by Lora Leigh
Almost, she was ashamed.
A door creaked in the silence. Her breath stopped. Sounds drifted from the stable below that were not made by cows or mice. The scrape of a boot. A jingle of harness.
Cold sweat snaked down her spine. Had they been followed? Maman was gone, Papa and little Philippe, dead. In her guilt and grief, she longed to join them. But the will to live was not so easily extinguished.
She did not want, after all, to be discovered.
“Stay,” her rescuer commanded.
He flowed past her and climbed—jumped—floated down the ladder. His cape billowed from his shoulders as he dropped silently to the floor.
Aimée sat frozen in her nest of hay, her heart beating like a rabbit’s. Snatches of conversation rose through the trapdoor.
“. . . into Portsmouth . . .”
“. . . look the other way . . .”
“. . . pay for passage . . .” In her rescuer’s deep voice.
“We don’t need your money.” She could barely make out the langue d’oil of northern France, spoken with a distinctly British accent. “These little trips pay for themselves.”
“If you sell her,” her rescuer said, clear and cold, “I will destroy you.”
“We don’t traffic in children.” Equal disdain in the speaker’s voice.
She crept closer to the trapdoor, trying to get a glimpse of the men below. They were barely more than shapes in the dark: her tall rescuer in his broad-shouldered cloak; a burly fellow in an oversized coat and battered hat; a younger man, slim as a steel blade.
“Your girl isn’t the first aristocrat we’ve smuggled across the Channel,” the burly man continued.
“You’re one of us,” the younger man said. “You should know that.”
One of what? Aimée wondered. Smugglers? English?
A light flickered. Not a flare like a match, not the honest yellow glow of lamplight, but a slow growing silver light, cupped like a ball in her rescuer’s hand. The eerie light illuminated his face, cold, pale, and perfect as the statue of Apollo in the chateau gardens. Wide, clear brow. Long, straight nose. Firm, unsmiling mouth. His fair hair fell, unpowdered and untamed, to his shoulders.
She quivered deep inside with fear and an instinct she did not recognize.
“But I am not like you,” he said softly.
“Not yet, maybe,” the younger man said. He, too, was beautiful, with a lean, clever face and a handkerchief knotted around his throat.
“Just a matter of time now,” the older man agreed. “Lucky for you we found you.”
“You came for the girl.”
“We were looking for you both.” The burly fellow swept off his hat to scratch under it. “Lord Amherst’s orders. You’re under his protection now.”
“I do not serve your earthly lord. Or require his protection.”
The boy shot him a look from thick-lashed eyes. “You won’t feel so high-and-mighty after they toss you out of Heaven.”
The large man cleared his throat. “Amherst will take you in. Assuming you make it to England.”
Aimée frowned. But he was taking her to England. He had said so.
“Damon Carleton, Earl of Amherst,” the burly man repeated. He replaced his hat carefully on his head. “Try not to forget.”
“I believe my hearing and my memory extend that far,” her rescuer said dryly.
“You’d better hope so. When you lose your powers, your memory goes, too. You come down to earth as a child. A little older, if you’re lucky.”
“So I will be . . . human.” His voice was flat, strained of emotion.
Aimée blinked. Of course he was human. What else could he be?
An angel come to save us, Maman had said.
Ah, no. Aimée’s mind whirled. Phrases floated up in the dark, muffled and indistinct, like voices in a blizzard.
“. . . gone before morning.”
“. . . find her relatives. Basing, you say?”
“. . . I can feel . . . not much time.”
“It’s all right, lad. We’ll get her where she needs to go.”
They were talking about her, she realized dully. It was her future they were deciding, these strange men with their shabby clothes and English accents.
Her pride stung. Her throat burned. She was young and dazed with grief but not spiritless or stupid.
She erupted from her nest in a flurry of skirts and resolution. Bits of hay scattered on the men below.
“I do not go with anyone until I know who you are,” she announced.
What you are, she thought, and shivered.
They looked up, startled.
