“I just need to know what sent you there. I can’t explain why.”
It was a tribute to how much her father had changed of late that he didn’t demand an explanation. “I don’t know if I should say. The old viscount swore me to secrecy—didn’t want the scandal and all.”
“But he’s dead now, Papa, so what does it matter?”
“Aye. I suppose that dunce Wallace is the new viscount.”
“Wallace is dead, too,” she said impatiently. When he gazed at her oddly, she added, “Or so I hear. His brother Anthony is now the viscount.”
“Ah, yes, poor Master Anthony.” Papa grew pensive. “That’s what started the troubles between Sir Randolph and me. I couldn’t stomach being his physician after what happened. The lad’s father promised he wouldn’t tell anyone that I’d brought the tale to him, but Sir Randolph was no fool. He knew someone had spoken to the viscount. He’s been suspicious of me ever since.”
“What tale?”
Her father blinked. “Why, about what they were doing to poor Master Anthony, of course.”
Her heart leaped into her throat. “And what was that?”
“Don’t know as if I should say.”
Madeline held her breath.
“But I don’t suppose it matters anymore.” He stared into the fire. “Lady Bickham made the boy kneel for hours at prayer and gave him cold baths to curb his ‘licentious’ behavior. But that wasn’t the worst of it. No, the worst was them tying him to the bed at night, hand and foot, without even a fire to give him light.”
Horror filled her at the thought of poor Anthony being kept tied up in the dark like some dangerous creature.
His voice grew distant. “The night they called me in, he’d been desperate enough to hide a penknife behind the bedpost before they tied him down. Later, in the dark, he nearly killed himself trying to cut the rope while still bound. By the time I reached him, he was faint from loss of blood. He told me he wanted to go home, that they hated him. He told me everything they’d been doing.”
A chill swept her. “How long had it been going on?”
“From what I gathered, for nigh on to four years. He didn’t say why, but Sir Randolph said it was to keep him from running off. He missed his dead mother so much that he kept trying to run back home.”
Who wouldn’t? she thought, furious on his behalf. How dared they treat him like that? What sort of monster did such a thing?
And if they were so horrible, why hadn’t Anthony simply told the courts about it in order to gain his niece? Or her, for that matter, to emphasize why she should help Tessa? He must have thought it would hurt his chances—but why?
“So you went to Chertsey to tell his father what was going on,” she said.
“Aye, as soon as your mother was on the mend. Couldn’t leave her until then. I wrote a letter at first, but when no answer came, I decided to go myself. Turned out his lordship hadn’t been at home for a month, and no one had sent it on to wherever he was. It was still sitting there when I showed up to speak to him.”
That’s why Anthony had thought Papa abandoned him. Because it had taken a month for Papa to talk to his father.
Madeline turned her face to hide her tears. Her poor darling Anthony. The thought of him suffering like that broke her heart. No wonder he hated the Bickhams. No wonder he wanted to save his niece.
Though surely they wouldn’t be so cruel to a girl, would they? She thought of Jane, and reconsidered that. Who knew what might have been going on in that house all those years? What might still be going on?
I must get Tessa out of that unspeakable place. Neither of those two are fit to raise a child, especially my aunt.
This changed everything—and not necessarily for the better. She couldn’t in good conscience risk that poor young girl’s future. She would have to find another way to save Papa.
But what?
Chapter Twenty
Dear Cousin,
I find your persistent dislike of Lord Norcourt strange, given that you claim not to know him personally. I have observed him with my girls this week, often without his knowledge, and he always behaved like a gentleman. His lessons have truly helped the girls. Which makes me wonder if your dislike of him might stem from something other than a mere concern for the school’s reputation.
Your perplexed relation,
Charlotte
Anthony pushed the team of his traveling chariot to its limits, determined to arrive at the school in time to catch Madeline alone. Because he’d learned one thing in Chertsey yesterday. There was no physician named Prescott. There’d never been a physician named Prescott anywhere in the vicinity. Nor had anyone heard of any scandal involving nitrous oxide in the county.
