Cloaked in Danger

by Jeannie Ruesch

  No words. Adam understood the game. If he lost, he’d be dead.

  No-Neck lunged at him, and Adam sidestepped, finally realizing his advantage. The other guy might be bigger, but even injured, Adam was faster. He twisted around, aimed another blow at the side of the man’s head. Pain exploded in his hand. He heard a snapping sound, knew from the sudden lack of control in his fingers that he’d broken one or two. He leapt back a few steps, as the other man spun around and made another lunge.

  Adam thrust a foot out to shove the man into the dirt and cast a quick glance at the closed church doors. Aria was inside, with Wade. He had to end this.

  “Merewood!” It was a roar filled with warning.

  No-Neck snapped his head around, and Adam took advantage and rushed him, grabbing him around the neck from behind.

  A shot rang out.

  Adam looked up to see the other guard standing across the clearing, gun drawn. Ravensdale came from behind him and cracked his own gun against the man’s skull.

  The guard went down. Simultaneously, the man Adam held sagged and the weight sent them crashing to the ground. “Oommph!” Adam let out a curse as he hit, even slightly cushioned by the man—now dead by the bullet meant for Adam.

  “Holy Mother of God, this bloody hurts,” he muttered, using his one good hand to shove away from the dead bulk underneath him. He scraped his leg along the ground to find leverage and stood up.

  Ravensdale approached, slowing briefly to grab the gun that lay a few feet away. He handed it to Adam.

  Adam turned to the steps and paused a mere second to ensure Ravensdale wouldn’t drop dead.

  He grunted. “You’re welcome. Again.”

  They sprinted up the stairs and threw the doors open.

  “—I now pronounce you—.”

  Adam saw red. He lifted the gun. Aimed. “Stop!”

  Wade aimed his gun at the pastor. “Finish it.”

  Aria swiveled around, gasped. “Adam!”

  Father Mills, beads of sweat gleaming on his forehead, looked from Wade to Adam and back.

  “I will kill you.” Wade straightened his arm, the gun firmly directed at the pastor’s head. Adam saw he was injured, trails of dried blood on one side of his face.

  “I pronounce you man and wife,” the pastor said quickly.

  Immediately, Wade flipped the gun around to point at Aria and offered a grim smile of triumph. “She’s my wife now, Merewood. You have no claim here.”

  Adam walked slowly, never faltering his aim. “Let her go, Wade.”

  Wade snaked an arm around Aria’s waist and yanked her close. His gun pressed against the side of her head. “I’m not opposed to killing her. When she dies, she’ll die as my wife.”

  “We have Emily.”

  “Thank God,” Aria said. She visibly sagged in Wade’s iron grasp.

  But Wade’s visage reddened, muscles in his jaw rumbled.

  “You’ll get nothing,” Adam goaded. “Not the money. The girl. You’re nobody.” He took another step.

  Wade thrust Aria in front of him. “Then I have no reason to keep her alive.”

  That seemed to spark something inside Aria, who swiveled around and flung her fist directly at Wade’s face.

  And there in Wade’s expression, in the blink of a single second, Adam saw the same cold rage, the same obsessive need to end a life that he’d seen in Thomas Ashton.

  He fired.

  At the same time, a loud bang shook the walls. Wade went down, Gideon strode into the room.

  Aria turned, then looked square at Gideon.

  And crumbled to the floor.

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Aria’s eyelids were heavy, impossible to open. A thick fog surrounded her, even as she blinked to try and bring the world into focus.

  “Aria?”

  Adam.

  Her hand was lifted and held in a strong, firm hand that tightened around her fingers. Tears bubbled. It was so strong, like her father’s, the memory kicked her with vivid clarity in the stomach and stole her breath. Her father was dead. How could see him? Feel him?

  “Aria.”

  His voice. “No,” she cried, trying to turn away from it and squeezed her eyes shut. The hands that held hers shook her slightly.

  “Aria, look at me.”

