She told herself that her apprehension arose only because the last time she’d been this content had been directly before her life had been devastated. She’d been so unprepared for the world of La Marais. So afraid. So…useless.
Maddy had picked herself up, again and again, learning to survive. Reflecting on the past, she didn’t know how she’d done it.
De mal en pire. She couldn’t help it—she’d begun saving her pin money.
Forty
Ethan located Maddy in one of her favorite places—the orangery, with the black kitten lazing against the warm glass. That little beastie actually liked him, which only further proved Maddy’s theory on Ethan and cats.
After leisurely kissing Maddy’s neck in greeting, he said, “I’ve received a missive from my brother.”
“Is anything wrong?”
“Doona know.” The cryptic message was from Hugh, so it could be about either Network business or family concerns. “Just know it’s important. He needs me in London immediately. How much time do you need to get ready?”
“How long would the trip be?”
“No’ long. Three or four days, I suspect.”
“Then maybe I could just stay here?” she asked. “I know you probably need to hurry.”
“Why? Is something wrong?”
“No, no, I’m just a little under the weather,” she answered.
He grasped her chin, turning her face side to side. “No doubt from being in this chilly room.” Though the glass was sun-warmed, the inside space was cool and damp in the mornings. Yet he couldn’t seem to get the furnace to work. He’d wanted to hire a machinist, but Ethan’s lass seemed to think he could do anything. So damn if he wasn’t crawling under that sputtering boiler at every spare moment.
“Ethan, it’s perfectly fine in here—”
“You doona actually expect me to leave you when you’re sick?”
“I’m not sick,” she said. “You have been very demanding lately, keeping me up at all hours of the night. And if you stayed, I’d want you to continue your demanding.” She grinned, but she did look tired. “Agnes and her children can come stay with me for a few days. It’ll be fun. We’ll eat candy and play charades and wreck your house like barbarians sacking a city.”
“Our house,” Ethan corrected. “Best remember you own half of everything you’re breaking.”
Though he loathed the idea of being separated from her, he knew she wasn’t hankering to meet his family. And he couldn’t allow her to meet them yet anyway. Hugh might have revealed everything to Jane. Ethan doubted it, but he couldn’t risk Maddy’s hearing the truth from anyone but him. To ruin what they were enjoying because he couldn’t leave her for three days…?
Besides, he needed to meet with Edward Weyland face-to-face—and officially retire.
“Aye, verra well,” Ethan agreed. “But only if Agnes and the children stay with you. I’ll either return for you or send someone to escort you down within four days.”
As soon as Maddy saw Ethan off that morning—with lingering kisses that almost made him miss the train—she and Sorcha began a baking frenzy. Six children meant lots of scones.
Agnes and her brood weren’t supposed to arrive before midafternoon, so when Maddy grew overheated, she went upstairs to rest.
Though Maddy already missed Ethan terribly, she was glad she hadn’t gone this morning. First of all, the very idea of meeting Ethan’s family nauseated her. Second of all, Maddy had questions for Agnes. The widow had six children.
If there was anyone who could help Maddy figure out if she was expecting, it’d be her.
In any case, Maddy was excited about the children coming over. She wanted to make forts for them out of curtains and pillows, forts like they’d never seen.
Sitting at her new escritoire, she collected her pile of recent mail. Yesterday, she’d been too busy to sort through the weekly bunch. She grinned to herself—Ethan had been insatiable.
Flipping through the envelopes, she found invitations, a letter from Corrine, and one from Owena Dekindeeren of the Blue Riband coterie. Maddy frowned when she came across a thick missive she didn’t recognize. She opened the seal and read the return address. It was from Iveley! She quickly skimmed the lines.
Just two weeks ago, she’d written to inquire about visiting, explaining who she was and her connection to the property. The land agent had responded promptly. He prefaced his note by admitting to being newly hired. He was experiencing some confusion and asked to be pardoned for it, but…“You, Lady Kavanagh, are the owner of Iveley Hall.”
