Cloaked in Danger (22 page)

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Adam, Ravensdale and Whitney retreated to Adam’s study. With every step Adam took, his body protested, though a little less so in the steps toward the sideboard where he filled a couple of liberal drinks.

He shoved one at Ravensdale, another at Whitney. Downed his. Poured another.

A few hours of repeating it might kill the pain.

Whitney finished his drink and set the glass back with a hard fist. “Start talking.”

“Why don’t you start,” Adam replied. “Where the hell have you been?” He aimed for the nearest chair and sunk into it. Hitting the seat a little too hard, he pressed his hand against his side to ease the pain. He could breathe, so his ribs probably were not broken. “Aria has torn herself apart trying to find out that answer.”

Whitney met Adam’s threatening tone with a scornful glare. “I was beaten, shot and dumped in the water.” He shed his coat, then reached his right arm over to push up his left sleeve, revealing nothing but a stump below his elbow, wrapped tightly in bandages.

Adam sucked in a breath, then muttered a curse at the shot of pain in his chest.

“He thought he’d killed me. He nearly did. But he’d shot my arm near gone, clear through the bone.”

Even though a part of him was gone, the man still filled the room with his presence. The set of his shoulders inside the threadbare, ill-fitting coat made it clear he was ready to tackle the world head-high. His weathered face was full of hollows and valleys that laid claim to adventure, celebration and hard work. This was not a man easily put down.

And in the man’s confident way of moving through the world as though it would lie at his feet, Adam saw Aria.

“Somehow,” Whitney continued. “I kept awake long enough to drag myself to the edge of the water. An old couple found me. Took me in. She nursed me to health. When I could travel, I came to England.”

“Who is ‘he’? You said, ‘he’ thought he’d killed me.”

Whitney met Adam’s gaze. “Patrick Wade.”

Adam’s hand tightened around his glass.

“He showed up at my camp,” Whitney continued, dropping his sleeve in place again. “Now that I think about it, no one else knew he was there. He asked for Aria’s hand in marriage, I said no. I never liked the man. He was never quite as charming as he tried to appear, and I knew Aria didn’t love him. I thought that was the end of it.

“But he came back with reinforcements. I never saw it coming. By that time, we’d celebrated ourselves into a stupor. Easy pickings.” He turned to pace in a tight circle. Suddenly stopped. “What about John?”

“Alive, but not good,” Adam told him.

His shoulders sagged with grim relief. “He’s alive. Better than I hoped for. And Em? Is she well? The babe?” His voice softened.

Just then, Adam’s mother opened the door and walked in. She took immediate measure of Adam’s condition, which was only slightly worse than Ravensdale’s.

“What happened?” Adam’s mother turned an accusing eye at each of them, then did a double take as she saw Aria’s father in the corner. “Mr. Whitney, unless you are somehow responsible for their respective conditions, I am pleased to see you safe and alive.”

“He saved our hides,” Michael answered, as he refilled glasses. He handed one to Adam, another to Whitney, and downed the liquid in his own.

“Saved your hides from what?” Blythe walked in the room, just as Hypatia hurried out. Blythe stopped, mouth ajar, as she spied Whitney. “You’re alive.”

Whitney ran a hand through his salt-and-pepper hair. “This is a theme. How many know of my supposed death?”

“Enough,” Adam offered. “And Emily and the baby are both fine.”

Whitney bowed his head in relief. But the pain Aria had been in for weeks kept animosity rolling through Adam, and he pushed. “Why haven’t you contacted them?”

“I was near death myself, and I didn’t want to put them in danger,” Whitney said hotly, as though he could sense the pulse inside Adam.

“Your wife believes you are dead.” Adam was blunt on purpose. “Aria has tortured herself, refusing to believe it, attempting to find out what happened to you.”

“And what happened to you two?” Blythe asked. She stood at Michael’s side, inspecting the cuts and bruises beginning to form on his face. She ran hands over his torso, muttering under her breath at every wince and gasp of pain he tried to conceal. She turned an accusing eye toward Adam.

“This has to stop. Now. You are grown men, for God’s sake.”

“It’s not what you think,” Adam replied.

“I told you she’d think the worst,” Michael muttered. “Didn’t even ask what happened.”

“If you weren’t blockheads about everything, I wouldn’t have to make assumptions,” she snapped back. “Am I to believe you didn’t do this to yourselves?”

