Cloaked in Danger

by Jeannie Ruesch

  “As many as we can get,” Gideon replied grimly.

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Emily’s directions were short and the only words spoken in the carriage along the way. With a soft “Turn here” or “Next street, direct him to the right” they moved out of neighborhoods with parks in the center circle, well-lit lamps and clean sidewalks with few people to stroll them. In moments, the carriage threatened to roast them out. The weather had taken its grip on the city and engulfed it in suffocating heat. The members of society had deserted the city like bees leaving a fallen hive.

  As they continued from the West End of the city to the East, the sidewalks began to fill, swarms of people walking to and fro—silent soldiers, armed and ready to do battle with the day.

  Houses were no longer scrubbed shiny. Flowers were found only on the street corners—single wilted blooms held by the downtrodden woman hoping to sell them next to the woman who sold a precious basket full of oranges.

  No one dawdled here, except for those who lived permanently on the streets. Heads stayed down, gaits were purposeful and hurried. Fear was served like breakfast daily.

  They entered Whitechapel.

  The mere idea infuriated Adam. Wade had at least a dozen residences that they’d uncovered on their search, but he had chosen to keep her in this hellhole.

  Adam wished they’d had time to hire a hack to bring them here. Though his carriage was far from gold embellished, it was new, clean and obviously made of money. The contingency of six men who held on to the back, sat atop the seat or followed behind on horses were intended to discourage trouble, rather than encourage it. But he wasn’t taking any more chances.

  “One more turn to the left,” Emily said softly. “The house is in the middle.”

  The house sat between two larger buildings with as much outside appeal as abandoned rookeries. The exterior was in marginally better condition than the rest on the street, but not by much.

  Aria had been held here?

  The thought rolled his stomach. Then he remembered that the room she’d been held in had been made to look like hers. How did that fit?

  And suddenly, Adam understood.

  Wade had taken everything from her, even the safety of her own home.

  This was about that room. Aria was here.

  The carriage was still slowing to a halt, but he couldn’t wait. He jumped from his seat, grabbed the handle to the door.

  “Merewood, what in bloody hell are you doing?”

  He ignored Gideon and leaped out of the carriage. With a hard landing that streaked pain up his legs, he managed to stay on both feet and moved toward the house.

  Up the stairs. The door was locked, no surprise, and though he rammed his weight against the frame, it didn’t budge.

  There had to be a way in. Aria had gotten in somehow. He’d find it.

  It only took minutes of searching the exterior before he found a window that had been broken. Shards of glass stuck in the window jam, with small drops of blood smeared along them.

  The sight of her blood chilled his.

  It had happened when she broke into the house, he told himself, pressing a hand against his chest.

  Not because someone else had harmed her.

  In that moment, it struck him what this house must have meant to her. It was a harsh slap of reality, how much she had been through before he’d even met her. When he’d found her that first night in Ravensdale’s home, she had already lost so much.

  And along the way, she’d been stripped of everything else.

  How had he not seen that?

  And he’d told her father he would bring her home, as if fresh country air and a simpler life was enough to restore what she had lost. But by god, he wanted to hope it would be. He wanted to help her—only this time, to help her heal.

  He pulled in a jag of air, grabbed the window frame. Ignored the flash of pain when the glass pricked his skin as he hauled himself over the windowsill.

  Once inside, he brushed at the rip in his breeches. Glass snapped and broke under his feet. “Aria?”

  The room held the misty air of neglect. It was amazing what a few weeks of abandonment could do to a house. Dusty furniture stood sentry amid stripes of shadow and filtered light. Artwork hung on the walls, forgotten. Shattered glass and ceramic littered the floor. The room held a mystery, like a breath of air sucked in, but not extinguished.

  But she wasn’t there.

  Letting instinct guide him, he moved toward the stairs. Up, two at a time. Into the corridor. Surrounded by darkened shadows, one door opened to a dim stream of filtered light.

  He moved to the doorway.

  And there she was.

  She was crouched in front of the fireplace. Flickers of light highlighted her shoulders, deepened the shadows that surrounded her. But still, he could see the colors of the room, the patterns, the feeling... Wade had taken a safe haven and turned it into something ugly.

  He stepped inside what he imagined was her personal hell.

  “Aria.”

  Her head snapped around, her lips parting as she saw him. “Adam.”

  Beyond her, he could see the pile of material in front of her, waiting to be fed into the fire.

  “What do you have there?” He took a cautious step forward, never letting go of her gaze.

  Her chin inched forward. “I didn’t...I thought this would be easier,” she murmured. “And I would have been home hours ago.”

  “What would be easier?” He kept his voice lightly interested. Fragile. Gideon had said she was fragile.

  Her hands were fisted around the fabric, and as Adam took another small, slow step, he saw that what she held led to the pile that was dangerously close to the flames that licked blue and hot.

  “Burning this.” She turned toward the fire, threw another handful of fabric into it. “You don’t need to be here.”

  “Your father is worried.”

  “And he sent you?”

  It pricked his heart a bit, the tone of surprise, as though he was inconsequential. “He is here, as well. Emily too.”

