A Lady Betrayed (29 page)

“I did ask you to call me John,” he reminded her.

“I don't want the servants to talk,” she said, smiling a bit shyly. “They will think I'm taking too much liberty. And you know I would do anything I can to help the household run more smoothly. I had thought of offering to fill the position of housekeeper, if that would ease Madeline's mind; she does worry about your comfort and your ease.”

“Madeline is a loving daughter,” he agreed, with something in his expression she couldn't quite read. “But you are a lady born, Mrs. Barlow—and I cannot call you Felicity if you will not call me John! And as I said; you are a lady. You are not suited for the position of housekeeper.”

“But—”

“If you mean to speak of—what you do not wish to speak of in front of the servants”—he paused as Livvie returned with a new dish to place on the table—“that was not your fault and does not come into the discussion. And there is another problem.”

“Oh?” Puzzled, she glanced back at him.

“Perhaps we can finish this discussion later?” he said, his tone polite as Livvie served them a new offering of lamb and mint sauce.

“Of course,” she assured him. Then she looked back at her plate, dipping a spoon into the concoction there. Gracious, she would have to show these girls how to make a decent sauce, or everyone here would be thinner before Madeline returned home.

When the meal had been cleared away, and she had retreated to the sitting room, John soon came to join her.

He wheeled his chair to a comfortable distance in front of the hearth, and motioned to her to take the chair next to his, so she did.

“What is the problem?” she asked. “If there is something I can mend, I promise I will see to it at once.”

He smiled at her, and she thought, not for the first time, what a handsome man he was, and how kind and wise were his deep blue eyes, no matter the fine lines about them that the passage of years and the pain of his accident had engraved there.

He was an honorable man, and there were few enough of those in the world, as she had cause to know!

“I said there were problems that would prevent you from taking the position of housekeeper,” he told her.

She flushed. “Oh. I should not have mentioned it. If you prefer that I leave the house, I will understand, Mr. Applegate. I do not wish to cause you or your family any embarrassment, and your daughter is so kind-hearted—I mean, she did not know about my divorce when she offered to be my friend, and—”

“Hush,” he said, his voice firm. “Leave Madeline out of this; it does not concern her.”

“Oh?” Now she was more puzzled than ever. “But—”

“And please call me John. We are alone now, you will note. I told the maids to go to bed after they finished in the kitchen. If we need any more tea, you will have to make it, I fear.”

“I don't mind,” she assured him, not sure what this was about. “Indeed, I am happy to do anything—”

“Except what I most want you to do.” he interrupted.

“What?” This time she stared at him, nonplused.

“Felicity, my dear, I realize that I am only half a man, and it may be hard to see me as the man I once was.”

The pain in his voice made her wince, but she looked into his eyes and did not blink.

“Even so, I am going to risk the ultimate rejection. I know that you have not been treated well by one of my sex. So I can understand your hesitation if you have doubts…but nonetheless, my feelings for you have been growing ever since you have come to stay with us, and they demand that I dare to ask the question.”

Her heart was pounding so loudly that she could almost doubt the meaning of his words. He could not be about to say what she began to think he intended.

“I don't want you to be my housekeeper, Felicity. I love you, my dear. I very much wish for you to be my wife.”

“Oh!” She adored him so, and to hear such words…She jumped to her feet and almost walked into the fire, then stepped back just in time. For a moment, she almost could not see.

John could not stop her, but he watched her in concern. “If it causes you distress to consider it—”

“No, no, I mean, your wife would be a most fortunate woman, indeed. It's just that after the stillbirth, it was not just—not just more children that I was unable to consider in my future, John. I could not—I was so injured that—that I could not come together with a man without much pain. And my husband, my husband–”

She knew she must have flushed. She put one hand to her cheek. “He was most unhappy with the situation.”

“I see. If I had not already shot the bastard and shipped his body south, I think I should do it again,” John said, his tone dry.

She was so surprised she sat back down on her chair again.

“Felicity, do you recall that I am unable to walk, that my legs are useless to me? My injuries did, I fear, affect other functions of my body as well,” he pointed out, his tone gentle now.