Yet how…? Maddy’s eyes widened. Ethan had bought Iveley for her? “That man!” she said in an exasperated tone, but she was smiling. When was he going to tell her about this?
She could scarcely believe she owned Iveley. And apparently Ethan had at last found a hardworking steward for one of their estates—included in the envelope was a detailed report of improvement after improvement to the property.
Trembling with excitement, she turned to the second page of the note, skimming the lines with growing incomprehension. Your mysterious inquiry so puzzled me…after considerable hours of diligent research…discovered your husband had gifted Iveley to you four months ago…after having owned the property for nearly ten years…assumed directly upon your father’s forfeit of the same.
“This can’t be,” she whispered, her hand fluttering to her forehead.
How could Ethan not have told her he’d owned her childhood home? And for so long? He had to have made the connection.
Surely it couldn’t have been Ethan who’d foreclosed on them. Maddy had known Iveley had been seized—how could she ever forget being denied entry into her own home?—but Ethan couldn’t have been the one who’d forced them into the streets on the very day of her father’s burial.
The idea was too incredible—she could hardly conceive it. She reread the letter, but the content didn’t change, no matter how badly she willed it to.
There was no coincidence. Her husband had willfully deceived her about this. Maddy remembered those times when she’d talked about Iveley or her parents and Ethan had grown distant. Think, Maddy. Even as she resisted, a nebulous picture began to form from the facts she knew about Ethan.
He’d traveled to Paris for Maddy—though she could have sworn he hadn’t even liked her. He’d offered for her, a girl from a slum, instead of someone worthy of his title. And then he’d steadfastly refused to marry her—until she’d threatened to leave. She recalled his unsettling anger toward her earlier and the frenzied way he bought her gifts now.
What if there were deeds in my past? he’d asked. He had been trying to make up for something, but not for what she’d thought.
He’d foreclosed on them viciously, leaving them destitute.
But why? He had to have some grudge. Why her family?
She recalled him asking, How did Sylvie die? Maddy’s eyes narrowed. She’d known he’d met her mother! So why would he repeatedly lie about the connection?
What exactly was the connection?
Maddy began to have a sinking feeling in her stomach. Her mother had been ravishing—and faithless. Ethan had been a libertine who’d cuckolded a new husband every night. She remembered him admitting, “If they were married, then even better.” The two of them had been near in age.
Had Ethan had an affair with her mother? Why else would he lie so persistently?
Maddy had always wanted the key to unlock that night when her life had fallen apart. The questions had driven her mad. Now she felt the answers were there, just within her grasp.
Had her father unexpectedly returned home and caught his much younger wife in bed…with Ethan?
Maddy put her hand to her mouth to stifle a shocked cry. At twenty-three and without that scar, Ethan would have been gorgeous. Her aging father, who’d been dearer to Maddy than all the world, would have been devastated to see the wife he adored in bed with a strapping young Highlander.
Granted, Maddy couldn
’t know for fact that Sylvie and Ethan had…that they’d…
She shook her head hard. That part could be merely the imaginings of a frantic woman. But Maddy knew without doubt that Ethan had lied to her repeatedly and had sought revenge against her family. She couldn’t state with certainty exactly why he’d punished her parents, leaving her as a casualty, but no matter if they’d deserved it or not, Maddy definitely hadn’t.
It was one thing to be a victim of circumstance and quite another to have a man show up on your doorstep to destroy you. She hadn’t deserved to be dragged into this tragedy again.
Considering all that he’d done and deceived her about, she had to wonder if anything was true. Recalling the hasty marriage license—which Ethan had somehow had time to acquire after drunkenly plotting the seduction of two barmaids—and the very simple ceremony with the registrar, Maddy realized she might not even be truly married.
Not one of the ladies in the boulangerie after all…
Ethan had looked her in the eyes and vowed that if she could just see her way to giving him one more chance, he wouldn’t hurt her again.
Lies. He’d broken that vow, among others. The studied deception.
