Come Near Me (8 page)

“I’m terrified, actually,” Sherry answered honestly,
dredging up all of her courage so that she looked the marquess
straight in the eye. As to why, my lord, I should think that’s
obvious. I don’t have the slightest idea why I’m here, or what to
say. I may even use the wrong fork at dinner.” At this embarrassing
thought, she leaned forward slightly, anxiously, to add: “There
won’t be more than three, will there? Mrs. Forrest taught me what
to do with three, but beyond that, I’m afraid, I would totally
disgrace myself in front of your very proper servants.”

The marquess nodded quite solemnly. “Yes, I see your
problem, Miss Victor. We can’t have that, can we? I know. I’ll have
the servants shot.”

Sherry looked at him for a long moment, then burst
into laughter. “Idiot!” she exclaimed, forgetting all over again
that this was the important, powerful marquess of Daventry. “We
should only have them face the wall, as so not to witness my faux
pas. Shooting them is probably unnecessary, although I must thank
you for the offer.”

“Ah, there we go,” Adam Dagenham said, his smile
filling her near to bursting with an emotion she found impossible
to name, although it was definitely a very nice emotion. “For a
moment I thought I’d dreamed our meeting earlier today. Call me a
gudgeon, Miss Victor, and I’ll be convinced it really did
happen.”

She picked up the ends of the ribbons tied beneath
her bodice and wrapped them around her finger, avoiding his eyes.
“I can’t do that, my lord,” she said, her head bowed as she bit her
lip, refusing to giggle at his nonsense. “These surroundings and
your title forbid me.”

She felt him move closer as he rose from the couch
and pulled a low footstool forward, sitting down beside her. “Then
I’ll burn down these forbidding surroundings,” he said, taking her
hands in his, rubbing his thumbs across the back of her fingers.
“I’ll renounce my title and fortune to Geoff over there, although
he’d run through every last penny within a fortnight. I’ll live
beside the stream, and you can come visit me every day, bringing me
your smile, your laughter. And perhaps a crust of bread,” he added,
chuckling, “as I’d probably be starving.”

Sherry raised her gaze, unable to look at his hands
on hers any longer, unwilling to think how easy it would be to
raise their clasped hands, to lay her cheek against his tanned
skin. “I think you may be insane, my lord,” she said, whispering
the words.

“Oh, Miss Victor, I’m convinced of that,” he
answered just as quietly. “It’s a sudden madness that settled on me
just today. Isn’t it wonderful?”

Wonderful. A lovely description, if incomplete,
frighteningly wonderful was probably more exact, or at least that
was the conclusion Sherry reached during dinner. Her father, never
shy, dominated the conversation, as she picked at course after
course, until the entire parade of elegant foodstuffs was finished
and His Lordship suggested Lord Dagenham and her father go straight
to the kennels to inspect a new litter of hounds.

“You could be a little more subtle, brother,” Lord
Dagenham said as Sherry blushed to the roots of her hair—she really
had been doing that a lot today. “However, as I’m finding myself
unmanned by your mooncalf ways, I believe it’s probably for the
best that I take dear Mr. Victor away. You’re embarrassing, old
son, really you are. Miss Victor,” he said, bowing, “my
condolences. Don’t let him drool on you, all right?”

“Eh?” Stanley Victor grunted. He looked to the
marquess, then to his daughter, and shook his head, dismissing
whatever thought had tried to enter it. “No. Couldn’t be,” he said,
oblivious to anything but his dogs, just as he ever was, then he
shook his head again and followed after Lord Dagenham, asking him
how many pups the bitch had birthed.

“Well, that was uncomfortable,” the marquess said,
waving away a footman and holding the chair for Sherry himself so
that she could rise, then offering her his arm. “Shall we take a
stroll in the gardens? The roses are particularly fine this year;
unusually early, the gardeners tell me, and almost shamefully
abundant. Perhaps you noticed a few in the drawing room?”

“A few? There were at least four vases of roses, as
I recall,” Sherry smiled up at him as he pushed open French
windows, leading to a wide flagstone patio. They’d have
conversation now, she knew, and she’d probably embarrass herself,
and him. After all, what did she have to say that could possibly
interest a marquess, a gentleman used to London debutantes? She
could only hope she didn’t say anything
too
silly.

“Oh, my,” she said a moment later, forgetting her
fears as she let go of his arm and hastened to the stone stairs
leading down to the gardens.