  “It’s going to be fine, Aria.” Adam’s assurances broke through the wall of fear and she slowly turned. Blinked a few times and realized that both men crouched next to her were real.

  She pulled her hand free and pushed up to sitting, unable to avert her gaze from his scruffy face. “Papa?”

  “Oh, my girl.” He dropped to the floor, reached out and pulled her to him. “I have missed you. Thank the gods you’re all right.”

  His warmth, the roughness of his beard against the top of her head shattered her thin wall of reserve. The flood of realization sliced through her with an unexpected agony. She cried out, and a river of tears soon glazed her face, matched only by his.

  He was here. Real. Alive.

  Aria wrapped her arms around him and laid her head against his shoulder. The fit was so perfect, the same as it had been her entire life. “Papa. Papa.”

  He bundled her close and rocked her like he had when she was a child and nightmares had woken her from sleep.

  “Greensleeves was all my joy.” His voice, soft, low in timbre and heavy with emotion, tickled her ear. “Greensleeves was my delight. Greensleeves was my heart of gold, And who but my lady greensleeves.”

  The tear-clogged, off-key words wrapped around her like a warm bath, as wave upon wave of relief, pain, sadness, uncertainty and now, joy, crashed over her. He was alive. Alive.

  Alive.

  “How?” she asked suddenly, pulling away slightly. “Patrick told me he—he’d-dumped you in the river.”

  “He did. If not for the incredible generosity of a fisherman, I wouldn’t be alive today. He found me in the river, took me home to his wife and she nursed me to health.”

  Aria ran her hands down his arms and gasped as she hit nothing but air on one side. She froze, and then met her father’s gaze. At one time, she’d been able to decipher his mood with one look, one breath. Now, the valleys and shadows hidden in the deep blue were unfamiliar. New. A little terrifying.

  He had changed, too. “Papa?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said gruffly. “I’m alive. You’re alive. And Wade won’t hurt anyone else.”

  With that, she shifted her gaze to the body that lay not two feet from her.

  She hoped he was in hell.

  Footsteps echoed behind them and Adam snapped to attention, swerving around, weapon in hand.

  Ravensdale strode down the aisle, Emily in his arms.

  “Emily!” Aria cried.

  Gideon’s head snapped around, and he jumped to his feet, ran to them.

  “She’s in labor.” Ravensdale held his burden with precious care.

  “Gideon?”

  The voice was soft, barely audible, but it was Emily’s. She had shifted her head, eyes glazed with pain, but staring in shock at Aria’s father. “You’re alive.” She choked on a sob, and Gideon slid an arm around her. Her head dropped to his shoulder, even as Ravensdale held her tight.

  “Emily, my dearest,” he murmured. “I’m right here.”

  His next words were too soft to hear. Aria imagined she could reach out and touch the ties between them, they were so tangible in every syllable. It was love, pure, simple and grateful. A hand landed on Aria’s shoulder, and every muscle in her body wound around itself as though pulled by strings.

  “It’s me,” Adam said softly.

  That didn’t make the strings loosen their grip. He moved in, and she could feel the heat from his body. She wan
ted his comfort. She wanted to want his arms around her, to let him give her strength.

  She just didn’t know how.

  “Thank God you’re all right.” He leaned in, his hand gently moving over her shoulder, down her arm to pull her close. She closed her eyes, willing her body to accept, her mind to stop screaming.

  But her skin skittered at his touch. Her insides tangled, heaved. Her lungs pulled in, strangled her breath. The need to get away clawed in her chest. She was drowning in it. All she could feel was Wade’s touch, his taunts. He had destroyed so much.

  She shoved back from Adam. Stepped back a few paces. Took a deep breath.

  Aria glanced down, hiding her face from the man she loved, and yet the emotions were so distant, so remote. She felt stuck, frozen. “I’m sorry. I just...I can’t.”

  “A lot has happened.” The words were loaded with more than she could decipher, more than she wanted to admit.

