[Samuel Barbara] Lucien's Fall(Book4You) Read Online Free PDF Page A

trying to push them away.
    But in came the cellos, the drums, the clarinets. They crowded in, triumphant in spite of the port he’d drunk, the food he’d eaten. They came, his demon notes, to haunt him.

    Over the years, he’d learned that there was only one cure for them, one way to drive them from his mind. In his nightshirt, he stumbled from the bed and lit a brace of candles. He flung his hair from his eyes and began to write.

    When he was finished, he burned the pages completely, thoroughly, to curled black flutters.

    The headache ceased.

    Lucien slept.

Chapter Three

    I dare not ask a kisse,
    I dare not beg a smile;
    Lest having that, or this,
    I might grow proud the while.
    —Robert Herrick

    Madeline, dressed in an old, worn gown, made her way to the gardens long before the rest of the house stirred. Dew clung to the grass, wetting her slippers and dampening her hem. A blackbird sang from some dark and hidden place, the sound wistful in the still morning. As she walked, she pulled on cotton gloves that cost the earth, and yet were necessary to help protect her hands.

    Thin mist clung to the landscape, and Madeline felt a catch in her chest—she had missed this place! All through Europe she had hiked, visiting out of a sense of duty the main sights thought to be suitable for a young woman. In truth, she’d gone for the gardens—and everywhere had found people sympathetic to her passion, those willing to share it by showing off their own gardens. It had been singularly pleasing. Sharing those well-loved places, Madeline had finally come to a clear sense of herself as apart from anything anyone else expected of her. And in this garden, she would please her own expectations.

    Basket and shears in hand, she knelt in one of the small wing gardens that offset the maze on all four sides. Each plot had once been designed to illustrate a different sort of lace, but at the moment, most of it was unrecognizable for the weeds and overgrowth.

    As the sun rose and the mist burned away, she clipped lavender borders and dug out the tiny paths between clumps of flowers to illustrate the lace pattern. In two hours, she managed to remove enough debris and unruly growth from a three-foot section so that it at least began to resemble the pattern. Rocking back on her heels to admire it, she wiped the back of one hand over her forehead, and felt a gritty mark streak her skin.

    Yes, it would take some time, but she would restore the gardens at Whitethorn.
    They were her legacy.

    Perspiring and hungry, she picked up her basket of tools. Shaking her skirts to loosen the grass and leaves clinging to it, she looked up and was astonished to see Lord Esher approaching. It couldn’t yet be eight, and yet he was immaculately dressed in a dark blue coat and breeches, his hair neatly queued and tied with a bright ribbon that fluttered on a current of wind. On his feet were tall black boots.

    A quiet stir touched her blood at the way he moved, so loose and free, and as he came closer, she thought of his wild leap over the hedge yesterday, of his rich shout of laughter as he reached the very height of the jump. He could not have known, in that moment, whether the horse would find its feet— whether he would live or die. It hadn’t seemed to matter.

    There was no hurry about him. When he was a few feet away, she slapped her gloves together to shake some of the damp earth from them. "Rare for a gentleman of leisure to rouse himself so early, sir."

    "I like to ride before the day is too long." With the insouciant ease that marked his every movement, he glanced around him. "It is unfashionable, but I find I enjoy the morning, before the tedious noise and babble begins." He smiled to take the sting from his words.

    Madeline smiled. In the kindly light, he looked far less dangerous than he had the night before, his eyes clear, his complexion hale and healthy. She shifted her basket on her hip and used her scissors to cut a late blooming