She had a brief glimpse of their faces, the young one, lean and sardonic, the older man’s, broad and shrewd, before the light winked out.
But her rescuer . . .
Aimée forced air into her lungs. Her tall, handsome rescuer was already gone.
Chapter Two
FAIR HILL, ENGLAND, OCTOBER 1800
Damon Carleton, the Earl of Amherst, pinned Lucien with a look like a rapier blade, glinting, gray, and cold. “You need an occupation.”
Despite the autumn chill of the library, sweat pricked under Lucien’s high, starched collar. He resisted the urge to tug at his neckcloth. “I had an occupation,” he reminded the earl. “I was an angel. Now I am nothing. A cipher. A human.”
“You have had eight years to accustom yourself to that condition,” Amherst said evenly. “During which time you have been sheltered, educated, and well provided for.”
Lucien stiffened. He was well aware that he owed everything to Amherst. Still, the reminder stung. “Because the world believes me your bastard.”
Amherst raised his eyebrows. Even if one disregarded the earl’s earthly rank and powers, he was a formidable man, with a brawler’s build and an aesthete’s face. “When the old earl took me into his nursery to replace his dead heir, only the boy’s mother knew of the substitution. But you arrived on my doorstep as a youth of seventeen. I could hardly claim you as my legitimate son.”
“Especially as you never married,” Lucien said.
Amherst shrugged. “I have brought eleven bastard children to live at Fair Hill. Fallen, every one, of course. No wife could be expected to tolerate such flagrant reminders of her husband’s excesses.”
Lucien inclined his head. “Indeed, sir, we are all grateful for your single state. As well as your ongoing liberality.”
“Ongoing,” Amherst said, “but not without limit.”
Lucien eyed him warily. It had been years since he was last summoned to the earl’s study for discipline, but he recognized that tone. “Sir?”
“It is time you demonstrated some initiative. Made something of yourself. Made a difference in the world.”
Lucien swallowed the bitterness in his mouth. “My last attempt at initiative could hardly be termed a success.”
And that, of course, was the source of his discontent.
Amherst, he was sure, was aware of the resentment simmering under his small rebellions. But even the earl, the head of the Nephilim, the Fallen ones, in England, did not guess at Lucien’s loss of faith.
His heart burned.
He had been punished—cast out of Heaven, demoted to the mortal world—for trying to make a difference. For trying to do some good. For answering a dying woman’s selfless prayer.
In recent years he had concluded it was better not to try. Only with Fanny . . .
“You did well enough during the Terror.” Amherst interrupted his thought. “Gerard tells me you saved his life or Tripp’s on more than one occasion. The three of you rescued hundreds of innocents from the guillotine. You were only a boy then, but you cannot have changed so much.”
He remembered. He had made the moonlit channel crossing too many times to count, nearly puking with seasickness and excitement. At least when he’d been dodging French gendarmes and secret police, he had not questioned the value of his existence or the rightness of his decisions. Hundr
eds of innocents saved. The memory kindled a flicker of satisfaction.
But then . . .
“The Terror ended six years ago,” he said flatly. “Napoleon is in power now.”
And Lucien had been bundled off to Oxford for a gentleman’s education. To equip him, Amherst had said, for what was to be the rest of his life on earth. Older than most of his classmates, lacking any of the shared boyhood experiences that might have helped him fit in, Lucien had been stamped as Amherst’s acknowledged bastard. Neither man nor angel, neither noble nor of humble birth.
Outcast in a completely different way.
“Napoleon’s ambition threatens all Europe,” Amherst said. “If it’s action you crave, I will purchase you a commission.”
“I have no wish to kill for England.” Lucien stared out the library windows; the dying sun stained the winter brown hills the color of blood. “I have seen too much of men in war to believe one side is any better than another.”
“Ah.” The earl studied him with those too-perceptive gray eyes. “It will have to be the church, then. There are not many angels among the clergy, but if you are prepared to study and be patient—”
Lucien shook his head. He was disillusioned, even angry. But not yet so cynical he would lead others into unbelief for the price of a vicar’s living.
