Three Little Secrets (17 page)

When Madeleine returned, Helene was in the parlor, drifting aimlessly amidst the teetering stacks of books and papers. “This looks just like my brother-in-law Bentley’s study,” she remarked in her teasing voice. “Did someone’s desk explode in here?”

Madeleine blushed. “These are some of my father’s personal papers,” she said. “I had a cartload sent down from Sheffield a few days ago. I thought that it was time I began going through them.”

Helene smiled sympathetically. “Oh, that is
such
a chore, is it not? My mother’s things are still stuffed in a trunk at Hampstead. How long has your father been gone?”

“Several years,” Madeleine answered. Strangely, she felt little grief. “He died whilst I was away, and my husband just after our return.”

Helene’s expression of sympathy deepened. “How very sad for you, my dear.”

Madeleine shrugged. “I had lived my adult life abroad. Geoff never even met him.” Hastily, she moved the pile of papers she had been sorting that morning from a nearby chair. “Do sit down,” she said, shifting the load to the desk. “This is quite the most comfortable chair.”

Helene took the seat with a grateful smile. “What a cozy little cottage,” she said, stripping off her riding gloves. “Did you let the place furnished?”

“Mostly, yes,” Madeleine admitted. “It is a little shabby round the edges, but comfortable.”

“You have a vast deal of shopping to do for the new house, then, do you not?” Helene said. “And furniture makers take forever.”

Madeleine returned to her chair and sat down. “I have had a change of heart, Helene,” she said quietly. “I think I shan’t take the house after all. Indeed, I do not think we shall stay much longer here in London.”

“But Madeleine, why?” Helene looked surprised. “I thought you were quite set on the place.”

Madeleine lifted one shoulder and looked away. “I can see no point now,” she said. “After all, as you have said, there is little to be done for Geoff here, and that was my only reason in coming.”

“Will you make your home with your stepson, then? Or your cousin Lord Jessup, perhaps?” Helene paused to frown. “I believe, my dear, you would be unhappy with either of those alternatives. You are so very young.”

“I think I shall go to Cambridge,” said Madeleine vaguely. “Or—or perhaps I shall buy a house by the sea. I have always wished to live by the sea.”

“Well, I should hate to lose such a lovely new friend so soon,” said Helene sadly. “But the truth is, my husband hates London, and we are here but a few weeks a year ourselves. I know! Lyme Regis!”

“Lyme Regis?” said Madeleine. “I have heard that it is very beautiful.”

“My husband and Mr. MacLachlan are going to begin building some new houses near there,” she said. “Perhaps by the end of the year. I am sure Mr. MacLachlan would build you just what you wish.”

Madeleine felt her face flame. “No,” she said firmly. “No, I do not think so.”

Helene grimaced. “Oh, dear.”

“What?” asked Madeleine.

Helene gave a little shrug. “My husband was afraid that perhaps Mr. MacLachlan had been forward toward you at our house last Friday,” she confessed. “And he was under the impression that the gentleman might have inveigled his way into your carriage.”

“No, not at all,” said Madeleine smoothly, not at all sure why she wished to defend him. “Geoff invited him.”

“I see,” said Helene. “My husband will be reassured. Mr. MacLachlan, for all his dark good looks, does not have a pristine reputation.”

“Does he not?” Madeleine feigned surprise. “Is he thought to be a womanizer?”

Helene gave a sharp laugh. “Oh, not where women of quality are concerned,” she said. “And much to their dismay, I do not doubt.”

“Indeed?” said Madeleine. “I was given to understand that society was ambivalent toward him.”

“Certainly they once were,” she admitted. “Perhaps the high sticklers still are. But women do love a dark, dangerous-looking man, and sometimes, the blacker his name, the better—so long as he has money. MacLachlan is rich as Croesus now, and there is no better balm to society’s heart than a tub of newly minted money.”

“You seem to know a vast deal about him.”

Helene eyed her across the narrow room. “My husband makes it his business to know such things before he will do business with a man,” she admitted. “Mr. MacLachlan keeps company with the sort of women we do not talk about in polite society. I am sure you know the sort I mean?”

“I know that such women exist,” Madeleine confessed. “But we are not precisely awash in them up in Yorkshire.”

