Three Little Secrets (5 page)

“Aye, that would explain her thirteen-year absence, would it not?” said Merrick sourly.

“More or less,” his friend agreed. “I hope you were not looking forward to a reconciliation.”

“Just shut up, Quin,” said Merrick again.

Wynwood seemed to take no offense, but nor did he listen. “Tell me, Merrick,” he said. “Have you any of that fine Finlaggan whisky in your desk?”

“Damned right I do. A full bottle.”

Wynwood let his hand fall. “Well, it’s a start,” he said, turning and heading down the hill. “Now come along, old fellow. I very much fear we are going to need it before this night’s out.”

Ne’er marry for money;
ye can borrow it cheaper.

M
adeleine rushed through the village in a blind panic.
Home
. She had to get home. This was insane. This was not possible. On the next corner, she pushed past a gentleman leaving the tobacconist, forcing him to step off the pavement. Farther along the street, Mrs. Beck called out a cheery hello from the post office. Madeleine looked at the woman blankly and hurried on by.

Home
. She had to get home. Her eyes searched wildly for her street and, seeing it, she turned. The tidy stone cottage sat at the end of the lane, solid and reassuring. She hastened toward it, looking, she later realized, a bit like a madwoman. She flung herself against the door, threw up the latch, and darted in, slamming the door behind her and sending the rest of her hair tumbling down.

Mrs. Drexel, her new housekeeper, was passing through the sitting room with a tray in her hands. “Good afternoon, my lady!” she said in mild surprise. “Is…is something amiss?”

“Eliza,” said Madeleine, gasping for breath. “I need Eliza. Where is she?”

The woman bobbed. “In the kitchen with Clara. I’ll send her straight up.”

Madeleine went up to her room and threw back the draperies which overlooked the little lane below. Her eyes ran the length of it, seeing nothing. But how foolish she was to even look! Did she really imagine he had
followed
her? If he hadn’t bothered to do so thirteen years ago, why would he trouble himself now?

Perhaps she really was going insane. Perhaps Merrick—or the thought of him—had finally succeeded in driving her stark staring mad.

Her maid came in, crossed the room, and touched her lightly on the shoulder. “My lady, what is it? What is wrong?”

“Oh, Eliza!” Madeleine let the draperies fall, and turned, her fingertips pressed to her lips. “Oh, dear God! It is
him.”

“Who, my lady?” Eliza’s hand was warm and reassuring. “It cannot be as bad as all that.”

“It can.” The words came out low and desperate.

“He—he has come back. After all these years, he has come back.”

Eliza stiffened abruptly. “Mr. MacLachlan?” she whispered. “Is that who you’d be meaning?”

Mutely, Madeleine nodded.

“Mary, Jesus, and Joseph,” she whispered. Then, as if thinking better of her words, she gave Madeleine’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Perhaps, my lady, you imagined it? Perhaps you saw…a relation? Someone who resembled him? There was a brother, you once said.”

“Sir Alasdair.” Madeleine shook her head. “But they look nothing alike.”

She went to the bed and sat down on it, tired and beaten. In flat, emotionless words, she relayed the entire story to her maid. “And so he is the man, it seems, who has built all these grand houses,” she finished. “Or he owns the company that built them. Or
something
like that. It seems he did not go back to Scotland after all.”

“Dear Lord!” said Eliza. “And his
wife
, he claimed? Why, of all the nerve!”

“Why would he say that, Eliza?” She looked up pleadingly at her maid. “Why, after all these years would he say such a thing?”

“Why, I cannot think!” said the maid. “Perhaps that’s how he sees it?”

“How could he?” Madeleine cried. “He—he
wanted
to be free of me! Or he wanted Papa’s money, at any rate. No, he never wanted me. Not really. Oh, Eliza, it is too cruel! I thought with Bessett dead, I might live out my life in peace. Is that too much to ask, Eliza?
Is
it?”

Eliza took her hand, and gave it a reassuring squeeze. “It is cruel, ma’am, and that’s the truth,” she said. “But perhaps this will be the last of it. Perhaps you’ll never see him again.”

“Oh, I pray I shall not!” Madeleine’s shoulders fell. “He looks—oh, Eliza, he looks…so different. So dark. Almost demonic. His hands are so long, his eyes so cold! And there is this scar—a horrid, horrid scar—oh, I cannot quite explain it. He looked himself, and yet entirely different. Does that make any sense at all?”

“I think I understand,” said Eliza, beginning to fluff the bed pillows. “The wicked never age well, or so they say.”