“You must do something. I will not stand by while you waste your life along with my capital. I have here”—the earl tapped a sheaf of papers on his otherwise ordered desk—“a report of your expenses in London. Boots, wine, candles, horses . . .”
“I am not a schoolboy, sir, who has exceeded his allowance. Living in Town necessitates some expenditures,” Lucien said.
“Doubtless that explains the residence on Maiden Lane occupied by a Fanny . . .” Amherst lifted a single sheet in one elegant hand and pretended to peruse it. “Grinton.”
Lucien stiffened. How the devil did he know about Fanny?
“Miss Grinton is not your concern.”
“Everything that affects the well-being of the Nephilim concerns me. It is my duty to watch out for you. For all of you. I would not object to your supporting a mistress. But apparently there are several other, ah, women residing in the house with her.”
Lucien stared at him in disbelief. “You’ve been spying on me.”
“You are not the only man seen entering the premises. Callers have been observed coming and going at all hours.”
Lucien gritted his teeth. “Are you accusing me of frequenting a brothel? Or of running one?”
“Whichever it is, it stops now.”
Fury tightened his throat. “You have no idea . . . You have no right—”
Amherst raised a hand, palm out. “Spare me your explanations. I have tolerated a certain wildness from you, Lucien, but I’ll not fund meaningless extravagance.”
A hot band settled around Lucien’s head and squeezed like a vise. “I haven’t asked for your assistance. I can support myself with the income from Leyburn.”
Barely. The realization settled coldly in his stomach. He would have to economize somewhere. Fanny would balk. She complained she could hardly manage now. But there was no choice for either of them.
Amherst regarded him with frustration. “And that is all your interest in Leyburn? The income you derive from the estate. You’ve never even visited the property.”
“You wish me to visit Leyburn?” Lucien asked slowly.
He was not averse to the idea.
Fair Hill was home. Or as close to a home as his earthly existence allowed. Unlike Gerard, the oldest of the Fallen, or Tripp, who had been raised by the earl since early childhood, Lucien had never accompanied Amherst on a tour of his other estates.
But Leyburn had provided him with a living since leaving Oxford. Amherst had made similar arrangements to support his other Fallen fosterlings. There was even an unspoken understanding that the earl would divvy his various unentailed properties, Leyburn included, among them when he died.
Lucien trusted—indeed, he hoped—the earl wouldn’t pop off anytime soon. The Nephilim could live almost twice the normal span of human years, and Amherst was a vigorous man.
Still, it could do no harm to take a look at the place.
“I expect you to do more than visit,” Amherst said. “You need to take some responsibility for the property. For your life.” He leaned back in his chair, regarding Lucien with cool gray eyes, obviously determined to force his compliance. “I will give you three months. If you can learn to manage the estate in that time, you’ll continue to receive its income.”
Lucien’s muscles were rigid. “And if I refuse?”
The earl’s face tightened in resolution. “I will cut you off without a penny. You’ll do as you are told.”
It was a punch in the stomach. A slap in the face. Lucien’s ears rang with it.
In his mind, he understood Amherst’s offer as fair and reasonable, even generous. But his soul rebelled at the ultimatum, the choice between abject obedience and penury.
Knuckle under or be cut off. Cast out. Again.
Insurrection flared in Lucien’s blood. Pride hardened his voice. He would not plead with the earl for understanding. “I’ll be damned first.”
“Not damned. But condemned, nevertheless, to a significant decline in your standard of living.” Amherst tilted his head. “Possibly even to debtors’ prison.”
“Unless I marry,” Lucien threw at him.
Amherst stared as if a second head had sprouted suddenly from his shoulders. “Marry?”
Lucien clamped his teeth together. It was a stupid idea.
Or was it?
He needed money. He wanted his freedom. There was no way he was giving up the little house on Maiden Lane even for a hundred estates.