“A couple of thugs tried to kill us.”

“Technically, they tried to kill you. I just happened to be there,” Michael added as he grabbed Adam’s empty glass. Was that three? Five? Adam had lost count.

At that point, he noticed his mother standing in the doorway. She clutched the towels and a bowl of water in her arms like a lifeline. “Someone tried to kill you?”

Ah, damn it. Adam wrapped his fingers around his side, to hold in some of the pain while he got out of the chair. He took the items from her. Led her to the chair, where she sank down, eyes wide. “What happened?”

“I think Wade set them on us,” Adam said as gently as he could. “If Michael hadn’t been there, I’d be dead.” He looked at his future brother-in-law. “I owe you my life.”

Michael returned a half-full glass to Adam’s hand and clinked his glass against his. “Glad I could be there.”

Blythe swung her gaze back and forth, brows furrowed and hands on hips. “Did you hit your heads? When did you two become friendly?”

Adam touched a hand to his mother’s hand, which had started to shake. “Mama, I’m all right.”

Her fingers fluttered a bit, settling on his bruised cheek for a moment. “You don’t look it.” She shook her head, and grabbed the bowl from him. “Given all that’s been said between us. You could have been killed and the last thing I said—” A tear spilled from the corner of her eye. “I love you, Adam. Even when I’m furious at you, I love you.”

He reached down and pressed a hand against her shoulder, squeezed. “I know that. I love you, too.”

“Can we please get back to finding my daughter? I have been in London for two goddamn days, and my daughter has been taken by the man who tried to kill me. And I haven’t seen my goddamn wife.” Whitney had worked himself into a froth, pacing holes in the floor. He stopped to glare at Adam. “You said you were her betrothed. Where were you when she was taken?” As if suddenly realizing there were women in the room, he looked away. “My apologies, my lady, for my language.”

Hypatia waved his objections away with a hand in the air. “I believe a man recently returned from the dead is entitled to a few colorful curses. No apology required.”

“You know my side. Now tell me yours,” Whitney demanded of Adam.

Adam related the events of the last days.

“So it was at his behest you were at the docks. Wade is obsessed. I saw it in his eyes when I refused him.”

“That goes with the rumors I’ve heard,” Ravensdale added. “The man is ruthless when it comes to acquiring things he wants.”

“And all of this is to marry a woman who doesn’t want him?” Blythe asked from her place across the room. She moved in closer. “I don’t mean to insult Aria—I think she’s wonderful. But can a man truly be that blindly obsessed, that in love, he would kill for a woman who doesn’t even want to marry him?”

“Obsession is rarely about love,” Whitney replied. “It’s about control. Power. He might see her as a prize, as something to belong to him.”

Adam looked at Ravensdale. “You said Wade was obsessed with acquiring as much as he could.”

“Property, in London and surrounding towns. Items of value. He’s earned a ruthless reputation and come by it naturally, as best I can tell. If someone knows he wants a certain property or item, they back off. He’s been building his holdings for years.”

“Acquisition takes money, of which you have a tremendous amount,” Adam said to Whitney.

“He did, before he ‘died,’” Michael interjected. “And now, that money rests in the hands of—”

“Emily and Aria.”

The color fled from Whitney’s face and he let out a strangled gasp. “Emily.”

“Patrick shares your solicitor,” Adam commented. “He was at your house the other day, trying to push the declaration of your death. If Patrick sees marriage to Aria as a means to gain your fortune, his plans will be gainsaid by learning you are alive. It could throw him into a panic.”

“He could kill Aria. And Emily is nothing to him.” Whitney strode to the door, bent over to pick up his gun. In the doorway, he stopped, looked back and said, “Betrothed.”. It wasn’t a question, nor was it a statement exactly, so Adam only nodded. “Do you love my daughter?”

The question stole the breath right from him. And he was keenly aware of the interest that perked throughout the room.

But before he could formulate a coherent thought, Whitney gave a gruff
hrrumph
and nodded. “Good, then. I know you will do everything you can to find her. When I come back with Mrs. Whitney, we’ll go after Wade.”

A quick nod later, Whitney was gone.

Good then? Good what then? Adam hadn’t said a word, but Whitney seemed satisfied. Had he seen the truth in Adam’s face, the truth that he hadn’t even admitted to Aria?

But he couldn’t stand by and wait for Whitney’s return. Adam moved to follow.

