To Seduce a Rogue (25 page)

Irresolution

Lack of resolution; lack of decision or purpose; vacillation.

Charlie stood on her back porch, staring into a charcoal sky filled with sparkling, silver pinpoints of light. How, she wondered, had her life gotten so tangled with Adam Jared Chase’s? She had done nothing for two days but think about him, her mood swinging wildly from guilt to concern to something she was scared to define. An emotion that made her face flame and her legs weaken.

She jumped as something brushed her leg. Faustus meowed and plopped down by her feet. “So, is someone lonely tonight? I guess your acquaintances have deserted you.” She scratched him beneath his chin. “Don’t let it upset you, they don’t really know you. They don’t know me, either.” He purred and stretched in response.

When would Chase return to the
Sentinel
office? Miles had stopped by her house the afternoon of the incident to tell her not to go there alone. Gerald was staying away until he got word as well. She could not, in her memory, recall the newspaper office being empty for this long.

She didn’t know what Adam’s edict meant, and she was too big a coward to ask. With only bandages and a quilt between them, it would be tempting fate. For all she knew, he’d been naked underneath that quilt, which was more than she needed to
imagine
, much less come face-to-face with again.

With a final scratch for Faustus, she retraced her steps to the kitchen. The aroma of dinner—beef stew and cornbread—still lingered. With a sigh, she picked up a plate and carried it to the dry sink. Without the newspaper, she’d better learn to
enjoy
cooking and cleaning. What else would she do?

Faustus raced through the house seconds before a knock sounded through the house. Wiping her hands on her apron, Charlie tossed it into a chair and crossed to the door.

“Miles,” she said as she threw it open.

“You should ask who it is first, Charlie.”

She leaned in close to see if he’d been drinking. “What are you talking about?”

His mouth turned up, somewhere between a smile and a grimace. “I’m sorry. Landsakes, it’s Adam. He’s worried over this whole” —he pulled his hand through his hair— “thing.”

She moved to the side. “Do you want to come in?”

He eyed her—slightly embarrassed, she thought—before glancing away. “Yeah, I’d better come in. Because you have to pack. To come stay with Kath and me.”

“Are your serious?”

He nodded.

“But—”

“You’re alone right now. And I think he has reason to worry. We don’t know who did this, or if they’re coming back.”

She could not deny his logic or the fact that she had looked over her shoulder once or twice since the incident. However... “My things. I can’t, what—”

“Miles, is she giving you trouble?” This, a bellow from the general vicinity of her yard.

Chase
.

“I’m afraid,” she said after a feigned moment of consideration, “that I’m going to have to refuse your polite offer.”

Miles sighed. “You were right,” she heard him say as he approached the wagon, which she could just make out in the darkness.

“As expected,” came Chase’s cool reply.

Guilt raced through her as she observed Chase painstakingly step from the wagon, Miles able assistance steadying him. The guilt departed as his face came into view. She took a fearful step back. He looked terribly angry, as angry as the other night in the cornfield. It seemed she had witnessed his anger one too many times. She must be the lucky woman who brought it out in him.

If only anger had marked his face, she would have won the battle.

But he looked bone tired. Deep crescents lounged beneath each eye, and the bruise surrounding the injured one had faded to a hostile yellow. And his skin was much paler than usual. It was obvious to her that he should still be abed.

“You look like hell,” she said without thinking.

He halted at the threshold, his gaze constant. “Collect your belongings.”

“No.”

“
Now
.”

Charlie was startled and infuriated by his demand, yet she gathered no courage from his ever-tightening lips and icy, distant stare. Her hand lifted, her fingers fidgeting at her throat, as she debated what to do.

Adam wedged his shoulder against the frame, looking as if it were helping to keep him on his feet. “You have a count of ten. Only worry about enough for tonight. One...”

“What happens when you get to ten?” she managed through gritted teeth.

“You remember those whippings with a switch when you were a child?”

She turned, her faded brown skirt whipping, and stalked into her bedroom. She cursed as she threw a dress into the scratched, leather case that had been her father’s. She’d never really had any use for it before.

Of all the low, domineering—governing her like a child. Who did he think he was?

“Seven...”

“Oh, hush up, I’m coming!” She flipped the clasp on the case with a furious swat and walked from the room, right past him and out the door. She didn’t turn to look as she heard him close up her house.

After a few fruitless, inane attempts—by Miles—at conversation, they rode the mile between the Whitney and Lambert homes in silence.

* * *

When the wagon stopped in the Lambert’s front yard, Charlie was prepared for flight. She pulled the case to her side and managed a quite adroit vault from the back of the wagon to the ground.

“Always the lady,” Adam muttered.

“She’s a pistol, ain’t she? Thank heaven Kathy hasn’t the stubbornness of that one.”

