by Jaimey Grant
Connor sat down next to his wife but remained silent. Adam wished he would say something. Or better yet, take his wife and leave.
Verena still stared at Adam. She wanted to rail at him some more for what she felt was a gross injustice on his part. She wanted to tell him that in sending Bri back he had effectively destroyed his only chance for happiness and a measure of inner peace in his life.
For Verena Northwicke strongly suspected that Adam was in love with Bri.
“Do you even realize what you have done?” she asked quietly and with the calm for which she was known. Her violet eyes gazed steadily into his as she awaited his answer.
“I have returned a runaway to her loving family,” he replied shortly, playing seriously with the idea of having his closest friends tossed from his home. His tone had come out cold and bitter even to his own ears.
Verena snorted disdainfully. “If you believe that—and I strongly suspect that you secretly don’t and are simply trying to convince yourself that you do—you are a far stupider man than I had ever thought,” she retorted scathingly. She would have said more but the sudden warning pressure of her husband’s hand on her arm stopped her.
Lord Connor had seen the warning glint in Adam’s eyes that heralded a setdown that Connor very much feared he would have to murder his best friend over.
“I think it’s time we left, my love.” Connor’s voice held a hint of steel not often heard by his gentle wife. There was never a need. She heard it now, however, and obeyed wordlessly. She rose to her feet after delivering one more look of fury to Adam Prestwich.
But she couldn’t resist a parting shot, no matter how hard she tried. She shook off Connor’s arm and returned to the large desk behind which Adam still sat. Leaning closer to him she whispered indignantly, “When she is married to that man and must submit to him as a wife must, I hope you realize what you have lost, Adam Prestwich.”
Adam dressed for a ball being held by the Earl and Countess of Peterborough’s residence a week later. It was to be the opening ball of the Season and it was sure to be a sad crush. Everyone who was anyone would be there.
He didn’t know why he was going. Perhaps he hoped it would take his mind off the disastrous news he had received earlier that day from his solicitor.
He tied his cravat into the mathematical, shunning the help of Morris, and managed to get it right after ruining only five starched neckcloths. He stood back and surveyed his appearance critically in the tall mirror.
His black hair was disarranged as usual since he had a habit of shoving his hand through it when agitated; he had been agitated for the whole of that day. His linen was sparkling white and the only relief for the somber black of his coat and knee breeches. Even his waistcoat was dark and he thought that the whole ensemble quite matched his mood. He doubted his attitude would improve much after this night either.
Taking up his cloak since the night was chilly, his hat, and gloves, he stepped out of the house and stepped into his carriage. The coachman drove the short distance from Berkeley Square to Grosvenor where he stopped before Connor’s residence. He alighted and entered the house.
He was early, he noted as he glanced at the tall case clock in the entryway. And yet Verena was making her way down the stairs looking very lovely in pale yellow silk with amethysts in her black hair and around her throat. She resembled nothing less than a ray of sunshine.
He bowed and smiled hesitantly at her and received the same greeting in return. She came toward him and smiled again, brighter this time.
“My lady, you are a veritable ray of sunshine,” he told her quite sincerely.
“Thank you, Mr. Prestwich,” she replied formally with a curtsy. “And you are looking exceedingly handsome this evening.”
“If I didn’t know how much the two of you actually disliked each other, I may have reason to be jealous,” Connor said as he stepped into the hall from the direction of his study. His face was wreathed in a smile of greeting for his friend and one of appreciation for his wife.
Verena went to him and wound her arms around his waist in full view of Adam and the servants and turned a glowing face up to her husband’s. “Dislike is such a strong word, Con. I prefer annoy, I think.”
She threw a look of amusement over her shoulder at Adam. Con smiled down at her when she returned her attention to him and placed a gentle kiss on her smiling lips.
Adam felt a strange pang in his chest at the tender scene. He realized with a shock that he was jealous. He envied their happiness, their contentment, their peace. It was hard won, he knew, and he could think of no two people more deserving.
And he was so jealous of that joy that it hurt.
His tone came out colder than he had intended. “Perhaps we should be going, if you are quite through?”
Connor shot him a look of warning mixed with bafflement. Verena stepped away from her husband and flushed as if she just realized what a breach in decorum she had just initiated. Connor saw the look on her face and his expression turned to annoyance when he returned his gaze to Adam. He took her hand, lacing their fingers together and leading her to the door.
Adam offered no apologies or explanations. He just turned around and walked out of the house and into the darkened street.
Lady Rothsmere knew, of course, the moment he entered the ballroom. Adam was with Lord Connor and Doll—Verena. He looked so handsome she felt short of breath. She wished suddenly that she hadn’t had to accompany Hadley Steyne this evening.
And she wished Greville had been able to attend. But her cousin had run into some trouble recently and had to avoid Town for the time being.
She didn’t realize she was starring until he looked directly at her and their eyes locked. She couldn’t look away. It was as if some invisible cord held their gazes motionless. The ballroom receded, the laughing, boisterous crowd dispersed and it was only them.
“Is that not Prestwich? With Beverley?”
The spell was broken. Bri looked away from the magnetic gray-green eyes of her nemesis and turned limpid emerald eyes on her betrothed.
