Three Little Secrets (15 page)

The young man straightened up and offered his hand. “Jacob Frost,” he said. “I am Geoff’s tutor.”

“MacLachlan,” he returned. “Merrick MacLachlan.”

He did not miss the servant’s sharp intake of breath. He realized the woman was staring at him with something akin to hatred in her eyes.

Madeleine pretended not to notice. “We must go into the parlor and light all the lamps, Eliza,” she said, her voice perfectly calm. “I wish to have a better look at Geoff’s head.”

“Aww, Mamma!” he said. “May I not go upstairs now? I—I am so tired.”

Madeleine shot him a quelling look. “Be so good as to ask Clara to send up a pot of coffee before she goes to bed, Eliza. And if you will, take Mr. MacLachlan’s damp coat to dry.”

Merrick shucked the miserable garment willingly, and with a parting glower, the servant vanished into the depths of the small house. Madeleine led them into a parlor, and the young man began to light the lamps.

“Thank you, Mr. Frost.” Madeleine settled herself into a huge, old-fashioned armchair. “I trust you found your family well?”

“Quite so, my lady,” he answered, setting down his candle. “Now, how does that bump look?”

Madeleine pulled Geoff nearer to her knees. “Hideous,” said, gingerly drawing back his hair. “For a few days, at any rate. But at least it shan’t need stitching.”

Mr. Frost squatted down by Madeleine’s chair. “I brought some of Mother’s taffy back from Norfolk, Geoff,” he said. “We’ll have a go at it when you’re feeling better.”

“I
am
feeing better,” the boy protested. But his face still bore the strange, stricken expression.

Madeleine clasped both her hands in his. “But surely you must be chilled? Perhaps you ought to have a warm bath.”

Geoff shook his head. “I am too tired, Mamma. I just want my wet things off.”

Just then, there was a faint sound at the parlor’s entrance. A stout little housemaid came in bearing a tray laden with a coffee service. She set it down, and bobbed. “Will there be anything else, my lady?”

Madeleine exhaled, and let her shoulders roll inward, as if she were suddenly exhausted. “No, Clara, thank you,” she said. “Just go to bed. And take Eliza with you. It is late.”

The girl looked relieved, and left at once.

Mr. Frost stood up again. “Why don’t I take Geoff upstairs, too, ma’am?” he suggested. “I have a few sketches to show him from my travels. Then, when he drifts off, I can sleep the night on the cot.”

Madeleine looked up with a grateful smile. “You are very kind, Mr. Frost. I think that is just the thing to do.”

But on the threshold, Geoff hesitated and turned toward Merrick. “Thank you for carrying me, sir,” he said quietly. “I am so sorry the other man died. Very sorry indeed.”

Merrick felt something tighten in his throat. “I am sorry, too, Geoff,” he admitted. “I wish—I wish it could have been otherwise.”

And he did. He could not get the thought of Chutley’s family out of his mind. Merrick had been well within his rights in seizing the man’s brickyard—he had even kept all the men on—but never once had he thought of Chutley’s family. Not until the man lay breathing his last before him. Well, little good did it do any of them now. Remorse would not put food on their table or keep a roof over their heads.

Forgetting quite where he was, Merrick bent his head and pinched his nose between his thumb and forefinger until it hurt. Tomorrow he would send Rosenberg up to Camden Town to arrange an annuity for the widow. He did not regret dispossessing the man of his brickworks. No, not exactly. Business had to go on, and Chutley’s taste for the bottle had rendered him incompetent. But perhaps he could have done something for the family. Perhaps, had he given it a moment’s thought, he could have kept the suicide from happening.

He did not even realize Madeleine was standing before him until he smelled the brandy under his nose. His head jerked up. She held two glasses and was urging one at him. “I decided I needed something stronger than coffee,” she said. “I wish to know, Merrick, about that man. How did you come to know him?”

Merrick accepted the brandy, and took a slow, pensive sip. “I loaned him some money to shore up his brickyard,” he answered. “He couldn’t repay me, nor could he deliver my bricks. So I called in the loan.”

“You seized his brickyard?”

“I had sites in Wapping, Southwark, and Walham about to shut down for want of bricks,” he said tightly. “It was business, Madeleine.”

“Oh, it is not I to whom you must explain yourself.” She was drifting around the room, cradling her glass in her hand. “It is the Widow Chutley.”

He set his brandy aside with a clatter. “Damn it, Madeleine, do you think I don’t know that? Do you think I enjoyed what I had to do?”

She looked at him, her eyes narrow in the lamplight. “I think it entirely possible, yes.”

He drew a deep breath, but to say what, he hardly knew. He was saved by a sudden, hard knock at the door. Madeleine’s eyes flared wide.

