Three Little Secrets (9 page)

“Oh, God!” Madeleine squeezed her eyes closed. “Geoffrey!”

“Geoffrey?”

“My son,” she whispered.

Dear Lord. The boy by the well?

“Please, Merrick,” she begged. “Please say no more of this business. I could not bear it if people called him—”

“They won’t dare!” he interjected sharply. “People will call him
nothing
, Madeleine. Good God, do you think I mean to hang our laundry in Mayfair? Do you think I stood idly by for all those years whilst you lived with another man and called him your husband, just so I might stir up a scandal now? Do you think I am proud of what my marriage has come to?”

“You—you are rich now,” she whispered. “You could have divorced me—if what you say is true.”

“Not this side of hell, my dear,” he returned. “You’ll go to your grave wishing for that.”

“I—I don’t wish it!” she cried.

“No, you do not,” he agreed. “It is a vile, very public process, and your son would surely be ruined then.”

“All I wish is to be left alone,” she said. “To live out my life in peace.”

“In that, madam, I can oblige you,” he said. “I have no interest in cutting up your peace, or even of laying eyes on your again, if possible. You are dead to me, Madeleine. As dead as you were the day you climbed into your father’s carriage, and abandoned me to my fate.”

She winced at his words, but did not back down. “Very well, then,” she said. “Kindly take back your house.”

“No. I shan’t.”

It was irrational, he knew. He had told himself that a man should put a roof over his wife’s head, that it was his duty, no matter who she was or what she had done. But did he somehow imagine that if he forced it on her, she would be any more his? The legalities of the matter aside, she was not his and never would be.

“I am not a poor woman, Merrick,” she whispered. “But I have lived almost all my life under the thumb of one man or another. Until four years ago, I had never chosen anything—
anything
—for myself, save for the occasional bolt of dress fabric. I have always had what everyone else thought I needed. Have you any idea what that is like?”

The truth was, he did not. And what did it really matter now? She loathed him, and he loathed her. Whatever she had done, it was what she had
not
done which haunted him.

Roughly, he cleared his throat. “Seven thousand pounds, then.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“The price of the house,” he said. “If you still want it. And Madeleine?”

“Yes?”

He did not look directly at her, nor did he approach her again. He knew better. “Pray do not come here again. Deal with Rosenberg.”

“Very well.” The words were a soft whisper, followed by the even softer click of the door as she opened it. But on the threshold, she hesitated, her sharp intake of breath unmistakable.

With a strange sense of dread, Merrick turned in his chair. Bess Bromley stood in the corridor, the thrusting swell of her milk-pale breasts unmistakable, even in the shadows. Phipps was with her, his face flooding bright crimson. Clearly he had forgotten having shown Madeleine upstairs.

Her expression bleak, Madeleine pushed past both of them without another word and vanished. Across the distance, Bess’s bold gaze burned into Merrick, already hot and greedy. Merrick’s stomach twisted, sending bile surging into his throat.

“My apologies, Mr. MacLachlan.” Phipps choked out the words. “It has been a busy day. Miss Bromley is here to see you.”

Merrick had already jerked open his top drawer, and withdrawn a sheet of letter paper. “Miss Bromley’s services are not required today, Phipps,” he managed. “I shall send for her when she is needed. Now kindly show her out.”

Madeleine waited until she was situated deep in the shadows of her carriage before she burst into tears. Oh, she was so angry! So angry and so hurt. So humiliated by her own damnable emotions. She did not need more pain; no, not at this point in her life. She had believed herself finally on the verge of contentment, if not happiness. She was not even ready to think about Merrick’s wild allegations, claims so outlandish, one could hardly countenance them, let alone comprehend them.

Right now, she had to deal with the shock of simply seeing him again after thirteen years. Their accidental meeting last week almost did not count, the moment had been so surreal. And that woman waiting by his office! Dear God. Her eyes had sent a chill down Madeleine’s spine. So flat. So void of feeling. Her purpose, too, had been quite clear.

The carriage was rolling away, the harnesses jingling loudly. For just an instant, Madeleine allowed herself the luxury of giving in completely to the grief. She buried her face in her handkerchief and let her shoulders begin to shake. The sobs came heavily then, the great, heaving gulps of her girlhood. She had not cried thus in better than a dozen years. No, not since she had lost him—or lost the man she had loved, was perhaps a better way of putting it.

