“I rather think that is what I’m supposed to ask you,” he said seriously. Lifting a hand to stroke her cheek, he said, “Will you have me, Maddie? If so, are you sure?”
Unable to speak around the lump in her throat, Maddie, who had long been the most outspoken of her cousins, nodded, hoping that he understood that she was answering yes to both.
“Then there’s nothing for it but to do the thing properly,” Christian said with a grin, dropping to one knee and taking possession of her hands again.
“Lady Madeline Essex,” he asked, looking at her with such affection and something else that looked suspiciously like love, that she nearly dropped his hands. “Will you do me the great honor of becoming the Countess of Gresham, and not inconsequentially, my wife?”
“Of course I will, you great gudgeon,” she said, pulling him to his feet and embracing him so that he wouldn’t see her tears. “Of course I will.”
He took her by the shoulders and held her away from him. “What’s this, Maddie? Tears?” Christian leaned in and kissed first her eyes, and then traced the path of a tear down her cheek to her mouth.
But his lips had no sooner met Maddie’s than the sound of a throat clearing made them leap apart.
“Am I to take this display of ardor to mean that you have accepted his lordship’s proposal, Madeline?” Lady Essex, accompanied by a less than pleased looking Lord Essex, said from the doorway.
“Hypothetically,” Maddie said with a smile.
Her mother was not amused. “What do you mean, hypothetically? My lord, I was given to understand that your proposal was sincere.”
“Indeed it was, your ladyship,” Christian said, with a warning glance at Maddie. “I fear Lady Madeline was simply referring to the fact that I have not yet spoken to her father.”
“Then let me put your minds at rest,” Lord Essex said firmly. “You have my permission to wed my daughter, Gresham. Just as soon as we can arrange it.”
Maddie frowned. Her parents couldn’t know about the need for them to wed in haste. She had planned to work up to telling them of the necessity.
Christian squeezed her hand. “My lord,” he began, “it’s not that I do not wholeheartedly agree that we should marry before the week ends, but is there a particular reason why you think we should?”
The earl’s jaw clenched. “I had not meant to discuss the matter in front of the ladies, Gresham,” he said curtly, “but as you have brought up the subject, I suppose we may as well get it out in the open.”
Turning to pace before the fireplace, Lord Essex stopped and faced them. “I have heard talk this morning that you were seen kissing my daughter during a card party at Lady Emily Fielding’s home last evening.”
“Oh, Papa, it’s not—” Maddie began, feeling shamed to the roots of her hair by the look on her father’s face.
“Do not tell me what it is not, young lady,” the earl snapped. “You were behaving like the veriest lightskirt before an audience last night. Emulating that Fielding widow, no doubt. And bringing censure down on the family while you were at it.”
Maddie would have objected, but Christian was there before her.
“I must ask that you keep a civil tongue in your head when you are speaking with my future wife, Lord Essex,” he said, his hand firm and warm in hers. “It is true that we kissed at Lady Fielding’s last night, but it’s over and done now and there’s nothing to be done about it. And I must respectfully tell you that if you ever refer to Lady Madeline in such vile terms again I will not hesitate to defend her to you on the field of honor.”
Maddie’s eyes widened at Christian’s threat to meet her father over his insult. She’d known that if society learned of the incident at Lady Emily’s, there would be some price to pay—and she supposed that their betrothal was a payment against that bill—but she had to admit that she hadn’t thought through the ramifications of the scandal on her reputation with her family. It was a jarring realization, and hearing her father’s insult followed by Christian’s defense of her emphasized just how serious the matter was.
She was surprised that rather than standing up to Christian, her father instead seemed to diminish before the other man’s ire. It was the first time Maddie had seen her father as something other than the brusque patriarch she’d known since late childhood. She was at once grateful for Christian’s championship and a little saddened by her father’s quick dismissal of her.
“You are welcome to her,” Lord Essex said gruffly. “She’s always been a difficult one to manage and I wish you good luck with her.”
Realizing that her husband’s ill temper might ruin what she herself saw as the best match she could have dreamed of for her daughter, Lady Essex laughed off the exchange. “Oh, you men with your harsh words,” she said with forced gaiety. “I vow that you will be sharing drinks together at the wedding breakfast.”
Turning to Maddie and Christian, she said, “We’ll leave you two lovebirds alone for a few minutes. Then we must set about planning the wedding, Madeline. And you, my lord, must secure a special license at once. If you have any trouble there, I can ask the archbishop himself. He owes me a favor.”
And then, as quickly as they’d been interrupted, they were alone again.
“Are you all right?” Christian asked, looking intently into Maddie’s face.
She nodded, and stood up on her tiptoes to kiss his cheek. “Thank you for standing up to my father for me. I could have handled him, but I must admit I don’t think he would have backed down as easily for me.”
Christian’s jaw hardened. “I shouldn’t have needed to do so,” he said grimly. “I wish you’d told me that he was so disrespectful to you. I thought you said that he’d become a better man since giving up drink.”
“I said he was more rational,” she said wryly. “He is still a rather unpleasant sort of person. But he is my father.”
Slipping a hand into his coat, Christian said more cheerfully, “I almost forgot to give you this.”
