Chapter 12
“ W here is Theodore?” Emily asked, looking around as she sat. Thanks to Harriet and Mrs. Fenwick, she had found out that the family organized a weekly game night that involved several games.
Harriet only shrugged in response, not saying a word, which was quite unusual.
After the disaster in Adam’s study, Emily had stopped going to him to avoid further humiliation.
She had kept to her own side of the house when she could, spoken to him only when it felt civil to do so, and refused to invent reasons to cross his path in the hope that this time he would not pull her close only to recoil from whatever he found there.
One of the very things she remembered Sybella teaching her over and over was that pride, once bruised enough, could become discipline. She had discovered that over the last few days. If Adam meant to bridge the distance between them, he should do it himself.
So when the planned family game began without Theodore, she ignored the first flicker of unease.
He was late often enough. Perhaps he was busy doing something else.
She didn’t have to think too hard about it.
Harriet was still arguing with Gilbert about something she couldn’t understand, even if she decided to listen to it.
A tray of cards sat untouched on the side table, and the warmth of the room pressed gently against her skin.
Five more minutes passed.
Mrs. Fenwick sent a maid upstairs, and another servant checked the schoolroom.
Harriet grew worried now and began asking where Theodore was without waiting for a response before she asked again.
The first maid returned, shaking her head.
No one had seen him in his room, the library, or the back stairs.
The air in the room grew tense at once, and Emily rose.
No one told her to act, but then no one stopped her either. A boy was missing.
She thought of Theodore’s silence, of the bitterness that sometimes flashed across his face too quickly to catch, and the way he watched her and Adam as if he was expecting something bad to happen.
He was difficult in the ways wounded children often were, but then he was also hers now in whatever strange, incomplete way marriage had made him so.
Adam had to know.
Emily crossed the hallway to his rooms and did not knock. She opened the door and stepped inside, with Theodore’s name hanging on the tip of her tongue.
The heat struck her first. Then the sight of Adam.
He was half-dressed from a bath, shirt open at the throat, dark hair still damp, one sleeve not yet fastened. He turned at the intrusion, and for one dangerous second, the sheer sight of him standing there landed hard in a way that grew quite hard to ignore.
His shoulders were broad, his forearms bare, and the line of his chest was visible where his shirt hung loose. He looked unguarded in a way she had never seen him and had never intended to seek.
Never?
The urgency surrounding them crushed the thought flat.
“Your brother is missing.”
His expression changed almost immediately. The private man vanished, and the protector stepped forward so quickly it almost startled her.
“What?”
“The game was to begin. He never came down. They have looked upstairs and into the schoolroom. No one can find him.”
Adam was moving already, fastening his sleeve and reaching for his coat. “How long?”
Emily shrugged, as if she were trying hard to remember. “I do not know exactly. Long enough.”
That was enough for him. He did not waste a single breath on reassurance he could not yet give. “Come.”
They were halfway to the stables before Emily fully realized she was keeping pace with him. The yard ahead was lit by lanterns and restless with the kind of energy that always followed fear.
The stable boys turned at the sight of their master and straightened at once. Adam went straight to the nearest one.
“Has my brother been here?”
The boy swallowed. “Yes, Your Grace.”
“When?”
“Not long ago. He paid Tom to let him take one of the smaller horses.”
Tom, dragged forward by his own guilt, looked as if he expected immediate death. “I am sorry, Your Grace. He said he only meant to ride a little way.”
“Where?”
Tom hesitated.
Adam’s voice dropped, which made it worse. “Where?”
“Toward Whitechapel, Your Grace.”
Emily felt the answer rush over her like cold water.
Whitechapel was not merely far. It was rough, crowded, and full of the sort of places a boy angry enough to run might think exciting.
Adam said nothing more. He took the nearest horse and mounted it in one swift motion. Emily was already turning toward another.
“Your Grace, I do not think this is a great idea. I do not—” one of the other stable boys tried to protest.
