Chapter Thirty-Two

In darkness, without the flickering of candlelight to illuminate the room, the creak of floorboards made Adam sweat. He clenched his teeth and tested his weight on the hard wood beneath him. His muscles were sluggish, his shoulder and hip bruised from having lain in the same position for so long without relief. But he could move without vomiting, which was a sight better than he had been of late.

The tenebrous quality of the air shifted to admit a shadow among the shadows. A man? If Chatterley had come to kill him, Adam would not capitulate meekly. Day by day, he was closer to winning over Chatterley’s manservant. Soon, he would return to his wife, see her safe with his own eyes. After that…

No, he couldn’t think of what came after. He would face the consequences once he finally held her in his arms again.

“Don’t move. The master is awake.”

Adam pressed his lips together but didn’t relax.

He felt more than heard the swift footsteps. They gave him a wide berth, their owner navigating the perimeter before kneeling behind him. Adam hated having men behind him. He gritted his teeth.

In a whisper, the manservant imparted two very important pieces of information.

“The master received a letter yesterday, an answer to the one I posted last week.” The manservant’s voice was preoccupied, terse, as he fiddled with something far too near Adam for his comfort. “He’s set to leave the house at first light. I don’t know who he’s meeting, but it’s the first he’s gone out in weeks.”

There was something, an edge to the man’s voice that begged an acknowledgment. What was he implying?

The cloth binding Adam’s wrists slackened but didn’t fall away entirely. With little effort, Adam could wiggle himself free. He started but froze when his companion added, “He’ll come in to check on you before we go out.”

Without another word, the manservant used the wall to circulate the room until he reached the door and left. Adam held himself still for a moment before pressing his cheek to the floor and feigning sleep. He could wait a few minutes longer.

Then he was going home.

…

The afternoon sun was strong, peeking from between the clouds overhead. Willa skipped ahead on the street, her heels clacking on the cobblestones. Lily and Sophie followed at a more sedate pace, their arms linked. Lily smiled. Her sister’s exuberance was infectious.

Turning the corner, Willa spread her arms and turned in a circle, her skirts swishing around her legs. When she turned back, her blue eyes were alight. “Smile, Lily! Didn’t you hear the magistrate? We’ve done it!”

Lily hesitated. Although the news they had received had been good, the matter was far from settled. Fortunately, Sophie remained the voice of reason in all things.

Raising her eyebrows at her youngest sister, Sophie said in a gentle, chiding voice, “The magistrate said the matter is likely resolved, especially if the gentleman in question doesn’t reappear and prove otherwise. But it will take time.”

Willa made a face at Sophie. “Don’t be a beast. We’ve won this. Our debts will be absolved.”

Sophie opened her mouth to protest, but for the first time in a long time, Lily wanted to forget the hard work that yet lay ahead. Not only did they have to fight for the absolution of their debts, but even afterward she would have to rejuvenate the shop in order to avoid incurring more. The weight of responsibility was still on her shoulders, but somehow being open about it with her sisters made it far more bearable. Willa had even asked to learn how to operate the forge. If it was like most of her other fancies, it wouldn’t last long, but perhaps Lily would have an apprentice for a few months while she worked on getting the shop to a better financial standpoint. She could do this because she had the strength of her sisters behind her. She reached out to clasp Willa’s hand. “You’re right. This is a happy day.”

Sophie’s mouth tightened as she glanced sidelong at Lily, but she didn’t protest.

With a broad smile, Willa turned again, gathering her skirts in her fists as if she wanted to run. “We ought to celebrate! How do you think we should? Maybe a few nice ribbons, or—”

“We’ll bake a cake,” Sophie said, her voice firm. “Or plum pudding. It’s your favorite, isn’t it?”

Willa’s eyes grew big with the light. “It is! And it’s not even Christmas! Do we have the ingredients?”

Lily shot her sister a grateful smile. “We’ll check when we get home,” she answered, even though she knew the answer. Despite the cost of the ingredients for the dessert, it would likely be far less than if Willa went out on a shopping spree for ribbons.

Still listening to all the things Willa hoped to cook for tonight’s feast, Lily leaned down to rest her head on Sophie’s shoulder. She was happier than she’d been in the past few weeks.

