Come Near Me (18 page)

“Yes, yes,” she said, feeling hysteria mount
up inside her, trying to beat it down. She handed the footman the
package, which he returned to her once she was settled inside the
carriage.

She stared at the box for a long time, an
endless, frightened time, then opened the lid.

She heard Dickie’s voice then, heard it
inside her head as she told him he was mad, insane: “Yes, I know.
Otherwise, little doll, this would be over now. Instead, it is just
beginning.”

The large spray of very dead roses spilled
onto the carriage floor as Sherry slid sideways in a swoon.

~ ~ ~

Adam bounded up the stairs two at a time, and
slammed down the hallway before bursting into Sherry’s bedchamber.
“Sherry? Are you all right? Rimmon told me—”

“I’m fine, Adam,” she told him from the
depths of the high, wide tester bed. “Mrs. Clement took me very
much in hand when Biggs summoned her, and I’ve been cosseted enough
for any three women. Mrs. Clement says women in my delicate
condition are prone to bouts of dizziness in the first few
months.”

“The child,” Adam mumbled through numb lips,
thankful for his housekeeper, who was a calm, competent woman. “I
hadn’t thought about the child. Of course.” He approached the bed,
sat down on its edge. “I’m sorry, Sherry.”

“Sorry? For what? I want this child, Adam. I
want this child very much. I can understand if you don’t, but
do.”

Adam winced, knowing he’d put yet another
foot wrong. Once, they had talked for hours, laughed for hours. Now
he couldn’t seem to say anything that made Sherry happy. “Where’s
that maid of yours? Rimmon told me you came back unescorted.”

Sherry’s gaze slid away from his even as her
cheeks paled. She looked so small in the large bed, so young, so
vulnerable. “I—I dismissed her. I should have done it sooner, but
today just seemed to be the time I chose. Mrs. Clement is sending
for her niece, Dorris, to replace her. She said it was about time,
too, but I think making the sign against the evil eye when she
mentioned Emma’s name was perhaps a shade too dramatic, don’t
you?”

Adam was upset, more than upset by Sherry’s
faint, but that didn’t mean he’d lost his wits entirely. “I never
liked that woman. Lazy, insolent. But you insisted on keeping her,
so I let it alone. She did something, didn’t she? Something that
upset you?”

“No!” Sherry pressed her hands to her cheeks,
probably to hide the guilty coloring she must know he’d learned to
recognize. “Well, yes.” she said, dropping her hands as he tipped
his head, looked at her expectantly. “She purposely directed me to
a shop owned by one of her family. At least I think so, as the name
painted on the window was Oxton. If she had said as much, that
would be one thing, but I decided she was, um, overstepping. She
was rather belligerent when I pointed that out to her and... and,
well, I dismissed her.”

A lie for a lie. Did she believe admitting to
one lie made it easier for her to dupe him with the second one?
Poor Sherry. She was cursed with the inability to be even the
slightest bit devious. A truth he had learned too late, but a truth
nonetheless.

“And the dead roses, Sherry?” he asked
quietly, taking her hands in his, holding them, squeezing them
slightly. “Is that what your maid’s family sell in their shop? Dead
roses?”

“Oh, God,” Sherry breathed, closing her eyes.
“Adam, could you send Mrs. Clement to me, please? I’m feeling
faintly muzzy again, and she said she’d bring me tea. And I’m to
remain in bed for the rest of the day, which is probably a good
thing, for I’m really quite sleepy.”

“Sherry? What’s happening? I don’t blame you
for not trusting me. God knows I’ve been an ass these past months.
But, please, darling, talk to me now. Something’s going on.
Something I don’t understand. Let me help you, darling. Let us help
each other.”

She looked at him. With love in her eyes. He
prayed it was love in her eyes. But without a drop of trust. “Emma
was a maid, Adam, not the Devil incarnate. I dismissed her then,
silly thing that I am, swooned when I felt guilty about doing
something I should have done weeks ago. The box was Emma’s, not
mine. I have no idea why it contained dead roses, any more than I
know where she is now. Nor do I care. And I think it very mean of
you to press at me when I’m not feeling quite well. If you’d ring
for Mrs. Clement now?”

