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

and never did gather his courage to go back."

    "Madeline said it affected her the same way," the marquess said. Madeline heard in his offering the soothing oil of justice of one who dislikes conversation to belittle anyone else. She admired his fair-mindedness. "Only a moment ago," he went on, "she was suggesting that perhaps there’s some lingering impression there, left by those so suddenly killed."

    Lord Esher looked at her, his eyes very still. "So you are not the pragmatist you’d have us believe."

    "Oh, but I am. Why cannot there be some scientific explanation for the strong emotions some people feel there?" she said. "You felt them, as did I—at different places and at different times."

    "Please!" protested Jonathan, blustering. "Surely you can’t mean there is some magic force at work, holding the emotions of fifteen hundred years past in thrall. If that were true, why wouldn’t all who enter the ruins feel the same things?"

    Madeline frowned, looking toward the treetops of waving green fronds and into the pale blue English sky. In her imagination, she saw ash-whitened columns, the forgotten gardens, all buried alive one violent day and thus frozen for all time.

    "I think," she said slowly, "one must be tuned to it, or not. Yes," she said,
    "perhaps that’s just what I do believe. There was such trauma that day that it has left behind a lingering cry to echo through the ages, but only if you have a certain sort of—"
    she struggled with a word that would sum up her feelings, "openness will you notice it."

    "I believe Lady Madeline has the soul of a poetess," Lord Esher said. The words did not seem to be ironic.

    "No poetess," she said. "Only a simple woman who mourned those poor people, torn from the middle of their lives so violently."

    "Would you not agree, my lord?" persisted Lord Esher, his eyes upon Madeline.

    "Perhaps she does." With a kindly smile, he winked at Madeline, a jest for the pair of them. As she returned the smile, she wondered if it were luck or accident that he had thus thwarted Lord Esher’s attempt to flirt with her.

    "Does that make you a poet, too?" she asked Lord Esher, and immediately wished she could call the words back.

    It was not he that replied, but Jonathan. "Don’t you know his painful history?"
    There was again tension in his words, a sharp glitter in his eye that said he knew his words would hurt or embarrass his friend. Madeline looked from one to the other, wondering what caused the enmity. "The great Lucien’s prodigal talents?"

    "Jonathan," Lord Esher said. The word carried deep warning.

    Heedless, Jonathan rushed on. "He was nearly as famous a prodigy as Mozart when he was ten. Played Vauxhall and Bath."

    "Really? What did you play?" Madeline asked.

    "That’s enough, Jonathan," Lord Esher said. His posture was deceptively relaxed.

    "Played everything!"

    Madeline sent a questioning glance toward the marquess, who shrugged in bewilderment.

    "The antics of a trained monkey," Lord Esher said dryly. "No more."

    A dark burn of annoyance or anger colored his cheeks. Madeline watched him in some wonder, surprised to see such deep emotion in him.

    "It’s that passionate Russian blood, y’know," Jonathan said.

    Real fury flashed in the jeweled eyes. To forestall the fisticuffs she could see brewing, Madeline rode between them. "Are you Russian, Lord Esher?" she asked lightly.

    "Half. My mother was Russian, from Saint Petersburg. My father met her on a diplomatic trip." Along his jaw, the muscle pulled tight, but he took a long breath as if to calm himself. "I spent much of my childhood there."

    "How romantic," she said, again playing the flirtatious hostess attempting to hold her raucous guests at bay. The marquess gave her an approving nod. "Do tell us a little of it."

    "It’s been too long," he said dismissively.

    "Oh, surely you remember something."

    He turned to her, and even as Madeline watched, he seemed to take on some wild power from beyond