Until she turned the corner onto their street. A figure sat on the steps to their townhouse, waiting. At first, it was a mere silhouette, but as they approached, recognition nearly knocked Lily off her feet. The moment her sisters recognized him, they stopped short, their happiness draining away like a cold rain. Beneath her hand, Sophie began to tremble. With fear or rage, Lily didn’t know. She extricated herself from her sister’s death grip and patted her squarely. “Stay here. I’ll speak with him.”

“No,” Willa said, her face firm. “We are a team. We won’t have you shutting us out anymore. Whatever he has to say, he can say it to all three of us.” She claimed one of Lily’s arms and Sophie stepped up to claim the other. Thus ensnared, Lily had no choice but to face the man from between the brambles of her sisters.

Adam stood at their approach, his expression stricken. His clothes were rumpled and stained at the collar. He wore no cravat or waistcoat, only his shirtsleeves. A dark beard disguised the line of his jaw, but not the yellowing bruise over his cheekbone or the dark circles beneath his eyes. He looked pained, pale, and gaunt.

“What do you want?” Willa asked, her voice as cold as ice.

It wasn’t the question Lily wanted to ask.

Where have you been these past weeks?

She had expected…

No, she hadn’t. She hadn’t expected to see him again at all. Finding it suddenly difficult to breathe, she couldn’t say a word.

He looked past her belligerent sister and asked her, “May I come in?” His voice was hoarse.

She swallowed hard and studied the scuffed toe of her shoe peeking out from beneath her hem. “You have a key.”

“Not for a while. I was…robbed of it.”

Was that why he hadn’t come home? Lily’s chest ached, but with her sisters pressed so tight to her, she couldn’t wrest her arms free to rub the spot.

“Perhaps that’s for the best,” Sophie said, her voice every bit as glacial as Willa’s.

Lily gathered her courage and looked her husband in the eye. A painful lump lodged in her throat. Did she want to hear his excuses?

He looked as worn and battered on the outside as she felt on the inside. Her voice a rasp, she told him, “You may come in.”

Relief chased away his worried expression.

Willa interjected, “Lily!”

“I’d rather have this conversation inside than out here on the street.”

Even her sisters saw the sense in that.

The moment the door shut behind them, leaving the four in privacy, Willa and Sophie rounded on Adam with crossed arms. Lily grimaced. This entire situation hurt too much and she didn’t know if she could take it if her sisters tried to eviscerate Adam in the foyer. Willa pressed her lips together so hard, they looked like they would bruise.

Sophie narrowed her eyes and examined Adam as if he were a beetle on a pin. “You look like you were kicked by a horse.”

“You aren’t far off,” he said with a hint of irony. He sighed and scratched at his beard. “I’d like to speak with Lily alone, if I may. And perhaps wash up first. I’m sure I smell to high heaven.”

Lily wrinkled her nose. He wasn’t wrong about that. She started to take a deep breath to answer him, then thought better of it. Should she throw him out on his ear? A large part of her wanted to, wanted to rail and scream at him for the worry he’d put her through. Doubly so since he’d arrived home half dead.

The other part had her hand dropping over her belly. She nodded. “There’s a pitcher of water in my room. I’ll fetch it for you. I’m not waiting until water heats for a bath before I hear what you have to say for yourself.” She was proud of those words, proud of her tone.

He had hurt her. Twice. That didn’t mean she had to open herself to further wounds, even if she was carrying his child. Especially now.

But she wanted to hear what he had to say.

He mounted the stairs with far more difficulty than a healthy man ought to. When Lily offered her assistance, he shook his head. Pride stiffened his back. Stubborn fool. She followed him to the top, pretending not to notice the way he limped slightly or pressed his arm against his side.

Up close, she noticed his clothes were not only rumpled but filthy, caked in dust and… Perhaps she didn’t care to know what else. If he hadn’t been sleeping here, where had he gone? Had this anything to do with his nightmares and the way he sometimes forgot himself? But he’d told her that holding her helped him banish those. She had been right there, in bed next to him.

She didn’t know what to think.