She ignored him, caught the saddle, and swung herself up astride.
Adam wheeled his horse sharply toward her.“No, you are not. It’s dangerous.”
She gathered the reins in both hands and met his anger head-on. “I have to come with you.”
Adam scoffed. “No, you do not have to. Theodore is my brother, and I intend to bring him back home.”
Emily sighed and let the reins slip loose just a little in her hands. “He may be your brother, Duke, but he likes me better than you.”
Adam frowned, almost appalled by the comparison. “What?”
“You know what I mean. I just believe it would be better if I talked to him.”
The words landed hard. She saw it. They were true, which made them harder for him to fight.
Theodore had begun speaking to her in ways he did not with Adam. He had tested her temper, her patience, and her sincerity enough to trust at least some part of her. If they found him hurt, frightened, or ashamed, he might come more easily to her voice than his brother’s command.
Adam looked at her for one hard second, then away, not in surrender exactly, but in recognition that time mattered more than argument.
“Fine. But stay close.”
Emily nodded, and soon, they rode out together.
The house fell behind them as the chic streets of London gave way to rougher ones. The night was darkening further with each passing second, and the lamps along the streets could only provide the barest light.
She felt the city broadening ahead like a threat and kept her seat without apology, dress gathered and boots set firm, the horse moving hard beneath her. Adam rode beside her, almost in utter resignation.
There was no point in control games. Theodore was somewhere in the dark, afraid or angry or even both. Their differences could be settled much later.
For now, Whitechapel waited ahead.
And so did the boy.
Soon enough, the streets narrowed, and the smells worsened. The lamps also grew dimmer, and the shadows grew fuller of men who watched without pretending otherwise.
Adam reined in his horse before the high building and assessed the place with one sweeping look.
Everything about this place seemed to scream bad news. The entrance, the broken edge of the sign, and the kind of laughter spilling through the slightly open door.
He exhaled and scanned the building once more. Theodore could be inside; that much felt right. A boy like him running hard from his own thoughts might well mistake noise for freedom.
Emily brought her horse level with his. She had ridden well, better than most men would have expected from a duchess, and with less complaint than some officers he had known. In the weak light, with her dress gathered and her face set, she looked entirely too refined for a place like Whitechapel.
“This would not do.”
She looked at him, her eyes narrowed and the question in them clear. “What?”
Adam didn’t respond. Instead, he dismounted and came around to help her down. The moment her boots met the ground, he exhaled loud enough for her to hear.
“Stand still.”
Her eyebrows drew together. “Why? What is going on?”
He reached for the pins at the back of her head, and she stiffened at once. So did he, though his hands did not stop. He pulled one pin free, then another, and her hair loosened slightly.
Suddenly, she went from a refined woman of status to a wild and unpredictable female of the wild. Adam felt the change in his own body with an immediacy that made him despise the necessity of it.
“Is this really necessary?” she asked, the exhaustion in her voice making him realize she had caught on to exactly what he was doing.
“It is if you do not want to stand out in there, Duchess .” His voice came out low and controlled. Somehow, it did not begin to cover what it cost him to say it while her hair slid over his knuckles.
Emily’s breath caught. He heard it. She said nothing.
He pulled off one of her gloves, then the other.
Bare hands would look less formal. Less protected .
Less like a woman who had stepped down from a horse with all her dignity intact.
Her fingers trembled once as the second glove came free, and Adam wondered if it was because of the cold or something else.
“Better,” he said, though the word rang false in every way that mattered.
“Is it?” Emily asked, the snark in her voice sharp and evident.
He did not respond to that either. He just pushed open the door and led her inside.
They were greeted with heat, ale, sweat, and smoke.
The sound of a low laugh began somewhere to the left, and a dozen eyes turned toward them with instant suspicion.
He could see how the men leaned over tables and how a maid carried a tray through a press of bodies without spilling so much as a drop. No one here missed anything.
The bartender looked at Emily and frowned before Adam had taken three steps. “Ladies are not allowed in here.”