Merrick was already halfway to the corridor. “I shall get it.”

Madeleine set her brandy down. “You certainly shan’t,” she said. “I think you forget whose house this is.”

He stopped on the parlor threshold and stalked back toward her. “And I think you forget English common law, my dear,” he said. “Technically, we could say this is
my
house.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“You are my wife, Madeleine,” he gritted. “The law endows me with just about everything you own, or lease, or create—until death us do part. And as you have seen tonight, I’m a hard bastard to kill.”

“Good God, you are mad!” she said. “You are nothing to me.”

“Unfortunately for us both, I am your husband, Madeleine,” he returned. “And I can prove it. Did you think me fool enough to throw away our marriage lines?”

“You—you still have them?” she whispered. “And now you are threatening me with them? Oh, you are despicable!”

The knock came again, harder still.

Merrick exhaled wearily. “Oh, sit down, Madeleine, for God’s sake!” he said. “I can promise you that this is just the village constable come to call. Now, do you really wish to be further involved in this sordid business? If so, have at it, my girl. I’ll go fetch my coat.”

Madeleine recoiled. Clearly, she did not wish to relive tonight’s horrors in the presence of a police constable. With one last warning look, she returned to her chair.

Pride’s an ill horse tae ride.

M
errick recognized the young man who stood bracketed in the doorway. His name was Wade, and his father was the village butcher.

“Good evening, Mr. MacLachlan.” Wade paused to tug politely at the brim of his hat. “Mr. Grimes says that the lady and the young man involved in the accident reside here?”

“Yes, Lady Bessett and her son,” said Merrick calmly. “But the boy has been put to bed, and her ladyship is indisposed, as I am sure you can understand. Why do you not call upon me at my office tomorrow? I shall tell you everything.”

The constable lifted one shoulder. “Well, they are witnesses,” he said reluctantly. “Though the matter seems clear enough. The Chutley chap was drunk and tried to kill you, did he not?”

“Oh, Lord no!” said Merrick.

The constable lifted his eyebrows. “Your servants were misinformed, then?”

“I did not have time to explain the matter,” said Merrick smoothly. “Mr. Chutley was a business associate. He recognized my carriage and merely wished to speak with me.”

“I see,” said the constable. “So he simply waylaid your carriage in order to exchange a few words of greeting in the night?”

“Just so,” said Merrick. “He did not realize, of course, that I was not
in
my carriage. I believe he must have slipped whilst climbing in.”

“And he just happened to be carrying a cocked and loaded pistol?”

“Foolish of him, was it not?” said Merrick. “Alas, poor Chutley had an irrational fear of highwaymen. He often carried it at night.”

“Highwaymen?”
echoed the constable. “In Walham Green? Not in this century, sir. And your servants are of the impression that the fellow killed himself in drunken despair upon finding his intended victim missing.”

Merrick feigned surprise. “Are they indeed?”

“Yes.” The constable looked implacable. “Indeed.”

Well, there was nothing else for it, then. Merrick set a hand on the young man’s shoulders. “Mr. Wade, it is like this,” he said quietly. “The poor devil
is
dead, is he not? And he leaves to mourn a widow and a family. Now, whom are we really punishing if we pursue this distasteful business? And which version of events do you imagine his family will find most comforting?”

Wade hesitated for a minute, the whole ugly scenario clearly running through his mind. The shame of a suicide—and a wild, drunken suicide, at that. The ignominious burial beyond the churchyard. The paperwork. The gossip. The poverty which might well result.

Wade lifted his hat, and scratched his head. “Aye, perhaps you’ve the right of it after all,” he finally said. “Perhaps you ought to speak with the servants, though, and remind them of how things stand?”

This time, Merrick patted him on the shoulder. “At my earliest convenience, Wade,” he assured him. “They’ll not speak another word. Bring all your papers round tomorrow, and I shall sign anything you please.”

Constable Wade bowed himself back out and into the night. Merrick returned to the parlor to see Madeleine pacing the room, her brandy still in her hand. She had finished fully half of it. How very surprising. He had never figured her to have the stomach for spirits.

Over one shoulder, she tossed him a strange look. “What an accomplished liar you are, Merrick,” she said coolly. “One would almost imagine you’d had a wealth of experience.”

He flashed her a tight smile. “You are rather well schooled in deception yourself, my dear,” he said. “Now, do you understand what it is you are to tell your coachman?”

“I think I can manage it, yes,” she returned. For a long, silent moment, she eyed him across the rim of her glass. “You have changed, Merrick. Or perhaps not. I never really knew you, did I?”

He stalked fully into the room. “Well, you certainly do not know me now, Madeleine,” he replied. “And do not you dare get on your moral high horse with me, my dear. Not after what you’ve been doing all these years.”