He extended his hand, which had a rather large sapphire ring resting in it.
Maddie gasped. “For me?”
His raised brow drew a giggle. “Of course for me,” she said with a smile. “Will you put it on?”
Nodding, Christian took her left hand in his and removed her glove, slipping the sapphire onto her ring finger. It was a perfect fit.
“It was my great-grandmother’s,” he said. “The setting is a bit archaic, but I thought it suited you.”
He leaned down and kissed her, then. Maddie welcomed him into her mouth, trying to say with her kiss all those things she was too afraid to say aloud.
Thirteen
A betrothed man had no business at a brothel three days before the wedding, Christian thought, tossing Galahad’s reins to an urchin loitering in the street before the Hidden Pearl. But the note he’d tucked away in his coat pocket, and its promise to disclose information relating to the death of John Tinker, had made it imperative that he do so.
Besides, he thought, Maddie was busy with wedding plans today and need never know.
“My lord,” the beefy man at the door said, extending a very large arm in welcome. Christian had little doubt that the fellow served both as butler and muscle for those occasions when clients of the establishment became a bit overzealous for the club’s liberal tastes. “The rest of the gents are in the parlor. You can take your pick there, or if you’ve got a particular girl you’d like to see—”
“I’m here to see Mrs. Pettigrew,” Christian said before the big man could finish the thought. “We have an appointment, I believe.”
The other man’s brows rose but he did not argue, directing Christian into a surprisingly comfortable sitting room that might have been found in any respectable home in bourgeois London.
He couldn’t help pacing. He felt as nervous as a mouse in a cat house cooling his heels in this place. All he needed was one person to see him and take the news back to Maddie and he would have a great deal of explain
ing to do. She would doubtless understand upon hearing his reasons for being here, but he’d just as soon skip the conversation altogether.
“Lord Gresham,” a sultry voice whispered from the doorway. “What a delightful surprise.”
Turning, Christian surveyed the woman in the doorway. She was not attractive in the conventional way, but what she’d been born with—a large bosom and a slender figure—she’d put to good use. He had little difficulty imagining she kept her clientele happy.
“It can hardly be a surprise,” he said, kissing the air above her hand, “when you issued such an intriguing invitation.”
She laughed. It was a sultry, throaty sound. “Leighton said that you were a bright one.”
Moving farther into the room, she took a seat on a plush settee before the fire.
“So, it was Leighton who directed you my way?” he asked, moving to stand with his back to the mantel. “You’ve worked for him in the past, I suppose.”
“In a manner of speaking,” she said with a wink. Then straightening a bit, she fingered the diamond necklace at her throat. “I have, in my profession, been privy to information that my country often finds to be of use. Lord Leighton and I have met on more than one occasion when I thought the information warranted his attention.”
“And what information have you gleaned this time?” Christian asked warily. He was well aware that Leighton gathered bits of news from a variety of sources, but he wasn’t quite sure that the madam before him could be judged a reliable source.
“All business, aren’t you?” she asked, not bothering to hide her amusement at his discomfort. When he raised an imperative brow, she rolled her eyes and said, “All right, all right. I’ll get to it, then.
“I have an occasional customer,” Mrs. Pettigrew said, dropping the pretense at seduction. “He is a member of a certain group that you’ve been looking into.”
“The Citizen’s Liberation Society,” he said flatly.
Mrs. Pettigrew nodded. “I’ve cultivated the relationship because he often tells me of his exploits with the group after a good—”
“I get the idea,” Christian interrupted. “Go on.”
“Well,” she continued, “he isn’t very powerful in the group, or I’ve little doubt your lot would have snatched him up. And his tattle sometimes leads to bigger fish.”
He wasn’t surprised to learn that the government had let the man go unfettered. Sometimes a braggart on a lower rung of the organizational ladder could be a wealth of information about those at the top.
“And?”
“And night before last he told me about another one of his lot who had been killed in a gaming hell.”
Christian’s senses went on alert. “Did he name this person?”
“No,” Mrs. Pettigrew said, “though he did tell me that the hell was a place run by a Mrs. Bailey.”
He clenched his jaw to keep from cheering. “And what did he have to say about the killing?”
She met his gaze. “He said that the group was puzzled, because they couldn’t figure out who would have killed him.”
“So you’re saying that they were not responsible for the man’s death?”
Mrs. Pettigrew nodded. “According to him, they don’t know who killed him or why.”
Christian thought for a moment. Since the incident at Lady Emily’s when Tretham was accused of the murder, Christian had suspected that the society was not responsible for Tinker’s death, but this news was proof of it. Which meant that he would no longer need to investigate the matter for the Home Office, and that the runners would have to be called in.
Unfortunately, it also meant that Viscount Linton was once more a suspect, along with Tretham and the rest of them. And that Maddie had likely been correct in assuming that the killer was one of those in Linton’s set. For Maddie’s sake, he would do what he could to ensure that the case didn’t get turned over to the magistrate just yet. If he could not use his political influence on behalf of his near brother-in-law, then of what use was it?
“Thank you for sharing your information with me,” he told Mrs. Pettigrew, taking his leave of her.