She tripped down the stairs, holding her skirts
above her ankles, and took a half dozen steps into the rose garden,
then turned to gaze up at the marquess. “I can’t believe there are
so many different roses in the whole world, yet alone in one
garden. I’ve never seen... never imagined!”

She raced to her right, cupping an immense yellow
bloom in her hands. “Why, it’s as big as a dessert plate! And
here,” she said, her gaze falling on a bush nearly as high as she
was, its inky dark leaves fitting frames for several dozen blooms
as white as snow, each as perfect as a snowflake. “And over there,”
she continued, lost in the beauty that surrounded her inside the
huge, walled garden, “that pink. I’ve never seen such a pink as
that. This isn’t just a garden, my lord. It’s
paradise!”

Adam Dagenham descended the steps slowly, his eyes
never leaving Sherry’s face, never looking at the flowers. Her
heart stood still, waiting for him to take her hand, to lead her
along the curved paths of the garden.

“Yes,” she heard him agree as the buzzing in her
ears grew louder, as her heart pounded not in fear, but in
anticipation. “That’s just how I would have put it, Miss Victor.
Paradise. A veritable Eden. And not a snake in sight. Shall we take
that stroll now?”

After...

I answer in the affirmative

with an emphatic “No.”

— Sir Boyle Roche

A
dam was late
arriving at the Oxford Arms to meet his friends, and he was still
frowning over the memory of Sherry’s maid, Emma, as he’d last seen
her in the upstairs hall in Grosvenor Square.

She had been carrying a full vase of roses,
muttering under her breath as, ignoring him as he stepped out of
her way, she headed toward the servants’ staircase.

“Ringin’ that bell, orderin’ me ta take the
flowers away. Like it was me what brung them up here? No. I didn’t
bring them. Think the woman was goin’ ta have a liedown, give me
some peace. But she rings that bell, then sits there all
high-and-mighty in her bed,
orderin’
me to dump the posies
in the rubbish...”

“Enjoying your own conversation, are you,
Emma?” Adam had asked, eyeing the flowers as he stood in the
hallway and carefully shot his cuffs. “Is something amiss with Her
Ladyship?”

Emma’s curtsy was more insolent than
respectful, but Adam knew it would do no good to reprimand her.
Emma Oxton was a law unto herself in Grosvenor Square, mostly
because Sherry let the woman rule her rather than the other way
around. He’d have had her gone in the first week, except that
Sherry refused to acknowledge that her maid was insubordinate. And
lazy into the bargain.

“She says what she don’t like roses, m’lord,”
Emma said, holding out the heavy vase with both hands. “No need to
cry about it, exceptin’ that she is. I’m goin’ now, to toss them in
the rubbish.”

Crying? Sherry had been crying? Adam reached
out a hand to stroke one of the delicate pink blooms, his mind a
jumble of memories, only some of them good. “I see,” he said, not
seeing at all. “Put them in my rooms, Emma, if you don’t mind. It
will save you a trip down the stairs. You’d like that, wouldn’t
you?”

The maid shrugged, looking incredibly sly for
the lazy slattern she was. “Yes, that would work,” she said, then
turned on her heels to shamble off to Adam’s chambers.

“A moment, Emma, if you would?” Adam called
after her, so that the maid sighed audibly, then turned to glare at
him. “There will be no more roses in Her Ladyship’s chambers. No
more roses in this entire household. All right?”

“Weren’t me what gave ‘em to her,” Emma said.
“You’d better be tellin’ the one what did.”

The “one what did,” Adam had learned from
Rimmon, was his new friend, Edmund Burnell. It had been a harmless
enough gesture, Adam knew, as Burnell could have no idea that the
roses, however beautiful, might have bothered Sherry. As they
bothered him. Which was probably why he’d ordered the maid to put
them in his chambers. As a reminder, perhaps even as a sort of
penance.

Now, pushing all thoughts of roses and
remorse from his mind, Adam pushed open the door of the Oxford Arms
and stepped from the bright sunlight into the near dark of the inn,
standing still for a moment until his eyes adjusted to the
dimness.

“There you are, Adam. I knew I could count on
you to get my note to meet here,” he heard Collin Laughlin call
out, and he turned to his right, heading for the table his friend
had secured in the corner of the nearly deserted taproom.

