Cloaked in Danger (18 page)

As he said the words his mother’s face softened, and Adam knew he’d lost. “After thirty years, he never let go,” she repeated with a gentle smile. “He never stopped thinking of me.”

“It’s wonderfully sweet.” Blythe folded up the letter and placed it in the envelope again. “I cannot wait to meet him.”

“This is a mistake.” His head screamed against the threat of everything in his world shifting. Of his family being uprooted.

Of no longer being needed.

“I cannot explain to you why I know it is not a mistake, but I do,” his mother said. “And it’s my choice. I want to be happy. I want to be with Franklin, and truly, I am quite excited at the prospect of going to America. It will be such an adventure, at a time in my life when I thought the only adventures I would have would be through my children.”

“But the girls...”

“I am not leaving tomorrow. Franklin wishes to get to know the girls, get to know you. We’ll stay through the year and leave after the holidays. And we’ll get married at Merewood, around Christmas.”

“What if Cordelia finds a husband by the end of this season?”

Hypatia sank back into the chair. “I have no illusions that Cordelia will come to America. She is too ambitious, wants a fortune and a title too much. I fully expect her to choose a husband before the season is up, and if she does not, I will not force her to leave.”

“But Lily and Georgiana will be forced.” Adam turned and walked to the window, as an ache spread in his chest. He had a duty to his family. To his father. He’d made a vow to protect them, to ensure they married well, that they had good lives. How was he supposed to do that now? How could he protect his mother if she married a man he barely knew?

A soft hand landed upon his shoulder and he glanced back to see his mother standing there. “You cannot control everything.”

“It’s my responsibility to—”

“It is your responsibility to be a good son and a good brother, and you are both of those.” She squeezed his shoulder. “I need your support. I need you to be happy for me.”

He couldn’t give her that. He couldn’t stop worrying. He couldn’t stop the incessant voice in his head saying this was wrong, this wasn’t how things were supposed to be.

In his silence, his mother let out a sigh filled with resignation. “Very well. But I will not allow you to wreak havoc upon your sisters with your displeasure. They are going to America with me, and everyone needs to adjust. You need to accept that.”

Adam stared out the window at the street as she turned away. Seconds later, he heard the soft click of the door opening and closing. Blood rushed hot through his body, urging him to do something.

Anything that would keep his family the way they had been.

If they left, what did he have? If Aria was the woman Mrs. Whitney believed her to be, he could expect an unhappy existence with a miserable wife. If she stayed, that is. If Aria had run away to sulk, if she returned in time to go to the bloody theater of all things...

“You’re making a mistake.”

At Blythe’s voice, he turned in surprise. He’d forgotten she was still there.

“How do you know?” he asked, his mind still on Aria.

“Mama’s situation is different from mine with Thomas,” Blythe said, pulling him back to the situation at hand.

“You are overlooking the bald truth because those letters,” he flicked his wrist toward the bundle in her hand, “are sweet and romantic. You should know about sweeping romance better than anyone. It’s not real. And by the time she figures it out, she’ll be in the bloody Colonies.”

“I believe they call it America these days,” she teased, but her smile quickly morphed into a concerned frown. “But Mama knew Mr. Calebowe long ago. These letters are simply an extension of the man she already knew him to be.”

“One who left her once before with nothing more than a goodbye note.” He ran a hand through his hair. “Damn it, there has to be a way to stop this.”

“Adam, you cannot be that large of an idiot. You cannot manipulate our lives to suit your expectations of what is right.” She stood and placed the letters on the chair behind her, before strolling toward him. “I heard the gossip about you and Michael the other night. This has to stop. All of it. I know what you”—her voice broke—”did for me. I would not be alive had you not killed Thomas. You saved my life. You gave me that second chance, and I’m living it the fullest.”

“But with—”

She smacked a finger lightly against his mouth. “Shut it, Adam, and listen to me. We’ve had some version of this conversation too many times, and I do not plan on having it again. I don’t know what it will take to get through your thick head. You think your job is to stop us from making any choices whatsoever, to tell us what’s right and wrong for our lives. That isn’t what we need you for.” She took a step back and held her palms up. “We need our brother. Mama needs her son. We need you to support us, not control us.”

“I am not trying to control you.” He wanted them to make good choices, not stupid ones. What was so wrong with that?

“Yes, you are. In your own loving, stubborn, wonderful way.” She crossed her arms over her chest. “I want to marry Michael. Mama wants to marry Mr. Calebowe. These things make us happy.”

Anxiety coursed through his veins, urging him to walk, run, anything to outpace the growing unsettled ball that spiraled through his stomach. His feet stuck as if glued to the ground.

“If you continue this way, you will irrevocably damage this family,” Blythe added, very quietly.

