Chapter Twenty
Graham and Simon were laughing as they turned their mounts into the drive of Lady Opal’s small but fine London home. Graham couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt so light. He loved Adelaide, he had reunited with Simon and if all went well, he could even find a way to manage Opal so that Adelaide could still have some family. But as they approached the house, his smile fell.
“That’s James’s carriage,” he said, pointing at the stable, where a carriage was parked. There were no other servants around it, but he recognized the crest and his friend’s driver leaning against the wheel as he smoked.
Simon looked at him. “Would James have a reason to come here? Perhaps to talk to Lady Opal as we’ve planned?”
Graham’s heart had begun to pound as the two men swung down on the drive. “No,” he said softly. “I don’t think it’s James who had the carriage take him here. I think it’s Adelaide.”
Simon looked up at the house. “By now we should have had footmen coming down, the butler opening the door. It’s awfully quiet.”
“Too quiet,” Graham agreed. “Damn it, I hope she didn’t come here by herself. Her aunt is…troubled.”
“Is she capable of hurting Adelaide?” Simon asked.
Graham nodded and his chest hurt. “Yes.”
“Come on,” Simon insisted, taking the stairs up to the door two at a time. “No time to waste.”
Graham passed him at full speed and didn’t stop to knock on the door. He pushed at it and growled as he found it locked. He leaned back and kicked, once, twice, and the lock gave way, throwing the door inward into an eerily quiet foyer that was thick with smoke.
“Christ!” Simon said, waving his hand. “The house is on fire! I’ll have James’s man call for the brigade, then I’ll come in to help you search.”
But Graham didn’t answer. He leapt into the hazy foyer, ducking low to try to get beneath the worst of the cloying, choking smoke.
“Adelaide!” he called out, panic gripping him. She was here. He knew it, he sensed it down to his bones. She was here and this fire was no accident, not if the lack of servants was any indication.
“Adelaide!” he screamed, choking as the smoke filled his lungs. He rushed up the stairs, though he had no idea if she was up or down. But the smoke was filling the space, and he knew it would rise before it fully took over the lower levels. His best bet was to start at the top and hope.
He came around the corner into the hallway at the top of the stairs and skidded to a halt. A fire had been set right in front of a door, and it licked up the walls and across the barrier.
Adelaide’s room. He could have bet on it. He rushed forward, stomping at the growing flames as he tried to reach the door.
“Adelaide!” he screamed at the top of his lungs.
For a moment there was silence, and then a weak voice on the other side of the door. “Graham! Graham, please.”
He gave no more thought to the flames, to the danger. Adelaide was in that room and he rushed forward, ignoring the searing pain as the fire licked at his clothing and his skin. He kicked this door as he’d kicked the other, and it flew open.
What he saw inside nearly stopped his heart. Flames crawled along the walls, and in the middle of the room, tied to a chair, was Adelaide. Her blonde hair was down around her face, there was a huge cut across her temple that left trails of blood through the soot from the fire. She lifted her head, her gaze bleary from smoke and her injury.
“Help me,” she whispered, her voice almost not carrying in the hot room.
He leapt to her, untying her from the chair before he gathered her up against his chest and ran through the room, where the beams above creaked under the weight of their disintegrating wood, through the flaming door that was hot as hell. He ducked low, racing down the stairs and out the front door where he took in a gulp of air.
Simon was already outside helping neighboring servants as they fought the flames with a bucket brigade. Graham rushed Adelaide away from the house and set her down on the grass beyond the drive gingerly.
“She’s not breathing!” he screamed as the truth of it became clear. “Help me!”
Simon dropped down next to him, staring at the motionless body of the love of Graham’s life. He looked as helpless as Graham felt. “Lucas wrote to me once,” Simon said, his gaze lighting up. “About sharing breath with an injured person. Put your mouth on hers and breathe into her.”
Graham lifted her, positioning his mouth over hers as he gently blew air past her lips. Once, twice, but she didn’t stir. Three times as tears stung his eyes, dripped down his cheeks.
“Please,” he begged before he gave her one last long gust.
To his pure relief, she coughed, turning her head as she gasped and dragged in great gulps of clean air. He collapsed down next to her, pulling her against him, pressing kisses to her bloody and grimy face as the fire burned behind them and destroyed everything but the most important thing in the world.
Adelaide turned her head, and an explosion of pain worked through her entire skull. She moaned against it, lifting a hand to touch her face. She found it tender and carefully opened her eyes.