  At that, her head snapped up and panic rippled across her features. “They have to leave. It’s not safe. He’ll...” Her words faded and she focused as if seeing him for the first time. “Patrick.”

  “Wade is dead.”

  “I know that,” she snapped. “I get confused sometimes. It’s as if the days jump back and forth. And my dreams—they are so real. I see him so clearly. I heard his words, his voice. So when I wake up, I feel—” Her mouth clamped shut, and she shook her head. “Why are you here?”

  “To find you.” He took a few steps until he stood in the entry, near enough to touch her.

  “I have done naught but bring misery to you. I almost got you killed. I ruined your life. You should hate me.” She looked up, equal measures of misery and uncertainty in the dark depths of her eyes. “Why don’t you hate me?”

  The emotion that burgeoned inside of him was anything but hate. The need to protect her from—what, exactly? Her nightmares? Herself? It flooded through him like a wave, destroying any anger, uncertainty.

  “I don’t know why,” he told her honestly. One more step, and he was within arm’s reach of her. He crouched down until they were at eye level. “I do know that none of this is your fault.”

  “Not my fault?” She stood abruptly and stalked a few feet away, pointing at the rug on the floor. Pointing to the dark round stain in the center of it. “This man died because of me. He was a doctor, with a wife and a family.” Anger emanated from her shaking limbs. “Patrick killed him, because I begged him for his help. He laid here on the floor, bleeding in my arms. Because of my actions, he died.”

  “You aren’t responsible for—”

  “Yes! I am.” H
er tone was fierce, anguished. “I set this in motion. Everything Patrick did, he did because of me. He killed that doctor. He tried to have you killed because my actions forced our betrothal. He told me you were dead. My father was almost killed because he refused to give Patrick my hand. And—” Her voice caught. “John. I made choices. I should have been firm with Patrick from the beginning. I knew I would not marry him. But I was lonely.”

  “And because you didn’t say no immediately, you’re responsible for the people he hurt? That’s ludicrous.”

  “That doctor did nothing! John did nothing. I am the one who plunged into your world, against Emily’s advice. Against John’s orders to leave things alone. Good heavens, you even warned me away and I didn’t listen.”

  “Wade was more than a spurned suitor, Aria. He was head of an underground organization that does atrocious things. He was a criminal, a murderer and far worse, long before he met you. He had a greater agenda than a romantic obsession. The things he did were of his own doing.”

  “No!” She turned in a tight circle, pointed at the walls. “Look at this room, Adam. Really look at it. Patrick created this place for me. He did this because of me. All of it was because of his obsession with me.”

  “Are you so self-absorbed then?” Adam shot back.

  She drew her head back as if he’d physically punched her. “What?”

  “The world revolves around Aria—therefore it must all be your fault?” He stalked toward her. “You are not the sun, Miss Whitney. No matter how you have convinced yourself of how special you are because of it, you were an instrument of Patrick’s obsession. You were not the focus.”

  Her mouth fell open. “How dare you.”

  “How dare I, what? Tell you what you need to hear?” His own anger surged to the surface, surprising him. He hadn’t known it was still so fresh, so raw. “Everyone in this world makes their own decisions. I have learned that the hard way. As much as I wanted to take responsibility for the actions of my sisters, for whom they fell in love with, I cannot. And you made your choices, some spectacularly bad ones with no regard to anyone else’s needs or wants. I shall grant you that.”

  “Why, thank you for such generosity.” Her tone was pure ice.

  “But that is all you can claim ownership to. You cannot claim my choices. You cannot claim Wade’s. Your father’s. Anyone else’s. If there’s something I have learned in the last year, it’s that we cannot—we do not control anyone but ourselves. To think that you are the sole person holding the strings makes the rest of the world nothing but puppets. And goddamn it, I am no one’s puppet. Certainly not yours.”

  His last words clipped off as if snipped by a pair of sheers, and Adam unfurled his fists. What the hell was he doing?

  Gideon had said his daughter was fragile, unfocused and vulnerable and now he’d unleashed his temper on her? But damn it, he would not let her take over. He would not let her present her guilt as the guiding reason for his love.

  She would know that loving her was his choice.

  “Are you quite finished?” At her silky, dangerous tone, Adam tilted his head up, met her gaze sideways. And in that moment, he saw the bewitching woman she had been the night he met her. Her eyes were glittering black jewels set in a face that seethed with unspoken anger. Her arms were crossed over her chest.

  Fragile? This woman was glorious.

  “No, I am not.” The words had barely left his mouth before he took the final step between them, reached out to grab her shoulders. Pulled her to him.

  Before she could say a word, he brought his face down to hers. Felt the warmth of her breath as her lips parted before he took them. He dropped his hands from her shoulders, flattened them against her sides, and followed the curve of her waist. Once his hands were on the full of her back, he crushed her against him.

  “Adam—” She attempted to speak as his mouth opened, captured hers again. His lips trapped her upper lip, sucked on it, reveled in the citrusy taste of her. Her hands pushed against his chest, and he stilled.

