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

rose for him to put in his lapel.

    "Yes," she said, handing him the flower. "I can’t stay in bed past dawn most days.
    I’d rather be out here."

    He smiled, tucking the flower into his coat. "Beware," he said, "you’ll give me tools to aid me in my seduction of you." But his smile was rueful, self-mocking, and she took the words as the light jest he intended.

    "So be it." A tangle of weeds had grown around the rosebush. Fronds reached strangling arms clear to the top. Madeline frowned and set down her basket so she could wrestle the vine from the bush. "It would be impossible for you to stay long at Whitethorn," she said, "without learning my primary interest is in gardens."

    "Ah." He looked around him. "It would seem you have quite a job ahead of you."

    "You have no idea." Madeline dropped the uprooted woodbine to the ground. "If I were to do nothing else, just the maze would take me a year."

    "It alone looks well tended. Surely there isn’t that much work to be done."

    "Looks can be deceiving." She hadn’t intended the double meaning but heard it as soon as the words left her lips. She cocked her head toward him, grinning.

    "Truer words were never spoken." For a moment he gazed at the maze. "Will you show it to me?" A glittering challenge lit his eyes.

    "Another time," she said, lightly. "I’m afraid I’m quite famished."

    "Pity." He lifted one perfect brow. "I have weakness for these old gardens and would have enjoyed a tour."

    "Leading a rake into the maze, Lord Esher? Alone? The rake’s book of rules would surely insist that such a gesture is an invitation to certain ravishment."

    "You speak boldly."

    "It saves time."

    "Yes." He lifted his hands as if in surrender, and backed away with a short, quick bow. "I’d hoped for a narration of its virtues, from someone who obviously loves it well, but perhaps you’re right. I’ll go alone."

    "Impossible. You’ll be hopelessly lost."

    He gave her the faintest hint of a smile. "Then I suppose you’ll be rescuing me before supper tonight."

    Madeline hesitated. She genuinely loved the gardens, and as anyone did, loved to share her knowledge. Was his interest genuine, or a ruse to lure her into a secluded place?
    She didn’t know. "Most find the old style of formal gardens a bore nowadays."

    "Yes, I know." He clasped his hands behind his back, that restless gaze traveling over the ragged topiary all around them. "My boyhood home had formal gardens of this sort. My father had them razed and replanted in the new style after my mother died." He looked at her. "It was a gruesomely destructive act."

    "My stepmother would do the same here." Somehow, they were walking slowly toward the entrance to the maze. "It would be a tragedy. This hedge is nearly a hundred years old."

    "Show it to me," he said again. "I vow the place will be your ground only. Within, I’ll be only Lucien, your friend."

    "My friend." She drawled the words with as much skepticism as she could muster, stripping her damp gloves from her hands. "All right," she said. "If you misbehave, I’ll simply leave you in there to starve."

    His crooked smile flashed. "Very well."

    "Choose your path."

    He considered and pointed. "The left."

    Together they entered the hallways of green. Immediately all sounds were muffled. The sun had not yet warmed the paths here, and shreds of mist clung to the ground and hung in streamers around the small, secret beds planted here and there.

    "Do not attempt it alone," she cautioned seriously. "Once, there were markers to help the alert, but most are overgrown now. The right side is better, more easily navigated."

    "Why is that?" Lazily he plucked a bud from a clematis vine and lifted it to his nose.

    "The first earl of Whitethorn had a passion for puzzles. The two sides meet at the center, but it’s impossible to get from one side to the other except there. On the right side, you alternate turning first left, then right."

    "But how does one