She was lying in a bed, propped up on the pillows, and next to her Graham lay on his side, facing her. He was asleep. His cheeks were streaked with soot and his hand rested on her stomach beneath the blankets.
Memories returned, dark and horrible. Of her aunt’s terrible confessions. Of the pain as she was struck. Of waking to the room in flame. She couldn’t hold back a sob as all those things mobbed her.
Graham opened his eyes at the sound and reached for her, pulling her tight against his chest as he pressed a kiss to her uninjured temple. “I know,” he whispered. “It’s all right. I’m here.”
She cried into his shoulder for a while, and he never spoke. He never demanded. He never did anything but gently rock her, offering her comfort where there was none. It was only when he lifted a hand to touch her face that she noticed the bandages on his arms, his hands.
She gasped out a sound of horror and tried to sit up, but was met with another explosion of pain through her skull.
“It’s all right,” he soothed. “The burns aren’t very bad. And you are well. You’re safe. I would have lit myself entirely on fire without hesitation to ensure that.”
She felt hot tears running down her cheeks and buried her face back into his shoulder. She smelled smoke on his clothing and it jerked her back, once again, to the horrible, bleary moments in the house when she’d known that she would die.
And why.
“Tell me what happened,” he whispered, his lips soft against her ear.
She let out a shuddering sigh and told him everything. He said nothing, just allowed her to pause when she needed to catch her breath, let her weep when the tears came. When it was all over, he just held her, trembling just as she did.
“Do you think it’s true?” Adelaide asked, sinking back against the pillows with a shuddering sigh.
He rolled to his side and traced her cheek with his fingertip. “I don’t know. There are a lot of details to the story for it to be a lie. And it would explain her strong reactions to me, to Charlie, to you.”
She stared up at the ceiling. “I know it’s true.”
He was quiet a long time and she appreciated his silence. He was allowing her to process what she’d been through. Allowing her to feel whatever came into her heart rather than trying to push it away and offer false comfort before she was ready.
But at last her mind stilled a little. She glanced at him. “Why were you there?”
He smiled, just a tiny lift of his lips. “I came with Simon, to try to make your aunt see reason.”
“With Simon?” she repeated. “Does that mean—”
He nodded, and in that moment she saw what a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “I went to see him. I talked to Meg and to him for a long time. And though there is likely still time left for all of us to fully heal, we’re on the road to it. He gave me the tools to save your life. Thank God he was there.” She touched his sooty face and he smiled again. “I apologize for the mess. They couldn’t make me leave your side.”
“I don’t care about the ash. I’m so glad you’re here with me. But what about my aunt’s servants?”
He sighed and her heart lurched. “She had sent them all away the moment you returned. Your butler, Finley, thought it odd and had rushed to find someone to help. We were lucky that the Home Office was already on its way and the fire brigade soon followed. They couldn’t save your aunt’s home, but they kept the blaze from spreading to the surrounding buildings.”
“Thank God for that,” Adelaide said with a shake of her head. “My aunt could have taken out the entire neighborhood. Half the city. For what? To stop me from being…me?” She hesitated and met his eyes. “What of her?”
He frowned deeply. “I’m so sorry, Adelaide, but…but they found her in the parlor. She didn’t survive.”
She shut her eyes, tears stinging yet again. “We had such a complicated relationship. Indifference, cruelty, occasional bursts of loving affection when I was a little girl…but she was all I had left in this world. I suppose I should take some solace that she’s at peace now. Whatever troubles plagued her, whatever truth was within her lies and delusions, she’s not in pain anymore.”
“You are better than I am,” Graham said. “I could offer her no such peace after what she did to you.”
“But I’m here. And you’re here. And in the end, she only harmed herself in any way that will stick.” She traced his lips gently, loving how close he was. Loving him with all her heart. And since she had almost lost him, she knew what she had to do. “I must tell you something.”
He nodded slowly. “Anything, you should know that by now.”
She cleared her throat and felt heat in her cheeks. This moment was so abjectly terrifying. But she needed to take it. Right now she knew better than most that there might not be another. Life could be taken so unexpectedly. She didn’t want regrets, not ever again.
“I have fallen in love with you, Graham,” she said. She held up a hand to keep him from speaking. “I don’t expect you to feel the same. I don’t want you to say anything you don’t mean—we both know how damaging that can be. But there was a moment today when I realized I would not live. And the idea that I would die without telling you my heart was as painful as anything else I endured. I vowed that if I survived, I wouldn’t be afraid of your rejection. That I’d tell you the truth.”
