Angel's Fall

by Kimberly Cates

"I said a damned sight too much, and none of it came out the way I meant it to," Adam ground out hopelessly. "I'm a soldier. Not some blasted poet used to laying my heart open for the world to see. All I know is—" A hundred painfully emotional declarations hovered at the tip of his tongue, trying to find voice. He grasped her hand, pressing it to his heart, as if he hoped she could sense by touch all the things he couldn't say.

  He felt as if he were teetering on a sword-blade, that if he lost this moment, it would slip through his fingers forever. "Juliet..." Her name, so soft, so tentative it might as well be woven of angel's wings. He knew he should look into her eyes, but the feelings were too intense, terrifyingly so. He turned his gaze toward the window, color burning into his cheeks as he tried to frame the words.

  Marry me, even though I don't deserve you.

  Be my wife, even though I'm not worthy to touch your hand.

  Bear my children and I vow I will love you for eternity.

  He sucked in a steadying breath. "Juliet, I—what the hell?" His passionate declaration died on his lips as his eyes locked on the window of Angel's Fall.

  The glass that had gently beckoned with a soft glow when first he'd entered the garden now shone with feverish brilliance, its subtle gold intensified into hot color.

  Juliet caught at his arm, alarm replacing the hurt in her eyes, her face ice-white at his expression. "Adam, what— what is it? What's wrong?"

  "The house!" Red-orange tongues of flame leapt and writhed in the window of Angel's Fall just as the dreaded words tore from his throat. "It's on fire!"

  Chapter 15

  The door to Angel's Fall crashed against the wall as Juliet flung it open, horror and smoke clawing in her lungs, stinging her eyes. The magic of the time in Adam's arms, the confusion and hurt that had followed, vanished as she plunged into the kitchen, struggling to see.

  Fire writhed like a hell-born beast beyond the wide open doors of the drawing room, lashing out in whips of flame, coiling and striking and devouring everything it touched.

  A silent scream of denial lodged in her throat, Adam's curses battering her ears, furious, hopeless as he charged after her.

  Desperation mingled with terror as she raced toward the stairway to awaken the women slumbering, oblivious, above. Heat, seared her face, penetrated her thin nightgown.

  Then pain suddenly exploded through her as a black-cloaked figure charged from the drawing room, slamming into her with bone-cracking force. She flew back into Adam, the two of them crashing to the ground in a tangle of arms and legs. Her eyes locked for a heartbeat on her attacker escaping through the garden door—a malevolent phantom, the embodiment of every nightmare the threatening notes had conjured up these endless months.

  Rage screamed through Adam, so potent she could feel it in her own flesh, every instinct in his body urging him to give chase. Instead, he scrambled to his feet, dragging Juliet up. "Get out, I'll get the others," he rasped, but Juliet was already bolting up the stairs, shattering awareness pounding in her head.

  While she'd been pleading for Adam to make love with her, someone had crept into Angel's Fall. While she'd cried out and sobbed in ecstasy one of her enemies had set the fire on purpose to... what? Burn everyone alive as they slept?

  The knowledge was too hideous, too evil, the guilt too crushing. She couldn't grasp it, couldn't bear it.

  Cries of alarm tore from her smoke-raw throat. By the time she reached the second floor, women were already spilling into the hall, mob-cap-framed faces stunned, fearful as the smoke cast its suffocating blanket across them. The women choked, coughed, mass confusion taking hold with the same fierceness as the flame.

  Only Isabelle maintained her usual calm, sweeping into her chamber to fetch her jewel case, while Millicent and Violet and the others bolted down the stairs in panic.

  "Forget about your fripperies, Isabelle," Adam bellowed. "Damn it to hell—"

  "Where's Elise? I can't find Elise!" Angelina cried, flinging open yet another door.

  Fletcher crashed into her, charging from his attic room, sword in hand, ready to fight. But nothing, no one could battle the dragon unleashed upon Angel's Fall this night.

  It would devour its prey until nothing remained of the house, her dreams, her last link to her father. Was this her just punishment for what she'd done in the garden house? To lose everything she loved?

  Soul-killing despair lanced through her. Lord, she had had so little from her childhood anyway—only her mother's necklace.

