Carousel of Hearts

by Mary Jo Putney

It was easy to believe that he had behaved differently without the bar sinister graven on his soul. And it was undeniable that since recovering his memory he had slipped back into the old hesitant patterns when he was around Antonia, acting the insecure bastard rather than the successful man of affairs he’d become.

  With fierce deliberation Adam invoked the images of Antonia that had been haunting him since he had regained his memory. Discarding the recurring dreams that he had experienced over the years, he examined what was left in an attempt to decide what was a true memory.

  Could he and Antonia really have picnicked at the Aerie and discovered a passion as intense as what he had dreamed of? In the summerhouse, had she sworn that she loved him without limits or qualifications and that she wanted—most desperately—to marry him?

  He could not be certain. But if those events were real, not figments of his imagination or battered brain, then perhaps Antonia did love him as more than a brother. Possibly even more than she loved Simon. If by some miracle she did, he owed it to both of them to act rather than to let her drift into marriage with the wrong man. But there were a hundred ways of losing, and the consequences of failure could be devastating.

  Even if Antonia loved him, her own sense of honor might prevent her from breaking her betrothal to Simon a second time. The best Adam could hope for was winning Antonia at the price of betraying his best friend.

  At worst, he would sacrifice Antonia’s regard forever. He’d no longer have the closeness of friend and brother, and he would lose Simon’s friendship as well. He could not believe that he and Simon would end up facing each other over cold steel at dawn, but that was one possible result.

  Adam was not a gambler by nature. He’d forced himself to become one in the lonely years in Asia, when only continual risk-taking offered any hope of winning what he wanted. It hadn’t been hard to risk his life and growing fortune when the possibility of winning Antonia was the prize.

  He was only a coward when Antonia herself was concerned because he cared more for her than for life and fortune. Yet now he must risk everything on one colossal gamble. He would have only one chance to plead his case, and God help him if he did it badly.

  For the rest of the night Adam sat alone thinking, about Judith, about himself. And most of all, about Antonia.

  * * * *

  Antonia entered her sanctuary with a sigh of pleasure. She’d always found the scents and colors of the stillroom very soothing, which was why she had retreated here shortly after her return to Thornleigh. Visits to Lady Forrester were always something of a strain, especially to introduce a future husband.

  Not that there had been any major problems. Aunt Lettie was delighted that her wayward niece was finally marrying, and had been more than a little charmed by Lord Launceston. In fact, Antonia would not hesitate to say that the old beldame had flirted with him.

  Fortunately Simon was not of a womanizing disposition. It was bad enough that every female in sight melted at his entrance, but it would be far worse if he encouraged them.

  But Antonia had been uncomfortable in the role of blossoming bride-to-be. It seemed wrong to accept good wishes when she was secretly pining for Adam.

  At least she and Simon were getting along well. Ever since they’d renewed their betrothal, there had been no harsh words or rows.

  Regrettably, there wasn’t much relaxation or casual companionship, either. But surely matters should improve in time.

  The stillroom was the most remote corner of the kitchen and pantry area. In mid-afternoon on a quiet summer day, it was delightfully private. When Antonia was a child, she had thought of the stillroom as an enchanted Oriental cavern of rich colors, scents, and tastes. This was the oldest part of the house, with a flagstone floor, a beamed ceiling, and small paned windows high on the walls.

  The chamber was lined with cupboards and open shelves of pickles, brandied fruits, homemade cordials, and a multitude of other preserved foodstuffs. A scrubbed deal worktable stood in the center of the room, and one corner sheltered a drying rack for fruit. Bunches of herbs hung from the rafters, and a locked chest contained small jars of expensive spices.

  Preserving the products of the land was satisfying in a very elemental way. Antonia and her housekeeper spent many happy hours discussing recipes, tasting, and planning what to try in the future. It was the only aspect of housekeeping that really interested Antonia.

