How to Entice an Earl (35 page)

“I’ll thank you not to speak of my wife like that, Tretham,” Christian said coldly. “I assume that this unexpected visit from you indicates that you are the one who has been threatening Linton. Clever of you to include yourself in the threats. Really. Well done.”

Tretham gave a mocking bow. “I thought that was rather brilliant on my part as well. It occurred to me not long after Fielding died. Now there was a man who was badly in need of some brilliance. Were you acquainted with the man?”

When Christian shook his head, Tretham continued, “Well, the fellow was not gifted in the brainbox, let me tell you. He was so determined to race from London to Bath. No amount of persuasion from Linton or Tinker or myself could dissuade him. So, I decided to use it as a means of removing him from the field altogether. I’d had my eye on the beautiful Lady Emily for some time, and as she was unwilling to be unfaithful to the bastard, I had to get a bit creative. That the brunt of the blame for the blighter’s death fell upon Linton was simply a bonus.”

“But she fell in love with my brother before you could woo her,” Maddie said, so many of the puzzle pieces beginning to fall into place. “That must have infuriated you.”

“My dear Lady Madeline,” Tretham said, leaning back against the door, “you have no idea. And then there was Tinker with his troublesome questions and unfortunate Bonapartist leanings.”

“So you knew about his involvement in the Citizen’s Liberation Society,” Christian said.

“Of course I did,” Tretham said with a laugh. “A more inept spy I’ve never seen. Though I was grateful for Tinker’s dealings with the spies because it led Home Office suspicion firmly away from me. I have little doubt that you lot thought it much more likely that he was killed because of his treasonous activities than over his foolish decision to look a bit too closely into my affairs.”

“And Linton?” Maddie demanded, trying to determine how her brother fit into the scheme. “You simply wanted to get rid of him because he was a rival for Lady Emily’s affections?”

“That,” Tretham agreed, “and the fact that it was just so much fun to torment him. Give me a man in love to toy with every time. There is just something so deliciously heartfelt about them and their determination to protect their ladies from harm.”

Maddie felt her heart clench. She had a very good notion of how Tretham planned to make Christian pay for his investigations into the other man’s crimes. If she could find a way to remove that threat from her husband, she would do so.

“Well, then, you will be disappointed to see before you two of the most unhappily married persons in London.”

Tretham rolled his eyes at her words. “Do not, I pray you, Lady Madeline, attempt to convince me that you two are not disgustingly, blissfully wed. It will not do. You are fairly dripping with honey, you’re so sweet on one another. I do not mind telling you that it fair turns my stomach.”

Stepping forward, he reached out and took Maddie by the arm. “Now then, my dear,” he said, pulling her to the other side of the room, his gun steadily trained on Christian the entire time. “I ask you to remove that handsomely tied cravat—really, you must have done it yourself since I know that Gresham isn’t capable of a so perfectly tied knot—and indeed, just remove all of your clothes. I find myself quite intrigued to see what sort of body lurks beneath your mannish attire.”

When Christian took a step forward, Tretham waved him back against the wall. “Stay over there, thanks, old chap. I believe I’ll use your lady wife’s cravat to ensure that your protective impulses are kept at bay.” Suiting his actions to his words, he took the cravat from Maddie’s hands and made Christian turn around to face the wall.

Maddie searched the room with her gaze, unable to see anything that might be put to good use as a weapon. There was a strange umbrella stand in the corner but there was no way she could get past Tretham to reach it. Still, thinking she might be able to take him by surprise, she crept up behind Tretham. Unfortuntely, he must have felt her, because he swiftly turned around and smacked her across the face.

Christian said a foul word and threatened to do something to their captor that Maddie was quite sure was not anatomically possible.

“Get down on the bed,” he said curtly, ignoring Christian’s curses. “And take off your damned clothes. I do not mean to tell you again. Really, Gresham, you have done an appalling job of training your wife. If this is how you trained your men it’s a shock to me that you survived the war at all.”

He finished securing Christian’s hands, and wandered over to the umbrella stand and removed what turned out to be a whip from it. “Well, well, well,” Tretham said gaily, “I think you and I will have a delightful time together, Lady Madeline. I have little doubt that your dear husband hasn’t shown you the joys of discipline. Indeed, that is doubtless why you are so temperamental. I look forward to showing you the error of your ways.”