  Her mother's necklace! It was in her desk. Suddenly it seemed as if everything she loved were captured in that delicate wreath of golden lilies.

  A cry of surprise and pain jabbed her, and she wheeled to see Elise, crumpled on the floor at the foot of the attic stairs, grasping her ankle. "Juliet, help! I fell..."

  "Adam!" Juliet screamed for him, and somehow he was there, gathering up the fragile woman as easily as if she were a babe.

  "Hurry, damn you!" Adam roared over his shoulder as he carried Elise down the stairs. "The whole place is going up!"

  A sob choked Juliet, terror almost overpowering her as the fire leapt hotter, wilder, below. But to let her mother's necklace burn was unthinkable!

  She wheeled around, running deeper into the house, weaving through the winding corridor in an effort to reach her bedroom. She stumbled, fell, her lungs screaming for breath. Embers filled the air like fireflies, singeing her hair, burning her skin.

  She was almost to the room, when a giant seemed to grab a handful of her nightgown, yanking her off her feet. She crashed to the floor, scrambled around half expecting to see some monster woven of glowing flame. But it was Adam, rising out of the smoke like a pagan God of fire, an inferno more powerful than the one destroying Angel's Fall flaring in his eyes—rage, white-hot, terrifying.

  "Have you lost your mind?"

  "Let me go! I have to get—"

  "Whatever the hell it is, it's not worth your life!" Adam scooped her up in his sinewy arms and turned, running down the hall. Juliet fought against him, certain in a heartbeat she would have had the necklace in her hand, loathing him and herself and the treacherous feelings they'd unleashed in each other.

  But when they reached the top of the stairs, she gaped down in horror. Flames were weaving around the banister, climbing up the bottom step.

  "A-Adam!" she croaked. "Can't get out that way!"

  "It's our only chance." He charged into Isabelle's room, dumping Juliet on the bed.

  "What on earth are you doing?" she choked out, but he was already swathing her in suffocating folds of coverlet. Her air-starved lungs protested, her head swam, as Adam hauled her back into his arms.

  "Hold on, Angel." She heard his assurances, muffled through the cloth. "I'll get you out."

  But Juliet knew he'd wasted precious time protecting her. When he charged through those flames, God alone knew what price he'd pay for it.

  Juliet heard his curses, oaths or half-formed prayers? Felt herself plunging downward. The fire roared, blotting out all sound, until she only felt the sharp gasp of pain that rocked Adam's chest. Intense heat seared the last wisp of air from her lungs.

  Red dots whirled before her eyes, unconsciousness sucking her down, down, only the jarring of Adam's desperate stride keeping her from total darkness.

  Then he staggered, fell, and she tumbled from his grasp. She expected to be plunged into flame, but instead of the hard wood of the floor, she landed on something far softer.

  She clawed her way out of the coverlet, felt other hands helping her. She emerged, a wave of fresh air slamming into her with the force of a blow as she sucked in a tortured breath.

  The garden—she was back in the garden, crushing a bed of heart's ease, while Adam knelt on all fours, his face soot-blackened, choked coughs all but shattering his ribs.

  "A-Adam... Juliet, are you all right?" One of the women asked.

  "I'm fine, blast it," Adam choked out. "A little singed around... the edges. But I'll live. No t
hanks... to her." He cast Juliet a fulminating glare. "What the... blazes were you... doing?"

  Anger sliced through her, fueled by poisonous guilt. "Why didn't you leave me alone? I could have... could have gotten it out!"

  "Gotten what out?"

  "My mother's necklace." The words were a raw wound inside her.

  "You mean you could've roasted like a blasted Christmas goose!" Adam raged. "Look at that fire! Most people prefer to... wait until actually in hell before... drowning in flames. Or did you think you could walk right through them? St. Juliet at the stake?"

  Cruel—the words were cruel—or were they born out of sheer terror, furious helplessness?

  "Damn it, Juliet, look at it!"

  He grasped her by the shoulders, forcing her to see the fire leaping at the window panes, thrusting red-gold fingers out beneath the sashes. Even the roof was being consumed.

  Grief ground down on her, as she saw flames reflected in the window that had been her bedchamber's. And she knew with stark certainty that her mother's treasured chain of lilies was nothing but a pool of molten gold.

