“I told you I had no right.” He drew in his breath. “If you listen to local gossip, you will hear that my family is cursed, that I am insane. I’m not. But nor am I quite as I wish to be. For you.” A breath of frustrated laughter escaped him. “Dash it, I’m saying this all wrong. I want you to know that I care, so that you do nothing through hurt or pride that will make you unhappy.” He bent his head even closer, almost as if he would actually kiss her in front of everyone on the dance floor. “I love you.”
The words played through her like music, both soothing and arousing. She forgot to breathe. And yet her feet did not stumble, but blindly followed his. It came to her that they always would.
When the dance ended, Roderick was reluctant to release her, more reluctant yet to leave her side. But the ball was not yet over. He could return her to Madame Kosara, shake hands with Deare, who had reappeared from the card room, and walk away from her with a smile, because his arms could still feel her soft, yielding body. Her heady scent lingered in his nostrils. The knowledge of her love, unspoken in words yet openly revealed in her brilliant eyes and in the smile trembling on her lips, all but filled his mind.
But he hadn’t forgotten the rude behavior of the louts outside the ballroom, and he wanted to root out its cause before he left her.
He quietly scoured the ballroom and the cardroom and eventually found what he was looking for on the lantern-lit terrace beyond the ballroom, where several men were gathered in groups, some smoking cigarillos, some just drinking and gossiping. It was among the latter group that he discerned his quarries together with a couple of others to whom they had, apparently, been relating their “joke” on Madeleine. Roderick leaned against an overgrowing tree branch nearby.
“Doesn’t sound very gentlemanly to me,” one of the listeners said with distaste. “Or sensible if word gets back to his grace.”
“He wants it to,” another said wryly. “His sister was favorite to snare the duke before Miss Deare captivated him. He’s hoping a hint of vulgarity or ill-repute will cling to her and repel his grace back to said sister.”
The young lout who’d been loudest flushed with anger and stepped forward as though to dispute the rather plausible reasoning. At the same time, he glimpsed Roderick, leaning against his tree branch and paused.
Don’t, Roderick advised silently. Just don’t.
The imbecile did. He sneered. “What does the Deare girl matter? Everyone knows her brother’s selling her to the highest bidder, and when no one bites, he’ll lower the qualification from marriage to—”
He didn’t need to get as far as he did. Roderick gave him at least a second’s warning as he moved forward from his tree branch. But the fool thought he wouldn’t strike among so many. Roderick’s fist caught him flush in the mouth, sending him reeling back into the low wall. Only his friend prevented him from tumbling over it.
Of course, the violence drew inevitable attention, so Roderick, conscious of the need for a certain amount of discretion, advanced on his victim once more. The young man scrambled to his feet, blood trickling from his split lip.
“How dare you?” he blustered. “Damn it, I demand satis—”
“No, you don’t,” his friend said urgently, seizing him by the arm. “That is Major Usher. And you were out of order. We all were.”
Roderick acknowledged that with a curt nod, but he still took a step closer. “There will be no duels, and absolutely no mention of a lady’s name. If there is, I will find you.”
“There won’t be,” the bleeding man’s friend assured him hurriedly. “It was a bad taste jest gone wrong. We’d apologize if it wouldn’t distress Miss—the lady—further.”
Roderick nodded once again, turned, and walked off, aware of the curious and amused observations of the other men on the terrace.
He didn’t answer the hails of old friends but stopped a servant and ordered his carriage. Then he went straight back to the ballroom in search of his host, whom he found in polite conversation with a group of dowagers.
“Excuse me, Duke. Might I have a brief word?”
Kintyre looked quite grateful for the reprieve. “Of course. Excuse me one moment, ladies… What’s on your mind, Usher?”
“I’m afraid I’ve thumped one of your guests, an ill-mannered little pipsqueak who I imagine will be spirited away by his friends. But I’d better go, too. My thanks and my regards to her grace.”
