by Anne Stuart
Maddy was already out of the tub, as silent as she could be, wrapping herself in one of the heavy pieces of Turkish toweling that had been provided. She couldn’t decide which was worse, standing there naked with her hair braided or dressed with a curtain of wet hair dampening the ugly new uniform that had been provided.
It wouldn’t matter. If Gwendolyn Haviland opened that door she was ruined, and there’d be no chance of finding out the truth. To be sure, despite his wickedness, the longer she was around the captain the less sure she was. He didn’t seem like the kind of man for betrayal and murder. But she needed proof.
“There’s been a bit of damage back here, Miss Haviland.” Polly was doing her best to distract her mistress, but Gwendolyn was single-minded. “The bathing room’s a mess.”
“Then I need to see that as well, so that I can make arrangements for its repair.”
“Certainly, miss,” Polly said stoutly. “As long as the rats don’t trouble you.”
She could practically hear Miss Haviland come to a sharp halt. “Rats?” she said in horror. “This house is infested with rats?”
“Oh, no, miss. Just the bathing room. The little buggers crawled up the pipes and they’ve been trapped in there, chewing away at everything.” Polly was clearly getting into her tale of rodent invasion. “There are bats as well,” she added helpfully.
“Good God,” Miss Haviland said. There was a long pause. “Still, I think I should see it…”
Unfortunately Maddy had instinctively pulled the plug when she’d climbed out of the tub, and as the last of the water began to swirl down the drain it made a loud, rasping, sucking noise.
“What’s that noise?” Miss Haviland demanded.
“The rats,” Polly replied. “They’re bigger’n cats, Mr. Quarrells told me.”
Maddy had fallen back against the wall, the towel clutched to her naked body in a useless effort to hide herself. If Miss Haviland took one step farther, opened the door, then there’d be no saving the situation, and Polly might very well pay the price as well.
“I don’t think…”
“Gwendolyn.” It was the captain’s voice, and the cold chill that had covered Maddy’s body was immediately replaced with a rush of heat. “What are you doing up here?”
She hadn’t heard him approach, of course. How long had he been in the hallway, listening to Polly’s tales of unusually sized rodents? Next she’d be saying the bats were the size of ravens, a horrifying thought.
“Since my servants are taking over the care of your house, and it will soon be my house as well, I thought it was only natural that I inspect the premises, only to be told that you have an infestation of rats.”
Maddy held her breath. It was all going to come out now, and she didn’t even dare tiptoe across the room and turn the key in the lock. No matter how big the rats were purported to be it was unlikely they could accomplish that little trick.
“So I’ve been told,” he said mildly, to Maddy’s surprise. “You don’t particularly mind them, do you?”
“Everybody minds rats, Thomas,” she snapped. “I still wish to see…”
She heard a shuffle, and she sank back farther against the wall, prepared for the worst.
The worst was what she got. “I’ll just check first to make certain you’re safe,” the captain said, and a moment later the door opened.
She was out of the direct line of sight, but she should have known he wouldn’t have any trouble finding her. She stood frozen, her wet hair falling to her hips, the towel covering her from the tops of her breasts to the tops of her thighs and not much more, when even the sight of an ankle was considered indecent. He let his eyes drift down her body, slowly, reflectively, and then move back up, meeting hers. For a long moment she was caught, breathless, her heart pounding with something other than fear as she stared back into the dark, dangerous promise of his eyes.
“I’m afraid the rats have made quite a mess, my dear,” he said in a perfectly calm tone, never moving his intense gaze away from hers. “I have workmen coming to deal with it. By the end of the day it should be ready for inspection.”
“I still don’t…”
“Rats have the unfortunate ability to climb up the inside of a lady’s petticoats,” he observed mildly.
“Thomas!” Miss Haviland’s tones were shrill. “How many times have I told you that you must not refer to anything so personal in regards to a lady!”