Maddie, who had been untucking her shirt from her breeches, felt bile rise in her throat.

“Tretham,” Christian spat out, “I will enjoy killing you with my bare hands. In fact, I shall use that very whip to make my point clear.”

“Oh, Gresham,” the other man said with a laugh, “you did always have a fine sense of humor. I only regret that you will soon be too dead to continue your amusing repartee. Of course, I will enjoy your wife first. While you watch. I think you should be able to see one beautiful thing before you depart the earth, don’t you?”

Maddie, unable to stand the anguish on Christian’s face, called Tretham’s attention back to her. “My lord, I shall need some help removing my boots,” she said, trying to make her voice sound husky.

Turning to look at her, Tretham’s eyes darkened with lust as he saw that she had removed her shirt. The binding that she’d used to hide her breasts was still in place, but she still felt quite naked.

“Of course, my dear,” he said with a leer. “Never let it be said that I would say no to a lady.”

Maddie lifted her booted foot to his hands and then, with all her might, shoved hard at him, managing to kick him in the chin.

“You little bitch,” Tretham snarled, backhanding Maddie just before Christian, his hands still tied, butted him in the head.

Unfortunately, Tretham still had hold of the pistol, which, upon the blow from Christian, he fired wildly. In horror, Maddie looked on as a red patch appeared on Christian’s arm.

Unable to stop herself, Maddie threw herself at Tretham, slapping, hitting, biting, doing whatever it took to bring him down.

Thanks to the sound of the gunshot, the door to the chamber flew open and Mrs. Pettigrew and two very large men burst in. “Here now!” she shouted, as a whip flew through the air. “This is a respectable house!”

“This couple has assaulted me,” Tretham said shrilly. “I demand that you call the authorities.”

“Is that what you seen through the peephole, Toby?” Mrs. Pettigrew asked a young lad just inside the door.

“Not by ’alf. This cove were plannin’ to ’ave ’is way wif ’er. And not wif this bloke’s by-yer-leave, neither.” He wiped his nose with his shirtsleeve, for emphasis.

Maddie paid no heed to any of them, having knelt down beside Christian and untied his hands. Using the cravat, she made a pad and pressed it against his arm, which was bleeding profusely now. “It’s just a flesh wound,” Christian assured her, though his pallor said otherwise. “I’ve had much worse in the war.”

Her hands shaking, Maddie kept her hand over the wound. “I do not doubt you did,” she said, “but humor me.”

“I’m sorry, Mads,” Christian said, sitting up, and holding the makeshift bandage against his arm. “For all of it. I would not be alive if you hadn’t come here today. Tretham would have killed me as soon as he saw me.”

“You can’t know that,” Maddie said, brushing a lock of honey-brown hair from his brow. “You were right about the danger. I should have listened. But I am glad I did not.”

“Me, too,” Christian said, kissing her.

They watched as the two bruisers Mrs. Pettigrew had brought into the room lifted Tretham by the arms.

“Mrs. Pettigrew,” Maddie said, “you should call the watch. This man is responsible for two murders.”

“Don’t you worry, dearie,” the madam said with a frown. “Toby saw the whole thing. He heard everything.”

“Then why the devil didn’t you come to help us sooner?” Christian demanded, his anger giving him a burst of strength despite the blood loss. “We might have been killed.”

“Well, now,” Mrs. Pettigrew said with a sheepish look. “How was we to know you didn’t like having a gun trained on ye? Gents like some strange things these days. But I don’t hold with shooting in my ’ouse. So then we decided to come in whether ye liked it or no’.”

“I demand that you let me go at once,” Tretham ordered the two bruisers. “Do you know who I am? Do you?”

But they ignored him as they carried him bodily from the room.

Christian got to his feet and swayed a little.

“Dearest,” Maddie said, wrapping an arm around him, “you should sit down for a bit. Your shoulder has bled quite a lot.”

“It’s just a flesh wound, Mads,” he said again, handing her the shirt she’d abandoned. “Put this on so that we can get the devil out of here.”