The morning after her wedding, Papa had arrived in Gretna Green to tell her that Merrick was not the man she thought him. And he had shown her proof. Now, she was not sure where the facade ended, and the real Merrick began. He was a stranger to her. And yet he seemed the very same: a tall, dark implacable pillar of certainty. A man who knew his own abilities. His own mind. Yes, his confidence—that was what had made her fall in love with him, for at seventeen, she had possessed little of that quality herself.

In the beginning, she had not even believed herself ready for her come-out. She had begged Papa to leave her in Sheffield just one more year. Aunt Emma had pressed him, too. Madeleine had never been out of the country a day in her life, her aunt had warned. She had not had the benefit of a mother to bring her along and initiate her into the ways of the
haut monde.
Indeed, she had turned seventeen only days before. But Papa had not wished to listen. He had patted Madeleine on the head, as if she were one of his prized spaniels, and told her he had the utmost confidence that she would do him proud.

But his confidence had been misplaced. Less than halfway through her very first London season, Lady Madeleine Howard had fallen head over heels in love with a nobody. She had been but six weeks out of the schoolroom when first she’d set eyes on him. Aunt Emma had taken her to a ball given by the Duke and Duchess of Forne, and if it had not been love at first sight upon seeing Merrick MacLachlan, it certainly had been utter fascination. The duke, a patron of classical architecture, had just engaged Merrick to draw the plans for a magnificent new country house, after interviewing some two dozen older, more prominent architects.

Merrick’s name had been on everyone’s tongue—and on the duchess’s guest list. He had stood in one corner, dispassionately eyeing the crowd over the rim of his champagne glass, looking utterly bored, thoroughly unimpressed, and breathtakingly handsome. He had been with his brother and some of Sir Alasdair’s rakish friends. And yet no one would have mistaken Merrick for a rake, or even a fribble, which was what most of the other young men in attendance had appeared to be. No, Merrick had stood apart from everyone, and everyone had noticed.

He and Madeleine had exchanged long glances—several of them—but no words. He had not even bothered to hide his interest in her, and Madeleine had found it flattering. For days afterward, she had been able to think of nothing but the tall, dark, young man with the heavy black hair and haunting, ice-blue eyes. Eyes which were the color, she had imagined, of a glacier, though she had certainly never seen one. Indeed, she had seen almost nothing of the world beyond her papa’s vast estate.

After that night, Merrick began to be seen at a great many society affairs, though he never looked as though he enjoyed them. But his brother’s title, along with the duke’s patronage, gave him entrée, and made him marginally acceptable. Aunt Emma and Papa had been unimpressed. Sir Alasdair’s wealth, whilst vast, was not old money, they warned. It came instead from gaming, and in some very low places, too. The younger brother, of course, was worse. He practically
worked
for a living, Aunt Emma had stressed.

Madeleine had been undeterred. Within days, she had begun slipping away to meet Merrick at every opportunity, and looking back, she was not sure where the courage had come from. All the while, Papa had kept pressing the suit of Lord Henry Winters, a pleasant, pimpled boy who still trod on her toes when they danced.

By the end of the season, with Papa holding fast to his vehement disapproval, Merrick had persuaded her that there was but one alternative left to them. And then, somehow, she had simply been overcome by events. She had loved Merrick, loved him simply and deeply. From the very first, her body and her soul had come alive to his touch. It was a touch she had yearned for; and to her undying dismay, the yearning had never ended.

After it was all over, and Papa had come to Scotland to fetch her back, and to pay Merrick the money he had so desperately wanted, Madeleine had been deposited at the family pile in Sheffield to lick her wounds and dry her tears. Then, just as he always did, Papa had gone straight back to Town—this time to see how much damage had been done her reputation.

The answer, apparently, was not much. Perhaps because Merrick was such an unknown, no one in London had seemed to realize he was gone. Madeleine had waited alone in Sheffield, still hoping against hope that Merrick would come for her. But weeks passed without so much as a letter. Aunt Emma, of course, had fired off countermeasures at once. Lady Madeleine had the mumps. She had retired to the country for rest. She would return to town for next year’s season.