“They could run up the petticoats of a maid, then,” he said with just the faintest hint of a smile. The damned man was still looking at her, tilting his head to one side as if she were a tasty confection and he was considering where he was going to start nibbling. She half expected him to walk into the bathing room, lock the door behind him, and begin to pull away her bit of toweling. And she half wanted him to. “You never know when they might have to tear them off and deposit them in strange places.”
Oh, God, her petticoats! She’d been using them to mop up the rainwater, and he must have found them.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Thomas. Maids don’t remove their… their undergarments. At least, not for any acceptable reason.” She was sounding suspicious again.
Luca gave Maddy an annoyingly sweet smile and withdrew, closing the door carefully behind him, and she silently released her pent-up breath. “Gwendolyn, I expect we’re going to need to have a conversation about our nuptials.”
“Are we?” Maddy could practically hear the simper in her voice. Their voices trailed off, as he led her away, and Maddy immediately began to towel-dry her hair, then yanked on the rough, scratchy underclothing that appeared to be a part of the uniform of the Haviland staff. By the time the door opened again she was fully dressed in a dowdy gown the color of rotten apples, her hair braided and tucked under an even uglier cap.
She stiffened, but it was only Polly. “That was a close thing,” she said breathlessly. “Lucky the master seems to want to protect you. Want to tell me why?”
“Maybe he’s just afraid of his fiancée. Thank you for lying for me.”
Polly shrugged off her thanks. “With a witch like Miss Haviland we all have to look out for each other. She’s enough to put the fear of God into anyone. It’s a rare treat to be here, out from under her watchful eye. But the captain doesn’t strike me as a man who’s afraid of anyone. I’ve seen the way he looks at you when he thinks no one will notice.”
“I’ve barely exchanged two words with the man,” Maddy lied, shivering slightly. The storm had brought in a stream of cold weather, and the wind came directly off the water, rattling the windows in their frames and reaching into her bones.
“Sometimes talking’s not what gets you into trouble,” Polly observed wisely. “Go on, then. I’ve gotten word that you’re to be staying in the housekeeper’s quarters below stairs, while the footmen and the maids will be in the attics.”
Maddy opened her mouth to protest until Polly added, “with the bats,” and she shut her mouth. Why were they putting her downstairs? She could see absolutely no good reason for it. “Perhaps I should speak to the captain…” she said reluctantly, the last thing she wanted to do, but Polly shook her head.
“He’s headed off to London to pick up his new boat. Ship, I guess I should call it. Miss Haviland wanted to go along with him but he told her she couldn’t, so she’s in a rare taking. She’ll still be working her wiles on him, and you mark my words, she’ll end up on the boat or drown trying. She doesn’t take no for an answer.”
“New ship?” The man was buying up her father’s ships—she’d seen proof of it in his rain-soaked library. Which one was he bringing back this time? It couldn’t be the Maddy Rose—she hadn’t signed the papers that Fulton had wanted her to.
Polly shrugged. “None of my business. None of yours either, if you got any sense. You may be beautiful, and clearly you’re no maidservant, but even so, the likes of us don’t end up with sea captains and we both know it. Come on with you. I’ll help you take your things down to the h
ousekeeper’s rooms. They were in a fair mess when the Croziers left, but Lucy and me have been working on them, given them a good scrub and an airing out, and you should be just fine.”
“Thank you,” Maddy said, hiding her mixed feelings about her unexpected move. At least there were no bats.
The apartment was a great deal better than that, she discovered when she followed Polly down the back staircase, careful to avoid the captain’s… no, Luca’s fiancée in case she lingered. She might very well be counting the dinnerware she was going to end up with or something equally intrusive. If she was, she was going to be very disappointed with the silver.
The Croziers had used two adjoining rooms, the front room containing a table and chairs and a settee that should surely belong in one of the upper rooms. Doubtless the Croziers had brought it down for their own use, as well as the large bed with the carved, rococo headboard with cavorting angels and nymphs doing things that were far from celestial. It wasn’t to her taste, and the thought of what the dour Mrs. Crozier and her unnerving husband did beneath that headboard gave her pause, when Polly seemed to read her mind.
