A Lady Betrayed (17 page)

“Such a romantic, he is,” his wife concluded.

“After the third reading, you can wed any morning you choose,” Mrs. Masham continued, like a dog that will not let go of a bone, “a quiet ceremony is no doubt most appropriate under the circumstances.”

“On the contrary,” the viscount said, his tone quite pleasant, and his smile unblemished, although Maddie at least could make out the adversarial gleam in his eyes. “It will not be quiet at all. In fact, I take the opportunity forthwith to invite you all to come and witness our ceremony.”

“You do?” she murmured to her fiancé, but he simply smiled at her.

“Of course, should not all your friends be a party to our happiness?” he murmured back.

And such friends they were, too, she thought. But she could see he was too exasperated at the annoying Mrs. Masham to take back his blanket invitation, even if he could without being impossibly rude. Oh, well, she didn't mind. In fact, the whole world could come and see them wed—the blazing joy she would be feeling might flash across the whole orb itself, outshine the sun and blind the heavens!

Except, if it meant that the viscount would leave, would feel compelled to continue his wanderings in order to protect her from…no, she mustn't think about that just now.

Mrs. Masham had a sour expression on her face. She turned to locate Mr. Masham, who was standing in the corner of the room drinking a large glass of wine, and crooked a finger to summon him. He frowned and affected not to see her signal.

His hairline was receding, and his stomach expanding, Maddie noted. And he had a stain on his waistcoat. Her sister Juliana, who had once been courted by Masham, would be more than happy that she had not seriously considered his suit; Maddie would have to remember to mention that in her next letter. Not that Juliana's husband was not already a thousand times more preferable in every respect.

They were called in to dinner, and Maddie gave Adrian a quick smile before they had to separate. “You are a magnificent champion, my lord,” she said, keeping her tone formal. “Thank you.”

“Thank you, my lady,” he responded, his own tone as stately.

She laughed. “I am not your lady yet.”

“Perhaps not to the rest of the world,” he interjected. “But in my heart, you are.”

This sent her into the dining room in such a good mood that she hardly minded that her dinner partner on one side was over ninety and spent the meal extolling the virtues of Dr. AllGood's Miraculous Lotion for Arthritic Pain and her partner on the other just out of the schoolroom and too shy to speak at all, keeping his face almost in his plate.

No one monopolized the conversation and took over the table, and no one—to her relief—brought up the topic of the recent war.

When the ladies withdrew, leaving the men to their wine and conversation, she had Felicity by her side, so even with the poisonous Mrs. Masham among the women, Maddie did not feel alone.

She was not even dismayed when the waspish matron made a point of sitting down across from her. Happily, Felicity had taken the chair beside her, so Maddie could not be completely ambushed. She kept thinking in terms of savage peoples, Maddie thought, hiding a grin. But then Mrs. Masham, despite her new gown with its latest most fashionable trim, which she spent the first ten minutes telling everyone in the room about, had the most barbaric heart of anyone here.

“I suppose you will soon outshine us all, will you not, Miss Applegate?” The barbarian herself suddenly turned back to Maddie, who jumped slightly. She had made the mistake of taking her attention away from her formidable neighbor.

“Pardon me?”

“When you become Viscountess Weller?” another lady explained, her tone arch.

“Yes, indeed. I'm sure your clothing allowance will be much increased,” Mrs. Masham almost purred. “Why, if such a thought had occurred to me, I might have gotten lost in the wood on a stormy night myself.”

The silence in the room was suddenly tense.

Maddie raised her brows. This was a truly nasty cut—to suggest that she would deliberately fake her illness in order to trap the viscount into marriage and thus improve her standard of living, enrich her place in life.

For a moment, she thought she was literally seeing red. She opened her mouth to blast this insufferable woman—

“Money is not everything,” another voice, cool and in command, cut in. It was Felicity, sounding detached and hardly interested. “Taste is even more crucial. For example, that color of blue in your oh-so-fashionable trim does not
quite
clash with the sea green in your gown, and I would not be so rude to point it out if it did, but if so, it would, of course, quite ruin the effect of your lovely and I'm sure quite costly new gown. But it does go to show that having sufficient funds does not, in itself, guarantee the final effect of one's couture.”