A quick bow and he left Kintyre, too. He imagined Madeleine would be dancing. He hoped she was, for he did not want to speak to her now in case her name became associated with the violence he’d just perpetrated. He hoped instead that he might run into her brother or Madame Kosara.
Then he saw Madeleine herself, alone and on a determined course to intercept him. He walked faster, but he could see it was a lost cause.
Chapter Eight
The news, of course, had spread like wildfire, and by the time Roderick had left the duke, Daniel was repeating it to Madeleine and Sonya, as though it were a great joke. But with dismay, Madeleine saw only that he was going and without saying farewell.
“Give me this moment, Sonya,” she pleaded, and without waiting for an answer, started across the ballroom, around the dancers, and toward the door. She caught him just inside it.
“Mr. Usher. Are you leaving us?” she asked brightly.
“Sadly, yes. I have been called away rather urgently.”
“With a man’s face stuck to your fist.”
He whipped his hand behind his back. “Leave it, Madeleine,” he breathed. “I’ll write to your brother.” And to you. His unspoken intention was clear and should have been some comfort. But beside the fact that he was walking away again, it was nothing. His lip quirked. “I enjoyed our dance. Good night, Miss Deare.”
He bowed and walked away, as he had always intended. He had thought it all out.
But Madeleine had been thinking, too, and quite suddenly, she saw everything with blinding clarity.
Roderick had been ill in both body and mind, lost in the nightmare that haunted him waking and sleeping. He’d withdrawn from the world to the extent that Graham, and even his dotty, old uncle, had felt obliged to do something. Company had helped him. But more than that, she had helped him, given him back his pleasure and hope in life. He loved her. He loved her now, and there was no doubt in her mind that she felt the same for him. There was no sense in the waiting he had asked for, the waiting that would only bring him more opportunity to slip back into his old isolation and melancholy. He needed her now, but he would never ask.
The solution hit her like a thunderbolt, yet as soon as it struck, it seemed so right that she felt no doubts, no fears. She walked out of the ballroom and across the broad hallway. Startled, the well-trained footman opened the front door for her.
“Madam, will I fetch your cloak?” the other asked.
“Yes, please,” Madeleine said. If there’s time.
There wasn’t. He had planned his retreat with military precision. A carriage drew up at the front gate—it looked like a hired chaise—and Roderick’s lean figure strode toward it. As he reached for the door, Madeleine flew up the path and out of the gate. The steps had already been drawn in, but she jumped, hurling herself into the carriage.
He goggled at her. “Madeleine, go back!” he said in horror.
“I can’t,” she said happily. “The damage is done.” She leaned out. “Drive on,” she called and shut the door.
“What the…? Madeleine, do you have any idea…?”
“Of course, I have.” The horses had set off at a brisk pace, presumably how Roderick preferred to travel. “As I said, the damage is done. My reputation is ruined. And so, you will have to marry me.” She smiled dazzlingly. “Now.”
His breath caught. There was laughter there, along with doubt, and the desire and the terror of giving into the stunned happiness already forming in his eyes.
“Madeleine Deare, you utter minx,” he said unsteadily. “I have to stop the chaise
now, or it will carry us both through the night to Usher.”
“Good,” she said, seizing both hands to prevent him doing any such thing.
An instant longer he stared at her. She knew a moment’s terror as he suddenly tore his hands free of her hold. But it was only to seize her in his arms, hard against his chest and kiss her as though he would never stop.
With a sob, she threw her arms around his neck and opened to him in the kind of wild passion she hadn’t known she possessed. Her flimsy clothes were no protection from his hungry, clever hands. When she felt their caress on her breasts, she thought she would die of bliss, until his mouth was there, too, and she began to understand how much she had to learn.
Somewhere, she knew where this would lead, but she had no intention of stopping it. The joy, the love was already there. It was the most natural thing in the world to surrender to him, to accept his caresses, and return them with her own until the sheer wonder overwhelmed her. And there, in the cramped, difficult conditions of the chaise, she became his wife in the only way that mattered to her.
