by Diana Bold
Vanessa frowned. “Don’t you want to have dinner with us? It will be our first night as a…family.” She didn’t want to push him, but she couldn’t bear to let him walk away from her tonight. She feared it would set a pattern that would be almost impossible to break. She didn’t want to be his wife in name only. She wanted it all, the bad and the good.
“Not tonight, Vanessa.” He gave her an apologetic look, but his blue eyes were resolute. “I need a little time. To sort things out in my head. And Roger and I have unresolved issues. Prometheus is going to pay him a visit.”
Her heart clenched in dismay. “Run up to your room,” she told Gabriel softly. “I’ll be right there.”
Gabriel looked between them, obviously sensing the tension. His face fell a bit. “All right.” As he trudged up the stairs, he showed none of his earlier excitement. She frowned as she watched him, worried that she was already failing terribly as a parent. And as a wife.
Vanessa waited until Gabriel was out of sight, then turned her gaze upon her husband. “Please,” she whispered. “You’re not thinking clearly. I’m worried about you.”
“Worried?” He laughed harshly and ran his hand through his hair, a gesture she was beginning to realize signified intense emotion on his part. “Don’t you think I can take care of myself?”
“I know you can,” she hastened to reassure him, knowing she’d inadvertently pricked his pride. “But there’s obviously bad blood between you and Roger. If you go there tonight, dressed as Prometheus, and confront him about what he did to me, don’t you think he’ll put two and two together? He’s sure to go to Scotland Yard.”
“What makes you think he’ll be able to tell anybody my identity?” The fury beneath his words, the coldness, made her take a step back, suddenly afraid.
“Are you saying that you’re going to…kill him?” She’d known Adrian had darkness in his soul. But until this moment, she hadn’t realized how deep it ran.
Adrian took her arm and pulled her into the closest room, shutting the door behind them, obviously wanting to keep this conversation from Gabriel, which seemed such a contradiction. How could he be a cold-blooded killer, and yet worry so much about a child?
“Do you think he deserves to live?” He gripped her shoulders and stared into her eyes. “What if I told you that he owns the house I took Gabriel from? That he was probably the first one to hurt that boy? I can’t bear to think of what he did to you, Vanessa, but this isn’t just about you. This thing between me and Roger goes back…a long time.”
He released her suddenly, turning away, but not before she saw something frightening in his eyes. Fiona thought he’d been hurt as a child, and she suddenly wondered if it was true.
“Adrian,” she whispered. “What did he do to you?” She put her hand on his shoulder, but he jerked away. She stared at his tense back, her heart breaking for him. But how could she help, when he seemed so determined not to let her?
“We may be married,” he snarled after a long minute. “But we both know that you didn’t do this so you could offer me comfort and pretend to care.”
She swallowed, tears welling in her eyes. But his words gave her an opening, and even though he’d hurt her, she knew she deserved it. He did want her to comfort him. He just didn’t realize it yet. She remembered so clearly that night they’d spent in her flat, reading and drinking hot chocolate. If the only way she could get that back was to make love to him, she was more than willing to try.
“Please don’t go,” she said softly. “It’s our wedding night. Let me live up to my half of the bargain. Don’t you want me?”
He laughed harshly. “You know I do. Just not now. Not yet. I don’t know how to be any clearer.”
She stepped forward and tried to touch his face, but he backed away, shaking his head. “I’ll see you tomorrow. We’ll talk then. In the meantime, make yourself at home. Take care of Gabriel. Unpack your things.”
Before she could respond, he turned and left the room.
* * * *
Adrian crouched upon a ledge outside the window of a house in Bloomsbury, staring in stunned disbelief as Bridget sobbed quietly in the middle of a large, rumpled bed. He’d looked for the girl for weeks, but had never known this place existed until his conversation with Vanessa earlier in the day.