“My outfit is perfectly matched!” Mrs. Masham snapped.

“Of course it is,” Felicity agreed, her tone tranquil.

The other ladies simply watched, their expressions exhibiting every emotion from fascination to horror.

Maddie, quite forgotten, had the chance to pull herself together before she made a total fool of herself. To bite the odious woman's head off, as much as she longed to do it, would only convince Mrs. Masham, and many of the others, that the charges might have some truth in them. She had to look unmoved, perhaps even amused. Thank goodness for Felicity. Maddie drew a calming breath.

Mrs. Masham sputtered a bit more about her dressmaker and how dear were her prices, and how perfect her feel for color and hue and fashion. No one had the inclination to argue. When at last she spun to a halt, Felicity spoke again.

“Has anyone else seen more evidence of that band of gypsies still lingering in the neighborhood?”

This topic brought immediate response.

“Oh, my, yes,” their hostess answered, fluttering her fan and looking relieved at the change in subject. “They stole a lamb from one of Mr. Fritzwell's tenants, and the poor man was quite agitated, as well he might be.”

“They snatched a whole day's worth of clean wash from behind my gardener's cottage, clothesline and all!” another lady said.

“And they not only stripped my best cherry tree of all its fruit but dug out the tree,” another lady said, putting down her teacup so abruptly that it clattered. “What on earth they will do with it, I cannot think, as everyone knows they never settle, but only wander about.”

“Oh, they'll sell it, the next village they come to,” another woman said darkly. “But you'll never see it again.”

The other ladies nodded, and as more complaints were exchanged, Maddie said quietly to Felicity, “Have you had anything stolen, Felicity?”

Her friend shook her head. “But I've seen footprints around my cottage. And this morning when I woke, I thought I saw a man staring into my cottage window.”

“Oh, my dear! How alarming,” Maddie said.

Felicity looked grim. “I wasn't sure, at first, if it was only part of my dream—I had just opened my eyes. But later, I went outside and saw footprints in the dirt beneath the window, and I'm sure they are not mine; the size is wrong, for one thing.” She shivered. “It does make one a bit—well, they can be a rough lot. One hears about attacks that are most disconcerting.”

“You will certainly stay with us tonight,” Maddie told her. “And perhaps you should stay for a while, till we know that this band is gone out of the neighborhood.”

Here she was worried about sharp-tongued gossips, and Felicity was living alone in an isolated cottage, subject to wandering vandals, who might be even more dangerous than they knew, Maddie thought.

The men were joining them now, and their hostess was making up card tables. After a few rounds of cards, the party broke up, and Maddie was happy enough to say her farewells.

In the carriage ride home, they could talk softly, and when they reached home, she found her father still up. She told him about the gypsies and their transgressions, and he agreed at once that Felicity should remain with them for the time being.

“As long as you like,” he added. “You are certainly not safe down that isolated lane all on your own.”

Felicity's smile was tremulous. “You're very kind,” she said, her voice husky.

“You have enough with you for tonight, I think,” Maddie said. “Tomorrow, Thomas and I will go with you to help bring back what you need for a longer stay.”

Felicity gave her an impulsive hug, then Maddie showed her upstairs to the guest chamber next to the viscount's room. If there was a drawback to having another guest, Maddie thought, it was that it made it more difficult—or even impossible—to slip into the viscount's room for more forbidden trysts. But perhaps having a full-time chaperone would remind Maddie that she must behave.

Too bad that behaving properly was not at all what she wished to do!

She saw Adrian watching her from his doorway and knew from his impish grin that he was almost certainly reading her thoughts.

“Are you sorry?” she paused to whisper to him as Felicity went inside and closed her bedroom door.

“What must be, must be,” he answered, keeping his voice low. “It's true that she was not safe where she was, all alone. And as for us—”

“Yes?”

“I suppose we should be chaste in thought and deed, as the vicar would advise,” he answered.

She must have looked most disappointed because he laughed silently at her expression and leaned to give her a sudden hard kiss.

“Or else,” he whispered into her ear, “very very quiet.”

Grinning, she kissed him back and walked with lighter heart to her own room.