Maddie pulled the shirt on over her head, and retrieved her waistcoat and coat, putting them on over it. “I have rather a fondness for this little room,” she said, looking around her. “You told me you loved me, here.”

Christian’s eyes darkened as he pulled her into his arms. “I thought I would go mad when Tretham put his hands on you. Do not ever put yourself in danger like that again. Please, Mads, it’s not good for my health.”

She kissed him. “I promise not to put myself in danger if you promise not to keep things from me.”

“Only if you promise not to keep things from me.”

“I promise,” she said, not letting her gaze waver from his.

“I should have told you, I see it now,” he said. “But I was so afraid that you would figure out how much I loved you. And I was convinced that you could never love me as much as I love you.”

“Silly man,” she said, tucking her head beneath his chin. “How could I not love you?”

Reaching down, he grabbed her hat and set it upon her head. “Now, Mr. Femane, let us go home.”

And arm in arm, Lord and Lady Gresham walked quite happily out of the Hidden Pearl.

Much to the scandalized delight of everyone who saw them.

Twenty-two

“I cannot believe you did it,” Cecily said with wonder, sipping a cup of sweet tea in Maddie’s writing room.

The cousins had chosen to meet at the Gresham town house for a change so that Maddie could show them her new room dedicated to her writing. After Cecily and Juliet pronounced the chamber the loveliest thing they’d ever seen, and the best wedding present Gresham might have given her, they settled down in the cozy corner space where Maddie often enjoyed tea and biscuits of an afternoon.

“It took more daring than even I knew I had,” Maddie said, biting into a macaroon. “Though it was strangely liberating to venture into a space where no proper lady had dared go before.”

“We have always been good at breaking down those kinds of barriers,” Juliet said, lifting her teacup. “I am quite proud of all we’ve accomplished this season.”

Maddie and Cecily clinked their teacups with Juliet in a toast of sorts.

“When will Linton and Lady Emily return from their wedding trip?” Cecily asked, leaning back and touching her ever-so-slightly protruding belly. “I cannot imagine embarking on a carriage trip in this condition. It’s all I can manage not to cast up my accounts the short distance from Grosvenor Square to Berkeley Square.”

Maddie frowned in sympathy. “I believe they are due to return next week. Now that Papa has consented to the match, I think their way forward will be much smoother. Plus, Mama has begun to speak in reverent tones of the expected heir.”

Her brother and Lady Emily had married by special license as soon as Linton was able to leave his sickbed. Only Maddie, Christian, and Lord and Lady Essex had been in attendance. None of Linton’s or Lady Emily’s former cronies had been invited and they were not missed by either the bride or the groom.

“I still cannot believe Tretham was responsible for both Lord Fielding’s and Tinker’s murders,” Juliet said, shaking her red curls. “I never did like him much, but I thought he was a decent enough gentleman, at the very least.”

“I thought the same,” Maddie said. “I thought I simply disliked him because of his relationship with my brother. And I told myself that the feeling was unfair to Tretham, since my brother’s behavior was his own. Now I will know better than to discount my first instinct.”

“So, it was Tretham you overheard threatening Linton on the night of the Marchford ball?” Cecily asked. “How did he disappear like that?”

“There’s a secret passage in the fireplace,” Maddie said with a shrug. “I asked Lady Marchford about it last week and she said her son and Tretham used to play there as children.”

“It seems a shame that one man could be responsible for so much death and unhappiness,” Juliet said with a sigh. “I suppose we all know now how easy it is for a single person to damage many lives.”

“Which is why I am so grateful that we are all of us safe and happy at last,” Maddie said, taking her cousins’ hands in hers. “I am so thankful for you both. Without your excellent examples I might not have had the courage to fall in love with Gresham.”

Cecily raised a dark brow. “I am grateful for you, too, Maddie, but we must give credit where credit is due. Without Amelia’s dance card, none of us would be sitting here, disgustingly happy and contemplating a happy future.”

Remembering something, Maddie leaped up and hurried over to her desk. Opening a drawer, she slipped in her hand and brought the fan-shaped dance card over to her cousins.

Before she could speak a sharp knock sounded on the door to the writing room.

“My lady,” Yeats intoned, “your guest is here. Shall I send her up?”

“What’s this, Maddie?” Cecily demanded.