His Wicked Wish (24 page)

“You're left-handed,” Madelyn observed.

He tensed to see her standing in the doorway. All during his youth, he'd heard criticism from instructors who'd forced him to learn penmanship with his right hand. “Actually, I can use either hand, although I prefer the left. Will you denounce me as the devil's spawn?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Of course not. Who called you that? Was it your father?”

“Actually, a governess. Gilmore took little interest in the schoolroom. Other than to thrash me if I failed to complete my work in a timely manner.” Nate could still remember his dread as a boy at being sent down to the library to face the earl, who had kept a willow switch in his desk for the purpose of whippings.

Madelyn tilted her head to the side, looking curious as if she wanted to probe further into his past. Nate quickly changed the subject. “You and Yancy seemed to rub along quite well. What have you two been talking about all this time?”

“For one thing, he told me that he saved your life during a storm at sea. An enormous wave crashed over the ship, and you were about to slide over the rail when he grabbed you by the seat of your trousers—”

“That's quite enough.” He could see by the twinkle in her eyes that she knew the part about how Yancy's quick action had stripped the breeches right off Nate. “You needn't go on about it.”

She ventured a step closer. “Why? Am I disturbing you?”

At the half smile on her face, all the blood in his brain rushed to his groin. “Indeed you are. But if you close the door, I can take care of that quickly enough.” He moved aside the papers and patted the scarred surface of the desk. “Right here.”

Her eyes widened as she caught his meaning. The desire he saw there fed his own lust. “Hush,” she whispered, with a glance over her shoulder. “Yancy is just outside. He'll hear you.”

Nate enjoyed her scandalized reaction. For all her unfettered behavior in the bedchamber, Madelyn could be charmingly prudish. “I shall send him out on an errand.”

“No! This warehouse is filthy.”

“So are my thoughts right now.”

“Do stop teasing, Nathan. This is a place of business.” She sat down in the chair opposite him. Inside the frame of her bonnet, her blue eyes sparkled with a warmth that touched a place deep inside of him. Then the curve of her mouth turned pensive as she glanced at his papers. “Speaking of business, I wonder if your father has any idea how hard you've worked here, how much effort you've put into this enterprise. If he were to visit this warehouse and see how industrious you've become, perhaps he would learn to respect you.”

Her words struck him cold. Every vestige of humor died away. “Gilmore would despise this place. He would use it as ammunition against me. Gentlemen do not engage in commerce.”

“But he has to be made to realize that you're not a wild youth anymore. So that the rift between you two can be mended.”

“Enough.” Nate stood up, gathering the papers into a stack. “I will not speak of him with you. Not now or ever. Shall we go?”

Her lips firmed, Madelyn rose from the chair. She radiated curiosity, but he didn't give a damn. She had no idea what had happened in the past, nor did he intend to enlighten her.

The rift was an abyss that could never be bridged. It had little to do with his misspent youth. That was precisely why he didn't want to foster closeness with Madelyn outside of carnal lust. He didn't want her poking and prying.

Because then she might uncover the secret that stained his soul.

 

Chapter 17

Maddy stared down at the invitation in her hands. It had been addressed to all in the household: Lord Gilmore, Lady Gilmore, Lady Sophia, Lady Emily, Lord and Lady Rowley. Sitting at the dainty desk in the morning room, she read the inscription on the heavy cream card several times to savor its brief message.

The pleasure of your company is requested by the Duke of Houghton at a ball to be given on
 …

Her heart thumped against her breastbone. In a little more than three weeks' time, she would be entering her grandfather's house. At last she would come face-to-face with the Duke of Houghton. She finally would have the chance to confront the haughty nobleman who had disowned her mother for marrying a lowborn actor.

She vividly remembered the day when she had come upon her father weeping at the gravesite of her mother. Maddy had been thirteen years old and her beloved mama had just been laid to rest after a terrible accident in which the axle of their wagon had broken, throwing her beneath the wheels. They had been traveling with a troupe of actors at the time, touring the north of England, and Maddy had gone looking for her father because the other players wished to start on the road to their next performance in a distant village.