  Checking supplies to see if anything needed ordering gave her an excuse to linger. She paused to lift a bottle of raspberry vinegar. If she recalled correctly, good for coughs and sore throats as well as cooking.

  Antonia was admiring the rich burgundy color of the vinegar when she heard the unexpected sound of approaching footsteps. Recognizing them, she tensed.

  She forced herself to relax. Though she had managed to avoid anything resembling a tête-à-tête with Adam, she could hardly spend the rest of her life doing so.

  As he entered, Antonia looked up with a bright smile. “Come to steal some crystallized peaches, Adam?” As children, they had enjoyed periodic raids on the treasures stored here. Candied fruit had been a prime favorite.

  “Not today.” Adam closed the door behind him. “This time I’m looking for you, and Mrs. Heaver thought she saw you sneaking in this direction.”

  Adam seemed subtly different today. Antonia was uneasily aware of his forceful masculinity. “How can I be sneaking when I am in my own house?” she asked with mock indignation, hoping to keep the conversation frivolous.

  “It was sneaking since you were trying to avoid being seen,” Adam explained. “Speaking of trying, how was Lady Forrester?”

  “As trying as usual,” Antonia said ruefully.

  Adam’s coat emphasized the breadth of his wide shoulders, and the afternoon sun found gold highlights in his light-brown hair. Wishing that she could feel as casual as her cousin appeared, Antonia shifted her feet and manufactured a smile. “She approved of Simon, but wanted to know when you would call on her. Said that you are most remiss.”

  “Really? It never occurred to me that Lady Forrester expected a call. I’ve always thought she disapproved of my existence. But I suppose that the best thing about her is that she disapproves of everyone universally. In her way, she’s a perfect democrat.” Adam’s gray-green eyes were fixed on Antonia with disturbing intensity. “Do you know where Simon is?”

  Antonia was relieved by the question. If Adam was just looking for Simon, he would leave soon. “Checking progress at his future observatory. He hopes to start assembling the telescope today or tomorrow.”

  “Good. That should keep him occupied for a time. I need to talk to you, and I don’t want any interruptions.” Adam crossed the stillroom with light deliberate steps, like a lion prowling the plains in search of supper. “But before I talk, there is something that I must do to refresh my memory.”

  Adam deftly removed the bottle of raspberry vinegar from Antonia’s nerveless fingers and set it on a shelf, then drew her into his arms. Startled and indignant, she turned her face up, only to have her confused protest checked by a kiss.

  Antonia gasped with shock. There was nothing casual or cousinly about Adam’s embrace. It was deep and sexual and demanding. While her mind reeled at her cousin’s outrageous behavior, her body responded with shattering urgency to his knowing mouth and hands.

  Ever since Adam had recovered his memory, she had kept as far away from him as possible, trying without success to forget the intimacy and passion that had been between them. Now every fiber of her being pulsed with desire and the erotic awareness of being surrounded by great strength barely restrained.

  Even as her better judgment screamed that this was wrong and dangerous, Antonia kissed Adam back. She twined her arms around his neck and pressed against him, craving his touch and the hard warmth of his body. She wanted to melt onto the cool stone floor and pull him down with her. She yearned to complete what had been tantalizingly unfinished during that brief idyll when they had thought that a li
fetime of fulfillment lay ahead of them.

  Dimly she recognized that very soon she would pass the point of no return. It took every fraying shred of Antonia’s self-control to break away.

  Her breasts heaving with agitation and desire, she retreated until her back was flattened against the vinegar cupboard. “Adam, have you run mad?” she asked weakly, too shaken even for righteous outrage.

  “No. I just needed to confirm my memory of what happened during the time I had amnesia.” Though Adam’s breathing was ragged, he made no attempt to pursue or persuade her, for which Antonia was profoundly grateful.

  She stared. “Just what were you trying to determine?”

  “Whether you might be in love with me.” Adam leaned back casually against the deal table as if preparing for a lengthy discussion. “Judith seemed to think so, but I needed to find out for myself.”