Helene burst into laughter. “Oh, Madeleine! You are so refreshingly honest.”

“I wish sometimes that I were not,” she admitted. “As to Mr. MacLachlan, what is the truth about his business dealings? Is he thought to be dishonest?”

“Not that, no.” Helene shook her head. “He seems to be equally hated and admired. He is said to drive a hard bargain and count every farthing. He has been known to crush his competitors. And I know he controls a vast deal of real estate here in Town, and has business interests throughout the city.”

“Does he indeed?” This Madeleine had not heard. “Of what sort?”

Helene blinked uncertainly. “My husband says he builds roads and pavements and bridges,” she answered. “And warehouses, some of which he owns. And last year, he bought an interest in a concern which is to begin building railroads. My brother-in-law Bentley tells me that railroads are the future and anyone who invests in them will soon be rich.”

“But Mr. MacLachlan is already rich.”

Helene looked at her oddly. “Yes, but he obviously does not mean to rest on his laurels,” she answered. “Well, enough of him. Tell me, my dear, how does Geoffrey go on?”

Madeleine dropped her chin. “He is not himself,” she admitted. “Though his tutor has returned, and that has helped a little. Still, the melancholia has struck him again, and very hard this time. He looks as though he is not sleeping.”

“Oh, dear!” said Helene. “I do hope he is not still fretting over that silly quarrel with Ariane?”

“A bit, yes,” Madeleine admitted. “Which, were he otherwise well, would not be bad thing.”

Helene smiled weakly. “Well, do not be too hard on the boy,” she said. “But I do wonder, Madeleine—what do you think that was about? What put the notion into his mind? I really should like to know why he would say such a thing.”

Madeleine shrugged. “I really have no idea,” she answered. “And I don’t think he does. I am so sorry. Unfortunately, that is not the first bizarre thing he has blurted out. Sometimes he—he just
thinks
them. I can tell, you see, that some wild notion has struck him by the look on his face. But as it happens more frequently, he becomes more and more secretive. Still, I know it was a horrible thing to say to Lady Ariane.”

Helene seemed to have relaxed into her chair. “Well, it does not signify,” she said. “But if not Ariane, what do you think is troubling him?”

“I think it is more the death of that poor Mr. Chutley,” Madeleine admitted. “He has taken it unusually hard.”

“That sounds dreadful!” Helene set a hand to her chest. “But who, pray, is Mr. Chutley?”

Madeleine looked at her in mild surprise. But then again, how could Helene know of Chutley’s suicide? Merrick had cleverly turned a scandalous bit of gossip into a mere accident. Tragic, yes, but it likely had not even warranted space in the newspapers. She explained the situation much as Merrick had explained it to Constable Wade, glossing over Chutley’s true intent.

Helene had lost a little of her color. “Well!” she said a little breathlessly. “How dreadfully sad. I hope poor Geoffrey did not actually
see
anything?”

Madeleine shook her head. “No, our horses started at the gunshot,” she said. “Poor Geoff took a bump on the head and was knocked senseless.”

“How frightful!” said Helene. “What did you do?”

“Mr. MacLachlan was kind enough to carry him home.”

Helene smiled faintly. “Did he indeed? How very good of him.”

“I daresay.”

Just then, Eliza came in with the tea tray and a small platter of biscuits. Madeleine was glad for the distraction. They busied themselves for a few moments with the intricacies of preparing their cups, but as soon as the room fell quiet again, Helene’s mouth curled into the faintly mischievous smile which Madeleine had come to recognize.

“I hope, my dear, that you will not forget our little dinner party on Tuesday?” she said, plucking a pair of biscuits from the platter. “Ooh, almond! My favorite.”

“I beg your pardon?” said Madeleine quietly. “A dinner party?”

Helene’s eyes flashed with mischief. “Yes, for Ariane’s birthday,” she said. “The one I mentioned Friday evening?”

“Oh. Oh, yes.”

“Of course it is a few weeks early,” Helene went on. “But she really did beg to have something whilst we were still here in Town. I know she is not yet out, but as I assured her father, it will be nothing very grand. Just family and a few close friends. Dinner, and perhaps some country dances afterward. Now please do not say you have changed your mind?”