Catching sight of Papa kneeling over the fresh grave, Maddy hurried through the tiny cemetery. Her shoes crunched on the autumn leaves that carpeted the quiet graveyard beside the old stone church. The sound of his sobbing wrenched Maddy's chest. Struggling to contain her own grief, she crouched down and put her arms around his broad back.

“Oh, Papa, I miss her, too. So very much.”

“I don't know how I can leave her here. She was my life.”

“I know, Papa. But we have to go. The others are waiting for us.”

He turned to her, his ruggedly handsome face damp with tears in the light of the overcast day. Despair shone in his blue eyes. “I should never have taken your mother from her home. She deserved better than to live as a nomad all these years. So do you. You should be living as a lady with your grandfather, the Duke of Houghton.”

Maddy had grown up hearing tales of the fearsome aristocrat who had rejected his daughter upon her elopement with an actor. “No, I won't leave you! The troupe needs me now. I can play Mama's parts. I've memorized all of them.”

Smoothing back her hair, he kissed her brow. “You are a blessing, Maddy. You look like Sarah and you have her gift for the stage, as well.” Then his expression hardened, a muscle working in his strong jaw. “And you needn't fret, I would never take you to Houghton. He'd spit in my face. Then he'd toss you into the gutter as he did to your mother…”

“What is the matter with you?” a crotchety voice demanded. “Why have you not written the acceptance note?”

Jolted back to the present, Maddy glanced over from her chair at the desk to see the dowager glaring through her quizzing glass from the chaise. “Oh. I'm sorry. I was contemplating the wording of the reply, that's all.”

Lady Sophia looked up from her embroidery tambour frame. Arrayed in dove gray, she embodied the stylish widow in half-mourning. “There is nothing to contemplate. The example I wrote out is right in front of you.” To Lady Gilmore, she added, “Perhaps she isn't proficient enough, Grandmamma. I should be happy to complete the task myself.”

“Nonsense, Madelyn has demonstrated her penmanship and it is perfectly adequate. She must learn the responsibilities of a countess so that she will not disgrace the venerable title of Gilmore someday.”

Two small stacks of invitations sat before Maddy on the desk. One pile required acceptances and the other, rejections. She had been assigned the tedious job of writing out replies to all of them.

For the past few days, after having been scolded for accompanying Nathan to the docks the previous week, she had been required to resume her lady lessons. According to the dowager, a titled lady had to approve the daily menus, settle disputes with the servants, supervise the tallying of the linen closets, and perform a host of other activities like responding to the invitations that arrived daily.

Maddy deemed it wise not to mention that her training was an exercise in futility. She wouldn't be staying at Gilmore House once Nathan left England at the end of the season. She would take his stipend, lease her own home, and fulfill her dream of opening a shop.

She doubted the Earl of Gilmore would want her here, anyway, once she caused a scandal by berating the Duke of Houghton in full view of the ton.

She picked up her quill and dipped the tip into the silver inkwell. While writing out the acceptance note, she said over her shoulder, “This invitation is to the Duke of Houghton's ball. I met both of his grandsons at Lady Milford's party. Lord Theodore mentioned that His Grace isn't feeling well.”

“He's hale enough to host his annual ball,” Lady Gilmore said. “And if you are contemplating what to say to His Grace in the receiving line, there is no need. You will not speak to the duke at all. You are to smile and curtsy and move on.”

That was
not
Maddy's plan. She had every intention of addressing the man in no uncertain terms. Her primary purpose in marrying Nathan was to enter society and confront her grandfather.

Or at least it
had
been the reason. With each passing day, she found herself becoming more and more absorbed by her husband's life. She yearned to know everything about him, to learn his thoughts and emotions, to understand what had made him the exciting, exasperating man that he was. The visit to his warehouse had opened her eyes to the fact that Nathan wasn't just another indolent, privileged nobleman. He worked diligently at his business, and it irked her that his father didn't appreciate his son's accomplishments. It also frustrated her that Nathan was so closemouthed about his past.