She thought she would never sleep again. But after the first change of horses, she sat curled up against his chest with his strong arm around her, wrapped in his coat and the blanket from beneath the seat, and fell blissfully asleep for the rest of the journey.
Occasionally, she half woke, enough to remember the joy and to inhale his warm, earthy male scent, and then, smiling, she drifted off again.
“Madeleine.” She opened her eyes. Sunlight was visible around the edges of the window blind. Roderick’s face swam into focus close to hers. She smiled, and he kissed her. “We’re nearly at Usher House.”
She lifted her head and sat up untidily. “I might have dribbled on your waistcoat,” she confessed apologetically.
His lips twitched. “It has suffered worse.” Reaching past her, he let up the blinds before he said, “No regrets?”
She shook her head. “None.”
“Good. Then after breakfast, I’ll go and talk to the minister.”
“Or the blacksmith. Can’t a blacksmith marry people in Scotland?”
“Some can, though not ours, as can certain other licensed people. But I thought you might prefer a conventional clergyman.”
She considered that as they bumped through the gates and up the familiar drive. It really did feel like coming home. “I’m not sure I care,” she admitted at last. “I think I must be very depraved. But if the minister is nearest, let us by all means ask him. He won’t mind that I am not yet twenty-one?”
“No, and he’ll forego the reading of the banns, too.”
“You sound very sure.”
“I am very persuasive.”
She glanced at his grazed fist. “Yes, but you can’t go around punching clergymen.”
“Of course not.”
She laughed.
She did wonder, as he helped her down from the chaise and paid the postboys, what her reception would be by the rest of the household.
She needn’t have worried. Graham emerged grinning from the front door. “Welcome back, Miss,” he said.
“Is there breakfast, Graham?” Roderick asked. “I’m starving.”
“In the parlor, sir. Mr. and Mrs. Usher are already there. I’ll get Mrs. Menteith to put on some more eggs.”
The old couple sprang up with delight when Madeleine entered the parlor in her ball dress.
“We’re going to be married,” Roderick said casually, although a faint, endearing flush mounted to his cheeks. “Just as soon as I’ve winkled out the minister.”
Both his aunt and uncle embraced her warmly and James, beaming, said to his wife, “Did I do that? I did that!”
“You helped,” Roderick allowed. “Though I’ll not have you interfering anymore!”
“Of course not, my boy, of course not.”
After a rather joyful breakfast, Roderick ran upstairs to change out of his evening clothes, and Mrs. Usher gave Madeleine a shawl to fasten across her almost naked shoulders.
“I shall write to Daniel today,” Madeleine said when Roderick dashed into the sitting room to tell her he was off. “And ask him, amongst other things, to send on my trunk! And Sonya. Roderick, you don’t mind Sonya staying with us, do you? She has nowhere else to go, and she is like family to me.”
“Of course she must stay if you want her. The house is big enough.” He paused, looking thoughtful. “Especially if we repair the rooms damaged in the fire. Have a look while I’m gone, if you like, and think what would work best. Graham has all the keys.” He ducked out of the room, then strode back in and kissed her cheek. “I’m sorry. I shall be a terrible husband. Think about wedding trips, too.”
And then he was gone.
Madeleine’s letter to Daniel was difficult, so she kept it short, apologetic, and conciliatory, and asked him to visit at his earliest convenience. Laying it aside, she then went in search of Graham and the keys in order to explore her new home.
She began in the tower section, exploring rooms behind the sitting room which she had never seen. They had been closed up, the furniture shrouded in Holland covers. As she walked through them, she felt the intense, almost sensual flutter of awareness she often did in old buildings. Almost like brushing against the ghosts of the many people who had walked where she did. She drew back the curtains on the third, ground-floor room and gasped, for the view over the loch was stunning. What a shame not to make the most of this room.