Everything was slipping from his grasp. His family was in danger of separating for God knew how long and the woman he was betrothed to was missing. And he couldn’t stop any of it.

The harder he tried to hold on, the farther everything flew out of his grasp.

This was the only way he knew how to be. The way his father had been. The man who protected them, who made decisions from logic, not emotion. Didn’t that mean approving their choices? Making sure they didn’t make mistakes? If he didn’t do that, if he wasn’t here to guide them, then what the hell was his purpose?

And if he had so completely misjudged Aria—or worse, if she had disappeared while under his protection—what kind of man was he?

“How is Miss Whitney?” Blythe asked, as if she read his thoughts.

“Why do you ask?”

“Because since she came into your life, you’ve been on edge constantly, quick to react.” Her brows raised. “Quick to consider physical violence.”

“He provoked me,” Adam muttered, knowing she referred to Ravensdale.

“Yes, I’ve expressed my displeasure to Michael as well.”

Somehow the image of that scene cheered Adam slightly.

“Tell me what’s going on. Has she returned? Have you found anything more?”

The door flew open and Georgiana barreled into the room, stopping inches from them. “Do I have to go? Tell me I don’t have to, Adam, please! Let me stay here with you.”

Adam met Blythe’s gaze and heeded the warning in her eyes. Georgiana’s misery was clear, and Adam realized that expressing his own displeasure would be of little comfort. It would serve no purpose other than satisfying his own need to control the outcome.

And his mother had made it perfectly clear that was not going to happen.

Georgiana’s youthful face was flushed with previously shed tears.

We need our brother.
We need you to support us.

Blythe’s words played over and over in his head, and Adam thought back to when their father was still alive. When Adam had been a brother and not a man trying to be both. Not a man trying to fill shoes the size of volcanoes.

He didn’t know if he could be just a brother again.

He placed a hand on Georgiana’s hair and ruffled it lightly. “I wish I could go to America.”

She peered up at him in shock. “You do?”

Adam nodded, forcibly shoving the million doubts out of his mind. She didn’t need to know his worries. She needed to know it would be all right.

He moved to sit in the closest chair. He gestured toward her and she came to sit on his lap. “America is an adventure, Georgie. So much to see, so many possibilities.”

“I don’t want adventure. I want home.”

“My little sister doesn’t want adventure? Since when? What of all the times you set out to conquer the wilds of Merewood lands? Or how you learned to swim when you were but two years old?”

“I did?” she asked with a sniffle. “That was smart of me.”

He laughed and gave her a quick hug. “Yes, it was. And soon, you get to visit a new world, to see new places. You can come back here to visit, but there is a whole unexplored life ahead of you.”

Interest flickered in her expression, and she pursed her lips as if pondering his words.

The parallel between what he was telling Georgiana and what Aria’s life had been thus far was not lost on him. The situations were entirely different, he knew, but the fact was that as soon as his mother and sisters left for America, they’d be living an entirely different life than the one he knew. Not only a new city, a new home, but a world separate from his. A small ache settled in his heart.

From the time he was a boy, he’d known he was the heir to a title and all the responsibilities that went with it. And much like his father had, he’d loved the land. He loved everything about Merewood, about owning and running the estates. He recalled his father teasing him one day that Merewood dirt ran in Adam’s veins, and that had made him as proud as a strutting turkey. He understood the appeal of travel, the excitement of new cities and new places.

But only because he had Merewood to return home to.

The magnitude of what lay ahead clenched his heart. The very ways his world was defined meant nothing in the land of opportunity.

Georgiana wiggled off his lap, said something about asking Mama about whether she would be required to have lessons in America too, and dragged Blythe out the door with her.

Adam stood and followed them with a slow, measured step. Suddenly, he understood how Aria chafed against the mores of society he didn’t question. He turned down the hall.

When one had lived with such freedom, this world would be restrictive beyond belief. Small.

Soon, his family would be in a world without those restrictions. What they shared in common would dwindle tremendously.

And Aria...by marrying her, he would be asking her to permanently live within those restrictions. He had to wonder if the strength of his feelings for her was enough to build a compatible life.

Chapter Twenty-Two

That evening Adam arrived at the Whitney house. He fisted and unfisted his hands, trying to release the knots that had wound him up all day. If Aria wasn’t here...

Though somewhere along the way, he’d started to wonder what he would do if she was.

He was let in, and found Mrs. Whitney in the parlor that was becoming so familiar. She sat on a chaise, speaking in quiet tones to the man next to her.

Wade.

“What are you doing here?” Adam asked bluntly. His mood turned even blacker. This was the last thing he wanted to deal with.

Wade stood. “I came to accompany Miss Whitney to Covent Gardens this evening. It was planned for weeks.”