“He took me to the house where he kept his mistresses…”
After he’d left his new bride, that snippet of conversation had haunted him, giving him something to focus on other than his murderous need to find Roger and kill him. He’d enlisted Clinton’s help, and a few hours and twenty pounds worth of bribes later, he’d been provided with this address.
Adrian had been fairly certain he’d find some poor child trapped in this house, he just hadn’t expected it to be Bridget. His relief at finding her was tempered by the fact that his own interest in her had brought her to Roger’s perverted attention. This was his fault.
Unfortunately, Roger was nowhere in sight. Adrian had sincerely hoped his stepbrother would be here. Now he found himself briefly regretting that he hadn’t simply gone to Roger’s house in Mayfair. While he was happy to protect this girl, who was suffering because of him, he had relished the thought of taking out his fury and heartbreak on the bastard who had caused so much devastation in his life.
Of course there was no real choice. He had to save Bridget. Roger’s reckoning could wait. But the rage inside him right now was a living thing that resented being thwarted. He wasn’t at all certain he wouldn’t have killed Roger tonight, if he’d just been given the chance.
From the way Bridget was sobbing, he’d probably just missed the bastard.
He took several deep breaths, trying to calm the hatred inside him, then attempted to open the window. He wasn’t surprised to find it had been nailed shut. Grimacing, he took off his cape and wrapped the fabric around his hand, then punched through the glass, causing Bridget to jump to her feet, her hands to her mouth.
He took off his mask and ducked his head through the opening he’d made, pulling the broken shards of glass from the frame so she could safely crawl through. “Bridget,” he called softly. “Don’t cry out. It’s all right. Do you remember me?”
She stared at him, wide-eyed, for a few seconds before nodding nervously.
“I’m here to take you away from this place, to somewhere you’ll be safe. Will you come with me?”
Bridget crept forward, wiping her eyes and clutching the see-through nightgown she wore to her thin, bruised body. “I don’t have no shoes. Nor nothin’ else to wear,” she said helplessly.
Adrian shook out his cloak, passing it to her through the broken window. “Put this on, and I’ll carry you. But you must hurry.”
“You won’t hurt me, will you, mister?” she asked fearfully. “You was so nice to me before…the only one who never hurt me…”
Thank God for the little bit of rapport he’d managed to build with her. “I won’t hurt you,” he assured her again. “I’m here to help you, Bridget.”
She hesitated for only half a second more before wrapping herself securely in the thick cloak and scrambling through the window into his arms. He held her frail body against his chest, the anger that had driven him here slowly abating. He would not have his reckoning with Roger tonight, but he’d found the girl he’d been searching for so long.
“You’re safe,” he whispered, hugging her tight. “He’ll never hurt you again.”
Chapter Nineteen
“What is wrong with you?” Fiona asked grumpily when Adrian roused her from a deep sleep an hour later. Bridget shivered in the hall behind him, ready to bolt at the slightest provocation.
He raked his hand through his hair in frustration. “Besides the obvious?”
Fiona gave a gruff laugh as she slid into her robe and lit her bedside lamp. “You’re the last person I expected to see tonight, of all nights. Don’t you have something…better you could be doing?”
He ignored her jab and pointed to Bridget. “
I’ve brought you someone new.”
Fiona gave him one last measuring look, then shook her head, and focused on the girl. “Hello, sweetheart. What’s your name?”
Bridget bit her lip and stared down at her dirty bare feet, hugging Adrian’s cloak tighter around her thin shoulders.
“Her name is Bridget,” Adrian answered for her. “She’s had a rough night, Fi. She could use a hot bath and something warm to eat.”
“Of course,” Fiona murmured soothingly. “I’ll show her to the bathroom and get her some warm nightclothes, if you’ll go wake Christine and have her make something to eat.”
Adrian gave a huff of irritation. “Christine can sleep. I’m perfectly capable of finding my way around the kitchen.”
“All right then,” Fiona agreed, her eyes twinkling. “Let’s go get you settled, Bridget, shall we?”
