Come Near Me (9 page)

“A friend?” Chollie looked around the
taproom. “Here? Must be Irish. Wouldn’t be another Englisher alive
so little high in the instep as to agree to come to Warwick Lane
for a pint.”

“Edmund Burnell isn’t at all high in the
instep, Chollie, although he’s definitely English. I’d appreciate
hearing your opinion of the man once you two have met. Ah,” Adam
said, swiveling in his chair and motioning to the man who was
standing in the doorway, removing his curly-brimmed beaver. “Here
he is now. Behave, Chollie.”

“And when do I misbehave, I ask you? Never
mind, boyo, as a litany of my sins would take longer than it takes
for your new friend to thread his way through the tables. Big one,
isn’t he? Big as you, I’m thinking. You don’t suppose he favors the
fancy? I could do with a bit of bruising about.”

“Asking a man if you can punch him is not
behaving, Chollie,” Adam pointed out, rising to his feet to extend
a hand to Burnell as the handsome blond gentleman approached,
smiling. “Burnell, good to see you found the place. I’d like to
introduce you to my friend, Collin Laughlin. Chollie? Stand up and
say hello to Edmund Burnell. Chollie?” he repeated when his friend
remained seated, and silent.

“Mr. Laughlin?” Edmund Burnell said, offering
his hand. “It’s a distinct pleasure.”

Adam watched as he put down his mug and
stood, offering his hand. “Mr. Burnell,” Chollie said, then sat
back down again with a thump. He touched a hand to his waistcoat
pocket where, Adam knew, Chollie always carried his lucky
four-leafed shamrock tightly folded inside a leather pouch.

“Fingering your shamrock, Chollie?” Adam
asked, trying not to smile. “Don’t tell me you’re getting fanciful
on me. Last time you did that we ended drunk as goats and
sprinkling holy water on our heads so the fairies wouldn’t get
us.”

His friend glared at him for a moment, then
turned to Burnell. “It’s your pardon I’ll be asking, sir, if I
seemed rude just now. It’s the strangest feeling I had, like I
should know you, but I don’t. Adam? Call for another mug, would
you? Better yet, some brandy all around. Maybe that will open my
brainbox.”

“If it does, Mr. Laughlin, perhaps you can
then open mine, as I really don’t recall having made your
acquaintance before today. Which is my loss, entirely,” Burnell
said, slipping out of his greatcoat. “Dashed cold out there, by the
way. The sun’s gone to hide behind some very threatening clouds,
I’m afraid, and we’ll probably have rain, or worse, before
nightfall. So glad,” he ended, turning to Adam, “your dear wife and
I had sunshine enough for our drive earlier. I don’t remember when
I’ve last spent so enjoyable an hour.”

“Two hours,” Adam heard himself say, then
mentally kicked himself, as Chollie was listening much too closely
for his comfort. “And I thank you, as I believe she enjoyed your
company as well. She most definitely enjoyed the roses you gave
her.”

“She did?” Burnell lifted the glass Alice had
placed before him and took a sip of its contents. “I was lucky to
find hothouse roses. I’ll have to send more around tomorrow
morning, to thank Her Ladyship for her company today.”

“Yes, that would be nice,” Adam said,
wondering what had happened between Grosvenor Square and Warwick
Street that he had suddenly turned so enthusiastically mean. Sherry
hated roses now, that was clear, even though she had once adored
the gardens at Daventry Court. Was he punishing her, or making sure
she didn’t take the handsome, likable Edmund Burnell in too much
favor? It was a knotty question. “Chollie, did I tell you that Mr.
Burnell is staying in town with Lady Jasper?”

“Lady J?” Chollie downed the measure of cheap
brandy in one long swallow, smiled at Burnell with some sympathy.
“Now that’s a woman I
do
remember meeting. Never before met
another woman who could so give me the fidgets. It’s too late,
then, to find yourself some lodgings of your own?”

“Chollie, Lady J. is Burnell’s aunt,” Adam
said warningly.

“Is she now?” Chollie, clearly unabashed by
his candor, reached for his mug, chasing down the brandy with a
swallow or two of ale. “Well, there’s no picking your relatives, I
always say. Sew your pockets up tight, Mr. Burnell, or else don’t
play cards with the woman.”

“Spoken like a man who has sat at table with
my inventive and yet excruciatingly inept aunt,” Burnell said,
laughing. “How badly did she burn you before she gave herself
away?”