“Where do you think you are going?” His mother got up from the chair and promptly shoved him into it, showing no mercy when he protested in pain.

“We need to track Wade, find out where he’s taken Aria.”

“You’re in no condition to go anywhere. Two steps out the door and you might collapse.” She crossed her arms, taking that don’t-argue-with-me stance mothers had perfected.

“I’ll be fine. But we cannot waste any more time. As soon as Wade finds out Whitney is alive—”

“You won’t do Aria any good if you kill yourself trying.” She brought the bowl of water over and dropped a cloth in it. “As much as you hate it, you need to rest. You need to rebuild some strength.”

“Ow,” Ravensdale said a few steps away, where he was getting the same none-too-gentle treatment from Blythe. “She’s right, Merewood. We’ll send some men out to gather what information they can. We need a few hours’ sleep.”

It was no use arguing.

“We move out at dawn.”

* * *

“You are beautiful, miss!” The seamstress clapped her hands together and beamed. “Such perfection, and what glorious skin you have.”

Aria looked down at the white-as-snow gown she wore. It was exquisite, fitted across the bodice, a satin ribbon encasing her ribs underneath her breasts. Intricate embroidery shimmered with the silver tone of the thread along the bodice, the sleeves and in a wide band along the hem. The gown had obviously not been created in a day, and she vaguely wondered what poor woman had looked forward to receiving it, only to find that some heartless man had paid a fortune to steal it away.

For her, yet again. The plump, still-chattering woman waved her hands around Aria. “Now, off with the dress. I’ll be finished with the hem in no time. Oh dear,” she said, bending down to inspect the hem she’d pinned. “A pin has come loose. Let me...” She grabbed another pin, shoved it through the fabric. “There. Now, I don’t see where the other dropped, so you watch your step. Turn around now.”

Aria turned, ignoring the feel of buttons being opened along her back. Hands pushed the dress ever so gently off her shoulders, and Aria stepped back quickly, letting out a cry when the pain shot up her leg. She grasped the dress to her chest, shaking her head. “Please, I can do this.”

The seamstress waited outside, Aria removed the gown and changed into a thick, warm dressing gown.

They were leaving for the chapel in the morning. He would have a multitude of his personal lackeys about, of course. As much for the pomp and circumstance as for the security. But an opportunity had to present itself when she could run. She would not involve anyone else. The idea of another person’s death on her hands was unconscionable.

“Very well, I’ve got everything together,” the seamstress said. Her things were in her arms, Aria’s dress carefully laid over one arm.

“Thank you,” Aria murmured, waiting for the soft sound of footsteps, the creak of the door. The click of the lock on the outside.

She let out a breath that dropped her shoulders. Carefully, she opened her mouth and put in one finger. She winced as the tip of the pin pushed against her tongue, but pulled it out anyway. The pin, tiny and slick from her mouth, rolled between her fingers.

It was the only weapon she had.

A brisk knock on the door startled her, followed by the door opening. Aria ran the pin through the inside of her bodice, weaving it tightly in and out of the fabric to try and minimize movement. She gave Patrick a cool look as he walked toward her.

“Good evening, my love.” His tone was jovial. “Your dress is soon to be finished, I understand. Everything is on schedule.”

She turned away, and Patrick’s sigh of annoyance gave her a frisson of pleasure.

“You are annoyed with me.”

An understatement. “Annoyed? Do you—” Aria broke the words off as she recalled his threat against Emily.

As she pressed her lips together, he smiled, a smug little uptilt of his mouth that made her want to smack it off. “This is the right thing, Ariadne. You are the perfect woman to be by my side.”

“How?” The question popped out before she could stop it. “I am nothing like the woman you want. Truly, Patrick, you must be daft to look at me and see obedient and docile.”

“I’ve ensured nothing will get in the way of that. In fact, I’ve brought you a present.”

Dread, cold and sticky, filled her.

She looked at the open doorway, as one of his thugs moved into the room, arms tight around a woman, who was struggling, yelling and—

“Emily!”

Chapter Twenty-Eight

The pounding on the door woke Adam from a dreamless sleep, and as he sat, his neck retracted and protested like an angry snake. Every part of him felt stiff, as though one wrong move might snap him into pieces.

“All right, just a damn minute!” he barked, and winced at the painful echo in his head. The decanter was empty; they’d finished it off last night in efforts to dull the pain. It wasn’t dulling anything now, but he could focus on the headache instead of the crushing agony every time he took a breath.