  "It was all I had left," she choked out, tears pouring down her cheeks. But the necklace was gone.

  Gone. Just like everything she had loved, her father, Jenny, this house. Absurd to feel as if the house had been a kind of friend, to be missed and mourned, but from the instant she'd painted the angels above the front door, she'd felt as if she'd finally found somewhere to belong.

  Juliet flinched as someone touched her arm, looked up to find Elise, her eyes huge and haunted and glistening with tears.

  "J-Juliet? How—how did the fire start? Do you think it was my fault? I'd washed some things for Fletcher, hung them to dry near the hearth..."

  "No. It wasn't your fault, Elise." The enormity of the atrocity jolted through Juliet. "When Adam and I ran in from the garden house, there was... was someone in Angel's Fall..."

  "But the new locks—" Violet said, bewildered. "Fletcher claimed Cuchullain himself couldn't break them."

  "I left the door unlocked myself." The words seared Juliet's conscience. "When I..."

  When she trailed Adam into the garden, hoping to seduce him.

  "You left the door open, and someone sneaked in?" Isabelle demanded. "Didn't you see them? At least catch a glimpse so we could go to the authorities?"

  "No," Juliet said, her cheeks hot with shame and desolation. "I didn't—I couldn't—wasn't aware until it was too late. They had already carried out their plan."

  "Plan? You mean to say someone did this on purpose?" Felicity gasped, bewildered. "Who could have done such a vile thing?"

  A tremor rocked Juliet. "Someone who hates me." Enough to burn it, her mind finished, burn it down. And she had given them the perfect chance.

  But who could have set the fire?

  As if in answer to her question, a roar started in the street beyond the garden walls, a cacophony of voices, people pouring in through the open gate.

  Juliet stared into the sea of faces, the knowledge someone had despised her enough to do this awful thing paralyzing her, sickening her.

  Who? Who had set the fire? Destroyed every dream?

  It could be any one of these people who loathed her with such deadly venom.

  "Oh, Papa," she whispered inside. "Papa..." Was she praying for a miracle from the one angel she knew heard her every prayer? Or was she begging for the forgiveness he'd always offered her so readily.

  What had she been thinking, casting aside her responsibilities, her every belief, wandering out in her nightgown to lie with Adam in the garden house? A man who didn't love her. She had failed again, failed completely.

  Was this fire her punishment?

  If so, it was a horrifyingly harsh one. She wouldn't be the only one to suffer. Every woman who had been under her care would be hurt by this. And she could do nothing to help them. She had nothing left to give.

  "The roof is going to go!" Came a voice with a thick Cockney accent.

  Juliet turned to see it cave in, crushing everything below. She watched, numb as the spectators flung themselves at the fire, dousing it with bucketfuls of water, the fire brigade joining in the battle.

  They didn't know there was nothing left to fight for.

  Angel's Fall was gone.

  Ever since he'd charged up to Angel's Fall, Adam had been doing his damnedest to blast Juliet out of the place. Even as he'd held Juliet in his arms, making love to her with tender fury, he'd been planning to sweep her away from here, to take her somewhere safe. But he couldn't have outflanked her more brilliantly than this fire had if he'd spent a year plotting strategy.

  Angel's Fall lay in ashes. She'd have no choice but to leave it now, leave London. Yet as Adam trudged out of the smoking ruin, the others who'd fought the fire plodding in his wake, it was damned hard to feel anything like triumph, or even a dull satisfaction. Especially when his smoke-stung eyes found Juliet.

  She might as well have been stranded on a solitary island of grief. The women she'd tended so lovingly had withdrawn into the shadows. Even loyal Elise stood apart, as if some invisible wall had barred her from offering comfort. In a way, Adam supposed that it had. Never, in all the time Juliet had been at the helm of the haven for courtesans, had she ever revealed her own vulnerability, her own pain. Or the heart-rending fragility she kept hidden beneath the resolute jut of her chin and the fierce determination in her angel-blue eyes.

  This Juliet was a stranger to the women she'd loved so long.