Knowing when he was beaten, not that one
battle was the war, Adam left and made his way down the servants’
stairs, hoping to find the footman in the kitchens. He grabbed the
youth by the ear, dragged him out to the mews, and ordered two
horses saddled at once.

“We goin’ somewheres, milord?” the footman
asked, speaking around a lump of apple wedged into his cheek.

“You’re taking me to Bond Street,” Adam said
as the two horses were brought out. “To the shop her ladyship
visited this afternoon. You do remember its location, don’t
you?”

“Yes, milord, that I does,” the footman
agreed, and they were off.

An hour later, having twice ridden the length
of Bond Street, they returned to the mews, the footman still
shaking his head, still apologizing. “I coulda sweared that was the
shop, milord. A draper’s shop, that’s wot it was. Mayhap if we wuz
to go back onct more?”

“No need, no need,” Adam said, dismounting,
handing the reins to a groom. “Thank you for your time.”

They’d gone directly to the draper’s shop,
the footman firm in his belief of its direction, only to find an
empty store. No name on the glass, no goods on the shelves. He’d
humored the footman, riding the length of Bond Street with him, but
he knew they’d found the correct shop.

Adam opened the door to Sherry’s chamber,
finding the draperies closed against the faint light outside, the
entire room in shadows. He walked to the side of the bed, looking
down at his wife as she slept, whispered to her in the
darkness.

“It’s a game, isn’t it, darling? A dangerous,
dangerous game neither of us wanted to play, one for which neither
of us knows the rules. We never did. He’s back, isn’t he? Richard
Brimley is back. He’s playing the game again. You know it, I know
it. We just don’t know why.”

Adam found a chair, carried it over to the
bed, sat down, took one of Sherry’s hands in his. He was prepared
to stay with her all through the night, protecting her from demons
he couldn’t understand. “Ah, sweetheart, if only we could go back.
If only we could begin again. It was all so wonderful. Such a
perfect dream. I’d gladly sell my soul to have that dream back
again...”

A Dangerous Game

It is the function of vice to

keep virtue within reasonable bounds.

— Samuel Butler

Before...

Soft eyes look’d love to eyes which spake again,

And all went merry as a marriage bell.

—
Lord Byron

“S
uch haste, Romeo, is
unseemly,” Geoff said as he sat sideways in the Sheraton armchair,
his legs dangling over the side as he watched his brother being
shaved.

“Really?” Adam accepted a warmed towel from his
valet and rubbed it over his jaw, then stood, inspecting himself in
the mirror over the dressing stand. He usually shaved himself, but
this was his wedding day, and he was nervous as any bridegroom. He
didn’t plan to start this most important of all days by bleeding
all over his cravat.

“Oh, yes. Truly. I may even have read that
somewhere,” Geoff continued happily, for he’d been drinking since
early that morning, by way of celebration, as he’d told Adam.
“Wait, I have another one! Not Romeo, though. Seems my school days
weren’t all spent working most diligently to avoid learning
anything. Congreve, I believe, or one of those dead poets. Yes,
he’s the one. How did he say it? Something about marrying in haste,
only to repent in leisure? There’s probably a few
fies
and a
’
tis
in there somewhere, but it hurts my brain to get round
those words. Anyway, brother, you know the girl a week. If that’s
not haste, I don’t know what is.”

“Perhaps I worried you’d try to steal a march on
me,” Adam said as he slipped his arms into the waistcoat his valet
held out for him. “There is that.”

“As if there’s a chance of that happening. Not that
you’re more handsome, mind you. Lord knows I’m the only one who
inherited any looks in the family. Unfortunately, you inherited the
title. Now you’re probably going to reproduce yourself a half dozen
times, so that I’ll never again be able to toddle around London
with the words
heir to the title
reverently whispered after
me as I pass.”

“Is that what they whisper?” Adam said, teasing his
brother, who was doing such a fine job of teasing him. “I had
thought they were whispering ‘there he goes, the younger brother of
that most marvelous marquess of Daventry.’”