Madeleine did not recall hearing, let alone accepting the invitation. But she had been so absorbed in Geoffrey’s distress at the card table, there was no knowing what she might have agreed to do. “No, of course I shall come,” she said.

“It will do you good,” said Helene. “Even though you mean to leave London, my dear, you really should get out a bit. Indeed, I know you will think me quite forward, but at your age, you really ought to think of marrying again.”

“No.” Madeleine felt a moment of panic.

“Oh, never say never, my dear!”

“No,” she repeated. “I—I am quite sure you mean to be kind. But I cannot remarry.”

“Cannot?” Helene looked at her chidingly. “Come now, Madeleine. That is rather harsh. One never knows when the perfect husband might turn up. Now, let me think who I might know that is sensible and unattached.”

“No. No, I beg you will not.” Madeleine set her cup down awkwardly, splashing hot tea across her wrist.

Helene leapt from her chair, and snatched up a tea towel. “Oh, Madeleine!” she said, dabbing at her cuff and wrist. “Oh, you poor dear. I did not mean to distress you.”

“I—I am fine,” said Madeleine. “I just—the cup just—lost its balance.”

“And look at this!” said Helene, turning her hand over. “You have been bleeding.”

“I pricked myself,” Madeleine admitted. “On the rosebush earlier. It is nothing.”

Helene folded her fingers gently inward, and patted her closed fist. “You have had a hard day,” she said, her tone lightly teasing. “First your rosebush turns on you, and then your friend. I did not mean, my dear, to prod into your business. I shan’t do so again.”

“I—I was not distressed,” she said. But to her mortification, tears had begun to trickle down her face.

Helene went down on one knee. “Oh,
ma foi
!” she said. “I wish myself to the devil just now!”

“It—it is nothing,” said Madeleine, trying to stifle her sobs. “I—I just…well, it has been a hard week, actually. There is much on my mind. It was not you, Helene.”

Helene had extracted a handkerchief and pressed it into Madeleine’s hand. “I cannot help matters when I pry into your business,” she said. “I am so sorry, my dear. I hate to see you so distraught. Please, can you not tell me what is wrong?”

Somehow, Madeleine found a way to laugh. “You just swore, Helene, to stay out of my business.”

“Yes, quite right.” Helene snagged her lower lip between her teeth and returned to her chair. “I shall endeavor to do so. Perhaps I ought simply to go, and get out of your hair?”

“No, please do not.” Madeleine blew her nose and tucked the handkerchief away. “Let us talk of more pleasant things. What sort of gown shall I wear to Lady Ariane’s dinner party? I have a deep green silk which I had made up for Alvin’s betrothal. It sits just a little off the shoulders. Would that do?”

“Perfect!” said Helene. “You must look lovely in dark green.”

Madeleine forced herself to relax as the conversation turned again toward more mundane matters. Helene was excited about treating her stepdaughter, and Madeleine’s mortification was slowly receding. Indeed, she was not at all sure of what had just happened. She had never been much of a watering pot—well, not since losing Merrick. After that, there had been very little worth crying over. So why now?

It had been Helene’s pointed question about remarriage. It had frightened her in a way she had not expected. But she had answered the question quite truthfully. She could not marry again. She never would. Papa’s papers had been spread about the parlor for all of two days, and Madeleine had been pawing through them like a madwoman. What she sought was not there.

Cousin Gerald had sent eight crates of files, calendars, and correspondence. Three appeared to be personal, the other five, the larger ones, were clearly related to his work in the government. Madeleine had pried open the small ones first. But inside, there was no mention of her marriage—either of them—nor of her dowry nor of her annulment. Nothing. Indeed, there was not even so much as a mention of her name in her father’s papers.

It had been a horrible, stark reminder—not just a reminder of her failed marriage, though that was bad enough. It also left her acutely aware of the truth which she had fought to avoid for the whole of her conscious life: that to her father, Madeleine had barely existed at all.

Helene cleared her throat sharply, snapping Madeleine back to the present. “So, as I was saying, I shall wear dark purple, since you are to wear the dark green,” she said. “We shall make a striking pair, shall we not, you with your pale blond hair, and me with my inky black locks?”

Madeleine managed to smile. “We shall indeed,” she answered, picking up the platter of biscuits. “I look greatly forward to it. Here, Helene. May I offer you another?”

