The most masculine room in the house was his study. Here, gleaming wood paneling and plush leather couches and chairs added elegance to the large desk dominating the room.
“His lordship spends much of his time in this chamber when he is at Riverwood,” Bramsley said, answering her unspoken question.
Madeline suspected she might not be welcome in this male bastion but decided not to put it to the test. Instead she would use the pretty writing desk in the drawing room for her own correspondence needs.
At the conclusion of the tour, Bramsley again indicated his willingness to accept her as mistress. “I am certain there are changes you would like to make, my lady, and I will do my utmost to see that you are satisfied.”
Madeline smiled and shook her head. “I don’t mean to change anything as yet. You have clearly done a splendid job thus far at running the household, Bramsley, and I would be obliged if you continue.”
The majordomo unbent enough to return her smile and then asked how he might be of service. In short order, he sent a maid up to help Madeline unpack her meager wardrobe and assist her in changing her gown, as befitted a countess. Bramsley also had a footman standing ready to drive her to the academy when she came down again.
She would grow quite spoiled with such luxury, Madeline reflected, deciding that tomorrow she would reassert her independence. For now, however, she would let herself be pampered a little.
When she reached the academy, Jane Caruthers was surprised to see her, but nodded in understanding when Madeline explained that Haviland had gone to London on business. She was gratified when her pupils seemed delighted by her visit and amused by their awe at her becoming a countess overnight.
It was when Madeline returned to her new home that she received a surprise herself. According to Bramsley, Rayne’s elderly grandmother, the dowager Countess Haviland, awaited her in the drawing room.
Upon learning of her noble visitor, Madeline shed her bonnet and pelisse and gloves and made her way quickly down the corridor to the drawing room. Entering, she saw the silver-haired aristocrat seated in a wing chair beside a roaring hearth fire.
Lady Haviland, who still wore her own outer garments, was older than expected but there was nothing fragile about her. Her posture was rigid with anger as she turned a piercing perusal upon Madeline, her aura of disapproval unmistakable.
She did not rise or speak a word of greeting. Instead, with no effort at courtesy or even good manners, Lady Haviland demanded icily, “What is this I hear about my grandson marrying you yesterday, Miss Ellis?”
Taken aback by the noblewoman’s fierceness, Madeline inhaled a steadying breath and moved into the room. Evidently her ladyship had a spine of steel and a hauteur to match, but as Rayne’s elderly relation she deserved respect.
Before Madeline could even offer a polite introduction, however, Lady Haviland gave a shudder of revulsion. “My friend, Lady Perry, who lives very near here, wrote to warn me of your nuptials, but I could not credit such an outrage, despite the reliability of the source. Yet Bramsley says it is true.”
Madeline hesitated to reply while debating her approach. Usually with her crotchety former employer, humor served best to deflect wrath. But Lady Haviland was clearly in no mood to be diverted with humor.
“Yes, it is true,” Madeline said evenly. “I regret that you had to learn of our marriage secondhand, Lady Haviland. I suspected you might not be pleased.”
“Pleased? Indeed I am not! It is beyond appalling that Haviland would marry a penniless nobody without even informing me.”
“Perhaps that is why he waited to tell you—because he anticipated your response.”
“The lapse is unforgivable,” the lady declared savagely. “I was attending a house party near Brighton, but I came here posthaste the moment I heard. At my age, and with the poor condition of my heart, such grueling travel could very likely mean my death. And now I find my worst fears realized.”
Madeline was willing to make allowances for the dowager’s rudeness. It was only natural that she would be shocked, even horrified. And if she held her grandson in affection, she would want what was best for him. Certainly she would want to protect the family name and title. But Rayne had chosen a bride who contrasted starkly with the debutantes his grandmother had expected him to wed.
“Such a marriage is not to be borne,” the dowager insisted, her tone adamant. “You are nothing more than a lowbred servant.”
Madeline felt herself stiffen. “I beg to differ. I am a gentleman’s daughter.”
Lady Haviland sent her a scathing look. “Your father was a common soldier.”
“My father was an officer who served on the Duke of Wellington’s staff.”
“Pah, that is hardly a qualification to become a Countess of Haviland—the offspring of Army riffraff.”
At the spurious denigration, Madeline’s fingers curled reflexively into fists. She could have pointed out the sacrifices her heroic father had made for his country—living away from his family for years, coming home for brief furloughs before packing his gear and striding off to war again, facing perils that the Lady Havilands of the world could only imagine, giving his very life for his noble cause. But she suspected a defense of her father would do nothing to change the dowager’s low opinion of her.
“Your bloodlines are unsavory in other respects,” her ladyship continued in that same derisive tone. “Your mother was French.” She said the word as if it were dirty.
Having reached her limit of forbearance, Madeline responded with sugary sweetness. “Yes, my mother was French, Lady Haviland. But she could claim aristocratic ancestors on both sides of her family dating back before the Norman Conquest, when your ancestors were likely peasants tilling the fields.”
“Impertinent girl! You will keep a civil tongue in your head!”
Her tongue had been known to land her in trouble, Madeline reflected, but she struggled to bite it now in the face of the dowager’s fury. She did not want to alienate Rayne’s grandmother entirely.