“Marvelous, is it? Hah! Think, man, think what
you’re doing to me. I can’t be sure, considering the fact that I’m
more handsome, younger, and quite a wit, but I may just be losing
much of my consequence thanks to
your
losing a bout with
Cupid. God, no wonder I’m drinking. I thought this was a
celebration, but perhaps I’m drinking to the passing of a dear,
dear boy. Me, that is. Moving out of the shadow of the title, and
fully into obscurity. Ah, the misery.” He held out his empty glass.
“Pour me some more wine, would you, brother? My mouth’s too dry to
summon a suitably affecting, anguished moan.”

“I think you’ve had enough, as you’re supposed to be
bearing me up as I suffer through my last hours as a carefree
bachelor. Keep me from bolting, running out through the back of the
chapel, or whatever it is bridegrooms do when they realize they’re
about to trade their freedom for a yoke around their necks.”

“A yoke around your neck? Oh, Sherry would
appreciate hearing that, I’m sure.” Geoff scrambled to his feet. “I
think I’ll just go tell her. Right after I pour myself another
glass of wine.”

Adam watched his brother pour two glasses of wine,
accepted the one he was offered. “Do you really think I’m making a
mistake, Geoff?”

“Do you, brother?”

Adam sank into the tall chair, waving his valet out
of the room. “I’m mad for her, Geoff. From the moment I first saw
her, I knew. I just knew.”

“You knew what, Adam?”

“That I had to have her.”

Geoff cleared his throat, but didn’t speak.

“What?” Adam asked, looking at his brother. “Go on.
Say what’s on your mind.”

You had to have her, Adam? I see. Then we’re not
speaking of love here, are we? Having her is owning her. Possessing
her. I think I’d feel better if you’d drop a few
I love her
s
and
I adore her past all reasoning’s
into this conversation.
I mean, I like Sherry. She’s quite a sweet, innocent, loving young
creature. She probably believes you love her.”

“Of course I love her,” Adam said testily, grabbing
his favorite old jacket from the back of the chair and punching his
arms into the sleeves. There was time and enough for his valet to
return, to help him with his cravat, his bridal clothes. He felt a
sudden need to be out of this room, perhaps to take a walk through
the gardens, breathe some fresh air. “Bloody hell, Geoff, I never
said I didn’t love her.”

“And she’s from a respectable family, not to mention
that her father would probably feed your liver to his hounds were
you to consider any other arrangement with Sherry besides marriage.
Still, it would have been easier if she’d been a housemaid, or a
dancer in London, I suppose. I’ve
had to have
a few of those
myself, but it wasn’t necessary to jump into a parson’s mousetrap
in order to do so, thank God. You’re blowing hot right now,
brother, hotter than the outskirts of Hell on a windy day. What
happens when that wind blows itself out? Are you left with only
those empty words—
of course I love her?”

“Go away, Geoff,” Adam said, sinking onto the chair
once more. “Take the decanter with you, but just go away, all
right? The vicar will be here at two, and you can meet me in the
chapel. In the meantime, I believe I’d find more brotherly
support
in your absence.”

“You won’t ever hurt her, will you, Adam?” Geoff
asked quietly, laying a hand on his brother’s shoulder. “You’ve
snatched her up, carried her off on every young maiden’s dream, if
I know anything at all. Don’t ever let her fall, all right? Because
I don’t think I could forgive you that, big brother or not. If I’ve
ever met an innocent, it’s Charlotte Victor. After Melinda, after
all your years spent enjoying those not so innocent ladies of
London, I think it’s Sherry’s innocence and honesty that you want,
even more than you want her. The devil of it is that you have to
destroy a part of that innocence you crave so much in order to
possess it.”

Adam rubbed the back of his hand across his mouth.
“You know something, Geoff? I believe you’re probably the most
intelligent person I know. And I’m the least intelligent, because
it took me until today to realize that fact. I was probably too
busy rescuing you from your latest bout of recklessness, I suppose.
Now go away. You’ve given me a lot to think about. A lot to think
about...”

~ ~ ~

Sherry looked toward the small mountain of luggage
standing in the foyer of Frame Cottage, knowing that their entire
contents were totally unsuitable for a London Season. And yet,
before the day was out, that’s where she and her unsuitable
wardrobe would be. In London. In Grosvenor Square. In her husband’s
town mansion.

Her husband. In less than two hours, Adam would be
her husband.

Oh, God.

Perhaps if she ate something? No. Her stomach would
surely go into revolt if she ate anything, even so much as a dry
crust of toast.