When they reached the room they’d shared, Lily ushered him inside and detoured to the adjoining bedchamber to fetch the water pitcher. The pitcher was only half full, but she carried it and the soap to the basin in the other room and set it down. She didn’t look at Adam.

“Do you need my help undressing?”

He hesitated, then said in a rough voice, “No. I’ll manage. The state I’m in… It isn’t pretty.”

Lily held his gaze. Are we partners or aren’t we? Partners held one another up when the situation called.

Partners didn’t leave in the middle of the night without warning and return battered and bruised. She turned and crossed to the far end of the bed, where she sat and waited with her hands balled on her lap.

She couldn’t stop herself from listening. The rustle of fabric. His groan, muffled as if through gritted teeth. The splash of water. More. Another moan. She counted the grain in the wooden floorboards beneath her shoe. He washed without speaking. She ought to leave him to it. She didn’t.

At last, she heard the faint creak of hinges as he swung open the wardrobe door. Then, she could take it no more.

“You returned.” She called herself seven different kinds of fool for betraying her surprise.

He hesitated. “All my things are here.”

She frowned and turned on the mattress to face him. “They are?”

“Didn’t you look?” He had one eyebrow cocked. He wore a fresh pair of smalls and had one leg in his breeches. Otherwise, he was bare. Whereas that had been an impressive sight only two weeks prior, now the skin of his ribs, shoulder, and hip was dominated with layers of purple and yellow bruises.

Lily pressed her lips together. She turned away from the nauseating evidence of his injury. “I…” She swallowed hard. Surely pregnancy hadn’t rendered her this weak? She admitted, “I didn’t want to see them gone.”

In two loud strides, he crossed to the bed and knelt in front of her. His bruised torso was still on display, but he’d pulled up his breeches. The buttons gaped around the trail of hair leading down from his navel. Even that wasn’t untouched by injury.

His expression ardent, he reached up to cup her cheek. “I will never willingly leave you, Lily. Never.”

Tears glimmered along her eyelashes, blurring his face. She wanted to pull away, but it felt so good to have him near. His hand was warm and still damp from the wash. “But you did.” She hated the wobble in her voice.

“I didn’t mean to be away for so long.”

“Is that supposed to excuse what you did?” She finally mustered the will to pull away. “Don’t think you’re going to walk back into my life without paying penance.”

He dropped his hands to the coverlet next to her. “As long as you let me in. I can endure many things, Lily, but none of them without you.”

Damn his glib tongue. She bit her lower lip. It started to tremble. “Do you have any idea how much it hurt to wake up not to find you next to me…again?”

Despite all attempts to hold them at bay, tears welled up in her eyes and leaked from the corners. He reached up to brush away the moisture with his thumb and this time, she didn’t pull away. She shut her eyes instead.

His voice was rough when he confessed, “I didn’t expect to be away for this long. I thought I would be back before you woke.”

She took a shuddering breath, unable to keep her shoulders from shaking. “How can I believe you? You’ve done this before.”

“Not willingly. Never willingly.”

She wanted to believe him. Squeezing her eyes tighter, she leaned her face into his palm. They stayed like that for several moments before she whispered, “Are you going to tell me why you left this time?”

When he hesitated, she steeled herself and opened her eyes.

His hand fell away from her cheek. His gaze was fixed on a distant point behind her, as if he were still somewhere else. His voice pained, he admitted, “I was shortsighted and overconfident.”

As apologies went, Lily didn’t trust it. Especially when Adam unfolded his frame and returned stiffly to the wardrobe to finish dressing.

“In what way?” Her tone was biting. She curled her fingernails into her palms. She deserved the truth.

He spoke with his back turned, his voice muffled by the cloth he pulled over his head. “I couldn’t sleep, that night.”

“So you decided to leave? We were supposed to start our life together.”

At last. At long, long last.

Adam turned. His hair was disheveled, damp from where he’d splashed water on his face. His beard gave him an almost feral edge, a wildness to the debonair man she’d always known. As he tucked his shirttails into his breeches and buttoned them, he said, “I know. I’m sorry, Lily. Will you let me finish?”

