“Thank you, ladies and gentleman, for coming tonight,” the Countess of Strathmore said at the front of the room. “I hope you received a program before you sat. My daughter, Lady Amelia, will be performing first, Mozart’s Piano Sonata Number 13.”
Drat. She’d missed her opportunity.
A round of polite applause accompanied the young woman who sat gracefully at the piano bench. The music that filled the room was beautiful, but Aria was more interested in the people listening to it. She glanced about, noting that the audience seemed fully absorbed in the performance.
She could still slip out and remain mostly unnoticed.
Her body moved, ready to flee, until Emily’s hand landed on her arm with a surprisingly strong grip.
“What are you doing?” she whispered through clenched teeth, glancing at the row of people in front of them who turned to glare. “You can’t leave right now. Lady Amelia just started.”
“I need a bit of air,” Aria lied, and then realized how loud she sounded. She turned her shoulders toward Emily and leaned in, even as out of the corner of her eye, she saw someone slide into the chair to her right. “And while I’m out there, I thought to see who was about.”
“The Strathmores have five daughters, each with healthy dowries to recommend them,” Emily whispered back. “Trust me, you will find some of those men here tonight after the performance. And we will speak no more. Our behavior is deplorable.”
Being told what to do by a woman barely her senior snapped the few strands of patience Aria had. She was leaving.
She glanced to her right to make her excuses, and her heart caught in her throat.
Adam.
“Miss Whitney.” He gave a nod and then turned his attention back to the front.
That spark in her belly needed squashing. She was supposed to be angry with him.
“Lord Merewood.” She faced him. “If you’ll excuse me.”
“Leaving so soon?” He raised an eyebrow.
“I prefer a different form of entertainment.” She stood abruptly and took a step to pass him, just as he rose to his feet. His body thumped into hers, knocking her off balance. She grabbed hold of the chair in front of her, mindless of the person she hit in the back. Her other hand reached up to grab Merewood’s jacket. Her fingers curled under, the tips feeling the softness of his shirt and the hard heat from his skin underneath. Merewood’s hands landed at her waist to steady her.
Aria looked up. There wasn’t an inch of distance between them, and suddenly, she found it hard to catch her breath. Hard to move. Hard to avoid looking at his lips, so close to her face.
She knew what they felt like now. She knew what he could do to her body, and damn her for wanting to drag him out of the room so he could do it some more.
“Aria, sit down.” Emily’s voice was low and urgent all at once. “People are staring.”
With that cold splash of a reminder, Aria pushed against Merewood to right herself and stepped back. What was wrong with her? “I did say excuse me.”
His lips thinned into a line. “Perhaps you ought to give a gentleman a moment to stand before barreling past him.” He stepped back into the aisle.
“Perhaps you ought to sit next to someone else next time.” Aria allowed her tone to be as blunt as her words. Without waiting for a reply, she strode down the aisle. When she reached the doorway, she glanced back, noted that the guests closest to them were avidly watching.
And so was Lord Merewood.
Her heart hammered against her chest and she turned around, hurried into the empty entryway. She placed a hand over her traitorous heart. Took in a long breath. Her insides felt uncomfortably jumbled.
She’d been rude, and she felt a pang of guilt.
But he made her forget herself. He made her want things. He made her almost want to forget.
Aria shook her head and turned to the corridor. A bit of card playing and focusing on what truly mattered again would knock those stupid thoughts right out of her stupid head.
She could not forget why she was here. She could not allow anyone to make her forget.
“Miss Whitney.”
His voice. She steeled herself, shoved those wayward emotions behind a wall of indifference, and turned to face him. “Lord Merewood.”
“Would you care to tell me what changed between last night and tonight?” He stepped closer to her, as other guests milled up and down the wide corridor, moving from the ballroom to other rooms.
Those rooms were where she needed to be. What she needed to focus on.
Not on romance, for God’s sake.
“Nothing has changed,” she told him, hoping her words sounded more adamant than her heart—which was close to melting at the adorable befuddlement on his face—felt. Better to remember the words he’d thrown at her, the accusations about her father. “I came here to further my investigation. And since we both know you believe my efforts to be fruitless and, what did you say, only to keep myself busy and avoid facing the truth, I’ll continue on my own, thank you.”
Without waiting for him to respond, she hurried into the nearest room set up for cards. As she had expected, the room held a number of gentlemen and a smaller handful of women. She glanced at the tables to see what was being played. Tables were set up throughout the well-appointed room, and almost every table was filled. A low hum filled the rooms as people played their hands, and the occasional cry of joy or despair rose above the din. At a table near where she stood, someone was rolling dice. Hazard. Not her best game.
She searched the tables for the men remaining on her list. The Earl of Dunlevy and the Duke of Cantonbury were all that remained from the original ten. One of them had to hold the answers. If neither did...well, she couldn’t consider that.
It would mean that Adam had been right. That her efforts had proven naught but a way to keep her involved. To avoid the truth that Emily, John, all of them seemed so determined to convince her was right, when she knew it had to be wrong.