Chollie punched at his glasses, his cheeks
coloring. “I’d rather not say,” he mumbled, shamefaced. “Thought
I’d lost my touch, until that ace popped up from her bodice when
she took snuff and gave out with a healthy sneeze. No place to look
without seeming the fool, you know, when you’re trying not to look
at some old lady’s bosoms. It was a rare Johnny Raw I felt,
agreeing to play against her when everyone else all but fell over
themselves making excuses as to why they couldn’t sit down with
her.”

“That’s my aunt, Mr. Laughlin. Rich beyond
anyone’s dream, and yet still so greedy as to cheat at cards. Yet,
even greed can be amusing, don’t you think?”

“Funny as can be,” Chollie agreed, “when Lady
Greedy-guts is sitting across from anyone but
me.”
Then he
grinned, his manner becoming even more relaxed as Burnell returned
his smile. “Are you in town for long, Mr. Burnell? I usually go
about with Adam, here; but he’s got himself a wife now, so I’d be
pleased of the company if you’d thought to drop by, say, Covent
Garden this evening?”

“It’s Edmund, please, Mr. Laughlin,” Burnell
said, grabbing onto Alice as she approached the table to gather up
the mugs once more, pilling her down into his lap. The barmaid
giggled as he gave her a kiss on the cheek even as his arm came
around her waist, his hand provocatively close to her ample
breasts. “Covent Garden, you say? That sounds like a fine plan, if
several hours in the future. But,” he continued, walking his
fingers up and over Alice’s low-cut blouse, finding the strings
that held it shut, “I imagine I can find some way to amuse myself
in the interim.”

“’Ere, now,” Alice protested, giggling as she
slapped Burnell’s hand away. “That costs extra, that does,” she
warned, halfheartedly pulling herself free of his grasp. “Coo, but
yer a pretty one, ain’t yer?” She ran a hand down the center of his
chest, opening her mouth in a small “o” of appreciation and then
running the tip of her tongue around her lips. Free for yer, ducks.
Jist give me a moment, awright?”

All three men watched the barmaid walk away,
her swaying hips an open invitation. “No woman can resist me,”
Burnell said, apologetically spreading his arms. “It’s because I’m
so damnably pretty, I believe. Some might call it a curse.”

“I doubt
you
do, Edmund,” Chollie
said, his own gaze appreciatively following Alice’s retreat to the
small serving bar in the corner. “You’re a man after m’own heart,
don’t you know, and probably very handy to have around, drawing the
females to you as you say. I like that, truly I do.”

“Yes, Chollie, I’d somehow sensed that,”
Burnell said amicably, almost intimately, as he crossed his legs
comfortably and leaned back in his chair. “Daventry? I don’t
suppose you’d want to join Chollie and me as we go off tonight to
Covent Garden. I hope to sink ourselves into the depths of
depravity—or at least to sink deep into
someone
?”

“Adam?” Chollie said incredulously. “With his
lovely bride at home, waiting for him? You said you went driving
with the marchioness today, Edmund. Surely you didn’t spend all
your time minding the horses. You
looked
at the woman,
talked to her? Why, and it’s lucky I feel to have the lovesick boyo
show up here today to drink with his old friend, that’s how little
he likes being away from her side. Isn’t that right, Adam?”

Damn Chollie for heading straight back to the
conversation he’d tried so hard to leave before Edmund had shown up
at the Oxford Arms. “Don’t be indelicate, Chollie,” he said
warningly, feeling Burnell’s interested gaze on him. “Besides, I
was never one for Covent Garden dancers or warblers, if you’ll
remember.”

“Never one for—” Chollie began incredulously,
then broke off, clearing his throat. “No, no, of course not. So we
won’t be seeing you, then?”

“No, Chollie,” Adam said firmly, “you won’t
be seeing me. But you two go along, and try not to catch anything,
all right?”

“But we will have dinner together first,
won’t we?” Burnell asked. “I had so wanted to continue our talk on
the pitfalls of ambition, remember?” He turned to Chollie. “We were
discussing Pope the other evening over drinks, you understand.
Alexander Pope. You may remember that he wrote something about
ambition being ‘the glorious fault of angels and gods’?”

Chollie shook his head. “Why should I
remember that, seeing as how I don’t read anything unless it’s got
a listing of wines and prices on it? And why should angels and gods
be ambitious? They can have anything they want, can’t they? Angels
and gods. What would they be ambitious
for?
Bigger wings? A
cloud in a better neighborhood?” He looked to Adam. “Such nonsense.
I don’t understand you when you start talking deep, you know.”

