Page 40 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
“Ada! Why? You must!”
“No.”
Nora ran up to her and grabbed her hands, her face pleading. “I’ll tell Willow and Bax. If you’ll not protect yourself, I’ll engage the help of those who will.”
Ada shook free of her sister’s confining embrace.
“You can’t.” There could be nothing worse. Cass only wished to rejoin his family, to earn his spot in it. And if his brother learned of his presence in London too soon, he might not get that chance. “What would his brother do?”
“Send him back to France, I hope! He is a threat, and though Lord Cordell is a kind and generous man, I cannot imagine he’d let a threat remain around his wife.”
“But it’s hisbrother. And Ca—Lord Albee—only wishes to regain his brother’s trust.”
Nora huffed and turned, paced away then back again. “He’s seduced you. Why else would a sensible woman such as yourself talk in such a manner?”
Ada laughed. “That’s rich, Nora.Seducedme? Who would wish to seduce me? No. If you must know, I’ve been helping him.”
“Helping him what?”
“Reform.”
Nora laughed, the tin sound echoing like bullets off the close walls, shattering the looking glass, the windows. When she caught her breath, she said, “I do not believe it, and I cannot believe you do. You’ve not been in London as I have. You do not know the tricks these scoundrels will play to slip beneath your skirts.”
“Nora!”
“And he somehow knew just what to say to gain your pity, too. Reforming. Ha. You do so love a good project.”
“What do you mean I ‘love a good project’?”
“Well, first the twins—all sad and parentless—when you could have gone to school, Papa’s letters said so, but you stayed at home because they needed you. Then Lucas, of course—all sad and fatherless—and you basically promised to marry him to make him feel better.”
She’d not promised to marry him. She’d comforted the man with her body… but that actually had done the promising for her. Had it only been aprojectfor her? Did she truly seek out damaged people to put them to rights? Well, so what if she did? She could not count that a failing. Some people needed help. She might as well be the one doing the helping.
“You spend your whole life,” Nora continued, “helping others, improving their lives, and now you think to do so for akidnapper. Not even you can heal such a man.” She pressed her palms to her cheeks and her eyes fluttered closed. Pale and almost trembling, she shook her head side-to-side slowly, as if trying to see a solution in the darkness behind her eyelids.
Nora and Ada had only each other. For so long. Ada would rather take all of her sister’s pain on herself than be the cause of it. She ached to pull her into her arms, to rock her until she smiled once more, as she had when they were younger.
She moved forward, a hesitant thing, an almost-step that she immediately revoked. She offered softer words instead. “I’m not going to heal him. He can heal himself. He’s trying to do so. If people, such as you and his brother, would give him a chance, he might be able to succeed.”
Nora hands dropped from her face like sacks of flour and her eyes shot open, flaming. “Then why was he at the Tower today if you’ve not taken him on as a project? If he’s not taken in upon himself to seduce you?”
Ada threw her hands into the air. “Everyone needs a bit of fun now and then! He sought amusement only.”
“Seducing you is his amusement.”
Ada’s desire to comfort and appease died a quick death. Her entire body vibrated. Nora would not listen. It felt like betrayal, sour and unexpected. “Please leave, Nora. And do not tell Willow or her husband about Lord Albee.”
Nora sucked in a breath and then let it out shakily. “You are putting me in an impossible position, you understand. You are my sister, and I love you. And Willow is my best friend, and I love her, too. She has been a sister to me in London. And having to keep things from her that I would not otherwise… I do not know if I can. How can you speak about that man, to him, knowing what he’s done?”
“No one is perfect.”
“And few are kidnappers.”
She could not justify his actions, and to attempt to do so would be wrong. But he refused to justify his actions, too. And that meant he could be saved. “If it helps you feel better, I will likely never see him again.” What reason had she to see him? He’d stepped out into the world on his own, and she hoped he would do it again.
Nora grasped handfuls of her skirt, crushing, wrinkling. “I can’tnottell Willow, Ada.”
Ada asked for little from her sister, from anyone, yet when she finally did something for herself, they all told her to go home, to do nothing, to sit still and behave when everyone else about her streamed into the heady whirl of life.