  “You are mad,” Antonia said with conviction. “Why would Judith say something like that?”

  He smiled humorlessly. “It was one of her principal reasons for ending our betrothal.”

  “Judith ended your engagement?” Antonia’s senses were still disordered from the impact of Adam’s closeness, and it took a moment to absorb the sense of his statement. “Adam, I’m so sorry. But really”—she gave a shaky laugh—”I don’t think Simon would appreciate your using his future wife for solace.”

  Adam’s thick brows arched. “That was hardly my intention. I was just confirming my facts before asking you to marry me.”

  “If you aren’t mad, you’re drunk,” Antonia said, perilously close to tears. “Or else you are teasing me in a way I do not find amusing.”

  To her horror, her voice cracked. He wanted to marry her. He actually wanted to marry her! Why did he have to ask her now, when it was too late?

  “I have never been more serious in my life.” Adam’s grave voice underlined his words. “Tony, look at me.”

  Almost against her will, she raised her eyes to meet his.

  Regarding her with mesmerizing intensity, he said quietly, “I love you. I have loved you since I was seven years old, and that fact has shaped my entire life. For too long I have been silent, but I am speaking now. I pray it isn’t too late.”

  His words were an eerie echo of her own thoughts, and Antonia felt a knot of pain deep in her chest. She had thought he looked different, and now she understood why. Today the two Adams had merged—the familiar beloved cousin and the dynamic, unpredictable stranger were now one. “I don’t know what to say,” she said helplessly.

  His lips quirked with amusement. “I believe it is customary to say, ‘This is so unexpected.’ Perhaps it is, although it shouldn’t be. Am I misremembering what happened up at the Aerie?” He watched with interest as Antonia blushed at the memory of the first discovery of passion.

  Adam continued, “And the time in the summerhouse, it must have been just before my memory came back. I think you said something about loving me without limitation and wanting most desperately to marry. Did that really happen or did I imagine it?”

  Antonia felt as if she was in quicksand, and sinking fast. “You didn’t imagine it,” she whispered, her gaze shifting away.

  “Did you mean what you said?” he asked, his voice mild but insistent. “Or were those words only for the Adam with amnesia?”

  “I—I meant it.” Her defenses shattered with explosive suddenness, exposing the pain and anger she’d buried so deeply eight years earlier. Antonia lifted her head to glare at her cousin. “But if you’ve loved me forever, how come you ran away to India the way you did, without a word, not even good-bye?” she asked furiously. “It was a shabby way to treat a friend or a sister. If you really loved me, as you claim, it was unspeakable.”

  Adam’s mouth twisted with bitter regret. “I did not have any choice, and the reason that I didn’t was a direct result of the fact that I loved you.”

  “Then why didn’t you offer for me then, instead of going to India?” she cried. “The whole time we were growing up, I assumed that someday we would marry. It seemed unnecessary to speak of it because marrying you was as natural and inevitable as the rain and the hills.”

  Antonia’s voice broke and it was a long moment before she could continue. “Then you just ran away, as if you couldn’t get away from England fast enough. That was when I realized how much I had misjudged your feelings.”

  “You thought that we would marry someday?” Adam was looking at her with wonder, a glow deep in his eyes. “I assumed the same when we were young. But later, when I understood the difference in our stations, I came to believe that marriage was impossible, that you had regarded me in the light of a brother only.”

  “After you left, I had to think of you as a brother so I could get on with my life.” Antonia brushed at her eyes angrily. “Did you think I would patiently wait here like Penelope? At least she was married to Odysseus, but you never made a declaration, never offered so much as a single word of love, either in person or in your letters after you left. A pretty fool I would have been to wait and hope! Since you treated me as a sister, I responded in kind.”

  “It was impossible to speak,” Adam said flatly, struggling to maintain his own composure. Though he ached to kiss away the tears in Antonia’s beautiful cinnamon-brown eyes, there was still much that needed to be said. He had confirmed that there was fire between them. Now he must persuade her mind before he could win her heart.