Before Saturday night, he might have assumed that Madeline’s tale about her father was a lie, just another scheme.
But after what had happened between them, he couldn’t believe it. For one thing, he’d reexamined her comments about Chertsey enough to realize she’d never claimed to be from there. As with her lack of experience in the bedchamber, she’d let him believe what he wanted but had taken great pains not to lie to him.
There was her virginity, too. She’d given up her innocence to protect her secrets, and then she’d fled. Those weren’t the acts of a scheming woman. Those were the acts of the desperate.
The very thought of her being that desperate sent fear spiraling through him. She’d been trying to protect him by keeping the truth to herself—he was almost sure of it. That meant that she and her father must be in very dire trouble indeed, trouble so dire that she’d relinquished all hope of his helping her.
Were her father’s enemies friends of his? That would explain how she knew of his boyhood antics and why she didn’t want to confide in him. He had to know—he had to make her see he could help her without making either of their situations worse.
He stopped just short of the school so he could sneak in unnoticed. Slipping inside the back entrance, he took the servant’s stairs to the next floor. Now he could only pray she showed up early again.
Unsure of her response, he strode into the classroom swiftly so she couldn’t avoid him. To his relief, she was there. But so was Mrs. Harris.
His heart dropped into his stomach. Good God, what was she doing here?
“Good morning, Lord Norcourt,” the headmistress said with a stern expression. “You’re here rather early, aren’t you?”
“So are you.” He glanced to Madeline, but her face wore a panic that mirrored his. Apparently, she’d been caught by surprise, too. What the bloody devil was going on?
Mrs. Harris regarded the two of them with interest, her expression unreadable. “I suppose you were hoping to speak with Miss Prescott alone.”
“Of course,” he said, going on the offensive. “She and I need to review my lessons for this week. We can hardly do that with the girls underfoot.” Mimicking his father’s supercilious viscount manner, he cast Mrs. Harris a withering glance. “I assume that’s allowed.”
Mrs. Harris ignored his remark. “I have a serious private matter I need to discuss with both of you. If you will follow me, we’ll adjourn to my office.”
God save them both, she knew something. That became more evident when she ushered them out with Madeline ahead of her, so that he had to follow behind, separated from Madeline.
By the time they reached her office, his frustration knew no bounds. He needed to speak to Madeline, not be corralled like an errant schoolboy.
“Please.” Mrs. Harris gestured to two chairs before her desk. “Take a seat.”
As they did so, Madeline cast him a speaking look, but he couldn’t read her mind, damn it. What was she trying to warn him of?
“What’s this about?” he demanded, tired of the headmistress’s mysterious manner.
“Forthright as always.” As Mrs. Harris sat down behind her desk, she surveyed him with cool aplomb. “Except in certain matters. You might as well admit the truth, Lord Norcourt. Your early a
rrival has nothing to do with lessons and everything to do with the nitrous oxide party your friend threw on Saturday night. The one Madeline attended.”
As his blood rose to a roar in his ears, Madeline leaned forward. “Mrs. Harris, I told you I did not—”
“Be quiet, Madeline,” Mrs. Harris ordered. “I want to hear his side without your interference. If necessary, I’ll banish you from this discussion entirely.”
Fortunately, Madeline had said enough to warn him that she hadn’t been the one to reveal the secret.
He schooled his features into the expression of someone hearing shocking news for the first time. Years of wicked living had taught him how to cover for himself very well, and no mere headmistress would trick him into confessing all.
But how had she learned about the party? What had she heard?
It couldn’t be much, because if she actually knew anything, she would already have dismissed Madeline, and a footman would be escorting him from the property.
“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, in a voice of astonishing calm.
“Don’t you?”
“No. Which friend of mine threw a nitrous oxide party? Why on earth would Miss Prescott have attended? It’s hardly appropriate for a lady of her situation.”