  “This moment,” he whispered against her lips. “This is about us. No one else. This is what I want, from you, with you. It has nothing to do with anything that came before right now.” He touched his lips to hers gently, but held her firm against him. “If you want me to go, push me away, and that will be it. But I love you, Aria. I want you to know that. I can wait. I can be patient, as long as you know it’s you I love. Every infuriating inch of you.”

  “Even the self-absorbed ones?” she shot back, leaning her head back slightly so she could look in his eyes. But she did not push against him. Her hands lay still against his chest.

  “Even those.” He pressed another gentle kiss on her, this time on the corner of her lips. When a few seconds passed and she didn’t move, he lowered his lips to her cheek. The sensitive spot below her ear.

  And felt her body stiffen like a board. Her hands tensed, and she shoved against him. “Stop!”

  The rejection dropped with the destruction of a jagged-edged stone right to his core. But he dropped his arms. Stepped back. “As you wish.”

  “No, you don’t understand.” She put a hand up to stop him from leaving. “This isn’t about...it isn’t you, Adam.”

  He turned to the door. “Your father is here, you are safe. He will—”

  “I don’t want you to go.”

  His hand was on the door handle, and he wrapped his fingers around the bulb tightly. “I am trying to respect your wishes, but damn it, I need to know what you want from me. I am not a toy you can play with, Aria.”

  She turned away, her head down. When her body folded into itself, Adam took a step toward her—and then she was at one of the bedroom walls, reaching up to peel a long strip of wallpaper off the already tattered wall. “I want to destroy this room. This house. His voice in my head.” The wallpaper falling limp from her hand, she faced him. “I came here to face him. To face what he did to me. And then I saw your face—and it made me happy. And that hurts as much as the rest.”

  “Why?” The spurt of joy in his chest was short-lived.

  “Because of what he did.” Her voice caught on the last word, and the raw emotion threw Adam into an uneasy panic.

  “I already told you, you aren’t—”

  “He ruined me, Adam.”

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Adam stood very still, separated from her only by a few feet, but Aria was so trapped in her own head, in her own never-ending nightmares she didn’t know how to reach him.

  “What do you mean, he ruined you?” Adam spoke softly, a thread of pain and uncertainty lacing every syllable.

  Shame filled her, and she dropped her head. Of course he would need clarification, but the words choked her, threatened to close off all air. She needed the blessed empty distance she had found from her emotions, but Adam’s appearance had yanked her back right to the edge. Her anger had escaped, and now that one emotion had been released, the others began to surge up, forward. Caged birds demanding release. They battered down her wall of protection and she felt raw. Exposed. Uncertain.

  And so very, very afraid that if she told him the truth, if she admitted what Wade had done, Adam would want nothing to do with her.

  He had given so much for her, and she was broken.

  “Aria.” Anguish reflected that one word. “Did he hurt you? Did he...” His mouth opened, but nothing came out of them.

  “He came in here one night, believing I had...that we had been together intimately. He was enraged beyond anything I’d ever seen.”

  Adam sucked in a breath, and horror flashed across his face, but Aria couldn’t stop. She had to continue.

  “He was infuriated that I had let you touch me, and he wanted to prove he owned me. That I was his.”

  A strangled gasp came from Adam, and fear curled Aria into herself
. She could not look up and see disappointment in his eyes.

  “He held me down, he tried—” She stopped, certain it was clear enough without the words. “But I got away. I kicked him and fled.” Without looking at Adam, she walked to the window she had jumped from, peered through the dirty glass at the alleyway below. She rubbed one arm with her hand, her fingers pressing hard to match the growing pain inside. “I thought he would kill me. I was tainted. No longer his perfect prize.” She lifted her shoulders. “I still don’t know why he didn’t. Why didn’t he kill me?”

  No words, either of comfort or consequence, came from behind her. Tension pushed at the very walls of the room, and Aria squared her shoulders, dropped her hands to her sides, and prepared to face whatever Adam had to offer.

  The sight of him shocked her. His shoulders had hunched inward, and his hands lay limp in his lap. She could not see his face. His breathing was shallow, uneven. It felt like hours passed, until he finally raised his head to meet her gaze. The misery in them, the unfiltered pain, pulled her breath right from her chest.

  She stepped forward. “Adam—”

  “You need to know...Oh God, Aria.” He ran a hand over his head. “I taunted him. I made him believe that we had been intimate. I caused that. I set him loose on you.” He doubled over at the waist. “What the hell did I do?”

  His pain stood like a tortured presence between them. Knowing the endless cycle he was about to set himself on, she crossed the distance between them. Knelt in front of him.

  “Adam, I already knew what you said to Patrick. He told me that day.”

  His hand landed on her shoulder with a rough grasp, and even as her body shied away, Aria knew it was a plea for his own comfort, his own need. She shoved her panic down, took a deep breath, and then placed her hand softly on top of his, fingers to fingers, her palm atop the back of his. The simple touch soothed her, reminded her of how safe she had always felt in his arms. It gave her hope that maybe, just maybe they could make it through this. “It was not your fault.”

  Her words had no effect. He held himself as if waiting for ten lashes to commence.