“Perhaps she believed her plans changed when she told you she was betrothed to me.”

“A betrothal to a man she hardly knows?” Wade sneered. “What is important is that Aria was not here when I arrived. And I understand—” he looked at Mrs. Whitney, “—that she has not been here all day.”

Wade exchanged knowing glances again with Mrs. Whitney, which only fueled Adam’s annoyance. “What?”

Patrick let out a breath that dropped his shoulders. “I am concerned Aria has gone to find her father.”

“She has been doing that for months now. She was attending events and pretending an interest in finding a husband to gain information.”

Understanding dawned in Patrick’s face, and the corners of his mouth turned up slightly. “I see. So she has been using you. She has no intention of going through with the wedding.”

“Aria doesn’t have that option.”

Mrs. Whitney gasped. “Do you mean—”

Patrick stepped toward him, clenched fists at his side. “Are you suggesting that you’ve...you and she have...” He couldn’t force the words past white lips. “You lie.”

“I have no reason to,” Adam said. He couldn’t help getting a perverse enjoyment out of the red hues of anger that slashed over Wade’s neck. There was something about this man... He couldn’t pin it down, but every instinct inside Adam stood at alert. He looked to Mrs. Whitney. “We need to establish a search party, track her last movements.”

Mrs. Whitney let out a shaky breath and sank into a chair. “I should have listened to you. I never thought...What could have happened to her?”

“Mrs. Whitney, you know Aria is impulsive,” Wade said. Even his clipped tone grated in Adam’s ears. “I hate to worry you, but it’s possible she booked passage to go to Egypt herself.”

“She wouldn’t leave London right now.” Adam didn’t question that.

“You don’t know her,” Wade shot back, turning to face him. “You don’t know what she would do.”

Mrs. Whitney looked between them. “It wouldn’t surprise me... She has talked almost every day, especially these last weeks, about leaving London for good as soon as her father returned.” She shrugged. “Perhaps she finally accepted Gideon’s death and left.”

In that moment, Adam could see only the small flowered pattern on the chaise Mrs. Whitney sat on. Hear the bustle of carriages and people on the street.

She had planned to leave?

Patrick lifted his overcoat with a snap of the heavy fabric. “Very well. I will have my men check the docks, outgoing ships or whatever way she might have left London.”

Wade moved toward the door. He never turned his body toward Adam, dismissive and patronizing at the same time.

“She will never be yours,” Wade said softly, pausing in his stride. His words more a threat than a whisper.

Adam turned to face him directly. “She already is.”

Their gazes became a challenge, two dogs measuring each other and searching for weakness. The hard lines of Wade’s face stretched into an ugly smile. “Whatever you say.” With that, he tipped his head and left the room.

Adam gave Mrs. Whitney what assurances he could, since he had none he felt sure of, and began to formulate a plan. But the ugly realization kept rearing its head.

It was becoming more likely that the woman he thought he was looking for did not exist.

* * *

The walls of the drawing room rattled as a door slammed shut. From the hazy depths of her drugged state, Aria lifted her head and waited, unable to summon more than a mild curiosity.

Patrick filled the archway, his black coat billowing about him like the wings of a crow.

His face contorted with rage.

Her stomach tightened into a coil, her heart slammed up into her throat, and Aria struggled to sit up. Then Patrick was there, his snarl in her face. Steel fingers dug into her arms as he yanked her up, inches away.

“Did you whore with Merewood?” The heat of his breath burned her skin, and his tone matched the thunder in his eyes.

Her head...fuzzy. Refused to clear. “What are you talking about?”

He dropped her like a ragdoll. She crashed back against the chair, her back bending in ways that shot knives of agony down her legs.

“He told me your betrothal was not an option, but required. Did you play the whore, Ariadne?” Patrick roared.

Through the fog, she couldn’t hide her own anger. “None of your business.”

He took a step toward her, his fingers clenching and unclenching at his side. “Answer me.”

“Go to hell.” The defiance sapped every ounce of energy she had, but she’d be damned if she would give him a moment of satisfaction.

A roar erupted from his lips and at the same time, he lashed out with his foot. His boot landed with a bone-crushing thump against her thigh. “Did he ruin you?”

A cry erupted, and Aria bit down on her lip to suck in it. The metallic taste of blood touched her tongue, but she stared back in defiance. “Define ruin.”

Patrick let out an animalistic sound filled with rage and insanity.

Aria scrambled to get away. He advanced, and before she could escape him, he threaded fingers into her hair. Crushed her against him. Slammed his mouth against hers, a move of possession.

Of the need to control. Nothing of desire.

“You think you can insult me like that? That you can spread your legs for a bastard’s title?”

