Page 84 of Teach a Rogue New Tricks
“And so have you.” He rested his forehead against her temple. Her hands stole around his body, and he grasped one, held it against his thumping heart. They were tangled together, body and blood, but an entire ocean rose between them.
“I should go,” she said into the warm pocket of his neck.
“I’ll be at the ball tomorrow. Tonight.”
She nodded, pulling away and placing feet to floor. “Wonderful. I am so glad you’re not hiding anymore. The world deserves to see the man you’ve become.” She kissed his cheek then slipped through his door before he could ask her for a dance, forallof them.
* * *
Ada might as well have been a ghost as she padded back to the room she shared with Nora. She opened the door, silent as a moonbeam, and snicked it closed behind her. She crawled back into bed to the music of Nora’s snores but did not lie down. She drew her knees up to her chest and wrapped herself into a ball. She closed her eyes and imagined being on the high sea during a storm, the ship rocking, the air dancing, her body shaking with the violent unknown of it all.
She grinned.
But she cried, too. Silent tears that proved salty as they slid over her kiss-bruised lips.
Cass had called her beautiful, but the words held more. She’d been one breath away from asking him to come with her, to leave everything behind and follow her.
Then he’d spoken of his brother.
And she’d not been able to. She’d been scared of being like her father, of leaving someone aching and lonely behind her, but her rogue, her Cassius neither ached nor langured in loneliness. Not anymore. He had his brother, and he would be able to make exactly the life he wanted here in London. When she left him, her absence would not scald.
But asking him to make a choice, to have him tell her what she already knew—no—that would scald, and not like the heat of too-warm bath water. It would hurt like water that roiled to a boil, melting her skin away, leaving her blood-red and done for.
Now she’d have to face him once more. At the ball. She’d have to tell him she sailed the next morning and watch him congratulate her on achieving her dreams so quickly. He’d wish her a happy trip and maybe remind her to send him a rock. Ha.
She’d smile and laugh and dance, but instead of anticipating her journey, she’d feel… boiled inside.
Perhaps she’d follow her father’s lead anyway.
And run.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Cassmoved into the Beckingham ballroom alongside his family. All of them—Mother Father, Bax, and Willow. A united force, they were. He’d done it. He’d made himself whole, and now he had to make sure he deserved the second chance they gave him. He’d be kind for his mother and honorable for his father. He’d be considerate of Willow and defer to Bax in all things intellectual, moral, or otherwise.
That last grated a bit. Damn, it did. But what else could he to do? He’d hurt them, and they had opened their arms to him. Prodigal sons owed their families everything.
He felt a thrill stepping into a ton ballroom with the acceptance and love of these people at his back. Well, perhapslovedid not accurately describe Bax’s emotional state, but Cass’s face, so far, lacked the purple and blue markings of muscular man’s fist. Small miracle, that.
Luck shined down on him.
Except for in one thing.
He searched the ballroom for dark hair and slender, sloped shoulders. He wanted to introduce Ada to his parents. He could not keep her, but he could give her credit. For her help and for her heart. Impossible to believe she’d given beats of it to a man like him.
“I heard,” Bax said vaguely from behind Cass, “that the Earl of Beckingham is a genius with plants. I have a few questions for him.” Cass rolled his eyes but smiled too. Damn he’d missed his brother’s inquisitive mind. “Do you think he’d answer them?”
“Most certainly,” Cass said. “I’ll introduce you. But first…” Where was she?
Ah! There. Just beyond the doors leading out to the balcony. She wore a rose-hued silk with embroidery of a deeper red. He could not see the pattern from here, yet he longed to trace it with his fingers as a prelude to something less innocent involving less clothing. He could not yet see her face, though.
She spoke with a man. He stood taller than her with yellow hair, and he reached out and grabbed her arm. She yanked it away. He grabbed it again, looming over her.
Cass ran. He shoved through the crowd, knocking a portly man out of the way. The man fell on a woman who screamed.
Cass bolted through the dancers, sending young ladies flying apart from their companions, shrieking. The string quartet screeched into silence.
He did not stop to make it better.