Adam did know that about Chollie, which was
why he liked the man so much. Chollie was easy to be with, his
simplicity refreshing in an intricate world. But he also liked
Edmund Burnell, because he did also sometimes enjoy deeper
conversation. And yet, unlike as the two men were, they seemed
already to have found something in common—a love of enjoying a good
drink and a willing woman. That, in fact, was the limit of
Chollie’s “ambition.” Adam could only wonder, the unbidden thought
coming up to trouble him, what was the limit of Edmund
Burnell’s.

“Oh, have yourself another mug, Chollie,”
Adam said, winking at Burnell. “We wouldn’t want you to hurt your
head with too much thinking.”

“Then we won’t be talking of ambition over
dinner?” Chollie asked hopefully.

“Only my ambition to bed the prettiest
warbler to grace the stage this evening,” Edmund promised, pushing
back his chair and rising to his feet even as he signaled to the
barmaid, pointing toward the stairs. “And now, rude as it may be, I
believe I have some pressing business to attend to, if you don’t
mind. Where and when shall we meet for dinner, gentlemen?”

“I never had Alice,” Chollie said mournfully
a few moments later, his gaze following Burnell up the stairs.
“Irresistible, he says? Seems so. I can’t decide whether to envy
the man while I catch the ones he throws back tonight, or think I
might not like him overmuch, pleasant as he seems to be. How long
do you know him, Adam?”

“A few days,” Adam answered carefully as the
sound of a giggle, followed by the slamming of a door, reached down
the stairs to them. “I found him to be amusing, and we’ve had a few
talks, discussed the world, literature, politics. A very
interesting, knowledgeable man. He admires my wife.”

“Does he now?” Chollie said, pushing at his
spectacles. “Imagine that. And do you?”

“Do I what?” Adam asked blankly, realizing
that he had a headache. A very bad headache. A headache so sudden
and intense that it hurt to think about Edmund Burnell, and how he
was not today the same urbane, intelligent man he’d been the
previous evening, but had presented himself as more earthy, perhaps
even crude in his sexual desires. A headache so sharp and painful
that he’d slipped, mentioned Sherry again.

Did it bother him that this new earthy
Burnell so openly admired his unhappy wife? Should it? Had Burnell
simply been bantering, teasing, or had he thrown down a gauntlet,
warning Adam that he, the handsome,
irresistible
Edmund
Burnell, was after his wife? Damn Richard Brimley. Damn the man to
hell!

“Well? Are you going to answer me? It’s a
simple enough question, from a simple man. Do you admire your wife,
Adam?”

“I value your friendship, Chollie. Don’t make
me say something better left unsaid. I’ll see you both at dinner,”
Adam bit out shortly, then, suddenly in need of fresh air, he rose
and walked out of the Oxford Arms without looking back.

~ ~ ~

Sherry stood at the doorway that led from her
bedchamber to Adam’s, watching as he stood with his back to her. He
was dressed only in shirt and breeches, his boots removed, his
jacket, waistcoat, and cravat all tossed onto a nearby chair. He
stood very still, staring down at the vase of roses she had
banished from her rooms not two hours earlier.

Emma had told her he’d asked for them, of
course. Emma had a way of knowing what to say, how to hurt her. If
she had ordered the roses gone, it only had to make sense to Emma
that it would hurt her to know that Adam had rescued them from the
rubbish heap.

Not that Adam seemed to be taking pleasure
from the perfect blooms. He was scowling at them, in fact, so that
Sherry was surprised they didn’t wilt under his hot gaze.

She didn’t like Adam much when he was angry,
and she knew he was angry now, although she didn’t know why. Angry,
and yet also looking so incredibly sad. Defeated.

And she couldn’t help him. She had told a
single lie, a single small lie she believed to be in his best
interests, in Geoff’s best interests. One lie, amongst so much
truth—a truth he refused to believe, whether she cried that truth
to him, or yelled it at him at the top of her lungs.

He had trusted her, delighted in her honesty,
had called it refreshing, had said it was one of the many reasons
he had fallen in love with her. In love with her? No. Adam had
never been in love with her. He’d been in love with love, that’s
all, in love with his image of what love should be.

Sherry’s every nerve jumped as Adam suddenly
swept out his arm, sending the vase of roses crashing to the floor,
her involuntary sound of dismay betraying her presence even as she
turned to flee back to her own rooms.