“No problem, guv,” she said with a grin. “Think of it as a wedding present.”
A present he would definitely not be sharing with his bride until after the wedding, Christian thought as he tossed a coin at the lad who’d looked after Galahad.
And maybe not even then.
* * *
“What a delightful gown, Lady Madeline,” Mr. Frederick Staines said, bowing so low over Maddie’s hand that she was able to see just where his hair had been carefully combed over his bald spot.
Thanking the gentleman for the compliment, she let her mind, and her gaze, wander.
She spied Christian on the other side of the room, chatting with Winterson and Deveril. He looked handsome in his evening clothes. And since their encounter in her bedchamber, she knew he looked just as well out of them.
They had decided to stay apart from one another until the announcement of their betrothal later in the evening. Neither of them wished to add fuel to the rumors circulating about the reasons for their betrothal by appearing to live in one another’s pockets. Lord Essex, despite his consent to the match, had continued to disapprove of the way it came about, and when Cecily’s stepmama had offered the Hurstons’ home for the betrothal ball, Maddie and Christian had accepted with alacrity.
So far she had spent the bulk of the evening being paraded around the Hurston ballroom by her mama, who wished to prove that Maddie was quite capable of behaving with propriety in the presence of her betrothed. It galled Maddie that she was the one who had to prove her modesty, but it was just another reason why she so disliked the inequality of the social strictures of the ton.
Adding to her annoyance was the fact that she was now expected to spend the bulk of the evening talking to people—like Mr. Staines—who had very little of interest to say. If this was what she’d been missing during her years with the other wallflowers, then she had been well out of it. Cecily and Juliet had remained by her side for a while tonight, but even they had absconded when Mr. Staines approached.
“And then I said ‘Of course he don’t understand you, Francis! He’s a dog!’” Mr. Staines said, laughing as if he had told the funniest tale imaginable, rather than a not-so-witty witticism about a conversation between his horse and his dog. “Are you an animal lover, Lady Madeline?”
“Why, yes, I do like animals, Mr. Staines,” she said cautiously, fearing that her affirmative would bring forth another deluge of animal stories. Then, spotting a familiar face coming near, she all but shouted with relief. “Lady Emily, how delightful to see you again.”
Her expression revealing that she had summed up Maddie’s situation and decided to offer a conversational rescue, Lady Emily Fielding stepped forward, saying, “A delight to see you, as well, Lady Madeline. And Mr. Staines! I believe I heard my father telling Lord Reardon about your Flossie’s new litter. You must hurry over at once lest he offer up the wrong details. I know no one as meticulous as you are when it comes to bloodlines.”
Puffing up like a peacock, Mr. Staines quickly excused himself with a blush at being singled out by Lady Emily.
“You do not know how much I appreciate your assistance, my lady,” Maddie told the other woman. “I was beginning to despair of his ever moving along to share his expertise with someone else.”
The dark-haired widow smiled. “He is a harmless enough fellow, but long-winded, it’s true. I’m glad I could be of service to you, Lady Madeline. Especially since I am to understand you were given a bit of a fright at my home earlier in the week.”
Maddie was not surprised to hear her refer to the accusation of murder against Tretham and not the scandalous kiss she’d shared with Christian. For someone like Lady Emily the gossip surrounding their indiscretion and the subsequent repercussions would hardly be worth mentioning.
“Yes, it was a bit frightening to hear talk of murder,” Ma
ddie said, “but I can assure you it was hardly as frightening as that night when Mr. Tinker was killed. I daresay Lord Tretham was more disturbed than I.”
“I believe he was quite worried by the accusation,” Lady Emily said tersely. “But, nonetheless, I do not like hearing that one of my guests was foolish enough to make such an accusation in so public a venue. And certainly not in the presence of the very woman who bore witness to poor Tinker’s demise. My sincerest apologies.”
Maddie sensed that Lady Emily was more disturbed by the accusation taking place in her home than over the accusation itself. Still, she accepted the apology and tried to turn the subject. “I thank you for the invitation to your home, nevertheless. It was an intriguing evening despite the unpleasantness.”
At that Lady Emily smiled and Maddie was reminded of how stunning she was. “I am pleased that you enjoyed yourself. If I’m not mistaken you enjoyed the company you brought with you as much as any of the other guests I invited.”
Maddie felt a blush creep into her cheeks. “Yes, I fear you are correct. Though I did enjoy getting to know some of my brother’s friends better. I had wondered what it was that attracted Linton so to your little set, but now I understand.”
At the mention of Linton, Lady Emily’s expression sobered. “Lady Madeline,” she said, “I wonder if we might converse in a more private location? There is something I need to tell you about your brother. And I do not wish to do so in such an open setting.”
Maddie’s gaze sharpened. “Yes, of course,” she said, trying not to show how eager she was to hear the other woman’s disclosure. Linton had sent word by messenger yesterday that he was safely hidden away—she guessed in Scotland at the family hunting box—but that didn’t mean that her fears for him had dissipated. It was bad enough that he would miss her wedding, but if he were to be hanged for murder the family would never recover. “I believe there is an antechamber off the long gallery where we can be private.”
How to Entice an Earl Page 18