Kindle not a fire which
ye canna put out.

P
hipps gave one last neatening tug on his employer’s lapels. “There!” he said in some satisfaction. “You look quite splendid, sir.”

Merrick lifted his gaze to the pier glass and studied himself in its reflection. He saw nothing but the scar. Especially vivid against his evening blacks, the thing curled like a thin, pale snake along his jaw and down his neck, then slithered away beneath his starched white collar.

“What kind of fool am I, Phipps, to have agreed to this?” he asked.

“The kind of fool who will die a very rich man,” murmured Phipps, reaching up to neaten the knot of his cravat.

“But a birthday party,” he grumbled. “And for some chit not yet out of the schoolroom.”

“A chore, to be sure,” said Phipps pragmatically. “But given who her father is, at least a few of the City’s bankers will likely turn up. Besides, it is not precisely a high society affair.”

“Damn me if I have any use for such things, high or low.” Merrick stuck a finger in his collar and gave it a little tug. “But when a man looks you in the eyes, and asks you outright, it’s dashed hard to think of an excuse.”

Phipps had bent down to run a bit of flannel over Merrick’s evening slippers. “But they are a pleasant enough family, sir, are they not?”

“Bloody cheerful,” Merrick agreed. “Sweetness and light all around. You’d think Lord and Lady Treyhern never exchange an ill word.”

Phipps stood, and admired his handiwork. “Perhaps they do not,” he suggested. “In an ideal world, all marriages should be so. Otherwise, why bother being married at all?”

Merrick gave one of his sarcastic grunts. “Your naïveté shocks me, old fellow,” he said. “These people marry for dynastic concerns.”

“Some do, yes.” Phipps snapped open his silver cheroot case, and persuaded that all was in order, slipped it into Merrick’s coat pocket. “But Lord Treyhern, as I hear it, did not.”

Merrick’s eyes widened in surprise. Treyhern struck him as just the sort of man who would marry for practicality, at the very least. “A love match, eh?”

“Oh, very much so.”

Merrick was skeptical. “How the devil do you know?”

Phipps smiled faintly. “Servants’ gossip, sir,” he said. “The most reliable source on earth. Treyhern’s housekeeper, Mrs. Trinkle, is a stepsister to Agnes’s mother, Mrs. Barney, over in Stepney.”

“Agnes?”

“Agnes Barney who works in the kitchen, sir.”

“Ah, yes, the thin, quick one,” he recalled.

“Yes, she is quite a hard worker,” Phipps agreed. “And, Agnes reports that her aunt Trinkle claims that Lord and Lady Treyhern once had something of a scandalous past.”

Merrick grinned. “A
past
, eh?”

“Childhood sweethearts,” he clarified. “But the girl was poor, French, and considered far beneath him, so the family split them apart and sent the girl to Switzerland to become a governess. The earl married money, but it was a troubled union. The wife was thought to be…” Here, Phipps paused to clear his throat sharply, “—well, of questionable constancy, sir, if you know what I mean?”

“Aye, I’ve a fair notion.”

Phipps smiled tightly. “In any case, she died, and Treyhern married her ladyship after all.”

“Ah!” said Merrick. “But let’s go back to that part about his marrying money, Phipps.”

Phipps lifted one eyebrow. “Such a cynic, sir!”

“Fine talk of love and romance is all very well, Phipps,” he said, giving the collar another tug. “But someone must pay the bloody butcher’s bill. And women, you see, know this. Perhaps Lady Treyhern was wise enough to bide her time.”

Phipps sighed as if deeply put upon. “Perhaps so, sir,” he said, handing Merrick his purse and pocket watch. “Shall I call for your carriage now?”

“Well, that is one way to win an argument.” Merrick grinned. “Pack me off to that hell they call society.”

That hell they call society was packed eight carriages deep down Mortimer Street when Merrick arrived at Treyhern’s town house. Friends and family indeed! It had the look of a minor crush. With a growing sense of frustration, Merrick craned his head toward the window, wondering if there was any last minute excuse which might be seized upon. Regrettably, no lightning strike or earthquake obliged him. Of course, he could always simply snatch up his carriage pistol and just shoot himself out of frustration, as poor old Chutley had done.

