“Not at all. I want to show Charley around before we settle in to discuss some things.”
“Very well, sir.” Vaughn fetched his coat, muffler, gloves, and hat. Reaching the door, he asked, “Is there anything you need while I’m out?”
“If you see Trig, can you let him know where I am and that I’ll be home for supper?”
“Of course.”
“How about you, Mrs. Fielding? Do you need anything?”
She seemed startled by his question. “Me? No. I’m fine, thank you. I hope you have a nice visit, Mr. Vaughn.”
Pink stained Vaughn’s cheeks. Nodding, he closed the door behind him.
“Did I say something wrong?” she asked.
He wondered if she had noticed Vaughn’s physical response to her question. Adair was surprised to have seen it himself. Vaughn rarely showed any sort of emotion. His ability to remain unruffled was legendary. Jules had attempted to break the poor man’s control quite often, and he had yet to succeed.
But Adair was aware of why Charley’s question caused his man of business embarrassment, though he would never reveal the reason. Not even to Charley. One careless, unintentional comment to the wrong person could place Vaughn’s life in danger. Adair couldn’t take the chance, not after all Vaughn had done for him.
He and Vaughn had few secrets between them. Case in point, Vaughn knew very well who Charley was, by her name alone. Adair’s full introduction was nothing more than formality, for Charley’s sake.
“No,” Adair said, choosing his words carefully. “Vaughn is unaccountably shy around beautiful women. Don’t worry—he’ll eventually get used to having you around, and his shyness will disappear.”
She sent him a sideways glance, one he interpreted to mean there would be no opportunity for Vaughn to get to know her.
“I feel like I’m overlooking something. As though I have all the bits of information I need to solve this murder, but am unable to link them together in a logical order.”
“Sometimes we can think on something too hard and our minds push back on any new ideas. Are you up for a distraction?”
“I think I am. What did you have in mind?”
“Come, let me give you the grand tour.” He opened the door leading to a narrow corridor and to an even narrower set of stairs. “The ground floor is Vaughn’s domain.”
Charley’s silence and palpable tension began to unnerve him. He wished she would say something, but he couldn’t blame her for her lack of conversation.
He had been deliberately vague about what he wanted to discuss with her. In part because he was still trying to work out the details in his mind and, also, because he didn’t want to give her a reason for refusing him.
When they reached the next level, he indicated a door.
“This leads to my office, and the door on the right to a small library. Take your pick.”
Not surprisingly, she chose the library.
She had barely stepped inside when he heard her sharp inhale. “You said ‘small library.’ There’s nothing small about this.”
Adair tried to see the chamber through Charley’s eyes. Twelve-foot-high bookshelves lined all four walls. Each shelf was filled with tomes of precious knowledge. Only one bookcase remained half-empty, and the sight of it sent Adair’s mind on a futile quest to figure out how to make room for more shelves, more books.
Charley’s long, slender fingers glided over several spines. Her full lips silently moved as she read the titles. “Have you read all of these?”
He chuckled. “No, only those with a square piece of vellum sticking out of the top.”
Her gaze wandered over the shelves as if to gauge the number he had read.
“One hundred and nineteen,” he supplied.
“You’re keeping track?”
“In a sense. Some men have vices that include drinking, gambling, and whor—women.” He nodded toward the walls. “Mine’s books. No matter how busy I get, or how tired, I try to read at least two books a month.”
“A sort of treat for yourself?” She picked up a pair of gold-rimmed spectacles left on one of the shelves. Holding them aloft, she raised a brow.
He smiled, shrugging, and answered her question. “I suppose. There’s something comforting about being surrounded by so much knowledge and talent.”
While he spoke, she had continued her circuit of the room. She reached a worn leather chair and paused near the side table.
Adair cursed beneath his breath when he noticed the mound of incriminating evidence. Stacked six books deep were works from Culpeper, Miller, Tryon, Lettsom, Buchan, and Cullen. Books on medicinal herbs, home remedies, physiology, and the origins of medicine. Those were only the ones on the table; he had dozens more on the shelves.
She peered over her shoulder, giving him a curious look. “I had no idea you were interested in such things.”
If only he could deny all such interest. But the evidence stared them both starkly in the face, irrefutable. For the sake of what he hoped would be the renewal of their friendship, he hoped she never learned how much he was interested in her profession. In her.
He sighed. Best he ride out the humiliation. If he was lucky, it would be short-lived.
“I have a great many pastimes.” He allowed his gaze to lock with hers. “Some more dear than others.”
She smiled, a genuine, beautiful smile that warmed Adair to the core. “I can understand why books on Africa, the Orient, and Italy would be more dear than a text on how many phalanges are in a human body,” she said, a teasing note edging her words.
“Fifty-six,” he said. “If I recall correctly.”
Eyes wide, she stared at him for an uncomfortable minute.
“I take it I’m wrong.”
“No, you’re quite right.” She shook her head. “You always could call up the smallest detail with little effort, whereas I have always had to revisit something again and again to recall it fully. How I used to envy you your gift.”
“Inconsequential details. Saving a human life is a far more valuable skill to possess.”
She glanced away, embarrassed.
“Shall we continue the tour?”