He yanked open the door, and the face on the other side did nothing to improve his mood.

“What are you doing here?” His voice was flat, unfriendly, and he didn’t give a damn. He turned back in and went to the window, pulling open the drapes to let the blasted sunlight in. “Blast it, who let me sleep so long?”

Mr. Calebowe followed him into the room, holding a tray full of food. “I believe that was your mother’s decision. And she wanted you to be fed properly. I offered to bring it to you. Hypatia told me what is going on.”

“This is a family matter.” Adam went to his wardrobe, pulled out whatever clothes he found.

Calebowe set the tray down. “I believe she considers me within that realm, even if you do not. I’d like to help.”

Adam carefully put his arm through a sleeve. “There is nothing you can do.”

“Actually there is. Mr. Whitney isn’t satisfied with the news his maid relayed, that his wife has gone to visit her mother in Surrey. I’ve offered to go to Surrey to confirm it while you look for Aria and Wade.”

“Have a safe trip.”

Calebowe studied him. “Before I leave, it would please your mother to know we’d at least started a conversation with each other.”

Adam threw him a look. “Now? You want to have a heart-to-heart now? This is hardly the time.”

“Unfortunately, my trip won’t be long enough to afford your investigators time to send word on their findings.” Calebowe’s casual, unconcerned tone matched his casual stance. “So why don’t you simply ask your questions?”

Dressed, Adam poured a cup of coffee. “You aren’t insulted?”

“By your belief that I am nothing but a charlatan? I wouldn’t be much of a man if I wasn’t. But I understand why, far more than you might expect.”

“You know nothing of me.” Adam snatched a scone from the tray.

“I believe you are a great deal like your father. He was a good man, Adam, and you honor his memory. Don’t look so surprised. I told you that I have long loved your mother. This was not my first excursion to see her.”

“You lie!” Adam dropped the scone. “My mother has not—”

“I did not say she had seen me. Simply that I had come to see her.” He looked up, as if pulling memories out of the misty air. “When I saw she was happy, I left. But not before I made certain the man she was with was worthy.”

Adam wanted to be angry, wanted to find some shred of indignant response. But Calebowe had done nothing Adam wouldn’t do, had done and would likely do again. And that was an uncomfortable thought.

With that, an equally uncomfortable, wholly displeasing realization dawned. It wasn’t about whether or not Calebowe was worthy of his mother.

Adam didn’t want him to be worthy.

Wasn’t that pathetic?

A series of shrieks cut off his thoughts.

“What the hell was that?” Adam said, setting down his coffee cup with a clatter and striding toward the door. He headed down the corridor, Calebowe on his heels, toward the stairs. As they grew closer, the noises became less like sounds of terror and more the crying, yelling and noise of women arguing. As Adam moved down the stairs, Lily and Cordelia came into sight. They faced off in the middle of the room, just shy of ten paces away from each other.

And Robert Melrose stood in between.

“You are a nothing!” Cordelia screeched at Melrose, then whipped around to face Lily. “And you! You...you...jezebel! You knew! You knew how I felt about him!”

“How you felt about him?” Lily cried. “You told me you’d never marry him—that his constant attentions made you feel good so you could enjoy yourself, while your preferred suitor, the one with power and money, sat on his heels.”

“You said that?” Melrose asked.

Cordelia let out a cry of indignation. “That was ages ago.”

“Girls, enough!” The snapped directive came from their mother, who entered the corridor from the parlor. “You will silence yourselves this minute.” She turned an eye to Melrose. “What are you doing here at this hour, Mr. Melrose?”

Water could have frozen on her tongue for the chill in her words, but Melrose didn’t have the grace-—or intelligence—to look contrite.

“He was with Lily!” Cordelia threw all her dramatic flair into the words. “Together. Alone.”

Adam’s stomach tangled in hard knots as he descended the remaining steps. “You are making a terrible accusation.”

Cordelia swiveled to face him. “I saw them coming out of her room. Embracing. He stayed the night.”

“That is a lie!” Lily replied hotly.

Melrose stepped forward. “On my honor, it is untrue. I only arrived a half hour ago.”

Adam swiveled and pointed at Melrose. “You will shut it.”

Melrose glared at Cordelia. “Why would you say such a thing?”