“Are you finished?” he asked.
She shifted. “I-I suppose so, yes.”
“I almost lost you, as well,” he said. “But that didn’t inspire me to tell you I loved you.”
Her heart sank. She hadn’t expected him to be so direct about it. “I understand.”
He shook his head. “No, you don’t. I intended to tell you I loved you the very next time I saw you, Adelaide, long before I saw the fire and realized you were trapped. I intended to tell you, just as I’m telling you now, that you possess my heart in every way.”
Her lips parted and disbelief shook her. “No,” she said, and moved as much as she could.
He caught her arm gently. “Don’t you dare run from me now. Neither of us has felt much love in our lives. Don’t think for a moment that this feeling doesn’t terrify me as much as it terrifies you. Or that I don’t fear that I’ll somehow destroy whatever we could possibly build. I do fear that. But I fear walking away from you more. I love you, Adelaide. You and only you. And the future can be far better than the past. That is what you’ve shown me from the first moment I saw you walk out on stage weeks ago.”
She felt the heat of her tears on her cheeks once more, but this time they weren’t tears of pain or devastation. They were tears of joy. Tears of acceptance that everything he said was real and true and right. That they would love each other and teach each other how to love. That they would have the rest of their lives to explore what it was to be fully accepted and fully adored.
Because she did adore him. And looking into his bright eyes, she could see all her feelings were returned.
She didn’t speak. She leaned up, drawing him down into her, lifting her mouth to his and kissing him with all her passion and her love, and the hopes and dreams she had long ago put away. With him, she had more than ever.
When he pulled away, he grinned, and it brightened the very room with happiness and light and hope. “Oh, there is one more thing. My carriage did retrieve Melinda and Toby, and they are on the way to my estate without incident. I thought that would please you.”
She struggled to sit up, her head spinning. Once that feeling had passed, she looked at him evenly. “Actually, I think there is a way for us to save them without hideouts and solicitors and every other wonderful thing you’ve planned in that brilliant mind of yours.”
His brow wrinkled. “Thwarting my plans again, are you? Tell me.”
She drew in a long breath. “My assumption is that when I marry you, Lydia Ford will be no more.”
“I-I hadn’t considered that. Would you be unhappy turning away from the stage?”
She blinked at the question. At the idea that he would have no issue with her continuing. And all her love swelled higher.
“You know I performed as a way to escape my real life, but I never thought it could truly last,” she reminded him. “Even if it could, I don’t want to escape you. Ever. So my thought is that Lydia must play one grand final part.”
He nodded. “I’m listening.”
“Everyone saw what happened between Sir Archibald and you the night he attacked me. But they also know that Lydia suffered at his hands. Does it not follow that she could have lured him back to the theatre and exacted her revenge?”
He leaned back and considered it a moment, then he grinned. “That is…brilliant, actually.”
“Thank you.” She said with her own smile. “So Lydia will write a letter explaining what she did and then expressing how the guilt wracks her and she cannot go on. She will drown in the Thames as penance for her crime.”
“Very dramatic,” he said, voice solemn though his eyes were bright with teasing. “But what about Melinda and Toby? Your friend adores you, she would be brokenhearted.”
She worried her lip. “Yes, there is that. I would hate to have her suffer thinking I was dead. But what if we…told them the truth?”
“Could you trust them?” he asked.
She nodded without hesitation. “Yes.”
“Well, I need a new manager of the very estate I’ve sent them to,” he said. “I could offer Toby a job if he’d like it. He has experience in the theatre. And then you’ll still get to see Melinda.”
She couldn’t help but grin with enthusiasm and then winced as the pain in her head returned. He frowned and wrapped his arms around her, lowering her back on the pillows as he looked over her face with concern.
“I assume Emma has been waiting to see me,” she said. “Worried sick. I have so much to tell her.”
“You do,” he said with a soft smile. “But it can wait. Have I mentioned in the past five minutes that I love you, Adelaide?”
She laughed despite all the pain that had been caused in the last forty-eight hours. Pain that she knew would fade with time and with the happiness she would find for the rest of her life with this glorious man.
“It’s been six or seven,” she said.
“Then I would be remiss if I didn’t say that I do love you, Adelaide.”
She tugged him down to kiss her once more. And before their lips met, she whispered, “I love you, Graham. With all my heart.”