“That bed was in storage—the one the Croziers used was past saving. The captain said to bring anything down you might need, and I thought you might like this one.” She cocked her head, looking at the carvings. “Maybe not such a good idea after all.”
“It has a certain charm,” Maddy said mendaciously, wondering if she could find a blanket to throw over it while she slept. If she slept.
At least the two rooms were spotless, even the small, high windows that looked out into the street, and she was certain she knew she could thank Polly for that. She hated to think what kind of shape the rooms had been in.
“I’ll be making us all some tea and scones,” Polly said. “And getting an early start on supper. While the captain’s gone we’ll have simple food, Miss Haviland said, but I imagine she’ll send Monsieur Henri over when the captain returns and she starts haunting the place. Good country cooking is a bit too rough for her refined palate.”
Maddy’d be gone by then—the longer she stayed the deeper she sank. She’d always been able to trust her instincts, and the longer she spent around Luca the more certain she was that her father had been wrong. Luca might have been a pirate and pirates were, by definition, thieves, but he would never sneak around, embezzle, murder. She knew he was innocent in her father’s death, her foolish heart told her so, and she could force her sisters to take her word for it.
She should leave. She just wasn’t sure what she should do next. There was always Lord Eversham. His love letters had grown more effusive, and it had become clear that she could be Lady Eversham the moment she snapped her fingers.
But would Eversham be enough? Was it simply a cruel trick of fate that she should suddenly start feeling the things she should have felt for Tarkington, the man she had supposedly loved? He’d touched her bare breasts and she’d felt nothing. He’d put his… thing inside her and it had been painful and messy.
So why was she longing for Luca? Had giving herself to Tarkington turned her into a harlot?
No, not if she looked at handsome, earnest Matthew Fulton and felt nothing at all. The idea of marriage and conjugal relations with him was as unpleasant as the thought of sharing Eversham’s bed. At least in Eversham’s case he wouldn’t live as long—the man was sixty if he was a day.
Perhaps she was now ready to face it. Eversham. Was it an even trade? Because the wretched, stupid, heartbreaking truth was that she wanted the captain, her captain, Luca, to be innocent. Well, he could hardly be innocent, she thought fairly, but at least not guilty in her father’s so-called crimes.
She couldn’t decide what to wish for. In the end it didn’t matter—it was clear fate or God or whoever wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to her interests. It would play out as it was meant to, and all she could do was act her part.
Miss Haviland’s housekeeper had apparently been over the house while Maddy lay sleeping and come up with a surprisingly short list of chores, assigning tasks to the makeshift staff now in residence. Oddly enough, none of those tasks were allotted to her, a fact she found disturbing. Most likely she was out the door the moment the captain returned, and she’d best redouble her efforts before she was on the streets. She needed to wipe out any last question in her mind before she could leave here.
She needed proof.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON the same day, and Maddy was in the midst of arguing with Polly about whether she could help with the preparation for dinner, when one of the new footmen appeared in the kitchens. “You have a caller, Miss Greaves.”
For a moment she didn’t react, both at the unfamiliar name and that she would be addressed with a title. Momentary panic swamped her, before she realized it simply had to be Matthew Fulton, trying once more to pry her away. For a man who didn’t care for her he seemed most eager to make her leave. Of course, she’d gotten in under his aegis, and there were bound to be repercussions if the truth came out. Which it never would. She sighed. “I’ll be there in a moment. Did you offer the gentleman tea, Mr.…” She didn’t even know his last name, she realized in sudden embarrassment.
“Just Curtis, Miss Greaves. I did, but the gentleman said he preferred brandy, so I served him some of the captain’s best, seeing as he’s already been a guest in this house.”
How odd of Matthew to drink in the middle of the day. He’d seemed like such a straight-laced sort of fellow, Maddy thought, moving through the hallways. The door to the salon was closed, but there was no other room Curtis would have taken him.