Another knot of hostility inside her loosened despite the way she tried to harden herself to him. He sounded weary. Pressing her lips together, she nodded and vowed not to say another word until he finished.

“I was uneasy. I couldn’t sleep. Something about those documents we burned made me suspect they were copies, and with the way we antagonized Chatterley by denying him what he wanted, I was afraid his retribution would be swift and indiscriminate. I went to speak with him, to buy us time or better predict his next moves.”

Lily bunched the coverlet on either side of her hips. Her jaw ached from clenching her teeth. She was furious and betrayed and concerned and she didn’t know which emotion would win out in the end.

“What makes you think you had the right to leave? I thought we were a team, man and wife. You discuss things like that with your wife.”

The mattress dipped as he sat next to her. “I know. I thought I’d be back before morning. I made a mistake.”

She clutched the coverlet tighter. “I could have gone instead. Reid is more willing to listen to me.”

Gently, he loosened her fingers from the quilt and slipped his palm against hers. He was warm and solid in a way that she’d missed so much she’d ached without him. She squeezed him tight, her grip punishing, but he didn’t protest.

“I don’t think he would have listened to either of us.”

She hiccupped, brushing away more moisture that leaked onto her cheek. “You should have discussed it with me. I don’t know what would have happened, but at least we would have faced it together.”

Without a word, he gathered her into his arms, pressing her face against his chest. He smelled clean and a bit floral from the soap. Despite his wounds, she clung to him tightly. He made no indication he was in pain, despite the bruises she’d seen. In fact, he held her every bit as fiercely.

Hoarsely, he admitted, “When I was captured, I was afraid I’d never see you again. I made a mistake. I know that now. You’re everything to me, Lily. Please tell me you’ll give me another chance to prove that to you.”

She pressed her face into his shoulder to keep from crying. She wanted to trust him with every beat of her heart. But what if he left her again?

In a whisper, she asked, “What happened when you spoke with Reid?”

For a moment, she wondered if he’d heard. When she lifted her head to repeat the question, searching his face, she found him fingering the hair near his temple.

“There was no speaking. He shot me.”

She gasped, her hands flying to that patch of hair near his temple. She’d thought it was dark from the water, but her fingertips brushed crusts of dried blood. She trembled like a stray dog on a winter’s day. He could have died.

Adam threaded his fingers through hers and lowered her hand. He gave her a weary smile and kissed her knuckles before pressing their joined hands to his chest. “I don’t think he hit me. When I dodged…” He shook his head, his face grim. “It’s all very distant and blurred. When I woke, he’d restrained me. He held me in an unused room in his townhouse.”

“But you escaped.”

“I did.”

“And you came here?”

“I did. Lily, we may not have much time…”

She tightened her hold on his hand and opened her mouth. To tell him what, she didn’t know, because in the unguarded moment, her secret slipped out instead. “I’m with child.”

…

Adam’s ears rang with the revelation and he lost all semblance of what he’d intended to say. His focus was fixed on Lily—on the color flooding her cheeks, the hesitance in her eyes, the way she pulled a corner of her mouth between her teeth. Her grip on his hand was an anchor, one he desperately needed.

“A child?”

She hesitated, then nodded. Her gaze searched his face, but she appeared no more capable of finding words than he.

Mother of Zeus, he was going to be a father. Going to be that stalwart, protective force in a child’s life that he’d never had in his own. He would have a small replica of Lily dogging his heels, all elbows and knees and freckles. He couldn’t breathe, and for the first time in days, it had nothing to do with the state of his ribs.

“God, Lily,” he choked out. He couldn’t find the words to say more.

Her expression turned wary. When she tried to pull away, he tightened his hold on her hand and pressed it closer to his overworked heart.

“What are you thinking? Are you…disappointed?”

“Zeus, no!” He slipped his free hand around the back of her neck, drawing her closer. Laying his forehead against hers, he shut his eyes. “I’m elated. And terrified.”

A chuckle escaped her parted lips and he felt her body relax against his. “Me, too.”

He pulled away. “We have to leave—” London. Posthaste. He never finished the sentence.

Willa’s shriek rang through the house. “Lily!”