Instead, she forced a pleasant smile. “Clearly you consider me unworthy to assume your title, Lady Haviland, but I was not born into penury or service, and your grandson deemed my bloodlines adequate enough for his purposes.”
The dowager subjected her to another searing inspection. “It is not only your bloodlines at issue. Look at you. You are practically dressed in rags.”
She wore a serviceable day gown that admittedly had seen better days, but Madeline remained silent, knowing she would lose any argument about her wardrobe.
“Even worse, you are a mere country rustic. Do you have any notion of the expectations of Haviland’s rank? The decorum required of his position in society?”
With effort, Madeline kept her reply calm. “Haviland himself does not seem bothered by my lack of decorum. If he has no objections, my lady, how can you?”
Rayne’s grandmother stood abruptly. “Obviously there is no point in continuing this discussion since you are set on thwarting me. But you should know that without my support, you will be utterly shunned in society.”
“That is severe punishment indeed,” Madeline murmured.
The dowager’s expression turned livid. “It is beyond me, what arts you used to ensnare a gentleman so far above your station, but you have obviously blinded Haviland to what he owes his family name. Have you no shame, girl?”
“I am hardly a girl anymore.”
“True. You are nothing but a spinster fortune hunter. Well, I have news for you, Miss Ellis. You will never see a penny of my fortune. My grandson was to inherit my vast holdings, but I intend to withhold every cent until he comes to his senses.”
Madeline quelled a frown, not liking the threat—although her consternation was for Rayne’s sake, not her own. She didn’t want him to be deprived of his inheritance because he had stooped to wed her.
Lady Haviland, however, forestalled any reply with an abrupt question. “Has a notice of your nuptials appeared in the papers?�
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“Not to my knowledge.”
The dowager looked relieved. “Then it is not too late.”
“Too late for what?”
“For an annulment, naturally.”
A strange prick of fear struck Madeline. Would Rayne’s grandmother succeed where she herself had failed? She had tried repeatedly to convince him of the unsuitability of their marriage, but he might actually listen to his beloved relative when he hadn’t listened to her. If Rayne were to seek an annulment now—
She refused to let her thoughts dwell on such an alarming possibility. Instead, Madeline lifted her chin defiantly, her own tone frosty as she responded. “If you are so opposed to our union, Lady Haviland, I suggest you take up the matter with your grandson.”
“I intend to, I promise you!”
Clenching her jaw, Madeline crossed to the bellpull. “Now that you have insulted me in every possible way, I will ask Bramsley to show you to your carriage.”
Quivering with rage at her dismissal, Lady Haviland straightened to her full imperious height, staring at Madeline as if she were a particularly repulsive form of insect. Without another word, the dowager stalked from the room, leaving Madeline vibrating with anger herself at the exceedingly unpleasant interview.
Rayne would not be happy with her for quarreling so openly with his grandmother. Yet she had been given little choice.
Madeline pressed her lips together, trying to calm her anger. Still, she couldn’t help recalling one of Lady Haviland’s parting shots, accusing her of luring Rayne with her seductive arts. The very thought was laughable. She had no arts!
Nor did she have a wardrobe befitting a countess, Madeline remembered.
With a grimace, she glanced down at the gown her noble visitor had found so objectionable. Admittedly her pride had been a little stung by the accusation that she wore rags. And if she was to take her proper place as Rayne’s wife, it would behoove her to dress the part. Rayne tended to flout society and all its rules, but she already had numerous strikes against her, many of which his grandmother had so unkindly pointed out just now.
Chewing her lower lip thoughtfully, Madeline crossed to the writing desk at one side of the drawing room, intending to pen a note to Arabella. She hesitated to ask her neighbor for advice the very day after her nuptials, not wanting to confess that her husband had pointedly abandoned her during their wedding night.
Yet Rayne had said he wanted Arabella to help her choose some suitable bride clothes, no doubt because he feared she didn’t have good enough taste—and also, perhaps, because she would deem his expenditures “charity” and refuse to accept.
But Madeline was prideful enough to want to dress properly so that she could hold her head up the next time she faced his scornful grandmother or any of her other detractors. Therefore she would commission Arabella’s dressmaker to fashion her a new gown or two.
She might have married for convenience, Madeline thought defiantly as she searched the desk for writing implements, but so had countless other women. She would simply have to make the best of her situation. Although her dreams of a loving marriage might never be fulfilled, she had made her current bed and had to lie in it now, even if her new husband would not be there to share it with her.
* * *
“’Tis no surprise you took on this mission,” Will Stokes said to Rayne with a grin. “I told you a life of leisure would never suit you. And you never could sit idly by when a life is at stake, even if that life happens to belong to our sorry excuse for a Regent.”
“I’ll give you no argument on either account,” Rayne replied. This past year he’d been bored beyond tears by the indolent life of a nobleman. And Prinny had indeed made a poor Regent, earning the wrath of his subjects for squandering outrageous sums on his own pleasure—although his dissipation didn’t make him deserving of assassination.