“Do not start that nonsense again,” she warned. “I have had quite enough of it, thank you.”

“Good God, I did not come here to squabble with you, Madeleine,” he said. “Frankly, I wish to hell you’d stayed in Athens or Borneo or Switzerland or wherever the hell it was you’d been keeping yourself all this time.”

Madeleine turned away and went to her chair, almost collapsing into it. “Naples,” she said quietly. “We last lived in Naples, my husband and I. But I have been back in England, Merrick, for over four years now. I wonder you didn’t come up to Yorkshire, if you were so determined to make my life a living hell.”

“As you could have sought me out, Madeleine,” he said in a low undertone. “Did you never spare me a thought? Did you never once wonder if I had survived?”

At that, she laughed, but it was not a mirthful sound. “Oh, you are the ultimate survivor, Merrick,” she said. “You are strong. Self-confident. Arrogant, really. And once upon a time, I was fool enough to find that seductive.”

Merrick smiled, but it was bitter. He had meant the question quite literally. He very nearly had not survived the beating her father’s henchmen had given him all those years ago. Indeed, Jessup had promised him a slow and painful death—not because Merrick had seduced his beloved daughter, a sentiment with which Merrick might have sympathized. No, he had done it because Merrick had dared to ruin his political ambitions.

Merrick had lain five weeks in the inn, unconscious, with no one knowing whence he’d come, nor how to find his family. And when he finally awoke, the pain had made him wish to God he had not.

But perhaps Madeleine knew nothing of that. In the desperate letters he had written her afterward, he had said only that he was hurt; that he would come for her as soon as he was able. Or perhaps she had known and had not cared?

No. No, not that. Madeleine might have been spoilt and faithless, but never had she been deliberately cruel. More likely she had never laid eyes on the letters and had no inkling of her father’s true nature. Well. It was not his job to disabuse the woman of her fantasies.

Madeleine’s voice drew him back to the present. “You are fortunate, Merrick,” she said quietly. “Fortunate that that pathetic bedlamite did not succeed in killing you.”

Until she spoke, his most recent brush with death had not quite struck him. In the aftermath, his mind had been obsessed with Geoff’s wound and Chutley’s family. But Madeleine was quite right on one score. Had Geoff not begged him to join them, Merrick would have been alone in his own carriage. A carriage Chutley had seen a dozen times or more. The poor sod had obviously been lying in wait for him along the road to Walham.

“Chutley did not kill me, Madeleine, for the same reason he could not run his brickworks or pay his bills,” said Merrick coldly. “Because he was an incompetent inebriate.”

Her visage darkened. “You feel not one whit of remorse, do you?” she said. “And Chutley was not the first, if what they say of your business dealings is true. You are heartless, Merrick. And this is what comes of it.”

“Aye, spoken like one who knows what heartless is, my dear.” Merrick tossed off the last of his brandy and all but slammed the glass down. “You love none but yourself—and that boy, I pray. God knows you never loved me. Not enough to stick it out, at any rate.”

“Oh, so this is all my fault!” she cried, leaping from her chair. “You’ve been steeping in your rage and your bitterness all these years—and it is
my
fault?”

“Oh, hush, Madeleine!” he shouted. “Just hush, for God’s sake. Yes, I’m sorry the man is dead. Yes, I would do things differently, could I do them over again. And yes, I am heartless. Because someone ripped it out years ago. But I take full responsibility for my failings, madam, and I would to God you’d do the same.”

“Dear Lord!” Madeleine sat back down abruptly and let her face fall forward into her hands. “Perhaps you are right. Perhaps we are still married. Heaven knows we sound like it.”

Merrick stared at her incredulously. “Is that what marriage is to you, Madeleine?” he asked. “A constant quarrel? A ceaseless attempt to wound one another? What was he like, this Lord Bessett, anyway? I should really like to know what the attraction was.”

Madeleine looked at Merrick and wondered if she had lost her mind. She wanted to answer his question. She really truly did. And that would have been madness.
The attraction?
How dare he!

The attraction was that Bessett had been the only man willing to have her. The attraction was that a seventeen-year-old girl with a babe in her belly needed a husband’s name. The attraction was that if she just said
yes
at the altar, she’d soon be a thousand miles away from her memories, her father, and his razor strop.

Yes, she wanted to scream the truth at Merrick. Instead, she leapt up and went to the brandy decanter. She put down her glass, shocked to realize she was blinking back tears. She felt all her shame and all her failings spring forth anew. She did not even realize Merrick stood by her side until he touched her elbow lightly.