“Exactly.” She searched his face. “So you know nothing of it.”
“Nothing.” He hated lying to a woman he’d come to respect, but what choice did he have? He couldn’t risk Tessa’s enrollment. Or Madeline’s reputation.
She tapped a sheet of paper on the desk. “So I should discount this letter that came by special messenger last night from my best source of gossip?”
Bloody hell, her mysterious “source.” After a week at the school, he knew exactly who she meant—Cousin Michael, her anonymous benefactor, whose identity the girls speculated about endlessly. “I don’t know if you should discount it or not. What does it say?”
“That the Marquess of Stoneville, your intimate friend, hosted a nitrous oxide party this weekend at his estate.” She glanced at Madeline. “That he escorted a young lady who went by the name Mrs. Brayham, but who, from her description, sounds remarkably like Miss Prescott. What have you to say to that?”
He ignored the twisting in his gut. “I’d say you should ask your source for more details since he was obviously a guest himself.”
She flushed. “He wasn’t a guest—he made that quite clear. But he did hear other guests talking about it.”
“Ah.” He fixed her with his coldest gaze. “That is what I believe my attorney friends call ‘hearsay.’ It isn’t even admissible in a court of law.”
“This is not a court of law, sir,” she said with a considerable amount of starch in her spine. “I make the laws in this school, and I want to know the truth.”
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Madeline’s hands trembling in her lap. It turned his frustration to rage. “Then I’m afraid I can’t help you. If my friend threw such a party, I was unaware of it. And I find it highly unlikely Miss Prescott would risk her position and reputation to attend that sort of affair. As I’m sure she would tell you if you asked her.”
“I did ask her,” Mrs. Harris said. “She denies it as well.”
“Then there you have it.”
“Not exactly.” She rose to stand behind the desk. “Before we continue this conversation, I wish to make one thing very plain. Your behavior at the school until now has been better than I anticipated. I would even go so far as to say that you’ve helped my girls quite a lot. So I am inclined to hold you blameless in this matter.”
Her face darkened. “Except for one detail. I understand that Brayham is the family name of your maternal grandmother, which indicates that the woman at the party might have had some connection to you.” She looked at Madeline, then back to him. “So either she was a relation of yours, or Miss Prescott decided that taking a name from your family would deflect suspicion from her and onto you.”
His blood chilled. How the bloody devil did her source know Grandmother’s maiden name? Mother’s side of the family didn’t even appear in Debrett’s. Of course, someone with access to public records could learn such things. A newspaperman, perhaps. Like Godwin. But not in the space of a day, surely.
Whoever he was, this Michael person deserved to be thrashed for trying to ruin Madeline over a damned nitrous oxide party.
“So here is the situation, sir,” Mrs. Harris went on with an impassive expression. “Either you tell me exactly what you know—including the identity of Mrs. Brayham, her connection to you, and how she came to be at your friend’s party—in which case I will reevaluate whether I choose to help you in the matter of the guardianship of your niece.”
He swallowed hard. “Or?”
“Or you continue to deny any knowledge of the party, leading me to assume you had nothing to do with Miss Prescott’s appearance there, except perhaps for letting slip the family name of your grandmother, something I can hardly fault you for. If such is the case, I will enroll your niece.”
“And what will you do to Miss Prescott?”
“End her employment, of course.”
Madeline’s pitiful little gasp made his blood run cold. He jumped to his feet. “End her employment! Based on evidence so slight as to be laughable?”
“I have other evidence. My friend tells me that a guest overheard the marquess call Mrs. Brayham ‘Madeline’ as she left. And Madeline is a rather unusual name, wouldn’t you say?”
Damn, damn, damn. It was quite likely that Stoneville had done so, too, given what he’d said during their discussion after she’d left.