“If I must woo for favors, I would rather court a woman.” Lucien forced his lips to curve in a mocking smile. “Unlike you, I do not doubt my ability to convince a wife to tolerate my flagrant excesses.”
The library was very silent.
Bowing deeply, he left without another word.
And without looking back.
MOULTON HALL, ENGLAND, TWO MONTHS LATER
Miss Julia Basing leaned across Aimée’s battered dressing table to tweak at a butter-colored curl in the mirror. She was a pretty girl, a true English beauty despite her half-French mama, but this afternoon she did not appear at all pleased with the image in the glass.
“This mirror is too small,” she complained. “And very spotty. How ever do you see what Finch has done with your hair?”
Her cousin, Aimée Blanchard, sat on the bed, darning. The small chamber’s only chair was presently occupied by Julia, who had gone to the unprecedented effort of climbing three flights of stairs to find her. Aimée doubted Julia had ever even seen the servants’ quarters before. She thought of pointing out that Finch hardly had time to dress Aimée’s hair in addition to all her other duties. But since she did not wish to criticize the lady’s maid, she merely shrugged. “One accustoms oneself.”
Julia left off fussing with her curls to glance over her shoulder. “You truly do not mind, Amy? Giving up your room for the holidays?”
Aimée summoned a smile. It wasn’t Julia’s fault that she had been banished to the attics to make room for Lady Basing’s other guests. Aimée had learned upon her arrival eight years ago that as a poor female relation she existed to serve the whims and convenience of others, to earn her place in her cousin’s house—if not her cousin’s affections—by acting as an unpaid, invisible drudge. “Indeed, I do not. And it is only for a little while,” she said reassuringly.
Though which of them she was attempting to cheer she could not say.
“That’s true.” Julia brightened. “Anyway, it’s quiet up here. Mama says you will be more comfortable away from the noise.”
Aimée’s hand tightened on the darning needle. Her new quarters were quiet. No one of consequence would hear her if she screamed. The maids at least shared a bed, which offered
them some protection. Aimée had taken to sleeping with the chair propped against the door and her sewing shears tucked under her pillow.
“But I told Mama you must come down to dinner sometimes and not hide yourself away as you usually do,” Julia continued, blithely unaware of the realities of survival on the fourth floor. “I want you to meet him.”
Aimée pricked her finger. “Him?”
Julia dimpled. “Mr. Hartfell.”
Aimée blinked, unable to contain her surprise. She had heard the name, of course. Hartfell’s sire, the Earl of Amherst, lived half a day’s journey away—not near enough to be counted a neighbor but certainly close enough to be topic of gossip. As for Mr. Hartfell himself, Julia could talk of little else since the family’s return from the Naesmyths’ house party a few weeks ago. Mr. Hartfell was tall—much taller than Lord Echlin, who had almost offered for Julia in London this Season. And handsome, more handsome even than Sir Andrew Waugh, who had danced two sets with Julia at her come out and had such a delightfully wicked reputation. And charming, far more charming than Tom Whitmore from the neighboring estate, who treated Julia with the blunt familiarity of friends who had grown up together.
Used to tales of her cousin’s conquests, Aimée had received her confidences with a grain of salt. But . . .
“Hartfell? He is a bastard.”
“Amy!”
“I do not criticize his character, you understand. But he is Amherst’s natural son.”
Many noblemen had children out of wedlock. But eleven seemed excessive, even for an earl as wealthy as Amherst.
Personally, Aimée did not care what Mr. Hartfell’s birth was. But she worried her cousin might be courting heartbreak. Lady Basing did not in any way espouse the Revolutionary principles of liberty, equality, and sovereignty of the people. Surely she would not approve of such a connection.
Julia tossed her curls, moving away from the mirror. “Lucien’s father is an earl. Papa is only a baronet.”
“But Hartfell has no fortune,” Aimée said.
“I believe the earl has settled some unentailed property on him. Anyway”—Julia lifted her chin—“what is the point of having a large dowry if I can’t buy the husband I want?”