Adam took out a few coins and set them on the counter. “She is with me.”
The bartender did not touch the coins. “Still not allowed.”
Adam braced one forearm on the scarred wood and lowered his voice just enough to make the bartender do the same. “We are newly married and cannot bear to be apart. You will make an exception.”
The line would have sounded ridiculous on another man’s lips. Here, with the money between them and Emily standing at his side with her loose hair, it had just enough truth in it to survive.
The bartender’s eyes flicked from Adam to Emily and back again. At last, he swept up the coins. “One drink each. She causes trouble, you both leave.”
“Fair.”
That should have settled it. It did not. The room had heard enough.
A man from the nearest table laughed. “Newly married, are you?”
Another lifted his cup. “Then drink to it.”
With growing dread, Adam realized that he and Emily had become the subject of gossip. Soon, questions started to pour in from everywhere, all simple yet most intrusive.
How long have you been wed?
Where did you come from?
Why so finely spoken?
Why so restless?
Emily answered one or two with admirable steadiness, and Adam gave the rest just enough attention to avoid arousing suspicion. That should have been it. The men at the bar should have shifted their attention to something else.
Instead, someone further back suddenly shouted, “Kiss her, then.”
A wave of laughter followed, and Adam went still.
Of course, it would come to that. No room full of half-drunk men would take a newlywed tale on faith when proof stood within arm’s reach. Refusal would lead to the very thing he was trying to avoid, but compliance…
Compliance meant putting his lips on his wife’s in front of a room full of strangers.
He turned to Emily amidst the steady yet growing kiss her, kiss her , and she looked back at him with her usual stubbornness and none of the fear a more sensible woman might have shown.
“Adam—”
“We have to.”
“No. No, we do not.”
“Emily.”
In the bad light and rough noise, with her hair loosened by his hands and her gloves in his pocket, she looked less like a duchess and more like temptation.
Adam put one hand on the back of her neck, and the tense air in the room suddenly grew thicker.
“Don’t you dare,” she murmured.
He felt her pulse jump under his hand as he leaned in further. “Oh, do not pretend you do not want this, Emily. A few days ago, you were begging for me.”
The words should have given him back control.
They did not.
He kissed her anyway.
The room answered with a cheer, but the noise fell away almost at once.
Adam had meant to perform a kiss convincing enough to satisfy rough men who wanted sport. Instead, he felt her lips part under his with real heat and real answer. She kissed him back like a woman who knew exactly what he was and wanted no gentler version.
His grip tightened.
The smell of ale, the scrape of boots, the crowd pressing close—all of it blurred. What remained was Emily. Her mouth. Her breath. The impossible fact of kissing her here, in this room, under the cover of a falsehood so thin it had already become real.
Adam suddenly felt the whole performance collapsing around the contact. He was not acting like her husband. He was being one in the worst and most revealing way possible.
She made a small sound against his mouth, and he nearly lost what little sense he had left.
He had to keep the lie alive. That was the excuse. So he kissed her once more, slower this time, with enough possessiveness in it to satisfy every watching man in the room and enough hunger to cool himself by degrees.
When he drew back, the crowd roared its approval.
A fiddle struck up somewhere near the fire, and someone slammed a cup onto a table. Men began shouting for a dance, for music, for the happy pair to prove themselves again in some other manner.
The room loosened, and in that shift, Emily stiffened beside him. Her hand caught his sleeve.
“There,” she said.
Adam followed her gaze.
In the middle of the rough dance forming near the center of the room, Theodore stood half turned toward a table of older boys, trying very hard to look as though he belonged there.
A wave of relief hit him first, then the realization struck almost immediately.
Theodore had been found, and what brought them here had been solved. The problem, however, was nowhere near ending. The lie that got them inside had already gone too far, and they had no choice but to see it through.
As Adam looked at Theodore, he tried his desperate best to avoid the truth that gnawed at every corner of his mind.
Pretending with Emily no longer felt like pretending at all.