Adam inspected them. Lily’s hair was mussed, they both held a tinge of embarrassment in their downcast eyes, but their clothing looked intact. “Cordelia, when I ask this, be very certain of your answer. What did you see?”

She matched glares with Melrose, aimed it at Lily, and thrust her chin in the air. “I saw what I saw. He compromised her.”

Both Melrose and Lily began to speak, until Adam held a hand out and pointed toward his study. “In there. Now.”

As the others turned toward the room, Lily stopped and waited for him. “Cordelia is lying. She is angry that Robert came to see me, but we were not—.”

“Lily, be silent,” he said quietly.

Misery washed over her face. “I never meant to disappoint you. I just...I love him. And he loves me. He told me tonight.”

“And Cordelia? What has he told her?” he asked, more weary than angry. He put a hand to her back and pushed her gently. “Go inside. We’ll discuss it there.”

She nodded and turned away.

Their mother let out a long sigh. “It would be lovely if one of my children might marry without the need for scandal.”

“Marry? This isn’t about marriage.”

“Lily has been compromised, and you know it as well as I. Cordelia may or may not be lying, but God forbid a child come of this and we didn’t take it seriously. She must marry Mr. Melrose.”

With those words, the pounding in his head beat a harder, faster rhythm until all he could hear was the rush of blood. How the bloody hell had everything gone so wrong?

The more he tried to stem the flow of chaos, the more destructive it became.

It took only one person, even a servant they trusted, confiding to someone they thought they could trust. Then the world would know.

London proved itself a very confined place at times.

Calebowe stood in the same place he’d been, halfway down the stairs, watching him. “Do not blame yourself.”

“Why don’t you stay the hell out of this?” Adam snapped, then followed his family.

Calebowe was wrong. Adam was responsible for everything that had happened. He had seen the signs, and should have done more. He should have paid attention. And God help him, he had no idea how to make any of it right.

The arguing hadn’t ceased, he realized, as he opened the study door.

Cordelia stood toe-to-toe with Lily. “This is unconscionable! You betrayed me!”

“Stop lying!” Lily said, almost desperately. “We were not doing what you said we were.”

“We were talking, nothing more,” Melrose added.

“I suggest you keep your mouth shut right now,” Adam snapped. “You have been playing them both on some sort of string for weeks now. If you had affections for Lily, you should never have continued your courtship of Cordelia.”

“I—”

“He kissed me as well, so any claims he makes of affection toward Lily are false,” Cordelia interrupted.

“You kissed my sister?” Lily’s words were a small whisper. “And then you kissed me?”

“Melrose, get out of my house.”

“But—”

“You will return this afternoon to call, and we will discuss wedding plans.” The words were bitter, and Adam hated to say them. Hated even more how each gaze in the room turned toward him, with various degrees of anger and shock. “But right now, I want you out.”

Melrose looked as miserable now as Adam felt. “Very well.”

He turned to leave and stopped. Adam held his breath, waiting as Merewood lifted his head. He was certain that whomever Melrose pointed his gaze at would prove...something.

It landed on Cordelia, then flitted to Lily, and then Melrose was gone. Adam sank into the chair behind his desk and rubbed at the hammers of pain in his forehead.

“Adam, he arrived this morning,” Lily said. Her words were thick and emotion-filled. “He’d not been here longer than ten minutes when I saw him outside. He said he came so early because the letter I sent sounded urgent. I told him of the news of America and I admitted how I felt about him, and he told me that he cared for me, too.”

“He lied.”

“Cordelia, that’s enough!” Adam said. “If you can’t contain yourself, you may go up to your room.”

Cordelia crossed her arms. “I want to hear what lies he told her.”

Lily continued to scrub at the tears that fell down her cheeks. “He held my hand, he...he kissed it, but that is all. Then Cordelia happened upon us.”

Lily had wrapped her arms around herself again, trying to hold in the sobs that followed her tears. “I—” She cut off, pointed at Cordelia. “I shall never forgive you for this.” She ran from the room.

Cordelia was uncharacteristically silent.

“You lied, didn’t you?”

“No, I didn’t.” Her reply was hot and immediate. “I saw what I saw. And it serves her right to marry a man who doesn’t give a fig about her, who would have chosen
me
.”

With those cruel words, she fled the room. Moments later, the walls shook with the echo of her door slamming. Adam dropped his head into his hands, his fingers clenching strands of hair until it hurt.

If there had ever been a time he wanted to throttle a man, it was now.