Once inside, she washed and changed into her nightgown and climbed into bed. But the impression of the kiss lingered, and she hungered for more. Her bed seemed very empty. She wished for some way to signal Adrian to come and join her. She could tiptoe her way back down the hall to his room, of course, but every step was a chance to be seen, and she would blush indeed if they were caught in their illicit lovemaking…not that Felicity would tell her father, but still.

Sighing, Maddie tried to redirect her thoughts—not easy with her body craving the viscount's practiced and loving touch. She reached over to the table beside her bed and picked up the packet of her mother's letters, once again reaching into the pile and selecting one at random.

Just a glimpse, she told herself, just a few lines. Somehow that made her feel less intrusive than reading the whole letter, the whole stack.

When she unfolded the paper, her heart seemed to skip a beat. The handwriting was different! This letter was not written in her mother's flowing soft script. Perhaps her father—no, no, nor was it in her father's more compact hand.

She had seen his writing in his household budget books, and in short notes to merchants and other business letters she had sometimes had reason to add her own notes to or carry to the village for him.

What could this be?

She should close it and put it back, one part of her mind said.

Maddie knew she should not read it, but now that she had seen it—now that she knew her mother had kept a letter from some unknown person—she could just as easily have stopped breathing.

Perhaps it was only a fond female friend, Maddie tried to tell herself. Yes, it was only a dear friend from some other shire…

But a quick glance at the salutation ended that theory, as the letter began:

Oh, heavens! Someone else had written her mother a love letter?

She felt sick, as if her own world had suddenly been shaken, as if her foundations had crumbled.

She could not bring herself to read any more.

Perhaps she was wrong about the handwriting; perhaps it was her father's. Perhaps the carriage accident, even though most of the damage had been to his legs and hips, had nonetheless changed his style of handwriting, she told herself desperately, perhaps—

She turned the page over and scanned it for the signature.

James

Who in heaven's name was James?

P
eople could be in love with more than one person,
she tried to tell herself. It was just that her mother had married her father quite young…she had had little time to fall out of love with one man and into love with another. And her papa had always said that they had known each other since childhood and always been fond of each other. She had pictured their relationship as two childhood sweethearts growing into a more mature romance as they had reached adulthood.

When did that leave time for another man?

Perhaps this was some poor young man whose unrequited love had not been returned. Just an acquaintance carried away by her mother Elizabeth's pretty face and sweet nature? That thought gave Maddie a space to still her fast-beating heart and clasp her shaking hands together. That could be why her mother had kept the letter, out of pity.

But she had to know. She found she was out of bed reaching for her shawl and pushing her feet into her slippers. Her father might be already asleep, but if not—

She could not bear to lie awake all night wondering what this piece of paper meant about the mother she thought she had known, about her parents' marriage, their deep love that she had assumed had been so true and untroubled.

Easing open her door, she ran as noiselessly as she could for the stairs, tiptoeing down, avoiding the steps that she knew would creak. On the ground floor, the hall was shadowy and dim, but a light still burned in her father's bedroom. She could see the brighter glow in the crack beneath his door.

She hurried to his doorway and tapped lightly on the panel of the door.

“Yes?” came the voice from inside.

She turned the knob and pushed open the door.

His expression surprised, John Applegate lowered the book he was reading and looked up at her from his bed. “My dear, is something wrong?”

Then she was kneeling by his bed without even knowing how she got there. “Papa, who is James?”

From the change in his face, Maddie knew that this was not a slight acquaintance of her mother's, not at all.

She felt her heart sink, and wondered too late if it would have been better not to have asked, never to have known. Once the apple was bitten, would Eve have chosen to put away all knowledge? But how could one choose ignorance when the choice is given?

“If I have distressed you, Papa…”

He had put one hand to his face, but he lowered it and shook his head. “No. I had thought perhaps your mother had told you, but you were still so young when she died.” He sighed. “What makes you ask, now?”

“I found a packet of letters in the attic, when I was going through a chest of some of her dresses, looking for material to remake. I haven't read them, just looked at a few passages. But I saw the name, and…” Her voice faltered at the expressions that flickered across his face. “You don't have to answer, Papa.”