She’d been used. She was stunned, feeling so deadened that she was surprised she perceived her heart beating, could actually hear it in the silence of the room.
Maddy remembered Ethan once telling her to leave La Marais behind, not to look back. What had his plan been at the time? And if her friends had come to live with them and depend on them? On him? Maybe that was why he’d been so insistent about them coming.
What am I going to do? All she knew was that she wanted away from him, to be far away by the time he returned. She rose, and through tears gazed out the window at the windswept sea.
Maddy had called this place a fairy tale, and it had proved just as fantastical. Here, all was illusion. Peacocks and palm trees; jewels and sunsets over a blue Irish sea? If it sounds too good to be true…
You’re a fool.
She’d take the filth and danger of La Marais, hard and real before her, over this, over the lies of her husband, of their life. “Just one more chance,” he’d said, even while knowing her trust would be in vain. He’d known she would discover his deceit. “What happens if you find out something from my past that you canna abide and you leave me?”
She’d pleaded with him not to hurt her again. How many more times will I endure having my hopes crushed? How many more times could she endure it?
No more. She truly was finished this time.
“I’ll never let you go,” he’d vowed, and she believed him. Somewhere along the way, he’d fallen in love with her—or as much as possible for a man like him, with the lies between them.
In fact, she sensed that what he felt for her bordered on obsession. If she left, he wouldn’t rest until he found her.
But she was Maddy la Gamine—she could find her way out of anything. She had the jewelry he’d given her, and all the money she’d wisely begun hiding away.
She’d go back to La Marais. But only to collect her friends.
On their way to somewhere else.
Forty-one
Ethan heard the screams from his Grosvenor town house before he even set eyes on the property.
To his shock, he saw Court and Hugh outside—not running to the sound. Court looked as though he was about to murder someone.
Ethan swung down from his horse. “Why the hell haven’t you gone up—” Another scream sounded, and Court bellowed in answering pain, punching his fists against the brick wall. Blood was already matted there from previous hits.
“Stop it, Court,” Hugh snapped. “She’ll no’ like that I let you hurt yourself like this.”
“How could they send me away?” Court asked, his voice hoarse, his eyes dazed.
“I wonder,” Hugh said dryly.
Ethan finally found his voice. “What the hell is going on?”
“They’ve asked me to keep him downstairs for the present,” Hugh said.
“Who?”
“Did you no’ get our letters?”
“No letters, just a short telegram to Carillon—”
“I wasn’t sure if you still owned that one,” Hugh said. “I sent telegrams to the less likely of your haunts.” He narrowed his eyes. “What were you doing there?”
“Spendin’ the winter. Now answer me. What is going on here?”
“This is the birth of your niece or nephew,” Hugh said proudly. “And the possible loss of your brother’s sanity.”
“Birth?” Ethan tripped back against his horse. That arse of a horse sidestepped, and he almost fell. “Now?”
Court bit out, “She sent me away. Why would they send me away?”
Hugh responded, “Again, I canna imagine.” To Ethan, he said, “Annalía’s been in labor for about ten hours now. You’re just in time to help me hold Court and keep him out of the way.”
“Annalía’s in labor,” Ethan said, stunned. He’d never been anywhere near a birth before.
Court swung his frenzied gaze on Ethan. “Doona even start with me, Ethan. That baby is mine. I know her and I feel this. Any comment to the contrary, and I’ll kill you.”
Ethan put his palms up. “I’m no’ making any comment about anything.”
Court looked confused. “You’re no’ going to berate me or throw that bloody book at me?”
“No, I just…I wish you well.”
Now Hugh frowned, too. “Fiona’s here,” Hugh said to Ethan. “She wants to talk to you.”
“She’s here? In my house?”
“Aye, she’s—”
A scream louder than the rest sounded, and the blood left Court’s face. He barreled toward the front door, but Hugh collared him and hauled him back, cursing and swinging. “A hand here, Ethan?”
