Page 77 of Dangerous

“Mia helped us choose the colors,” Melissa said, wearing a pale yellow gown that made her sandy hair and freckled face golden.

Adam looked at his youngest daughter, a child he knew was not his, and cupped her rounded chin. “You’re as pretty as a buttercup. And you look so grown up.” He turned to Catherine. “And you—you are grown up. White suits you,” he added, an odd, proud pang shooting through him. Eva and Catherine had inherited his and Veronica’s dark hair and eye color. They would be beauties like their mother.

Adam could only hope blue eyes and sable hair were the only things they’d inherited.

* * *

Adam enjoyed the evening far more than he’d thought he would. It wasn’t the production itself he enjoyed, but the pleasure his daughters took in the performance. They shared lemonade in their private box with Lady Hammersmith’s granddaughter and several other young women of their acquaintance. Bringing Eva and Melissa—who were still in the schoolroom—would be viewed as odd, but Mia had argued it could not hurt them to be out in public a little and Adam thought she’d been correct. He was so charmed by their obvious delight in the event, he was sorry Mia had missed it, even though her presence in the box would have made things more awkward. At least for him.

Not only his butler, Batson, but also Sayer and his wife’s maid were in the foyer when they arrived home, as if they’d been waiting for him. He met Sayer’s eyes and saw the usually unflappable man was, for lack of a better word, flapped.

Cold fingers of dread crept down his spine.

“Wait for me in the study,” Adam told Sayer and LaValle.

It seemed to take ages before his daughters were finished thanking him, bidding him good night, giving their love to Mia, and finally trundling sleepily to their beds.

Gesturing to Batson to follow, he strode into the study and found the two servants standing nervously in front of the large desk.

“What is it, Sayer?”

“My lord,” his valet began, darting a nervous look at the Frenchwoman. “Er, Mademoiselle LaValle found a letter bearing your name when she went to check on Lady Exley earlier. She, well—” He gave the maid a look of appeal, which she ignored. “Well, Lady Exley seems to be gone, my lord.” Sayer held out one of Mia’s embossed, sealed sheets of stationery.

Adam sat down before he fell down. He looked at the missive in his hands, almost too terrified to open it.

It was all happening again, like some bloody nightmare that wouldn’t stop.

“Sit,” he said to the three servants looming around his desk.

His wife’s handwriting was girlish and free-flowing, the hand of a woman who’d not had much to write about most of her adult life. The pages were spotted and spattered with blots of ink and water spots.

Adam,

I am more sorry than you can ever know for what I am about to do. I cannot make these words any more palatable: I am leaving you because I can see no other way. I cannot tell you why I am leaving or where I am going. You would stop me if I told you and I cannot let that happen.

I am not leaving you because I want to. I am leaving because I must.

I will come back when I have finished what I need to do. I know you will be anxious for the child I am carrying and worried about harm to your heir. Please know I will take all possible care of our unborn child.

I hope you will be able to forgive me for what I am doing, but I will understand if you cannot find it in your heart to do so.

Your wife,

Mia

Adam reread the letter several times, certain he must have missed something, some essential piece of information that may have been lost in his quick, frenzied reading.

He looked at his servants. His confusion must have been plain on his face. Batson, whose presence had yet to be explained, finally spoke.

“My lord, what I am about to say is, well, not something I would wish to say.” His dignified butler was pale and shaken.

“What is it, Batson?” How was he able to sound so calm when inside he was flying to pieces?

“This afternoon, when I sent Carlson on an errand, he saw Lady Exley in rather, erm, well, heated conversation with a . . . person.”

“A person?”

“Yes, my lord, a male person.”