Regency Wagers (6 page)

Devlin would bet a month’s blunt Bart had not made a mull of things as he had, and that, on the morrow, the little maid would gaze upon Bart’s craggy features with adoration.

Devlin entered Madeleine’s room quietly. The dim illumination of the street lamp shone on Linette’s sleeping figure, her thumb in her mouth. Devlin smiled and gently pulled out her thumb. The little girl stirred, her long dark eyelashes fluttering. She popped the thumb back in.

Madeleine’s bed was empty, and he felt a moment’s anxiety, until he spied her curled up on the windowseat, sound asleep, as innocent and vulnerable as her daughter.

They were both beautiful, these charges of his, and totally dependent upon him. It frightened him, worse than leading men into battle. Soldiers knew the stakes were death, but they had the tools to fight. If he failed Madeleine and Linette, they would be at the mercy of creatures like Farley and would have no weapons with which to protect themselves.

He would not fail them, he vowed. He would see to their needs no matter what the cost.

Devlin gathered Madeleine in his arms, her weight surprisingly like a feather. He carried her to the bed.

‘Only thing I can do,’ she murmured, resting her head on his shoulder, much like her little girl had done earlier.

‘Hush, Maddy,’ he whispered. ‘You’ll wake Linette.’

‘Linette,’ she murmured. ‘All I have.’

‘Not any more, Miss England.’ Devlin laid her carefully on the bed and tucked the covers around her. ‘Now you have me, as well.’

M
adeleine held tightly on to Devlin’s arm as they strolled the pavements of London in the bright morning sun. She pulled the hood of her cape to obscure as much of her face as possible. Still, she felt exposed.

‘You will not take me to a fashionable modiste, will you, Devlin?’ The thought of walking down Bond Street filled her with dread.

Devlin regarded her with an amused expression. ‘No, indeed, Maddy. Would I subject you to such a terrible thing?’

That made her laugh. ‘Do not tease me. It is merely that I would not want to be seen.’

‘Do not worry, goose. You were always masked, were you not? No one will recognise you.’ He patted her hand comfortingly.

‘Of course. So silly of me.’

She took a deep breath. He did not understand. Farley’s patrons did not concern her, but perhaps those she did fear encountering would not recognise her either. Surely the years had altered her?

‘Where are we bound, then?’ She gazed up at Devlin, so tall and handsome. His green eyes sparkled in the sunlight, like emeralds on a necklace a young man had once bestowed
upon her before Farley snatched it away. If necessity bade her to walk in daylight, it pleased her to be beside him.

‘Bart found a dressmaker only four streets from here,’ Devlin said. ‘How he should know about dressmakers foxes me.’

She laughed. ‘Bart is very clever, isn’t he? He and Sophie. I do believe they can do everything.’

‘Unlike me, I suppose.’ He smiled, but the humour did not reach his voice.

‘You are the hub around which all revolves.’ She spoke absently, transfixed by a coach rumbling down the street. ‘Oh, look at the matched greys. How finely they step together. They are magnificent, are they not?’

‘Indeed,’ he answered.

She watched the coach-and-four until it drove out of sight. ‘Oh, my.’ She cast one last glance in the direction it had disappeared. ‘What were you saying, Devlin?’

‘I was remarking about how utterly useless you find me.’

She glanced at him. ‘You are funning me again. What would have happened to me and Linette without you, Devlin?’

Madeleine felt her face flush. She should not have spoken so. To suggest he had any obligation to her was very bad of her. She had awoken in her own bed this morning. The only service she could render him, he’d refused.

‘It is I who am useless, not you, Devlin.’ She sighed. ‘I am skilled at nothing…well, nothing of consequence.’

A curricle drawn by two fine roans raced by. Madeleine stopped to watch it.

‘Do you like horses, Maddy?’

‘What?’ She glanced at him. ‘Oh, horses. I used to like horses.’

‘Not now?’ His mouth turned up at one corner.

‘I have not been on a horse since…for many years.’

‘You ride, then?’

She had careened over the hills, giving her mare her head, clearing hedges, sailing over streams. Nothing unseated her. She outrode every boy in the county and most of the men.
When she could remain undiscovered, she spent whole days on horseback.

Had she not been out in the country on her mare, unchaperoned as usual, she might not have met Farley, might not have succumbed to his charm. Never riding again was fitting punishment for her fatal indiscretion.

She blinked away the regret. ‘You might say I used to ride horses as well as I now ride men.’

‘Maddy!’ Devlin stopped in the centre of the pavement and grabbed her by the shoulders. ‘Do not speak like that. I ought to throttle you.’

She tilted her chin defiantly. ‘As you wish, sir.’

He let go of her and rubbed his brow. ‘Deuce, you know I will not hit you, but why say such a thing?’