But she had not been able to return after all. Instead, Papa had married her off to Lord Bessett, a noted scholar of antiquities, and her late mother’s cousin. Bessett, who was in the process of packing up his bags and his eight-year-old son for a long expedition to the Continent, had readily agreed that a wife might be a handy thing to have, though he was too busy to actually go out and look for one. For Madeleine, the long expedition had turned into eight endless years of slogging about Italy and Campania, whilst forcing herself to be a dutiful wife to a man more than twice her age.

And now Merrick was claiming that they were still married? That her lonely years abroad had been…what? A joke? A lie? A wasted sacrifice? It simply was not possible. The very thought made her tears come harder. At that moment, however, the carriage slowed to make the sharp turn at the village post office. Madeleine did her best to gather herself though she had little hope of fooling Eliza.

She knew at once, however, that something was amiss when Eliza met her at the door, and said not a word about her tear-stained face. Instead, the maid was almost wringing her hands.

Madeleine felt a moment of panic. “What is it, Eliza?” she asked, tossing her shawl across a chair. “What is wrong?”

“It’s Geoffrey, my lady,” said the maid.

“Oh, God!” She dropped the deed and her reticule, spilling coins and keys across the floor. “What has happened? Is he hurt?”

Swiftly, Eliza shook her head. “No, ma’am,” she answered. “But he came home from one of his rambles this afternoon in a state. Went straight up to his room and locked the door. I’ve left him be, my lady, but…”

Without another word, Madeleine rushed up the narrow steps to Geoffrey’s door. Her knock went unheeded. “Geoff, it is Mamma,” she said. “I wish you to open the door. Now, please.”

There was nothing but silence.

“Geoffrey!” Madeleine’s voice went up a notch. “You are scaring me. Open the door.”

Eliza touched her lightly on the shoulder. “Could he be ill, ma’am?”

Madeleine’s hand was shaking now. “Fetch Mrs. Drexel’s keys,” she rasped. “Quickly, Eliza.”

The maid was gone but a minute, returning with a jangling brass ring, one of its skeleton keys between her fingers. Swiftly, she fitted it into the lock and turned it. At the sound of the door, Geoffrey lifted his head from his pillow and regarded his mother with a look of dread. His pallor was shocking. His eyes swam with unshed tears.

Dear God! Was this what life had come to? Both of them in tears, when she had wished only to ensure their happiness and contentment? She went at once to the bed, and sat down beside him. “Geoffrey, what is it?” she asked, stroking a hand down his heavy dark hair. “You have been crying. What has happened?”

At that, he buried his face in his pillow on a horrible sob. “Go away, Mamma!” he said. “Just leave me alone.”

“No, I shan’t,” she said firmly. “Not this time.”

“Go away!” He sounded at once like an angry young man and a terrified child. “Just go away! Do you hear me?”

“Oh, Geoffrey, my love!” she whispered. “Why can you not tell me what is wrong? It pains me so terribly to see you this distraught.”

“I don’t mean to pain you, Mamma.” He began sobbing in earnest now. “I
don’t
. I’m—I’m sorry. P-Please don’t be mad. Please, Mamma, don’t hate me.”

“Geoffrey, I could never hate you!” She bent forward and kissed his wet cheek. “Oh, my darling, you are the world to me. There is nothing you could do that would ever make me hate you.”

“You don’t know that, Mamma!” he cried. “You
don’t
! There are things—bad things I—I just…”

His words withered away. Again, she stroked his hair, just as she had done when he was a small child. Always it had soothed him, but today, it seemed to bring him no comfort.

“What is it, Geoffrey, that I don’t know?” she asked quietly. “What kinds of things are you talking about? Did something happen this afternoon?”

He shook his head, his dark hair scrubbing against the pillow. “I—I’m just a freak. That’s what happened! J-Just leave me alone!”

“Geoffrey!” she gently chided. “I have asked you not to say that. You are not a freak. You are…you are brilliant, and very talented.”

His sobs were subsiding now, and he was growing still. Madeleine knew of nothing to do but wait. And so she did, with one hand clenched in her lap, the other rhythmically stroking him, and her heart wrenched with grief.