Bridget dug in her heels, giving Adrian a pleading look, obviously unwilling to put herself in the hands of yet another stranger. Adrian squeezed her shoulder. “It’s all right,” he told her softly. “You can trust Fiona. She only wants to help.”
Giving him a long searching look, Bridget finally nodded and followed Fiona down the hall. Adrian watched them until they disappeared into the bathroom, then sighed, and made his way through the huge, silent house to the kitchen on the ground floor.
The first tendrils of dawn light were creeping through the window as he lit the stove and put a kettle on. With a sigh, he opened the larder and stared blankly at the shelves. Exhaustion made it hard to focus. He’d hardly slept at all the night before his wedding, and this last night spent jumping across rooftops, fueled by so many conflicting emotions, certainly hadn’t helped.
As soon as Bridget was comfortably settled, he’d go home and sleep the day away, he promised himself, finally pulling out a loaf of rye bread and a tub of butter. If he could just sleep for a while, it would buy him a little more time before he had to face Vanessa.
God, the thought of what he could have spent the night doing was enough to nearly bring him to his knees. All he really wanted was to find his way into Vanessa’s bed and bury himself in her lovely body, then fall asleep in her arms. Why couldn’t she have been the woman he thought she was, the one he’d fallen so hard for?
When he turned back to the table, he found Fiona leaning against it, staring at him far too perceptively. “Why are you here, Adrian? Why aren’t you at home with your wife?”
“Prometheus never sleeps,” he quipped bitterly, unwilling to be drawn into this conversation. He feared if he told her anything, she’d somehow see the entire sordid truth.
Frowning, she took the bread and butter out of his hands and returned them to the larder. “Bridget says she’s too tired to eat. She’s already in the bath. When she’s done, I’ll get her settled. You should go home.”
He nodded bleakly and then impulsively hugged her. “Thanks, Fi. I know I ask too much of you, showing up like this in the middle of the night.”
“Don’t be silly.” She broke away from him with an embarrassed laugh. “You know I live for these kids.”
He gave her a sad smile and turned toward the door.
“It’s not her fault, you know.” Fiona’s soft words stopped him in his tracks. “What that bastard did to her…it wasn’t her fault. She isn’t to blame any more than that little girl upstairs is.”
“I know that,” he said brokenly. “Christ. Don’t you think I know that?” The thought of Roger touching Vanessa with his filthy hands was enough to drive him to murder, but he didn’t think any less of Vanessa for having been lured into the bastard’s trap.
“You leaving her like this, on this of all nights…she’s bound to think that’s the reason.” Fiona cleared her throat nervously, obviously sensing she’d crossed a line but unable to stop herself. “Don’t do this to her, Adrian. Don’t do this to yourself.”
He left without answering, but her words haunted him all the way home.
* * * *
Vanessa spent the first day of her marriage with Clinton, interviewing nearly a dozen people Adrian had apparently lined up to fill the roles of Gabriel’s tutor and her own lady’s maid. She chose a young lady named Bates for Gabriel, and an older woman named Browne for herself.
She also met with both the housekeeper and cook, who confided they were glad the house finally had a mistress. Apparently, Adrian had never taken much of an interest in how his household was run. She sensed that Clinton was the one who had held the whole thing together over the years.
Not that Vanessa herself knew anything about such things, but the three main staff members gave her a lot of helpful advice and suggestions, and she thought she’d managed to get through the day without embarrassing herself too badly. She’d never before realized how much there was to keeping a house this big operating smoothly. With her new additions, the staff numbered thirteen.
Clinton also informed her that Adrian had arranged accounts for her at some of the city’s finest shops. Adrian apparently wanted her to buy a new wardrobe and didn’t care how much she spent to do so. His generosity made her exceedingly uncomfortable, because she knew her own actions had made him think this was all she wanted from him.
Of her husband himself, there was no sign. She hadn’t seen him since he’d left the house last night, though she’d heard him come in at dawn. Where had he been all night? Had he killed Roger? Had he sought comfort in the arms of someone else? She was afraid to ask.