Lily sprang to her feet and bolted for the door. Adam reached it first, keeping himself between his wife and whatever chaos was unfolding below stairs. He knew better than to tell her to stay in the room and wait.

But when he reached the banister and saw the men shouldering into the house despite Willa’s attempts to shut them out, he wished he’d hidden Lily away. His stomach dropped out the soles of his bare feet. He’d been sloppy in coming here. He’d taken too much time.

The men wore the standardized clothing of sailors, two midshipmen from the look of their white buttoned cuffs, and two other brutes of insignificant rank. When Willa stumbled back from the door, her fiery hair tumbling from its pins but a look of defiance on her face, Sophie darted from the shadows of the corridor beneath to pull her back. The door gaped as another man stepped inside, wearing the navy coat with gleaming gold buttons and epaulettes of an officer.

Panic dragged Adam under. The roar in his ears sounded more like the crash of waves. The cut of the officer’s clothes, his silhouette, reminded Adam of the cold-faced captain who had kept a shivering thirteen-year-old in the hold until whipped into shape for the Royal Navy. The rest of the man—his build, his hair, his face—might as well not have existed. Cold fear drenched Adam in sweat. Was he going to be dragged off to serve his country again?

Lily’s hand ghosted over his shoulder as if she wanted to pull him back, out of sight. But it was too late. The men below had already noticed him at the banister. All but the captain had started up the stairs. Adam couldn’t unlock his knees.

His wife’s hand firmed on his sleeve. His wife. He wasn’t a malleable thirteen-year-old anymore. The officers wouldn’t force him to serve aboard a ship; they would make an example of him. They would kill him.

“Lily, find your mother and use the back stairs to leave. Now.” Sophie and Willa were too close to the officer already, but if Adam could cause a distraction…

The command was drowned out by the officer’s call below. “Adam Darling, you are wanted for desertion from the Royal Navy. You are to be arraigned and tried for treason. Come quietly and we’ll leave without incident.”

The implication: if Adam tried to fight or run, the officer would lash out against his family. Whether by legal means—for harboring a fugitive—or via a more brutal, less honorable avenue. Adam knew from personal experience that in most officers, the veneer of honor went only far enough to earn them power and glory. They cared nothing for men or women they thought of a lesser status, same as the rich pigs who profited off the backs of their tenants. Except navy men were no strangers to violence.

“Tell them they have the wrong man,” Lily whispered. “Tell them your real name.”

No one would listen unless Adam provided proof he didn’t have with him in London. From the pugnacious looks of the men vaulting up the stairs, they were the sort to ask questions after the fact. Adam would get no explanations, not until he reached a magistrate.

If the navy let his hearing progress that far before he had an unfortunate accident.

Terror threatened to freeze him in place, but he turned. He had no idea how successful he was at keeping it off his face. As the first man reached the landing, Adam cupped Lily’s face and kissed her as though it would be their last. The desperate melding of lips and teeth and tongue ended abruptly as two of the men caught him by either arm and hauled him back.

Lily looked stricken. That wide-eyed look would haunt him for the rest of his life. As pale as if she’d turned into a ghost, she lifted one hand to touch her mouth. The men were already forcing Adam toward the stairs, their grips punishing on his already bruised flesh, but he caught his wife’s gaze and did one last good thing in his life.

“Search the bottom of my chest. Go. Promise me you’ll go.”

“I promise,” she said. She took a halting step forward, then wrapped her arms around her middle and moved back. Tears spilled onto her cheeks. The sight of them carved him from the inside. “We’ll sort this out, I promise. I love you.”

She wouldn’t sort this out, but she would be safe. Adam stumbled on the first step to the ground, caught by the two men forcing him bodily along. He didn’t fight them, but the bruisers were none too gentle in their handling. Through gritted teeth, he called over his shoulder, trying to catch one last glimpse of her face to sustain him through the dark hours or days ahead.

“I love you, too. Both of you.”

The sailors hauled him past the officer and out of the front door to a waiting carriage. He had no chance to escape. Even if he had, he wouldn’t have taken it. It was more important that Lily and their unborn child leave London unscathed.

His one mercy was knowing that he hadn’t gone through the trouble of entrusting the property in the country to her for nothing.