“To bring you home,” Lady Opal said. “Youneedto come home, Adelaide.”
Graham tilted his head at the almost desperate tinge to the woman’s tone. She was cruel, but there was something else there. Fear. Anxiety. The sound of it mixed together made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. There was something irrational to this woman’s behavior.
Something that frightened him.
“Adelaide,” he said softly. “You don’t have to do anything she says.”
Adelaide shot him a look over her shoulder. A fearful look, one filled with uncertainty.
“Aunt Opal,” she began, but before she could say anything more James strode through the parlor door with a man Graham didn’t recognize at his heels.
“As I said to you three times, inspector,” James was saying. “The Duke of Northfield is here and I’m certain he could tell you more about his whereabouts if he wishes to share them.”
Graham wrinkled his brow and James did the same as he looked from Adelaide to Opal to Emma and finally to him.
“It seems I’ve interrupted something in my own house,” James said. “Anyone care to explain what’s going on here?”
“Lady Opal has come to collect Adelaide,” Graham said, lifting his eyebrows in what he hoped was a message James would receive.
If his friend’s dark frown was any indication, he did. He turned on Opal. “Adelaide will stay with us, my lady. My wife finds she enjoys her company. It is not up for debate.”
Emma smiled as she took her husband’s arm and the two faced off with Lady Opal, who was now turning purple. “You havenoright!” Opal spat.
“I’m sorry to interrupt,” the stranger who had accompanied James said with a confused expression. “But I am here on official business.”
“And just who are you?” Graham asked, happy to ignore Opal for the moment, even as he kept a careful eye on Adelaide. She looked terrified as her gaze darted from her guardian to her friends to him and then to this stranger in their midst. “I feel I have a right to know if you were asking Abernathe after me.”
“Captain Richard Black,” the man said with a glance up and down Graham’s form. “Of the Home Office.”
Graham shot James another look, this one full of questions. “The Home Office? And you were looking for me?”
“For answers,” the man corrected with an unpleasant sneer. “I’m investigating an incident that occurred at the Hampshire Theatre two nights ago.”
Graham heard Adelaide’s sharp intake of breath, but very carefully did not look in her direction. He kept his gaze firmly on the man before him. He didn’t like this Captain Black. He had a smarmy feel to him that told Graham he more than enjoyed his job, especially when he got to take a man down a peg or two.
“An incident?” Graham said mildly.
“With Sir Archibald,” Captain Black said with another smile.
Graham gripped his bruised hands at his sides. “I assume you mean the altercation I had when the man attempted to assault an actress?”
“Exactly,” Captain Black drawled.
“You see!” Lady Opal cried, launching herself toward Adelaide, hands outstretched. Adelaide staggered back, dodging her aunt’s grip as Graham lunged to put himself between them once more. Opal hardly seemed to notice. “You align yourself with the kind of man who would accost a gentleman, Adelaide? You align yourself with a beast?”
Adelaide turned her face, her cheeks red. “Please, Aunt Opal, you must stop.”
“Ididhit the man,” Graham said. “I don’t deny it, though I’m shocked that he would report such a thing to the authorities.”
Actually, he wasn’t shocked. He could well picture Sir Archibald would take great pleasure in turning to the Home Office to make Graham look bad after he’d been bested.
“He didn’t exactly report the attack,” Captain Black said, folding his arms. “Where did you go after the incident?”
Once again, Graham saw Adelaide stiffen from the corner of his eye. Her hands were shaking and she shoved them behind her back.
“I went home,” he said softly.
“Home. Were there witnesses to that?” Captain Black pressed.