Rayne had spent much of the day setting his investigative plans in motion. Currently he sat in the small parlor of Will’s home, wrapping up the final details of the operation and sharing an excellent port, which he’d recently given Will as a gift to celebrate his promotion to senior Bow Street Runner.
Their deliberations today had gone much as those in the past, except that this was a case of domestic espionage rather than one on foreign soil. They’d worked together for so many years, they could practically read each other’s thoughts. Will was particularly good at disguises, while Rayne’s sheer size and height rendered him too noticeable to fade easily into the background. Therefore he usually supplied the brains and strategy.
Espionage was a game of intrigue and lies, and Rayne had proved particularly adept at it. He’d speedily moved up the ranks of the diplomatic service until he was assigned the most important missions. Then five years ago, at the instigation of Foreign Secretary Viscount Castlereagh, Rayne had formed an elite cadre of agents under his direct command.
He ran the operations himself, directing a score of men and three women at ferreting out French secrets, cultivating informants, supplying bribes to buy intelligence, breaking codes, translating missives from various languages, intercepting couriers, seizing diplomatic dispatches, and tracking enemy spies across the continent, among other objectives.
Now, however, his task was to foil a potential plot against the Prince Regent. The first attempt on Prinny’s life had occurred nearly nine months ago, when two bullets were fired through his carriage window on his way home from opening Parliament. But the shooter had never been apprehended. According to Arden’s information, a secret political association had been formed in the South Midlands with the goal of disrupting the British monarchy. Two men—brothers, actually—were rumored to be the ringleaders of the revolutionaries and were now fomenting discord here in London.
Rayne had once had a vast network of agents to call upon, but those numbers were greatly diminished now, since like Will, many of his former cohorts had found other employment. To carry out this operation, he’d employed Will—temporarily on loan from Bow Street—along with several other men he trusted. For the next fortnight at least, they would keep the suspects under surveillance and look for opportunities to infiltrate their ranks.
“So how are you liking your marriage shackles?” Will asked in an abrupt change of subject. “I confess you gave me a facer when you decided to wed so suddenly.”
Rayne shrugged, surprised only that his friend had waited until now to comment on his impetuous marriage. “Well enough,” he answered. “It’s too soon to tell, since it has been less than a day.”
“I thought you had set your sights on a very different sort of wife,” Will prodded. “Your new lady hardly seems like a biddable female.”
Rayne couldn’t help but chuckle. “Biddable she is not.”
“Then why did you wed her? Because your grandmama wants you to set up your nursery?”
“That, and because I owed it to Madeline’s father to look after her. You knew David Ellis. She is his daughter.”
“Ah,” Will said with a tone of understanding. Will knew his history with Captain Ellis and so had no trouble grasping his prime rationale for choosing her.
Taking a sip of port, Will cocked his head at Rayne. “Shouldn’t you be with your new bride, then? When Sal and I jumped the broom, we spent our first week in bed. ’Tis how we made our little Harry, in fact.”
Rayne would actually like nothing more than to return to Riverwood and spend the next week in bed with Madeline, but he wouldn’t let himself. He was better off keeping his distance from her for the next several days or more. “I mean to remain here in London for a time to see if we make any progress exposing our plotters.”
Will shook his head good-humoredly. “You always did put duty before pleasure.”
Pleasure was indeed the word that came to mind when he thought of his marriage bed, Rayne reflected, assaulted by a sudden memory of Madeline—the warm silk of her body pressed against his, her flesh soft and yielding under his searching hands and mouth.
His body’s primal reaction to their lovemaking had been unexpectedly powerful—which was precisely why he would be very wise to stay away from her for a time.
“She must be unlike Mademoiselle Juzet for you to have risked wedding her,” Will remarked.
Reminded uncomfortably of his former love, Rayne felt his jaw tighten involuntarily. Will was one of the few people who knew about his painful brush with betrayal.
Rayne understood why Camille had acted as she did all those years ago. She’d loved her family dearly and her lover even more—and her loyalty to them overshadowed any feelings she’d developed for him. When her father had run afoul of Fouché’s deadly secret police and her entire family’s lives were threatened, she’d had no qualms about seducing Rayne so he would bring them safely to England. He would have saved her family anyway had she simply told him the truth. But Camille had made him love her before he’d caught on to her deception.
Afterward, Rayne had redoubled his efforts at his spy career, determined to wipe away the memory of his foolish weakness. He’d sought out the most dangerous missions, taken more personal risks.
He’d never seen Camille again, although he knew that she and her family had returned to France at the war’s end. Yet the experience had changed him significantly. Even though he was no longer bitter now, or even cynical about love, merely guarded, he had no intention of repeating his disastrous mistake.
The comparisons between his first love and his new wife were unavoidable, however. Camille had wanted him for his connections and wealth, which was a chief reason Madeline had appealed to him so strongly. She was very much the opposite of Camille in many respects.
She was not a seductress like Camille either, Rayne thought. He doubted he would have to worry about Madeline taking a lover behind his back. For that reason he was glad for her relative plainness.
And like Camille, Madeline wanted to help her younger brother. Yet she didn’t harbor any devious ulterior motives, plotting and scheming against him all the while.
To Tame a Dangerous Lord Page 20