“Oh,” she said, feeling very foolish. “Yes, I did realize that, John. I just—how thoughtless of me. I have been so aware of my own—my own inadequacies that for a moment I forgot that you have your own—your own unique circumstances.”

He said, watching her, “That's putting it tactfully.”

She felt a great weight lift. “So—so you would not mind that—you would not mind?”

He smiled. “I think we would suit, my dear.”

She had never expected to find any man, much less anyone as kind and wise and pleasant to be with as John Applegate, who would ever want her again. Blinking against sudden happy tears, she smiled back at him. “You make me very happy.”

“Oh, that is yet to come, I think,” he told her, his eyes glinting with the mischievous gleam of a much younger man.

He put out his hand and she extended her own eagerly, expecting him to clasp it. Instead he lifted it to his lips, kissing the palm very gently, then the soft skin of her wrist.

A ripple of pleasure moved up her arm, and her eyes widened.

“John!”

“There are many way to please a lady,” he told her, his eyes dancing. “Did your louse of a husband never teach you that? Ways which do not necessarily need all the body parts to be in prime working order.”

She gazed at him in amazement. “Jerod was more—more concerned with his contentment than with mine, I think.”

“I can well believe it,” John said. “Then we have delightful hours of exploration ahead of us, my love. And this Sunday, it will be our banns the vicar can read.”

He kissed her palm again, and she laughed aloud, thinking of the wonders of the life they could enjoy together.

Six weeks later Maddie was much more disheartened,
and she knew little more than she did at the beginning, except to wonder just how Adrian's mad cousin could locate him amid an island nation apparently teeming with tall, dark-haired men. She had traced a dozen such to dead ends, sure that each was her husband, and each had been a crushing disappointment.

She was tired and often wept into her pillow at night. Maddie was at least glad that Bess had insisted on coming with her. The good-hearted maid was her only link to home, and she could assure her mistress that her emotional responses to not just big setbacks but small things like a stale biscuit or a too cool cup of tea were sometimes only a result of her approaching motherhood. Otherwise, Maddie would have been sure she was losing her mind.

But she was very very tired and quite despondent, and she didn't know what to do next. She had written home of her lack of success. She had written to her sisters, with no response, and she couldn't understand how the twins, at least, still had not returned home to their London addresses. And she was so lonely she wanted to go to bed and not get up.

She feared she would never see her husband again. What if Adrian died alone, somewhere, and she didn't even know? She thought of Felicity, determined to at least make sure her former husband's new wife knew the fate of her nefarious spouse and did not suffer the awful suspense of waiting and waiting and never being sure what had become of him.

That made the too-ready tears well up again, and she dashed them away, muttering words she had not known till they started this trip.

Bess had gone down to fetch tea and biscuits; Maddie had taken to wanting a bedtime snack. She paced up and down the small inn room or peered out the dusty windowpane into the still noisy street below. The sun had just set, and they had had dinner in a private parlor. At least Adrian's money made traveling easier. For the poverty-stricken Miss Applegate it would have been impossible. But if she had not been seeking her husband, she would not have been on this quest, she thought.

She picked up a sheet of the local newspaper and glanced over it once more. This time her gaze stopped on an advertisement she had ignored earlier.

Bess, when she returned with her tray, was surprised to see that her mistress's mood had suffered a radical change.

“Bess, we are going out!” Maddie exclaimed. She had already put on her bonnet and pelisse.

“But, Miss Madeline, I mean, Lady Weller,” Bess added belatedly, “I've got yer tea, and it's nice and hot. Anyhow, it's late.”

“It doesn't matter. I have a hunch, and I want to check it out.”

She took a quick sip of the tea, almost scalding herself, and giving Bess only time to put on her cape and bonnet, they were soon off to the hotel that listed the approaching opening of “The Duke's Daughter and Other Follies.”

Here she had a lively exchange with the clerk on duty at the desk, but after an exchange of coins, she had the information she wanted. She and Bess headed for an upper floor.