She nodded, and he placed his hand at the base of her spine. He enjoyed the rare opportunity to touch her, even if through several layers of clothing.
Charley surveyed his office with the same look of appreciation as she had his library. She strolled around his office in the same easy manner, peering at this, touching that.
“You’ve done well for yourself, Cam.”
His gut clenched. “I’ve waited a long time to hear you say my name—like you used to.”
She smiled again, only this one trembled with sadness. “Pride makes fools of us all.” Her gaze caught his. “Wouldn’t you agree?” she whispered.
Adair recognized an olive branch when he saw one. He closed the distance between them. Lifting his hand, he grazed the backs of his fingers along her cheek. “I do.”
When she didn’t shy away, he lifted his other hand and cradled her delicate face in his palms. Tilting her head back, he said, “I’m sorry, Charley.”
Jules’s words came back to him, clear and brutal. You’ll be content to watch her marry another and have a brood of children?
“F-for what?”
From the deepest part of his soul, Adair knew he could never let Charley go to another. As much as he told himself she would be safer without him, she would not be happy. Neither of them would. Admitting such released the excruciating heaviness that he had been carrying for days, for months, for years.
“For not fighting for you, for the loss of your mother, for failing you as a friend. I’m sorry for the lost time and the terrible pain we’ve both lived with these past years.” Unable to face her beautiful sage eyes, he rested his forehead against hers. “I’m sorry for so many damned things.”
“Oh, Cam,” she said in a tear-clogged voice. “I didn’t know my father had spoken to you. No wonder you were so angry
with me. And hurt. I hurt you so much with my ignorance. I can’t imagine how betrayed you must have felt.”
Tears stung his eyes and nose, and his chin started to quiver. Embarrassed by his weakness, he pressed his lips her forehead and rode out the storm of his emotions. Her squeezed his eyes shut. She hadn’t blindly followed her parent’s wishes. Dear God, how could he have been so stupid as to think she might?
Yes, she had always aimed to please her parents, but not at the cost of those she loved. He knew that about her!
She had gone to Scotland for the reasons she had told him all those years ago. To learn from one of her profession’s masters. To better her circumstances.
Not to leave him.
“Cam.” Her arms curled around his middle, holding him tight.
She felt so good. Familiar. Right.
Following suit, he embraced her, trying hard not to squeeze the breath from her lungs. “I was such a bloody fool for believing you would so callously throw away what we had. I now realize I’m the one to blame for killing our love.”
“You killed nothing.”
Hearing nothing but the drum of idiocy in his ears, he carried on. “Jesus, Charley. I’ve made a muck of things.”
“We both have, Cam. We both have.”
In the silence that followed, Adair became aware of her soft curves and lavender scent, of her generous breasts and uneven breaths. Hot blood pumped into every inch of him, including the troublesome part nestled between their bodies.
He eased away, sliding his palms down her arms until he reached her hands. Slowly, he stepped backward, drawing her along until he came in contact with the front of his desk.
Spreading his legs wide, he coaxed her into the vee he had created. He kissed the dainty ridges of one hand, then the other. Keeping his attention on their clasped hands, he asked, “Where do we go from here?”
Her fingers clenched around his. “I miss my friend. If we can find our way to repairing the friendship we once had, perhaps other…things will follow.”
“I’ve missed you as well, Charley.” He pulled her closer until mere inches separated their bodies. “Before we become friends again, I thought I might steal another one of these.”
Adair covered her mouth with his. The soft, sweet taste of her turned him hard from the inside out, then melted him from the outside in. He slanted his mouth, taking their kiss deeper, harder. To his relief, she held nothing back. She gave him everything he asked while her body sought a dangerous closeness with his.
With a firm hand he held them together, hip to aching hip. He wanted so badly to push into her softness, her warmth. But not now. He had to prove—Dear God, what? His muddled, desire-crazed mind could not form a coherent thought.
There was something he wanted to prove to her. Something vital. With his last frayed thread of willpower, he slowed their kiss. Easy, easy. Easy, he chanted in his mind.
The moment their lips parted, Adair recalled what it was he wanted to prove to her.
That she could trust him to do the right thing. Laying her out on his desk and driving into her hard and fast was not the right thing to do. At least not at the moment.
In their not-too-distant future, he would take care to initiate every flat surface, vertical or horizontal, he could find—in his office, his library, his bedchamber, the corridor, the antechamber…
Swallowing down his desire, he said, “Now we can be friends.”
She chuckled and disentangled her limbs from his. After putting herself back to rights, Charley clasped her hands together and leveled a serious, but not unkind, look upon him. “Why did you bring me here, Cam?”
The warm, pleasant feeling he had disappeared, and the heaviness returned. Folding his arms over his midsection, he said, “A number of reasons, I suppose. But mostly I wanted us to be able to speak freely, without interruption.”
“About what?”
“About whatever it is that you’re hiding from me.”
Her expression shifted from surprise to pain to chagrin. Then she released a long, surrendering sigh before meeting his gaze again.
“What is it, Charley?”
“Something I’m not particularly proud of.”
“Tell me.”