“Better that you hear it from me, my girl,” he said, his mouth firming. “If your grandparents had not already passed, if—but there are always rumors, you know. I would not have someone in the shire throw out a harsh remark, someday when least expected, and wound you. Better to be prepared.”

She thought of the acid-tongued Mrs. Masham and nodded slowly.

“Pull up the stool, my dear, the floor is cold, and I do not want you to catch a chill,” he said, and when she obeyed, pushed a knitted blanket toward her to wrap around her.

Maddie found that she was shivering, but she thought it more from nerves than from the cool of the night. The cold seemed to have settled inside her. To find that her beloved parents that she thought she knew so well had such secrets—it shook her to her core. Now she waited, impatient and at the same time terrified, to hear about the great enigma that had been hidden from her all this time.

“What I told you was quite true.” Her father spoke slowly, not quite meeting her eye. “I had known your mother since we were children. We grew up on estates, both not terribly large, which were not that far apart. She was a sweet-natured girl, pretty and kind, and I always liked her. But as she grew, and I went off to university, I had the chance to go to London for a year or two, and you know about my misadventure there.” His mouth hardened for a moment, and Maddie waited.

Recently she and her sisters had learned, to their shock, of the existence of their half brother, Lord Gabriel Sinclair, when he had tracked down their father. At that point the long-ago affair between John Applegate and Gabriel's mother had been brought to light.

“When I returned home, after I'd agreed that I must give up my forbidden love, I was depressed and lonely, and—I'm sorry to say—given to bouts of self-pity, thinking only of myself. At first I didn't notice that Elizabeth was also in something of a state.

“But we both attended an alfresco party, dining at tables brought out under the trees. We had walked a little apart, and she passed out almost at my feet. I carried her to a nearby stream to revive her, and only then did I find out what had happened. While I was gone, Elizabeth had fallen in love with a young ensign visiting his cousin, who lived on a neighboring estate. The pair had made a secret betrothal, and the young man had planned to return to elicit her father's consent so they could be wed. But he had been sent back to sea earlier than he'd expected and was killed in a sudden engagement. Then Elizabeth discovered she was—ah—with child.”

Her father paused, and Maddie knew her eyes had widened. Her mother had made love before she was married?

Good heavens!

Of course, she'd done so herself a mere few hours before, but her own mother? Somehow, one didn't imagine one's parents to be so—so human! First to find out that her father as a young man had been so fallible as to fall in love with a married woman in peril from an abusive husband and to try to come to her aid, in the end to no avail, and then to find her mother in such straits for being so precipitant as to make love before she was wed…and then for Elizabeth to learn that she was increasing and unwed, a situation always totally unacceptable.

“Oh, my goodness, what was she going to do?” Maddie asked, putting her hands to her cheeks, thinking what a panic her mother must have been in.

“Yes, that was the question,” her father agreed, his tone grim just from the memory. “You can imagine what her father, what both her parents, would have said. And the community would have turned their backs on her. She was almost sick from considering it. Her condition was not yet obvious, but soon would be. She had not meant it to happen, of course. The poor young man had not meant to leave her in such sad straits, either, I assure you, Madeline; he had every intention of coming back to be wed. The French had the devil's luck—the wind on their side and a good aim with their cannon—and managed to end his life before he could get leave again, that was all. Poor James McInnon.”

James—her father! Maddie felt a strange pang shoot all the way through her. She had to blink hard.

“So I offered her my name and my protection,” her father—oh, no, not her father—continued. “What else could I do? As I said, I was always fond of Elizabeth, and at the moment, for myself, it hardly mattered as I didn't expect to ever fall in love again. And she was so distressed that I felt for her…” He sighed.

Maddie blinked; her eyes were filling, and her throat ached with a strange pain. “That was very good of you,” she managed to croak out.

“No, no.” He put his hands down and shifted in his bed. “Not at all. She was a dear friend, you know. And she was so grateful, it pulled me out of my stupid melancholy. I felt that I was doing something useful, at last. As it turned out, we were most content together; that was not a lie, Madeline, so I don't wish you to consider anything different.”

He looked at her anxiously, and when he saw the tears on her cheeks, he made a distressed sound and reached out to touch her face. “We ended up loving each other, I want you to believe that. We lived together very happily. I'm sure I never regretted our marriage.”