Adam’s gaze traveled the distance, to the petite, dark-haired woman banging on the Lambert’s door like there was no tomorrow. “Yes. Thank heaven for that.”

“Do you need help getting down?”

Adam shook his head. “No. I’m used to the dull ache. Although those sharp, swift pains are still a surprise.” He couldn’t suppress the groan that slipped out when his feet hit the hard-packed earth.

As they walked to the house, Miles glanced at him with a frown. “You should be in bed, not out here like this.”

“No time. I can’t ignore what happened the other day. The only solution is a meeting with Stokes, in Richmond. That bastard needs to see who he’s dealing with.”

“He hired you. How can he
not
know?”

Adam paused, perching his hip against the railing. Telling Miles he might not be able to make it to the house probably wasn’t a good idea. “He didn’t hire me. Stokes wanted a good editor, my editor agreed to let me go for the summer. I didn’t have much choice.” He smacked his fist against his open palm. “Does he think I would let him do this to me? That I would let him threaten her?”

Miles’ gaze searched Adam’s face. “Those men, they threatened Charlie?”

“They said I was vulnerable” —Adam glanced at the house, feminine laughter luring him— “because I employed a woman. She wants to run this newspaper, and with a bit more training, she could do it. That mind of hers, you cannot believe.” Digging in his shirt pocket, he extracted a crumpled cheroot and matches. “To let this go unpunished, leave her here with this mess.
No
. Stokes has to understand this is not going to happen ever again. Not to me, not to her, not to your father.”

“They brought my
Pa
into this? I’ll go with you. We’ll beat the shit—”

Adam grasped his friend by the shoulder, his cheroot dangling from his lips. “I need you
here
. Helping Gerald run the newspaper in my absence.”

Miles nodded, although it was clear he would rather solve the problem his way. “When are you leaving?”

“As soon as I can ride a horse comfortably.”

Miles was silent a moment before he asked, “What about Charlie?”

Adam exhaled a wisp of smoke into the summer night. “What about her?”

Miles looked at him as if he had lost his mind. “Do you want her working at the
Sentinel
while you’re gone?”

“Absolutely not.”

Miles’ look changed to one that plainly stated,
And you think I can stop her
?

Adam returned a look only two men could share and understand.

Miles gestured to his house. “I can’t stop her from doing what you know she’d be hell-bent on doing. Just think what you’re asking. Just think about
her
.”

Adam tapped ashes from the cheroot, refusing to consider what Miles was suggesting, and none too subtly. “Oh, no. I have another life in Richmond.” As if that explained everything. But it did. He could not take Charlie—

No
. It was an impossible suggestion. An impossible idea.

“Another woman, is that it?” Miles’ grin flashed in the darkness.

“I don’t
have
another woman.” Not really, he didn’t.

“Well, then?”

“Why do I feel like a horse being led to the watering trough?” Adam stubbed the cheroot out against the railing, harder than required. “Charlie’s my colleague.”

A knowing grin crossed Miles’ face. “You think I look at Charlie the way you do? You’d punch me in the face if I did.”

Kath’s entrance onto the porch halted his rebuttal. “Miles, Adam, I’ve made a huge supper, so come in while it’s hot.” She leaned forward, squinting to see them clearly. “Good gracious, Miles, bring him in, he looks dead on his feet.”

Dead on his feet
.

Adam pushed off the railing, realizing that wasn’t a bad way to put it.

* * *

He sat at the Lambert’s kitchen table later that night, reading through his mail. The house was as still and quiet as a hidden pond. It was good to be alone. No need to struggle to make conversation with a woman who was, at the moment, indignant and confused, or try to calm the nerves of friends who had only best intentions at heart.

He rubbed the back of his neck, stiffening when the stretch caused a sharp hitch in his chest. With a sigh, he turned his attention to the letters on the table before him. There were two from his solicitor in Richmond—the same one who had handled his father’s affairs—apprising him of the gains and losses of his many investments. Mostly gains, it seemed.

There was also a short note from a colleague who had recently been hired as a correspondent for the
Richmond
Examiner
. Adam had worked with the man years ago during his tour of the West. He recalled a jovial man, tall and lanky, a bit of a drinker, but all in all entertaining. Adam slid the note, with the man’s Richmond address, into the saddlebag at his feet.

He straightened slowly—his injuries pained him more than Miles’ potent mash could disguise—and picked up the last letter, staring at the flowing script a full minute before turning it in his hands and breaking the seal. A scented page drifted from the envelope. Adam sniffed derisively as he picked up the sheet of yellow parchment. Her neat, familiar script reached out to him.

Adam, dear,

How dreadfully boring Richmond is without you. Don’t laugh, but with Father gone, this entire month has been nothing but one trial after another! The only joy is the look on men’s faces when they realize they must deal with a woman. You know, I may become a proponent of women’s rights yet.