Just then, the angle of the moving carriages shifted, and the next in line rolled up to the door.
Well, hell and damnation.
A perfectly turned ankle peeped out, and then a swath of dark green skirt slithered down to cover it. Perhaps it was time for that pistol after all.

It was the carriage which his subconscious mind had recognized. Or perhaps, God help him, it really was the ankle. Even at a distance, it seemed so little changed. Lady Bessett had taken the hand of one of Treyhern’s footmen and was alighting with a grace which would have become an operatic diva. Her pale blond hair was twisted up into an elegant but unfashionably loose arrangement which shone like liquid fire in the last slanting rays of daylight.

As if she moved in slow motion, Madeleine looked up at the footman and smiled. Her matching cashmere shawl slipped off one shoulder, and a dainty little reticule swung from her wrist. Up and down the steps and the street, heads were turning. He did not wonder why. Madeleine was ageless elegance and even at thirty, pure physical perfection. And fleetingly, she had been his. She had given him twelve glorious weeks of euphoria at a time when he had not believed euphoria existed. He still did not. It had been, in retrospect, a surreal interlude in his life.

Lord Treyhern hastened down the steps to greet her personally. He set her hand on his arm, and they went up the stairs to vanish into the depths of the house. Merrick fell back against the banquette. He felt not admiration, but anger. Not righteous indignation, but resentment. Damn it, he should have guessed the woman would attend. Perhaps his subconscious mind had suspected
that
, too.

No. No, that simply was not true. Besides, he had the power and the will to control his own reactions. He was here purely as a matter of business. If that business dictated he be polite to the woman, so be it. For the right amount of money, Merrick MacLachlan could sup with the devil if he had to.

On the other hand, he could also afford to walk away. He did not need Treyhern’s money or his real estate. Life was short. He rapped harshly on the roof of his carriage. His liveried footman leapt down, and opened the door. “Yes, sir?”

Merrick opened his mouth, then closed it again. For an instant, he vacillated. Then his manners got a chokehold on his misanthropy, and wrestled it to the ground. “Nothing,” he snapped. “Never mind. No—stop. Just let me out here. Turn round and go down to the Blue Posts.”

“Yes, sir.”

Merrick climbed down and fished through his pocket for a few coins. “You and Grimes get a pint and a bit of supper,” he said. “I’ll meet you there as soon as I may.”

The footman pocketed the coins cheerfully. He did not look surprised. He was well aware of his employer’s penchant for making quick escapes. Merrick snatched his stick from the carriage, and stalked off down the pavement toward Treyhern’s town house.

He was greeted very graciously by the earl and his wife. The daughter—Arabelle or Marianne or Maribelle or some other bright, tinkling sort of name—curtsied very prettily. He bowed low over her hand and wished her a happy seventeenth birthday, a remark which set the girl to blushing and stammering and left him feeling like Methuselah’s great-uncle.

He moved swiftly away, wondering at the sensibilities of today’s youth. Then he recalled with some discomfort that seventeen—and barely that—was the age at which Madeleine had agreed to marry him. He turned around, and looked at the chit again. Good God, she was a
child
. And damned if there wasn’t a distinct resemblance to Madeleine. Treyhern’s girl was a fetching little thing—tall and slender, with hair the color of summer cornsilk. Her features were pretty and delicately formed, with that full lower lip which looked at once sensual and innocent.

Lord, what a bit of parson’s bait that was! But surely she was too young to wed? She could not possibly understand the full depth of commitment and duty which a marriage would bring. At seventeen, she could not grasp the gravity of life, or comprehend the obligations and challenges which adulthood forced on a person.

Which left him to wonder—how had he expected Madeleine to comprehend?

But it was too late to start making excuses for Madeleine’s faithlessness. She
had
married him. And she had given him up with scarcely a thought.

Just then, Maribelle-Arabelle caught him staring at her. The delicately formed features flushed three shades of pink, then the chit waggled her fingers at him, and burst into giggles.
Giggles
. Good God. It was time for him to slink off into some conspiratorial corner with the other unattached males.

At least the crowd was much smaller than one would have guessed, given the number of carriages, and no one seemed to be standing on any ceremony. Treyhern was wise, Merrick thought, to bring the chit into society in this gradual way, rather than to thrust her into the limelight at once, with a costly debutante ball or some other such nonsense.

