Page 42 of Buon Natale, My Wicked Rogue
“That’s not Radstock.” He reached for her hand and gave it a squeeze. “Angela, that’s your father.”
Chapter Sixteen
A wave of dizziness swept over her, and she had to lean back against the frame of the window seat. The shock of his answer had her mind spinning. Her hand, like the rest of her body, had gone limp, and he took her wineglass. Then she looked out the window, leaning forward. The man seemed so nondescript. “How can you be so sure?”
“I know him well, Angela. He was once my superior at the Home Office before illness forced him to retire to the country.”
“Oh,” she said, absorbing this new and startling information as she squinted harder to examine this gentleman that Evan said was her father. But the coachman had placed a scarf on the lower half of the duke’s face. Her heart pounded rapidly, and that lightheadedness increased. The servants continued to fuss with the blankets, and then the gentleman waved his hands to stop them before yanking the scarf off his face.
He had a hard, rugged appearance to his face and jaw. Sunken cheeks made his cheekbones appear sharp. “He looks quite stern.”
“He is an exacting man but fair, and he can be kind at times.” Evan was still holding her hand.
A heaviness entered her heart. She had never known her father. Evan, who had been nothing to this man but an underling at the Home Office, had known him well. But she, his own fleshand blood, had never been allowed to even meet him, much less to know him.
“Why do you think he’s come here? Why now?” she asked, panic welling inside of her.
“Perhaps he’s heard of our wedding.” Evan ran his hand through his already mussed hair with his eyes closed, then was quiet for a moment.
He opened his eyes. “Yes, that must be it. Radstock told him.” But he still looked troubled.
“What is it, Evan? What are you thinking?”
“Radstock wouldn’t know you are Amesbury’s daughter. Unless Mr. Abney told him, which he might have, at least I think.”
She hugged herself. “Your tone makes me uncomfortable. There’s more to this, isn’t there? Something you haven’t told me?”
“Yes, there is something.” The dread in his voice made her mouth go dry.
“Oh, Evan, what is it now? You didn’t tell me that I was under suspicion of being a spy. You didn’t own up to having deceived me for so long. You didn’t even tell me that you knew my father well and had worked for him at the Home Office. Now you say there is more?”
“Yes, my love, I am sorry that deceived you and that there were also other details that I either thought were insignificant, or I wanted to shield you from. “
“Shield me from?” Her heart pounded hard at his words.
“Your father’s family were the ones who asked the Home Office to investigate you as a potential spy. They appearedto have done so while he was sick and incapacitated. I have strong reasons to suspect that they paid Mr. Abney to have you investigated and thus to intimidate you into returning to Boston. They may have even hired the man who shot me.”
The edges of her vision grew dim, a sort of reddish-black misty dimness. Her head felt lighter than air, and she sagged into the seat. She was going to faint. How utterly ridiculous. She wasn’t like this normally. But she was weak and sick all the time now. Hitting her head might explain the lightheadedness. Natalia was awake now and came padding over to her and put her head on Angela’s stocking-clad foot, and gazed up at her with liquid, soft eyes. “Angela!”
The sharpness of his voice made her flinch. “What?” she asked dumbly, with her hand on her head.
“I asked you if you were all right, and you didn’t answer me. You just sat there with this terrible dazed look in your eyes. Are you well?”
“I am fairly well, I think.” No, she wasn’t sure, but she didn’t want to alarm him further.
“Did you understand what I told you about the danger your father’s family poses to you?”
“Yes,” she said. She understood it intellectually, but she wasn’t so sure she could accept it emotionally.
“Your father might be here because of this family trouble.” Evan looked disturbed at this possibility.
She frowned. “How can my father be here? Should he be here? I was told he was too ill to leave his bed. Too ill to have a visitor, even his own daughter?” She shook her head. “How can he be here?”
“I don’t know love. The only way to find out is to meet with him.”
Evan rubbed his cheeks again, then turned wide eyes to hers. “I am not shaved or dressed to meet him as my former superior. However, he’s not just your father now; he is my father-in-law.” He exaggerated the width of his eyes.
“I am not dressed for a grand visitor either.” She pointed to herself, dressed as she was in a plain pale green day dress. She couldn’t stand wearing her nightgown all day, even being in bed. “Much less meeting my own father for the first time.”