Chollie was looking his same, cheerful Irish
self as he had months earlier, when last Adam had seen him. His
neckcloth was draped loosely around his throat, his cheeks were
flushed, and his eyes shone bright—undoubtedly a result of having
arrived earlier than Adam and already having begun some serious
imbibing. Adam watched as Chollie shoved his gold-rimmed spectacles
back up his nose and stood up, stretching out his arms to give him
a hug.

Chollie was a hugging sort of man, which Adam
wasn’t, but he endured his friend’s backslapping enthusiasm because
he truly loved this man who had been his friend since Adam had met
him at a boxing match ten years previously. He’d met Chollie
because Chollie had been in the ring—until he’d been knocked out of
it and onto Adam’s lap by a wicked punch from some low-browed hulk
named the Bruising Blue. Never was there a man less physically
suited for the fancy as Chollie, what with his rail-thin body and
shortsightedness. But Irish was Irish, and Chollie swore that all
Irish were born mad as fire to be alive and therefore spent their
lives looking for someone to punch.

“Ah, Adam, it’s grand to be seeing you, it
is,” Chollie said as he retook his seat and gave a whistle to the
barmaid, who came running up with another mug of strong ale.
“Drink! Drink!” he commanded. “I’m miles ahead of you, you know,
and we can’t have that.”

Adam did as he was bid, raising the mug and
not lowering it again until its entire contents had been
redeposited inside him. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand,
he grinned at Chollie, shaking his head. “God, man, but it’s good
to see you again. How was Ireland?”

“Still there, still oppressed by you bloody
Englishers,” Chollie answered with a wink. “It’s thinking about
mounting a rebellion I am, except that there’s forty thousand
others thinking the same thing and all of them wanting to lead the
parade, so that we fight more amongst ourselves than we do against
the rod lying over all our backs. So we drink, and we sing sad
songs and wipe away a tear or two, then go back to drinking some
more.” He shrugged. “It’s hard, boyo, being Irish. Very wet work.
Alice! Another round, darlin’, if you please!”

Adam knew that Chollie’s banter hid a
melancholy heart, and he only nodded to his friend, then picked up
his new mug and drank deeply. “This place is falling down,
Chollie,” he said, looking around the taproom after wiping his
mouth once more. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see it gone next time
you come to London.”

“True, true,” Chollie answered, sighing. “But
this lovely hovel has such a lot of Ireland about it, don’t you
know. I’ll miss it.” He noisily blew his nose, then rubbed at his
moist eyes.

“You know what I think, Chollie?” Adam said,
as Alice automatically replaced their mugs with new ones. “I think
that for a race that says being born is a curse, you’re still
mighty glad to be Irish.”

“Not a curse to be born, boyo, a disaster,”
Chollie said, putting away his handkerchief. “Being born’s a
calamity, marriage an anticlimax, and death looms ahead as a happy
release. Nothing an Irishman loves better than a bruising good
wake, don’t you know. And speaking of marriage, boyo, how’s that
angel bride of yours? Couldn’t be prettier if she was Irish.”

Adam stared into the bottom of his empty
mug.

“Oh-oh!” Chollie said, tipping his head to
look at Adam. “I’m not liking that dark cloud I’m seeing over your
head all of a sudden. What happened, I’d like to know. Last time I
saw you, boyo, you were so full of April and May, the two of you.
What did you do wrong?”

Adam lifted his head, smiling slightly as he
looked at his friend. “What makes you think I did something wrong,
Chollie?”

“Just stands to reason, I suppose. Being a
bachelor boy as long as you were, and all of that. You gave up that
skirt in Covent Garden, I’m supposing, so that can’t be it. You did
give her up, didn’t you?”

“I never
had
a skirt in Covent Garden,
Chollie,” Adam reminded his friend. “That was you, remember?”

Chollie pushed up his spectacles so roughly
Adam was surprised he didn’t knock himself over. “God’s eyebrows,
so I did! Lovely little colleen, with a wonderfully wicked way
about her. I wonder if she’s forgotten me. Lovely little colleen.
And is it remembering her name you’d be, boyo, seeing as how I
might need to know that if I think to go back to see her
tonight?”

“Sheila,” Adam provided obligingly, grateful
to have the subject of his marriage abandoned for the moment. “But
before you go running off to buy your way back into her good graces
with some pearls or whatever, I ought to warn you that a friend
will be joining us shortly.”