Chapter Fourteen
Graham sipped his drink as he watched James pace his office restlessly, just as he had been for nearly twenty minutes.
“How many do you think I should hire?” James mused.
Graham leaned forward. “Two will be enough,” he said. “One for the day, one for the evening, especially if you aren’t here. You don’t want to smother Emma, or make her a prisoner in her own home.”
James relaxed a fraction and slowly sank into a chair across from Graham. “Of course. You’re right, I would never want to do that to her. I just…the idea that the bastard is in London makes my stomach turn.”
“That’s two of us,” Graham muttered. “I’m sorry I didn’t keep a better eye on the man. Especially considering how he nearly—”
He cut himself off and stared at his bruised hands as memories flooded him. James stopped pacing to stare at him. “You lost control?”
Graham lifted his chin slowly. James didn’t ask the question with judgment, but Graham still felt defensive as he jerked out a nod. “I did.”
“It’s been a long time since you’ve done that.” James folded his arms. “You must like that actress a great deal.”
Graham pursed his lips at the knowing expression on his friend’s face. “I ought to know better than to tell anyone in our group anything. It all filters back to you, doesn’t it?”
“King of the dukes, yes? I must watch over my kingdom as best I can,” James said with a brief smile and a shake of his head. “I do wonder what it means for Adelaide, though.”
Graham stiffened at the mention of her name. “You think I’m being unfair to her?”
“It’s clear you like her, too,” James said with a shrug of one shoulder. “I know you well enough to know what I see when you two are together. Funny that I couldn’t see the trouble between you and Meg so clearly.”
Graham ran a hand through his hair, loosening it from its queue in the process. He shook his head. “That wasn’t your fault. You did what you thought was right for everyone involved. Any one of us could have stopped it before it…blew our lives apart.”
James tilted his head. “Why didn’t you? You clearly didn’t love Meg any more than she didn’t love you. Why didn’t you stop it?”
“Most of our station don’t marry for love,” Graham said after a long pause where he considered the question. Considered the two women who were so confusing him. “I never thought I would. In truth, I never thought I’d want to. Strong emotion never…never seemed positive to me.”
“Because of your father,” James said softly.
Graham flinched despite himself. “Yes. His passions always led to anger. I fear I may follow in his footsteps.”
“You never could,” James said instantly and firmly as he came forward to clasp a hand on Graham’s forearm. “You could never be like him.”
Graham shut his eyes, thinking once again of Sir Archibald’s broken face the previous night. Feeling the thud of flesh on flesh in his sore knuckles even now. His stomach turned.
“You asked if it’s fair to Adelaide,” he said, forcing the subject change without any finesse. “I know it isn’t. I do like her, James, I want you to know I’m not playing a game with her. She isn’t like anyone I’ve ever known before. I find myself wanting to peel away all those layers she puts up between herself and the world. But then there’s Lydia, and I’ve already given her secrets I never even told you or Simon.”
James leaned back in surprise. “I see. Do you think there’s a future with the actress?”
Graham drew in a long, ragged breath. When he pictured a future, he couldn’t conceive of it without Lydia. But then again, he also had a hard time picturing it without Adelaide.
“If you take so long to answer, I can see what you don’t want to say,” James said. “I don’t know Adelaide very well yet, but I know from everything Emma has said that she deserves better than half a heart. If you feel such a deep connection to Lydia, I think you ought to—”
He broke off and Graham shook his head. “Tell me, I want to know.”
“I’m afraid you won’t like it,” James responded slowly.
“Well, Simon isn’t here to soften the blow,” Graham said with a small smile. “So say it quickly and perhaps it will sting less.”
“I think you ought to let Adelaide go,” James said firmly.
Graham could hardly breathe at the thought, even though he knew James was right. Even though he only spoke the absolute truth.
“Your Graces?” Both men turned as James’s butler entered the billiard room. As James nodded, the man continued, “The Duchess and Lady Adelaide have both decided to retire to bed early. Her Grace says to tell you to stay up as long as you’d like, Your Grace.”
Graham sent a side glance at James. From the shift in his expression, Graham could see his friend wanted to join his wife. The certainty on Abernathe’s face made Graham’s chest tighten. He wished he knew what he desired so clearly.
“Thank you,” James said. “You may also finish your duties and go to bed. I’ll make sure the doors are locked after Northfield leaves.”
The butler nodded and left the two men alone. James smiled at him. “It seems we have a long night available to us if you’d like to talk.”
Graham laughed despite himself. “No, I don’t require a governess tonight, though I appreciate the offer. I would like to say one thing before I tell you to go to your bed and let me show myself out.”
James nodded. “Of course.”
“The situation is untenable, and I know you’re right that I shouldn’t toy with a woman like Adelaide. Nor a woman like Lydia. Still, they have given me a gift.”
“And what is that?”
“I understand more what Simon…went through,” he admitted slowly. “Wanting what he felt he couldn’t have, loving what he knew he shouldn’t. I can see how his desperation could have led him to do something. How he could have been willing to trade anything not to lose Meg.”
James’s jaw twitched a little. “If that is what you’ve gotten from your current predicament, then I cannot be sorry. I hope that means one day you can talk to Simon, forgive him even. Our world is not the same without you.”
Graham stiffened. “I’m here.”
James shook his head. “You’re not really. Not the way it used to be. Perhaps that’s too much to hope for, but I still do.”
Graham nodded. In truth, as time passed, he had begun to wish for how things used to be too. It might not be fully possible with all they’d gone through. But he knew that avoiding the situation wasn’t going to change it. “I will speak to Simon when I’m ready, I promise you.”
James slapped his arm again. “Can you show yourself out?”
He smiled. “I can. I’m sure Grimble hasn’t gone to bed and I can convince him to lock up behind me. I’ll talk to you again soon.”
