Cloaked in Danger (27 page)

She grabbed a linen from the table and beat at the fire, mindless of the sparks that singed her arms. The smoke rose around her, stinging her watering eyes, choking her as she sucked in air.

“Miss, please, let me help!” Elizabeth’s cry repeated behind her, but she couldn’t stop. Not until the fire was gone. Not until she could cleanse that smell from her nostrils. Coughs wracked her body, sending stinging pains through her chest and down her arms.

A door slammed against a wall.

“What is going—Aria, stop! What are you doing?” Her father.

Then he was there, pulling on her. She pushed back, the need to rid her vision of that fire desperate and consuming. The flames were small now, and her arm had begun to sting with a pain that barely touched the agony inside.

The scrap of paper in her fist as Dr.
St.
Clair gurgled his last breath.

“Stop it!” Her father’s voice roared in her ear. “Look what you’re doing to yourself.”

He dragged her back from the fireplace. She crashed onto the floor, tried to scramble closer as a stubborn flame lit among the ashes. “Enough!” His arm became an iron clamp.

“Gideon, what is it? What’s happened?” Emily’s voice floated in the background.

The doctor’s blood on her hands
. How could she scrub that off?

“Elizabeth, please put out the rest of the fire.” Her father’s voice was soft, distant. Calm.

His hand touched her head, ran down her hair.

Patrick’s glee punctuating the air as he told her that her father was dead because of her.
That Adam was dead.
Knowing that her love for him had killed him.

“Shhh, shhh.” The voice was a low rumble of her childhood, one that used to soothe her. “Dearest, quiet now. Everything is all right. He can’t hurt you anymore.”

The scent of ginger.
Of wood.
Of his breath on her cheek.

Aria clung to her father, her arms wrapped around his one good arm as if it were the only thing that kept her afloat. The fear began to crackle, threatening to pull her under like a sea monster below the murky waves.

Give me one more tear, it beckoned. One more sleepness night.

This wasn’t her, damn it! But even as the thought left her mind, it disintegrated and she couldn’t keep hold. She was drowning and she didn’t know how to stop it. How to fight it.

“Oh Gideon, what can we do?” Emily’s words came through warbled, as if spoken through a glass of water.

Patrick’s jovial threats that she would be a happy bride.

“I don’t know. She’s far more distraught than I believed.”

Perfect for him.
Perfect.

“Perhaps it would be best for her to leave for a time,” came the quiet reply. “Get her away from all she’s suffered here.”

Patrick’s hands.
His body pinning her down.

Her father’s grip was unbendable as he held her close. Aria leaned back against him, clinging to his warmth, as every fear, every emotion, every thought she’d had over the last days pummeled her with the measured accuracy of an angry pugilist.

She had wanted to die.

That was the worst humiliation of all. That somewhere, deep inside, she had given in. Given up.

She had let him win. She was letting him win now, because she couldn’t conquer this heaviness, this state of constant fear.

“I know you are right, Emily, but I can’t send her away like this.”

Something cold covered Aria’s stinging arm, but she paid little mind. Nestled into her father’s warmth, desperate to stop the lashes of memory. Desperate to find some way out of the muck. She hadn’t recognized herself in so long.

“You could go with her.” The words were soft, almost sad.

“No.” The pain that cut through his words also sliced through Aria’s dimmed awareness with a sharp edge. “I cannot provide the care she needs. I can’t even cut my own bloody meat. I’ll find a way. Somehow I’ll find a way to help her.”

“I know you will.”

“You’re a good woman, Emily.”

“I know that, too.”

Chapter Thirty-Five

“I believe the wedding was a rousing success!” Hypatia’s words dotted the air with a note of triumphant pride.

“And you, my dear, made a beautiful mother of the bride.” Franklin pressed a light kiss against her cheek.

Adam observed as a warm glow filled his mother’s face, the contented smile and the slight way she leaned toward the man who would become her husband in the near future.

Any attempt on Adam’s part to shove the man from their lives had proven futile. And the first correspondence from the investigators had returned. Nothing. Perhaps Calebowe was just a man who loved Adam’s mother.

So far be it from him to be the ass who kept his mother from that love.

“Adam?”

Lily stood a few steps away, and Adam reluctantly met her gaze, knowing he would find a similar misery. He patted the seat next to him. “Sit.”

She sunk down, leaned back. “I am exhausted, and I’m not the one who got married today.”

Blythe’s wedding had been perfect, everything she had hoped for. She wandered around the house full of guests with a radiant air he’d never seen. She was happy. Fulfilled.

And Lily’s wedding was scheduled for a much quieter, much more somber affair the following week at their home, Merewood Estate.