Treyhern’s servants drifted through the withdrawing room with ease, balancing glasses of sherry and orgeat on wide silver trays. Merrick recognized most everyone present and knew a few of them well.

“MacLachlan!” Someone slapped him heartily on the shoulder. “I trust I find you hale and hearty?”

Merrick turned to see one of the directors from the Bank beaming up at him.

This was, he reminded himself, one of his reasons for being here. “Quite well, sir. Yourself?”

And thus began a series of those meaningless little conversations which one is required to sustain during society affairs. In the process of making his way around the room, Merrick was required to expound twice upon the age and health of Queen Adelaide—who was definitely
not
enceinte—thrice upon the issue of whether the Lords were dragging their feet over reform—they definitely were—and five times upon the weather, which was generally allowed to be fine. Or dampish. Or too warm. Or verging on rain. Depending upon whom one asked.

By means of his willingness to rattle on about such inanities, and to make a few geographically strategic maneuverings, Merrick was able to keep Madeleine on the opposite side of the room. Until they were called to dinner, when he discovered that Lady Treyhern had seated them together.

Madeleine looked a little stricken. He bowed to her politely and pulled out her chair. “Lady Bessett,” he said. “Good evening.”

“Mr. MacLachlan,” she murmured. “What a surprise.” There was a flash of fire in her eyes.

“Don’t look daggers at me, my dear,” he said in an undertone. “I did not choose the guest list. Did you?”

She said nothing, and slid into her chair, holding her body a little away from his as she did so. Her scent settled over him like a cloud. It was the light fragrance of soap and jasmine and something else he could not name. Something faint, and achingly familiar.

The dark green silk, he noticed, matched her fiery eyes, and looked magnificent against her pale skin. The gown was unadventurous by Town standards, but cut low enough to reveal the turn of her shoulders and the delicate span of her collarbones.

Merrick forced his attention to the others being seated. In keeping with the occasion, the meal was not especially formal, nor the food particularly elaborate. At first, there was much laughter, and good-natured ribbing of the chit, whose name he finally remembered was Ariane, not Arabelle. The worst of the teasing came from a handsome young man introduced as the girl’s uncle, Treyhern’s brother, who had a look of pure devilment in his eye and whom the girl seemed to adore.

Merrick and Madeleine were seated nearer Lady Treyhern’s end of the table, and the lady seemed determined to see everyone comfortable, and conversed all around her with ease. Treyhern himself was more taciturn, but he managed well enough. He was, however, throwing the occasional glance down the table at Merrick, as if he were troubled by something. Well, society bedamned. Between his host and his dining companion, Merrick was beginning to feel just a tad unwanted.

Madeleine had turned to speak to the gentleman on her right. Her soft, buttery-colored hair was curling in tiny tendrils at the back, and the perfect turn of her neck was unadorned by so much as a strand of pearls. Indeed, it hardly needed ornamentation. For a moment, he was unable to tear his eyes away. There was a spot—yes, just below her pulse point—which had once fascinated him for the whole of one evening. Her skin was warm there, and exceptionally soft. It was the sort of spot, he well knew, where a man might set his lips and be rewarded with little shivers of delight.

He had always imagined that if ever he saw her again, she would be greatly altered—that the sun of Italy would have aged her, and that the years of marriage would have left something—a furrow in her forehead or a sag beneath her chin. But there was nothing. Nothing save for a few tiny lines about her eyes and a sort of weary skepticism in her gaze. She was the same, and, to his undying disappointment, he still found her lovely.

She must have felt the heat of his gaze. Her eyes, when they turned on him, were hostile for an instant. He felt suddenly like a raw lad again and looked away. Then he turned back. This simply would not do. Good manners, the bane of his existence tonight, obliged him to talk to her. Up and down the length of the table, everyone was chattering like old friends. Surely he and Madeleine could manage it?

“How is your son, Lady Bessett?” he asked, as the footmen began move unobtrusively around the table, laying the next course. “I trust he has recovered?”

“How kind of you to ask.” Her voice was so cool they might have been strangers. “He goes on reasonably well.”

“ ‘Reasonably well’ sounds a bit paltry for a bright, vigorous boy like Geoff,” Merrick replied.