At last she was able to knock on a door from which a noisy conversation seemed to ensue.

A chambermaid with a tray in her arms opened the door. “Who shall I say is calling, miss?” she asked.

Maddie stood up straighter. She must really be tired. “Lady Weller,” she said crisply, thinking that there were times when she did enjoy having Adrian's title to flaunt.

The conversation in the room paused, and she distinctly heard a light voice she knew well say, “Who on earth—” and another shush her.

The chambermaid curtsied, not easy with the tray still in her hands, and said, “Yes, my lady, please to go in. I” ll be back with fresh tea, ma'am,” she added over her shoulder to the people within.

The door opened wider, and Maddie went through. She was gratified to see the shock and pleasure that broke out on the two identical faces of the women in front of her.

“Madeline!” they shrieked in unison. “Whatever are you doing here?”

And of course she burst into tears as her twin sisters grabbed her from either side and enveloped her with enthused embraces.

T
here were endless questions, of course.

“How on earth did you become ‘Lady Weller'?” Ophelia demanded. “When we left England, you didn't even have a suitor!”

“And what are you doing in York wandering about with only Bess?” the other twin, Cordelia, added. “Is Papa all right?” She sounded anxious.

Maddie sighed. “Have you had none of my letters?”

Cordelia's husband, a dark-haired, gray-eyed man with a slightly cynical expression, lifted his brows. “It's your henwitted housekeeper's fault again, Ophelia, you know it is.”

“Oh, dear, you're likely right, Ransom.” Ophelia said. “She's probably still sending our mail on to the hotel in Dover, even though we left there a fortnight or more ago. I'm sorry, Madeline. We've not caught up to our mail in months. Do tell us what is going on, and
when
did you get married?”

“When did you fall in love? And where is your husband?” Cordelia added.

“I wish I knew,” Maddie said, trying not to cry again.

“You've misplaced him?” Ophelia's eyes grew big.

Cordelia poked her in the side. “Stop imagining plots. This is not one of your plays, this is real!”

“Of course it is, and my own dear sister, too. I'm totally distraught for you,” Ophelia exclaimed, giving her twin a hurt look. “Why, I miss my darling Giles so much—”

Maddie looked around for the other husband; there was a slight imbalance of the sexes. “Where is Giles?”

“Oh, he was asked to take the place, temporarily, though it is still a great honor, of the Bishop of Berwick upon Tweed, who is eighty and ill, although they had better not ask him to stay—the weather there is dreadful, not to mention being so far out of the way—”

“And what are you doing here, and why didn't you come to see your family on the way?” Maddie interrupted, as Ophelia's stories tended to go on forever.

“We were going to later, but the new London theater is not yet completed, and the actors are on tour. They wanted me to be on hand while they opened the new play, in case they needed changes made in the script—there are always changes needed, you know.”

Maddie didn't, but she nodded, anyhow.

“And Giles didn't want her coming alone, so Ransom and I came to keep her company. How on earth did you find us?” Cordelia, the more practical twin, asked.

“I saw the advertisement for the play opening this week, and I recognized Ophelia's pen name, so I came at once. I've been writing to you both for weeks and getting no answer—you missed my wedding!” Maddie told them.

“Oh, I am so sorry,” Cordelia said, and Ophelia looked woebegone. “That's dreadful.”

“Oh, it's more than that.” And Maddie told them about the mad cousin who had interrupted their first try at a wedding ceremony, and Ophelia's eyes grew so wide they looked like saucers.

“Even I would not think to write such a scene—my heavens, Madeline!”

“You should try living through it,” she told them.

“Weller went off and left you?” Ransom interjected, frowning. “Perhaps we do need to find him and tell him a thing or two about—”

“You must not judge him,” Maddie said quickly. “He thought it the safest thing to do. His cousin threatens me, as well.”

Then she had to explain about the duel, and the other cousin's death, and now how they had discovered the flyers, and the whole tangled scheme.

“Good gracious, it does sound like one of Ophelia's plays,” Cordelia said, her voice faint. “You must be at your wits' end, Madeline, you poor darling.”