She spotted the duke at a table toward the back of the room, feeling that familiar need to push the boundaries. She took a step forward, only to feel a hand wrap around her upper arm and hold her firmly in place. She looked over her shoulder. “Lord Merewood, if you please.”
He leaned closer to her than propriety warranted. “We need to talk.”
No. She most definitely did not need to do that. “Another time.”
“Aria, I never said—” He stopped as two young debutantes skirted around them as they clogged the doorway. The girls gave her the same passive glare from under their lashes she’d gotten used to, but Aria noticed their gaits slowed considerably. Adam must have noticed, for his jaw twitched. “Let’s get some punch, Miss Whitney?”
“No, thank you.” She shrugged his hand off, but his fingers wrapped about her elbow and steered her, not ungently, back out into the corridor. He moved her down the hallway a few steps and through an open door into an empty study before Aria yanked her hand back. “Adam, that’s enough. Cantonbury is in there. I cannot waste this opportunity.”
“Cantonbury will be in that room until the sun breaks dawn. He rarely ventures from the tables once he gets started. He also gets mightily irritated when someone interrupts his cards. He’s notorious for his silent games, Aria. You would do naught but annoy him should you prompt him for conversation.” He stopped, took a deep breath. “Look, about last night—”
His mention of the previous evening prompted erotic images of what they’d done and Aria’s body immediately responded, heat flowing rapidly through her, all of it seeming to head directly to that intimate part of her.
But her inability to control that, to make it go away, made her scowl at him.
“I never said that you were wasting your time in your search. I only wanted to suggest that you consider other alterna
tives.”
“Alternatives that paint my father to be a man who abandons his family and leaves us to wonder what happened to him.” she countered. “You want me to accept your logic, accept your way of looking at this, but I can’t. I won’t.”
“Because you can never choose me over your father.” His words, an echo of the ones she had thrown at him the night before, were flat.
“Adam, I know my father. I know what he’s capable of, and—you make me forget so much, you make me think of other things, and that scares me.” Suddenly, the words she had wanted to avoid came tumbling out. “You scare me. How I feel about you scares me. I want to find my father, and I desperately want you to be on my side. I need you to be on my side. If you stop believing in him, if you stop believing in me, I will have to choose.” She looked into his eyes, imploring him to understand. “And I don’t want to have to choose.”
“Aria, this isn’t a battle. Accepting me into your life, accepting what you feel—and my God, woman, you have no idea how happy it makes me to hear you care for me, but accepting us does not mean you’ve given up on your father. It means that no matter where this ends, no matter what happens, we’ll face it together.”
“We will find my father—that’s what will happen. He is alive, Adam. He has to be, and if you’re on my side, that is what you must believe.”
It was an ultimatum, one she hadn’t known she would lay down, but now that she had, she didn’t take it back. She prayed Adam could see it for what it was. She couldn’t let go of what she believed of her father, and as long as she held on to that, the only way she could let Adam be a part of it was if he believed it, too.
She held her breath, surprised at how much she wanted his agreement. How much she wanted to know that he’d be there, next to her. How hard it was proving for her to admit she needed him.
She couldn’t say the words; they got stuck somewhere inside of her between stubborn and bullheaded, but she hoped he heard them anyway.
“Do you play whist?”
His abrupt change of subject threw her. “Yes. My father taught me.”
“I imagine that means you’re rather good. Then we’ll be partners. Shall we?” He held his arm out, his countenance serious and impassive. It was an acceptance of sorts, she believed.
And Aria took his arm and together they moved back into the card room. And yet, a voice niggled in the back of her mind that he had never answered her ultimatum.
Chapter Fifteen
The next afternoon, Adam headed to his study to devote some much-needed attention on his estates. His estate manager handled most of the day to day, but Adam hoped the distraction might restore a little balance to his mind.
He wanted to believe Aria.
He understood her overwhelming need to believe her father was out there, waiting to be found. But so far, she hadn’t uncovered a single clue to his whereabouts. And while Adam was willing to entertain the idea that if alive, Whitney might have a good reason to stay away, the man hadn’t gotten word to his family. Not a whisper, not a hint. Nothing.
It was as though Gideon Whitney had vanished.
Adam had tracked down a vanished man before: Thomas Ashton had abandoned Blythe on their wedding day, and Adam had sent men in search of him. They had discovered far more about Ashton than Adam would have imagined, none of it good.
Each new revelation had hurt Blythe—believing Thomas had died, learning he had married his mistress, that she was pregnant. Learning that Thomas had been alive all along. That he’d stolen money from her and many others. One nightmare after another that had led to Ashton’s death, by Adam’s hand.
The idea that Aria could face that pain... If he could spare her that, he had to find a way. He could not see another woman he loved flayed open.
Voices came at him as he turned down the stairs—whispers, a hushed chuckle. As the front door became clear, Adam found his sister standing within a few inches of a man.
Lily. With Mr. Melrose.
Cordelia’s Melrose.
When they spotted him, Robert and Lily jumped a foot in opposite directions and Lily lifted her head upward. “Adam.”
“Am I interrupting something?” he asked sharply.