In a few weeks, his sisters would all be married, with the exception of Georgiana, who by God, would get locked up in a closet if she dared to look at a man before she was thirty.

He was more than ready to return home to Merewood, to return to his quiet country ways. Yet still one small tether clung, a thread of hope he couldn’t seem to shove down.

She had to come back to visit her father, didn’t she? And maybe after some time, some distance, she’d realize—and he was still an idiot, apparently.

She didn’t have to realize anything, because she’d never truly been his.

A smack on the side of his arm yanked him from his thoughts. “What?”

Lily huffed. “Don’t ignore me. Blythe’s happiness is wonderful, but it has highlighted the utter lack of any for my upcoming nuptials.” Though the expression on her face remained stoic, she never quite turned away from where Melrose stood, drink in hand, looking like the most miserable bastard in the world.

Adam stood, but Lily wrapped fingers around his forearm. “Please, don’t. He isn’t looking any different than I am. And I assure you, after our wedding next week, we will make the best of things.” A wistful look crossed her brow. “I care for him. Still. Even though I shouldn’t. I will try to build on that, if nothing else.”

Adam sunk back into the seat. “A fine pair we are, Lily. You are miserable because you’re about to be married, and I am miserable because I am not.”

“Rather unconventional of us, don’t you think?” She dropped her head back to rest it on the high back, then turned to face him. “I still think you’re an idiot for letting Aria leave. I still don’t understand why, and no, don’t you give me that look. I will ask a thousand times more if I must. After all, with a blissful Blythe married, it’s just going to be you and me residing here soon enough. You will tell me what happened.”

“No. I won’t.” He stood, and without another word, walked to the sideboard to pour himself a drink.

Cordelia would be heading to Scotland. Their mother was taking Georgie to America with Franklin. And Aria was gone.

He poured another.

Lily followed. “You can drink yourself into oblivion today; I’d like to do the same myself. But you cannot pretend you don’t love her. And if you love her, Adam, how could you walk away from her? After everything you did to find her!”

“I didn’t walk away!” Realizing the words had come out loud and sharp, he dropped his head slightly and lowered his tone. “She ‘freed’ me from my obligation and told me to leave. The woman I thought she was never existed. She chose her previous life, not the one I offered her.”

That hurt more than he could say. He had offered her everything he had, and it hadn’t been good enough. “After everything, after adding yet another bloody scandal for this family to keep—” He shut his mouth.

He’d had enough of secrets and scandals to last a lifetime. His family bore enough of a burden keeping the truth of Thomas’s death; now he’d added to that burden with Wade’s.

And the woman he’d done it for had left them all behind.

“You’re angry,” Lily observed brilliantly.

She leaned over and grabbed a glass of her own. “First of all, your family is fine with the burdens we keep. I, for one, am grateful to have Blythe alive. Second, I’m grateful you saved Aria, because had you lost her to Patrick Wade, you’d be far more miserable to be around than you are now.”

She splashed a healthy dose of brandy into her glass and tipped her head back to drink it. Delicate coughs erupted, and she gasped. “Oh, my.”

“Another?” he asked.

She held a hand to her stomach. “I am beginning to see the merits in this. My insides feel quite cozy at the moment. And lastly—”

“There is more?” he asked drily, tossing his own glass back until the fiery liquid cleared his throat.

“Do hush up. I am meddling here. With everyone else in this family leaving, I will make it my sworn duty to meddle until I see you happy.”

“When I did such a lousy job of ensuring yours?”

“I did that all on my own, brother.” She lifted her glass up, and he poured a delicate sip’s worth.

“But last lastly, are you such a dolt?” She smacked his arm. “I don’t care what she said to you. After everything she went through, it’s a miracle she was still standing. She was grief-stricken. Anything she said was suspect at
best.
And you know what I think?”

“Pray, do tell.”

“I think if you didn’t love her so much, you wouldn’t have let her convince you to walk away.” She stopped, frowned. “That’s what she did, and you followed along. Go to her house, find out where she’s gone. Follow her. Chase her. Let her know how you feel.”

Was Lily right? Had he been so afraid that he’d taken her grief as truth that the woman he loved didn’t exist?

The things she’d said to him that last day had wounded him, triggered the uncertainty he had barely kept shoved down the entire time he’d known her. And Adam realized that he’d never truly believed she would stay, that she would ever be happy in his life.

That
he
would ever be enough for her.

His fear still existed, but what if it had been her grief talking?

“Now,” Lily said. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to think of something nice to say to my future husband.”

As she moved back into the crowd, Adam eyed the bottle of spirits.