“Prestwich, my lord?” she asked laconically.
Steyne favored her with a hard stare. “Yes, Prestwich. The man who returned you to your family. You know, the gentleman you were just staring at for all of thirty seconds?”
“Only thirty seconds? It had seemed far longer,” she said laconically. An hour. All night. A lifetime. She glanced again at Adam but he had moved on and was nowhere in sight.
Beverley? She opened her mouth to ask where Beverley was. Then she realized he must have mistaken Lord Connor for his brother. She supposed this was possible since she had never met the marquess. She supposed they could look alike.
She turned to ask Hadley about his mistake. Then she saw the look of anger on Steyne’s face and smiled brightly instead.
Adam stood in the shadows of the ballroom and saw that smile. It looked suspiciously like the smile of a woman in love. Or at least resigned to her lot in life. He didn’t try to understand the rage that threatened to consume him, he just felt it. It was completely unreasonable.
When he had entered the room, he had made a deliberate effort not to look around the room in the hopes of seeing her. He had, instead, lavished praise upon the poise and beauty of his hostess and that of her rather well endowed daughter who was making her comeout this year. The girl in question, Lady Margaret, smiled and flirted with her fan as all young ladies of the ton were instructed and he moved on to greet his host.
Then he was done. He could no longer avoid the inevitable. He looked around and saw her—staring at him. He had had to remind himself to breathe. He had had to clench his fist against the sudden searing pain he had felt upon his first sight of her.
She was breathtaking. She wore scarlet silk cut scandalously low across her ample chest. The waist was high as fashion dictated and her hair was piled on her head with a tendril or two allowed to escape. The sleeves of her gown were long and tight ending in a V over
her delicate hands and slightly off the shoulder revealing slim and delicately curved shoulders. Adam had to admit that the style was perfect for her.
The color should have clashed horribly with her hair, should have made her pale skin look sallow and unappealing. But it didn’t. Her hair seemed to burn like a flame and her skin glowed with health. She seemed to have put on some much needed weight since he had seen her last although she was still quite slim.
He had the sudden urge to place his lips in the curve where her graceful neck met her shoulder. The thought disgusted him. He had no business thinking of another man’s betrothed in such a way. Even if she was Steyne’s.
How he hated that man! It was a cold, emotionless hatred. Something frightening to behold and worse to feel. He wondered why he felt so strongly after nearly two years. It wasn’t as if he were still in love with Carlotta. He was beginning to doubt that he ever was.
“Are you going to stand here in the shadows all night?” Connor asked with a smile.
Adam shrugged and stepped away from the wall upon which he had been leaning. “What else is there to do?” he drawled. He reached down and grasped his quizzing glass in one hand although he did not raise it to his eye. “I have no desire to play cards and dancing holds the same amount of appeal. I am not hungry although a bottle of port would not come amiss. Perhaps I shall take my leave.”
Connor laughed. “I’m afraid I can’t let you do that, sir. Verena has her heart set on dancing with you, God only knows why, and I find I can deny her nothing tonight.”
Adam cast an unreadable look on his best friend. “Do you ever regret your decision?” he asked abruptly.
Connor stiffened slightly. It was not something anyone would have noticed, it was so imperceptible. But Adam had known Connor Northwicke since Eton and he saw the movement. He was treading on dangerous ground, he knew, but it was something he had to ask.
“Do you ever regret getting married? I don’t mean Verena in particular, Con, just marriage itself.”
The other man relaxed. “Not really. I was ready, I suppose.” He turned away from Adam and let his eyes wander over the crowded ballroom until they came to rest tenderly on his laughing wife. “I won’t lie and say I wasn’t scared out of my mind, but it felt right to marry her. She needed me far more than Lady Mari or any other debutante might have.”
Lady Mari was actually Lady Marigold Danvers, the only daughter of Connor’s godfather, the Earl of Charteris. He had known her forever and it had seemed natural that they would one day marry. But then Verena had come along and put paid to that notion.
Adam had always wondered what had possessed Connor to court the earl’s daughter in the first place. She was a grasping, narcissistic harpy with a malicious streak that had come out after she had learned of Connor’s marriage. Adam had been relieved when she had been hounded out of Town last Season for her part in trying to ruin Verena.
Connor glanced at Adam. “There have been very trying times, as you know very well, but the good times have more than made up for them. I recommend marriage to any man with the courage to fight for what he loves.” He threw a meaningful look at Adam and strode away, calling over his shoulder, “My wife expects a dance with you, don’t forget.”
Adam had to smile. He just had to. Verena and he annoyed each other immensely although he actually considered her his friend. And he believed she felt the same about him. He was still smiling as he walked away from his quiet corner and approached her.
Chapter Thirteen
The peace of the evening failed to reach him as usual. He leaned back in his chair and waited for something, anything to happen to alleviate the constant discontent and restlessness he felt. It was like waiting for death, he thought emotionlessly. Waiting for that ultimate release from life’s problems. He almost wished he had the courage—or perhaps cowardice?—to put a bullet through his brain.