  She was curled up on a stone bench, one of those ridiculous statues silhouetted against the dawn behind her, the makeshift toga concealing its naked marble glory soot-blackened and askew. The cloth of her nightgown was singed, her hair a tangle of wild golden curls. But it was her eyes that slayed Adam—wide blue pools of despair in a face that had always been alight with hope.

  Bloody hell, what was it about dreamers like Juliet? Like Gavin? When they were flitting about all sunshine and star-drunk you wanted more than anything to dash the dreams from their eyes, force them to face the bleak reality everyone else had to confront. But when the same dreamer was forced to gaze into the heart of the storm, their beautiful illusions torn away, it was like watching the last star in the heavens flicker and fade to darkness.

  Exhaustion and stinging burns, smoke-seared lungs and soot-gritty eyes should have consumed Adam at the moment, but they were nothing in comparison to the empty aching hole the sight of this shattered angel carved into his soldier's heart. But he had the right to go to her now, hold her, comfort her, offer his love, unworthy as he was, in place of her broken dreams.

  His imagination swelled with images of his dark-haired babes nursing at her breast, clambering about her skirts and pressing sticky kisses to her cheeks, making her forget the ugliness of this fire, those who hated her. He would love her until he banished the last wisps of this disaster from her memory, and would fill her heart with the laughter and love she deserved.

  "Juliet?" Her name cracked in his raw throat, and she looked up like one awakened from a nightmare, only to find reality even more horrible. He reached out to her, but she evaded his touch, forcing herself to her feet. She was trembling, so fragile he was afraid the brush of the wind would make her crumble to dust. He tried to catch her eye, but she was staring past him, at the other men who had battled the fire, a bedraggled army tramping behind him from the fray.

  Juliet raised a shaking hand to her cheek, brushing away a stray tendril that clung to the last of her tears. And Adam felt as if a blade twisted in his heart as she approached Mr. Smythe, the man who had led her neighbors in battling back the inferno.

  Adam sensed the effort it took to draw the tattered remnants of her dignity about her. God in heaven, how could she look so infernally beautiful, ethereal, despite this hell? A fairy queen whose magic kingdom had been set upon by dragons of the most virulent kind.

  "My papa always said to look for some hint of goodness even in the most terrible of misfortunes," s
he said in a soft voice. "That way we could hold God's comforting hand in our worst trouble."

  Adam started forward, wanting to scoop her into his arms, away from this place, these people who could hurt her. "Come on, Angel, we have to—"

  "No, Adam. I have to—to tell Mr. Smythe..." She turned back to the scrawny merchant, her features vulnerable as the first flower of spring in a winter wind. "I want to thank you for... for proving that Papa was right. I know you've not been pleased to be our neighbor, but when the house was afire, you came to help... to try to put it out."

  "Of course we did," Smythe said.

  Her lips struggled to form a brave smile. "It's just as Papa says. Love does triumph over hate in the end. I'll never forget your kindness."

  "Kindness?" Smythe's eyes all but popped from his head. "Bah! You think I all but roasted myself to a cinder out of some blasted notion of Christian charity? It's my own house I was trying to save. If the fire had gotten out of control, it could have devoured everything I own!"

  "Aye," Cyrus Morton snarled, "we waited long as we dared before we pitched in, made sure that this den o' harlots would be burned to rubble."

  A sword-thrust would have been more merciful. Adam could see the words cut right to Juliet's heart. What little color had stained her cheeks faded away, her lovely angel's face bleak, her celestial eyes barren, broken. "You... you mean you..."

  "Said it in plain English," Smythe sneered. "Not that you'd understand. I only regret that you and your sin-spawned women weren't inside it when the roof fell! 'Course there's always time for whoever did this to finish the job."

  "That's enough, you bloody fool!" Adam snarled, one hand shooting out to collar the merchant by the throat. A black haze of terror jolted through him at the possibility that even greater danger might await Juliet in the shadows, the evil that had consumed Angel's Fall not yet sated. Slade wished like hell for the days when he could have snapped the idiot's neck and rid himself of the black surge of fury swirling in his veins.

  "Adam, no." Juliet's hand closed on his wrist, such a small hand to battle the lions of injustice. "It doesn't matter what they say." Her voice broke, and he could feel the disillusionment flowing through her like poison.