James grinned and left the room, Graham trailing behind him. While his friend turned right toward the stairs, Graham maneuvered left, down the long and winding halls that led to the foyer. But as he turned in a bend, he slowed his gait. The library door was open a crack and there was a sliver of light peeking out from the space, leaving a beam in the hallway. He edged toward it, his heart rate increasing because he knew instinctively what he would find in that room.
He also knew he should walk past it.
But he didn’t.
Adelaide’s bare foot tapped beneath her gown, and she looked up at the shelves of books without seeing any of them. God, how she was distracted. She hadn’t even had the focus enough to ring for Rebecca to help her undress. All she could think about was Graham, Graham, Graham.
Graham, shame filling his face when Emma noticed the bruising on his knuckles.
Graham watching Adelaide at supper, his expression hooded and unreadable, but oh-so-focused and confusing.
Graham, broken the night after he’d attacked Sir Archibald. Broken as he whispered his dark and painful secrets to a woman who didn’t even exist.
And Graham, who was just a few doors down the hall with James, talking about God knew what while she couldn’t stop thinking about him.
“Hello, Adelaide.”
She froze in her place facing the bookshelf and her heart began to pound so hard she feared it could be heard in the silent room. She’d thought she was safe here tonight. She’d thought Graham and James would likely spend many hours talking together.
It seemed she was wrong. She pivoted slowly and found exactly what she expected: Graham standing at the entrance to the room. His blond hair was half out of its queue and strands of it fell around his face, making him look undone and a little dangerous.
Because of course he was there when she was at her most vulnerable. Of course he was there, watching her, when her secrets were so close to the surface. When she knew she’d have to tell him, but just wasn’t ready yet.
“Hello,” she squeaked out.
He hesitated a moment, almost as if he were weighing his options, and then stepped fully into the library and gently shut the door behind himself.
She stared at him. They were inappropriately alone now. She had never been alone with him like this as Adelaide. Brief moments on the terrace were nothing like this, where the room was so small and tight and no one knew they were here together.
No one could interrupt.
Despite the danger of this moment, despite her foolishness in wishing it would grow more dangerous still, her body reacted of its own accord to what he’d done. She started to tingle, making it very clear what she wanted from the man no more than three feet away from her.
“I thought you’d gone to bed,” he said, and she was almost certain he gave the word bed just a tiny bit more weight.
She worried her hands in front of herself. “I couldn’t sleep. Not that I tried that hard.”
He moved a hand up to brush a lock of hair from his forehead and she tracked the motion, drawn once again to the bruises on his knuckles. She should have asked for ice. It would have helped the swelling. He frowned at how she looked at his injuries.
“Ugly, aren’t they?” he said, holding his hands out so she could look more closely.
She caught her breath. “I don’t think so.”
“No?” he pressed, coming forward a step. He brought his body heat with him, his unwavering presence that seemed to take up all the space, all the air, everything she needed to survive.
She should have stepped away, but instead she reached out. Her fingers nearly brushed the bruising, but he pulled back, ducking his head.
“What you must think of me,” he said softly. “You and Emma.”
She pursed her lips, frustrated that he knew so little of her real self that he would think she’d judge him for what he’d done. Pained that he judged himself even more harshly.
“You did something brave, it seems to me,” she said, choosing her words carefully. “To protect your…your friend as you did.”
He winced. “If you were there, you would have thought me an animal, Adelaide.”
She fisted her hands at her sides. “Of course you weren’t an animal, Graham,” she insisted, her emotion bubbling over even though she didn’t want it to. “That man’s intentions were clear—he wouldn’t have stopped unless you stopped him. What would have happened then? I know exactly what would have happened. I would have been raped and—”
She cut herself off and jerked her hands to her lips. What had she just said? In her fervor to soothe Graham, what in the world had she just said?
Graham lifted his gaze to her and his brow wrinkled with confusion. “What did you say?”
She backed up, and this time he didn’t hesitate to move forward. He tilted his head now, examining her. Really looking at her.
“I didn’t say anything,” she said. “I-I was just repeating what you said about your friend.”
“You said I would have. I, not she.” He moved closer again and she staggered, almost tripping off the edge of the rug as her backside hit the bookcase behind her. He pressed farther into her space, not quite touching her, but looming up nonetheless, his face too close to hers.
His bright, impossibly blue gaze piercing. And seeing. Her breath grew ragged, the only broken sound in the quiet room around them. She wanted to turn and run, but there was nowhere to go. Nowhere to hide. Not anymore.
“Graham,” she whispered. “Please don’t.”
He reached for her and she braced for him to catch her arm. To yell and demand and reveal. Instead, he silently slid his fingers into the tight bun that was bound up at her nape. She went weak at the touch, the feather-light pressure of his hand against her scalp, gliding her pins loose to scatter on the floor below her, spreading her hair out and down across her shoulders.
His nostrils flared.
“Graham,” she repeated weakly, tears filling her eyes.
He slid his hand around to her chin, forcing her to look up at him. Then he brushed his fingertips across her jaw, over her cheekbone, and caught her spectacles. Slowly, slowly he glided them down over her nose and away.
And he stared at her. Without her armor, without her costume, without her barriers between them. And he saw her. Because there was nothing left to keep him from doing so.
She stopped breathing entirely, mostly because she couldn’t remember how to do so when she was so exposed. This wasn’t how she’d wanted him to find out her secret. This moment when he was just staring at her, his expression one of coiled emotion.
She braced for him to yell at her. To demand she explain herself. Or worse, to simply walk away in pure disgust.
But instead he let out a long breath and whispered, “Thank God.”
Then his mouth was on hers with a crushing desperation that was unlike any way he’d ever kissed her before.