[Samuel Barbara] Lucien's Fall(Book4You) by Unknown Read Free Book Online

about himself, so he’d feel flattered and happy to be in her company, so he’d think she’d be a good bride for him.

    How did that differ from a rake flattering a woman in order to bed her?

    It did not. And it was curiously humiliating to realize just how easy it was to appear interested when in fact one was not. Had Lord Harrow been bored this morning as she ran on and on about her gardens?

    With a sense of chagrin, she sat up straighter, vowing to be as sincere as she was able with the marquess. As husbands went, she could do much worse.

    From below his coat, he took a square of pottery and handed it to her. "I carry it with me all the time."

    It was a small rectangle of painted stone, showing a single blue flower, probably flax. The color was vivid and the detail accurate. It moved her oddly.

    "Isn’t it marvelous?" the marquess said. "To think it was painted by a hand now dead for hundreds and hundreds of years!"

    Madeline looked at him. The round face was lit with quiet wonder, his cheeks ruddy. For the first time, she noticed the still, calm quality of his sherry-colored eyes and she liked it.

    And yet, the relic gave her the same unsettled feeling as the ruins had done.
    Without knowing she would, Madeline blurted out her feelings. "Do you ever wonder if all those poor people, dying in such suddenness, without recourse or escape, left some deep emotional scar on the place?"

    He did not answer for a moment, only looked at her with peculiar intensity.
    "There are those who are very affected by the ruins. I’ve seen women carted away on litters." His eyes sharpened with interest. "Were you carried out like that?"

    "Oh, no." She rubbed a thumb over the relic, absently. "I confess they made me feel terribly sad. I could barely catch my breath."

    "I am a scientist and trained to cultivate objectivity," he said, tucking the artifact back into his pocket. "Perhaps that cancels out the deeper emotions." He smiled comfortably.

    Madeline smiled in return. It struck her that the marquess was that singular creature: a man at home in his own life.

    They’d been riding alone and undisturbed on the country lane, alongside the edge of thickly forested and hilly land. Now from within the trees came shouts and the sound of something—some large creature—crashing through the underbrush.

    "What the devil?" the marquess said, stopping to peer toward the noise.

    But even before they emerged from the trees, Madeline knew who it would be—
    the two London rakes, risking life and limb and horseflesh in their pursuit of adventure.
    She disapproved of such heedlessness, such irresponsibility, and yet she found herself holding her breath and harboring a curious stirring in her chest as she waited for a glimpse of Lord Esher.

    He came through the trees first, leaping the ditch with uncanny grace. His coat and waistcoat were shed, and his cambric shirt clung damply to his chest. His hair had come loose and flew in the wind so that he looked not at all like an English gentleman but rather a barbarian who’d ridden through some portal of time to invade the serene countryside. The bloodcurdling yell he let free did nothing to dispell the notion.

    Jonathan emerged from behind, cursing loudly in the bright afternoon. He reigned his horse before it could take the ditch. "Blood hell, Lucien!"

    "Mind yourself, sir!" the marquess cried. "There is a lady present."

    "Oh, dear." Jonathan bowed toward her. "A thousand pardons, my lady."

    Lucien laughed.

    Madeline almost could not bear to look at him. In his dishevelment he was as unrepentantly virile as a stallion in a field of mares; he even seemed to smell of an extraordinary heat and pleasure. She found her gaze on the muscled length of his forearm, brown and strong below his rolled sleeve, covered with crisp hair that gave off gold sparks in the sun, and on his hands, long-fingered and strong, the sinews and bones covered elegantly with smooth, sun-warmed skin.

    But it was