Madeleine flashed her a skeptical look. “I never heard that.”

Eliza gave a lame smile, and changed the subject. “Your new friend Lady Treyhern called whilst you were out.”

“Did she? Why, I did not expect…”

“She wishes you to come to tea on Saturday. And she wishes you to bring Mr. Geoffrey.”

“Oh, my!” Madeleine set her fingertips to her temple. “Geoff. Where is he?”

“He went out about two o’clock, my lady,” said Eliza. “He seemed his happy, regular self again. You—you do not mind, do you?”

Somehow, Madeleine found the energy to shake her head. “The exercise does him good,” she said quietly. “Dr. Fellows said it was not good for his—his
moods
to sit around with his nose stuck in a book.”

“Aye, he’s twelve now, and a grown-up twelve at that,” said Eliza. “There’s no harm that’ll come to him in the village.”

“No, I doubt it,” Madeleine agreed. “Oh, Eliza! This village! That
house
. How can I live in it now, knowing he is here?”

Eliza patted her hand again. “Oh, I doubt he means to make trouble, ma’am,” she said. “If he’d meant to, he’d have done it a long time ago. And you’ll not need to see him.
Will
you, ma’am?”

“I—I do not know,” Madeleine admitted. “This is such a small village. If he means to go about telling people that I am his
wife
—well, I simply cannot have it. He really must be made to stop. Oh, perhaps I should go to Mr. Rosenberg tomorrow and just ask him to tear up the contract? Perhaps we shall live in Town after all? Would you mind terribly, Eliza?”

“I think
you
would mind, my lady,” said Eliza soothingly. “And I think you would be angry with yourself for giving up yet another thing that you had your heart set on.”

A wry smile tugged at Madeleine’s mouth. “You know me too well, Eliza.”

“I know you well enough,” agreed the maid. “Now, why don’t you lie down and have a rest? Your head hurts, that’s something else I know. I’m going to fetch a cool cloth for your brow and draw the draperies. You’ll think what to do soon enough—and woe betide Mr. MacLachlan then.”

Madeleine did stretch out across the bed, but she did not surrender to the tears which had threatened earlier. “No, I shan’t let him best me, Eliza,” she vowed. “I am down, but far from done for.”

“That’s more like you, ma’am,” Eliza encouraged as she yanked the draperies closed. “You’re in the right, and he’s in the wrong. That, and you’re missing Loughton, and you had a bad morning with Mr. Geoffrey. It takes a toll, my lady.”

“But I shall recover, shan’t I?” said Madeleine grimly. “If he means to cause trouble for me, he won’t find the meek little girl he left behind. I have learnt to survive—and I’ll be damned if Merrick MacLachlan will get the best of me again. Not in the long run.”

Eliza had her hand on the doorknob. “Are you sure, then, that you wish to see Mr. Rosenberg, ma’am?” she asked, tossing a glance over her shoulder.

For a moment, Madeleine considered it. “Perhaps not, Eliza,” she answered. “Or perhaps Mr. Rosenberg can shed some light on this situation. There are some serious questions I should like an answer to.”

By the time the maid returned with a cool cloth and a cup of tea, Madeleine had kicked off her shoes, and was staring blindly at the ceiling as she replayed this afternoon’s disaster in her mind. But this time, she did not swoon. Instead, she cracked Merrick soundly across the face with the flat of her hand and told him just how much she had hated him all these years.

The tea was blessedly hot, but she soon realized it was laced with one of Eliza’s soothing concoctions. Madeleine did not ask what it was, and instead simply drank it down. After today’s horrible events, she was content to simply give herself over into Eliza’s capable hands. And by the time the maid rechecked the curtains to ensure that not a sliver of light penetrated the room, Madeleine was beginning to drift away.

She was thinking, oddly, of Merrick—not as he was, but as she had once seen him through young and guileless eyes. She had loved him with a depth and breadth she had not known was possible. He had seemed invincible and passionate. Brilliant. Gentle. And worldly—or so she had believed. But in the end, he had proven as naïve and stupid as had she.

No. No, that was not right. Madeleine curled her hand into her pillow, and struggled to think straight. To remember. Merrick had played upon her naïveté. He had pretended to be passionate and gentle. Was that not the truth? Was that not what Papa had said? But as the fog of sleep began to thicken, Madeleine found she was no longer sure. No longer certain where the veil of sweet memories ended, and the harsh, horrid truth began.

“Look, Maddie!” Cousin Becky’s lips were warm against her ear. “That man—the architect—he’s staring at you again.”