She pushed open the door without knocking. “What in God’s name are you doing here, Matthew…?” The words trailed off into horrified silence as she realized the man in the room was a complete stranger. The midday light illuminated him perfectly as he sat in one of the comfortable, slightly shabby chairs that the captain favored and Miss Haviland would doubtless get rid of, and he made no effort to rise upon her entrance. She was about to give him an affronted look when she remembered she was a maid, not a lady, and gentlemen certainly didn’t rise when maids entered the room, they ignored them.
She pulled herself together with an effort. “Begging your pardon, sir,” she said, not having to make any effort to appear flustered. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Mr. Fulton, I presume? I don’t think Captain Morgan realizes you’re on first name terms with him.”
A very slight shiver ran down Maddy’s spine. Just what she needed—an observant stranger to cause her trouble. “Oh, no, sir, I’m not,” she said blithely, not giving an inch. “I was thinking it might be a lad I’ve been seeing recently.”
“And Curtis would show him in the front door and offer him brandy?”
She gave him a cheeky smile. “Curtis is very fond of me.” It was a calculated risk, but she was tired of scrambling. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
“I imagine he is, and rightly so.” He smiled at her, a singularly charming smile. He was a very handsome man, with longish, coal black hair that fell in a single curl in the midst of his high forehead. He had a close-trimmed beard and mustache, pale skin suggesting a recent illness, a supposition borne out by the cane by his outstretched leg. Another handsome man who left her cold. Perhaps she wasn’t a harlot after all. Or merely a harlot for Luca. For some reason that was even more disturbing.
“Please sit down, Miss Greaves,” he continued, surveying her. “It hurts my neck to look up at you.”
She didn’t move. She didn’t trust charming men—in truth, she didn’t trust men at all. Some instinct told her to leave, but curiosity, always her besetting sin, overruled her seldom-utilized sense of caution. “How may I help you, sir?”
“Sit.”
Why hadn’t she realized just how difficult obeying orders would turn out to be, she thought, sinking gingerly onto a chair opposite him. A maid’s life was to take orders, bob and curtsey, and swallo
w back any retort. Clearly this was a far greater challenge than she ever imagined.
The elegant young man nodded approvingly. “That’s right. We haven’t met yet, but I’m a close friend of your employer and his fiancée. My name is Rufus Brown.” He paused, watching her.
Was the name supposed to mean something? Because she’d never heard it, never seen the man in her life. “Good afternoon, Mr. Brown,” she said with automatic courtesy, then realized it was more the response of a lady than a maid. “What may I do for you?”
“Oh, a great deal, my dear Miss Greaves. I have a small, rather charming house in the countryside near Avebury, and we’re dreadfully short staffed. I promised my housekeeper I’d rectify the problem while I was in town, and I’ve been told you’re a prodigiously hard worker, not to mention the fact that you’re very ornamental. I’d like you to come back with me, and I promise I won’t be ungenerous.”
She didn’t blink, despite her surprise. “And exactly what position were you thinking of, Mr. Brown?” she said finally, unable to keep a slightly caustic note out of her voice.
He laughed, a light sound that should have put her suspicions to rest. “Oh, my dear, acquit me of designs upon your person! I must confess I tend to share Mr. Quarrells’s preferences, though doubtless I would be at your feet if I were differently inclined. I promise, there’s nothing untoward. We need a new parlor maid, one who could assist my housekeeper, and I promise she’s the salt of the earth, by the way, not an old bitch like Mrs. Crozier.”
She blinked at the language, but said nothing, waiting for him to continue.
“And there’s always room for advancement. My sister lives with me, and while she’s only just leaving the schoolroom she’ll be needing a personal maid, and she’s a sweet, undemanding child.” He sighed affectionately. “My only sibling, and we’re quite close. Or if you prefer to have control of minions, my housekeeper is elderly and will be wanting to retire before long. I expect she’d be delighted to train you to take her place. There’s no question how high you might rise.”