‘Because it is true. I know what I am, Devlin. There is no use trying to make me otherwise. It is my only skill. Bart and Sophie can do all sorts of useful things. You, too. You can win at cards and go about in society. You have fought in the war. What could be more useful than that? But me, there is nothing else I know how to do.’

He extended his hand to her, wanting to crush her against him and kiss her until she took back her words. Though the kissing part might not prove the point, exactly, he admitted. He dropped his hand and, putting her arm through his, resumed walking.

After a short distance in silence, he said, ‘That’s what you meant last night. Saying it was the only thing you could do.’

She did not reply.

Devlin held his tongue. This was no place for such a conversation in any event. Besides, each time some handsome equipage passed by in the street, she slowed her pace a little.

He chuckled. ‘Horse mad, are you?’

She pointedly turned her head away from him.

‘Now do not deny it, Maddy. You are horse mad. I recognise the signs. I was myself, as a boy. Why, I liked being with the grooms better than anyone else. My brother, the heir,
could not keep up with me when I rode, though he’s a good ten years my senior. Nothing he could do but report to Father that I was about to break my neck.’

He threw a penny to the boy who had swept the street in front of where they crossed.

‘Oh, look at all the shops!’ Madeleine exclaimed. ‘I had not reckoned there to be so many.’

Like a child at a fair she turned her head every which way, remarking on all the delicious smells and sights.

‘You have not been to these shops?’

She laughed. ‘Indeed not. I always wondered what the London shops would be like.’

‘You’ve been in London three years and have never seen the shops?’ This was not to be believed.

‘Lord Farley did not take me to shops.’

This time Devlin stopped. ‘Do you mean that devil did not let you out of that house?’

‘Not as bad as all that, I assure you.’ She patted his hand and resumed walking. ‘When Linette was big enough, I was allowed to take her to the park across the street. But only in the morning, not when other people might be about. And there was a small garden in the back of the house. Sophie and I were allowed to tend it, though I mostly had the task of digging the dirt, because I did not have the least notion how to make the flowers grow. I enjoyed feeling the soil in my hands, though.’

Such a small space of geography in which to spend more than three years. ‘I wish Farley to the devil.’

She gave him a look. It struck him as almost the same expression Sophie bestowed on Bart.

As they stood at the entrance to a shop with an elegant brass nameplate saying ‘Madame Emeraude’, Madeleine shrank back. Devlin had to practically pull her into the establishment. She held her fingers to the hood of her cloak, covering her face.

A modishly dressed woman emerged from the back. ‘May I be of assistance?’

Since Madeleine had turned away, Devlin spoke. ‘Good morning. Madame Emeraude, I collect?’

The woman nodded.

Devlin gestured to Madeleine. ‘The young lady is in need of some new dresses.’

‘Certainly, sir. Shall I show you some fashion plates, or do you have certain styles in mind?’

It irritated Devlin that the dressmaker addressed him directly instead of Madeleine, as if Madeleine were his fancy piece to dress as he wished, but, he supposed, in this neighbourhood, her clientele were almost exclusively from the demimonde.

‘Shall we step into the other room?’ She gestured elegantly.

He pulled Madeleine along to the private dressing room in the back. ‘The young lady is in somewhat of a fix. You see, she has only the dress she wears and we were hopeful to purchase something already made up.’

Understanding lit the woman’s eyes. ‘Let me see her.’

Since Madeleine was acting like a stick, Devlin had no choice but to treat her that way. He turned her toward the dressmaker and removed the cloak that obscured her.

‘Oh,’ said the woman in surprise. ‘Miss M, is it not? How delightful to see you again.’

‘How do you do, ma’am,’ Madeleine murmured politely, though Devlin did not miss the splotches of red on her cheeks.

‘Deuce,’ said Devlin.

‘Why, I believe I have a dress ready for you,’ said Madame Emeraude helpfully. ‘Do you recall we fitted it not a fortnight ago? Wait a moment and I shall see—’

‘No!’ Madeleine cried.

Devlin interceded, putting his arm around Madeleine. ‘We do not wish that dress.’

Madame Emeraude looked from the one of them to the other. ‘I see. It is a new day, is it not? Well, I am pleased for
you, miss. That other one was charming, but I shall have no business with him, I tell you, until he pays—’ She caught herself. ‘I beg pardon. I only meant I wish you well, Miss M.’

‘Thank you,’ Madeleine said, continuing to look miserable.

Madame Emeraude smiled and began to consider her, stepping around her. ‘Oh, my,’ she said as she saw the open laces of Madeleine’s dress. ‘This dress does not fit. No, no, no. This will never, never do.’

‘You see our predicament.’ Devlin smiled. Madeleine fixed her interest on the floor.

‘Let me show you a few things I have on hand.’

