Night Storm (33 page)

“Oh, Cam,” she said in a tear-clogged voice. “I didn’t know my father had spoken to you. No wonder you were so angry with me. And hurt. I hurt you so much with my ignorance. I can’t imagine how betrayed you must have felt.”

Tears stung his eyes and nose, and his chin started to quiver. Embarrassed by his weakness, he pressed his lips her forehead and rode out the storm of his emotions. Her squeezed his eyes shut. She hadn’t blindly followed her parent’s wishes. Dear God, how could he have been so stupid as to think she might?

Yes, she had always aimed to please her parents, but not at the cost of those she loved.
He knew that about her!

She had gone to Scotland for the reasons she had told him all those years ago. To learn from one of her profession’s masters. To better her circumstances.

Not to leave him.

“Cam.” Her arms curled around his middle, holding him tight.

She felt so good. Familiar. Right.

Following suit, he embraced her, trying hard not to squeeze the breath from her lungs. “I was such a bloody fool for believing you would so callously throw away what we had. I now realize
I’m
the one to blame for killing our love.”

“You killed nothing.”

Hearing nothing but the drum of idiocy in his ears, he carried on. “Jesus, Charley. I’ve made a muck of things.”

“We both have, Cam. We both have.”

In the silence that followed, Adair became aware of her soft curves and lavender scent, of her generous breasts and uneven breaths. Hot blood pumped into every inch of him, including the troublesome part nestled between their bodies.

He eased away, sliding his palms down her arms until he reached her hands. Slowly, he stepped backward, drawing her along until he came in contact with the front of his desk.

Spreading his legs wide, he coaxed her into the vee he had created. He kissed the dainty ridges of one hand, then the other. Keeping his attention on their clasped hands, he asked, “Where do we go from here?”

Her fingers clenched around his. “I miss my friend. If we can find our way to repairing the friendship we once had, perhaps other…things will follow.”

“I’ve missed you as well, Charley.” He pulled her closer until mere inches separated their bodies. “Before we become friends again, I thought I might steal another one of these.”

Adair covered her mouth with his. The soft, sweet taste of her turned him hard from the inside out, then melted him from the outside in. He slanted his mouth, taking their kiss deeper, harder. To his relief, she held nothing back. She gave him everything he asked while her body sought a dangerous closeness with his.

With a firm hand he held them together, hip to aching hip. He wanted so badly to push into her softness, her warmth. But not now. He had to prove—Dear God, what? His muddled, desire-crazed mind could not form a coherent thought.

There was something he wanted to prove to her. Something vital. With his last frayed thread of willpower, he slowed their kiss.
Easy, easy. Easy,
he chanted in his mind.

The moment their lips parted, Adair recalled what it was he wanted to prove to her.

That she could trust him to do the right thing. Laying her out on his desk and driving into her hard and fast was
not
the right thing to do. At least not at the moment.

In their not-too-distant future, he would take care to initiate every flat surface, vertical or horizontal, he could find—in his office, his library, his bedchamber, the corridor, the antechamber…

Swallowing down his desire, he said, “Now we can be friends.”

She chuckled and disentangled her limbs from his. After putting herself back to rights, Charley clasped her hands together and leveled a serious, but not unkind, look upon him. “Why did you bring me here, Cam?”

The warm, pleasant feeling he had disappeared, and the heaviness returned. Folding his arms over his midsection, he said, “A number of reasons, I suppose. But mostly I wanted us to be able to speak freely, without interruption.”

“About what?”

“About whatever it is that you’re hiding from me.”

Her expression shifted from surprise to pain to chagrin. Then she released a long, surrendering sigh before meeting his gaze again.

“What is it, Charley?”

“Something I’m not particularly proud of.”

“Tell me.”

Reaching into her reticule, she retrieved a long piece of red fabric. She laid it flat across the surface of his desk.

“What is it?” he asked.

“I’m not entirely sure.”

“But you have an idea.”

She nodded.

A needle of concern began to weave its way into his gut. He could see that she wanted to tell him, wanted to free herself from the terrible burden she was carrying. Would divulging her secret cause her to face guilt or remorse? Or did she worry about damaging a colleague’s reputation or hurting a friend’s feelings?