Madeleine turned to face him and wished at once she had not. His eyes were still dark with unfettered emotion, but it was not rage. And it was not sympathy. Indeed, she was still pondering it, and wondering why her knees were weakening, when he set his hands on her arms and lowered his mouth to take hers.

Madeleine meant to shove him away. She truly did. She planted her hands firmly against his chest to do so, but her traitorous fingers had other ideas. Instead, they curled into the soft, fine wool of his coat as Merrick’s mouth molded over hers. She ached with grief and loneliness, and when his arm slid down to draw her body firmly against his, she welcomed it. His other hand slid up to settle, strong and warm, between her shoulder blades, then slid higher still, plunging his fingers into her hair.

She felt the silk of her gown crush against him, felt the heat of his breath on her cheek. He held her to him almost desperately, and in a foolish response, she let her body come fully against the strong, solid wall of his chest. Somehow, her hands had found their way beneath his coat and were set at the slender turn of his waist. Merrick made a soft sound, and, without further encouragement, Madeleine opened her mouth beneath his.

She knew it was madness; knew full well she would regret it. But in that instant, the memory of a hundred such kisses came rushing back to her as he slid his tongue languidly inside her mouth. Her head swam with the scent of angry, aroused male. Like the gudgeon she was, Madeleine kissed him back, hotly and openmouthed, without a hint of hesitation or doubt. She entwined her tongue with his, and came onto her tiptoes. He tasted of wine and of smoke and of himself, something unique and yet sweetly familiar. Something eternally unforgettable.

Suddenly, the sound of tinkling glass cut into her consciousness. They had backed against the sideboard, almost upsetting the arrangement of glassware. As if stirred from a dream, Merrick lifted his lips from hers. “Good God,” he whispered. “Maddie.”

Madeleine held his gaze and pushed him away. He did not resist. Instead, he turned at once and strode to the windows, leaving an awful chill to settle where, but an instant earlier, his body had warmed hers. She felt empty. Cheated. And angry at herself.

“I never could bear to see you sad, Maddie,” he said quietly. His back was still turned to her, his hands clasped tightly behind him, as if he were restraining himself.

She lifted her fingers to touch her lips, which felt swollen, and a little bruised. “Is…is that what it was?” she asked. “Just pity?”

He shook his head. “No, it was…stupidity, too,” he admitted. “I cannot help it. I think of you sometimes, Maddie, of what we once had together, and I…I just…”

His words fell away for a long, quiet moment. Madeleine did not stir, did not move. Dared not even breathe, though she hardly knew why.

He broke the silence by clearing his throat sharply. “I am sorry, Madeleine,” he managed. “That was not wise—for either of us.”

She gave a sharp, bitter laugh. “Restraint was never our strong suit,” she agreed. “Especially not when we were…oh, God, never mind that now!”

“We were speaking of Lord Bessett,” he said quietly. Again, he cleared his throat. “Madeleine, was he cruel to you? I have never wished that, you know.”

So this time, they were to pretend that nothing had happened. Perhaps that was best.

“He was not cruel,” she said, turning to refill her brandy, which she desperately needed now. “Bessett cared for me, in his own way.”

“And what way was that?” Merrick’s voice had turned raspy.

She shrugged. “Like—like a fond relation,” she answered uncertainly. “Which, of course, I was.”

“He believed you were his wife.”

She set the decanter down carelessly. “I
was
his wife,” she said wearily. “But we—we were cousins, too. Did you not know?”

“No.” He turned slowly from the window to face her.

“No I did not.”

She dashed her hand discreetly beneath her eye, and it came away damp. “He and my mother were very close,” she said. “Bessett did not like Papa, I always suspected. I think he wished to…to take me away, perhaps? And he had a son—Alvin, my stepson—who needed a mother. He was a good boy. I loved him very much.”

“Oh, Madeleine,” he said almost chidingly. “It sounds like a miserable existence.”

She looked at him with hurt in her eyes. “It was not miserable,” she insisted. “It was safe. And yes, a little dull. But I do not regret it.”

“You turned your back on me, Madeleine, so that you could have
safe
and
dull
?” His voice was softly incredulous. “I never thought you such a fainthearted creature!”

“I turned my back on no one,” she said honestly. “You took Papa’s money, and annulled our marriage.”

“Madeleine!” The chiding tone was back. “Did you even know what an annulment was?”

Madeleine dropped her chin. “N-No, not then.”

Not then—and not now. Not really.
She had spent much of her marriage cut off from the world in a series of foreign outposts. After her return to Bessett’s estate in rural Yorkshire, she had thought about consulting a solicitor to ask how such a thing worked. But she had been too embarrassed. And what purpose would it have served? Merrick was gone. Geoff had Bessett’s name. He was an Archard, as her mother had been, an old and noble name the Normans had carried to England generations before.