Free Come Near Me by Kasey Michaels

Her
Ladyship?”
    Emma’s curtsy was more insolent than
respectful, but Adam knew it would do no good to reprimand her.
Emma Oxton was a law unto herself in Grosvenor Square, mostly
because Sherry let the woman rule her rather than the other way
around. He’d have had her gone in the first week, except that
Sherry refused to acknowledge that her maid was insubordinate. And
lazy into the bargain.
    “She says what she don’t like roses, m’lord,”
Emma said, holding out the heavy vase with both hands. “No need to
cry about it, exceptin’ that she is. I’m goin’ now, to toss them in
the rubbish.”
    Crying? Sherry had been crying? Adam reached
out a hand to stroke one of the delicate pink blooms, his mind a
jumble of memories, only some of them good. “I see,” he said, not
seeing at all. “Put them in my rooms, Emma, if you don’t mind. It
will save you a trip down the stairs. You’d like that, wouldn’t
you?”
    The maid shrugged, looking incredibly sly for
the lazy slattern she was. “Yes, that would work,” she said, then
turned on her heels to shamble off to Adam’s chambers.
    “A moment, Emma, if you would?” Adam called
after her, so that the maid sighed audibly, then turned to glare at
him. “There will be no more roses in Her Ladyship’s chambers. No
more roses in this entire household. All right?”
    “Weren’t me what gave ‘em to her,” Emma said.
“You’d better be tellin’ the one what did.”
    The “one what did,” Adam had learned from
Rimmon, was his new friend, Edmund Burnell. It had been a harmless
enough gesture, Adam knew, as Burnell could have no idea that the
roses, however beautiful, might have bothered Sherry. As they
bothered him. Which was probably why he’d ordered the maid to put
them in his chambers. As a reminder, perhaps even as a sort of
penance.
    Now, pushing all thoughts of roses and
remorse from his mind, Adam pushed open the door of the Oxford Arms
and stepped from the bright sunlight into the near dark of the inn,
standing still for a moment until his eyes adjusted to the
dimness.
    “There you are, Adam. I knew I could count on
you to get my note to meet here,” he heard Collin Laughlin call
out, and he turned to his right, heading for the table his friend
had secured in the corner of the nearly deserted taproom.
    Chollie was looking his same, cheerful Irish
self as he had months earlier, when last Adam had seen him. His
neckcloth was draped loosely around his throat, his cheeks were
flushed, and his eyes shone bright—undoubtedly a result of having
arrived earlier than Adam and already having begun some serious
imbibing. Adam watched as Chollie shoved his gold-rimmed spectacles
back up his nose and stood up, stretching out his arms to give him
a hug.
    Chollie was a hugging sort of man, which Adam
wasn’t, but he endured his friend’s backslapping enthusiasm because
he truly loved this man who had been his friend since Adam had met
him at a boxing match ten years previously. He’d met Chollie
because Chollie had been in the ring—until he’d been knocked out of
it and onto Adam’s lap by a wicked punch from some low-browed hulk
named the Bruising Blue. Never was there a man less physically
suited for the fancy as Chollie, what with his rail-thin body and
shortsightedness. But Irish was Irish, and Chollie swore that all
Irish were born mad as fire to be alive and therefore spent their
lives looking for someone to punch.
    “Ah, Adam, it’s grand to be seeing you, it
is,” Chollie said as he retook his seat and gave a whistle to the
barmaid, who came running up with another mug of strong ale.
“Drink! Drink!” he commanded. “I’m miles ahead of you, you know,
and we can’t have that.”
    Adam did as he was bid, raising the mug and
not lowering it again until its entire contents had been
redeposited inside him. Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand,
he grinned at Chollie, shaking his head. “God, man, but it’s good
to see you again. How