He peered at her downcast face, at her carefully averted eyes, and the reason struck him in the chest like a fist. Lifting his hand, he smoothed the back of one finger along her cheek. She started, but didn’t move away. Her small act of acceptance made his throat contract.

“You can tell me, Charley. Try to remember what our friendship was like before you left for Scotland. Try to set aside the blunders I made while I was sick at heart and not thinking clearly. Try to recall how you could always count on me to be there for you instead. How I always took care of you, protected you.” He hooked his finger under her chin, lifting it upward until they were eye to eye. “You could trust me then, and you can trust me now.”

She gave him a short nod, and he kissed the corner of her mouth before releasing her.

Glancing down at her terrible secret now splayed across his desk, she said, “The afternoon Felix tripped over Lady Winthrop’s corpse, I found this”—she traced a fingertip over the red material—“near the body.”

Adair worked to keep the shock from his face. His mind was having a hard time accepting what he was hearing. “Am I to conclude no one else knows about this piece of evidence?” He couldn’t bring himself to say,
You stole a evidence from a murder scene?

She nodded. “I believe it’s a tie from a cloak. And yes, for a long while, I suspected the tie belonged to the murderer. But I ceased to believe so after Joseph found dark threads beneath Lady Winthrop’s fingernails.”

Circling his desk, Adair plopped down in his chair. “Bloody hell, Charley. Why?” He could not form a more detailed question. For the first time during an investigation, words escaped him. That, along with a powerful need to wring his beloved’s neck.

“I swear to you, Cameron, I don’t know.” She sat down in one of the two leather chairs facing his desk. Bending forward, she rested her elbows on her knees and drilled her fingertips into her temples. “I had sent Felix off to notify Mr. Riordan and the authorities, and Piper had just returned with a light as I finished a cursory search of the body for clues. It was then I noticed the tie on the ground, at her ladyship’s side. Riordan entered the passageway, full of purpose and suspicion. His expression put me on instant guard, and my instincts took over. I shoved the tie into my reticule, where it’s been hiding ever since.”

“Riordan didn’t see you take the evidence?”

“No. When he first entered the passageway, he avoided looking at the corpse, so he didn’t see what my hand was doing.”

Knowing how instinct can save a man’s—or woman’s—life, Adair could not fault Charley’s actions. Which didn’t make this situation one damned bit easier. He scrubbed his face and sat forward. “Could this be the broken tie from Felix’s costume?”

She gaped at him. “That’s all you have to say after I confess to impeding your inquiry?”

“What else is there to say? Do you want me to yell? Well, I won’t. Do I wish you hadn’t taken the evidence? Of course. Do I trust your instincts? Implicitly. Even if Riordan didn’t kill Lady Winthrop, he would have done anything to protect his theater’s reputation. If that means sending an innocent to gaol, I have no doubt he would do so.”

A moment of stunned silence followed his declaration. Then she laughed, a shaky, self-deprecating laugh. “All this time, I feared telling you about my impulsiveness. And what do you do? You defend my actions as if they were the most logical choice, given the situation.”

His lips twitched. “‘Logical’ might be stretching it a bit.”

The grin she gave him wobbled, and then broke. Tears dropped on her pale cheeks and meandered their way down to her chin, where they fell on her shaking hands.

Charley had never been a bawler. She cried like she did everything else—with dignity, calm, and grace. One day he would like to see her lose complete and utter control of her emotions. Only then would he witness the raw essence of his friend, would-be-lover, and one-day-soon mother of his children.

He strode around his desk, pried her hands apart, and drew her into his arms. She rested her head against his chest and held on to him as if he were an anchor in a great crushing storm.

In an attempt to calm her trembling body, he rubbed gentle circles on her back, alternating between big sweeping circles to small focused ones. She snuffled quietly into his coat, and Adair remembered he had not yet replaced his handkerchief with a clean one. “Sorry, Charley. I don’t have anything for your tears.”