Madeleine drew herself fully up on the picnic blanket and looked across the expanse of grass. There he was. The very tall, very dark young man from last night. And from several nights before that, too. He regarded her as boldly as ever, his ice-blue eyes burning with an intensity she was just beginning to understand. Her pulse leapt wildly. Madeleine steadied herself with one hand, digging her fingers into the spring grass as if it might hold her heart earthbound.

“He is a nobody, Madeleine!” hissed Cousin Imogene. “The younger son of some Scottish baronet no one ever heard of—and his brother is a frightful rake. Do not return his gaze, I beg you. Mamma says he is presumptuous, and ought never have been invited here.”

Becky laughed at her sister. “You are just jealous, Imogene, because he did not dance with you last night. But he danced with me—and twice with Maddie!”

Imogene lifted her nose in the air. “Maddie is just out of the schoolroom,” she said. “She knows no better. But you do—and I tell you that Mr. MacLachlan is no gentleman. Why, Mamma overheard him offer to design a seaside villa for Lord Morton—and for money!”

“Yes, and Lord Morton jumped at the chance, did he not?” said Becky in a low, almost seductive voice. “As for me, I should jump at the chance to dance with him again. He is a true artist, they say.”

“He is a true pauper,” said her sister with a sniff.

“Well, he is quite the handsomest pauper I have ever seen,” Becky returned. “I think I should like to live with a starving artist. It would be divinely romantic, would it not?”

“You would starve, too.” Imogene snapped her fingers for emphasis. “Papa would cut you off like that.”

“All the more for you, then, Imogene.” Becky turned back to her young cousin so fast her ringlets bounced. “Maddie, you could have him! After all, you are an heiress.”

“I—I do not know.” Madeleine could not tear her eyes away from the dark young man’s. “I am afraid Papa will refuse.”

“Of course he will!” said Imogene huffily. “You are to marry Lord Henry Winters, and everyone knows it.”

“I do not know it,” said Madeleine quietly.

Imogene looked impatient. “Oh, Maddie, don’t be a goose!” she said. “How is Uncle Howard to become Prime Minister if you do not?”

“I can’t see what one has to do with the other,” she answered.

“That is how politics works, you gudgeon,” said Imogene. “You marry Henry, then Henry’s father and his conservative coalition will ally with Uncle Howard’s friends, and then Uncle will have a majority in the—”

“Hush, Imogene!” Becky reached out and pinched her sister’s arm. “You are just wrong. Uncle would never use Maddie in such a way.”

“That is how the world works,” Imogene chided. “Honestly, Becky, one would think you are as green from the country as Madeleine.”

But Madeleine was barely listening now. The dark young man—Mr. Merrick MacLachlan—was moving toward her, pacing inexorably across the grass, and bringing his burning blue eyes with him. Her heart leapt wildly, and her stomach turned upside down. She hoped—oh, yes, she hoped he would try to kiss her again.

He bent low over their blanket and offered an arm which looked strong and supple. A gold ring glittered on his little finger. “Lady Madeleine,” he said in his faint Scots accent, “would you care tae stroll wi’ me up the riverbank?”

Madeleine could not get her breath. “Why—I—I don’t—” She stopped, and swallowed hard. She was a little bit afraid of him. And even more afraid of herself. “Yes, Mr. MacLachlan. Very much.”

Madeleine did not look about for Aunt Emma, though she knew she should have done. She was almost certain Mr. MacLachlan was the sort of man her aunt had warned her about.

He spoke not another word but instead escorted her straight up the river until the picnic was but flickers of sound and color amongst the trees. Until the rhododendron became a thicket. Until the murmur of the gathering and the murmur of the water was one. Then he stopped and set her back against a slender tree. For a timeless moment, his heavy, ice-blue eyes roamed over her face, then his lashes dropped shut, and he lowered his mouth to hers.

Madeleine felt her knees go weak, and felt something delightfully wicked go twisting through her belly, just as it had last night. And then he was kissing her in a different way, opening his mouth over hers, and thrusting his tongue into her mouth with silken, languid motions. The sensation twisted lower, sending raw desire through her body. She began to tremble, and somehow got the heels of her hands against his shoulders. She pushed him halfheartedly away.

He lifted his mouth, and drew back.

“We might be caught,” she whispered.

His feverish gaze consumed her. “Aye, but I do nae care,” he rasped. “Do you?”

“I—I have no wish to make my father angry,” she answered. “And this kind of kissing—it is wrong, is it not?”