Aria shook her head from side to side, trying to pull away from the searing pressure that made her teeth feel ready to fall out. She tried to scream, even knowing no one who could hear would come to her aid. She pummeled his chest with her fists, though her small efforts did little good.

Then he let go as if she’d caught on fire, leaving her to fall in a heap on the floor. Every movement took three times the amount of strength it should, and her limbs had stiffened.

The momentary flash of wildness disappeared from Patrick’s eyes, leaving them cold and flat.

“You were never interested in him. His touch meant nothing to you. You belong with me.” He paced in a circle, one hand tapping fiercely against his thigh in a fevered rhythm. “This requires some minor adjustment.”

A chill ebbed through the aches everywhere. He was mad. Truly, bone-chillingly mad.

“He is twice the man you could ever hope to be. In bed and out of it.” The words escaped before she could think twice, and when he stilled, not a single movement for what felt like hours, dread filled her stomach with a sticky nausea.

Oh God, why hadn’t this sick understanding that she needed to learn to keep her mouth shut come a few seconds earlier?

He stood with his back to her, and time moved with the snails. Then he slid a foot out, swiveled on that until he faced her. The inhuman gleam had returned to his eyes.

She knew fear.

A flash of panic careened through her like a flood, filling her aching limbs with the urgency to move.

Get out. Now.

Before he—

He swept down at her, grabbed her by the hair and yanked her once again to her feet.

“Ow!” she cried.

“Twice the man?”

Fingers curled around her upper arm, the ends digging in as if sharpened. The skin and muscles screamed as they were pinched while he dragged her fully against his hardened body.

Everywhere.

The thickness of him pressed against the juncture of her legs. How could he be aroused by this?

Get away. Get away.

The cloying scent of him, sweat mixed in with the musk he wore, threatened to choke her. But she had to think. Focus.

“Let me go.” She shoved at his chest, which did nothing to slacken the grip he had on her. “Patrick. Let. Me. Go.” She looked up, met his eyes and realized the futility of her task.

Their depths were void of anything. Everything.

His mouth descended, but instead of taking her lips, it fell to her neck. Revulsion slithered along her skin, and she fought to calm her fear. Defending herself was about fighting the fear. With a solid thrust, she shoved the heel of her palm up toward his face, aiming for his nose. His hand knocked hers away, but he lifted his head, so she balled a fist and aimed it directly at his throat. Again, he deflected and flickers of panic began to flare inside of her.

Nothing was working.

Every hit she landed against his muscled body jarred her arms and did nothing to stop him. His lips left a wet trail down her neck.

She struggled in earnest now, using elbows to shove his hands away, but they came back, again and again. She smacked her forehead against his and her vision went blurry for a moment.

It only spurred him on. He bit down, dug in until she thought he would rip her apart by the skin.

“No, you bastard! Stop this!” She fought, scraping nails against skin when possible, wherever possible. But he held her down, iron shackles around her, holding her prisoner against the brick wall he’d become.

The sound of ripping fabric filled the air. The chilled air attacked her chest, her stomach.

She choked back the bile as his lips touched the upper swell of her breast, as one of his hands squeezed the other breast until tears sprung into her eyes.

“You are mine. Every bit o’ you. You’ve always been mine. Do you understand?” His words were feverish, sounding nothing like the smooth tones he spoke so carefully. His speech had slipped, along with his façade.

He was too strong. She couldn’t stop this. She couldn’t keep him from—

The absolute shame of being unable to change what was happening began to flood her inside, until tears spilled down her cheeks. His lips, his hands touched where they shouldn’t.

His weight shifted.

He fumbled with his trousers with one hand, held her at the throat with the other. With every struggle she made, he pushed down, cutting off the air until spasms of coughs burst from her.

Then both hands were free.

She summoned every vestige of strength she had and kicked.

“Arrrgh!” His howl filled the room. He fell to the ground, holding himself. “You bitch!”

Every place Patrick’s hands had touched her body felt raw, exposed, like ants ran under her skin, and she couldn’t rub or scratch the feeling away. She ached.

She would not let him touch her again. She would not let him violate her.

She would rather die.

She grabbed the vase of flowers and threw it at his head, then ran. The shattering of glass and his increasing litany of curses told her she hit her mark, but she refused to look back.

The window. She couldn’t go out the doors. The guards were there. But the window—if she could just get there.

“You will pay, you stupid wench!”

With a frantic breath, she reached the window, fussed with the latch until she could shove the window open.

“Do not be stupid, Ariadne. It’s the second floor. You’ll break your neck.”

She hiked up her skirts, braced one foot on a chair and slid up to the windowsill.

Scrapes of movement behind her sent the ants into a frenzy, and with a cry of desperation, she slid her leg through the window. Then the other.

And let go.