“Cordell…”
His name came out like a soft plea and it was enough to send him spiraling over the edge. She moaned, burying her face in his neck as he increased his pace and exploded, spilling more of himself inside of her than just his release. “God, yes…”
He kissed her with all of the abandon he was feeling in that moment, all the freedom that he could not offer, but yearned to give. He did not want to know what she might have said, could not have expressed the same emotions. It was enough just to be with her, to be joined together. Words were not needed. He did not want them to spoil the magic they had just shared.
He slowly let her back to her feet and she shook her skirts back into place. He reached out and grasped her chin with his thumb and forefinger. “Can I trust that you will come back to my townhouse now?”
She lifted her chin slightly, the stubbornness she wore as a cloak around her shoulders making an unwanted appearance. “Do you really think it is wise?”
He expelled a heavy breath. “I know you do not want me to say it is because I can be assured you are safe if you are under my roof, but I will express the same sentiments and be damned.”
Cordell waited for her to rail at him, to refuse to leave Spade’s, but he surprised her by leaning forward and giving him a light kiss. “I will come back on one condition.” He lifted a brow, waiting. She smiled broadly. “If I can be the one to protect you.”
He laughed. “If those are the terms that I must agree to, then of course, I will gladly accept.”
Aislynn shouldn’t be feeling as light as she was as she waited to take her place on the stage that evening. There had been a murder just hours before, yet she couldn’t seem to stop smiling. Guilt ravaged her while at the same time a thread of happiness dared to intercede.
Happy. It was almost a foreign word to her. She had never recalled a time she had truly been… happy. There were moments she was content, but as far as a real, abiding joy because of her circumstances, she could not remember an instance before Cordell when a smile seemed to blossom so effortlessly on her face.
She stared at her reflection in the dressing room mirror, wearing her costume for that evening, and realized that the role she was meant to portray had a somber tone. She suddenly wondered if her performance would be a convincing one.
A brisk knock sounded on her door as one of the crewmen shouted through the wood. “Fifteen minutes until curtain!”
She did not need to pinch her cheeks to gain any color. Between the cold and the events from earlier, the rosy hue had not yet dissipated. It was as if all the sordid events from the past several days were nothing but a nightmare from which she was starting to awaken. It would be so easy to lose herself with Cordell and pretend that nothing could threaten this newfound sense of complete harmony.
The door to her dressing room opened and closed.
“I’m coming!” she shouted over her shoulder without turning around. She was grabbing for one of the props for the opening act when a voice spoke up behind her.
“Hello, daughter.”
Aislynn expelled a slight gasp as her left hand immediately went to her right arm where the bone had never fully healed. A frisson of fear slithered up her spine as she slowly turned to face the woman who had spoken. She had not laid eyes on Imogen Malone in months, had imagined that her mother had finally met her demise at the hands of one of her paramours or perhaps her own hand by way of laudanum or drink, but she stood in front of her looking as hale and hearty as ever. She was just as Aislynn remembered—and had tried to forget. “What are you doing here?”
The older woman gave a toss of her light-colored hair, the dull shade threaded with lines of white that had slowly become a new addition with her age. “Is it a crime to want to see my only child?” she returned defensively.
Aislynn’s first reaction was to claim that anytime her mother was near it was not appropriate, that she had forfeited the right to fully claim that title long ago, but she gritted her teeth and chose to remain silent on that matter. She did not need to start a heated argument minutes before she was due to appear on stage.
“I have always been given to wonder if I truly am an only child,” Aislynn murmured.
Her mother snorted. “Don’t be crass. You are the only one I claim that has done anything profitable with her life. When it comes to bastards, you have been my shining star.”
Again, Aislynn wanted to rail that she wasn’t this woman’s anything. “I have to get to work. Whatever reason you are here will have to wait.”
Aislynn was intent on slipping past the woman and taking care of what she was at the theatre to do, to offer entertainment to the crowd of onlookers who had traveled out on this chilly winter night to watch her express her lines on the stage.
Her hand was on the knob when her mother piped up, “I had heard that you were more compassionate than that. I was willing to offer you information on the murderer who has been terrorizing the local actresses, but if you aren’t interested…”
Her hand tightened before she forced herself to turn back. Whether or not her mother was lying, she couldn’t, in all good conscience, ignore any possible lead at this point. “I’m listening.”
“You should have learned by now that is not how these things work.” She shook her head. “You think it is that easy to give you a name and have your hero go charging to the rescue?”
“I do not need Mr. Steele to fight my battles for me,” Aislynn snapped, praying that Cordell would be spared the vitriol of this woman. He didn’t deserve her unpleasant nature when he was suffering with his own inner battles.
“Is that so?” The other woman challenged. She took a step closer. “If that is true then you should be able to manage what I want without any resistance from the inquiry agent.”
Aislynn hoped that her expression showed all of the loathing that she felt for this woman. “Name your terms.”
She offered a bright smile and then reached into her bodice and withdrew a folded missive that she held out to Aislynn. “Bring fifty pounds to this address at midnight tomorrow. And come alone or you can forget about any information. I shall take it to the grave.”