Returning to the familiar sitting room, she used the spiral staircase to take her up to her old bedchamber. Her body thrilled as she wondered where she would sleep tonight, in Roderick’s arms…
Besides the chambers she, Sonya, and Daniel had occupied, a servants’ stair led up to another passage and a locked door. She opened it and found another, much larger bedchamber. She drew back heavy shutters to let in more light and looked around. The bed was made and everything tidy, but somehow, it seemed…occupied.
There were books on a shelf below the window, and when she opened the doors of the large, polished wardrobe, she found a full array of men’s clothing. Had this been Roderick’s father’s chamber? Or his brother’s? Or had Roderick slept here before his terrible experience at Waterloo had made it impossible?
A connecting door led to a dressing room. She unlocked another and found the familiar spiral staircase that led down to the sitting room. She followed it upward, unlocked the door at the top, and stepped out onto the roof.
The wind whipped at her hair and shawl, plastering the fine silk of her ballgown to her legs as she walked the parapet around the edges of the roof. Over crenelated walls, she gazed down at the lower rooves of the house, the courtyard, gardens, and the countryside beyond. At one point, the parapet was directly over the loch and an instant of dizziness made her grasp on to the wall.
A hand closed around her wrist. “Don’t come up here alone, miss, it isn’t safe.”
Gasping, she spun to face Graham, drawing her gently another foot back from the edge before he released her.
“Why, are the stones loose?” she asked nervously.
He seemed to hesitate. “Possibly. Though we could find no obvious problem. But the major’s brother died up here.”
Madeleine frowned. “But I thought he drowned.”
“Yes, miss,” he said, glancing over at the loch.
Her eyes widened. “You mean he fell from here into the loch?”
Graham nodded bleakly.
“But how?”
Graham shrugged. “Our best guess, and the coroner’s, that he was playing, got distracted by the shouts of fire, or even by the smoke, and fell.”
Madeleine shivered. “But that’s…terrible.”
“And why we keep it shut off.”
“Was that his room below?” Madeleine asked, moving back around the parapet toward the door.
“No, that was the major’s before he moved to the other side. I think you’ve got visitors, miss.”
Distracted from the
tragic story at last, Madeleine heard the distinctive rumble and clop of an approaching carriage. “Is it Roderick with the minister?” she asked hopefully.
“He was riding,” Graham said. “Imagine the minister will be, too.”
They walked on, following the carriage’s progress through the arch and into the courtyard. The door opened before the familiar coachman had even stepped down, and Daniel leapt out. Even though he turned and courteously helped Sonya to alight, his every movement spoke of fury.
“Oh, dear,” Madeleine murmured. “I don’t know whether to be delighted or appalled. I suppose I had better face the music.”
Graham turned and held open the door. “Doesn’t have to be right now. I can keep them in the sitting room until the major gets back.”
Madeleine smiled at such thoughtfulness. “You’re very kind, but he’s my brother! I owe them both an explanation, or at least an apology.”
Graham merely shrugged. By the time they reached the front hall, Daniel and Sonya had clearly been shown into the sitting room.
“Call or ring if you need me,” Graham said curtly. “I’ll be close by.”
What did he imagine her own brother was going to do to her, Madeleine wondered, not quite amused. Beat her? Drag her away by the hair? She hardly feared such violence, but she was prepared for a lot of shouting. And bitter—quite deserved in one way—disappointment in her behavior.
She opened the door and went in.
“Oh, thank God,” Sonya said and flew to embrace her.
Over her shoulder, Madeleine met her brother’s gaze, and read the cold fury in his face. After briefly if fervently, returning Sonya’s embrace, she freed herself and faced Daniel.
“Forgive me,” she said simply. “It was the only way.”
“The only way to ruin yourself?” Daniel burst out. “To make our family the on-dit of the whole country?”
“Be fair, sir, her ruin is by no means certain,” Sonya said in her calm way. “I believe we have salvaged the situation.”
“You have?” In spite of herself, Madeleine was intrigued. “How?”
Madeleine Page 8