She nodded.

“Nor did your mother, I am confident, even though she could not have her first love. She had been so frightened of what would occur—and she was so thankful—and we were two people who were much of a kind, she always said, soft-spoken and amiable, and we did know each other well, so it was a good match. You came along a bit soon, of course, but these things happen, and if there was talk, it died away. We didn't care.”

He smiled at her, but this time, she couldn't contain her tears. She had to lean forward and hide her face on the bed.

“Oh, my darling girl, do not cry,” he said, his tone anxious. “I am so sorry to have to tell you such shocking tidings.”

He patted her shoulder, but it was a few minutes before she could control the spasms of sobs.

Her father—no, Mr. Applegate; she couldn't think what to call him—found a large white handkerchief beneath his pillow to hand her, and she wiped her face.

“I don't know very much about the young man. I believe he came from the Lowlands, but we can make inquires if you wish to locate his family and find out more—”

This time she shook her head vigorously. “No! At least, not yet. I do not know what I wish. I must—give me time to think about it, please.”

“As you wish,” he said quickly. “I didn't know if you would wish to know more. That perhaps that was part of your distress, learning that you had a father who was quite unknown to you, and then losing him at the same moment you had first heard of him?”

Again she shook her head. She thought, No, you—this is the father I have lost. But she could not speak the words aloud.

She wanted to reach out for his hand. Only a few moments ago, she would have, easily, naturally, but now something stood between them.

He was not her father.

She was not his daughter.

She had been living a lie, and no one had told her…they had not trusted her enough to tell her the truth.

Why had they not told her?

Her own mother had not told her…

Reeling inside from the stunning blow, she felt curiously light-headed. She managed to straighten her shoulders.

“I must get back to my room,” she said, her voice a peculiar croak even to her own ears.

Mr. Applegate watched her with an anxious expression on his face. “Are you sure you will be all right? Should I call for Bess?”

Even though it was a falsehood, she shook her head. “No, I am fine.” The servants likely knew more than she did! She had no inclination to discuss the subject any more just now. She wanted her own room, she wanted to be alone, her thoughts were all ajumble.

“Madeline, you must know that I could not have loved you any more than I do. You will always be my dearest girl, my first and most cherished daughter, no matter how you were engendered.”

She felt a strange ache in her throat. She had to get out of the room before she fell apart completely. Maddie backed away, one hand holding her candle and one on her throat. “I must get back to bed,” she said, avoiding meeting his eye.

“If you wish to talk again later, I will be happy—anytime—” he called after her, his tone still anxious, as she fled out the door and eased it shut behind her.

The hall was quiet and cold.

How quickly could your life change, she thought. Yes, to the world she was still Madeline Applegate, but now she knew that her surname should have been…McInnon? No, they had not managed to marry. How was a bastard styled? That was a bitter thought!

Perhaps that was why her mother had not told her, one part of her mind noted, with cold clarity, but it would not do. She deserved to know her own history, surely, she did.

Overwhelmed—it made her limp trying to absorb so much—she climbed the stairs slowly, feeling more lonely than she ever had in her life. The rooms on the other end of the hall were dark, and the house echoed with quiet. Her candle sent shadows quivering down the long hallway.

In front of the guest chamber where Adrian slept, she hesitated, then reached to touch the knob. She wanted to turn it. She knew instinctively that it was not locked, that it would turn beneath her hand. Inside, the chamber was dark, there was no line of light beneath the door, and its occupant must be asleep.

She should go back to her own room, she thought, and not disrupt his slumber. Besides, somehow, though she longed for his presence, for his comforting arm about her shoulders, another part of her wanted no man near her just now.

No man to hurt her, as her mother had been hurt…no man to walk away just when she needed him the most…and worse—he did plan to walk away.

Maddie lifted her hand from the doorknob and continued her slow pace down the hallway till she could climb into her own lonely bed, her heart frozen and her body cold, where she shivered beneath the bedclothes, all alone.

In fact, she woke early, when the darkness was only just
graying. She tried to sleep again, but her newfound knowledge all came rushing back. All she could do was lie still against the pillow and stare up at the curtains of the bed.