  “We need to get Emily home,” Gideon interrupted. “Now.”

  The minute Gideon moved, Aria hobbled after him. If she didn’t stay next to him, he would disappear again.

  Adam came up behind her. “Let me help you to the carriage.”

  “I am fine.”

  “You can barely walk. Let me help.”

  “I’m fine,” she repeated, her next step a little sideways to put distance between them. She knew it hurt him, but she couldn’t stop.

  Adam would expect things to move forward. If she looked into his eyes, she would see hope. Belief that the nightmare was over. But it wasn’t. All the love she had felt, that tendril of hope...she couldn’t feel it. She couldn’t feel anything except rage.

  And she was desperately afraid that Wade had killed anything good inside of her.

  She thought she heard a frustrated sigh. She couldn’t be sure.

  But the man who had killed for her walked silently behind her all the way.

  * * *

  Five hours later, Adam leaned his head back against the wall, staring up at the painted ceiling, while his fingers tapped an anxious rhythm. His body was wound so tight he thought he might snap in two. His brain refused to shut down, as scenes flashed through his head, round and round, melding and smudging with ones he carried from Blythe’s shooting. At one point, he couldn’t tell one gun apart, one woman apart.

  Emily’s babe had been delivered safely. Gideon was with them.

  And John was dying.

  As soon as they’d returned to the Whitney home, a servant had delivered the somber news. So Adam remained, unable to leave, even though Aria had run up the stairs without a backward glance.

  Even though she had made no indication she wanted him by her side.

  He’d sent a message with Ravensdale to his house, letting everyone know that they’d succeeded. They’d saved both Aria and Emily.

  He’d never regretted pulling the trigger when Thomas aimed at Blythe. It was the only way to save her, and he would do it again. Twenty times again.

  And now, he would carry another ghost, but Aria would be able to let go of Wade, of the agony.

  Tonight, he had no regrets.

  And what did that say about him? Shouldn’t he feel something more than relief that they could move on with their lives?

  The man was dead by his hand. Shouldn’t that matter?

  “You’re still here.”

  The soft words were spoken with surprise, resignation. Adam lifted his head. Aria stood—ten feet away, of course—studying him as if a hundred feet of river rushed between them. But it wasn’t the distance.

  She was different.

  The spark of life that emanated from her like a spicy perfume had flickered out. Ravages of pain and sorrow had created valleys of shadows in her face, bowed her shoulders. Her arms grasped around her middle, as if they were the only thing that kept her from melting into a puddle of liquid.

  He stood, every cell in his being urging him forward to hold her, to comfort her. “John?”

  She swallowed. Red rimmed her eyes, but they looked painfully dry. “Gone.”

  “Oh God, Aria, I’m sorry.” He went to her, reached out, but she stepped back with a panicked gulp of breath. “Aria?”

  She shook her head. “Please, don’t. I—I can’t. I didn’t know you were here, or I wouldn’t have—” She pressed her lips together and brought a hand to grasp her jaw, holding in the words that hung in the air.

  She wouldn’t have come downstairs.

  Adam dropped his hands to his side. “What can I do?”

  “Nothing. I’m fine.” Her words, repeated from earlier, were hollow.

  “You aren’t fine. Let me help you through this.”

  “I married Patrick, however briefly. That ended any responsibility you had.”

  “Respons—” he stopped himself. Responsibility.

  She didn’t know. She didn’t understand.

  “I don’t wish to be free, Aria. Nothing has changed for me. If anything, it’s made me more than certain. I want to be with you, build a life with you. I love you.”

  Nothing changed in the lines of her solemn face.

  “Did you hear me? I love you.”

  “Yes. But I can’t marry you.”

  She hadn’t jumped into his arms. She didn’t even appear to care. Anger dredged up through his shock, and he recalled Emily saying that Aria had no intention of staying.

  He had killed to save her, and she was pulling away. Had he been a second later, or Wade earlier, things could have ended very differently. As it was, Wade left only destruction and a crime syndicate to be picked up by the next thug.