“Mr. Melrose is here to call upon Cordelia,” she said in a rush, as if she’d rehearsed it.
Adam studied his sister’s guileless face as he descended the last few steps.
“Mr. Melrose!” Cordelia’s voice echoed down the corridor and the clip of her heels hitting the hardwood floor turned their attention. “What a pleasure to see you today. I was just informed of your arrival.”
“Twenty minutes ago,” Lily muttered under her breath.
“Perhaps we should remove to the parlor, Mr. Melrose? Mother will be along shortly.” Cordelia stopped in front of them, her maid in tow behind her.
“Lily, a word?” Adam asked, though it was more of a command.
He waited until Cordelia and Melrose had moved into the other room.
“Spending any time with one of Cordelia’s suitors is a very bad idea.”
“I hold no illusions, Adam, so you do not need to warn me of a broken heart. Mr. Melrose cares for Cordelia.” The corners of her mouth lifted. “Though one could wonder why.”
Adam smiled in return. “Yes, one could.”
There were a number of men who would look at Cordelia’s beauty, her poise, and not bother to look any further. They didn’t need more. That sort of marriage would suit Cordelia perfectly, but Lily was gentle. Kind. She would love the man she married, whether he loved her back or not.
“It would be best if you kept your distance from Mr. Melrose.”
Her lashes fluttered down as she nodded. “You won’t tell Cordelia, will you?”
Adam pinched the bridge between his eyes. “No. She would double her efforts to be contrary and remain the center of his attention.” After Lily left, he leaned back in his chair.
The last thing this house needed was sisters vying for the same man.
His hand landed on the desk, touching the smooth surface of a sealed envelope. He picked it up and flipped it over in his hand.
He’d forgotten he had this.
He should have given this letter to his mother within minutes of when he’d received it from Mr. Calebowe. When he’d gone up to his mother’s room to ask about the man, she’d refused to open her door. The next day, she had acted as if he’d never shown up at all, and Adam had been all too willing to assume the same stance.
Who was this man? What had he done to upset his mother so much, so many years later?
Adam dropped the letter on his desk and looked up at the portrait of his father that hung on the wall over the fireplace. He did that often, for some sense of connection. For advice. Wisdom.
Adam rubbed his chest, trying to dispel the slight ache there. The mantle of his birthright weighed heavy at times, and today was no exception. He had done his best to fill the shoes of the man of the house, but he’d never imagined how truly large they were.
“Adam.” The gentle voice belonged to his mother, and he heard the swish of fabric move closer before she appeared beside him. Her fresh, flowery scent filled the room.
Had his father known about Mr. Calebowe? Had it mattered? Had it—
Adam shook his head. There was no good to come of second-guessing. He had the letter, and it was time he gave it to his mother and got some answers.
“Adam?”
He met her gaze. “My apologies, Mama. I’m distracted.”
“So I see. Is this about Miss Whitney? Or are you somehow concerned by Cordelia’s suitor, Mr. Melrose?”
Adam moved to drop into his father’s big leather chair. “He is of no consequence. She doesn’t even like him. I don’t even know why she bothers to spend time with him.”
“Every woman likes to be courted.” She settled against the desk, in a pose he’d seen hundreds of times as she sat close to his father.
“So she is simply stroking her ego, at that man’s expense.”
“Perhaps, but I doubt she’s aware of that. She simply enjoys the attention. It is a heady feeling to be courted by a man who openly admires you.” Her wistful, slightly far-off tone did not escape him.
“Who is that man, Mama?” Adam asked quietly. “I have tried not to pry, but—”
“As well you shouldn’t as it’s none of your business.” She pushed off the desk and moved around the room, one hand down at her side lightly trailing along the bookcase.
“He left something for you.”
She stopped midstride.
Adam picked up the letter and watched as she hesitated a moment, then slowly turned around. He held it out to her. “It’s a letter.”
“I see that.”
“Aren’t you going to come get it?”
His mother’s gaze never left the envelope he held, but she stepped to the nearest chair, and with a deep breath in and out, sat down. “I don’t know.”
Protective instinct rose in Adam like a fast-moving flood. “Do you want me to handle this? Has he bothered you in some way? Is he—”
“So many questions,” she murmured. “Give it to me, Adam.”
Once the letter was in her hands, Adam loomed, wanting to be whatever she needed, but not sure what that was. She stared at that envelope as if the very man was encased inside it. Was it possible he could intrude on a letter? “Would you like me to leave?”
“No.” Still she stared at it. Then in a flurry of movement, she tore the envelope, yanked out the letter, and smoothed it open.
About halfway down, she grew teary. Adam fought the urge to toss the bloody letter into the fire. He hated it when she cried.
Then she chuckled.
Then she muttered, “Well, goodness, you idiot.”
A tear fell down her cheek, and she lifted hand to wipe it as the corners of her mouth curved upward.
Unable to stand it any longer, Adam turned on a heel and strode to his desk. He didn’t want to know what sort of man, other than his father, could create such a reaction in her.
Cloaked in Danger Page 15
