors; already they were fading.
Oddly, watching Madeline and Charles, he considered allowing them to go on,
unmarred by his intention. He thought it would be a kindness to allow them their simple
happiness, the steadiness that was apparent in every move both of them made.
But then he thought again of the undiscovered passion in her, the blaze in her eyes
he caught sight of now and again, and he thought it would be a great tragedy to let her go
peacefully into her life without ever tasting that fully. A tragedy. And perhaps it might
even serve the marquess, for he might, too, be ready for an awakening.
Well pleased at this tangle of justifications, Lucien went to bed and passed out.
The music awakened him before dawn. His head ached massively, with the
edging of color and light that warned he would be ill with the headache, and all through it
was the sound of the gray-green music. Queasy, blinded by the edging of light in his
eyes, he dragged himself to the small desk in his room and dipped his quill.
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