This time, she did lose her self-control, and suddenly she was weeping again. “And I miss him so,” she wailed. “And I—I—” She looked at Ransom and tried to pull herself together.

“Ah,” Cordelia said. “My dearest, why don't you take a walk? I'm sure you are in need of fresh air.”

“I'm sure I am,” her husband agreed, his tone pleasant. “I'll be gone at least an hour. It is a pleasure to see you again, sister Madeline.”

Maddie tried to give him a smile, but wasn't sure she succeeded.

When he had left the room, all three sisters piled onto the sofa, with a twin on either side of her.

“Oh, I have missed you both so.” Maddie told them. “First, I must tell you how sorry I am about those dreadful letters I sent you after you ran away to London.”

Ophelia looked embarrassed. “They were quite well deserved, considering our—especially my—behavior, and you apologized to us already, dear Madeline, so please—”

“Yes, but I don't like to remember them, so I must just say that I am really, really sorry!”

“Only if you don't mention them again,” Cordelia said, her tone firm. “I'm sure you have been lonely. With Juliana and her husband always traveling, and only Lauryn near at hand—”

“But she isn't!” Maddie told them. “Lauryn stayed with the squire. Which would be well and good, but the squire has gone to London, and Lauryn feels she has to remain with him. She is so heavy with guilt at not having given him an heir before her husband died—”

“He is still dragging her around? Oh, that is too bad of him,” Ophelia retorted.

“So you have been alone with only Papa? Not that Papa is not good company, but still—oh, Madeline.” Cordelia gripped one of Maddie's hands, and Ophelia had the other, and for a moment, they were silent, but Maddie felt surrounded by love. She sighed in contentment.

In a few minutes the chambermaid returned with a full tray of tea and bread and butter and cakes, and Maddie could wipe her face and feel more composed as she drank tea and ate.

Bess, who had quietly sat back and allowed her mistress to catch up with her sisters, looked well pleased to see the girls reunited. She had also been given hugs by the twins, whom she had helped raise after their mother had died. She was also supplied with tea and edibles, and she sat down again and listened to all the gossip.

“You will find him,” Cordelia was telling her older sister now. “I'm sure you will, Madeline.”

“But it is well nigh impossible,” she wailed. “There are so many men, and he does a good job of disappearing, I must tell you. I do not see how his cousin ever picks up his trail, and if it were not for the flyers, as we now know, I don't see how he ever would. And we are wasting precious time, that is the worst of it—and I don't know how much time we have to waste!”

The wrenching pain of the last statement cut her to her heart. Maddie drew a deep breath, touching her belly, now beginning to swell slightly, though the loose cut of the current fashions did not easily reveal it.

Cordelia looked startled, and Maddie realized there was one thing she had not told them.

“Madeline, you don't mean—”

She nodded, smiling.

“Oh, so are we!”

“What?” Maddie was the one surprised now. “Both of you?”

Ophelia grinned. “You didn't expect me to allow Cordelia to get ahead of me, did you?”

Maddie laughed. No, when did one twin not keep up with the other?

“Oh, what fun all the cousins will have together!” Cordelia predicted. “Do you think we can manage to all have boys? Or all have girls?”

“It will be wonderful,” Ophelia said, “whatever we have.”

Maddie smiled, but she still had to push back a twist of anxiety. Wonderful to have a child, but she wanted a husband, too! Where was Adrian, and how would she ever find him?

Then she looked at the sheets of newsprint lying around the hotel room, and suddenly an idea came to her.

Adrian was in Aberdeen when he saw the newspaper.
He had drifted through village after village, not particularly caring where he went. If he could not be with Madeline, one location was as good—or as banal—as another.

He kept an eye on the newspapers even though he knew the time for the infant to be born was months away—he thought about the baby often late at night. Wondered if the child would be a girl with Madeline's sweet expression and her lovely green gold eyes, or a boy whom he could teach to shoot and ride. Either way, he wanted to hold the babe, to lift it up, and to make it laugh and see it light up with pleasure because it knew its father.