  Restlessly he shifted his weight against the table, his fingers gripping the edge hard. “You remember that your father was going to buy me a commission?”

  When she nodded, he continued, “Just before I finished at Cambridge, some busybody relative told Spenston you and I were behaving with disgraceful impropriety. That you were far too free in your ways and risked damaging your chances of a suitable match, and that I had ideas far above my station. So Spenston called me in to find out if there was any truth to the rumor.”

  Arrested, Antonia stared at him. “Why didn’t you declare yourself and ask his permission to court me then?”

  “I did,” Adam said, a hard edge in his voice. “I knew better than to ask him if we could marry soon. You were only seventeen and needed to see more of the world before making a decision, and I knew that I must do something to prove myself. That’s one reason I thought the army was a good choice. It seemed the best avenue available for a young man with no financial expectations. If I managed to distinguish myself without getting killed in the process, it would narrow the disparities in our station a little.”

  “Father never told me that you had offered for me,” Antonia said with puzzlement. “Yet surely he agreed. You two always got on so well. You were like a son to him.”

  “No!” Adam tasted bitterness harsh on his tongue. “Spenston rescued me from the gutter for the sake of his connection with my father and for his image of himself as a charitable and generous man. He let me live in your household for your sake, and perhaps to assuage his own guilt for the unpardonable way he neglected you. But I was never a son to him, and he was never a father to me.”

  Even now, it was painful to discuss that interview with Antonia’s father. “The earl asked me if there was any substance to the rumor that I aspired to your hand. When I said it was true, he gave me the worst dressing down of my life. He was shocked and appalled that I had the effrontery to set my sights on someone so far above me in birth and fortune.”

  Antonia sprang to her father’s defense. “Father would be the last man on earth to condemn you for your birth! He believed that all men were equal in the eyes of God, and he spent his life fighting for reforms to help the common people.”

  “Spenston may have worked for the common people, but he certainly never thought he was one of them,” Adam answered acidly. “On the contrary, the great Whig liberal spelled out in excruciating detail how scandalized he was at my ingratitude, how pathetic and inappropriate my aspirations were. He made it very clear that the only child of the ninth Earl of Spenston would never
be permitted to waste herself on a penniless bastard.”

  Antonia stared at Adam with horror. “No, he couldn’t possibly have been so cruel as to say that.”

  “He did say it. And worse.” It took Adam a moment to collect himself enough to continue. “Not that I could blame him. It is natural for a father to want his child to marry well, and you were not just any daughter. You were one of the greatest heiresses and most beautiful girls in England. A royal duke would scarcely be good enough for you.”

  Antonia’s eyes were drowned in tears. “It must have been ghastly for you,” she whispered. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “How could I?” Adam asked bleakly. “Spenston was right. My aspirations were pathetic, but I had been too naive and too much in love to see what a fool I was. I had adored you since the day we met, when you accepted me as a valued cousin even though I was a soot-covered urchin. After your father finished with me, I realized just how unworthy I was to marry you.”

  “By any reasonable standard, you are far worthier than I,” she said, her hands clenching into fists. “You were wiser and kinder and more generous than any other man I know.”

  “You were the only one who believed that,” Adam replied bluntly. “Everyone else was quite clear where I belonged on the social scale. Here at Thornleigh, at Thornton family gatherings, at Rugby and Cambridge, there were always subtle and not-so-subtle reminders that I was allowed among my superiors only on sufferance. I never told you because I knew you would come charging to my defense, and I’d be damned if I would let you fight my battles for me. Besides, there was nothing you could do or say that would alter the reality of what I was.”

  “Stop talking as if you were a leper!” Antonia cried. “I can’t bear it.” It was horrifying to realize how unperceptive she had been and how Adam must have suffered.

  It also hurt to realize just how cruel her idolized father had been. Her cousin was far more tolerant of the earl’s behavior than Antonia could be. How dare her father, who had never had time for his daughter, dismiss the one person who had always been there for her!