“Oh, aye. Calm yourself, Court,” Ethan said, helping to drag him back outside. “Women do this all the time.”
Court grated, “If I hear that bullshite another bloody time…”
“This is killing him,” Hugh explained. “He never wanted Annalía to have a baby.”
“Why no’?” Ethan asked, baffled. That’s what men always wanted. Wasn’t it? He’d tried to get one on Maddy with a feverish intensity.
“He dinna want to risk her. And he dinna want to share her. If he’d known he could get her with child, he’d have tried no’ to.”
“They made me leave,” Court said again, his tone miserable.
“How about helping me distract him?” Hugh muttered.
“How?” At Hugh’s shrug, Ethan said, “Do you have, uh, a name prepared, then?”
Absently, eyes still on the door, Court said as if reciting, “If it’s a boy, we have to name him Aleix, after Anna’s brother, Aleixandre. Because I put him in jail and stole his house and all that. If it’s a lass, we’re naming her after Fiona.”
Naming his daughter after their mother. Has everyone lost their bloody minds?
“Why have the screams stopped?” Court demanded, struggling to wrench free of them.
“I’ll go check,” Hugh said. “Keep him down here.” He crossed to the stairs. A few moments later, he called down, “They’re ready for Court.”
Court stormed past Ethan and bounded up the stairs. Ethan hurried to follow. Fiona was there at the entrance to Court’s rooms. “You’re lucky she’s ready this time, Courtland. You have a son. A beautiful boy.” She glanced past Court. “Hello, Ethan. Glad the letters got to you in time.”
He scowled, uncomfortable with this situation on so many levels. “I dinna get any bloody letters.”
“Language, Ethan!” Fiona snapped.
“I have no’ spoken to you in a dozen years,” Ethan began, tone seething, “and you think you can scold me like that in my own home?”
“Aye,” she said easily. “Because I’m still your mother.”
Court stormed in and went straight for the bed. When Hugh entered to stand near Jane, Ethan entered as well, struggli
ng to remain outwardly calm. Jane was here?
“Jane,” Ethan said with a cool nod.
“Ethan,” she replied, then added, “excellent work there with Grey. You really slowed him down for me to kill him.”
Ethan raised his brows at her nerve. She’s friends with Maddy, he told himself, biting back a scathing retort.
“Sìne,” Hugh said warningly, using the Gaelic form of Jane. In turn, she slipped her hand in his and cast him a sunny smile; grave, stony Hugh was obviously helpless not to be charmed by it.
Court dropped to his knees beside the bed, taking Annalía’s hand. “Mo chridhe, vow tae me that you’ll never want another. We canna do this, no’ ever again.”
She gave him a drowsy smile. “I know this was hard on you. Oh, Courtland, what has happened to your hands? You poor thing…”
If Court could get a babe on Annalía, why had Ethan failed with Maddy? A quick flare of panic—what if Ethan had succeeded? Maddy was smaller than Annalía, who looked like she’d barely gotten through this.
Fiona said, “Courtland, do you no’ want to see your son?”
Court scowled up at her, having no interest in the boy. Instead, he put his face against Annalía’s neck. Poor bastard couldn’t seem to get close enough to her. “Can I pick her up?” Court asked.
Jane said firmly, “No, Court. Not yet. She needs to rest.”
After another minute of sneaking her closer to him, Court turned back to them. “I’ll be gentle with her.”
“No, Court!” Fiona and Jane said at the same time.
Fiona added, “But you can pick up Aleix.”
Ethan watched in amazement. Court hadn’t even glanced at the babe.
“Since he is no’ interested for now”—Fiona brought the infant to Hugh and Ethan—“perhaps you’d like to meet your nephew.”
Hugh muttered, “Never touched a baby.”
“Never?” Jane asked with a light laugh. Ethan said nothing, though he hadn’t either.
Ethan was beyond cynical, yet he took one look at that boy and knew he was a MacCarrick. Felt it down to his bones.
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