  And Adam was left with a fiancé who wanted nothing to do with him.

  Stop being an ass.

  She was grieving, and he was pushing her. Grief manifested in strange ways, and he knew Aria grieved alone. When she had thought her father dead, she ran away. Now that John was dead, she was running away. Or was it something more? Had Wade... A cold, sticky fear filled him.

  “Did he...did Wade hurt you?”

  She turned slightly and then ducked past him to the other side of the room.

  “Why are you running from me?” He followed her, and she moved again. “Damn it, would you stay put? I just want to comfort you! Tell me what happened. Let me help.”

  Her gaze snapped to his, and her desolation floored him. “I don’t want your comfort. I don’t want your help. I don’t want you.” Her cruelty stung. “Go on with your life. I’m certain you won’t have any trouble finding a new bride.”

  The shift of direction made him freeze. “What are you talking about? I don’t want a new bride.” He held a hand up. “You need time, that’s all.” Knowing she would never let him embrace her, he pressed two fingers to his lips, kissed them and faced his palm toward her. “I’ll return tomorrow, and we’ll talk.”

  Then he turned to leave.

  “I won’t be here.”

  He stopped and faced her. “What do you mean?”

  “I’m leaving.”

  “Leaving.” He’d been reduced to a damn parrot.

  “John is dead. My father has to be able to live his life with Emily and the babe. I plan to continue my father’s work.” Her gaze, her words, her emotions were distant, hidden somewhere outside of his reach.

  He stared blankly as all of Mrs. Whitney’s warnings ran through his head. She would never be happy. A life in London isn’t what Aria wants. “You’re leaving to become an antiquarian?”

  Her lips pressed in; her hands dropped to her side. “I can’t...I can’t stay here.”

  “You’ve lost someone you loved. This is your grief talking.” It had to be. But since she’d come downstairs, Aria was cold, indifferent. Not the woman he had fought for.

  But she did very muc
h resemble the woman he had feared she truly was. “We can work through this. I can help you through this,” he added as a last effort to remind her that he was here, as he’d promised.

  “Do you have any idea what that man put me through?” Her tone hitched high, and through the blankness, a thin reed of desperation showed. “This is not about grief. He changed me. He changed everything. I trusted him. Confided in him. He took my home from me, Adam. He had a bloody spy in my house. He turned my room into my prison—. It was exactly like my room, down to the damn wallpaper. He took everything I had away.” Her words broke, then her lips curled into a snarl. “I believed him. I thought he was my friend, and he destroyed my life”

  Her pain shot right through him, and Adam cleared the distance between them, placed his hands on her shoulders. Her body stiffened, and he yanked his hands back. “I won’t do that. We can build a new life. You and I have nothing standing in our way.” His voice softened. “I’m still on your side, Aria. Don’t you see? You asked me before you were...well, before. You asked that I believe in you, that I stay on your side. I chose you then, and I’m still here. We can get through this together.”

  When her eyes lifted, they held brittle regret. “I am choosing now. I want to forget I ever came here. I want to forget everything about this place.”

  Her words pummeled him like the fists of small children—sharp, precise and impossible to defend against.

  As if taking his silence as acquiescence, she took soft steps to the door. As the doorway framed her silhouette, she turned slightly. “I never should have agreed to marry you. I think I always knew I could never stay and truly be happy. I am so sorry for that. You’ll be happier without me. Goodbye.”

  Then she was gone.

  Adam stood in the room alone, shoulders bowed, head down. His chest ached with the same fierce pain he’d felt when he’d realized she had been kidnapped. Only this time, it was much, much worse.

  This time, she’d chosen to walk away.

  He should have known. He should have listened to the doubts he’d had from the beginning. Mrs. Whitney’s warnings. Hell, even Aria had told him she would never choose him. He should have listened.

  Adam turned to the door and opened it without a glance backward.