Madame Emeraude signalled an assistant, who carried in one dress after another. Madeleine seemed to regard each garment with horror. They were, Devlin thought, merely dresses. A little fancy, perhaps.

As Madame conferred with her assistant, Madeleine whispered to him, ‘Devlin, please do not make me wear those dresses. This one I have will do, or Sophie can make me a plain one.’

‘What is wrong with them?’

‘They are not…respectable.’

He regarded her, rubbing his chin. ‘I see.’

When Madame Emeraude came back to them, Devlin took the woman aside and spoke to her. Madeleine watched them, the modiste nodding and looking her way. She dearly wished to leave this place where the proprietress knew her as Miss M.

Devlin came back to her. ‘Madame Emeraude is ordering a hack. She has given me the direction of another dressmaker where we will go next.’ He held her cloak open for her. ‘I do not wish to. Let us go home, please.’ This short excursion had already been mortifying.

‘We will try this other place first. You need clothes, Maddy.’

In the hack she continued trying to persuade him. ‘I believe
Sophie could teach me to sew, Devlin. A piece of cloth would be enough.’

He would not listen. He did not understand. Though it was exciting to be out among the carriages and shops, it was frightening, as well. She would always be face to face with what she was.

Madeleine peeked out at the passing scenery, the bustle of London with the pedestrians so intent on their destinations and the tradesmen so occupied with peddling wares. She could not hide forever. How could she rear Linette if she hid? Her daughter would have to go out into that world, too. She was determined that Linette’s life be respectable, though nothing could ever change what Madeleine was inside.

If Devlin Steele was determined she should have clothes, she was determined they be respectable ones.

‘Are you taking me to Bond Street?’ she asked, meaning to sound merely curious, but her voice shook.

He smiled at her. ‘Not to Bond Street. We are directed to a modiste who dresses the worthy daughters of our bankers and merchants.’

‘Very well.’ Not the fashionable part of town. No chance of encountering members of the
ton
.

They discovered a goldmine. The wealthy daughter of an East India merchant had abandoned her trousseau for one made at a fashionable address. The young woman was of Madeleine’s size, and the dresses were exquisitely tasteful attempts by the modiste to expand her clientele.

Madeleine quarrelled with Devlin over the number of dresses he would purchase, wanting no more than two or three. She adamantly refused to let him include even one evening dress and would not even discuss the riding habit. His easy acquiescence in these last two matters made her momentarily suspicious, but he whisked her off to the milliner next door and a new set of arguments became necessary.

As he made arrangements for the delivery of his final pur
chase of several bonnets for Madeleine and one very plain one for Sophie, Madeleine gazed in the mirror.

She wore a pale lilac muslin walking dress adorned only by vertical tucks in the bodice edged by a plain purple ribbon. A blue spencer, lilac gloves, and a modest straw bonnet, simply adorned with a blue bow, completed the ensemble. She even carried a reticule.

Studying herself in the glass was like gazing into the distant past.

Devlin’s image appeared behind her. ‘You look very well, Maddy.’

She swallowed the surge of emotion that had risen in her throat. ‘It seems like too much…’

He held up his hand. ‘No more of that. We still need to stop by the shoemaker.’

She opened her mouth to protest, but as he took her hand and tucked it in his arm, he quickly added, ‘Do you suppose we could convince Sophie to be measured for new shoes?’

For all his generosity to herself, his thinking of Sophie most touched her heart. She cast him a smile. ‘Perhaps we should charge Bart with such a task.’

He laughed as he escorted her out the door to the street. ‘Very wise idea.’

Madeleine had an illusion of being transported to the town of her childhood. The pavement was more crowded, indeed, and the shops more varied and numerous, but it was a most respectable street, and her dress indistinguishable from other young ladies shopping. Or so she thought. She still received many curious looks.

‘Devlin, are you sure my appearance is acceptable?’

Devlin had noticed the admiring glances of the men and appraising looks of the women. He could not help but be proud to be Madeleine’s escort. Beautiful even in her own ill-fitting frock, she quite took his breath away in her new walking dress.

‘You look lovely,’ he whispered back.

This news did not appear to cheer her. She furrowed her brow. Too bad some choice piece of horseflesh did not come into view to distract her.

Devlin caught sight of a shop window. ‘We must go in here.’ He pulled her into the shop. ‘Must not forget our girl.’

They entered a toy store with shelf after shelf of dolls, toy soldiers, and miniature coaches and wagons. An exquisite wax doll with real hair as dark and curly as Linette’s caught Devlin’s eye. He vowed he must purchase it for Linette. Madeleine adamantly refused, saying the child was too young to care for such a treasure. He settled instead for a porcelain-faced baby doll, a ball and blocks. As he finished giving the direction for the toys to be delivered that afternoon, he spied a carved wooden horse and, thinking perhaps the little girl might be horse-mad like her mother, added it to his purchases.