Reaching into her reticule, she retrieved a long piece of red fabric. She laid it flat across the surface of his desk.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I’m not entirely sure.”
“But you have an idea.”
She nodded.
A needle of concern began to weave its way into his gut. He could see that she wanted to tell him, wanted to free herself from the terrible burden she was carrying. Would divulging her secret cause her to face guilt or remorse? Or did she worry about damaging a colleague’s reputation or hurting a friend’s feelings?
He peered at her downcast face, at her carefully averted eyes, and the reason struck him in the chest like a fist. Lifting his hand, he smoothed the back of one finger along her cheek. She started, but didn’t move away. Her small act of acceptance made his throat contract.
“You can tell me, Charley. Try to remember what our friendship was like before you left for Scotland. Try to set aside the blunders I made while I was sick at heart and not thinking clearly. Try to recall how you could always count on me to be there for you instead. How I always took care of you, protected you.” He hooked his finger under her chin, lifting it upward until they were eye to eye. “You could trust me then, and you can trust me now.”
She gave him a short nod, and he kissed the corner of her mouth before releasing her.
Glancing down at her terrible secret now splayed across his desk, she said, “The afternoon Felix tripped over Lady Winthrop’s corpse, I found this”—she traced a fingertip over the red material—“near the body.”
Adair worked to keep the shock from his face. His mind was having a hard time accepting what he was hearing. “Am I to conclude no one else knows about this piece of evidence?” He couldn’t bring himself to say, You stole a evidence from a murder scene?
She nodded. “I believe it’s a tie from a cloak. And yes, for a long while, I suspected the tie belonged to the murderer. But I ceased to believe so after Joseph found dark threads beneath Lady Winthrop’s fingernails.”
Circling his desk, Adair plopped down in his chair. “Bloody hell, Charley. Why?” He could not form a more detailed question. For the first time during an investigation, words escaped him. That, along with a powerful need to wring his beloved’s neck.
“I swear to you, Cameron, I don’t know.” She sat down in one of the two leather chairs facing his desk. Bending forward, she rested her elbows on her knees and drilled her fingertips into her temples. “I had sent Felix off to notify Mr. Riordan and the authorities, and Piper had just returned with a light as I finished a cursory search of the body for clues. It was then I noticed the tie on the ground, at her ladyship’s side. Riordan entered the passageway, full of purpose and suspicion. His expression put me on instant guard, and my instincts took over. I shoved the tie into my reticule, where it’s been hiding ever since.”
“Riordan didn’t see you take the evidence?”
“No. When he first entered the passageway, he avoided looking at the corpse, so he didn’t see what my hand was doing.”
Knowing how instinct can save a man’s—or woman’s—life, Adair could not fault Charley’s actions. Which didn’t make this situation one damned bit easier. He scrubbed his face and sat forward. “Could this be the broken tie from Felix’s costume?”
She gaped at him. “That’s all you have to say after I confess to impeding your inquiry?”
“What else is there to say? Do you want me to yell? Well, I won’t. Do I wish you hadn’t taken the evidence? Of course. Do I trust your instincts? Implicitly. Even if Riordan didn’t kill Lady Winthrop, he would have done anything to protect his theater’s reputation. If that means sending an innocent to gaol, I have no doubt he would do so.”
A moment o
f stunned silence followed his declaration. Then she laughed, a shaky, self-deprecating laugh. “All this time, I feared telling you about my impulsiveness. And what do you do? You defend my actions as if they were the most logical choice, given the situation.”
His lips twitched. “‘Logical’ might be stretching it a bit.”
The grin she gave him wobbled, and then broke. Tears dropped on her pale cheeks and meandered their way down to her chin, where they fell on her shaking hands.
Charley had never been a bawler. She cried like she did everything else—with dignity, calm, and grace. One day he would like to see her lose complete and utter control of her emotions. Only then would he witness the raw essence of his friend, would-be-lover, and one-day-soon mother of his children.
He strode around his desk, pried her hands apart, and drew her into his arms. She rested her head against his chest and held on to him as if he were an anchor in a great crushing storm.
In an attempt to calm her trembling body, he rubbed gentle circles on her back, alternating between big sweeping circles to small focused ones. She snuffled quietly into his coat, and Adair remembered he had not yet replaced his handkerchief with a clean one. “Sorry, Charley. I don’t have anything for your tears.”
“Doesn’t matter. This is enough.” Soon, her body’s trembling subsided and her snuffles calmed. “Thank you.” She squeezed him once and stepped away to fish a handkerchief from the depths of her reticule.
He revisited his question. “In Felix’s interview, he mentioned the tie on his Roman cloak broke. Do you believe this is the same one?”
“What would the odds be of two broken red ties being found at the same theater on the same day?”
“Rather small, I would think.”
“Me, too.” She narrowed her gaze on him. “Felix didn’t kill the baroness, if that’s where this line of questioning is going. He had no reason to harm her.”
That we know of. Adair kept the comment to himself. He didn’t believe Felix had anything to do with Lady Winthrop’s murder, so there was no need to provoke Charlotte, even though her protective ferocity made him desire her all the more. Would she fight for his life in the same way?
Night Storm (Bones & Gemstones Book 1) Page 26