She ate dinner with Gabriel in the nursery again, then tucked the excited little boy good night, but still Adrian stayed away.
Determined not to let him shut her out, she finally went in search of him, realizing she had no idea where to start. Clinton reluctantly told her that he was indeed at home, but refused to tell her where.
Starting on the ground floor, she began a methodical search of her new home, finding that most of the rooms looked like they hadn’t been disturbed since he’d moved in. Only the study where he’d received her the day she’d made her proposal and a bedroom on the third floor next to hers appeared to be lived in. She made sure the door that connected their suites was unlocked and then reluctantly settled into bed with a book she’d found in the library.
* * * *
When Roger arrived at the house where he kept his current plaything, he could tell immediately that something was wrong. The two guards he’d left to watch over Bridget would not meet his gaze and seemed absolutely terrified to see him.
He handed the butler his coat and pinned the nearest guard with his furious gaze. “What has happened?”
The guard shifted uncomfortably. “It’s about the girl, sir…”
“Yes?” Roger snapped, but he didn’t need the man to complete his sentence. He already knew what had happened. Suppressing the urge to shoot the incompetent bastards, he pushed past them and strode up the stairs, throwing open the door that led to Bridget’s room.
As he’d suspected, the room was empty.
Closer examination showed that one of the windows had been busted out, allowing a chill breeze to rush in and flutter the curtains.
With a snarl, Roger strode over and inspected the broken glass lying all over the carpet. Since it lay inside the room, someone had obviously broken the window from the outside.
Bridget hadn’t escaped on her own. No, someone had broken her out.
And Roger only knew one man who made a habit of running across rooftops, stealing children.
He whirled around, glaring at the guards who’d sheepishly entered the room behind him. “How could you let this happen? You only had one job! To watch over a stupid little girl.”
The larger one, Preston, shook his head sorrowfully. “I was stationed right out ’ere in the ‘all, like you said, sir. I never ’eard a thing.”
“What can we do, sir?” the other one, a mean little bulldog with beady eyes named Otis, asked. “We want to help you get her back.”
Anger surged through Roger. Those bastards! His younger stepbroth
ers had been a thorn in his side for decades. He’d always believed they were somehow behind his father’s death, then they’d targeted his businesses, and now Prometheus had taken his own personal whore.
Adrian had Gabriel, so Roger was almost certain he was the one behind the ridiculous mask, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that they could all be in this together. He knew they’d acted as one to kill his father. He’d let this go on for far too long, and the time had come to stop them once and for all.
“They took what was mine,” he told Otis and Preston, making no effort to control his fury. “I think it’s time I take what belongs to them.”
Otis swallowed nervously, obviously confused. “Who, sir? I don’t know what you mean.”
“Since the two of you have lost Bridget, I have a new job for you,” Roger explained. “I want you to watch the homes of Adrian and Morgan Strathmore. They both have wives. I want you to wait for an opportunity to get one of those bitches alone. When you do, I want you to take her. Bring her to the warehouse by the docks, send word to me, and then wait for further instructions. We’ll see how they like it when something of theirs is stolen.”
Preston nodded jerkily. “Of course, sir. We won’t fail you this time, I swear.”
“You better not,” Roger said darkly. “You know what will happen if you do.”
From the looks on their faces before they hurried away, they did.
Chapter Twenty
When Adrian’s laboratory door clicked open, he glanced up in panic, only to relax when he saw it was just Clinton. He glanced at his pocket watch and found that it was nearly midnight. He’d been hiding up here from Vanessa ever since he woke up, but perhaps she’d gone to bed by now.
Clinton gave a long-suffering sigh as he came to stand in front of Adrian’s worktable. “If you don’t mind me saying, sir…”
“Would it matter if I did mind?” Adrian asked grimly, sensing yet another lecture. During the last few days since his wedding, everyone he knew had decided to give him their views on the way he was handling his marriage.
