Page 38 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
“Oh,” Miss Cavendish said. “I… my skirt got caught. On the statue. And that kind gentleman was helping me detach myself.”
“Kind gentleman?” The baron’s words rang with the kind of tone someone used whilst calmly committing murder.
“Yes,” Ada said, sounding too chipper for a woman standing before a homicidal father. “Do come out, sir. I would like to meet you properly. And thank you.”
The devil he would! Mad woman! He planted his feet to the ground.
Miss Cavendish’s face peeped at him from the other side of the statue. “Sir,” she called out loud, “I am ever thankful.” Then she hissed so only he could hear. “Come out or he’ll be suspicious.”
“He’s already suspicious.”
“Please.”
Thepleasecut the roots that anchored his boots to the dirt, and he found himself shuffling out from behind the statue. “Just, ahem, happy to be of service, Miss… ah…”
“Miss Cavendish,” she supplied, dropping a curtsy. “And this is my father, Baron Eadon.”
The baron strode toward him, stopping beside his daughter. Cool, dark eyes inspected Cass like a hunter peering through the woods for his next kill.
“I’m unstuck and unhurt, thanks to…”
“Viscount Albee,” Cass said, snapping his mouth shut. His teeth clanking made a sound like a prison gate closing. He should have given a false name.
Lord Eaden never moved his calculating gaze from Cass. “Viscount Albee.”
Cass bowed, affecting a tone as chipper as the baron’s daughter’s. “At your service. Or rather, at your daughter’s service.”
Lord Eaden hooked his arm through his daughter’s. “I owe you thanks, then. Come, Ada, it’s time we depart.”
Ada scowled at her father but followed him, nonetheless.She cast Cass a look over her shoulder, and sunshine poured from her smile. “Thank you, Lord Albee! I found it quiteexcitingto be… rescued. An adventure.”
He nodded and lifted a hand for a little wave that made him feel a right ninny. When the entire family had disappeared, he collapsed onto the statue. “Close call, mate. Don’t think I should venture out during daylight again. Not after this.” Too many close calls—the baron, the little girl, the kiss.
He patted the statue and headed for the gate to leave the Tower and the day’s events behind. He replaced his hat and pulled up his collar to hide his features, to hide his grin.
A day of close calls, but he’d done what he’d come to do. He’d made Miss Ada Cavendish smile. And that seemed worth all the close calls in London.
In Paris, he’d wanted to die, had hoped the illness and the drink would do it. Now he thanked God he had not. He’d have never met her. This blooming, almost giddy gratitude—was it the result of leaving the past behind and stepping into the… not the future. That seemed too far away, too intangible. But perhaps it’s what it felt like to step into the present.
If so, the present seemed a buoyant place. He felt so light he might just float up into the clouds. He’d make sure to grasp Ada’s hand before he left the earth too far, so he could pull her up with him. But to do that, he’d have to see her again. And when she’d said goodbye, it had seemed like a forever kind of word.
The lightness from moments before left him, and he sank down to earth like a stone, hitting the ground with a thud that jarred his heart painfully in his chest.
Chapter Eleven
Adasat at the back of the drawing room, apart from (but still listening to) the chaos echoing about her. The twins careened off the walls, chasing one another, and Pansy, tongue poking out from between her teeth, drew a picture of their father. Sarah read silently by the fire, her lips curved into a satisfied smile, and Nora sat near Ada, cleaning her favorite pistol. The cozy familial scene only missed Sarah’s son, James, who studied at Harrow for the term and her father’s assistants—her cousin Jackson and the mysterious Miss Gwendolyn Smith. They gallivanted north, studying some ruins or other that her father wished to write about. These days they acted as her father’s eyes and ears, his hands and legs, investigating, digging, and only calling him to join them when they could not themselves solve the riddle of some ancient thing.
Ada’s heart grew a bit larger. She’d not thought to ever fully forgive her father for leaving the family behind, for leaving her to care for those under his own protection. But slowly, inexorably, her heart gave way to him. Like bolts clicking to unlock gates that creaked open, the rusty iron surrounding her heart squeaked open in need of oil.
Other odd happenings appeared to be affecting her heart. And they had nothing to do with her father but with one villainous viscount.
Kidnapper, seducer, ruiner of estates, composer of ridiculous verse. Lonely. Determined. Lord Albee. Cassius. Cass.
He’d been about to kiss her. And because he hadn’t seemed to be warning her off with the almost-kiss, she’d wanted his lips pressed against hers. She’d wondered after their first kiss what he would taste like with the right motives in place. Sweet, likely, similar to a berry that tasted tart at first, if you ate it too soon, but which grew more delicious the longer you waited to pop it into your mouth.
Had she waited long enough. Was he… ripe yet?
“Ha!” she barked out loud. She covered her mouth, clapping in the rest of the laugh.