He wanted to be there, dammit. He wanted his wife. He wanted to touch the sweet curve of her breast and kiss her soft lips. He wanted to talk to her, hear her voice, lie next to her in bed, and hear the slight sigh of her breathing just as she dropped off to sleep.

He wanted her. He missed her. Life, such as it was, was not worth living without her. Yet he had to keep living; he owed it to her. Damned conundrum—he spent his existence wrestling with enigmas.

Running away had never seemed such a hardship before. Now he hated every step he took. He wanted to turn and confront his damned lunatic relative. Except he didn't know where Francis was, so he wasn't sure how to do that, either. And if he simply turned and went back to Yorkshire, he might draw the mad marksman back to endanger Madeline, and he refused to risk that. Now he would jeopardize not one precious life but two!

If his cousin had even a hint that Adrian had an heir growing inside Madeline's lovely body, he would drop his quest for Adrian and turn all his powers toward murdering his wife. And that did not bear thinking of. So Adrian had to keep running, had to keep drawing the madman away, as far away as he could.

There had been one attempt in Northumberland, and Adrian had shot back, had tried to track down the shooter, but his cousin had again slipped away. So the cat and mouse game had continued. Now here he was even further north in Aberdeen, dining on kippers and eggs as tough as the far from loquacious Scotsmen who shared the small inn with him.

Adrian took a bite of the fish and lifted the paper to read the small print. What he read made him drop his fork, and then stand and push back his plate.

The maid who'd brought him his breakfast stared at him in surprise. “Be ye ill, me lord? Ye're as pale as a banshee wailing o' the moor.”

“Tally up my charges,” he told her, ignoring the question. “I'm leaving at once.”

Maddie was in the draper's shop at the end of Main
Street when she heard the commotion. She had sent Bess to collect some new potatoes, so she was alone for the moment. Not sure if the noise could be anything to do with her or simply some farmer's escaped pig, she went to the door of the shop to peek out.

At first she could not see what was making the ado. She heard dogs barking and someone shouting, probably nothing important, she told herself, and was about to turn and go back in, when someone grabbed her arm.

She tried to jerk free, and as the door swung shut, she saw who held her.

It was the cold, pale face of Adrian's cousin.

She was the one who felt cold, now.

“Oh, well played, Lady Weller,” the man said, in his high, fluting voice, “but perhaps I saw your bait before your wandering husband did.”

“I don't know what you mean,” she said. She stood up straighter, determined not to show fear in front of this sadistic madman.

“Of course you do. ‘Lady Weller gravely injured.' A wonderful line to bring a missing husband hurrying home. Did you not think I might read it, too?”

Actually, she hadn't, and now Maddie cursed herself for not seeing the gaping hole in her plan.

It hadn't occurred to her that Adrian's cousin could be so devious as to figure out—and so quickly—how her scheme had been laid.

Damn him to perdition and back. All she needed now was for some villager to come up and ask her about how her “interesting condition” was proceeding, she thought bitterly. Not that she had told a soul, but somehow the maids had nosed it out, and then the whole village had seemed to find it out, too.

She tried again to pull away from his grip, but the man had hands like vises. He kept her arm inside his, and they were walking along the path beside Main Street, looking more or less normal to observers, perhaps.

Maddie considered shouting for help, but few of the villagers would be armed, and she was sure that Francis was. Adrian had said he was deadly accurate, too.

“Are you still as good a shot as you were?” she asked, keeping her tone even. As he jerked her along, she might as well try to distract him.

He giggled, a weird sound to come from a man. “But of course, my dear. I try out my skill regularly, using your husband for target practice. How do you know I didn't leave his bloody, broken body lying dead on the heath just days ago?”

Her heart seemed to turn to ice, and her foot slipped off a stone, almost making her ankle twist. She caught herself just in time.

Adrian dead?

No, she didn't believe it. If so, why was Francis here? Making sure Adrian had no heir, she answered herself, still feeling chilled. No, he just wanted to taunt her, Maddie told herself. She would not believe that Adrian was dead—she would not!