I will not speak of him with you. Not now or ever.

She wouldn't find out anything from Nathan. He simply wouldn't talk about his father. If ever she was to fathom the family undercurrents, she needed a different source—like the two ladies here in this morning room.

Maddy finished the acceptance, sanded it, and then started on the next one. Glancing over her shoulder, she said in a conversational tone, “I imagine that as countess, Nathan's mother had to answer invitations, too, perhaps at this very desk. He's never said much about her. What was she like, Grandmamma?”

“She was the daughter of a marquess,” the dowager said with a sniff, “though one would never have known it by her actions.”

“What do you mean?” Maddy asked in surprise.

“Camellia was far too lively and giddy to be a proper lady. And she was quite the accomplished flirt, as well. That frivolous woman did not give my son the fidelity he deserved. Not, of course, that I am wont to speak ill of the dead.”

Maddy turned in the chair to stare at her. “Are you saying that she engaged in indiscretions during her marriage?”

“Do not flap your tongue like a gossip,” the dowager snapped. “Let this teach you only that a lady must behave in a sober and moral manner at all times. There is no other point in resurrecting the past. It is best forgotten.”

Maddy glanced down at the diamond ring on her left hand. Nathan had given it to her to brand her as his. She'd assumed he'd been jealous because of her teasing about taking a lover. But had his disapproval been rooted in the memory of his own mother's affairs?

She tried another avenue of questioning. “How old was Nathan when she died?”

“It was shortly after Emily's birth.” Lady Gilmore blinked at Sophia, who sat beside her on the chaise, intent on her embroidery. “What age would that have been, my dear?”

“David was fourteen at the time,” Sophia said. “That means Nathan would have been twelve.”

Twelve. Almost the age Maddy had been when her own mother had died. At least she'd had a loving father. Her heart ached to imagine his grief as a boy growing up in this cold household. “Was that when … the strife between him and his father began?”

Lady Gilmore raised an eyebrow, causing a movement of the multiple wrinkles on her brow. “Certainly not. Nathan took after his mother. He was a difficult child from the very beginning, always disobeying the rules, playing pranks, speaking out of turn. More than once he tried to drag David into trouble, too, although the earl and I saw through those schemes.”

As Maddy finished writing out another reply, she felt compelled to defend her husband. “I was under the impression that Nathan and David were friends as well as brothers. What do
you
know of the matter, Sophia? Did David ever speak favorably of Nathan?”

Sophia jabbed her needle into the stretched cloth. “My husband had more pressing things on his mind than a brother who had forsaken his duties to the family. Had David not fallen so wretchedly ill, he would have become a great earl someday.”

Her lips compressed, Maddy dipped the tip of the quill into the inkwell. The woman seemed determined to say nothing complimentary about Nathan. Yet Maddy hesitated to criticize Sophia, for the lady had suffered greatly in losing her beloved husband, the father of her two young daughters. Conscious of the woman's disdain, Maddy had stayed away from the nursery, though she knew Nathan went up there sometimes to visit his nieces.

Indeed, it must be very difficult for Sophia to watch another woman usurp her coveted role as the wife of the heir. All because David had died so young from a tragic illness. That made Maddy wonder about something that had been nagging at the edge of her mind.

She set down her quill and turned to face the other two women. “It must have been a terrible time for you, Sophia. But I have to ask, why wasn't this family inoculated against the smallpox? After all, the procedure is hardly experimental anymore. These days, many people are inoculated—and especially the nobility, I should think.”

Sophia stared wide-eyed at her, then glanced over at the dowager.

Lady Gilmore uttered a small sound of distress as she glared at Maddy. “
Must
you ask so many intrusive questions?
Must
you plague me so! I cannot bear your company another moment!”

The dowager levered herself to her feet with the aid of the cane. Her back hunched, she hobbled out of the morning room.