What the bloody devil was he to do? Anthony shoved his hand in his coat to close his fingers around Tessa’s little snuffbox. He couldn’t invent any tale about “Mrs. Brayham” without admitting he knew about the party. And though Mrs. Harris hadn’t said for certain she would refuse to enroll Tessa under such a circumstance, she had implied it.
But neither could he sit here and watch Madeline lose her position while he got everything he wanted. After all, he still didn’t know her situation. She seemed to think he couldn’t help her and her father. What if that were true? What if Sir Humphry were indeed the only person who could save Dr. Prescott? Without knowing the facts, he didn’t even know if marrying her would help her.
If he were to believe what she’d told him last night, then her father’s very life was at stake. It had to be something at least that serious, or why had she been willing to sacrifice her virginity to keep him out of it? Even now, she sat trembling in fear of what he might decide.
He knew how these dismissals worked—it took very little for information to appear in the paper, especially if a scandal was involved. If she lost her position, it might get back to her father’s enemies. He couldn’t be responsible for helping a group of ignorant fools see a man to his grave. Especially when the man was her father.
Compared to that, even Tessa’s situation paled. Which left him only one alternative.
He squeezed the box. Forgive me, my dear girl. If Mrs. Harris doesn’t enroll you, I will find another way to free you, I swear.
“Well?” Mrs. Harris snapped.
“As it happens,” he said, “Miss Prescott had absolutely nothing to do with any of this. Mrs. Brayham is my distant cousin on my mother’s side. It’s merely coincidence that her Christian name is also Madeline.”
“Ah,” Mrs. Harris said, a strange expression crossing her face. “And your cousin—how did she come to be at your friend’s party?”
He gritted his teeth. “She wanted to experience the more exotic delights of town, so I arranged with Lord Stoneville for her to attend.”
“I see.”
“No, you don’t see. She’s married to a parson. I wanted to preserve her reputation. That’s why I lied about the party.”
Madeline rose from her chair. “Mrs. Harris, you must let me speak!”
“You may leave now, Madeline,” the headmist
ress said curtly. “I’m sure your students are waiting for you.”
“But he’s ly—”
“Go!” he said sharply before she could ruin everything. He put as much of what he felt into his gaze as he could manage. “It’s all right, Miss Prescott. Don’t invent some complicity in this to spare me embarrassment. I’m willing to take responsibility for my actions, foolish though they were. I’m sure I can make Mrs. Harris understand the situation.”
Madeline shook her head. “Please, my lord—”
“If you don’t go now, Madeline,” Mrs. Harris said, “I shall assume you are both guilty of something and throw you both out.”
That was the only thing that got her to leave.
As soon as she was gone, Mrs. Harris closed the door. “So you think you can make me understand the situation, do you?” She strolled before him, a calculating gleam in her eye. “You aided your married cousin, a respectable lady, in going to a scandalous party thrown by your friends. You did this without regard for the risk she took to her reputation or her marriage. Have I grasped the particulars?”
“Yes,” he said, his stomach sinking at the harshness of her tone.
“And you didn’t even accompany her to make sure none of the inebriated guests—or your friend, I might add—took advantage of her.”
He debated, but decided on the truth. “I did accompany her. But because of concern over my gaining guardianship of my niece, I didn’t actively participate.” When she frowned, he added, “I know it was reckless of me to indulge her request, but when Madeline wants something, she is hard to dissuade.”
She cocked one brow. “Yet you think you can be a firm guardian to a young girl.”
Though he knew she was probably headed toward the complete destruction of his hopes, he couldn’t resist making one last plea for his niece. “I have no idea if I can be a firm or even a good guardian. I’ve never had children, never been responsible for anyone’s future except my own.”
His voice grew thick. “But I can promise always to put Tessa’s interests first, to do all in my power to ensure she has a safe and happy home. Having seen how well this school is run and how appropriate the curriculum, I would consider it a great honor if you would overlook my flawed character and enroll my niece anyway. After all, her only sin has been to lose her parents at too young an age.”
Let Sleeping Rogues Lie Page 23