“Doesn’t matter. This is enough.” Soon, her body’s trembling subsided and her snuffles calmed. “Thank you.” She squeezed him once and stepped away to fish a handkerchief from the depths of her reticule.

He revisited his question. “In Felix’s interview, he mentioned the tie on his Roman cloak broke. Do you believe this is the same one?”

“What would the odds be of two broken red ties being found at the same theater on the same day?”

“Rather small, I would think.”

“Me, too.” She narrowed her gaze on him. “Felix didn’t kill the baroness, if that’s where this line of questioning is going. He had no reason to harm her.”

That we know of
. Adair kept the comment to himself. He didn’t believe Felix had anything to do with Lady Winthrop’s murder, so there was no need to provoke Charlotte, even though her protective ferocity made him desire her all the more. Would she fight for his life in the same way?

“Easy, Mama Bear. I’m not after your adopted cub.” He moved to the window and followed the lazy path of a large gray cloud.

“How do we figure out if the tie was placed by the corpse out of spite or hatred toward Felix versus an act of desperation and opportunity?”

“Perhaps it was both.”

“How so?”

Adair resumed his seat behind his desk, and Charley took hers as well. “The killer and Lady Winthrop have an argument, the killer stabs the baroness and panics, the killer comes across Felix during his wardrobe crisis and helps himself to the tie while the others are distracted. The killer then drops the tie by the body, hoping the authorities will discover it and link Felix to the murder, removing suspicion from him and injuring Felix in the process.”

“Who would want to hurt Felix?”

“If it’s someone at the Augusta, which I think it must be for him to move about so freely, I imagine the killer sees Felix as a threat of some kind.”

“How could anyone feel threatened by such a novice? Felix hasn’t even secured his first part yet.”

“Had he been practicing for his audition at the theater? Could one of the actors have seen his potential as a great talent?”

“It’s possible. He had been preparing for his monologue for weeks.” She frowned. “After his audition, Piper praised his skill and said he would be the lead actor in no time. With Christopher Gordon standing nearby, Felix grew uncomfortable and shrugged the comment off.”

“I take it Gordon’s the lead actor for the Augusta.”

“From Felix’s response, I would say yes.” Her eyes widened. “You don’t think Christopher Gordon killed Lady Winthrop, do you?”

“Everyone is under suspicion until I locate the killer. I interviewed Gordon right after the murder. Nothing seemed amiss with his statement.”

She shook her head. “Everything we’ve discussed seems so farfetched. I’m just as apt to believe two red ties broke on the same day at the same theater as I am the killer coming across Felix in the wardrobe, or Mr. Gordon removing his dramatic rival.”

Adair could not fault her logic. All three potential scenarios did have large puncture marks all through their centers. “True. None of those possibilities involve Lord Winthrop either. The baron has been decidedly absent during the entire investigation.”

“It’s odd how quickly he suggested opportunistic footpads were to blame for his wife’s brutal death.”

“Let’s not forget how he instructed his servants to clean the corpse before the coroner’s examination.”

“Perhaps I’ll send Joseph a note requesting an audience. I would be interested in hearing what, if anything, he discovered during his conversation with the baron.”

The muscles in Adair’s neck locked in place at her casual use of the coroner’s Christian name.

Charley’s eyes widened and she fumbled for her timepiece. “Blast. I’ve got to go.”

More of Adair’s muscles grew taut, rigid with the need to control. Tonight, she would have dinner with the Scot. He hadn’t missed Murdoch’s interest. The damned mountain of a man vibrated with pent-up desire. And even Adair could see how handsome the man was.

Sensing his turmoil, Charley glanced up from her preparations to leave. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.”

She studied his face before dropping her gaze to his hand. “You’re clenching and unclenching your fist. That’s always been a sign of your battle with anger.”

Leave it to Charley to notice something so inconsequential—and remember it. She might not be able to remember the name of a plant without extensive study, but she could always recall tiny details about people.

“Forget it. I don’t want to jeopardize our newfound truce and friendship by being a beast before the ink dries.”

“Jeopardize…” Her voice trailed off as understanding dawned. “I’m having dinner with some dear friends. Nothing for you to be concerned about.”