[Samuel Barbara] The Black Angel(Book4You) by Barbara Samuel Page B

"I'll endure the scandal again if I must, but I'll do it from here."
    Cassandra hooted with laughter. "Oh, Riana, you have such an imagination! Is this the lady fantasy? I haven't heard it before."
    Piqued, Adriana drew herself up. "It's no fantasy, Cassandra. It's the life I was born to live."
    Cassandra gave another hoot, slapping her hands down onto her skirts in a most unladylike fashion. A lock of her hair fell down and she brushed it away distractedly. "I've heard the lady pirate, and the lady adventurer and the lady explorer. This is the first I've heard of the Lady at Large in London!"
    Adriana felt her cheeks burn. That was the trouble with sisters, she thought darkly. They remembered every stupid thing you ever said—and loved more than anything to drag them up again.
    She couldn't bear to look at Tynan to see what effect this little hilarity was having upon him. No doubt he was as dazzled and admiring of Cassandra's beauty as he'd been on the steps yesterday. Adriana had clearly seen his hope that it would be her sister who'd be his bride.
    A dozen responses rose in her throat, but in the end she couldn't utter any of them for the mingled embarrassment and fury in her throat, and she simply pushed by the both of them. "I'm going out for walk."
    "Riana!" Cassandra cried. "Wait! I was only teasing you. I didn't—"
    Adriana threw a murderous glance over her shoulder and made for the heavy oak doors. From a hook by the door, she grabbed her cloak, hearing Cassandra protest once more.
    Outside, the fresh autumn air struck her face with its scents of leaf and mold and the promise of winter lurking in the shadows, and she dragged in a deep gulp of it as she strode across the green toward a path that looped around the estate.
    "My lady!"
    Adriana glanced over her shoulder to see Tynan, leaning into a little run to catch up to her. She picked up her pace; few could keep up with her long-legged stride when she wished to put them behind. And even those who could catch her—she glared at him from the corner of her eye as he came up beside her—would soon weary of her stony silence and energetic pace.
    To his credit, he said nothing for the longest time, only walking beside her when vegetation would permit, falling behind when it did not. Adriana strode into the hills, ducking under low hanging branches and shifting her skirts automatically to keep them free of familiar catches. After a quarter of an hour, her skin grew warm and perspiration built on the back of her neck, and she was breathing hard.
    But next to her Tynan kept up as easily as if they were out for a Sunday stroll. It was astonishingly annoying. At last she stopped at the crest of a hill to glare at him. "Are all Irishmen as hale as you?"
    "Any that are as well-fed as I," he said. "Though those are few and far between." He looked around him alertly, shading his eyes for a moment, and Adriana was glad to see there was at least a sheen of perspiration over his brow. "It's rather remarkable, isn't it?"
    Below spread the estate of Hartwood, the house and the stretches of lawn, and the hills rising gently all around. In the hazy distance was a glimpse of the village, just the church spire and the edge of the fields, fallow now that harvest was done. "Peaceful," she said. "Which is why I'm loath to leave it on a fool's errand."
    "Your sister meant you no harm."
    She tsked. "Do not presume to tell me the motives of my own sister, sir." She whirled and began to walk again. "If she had wished me no harm, she would have kept my secrets to herself."
    A low, deep chuckle rolled from him. He bent from the waist gracefully to pluck a tall stem of grass and righted himself. "There is no more irritating human in the world than our siblings, is there? They know us all too well."
    "Have you siblings?"
    A perplexed shadow crossed his eyes. "I did. A twin brother."
    A twin! The thought of two such faces in the world was a little unnerving. "Identical?"
    "In face, but not in