Almost. He wasn’t quite that far gone in unhappiness to really want to do such a thing. He was merely fed up with the hand life had dealt him. He wasn’t ready to fold, but he had the distinct impression that he held a losing hand and that every hand after would hold the same disappointment.
Adam sighed and tipped the decanter at his elbow over his glass for the third time that night. He had been avoiding the real issue ever since his meeting that afternoon with his solicitor. He hadn’t wanted to think about that problem. He had naïvely assumed said problem would just go away if he ignored it long enough. But it was still there, haunting his past and trying determinedly to become part of his present and future.
A sudden fit of anger consumed him and he threw his glass at the opposite wall. It shattered into a million tiny shards of crystal and brandy streaked down the paneling.
How dare she try to worm her way back into his life! How dare she try to make him feel guilty for abandoning her! It was far less than she had deserved for what she did to him. Her demands only served to strengthen his feelings that women were nothing more than manipulative sluts and whores who cared for nothing but money and power.
He should have gone to Raven tonight, he thought as his anger disappeared as quickly as it had come. He leaned forward and dropped his forehead into his hand. He really didn’t want to deal with any of this right now.
After seeing Bri again after nearly three months of trying to forget her very existence, he was not ready to deal with a past problem who seemed to think she should not be forgotten.
With a muttered oath, Adam rose to his feet and shouted for his horse to be saddled and brought round. He was still in his evening clothes, having gone right to his study and the brandy decanter after the Peterborough’s ball. He strode into the hall and paused only long enough to draw on his greatcoat and gloves. Then he disappeared into the night.
Raven had been expecting him. She had heard that Bri was back in Town with her betrothed, Viscount Steyne, as well as the many illustrious titles to whom she was related. The viscount, of course, had been one of Raven’s more persistent admirers. She had never really thought of him as dangerous so she assumed that Bri was not being forced into anything distasteful to her.
But Raven also knew that Steyne had a mistress in keeping and she suspected that Bri was not the sort of woman to meekly ignore such an arrangement as ladies were taught to do. Even if she wasn’t in love with the viscount.
None of that was to the point. Raven knew that Adam was in love with Bri even if he had yet to realize it himself. She also knew he would come to her, Raven, to try to rid himself of the strange feelings he had toward the countess.
She knew he would come that night. She had heard about his attendance at the opening ball of the Season. She had known that Bri would be there as well.
Raven felt no jealousy, no anger or betrayal. She wanted Adam to be happy. She wanted him to find that certain someone that he deserved more than anything in the world. She was not that person and she knew it. The knowledge did not hurt. It was actually a relief.
For nearly two years, Raven Emerson had been the mistress of Adam Prestwich. For nearly two years, she had enjoyed the time he spent with her. She had enjoyed his conscientious way of teaching her the art of love. She had enjoyed the mindless passion he could arouse in her and the tenderness he showed her despite his tendency to harshness towards women.
But she had secretly despised herself for all of it. She had started out as his mistress with the sole purpose of providing for her ailing father and nine younger sisters. She had not wanted to take a lover when she had first acquired a job on the stage. But necessity had shown her that she was wrong and fate had placed Adam in her path. And so she had agreed to become his mistress.
But now, nearly two years later, at the age of three-and-twenty, Raven was ready for at least a modicum of respectability. She could never be totally respectable, she knew, because of her profession, but she at least wanted to feel respectable.
But she had this evening to get through before any of that could be achieved. She knew her arrangement
with Adam was coming to an end soon.
She turned with a smile on her face when she heard his step outside her bedroom door. He opened it and walked in without bothering to knock. When he started to unwind his cravat and shrug out of his coat without saying a word, she knew that the last thing he wanted right now was to talk.
“Have I ever told you about my past?” Adam asked her several hours later.
His tone was bored as if he found the subject tedious in the extreme. Raven mutely shook her head where it rested against his shoulder and waited for him to speak. She had wondered after their third coupling if he would want to talk eventually. There had been a sort of mechanical quality to his lovemaking as if he was only there because he felt he had to.
“I don’t know if I’m quite ready to,” he murmured candidly. “I try not to think about it, let alone talk about it. Con doesn’t even know the extent of my sins.”
The extent of his sins?
“I’m a baronet. Were you aware? No? That particular secret Con does know. He is about as good at ferreting out information as I. Sir Adam Prestwich. Awarded for bravery on the field of battle.” His tone took on a mocking quality. “Bravery is such a strange quality. If one is wounded on the field, no matter what one’s reason for being there, it is brave. Even when the act of a coward is what draws a man there. The man’s own cowardice. What a joke.”
He had been rubbing his hand up and down her arm and along her shoulder. He suddenly ceased this soothing motion and closed his eyes. He stayed like that for several minutes. Raven began to wonder if perhaps he had fallen asleep when he spoke again.
“I was not exactly discharged with the full goodwill of my superiors,” he said in a voice full of self-mockery. “They tend to frown upon an officer, no matter how glorious his battle record, when he participates in a duel with one of his subordinates. Not good ton, you know. At least I didn’t kill the bastard,” he said almost to himself. “He deserved it, I think. But I let him live. And now he plagues me again. Only this time I cannot challenge him. I have no right.”