Aria had been struck by loss over and over again. The grief at John’s death couldn’t be tempered by the joy at her father’s appearance. The horror of being held by Patrick couldn’t be alleviated by the healthy birth of her brother.

Or by Adam’s avowal to marry her as planned. A plan that had formed in the midst of chaos, a plan that would have tied her to a place that had caused her nothing but pain. How could she not look at the disaster they had wrought in their lives since they’d met and question it?

Maybe he would go to her father’s house and ask her direction. Send her a letter.

But what if she rejected him again?

The sleepless nights manifested like tiny grains of sand grinding into his eyes, and Adam knew he couldn’t revisit the party. He could not pretend to be happy. He didn’t know if he could face her rejection one more time.

He set his glass down, wound out of the room into the entry and toward the doors.

And the knock came.

In moments, Higgins held the door open, and in stepped Gideon Whitney.

He stood awkwardly, bundled from the cold and rubbing his hand over the arm that ended far above where it should.

The man looked like hell.

Adam’s senses came to full alert. “What is it? Is it Aria?”

Whitney’s chin thrust out. “If you are so concerned about her, why haven’t you been to see her?”

“And where should I pay my call? Somewhere east of the Sahara?”

“What are you talking about? We live two goddamn streets over.”

The words hit with a punch. The buzz of laughter and people milling about behind them grew louder in Adam’s ears. “She told me she was leaving, weeks ago. Are you saying Aria is here? In London?”

“She hasn’t even left the
house
.” Whitney added a kick to the punch. “I hoped time was all she needed,” he continued, looking down as if speaking to himself. “But being in London, in that house, is making things worse. She has no distance from everything that happened. She isn’t well.”

“She told me she wished to forget she ever came here.”

“Then I am doing the right thing.”

“And what is that? Why are you here?”

“She needs to leave London. Frankly, I am worried for her mental faculties if she doesn’t.”

Adam waited for the sarcasm that had to follow such a statement. Aria, fragile? She was sass, she was fire, she was light.

She was everything.

“That’s the second time you’ve suggested something is wrong with her.”

“She is lost.” Whitney’s shoulders slumped with an unmistakable grief. “Every day she becomes more withdrawn. She isn’t sleeping. She forgets things. She...” His words had thickened, and they trailed off. “She is fading. I know of no other way to say it. And I am afraid if I don’t do something, she will disappear altogether.”

“May I see her?” Adam asked quietly, though inside he reeled.

Adam could no more imagine Aria as fragile and losing her senses than he could the floor under his feet turning to dust. But he also wouldn’t have believed that the passionate, impulsive woman he had fallen for could be as cold and unfeeling as she’d been that last day at her home.

God, he wished he knew who she truly was.

“I hoped you would do more than that,” Gideon said. “I want you to take her away from here. You are due to return to your estate shortly, correct? Now that your sister has married? Take Aria with you.”

“Would she go?” was the first thought Adam had.

“At this point, I don’t know that she’ll notice.” He ran a hand over his face. “I don’t know how else to help her.” The plaintive thread in his voice spoke of his weariness, his sadness. “I’m losing her, Merewood.”

“Why haven’t
you
taken her away?”

Gideon waved his one good arm in his direction. “Look at me. I’m useless. And with Emily and the babe, it’s too much. I think we’re all too much a reminder of everything she has been through. And I doubt I could find a summer home to lease even if I wanted to.”

“I am also a reminder of these past months.” Adam didn’t know that Aria would welcome his help.

“Maybe. But she trusted you.”

“And now she wishes she never met me.”

“I don’t believe that. Not for a minute. If I did, I wouldn’t be here. She loves you, and you loved her. Is that still true?”

“Yes,” Adam answered swiftly, but his mind reeled over what her father had said. She loved him? He recalled Gideon’s quick assessment of his own feelings for Aria, before Adam had even admitted to them openly. Had he seen something in her as well?

“When do you leave?”

“Two days hence. But she can’t possibly live at my home. The talk would be—”

“Gossip won’t matter a farthing if she doesn’t recover. And your entire family will be there to chaperone. Please. Be at my house to fetch her on your way. She’ll be ready.”

Gideon turned and opened the front door, apparently accepting that he’d done what he’d set out to do. Taking it for granted that Adam would comply.

Adam stared at the empty space where he’d stood. The cool rush of air hung in the room. His heart thudded with the wildness of a caged bird.

He hadn’t said no. But he hadn’t said yes. He ran a hand through his hair, rubbed his aching eyes. If he went, he would be offering her his home. Again.

And what if she rejected him again?

Who would he find when he arrived at Aria’s?