Heiress Without a Cause (7 page)

So she fled, making a barely coherent excuse before bolting for the door. She knew her exit would give them something else to discuss, but with her pounding head and racing heart, she did not particularly care.

The very fact that Madame Legrand’s theatre was on everyone’s lips was enough cause for concern. Worse, though, was the very real chance that Ferguson would discover she wasn’t the well-behaved spinster the ton believed her to be. If he had not already guessed, he seemed to be on a mission to find her out.

But what would the most notorious rake in London do with that knowledge? And if he still wanted her despite her reputation, was she prepared for what he might offer — or demand?

By the following evening, Ferguson needed to escape the mausoleum of his inheritance. He had stayed in the previous evening, but he couldn’t spend another night in his study, where his father’s presence still lingered. The weight of the place, even after ten years away, had only increased.

So rather than torturing himself by eating with the twins, who had coldly ignored him after leaving Salford House, or lying sleepless in the cavernous ducal bedchamber, he took his coach to the theatre district, giving in to the lure of Marguerite Guerrier. With what he suspected about her, it would be better to leave well enough alone — but seeing her again was the only entertainment he wanted.

As he left his coach, he looked at his watch. It was stupid to flash jewelry after dark, but he was almost itching for a fight. The prospect did not seem likely. There were too many liveried coachmen about, and potential thieves had decamped for less populated areas.

Then he realized the oddity of that — coachmen never loitered in Seven Dials. Only a block from Legrand’s Theatre, at least twenty fine carriages waited in the alleys.

Had his first visit to the theatre caused this?

He picked up his pace. He could not prove it, not without seeing her eyes in the light, but he thought he knew who Marguerite really was. If he was correct, then the best actress in London — the woman he had tried to take as his mistress two nights earlier — was the woman who agreed to help launch his sisters.

If Madeleine was the actress, aristocratic playgoers could only bring her to ruin. And any ruin she faced would taint his sisters’ debuts. It was ironic that he had sought out her sterling reputation to help with the rumors about his family, when she might ultimately bring even more devastating gossip down on their heads.

He entered the theatre just as the intermission ended before the final act. He had taken the precaution of sending a footman for a ticket earlier in the day, knowing even then that he would not be able to stay away, so there was no need to haggle with Madame Legrand. He spotted her across the room, though, looking immensely satisfied as she conversed with a gentleman and his companion — a much finer couple than any he had seen on his previous visit.

Ferguson took a sharp look around the theatre, his senses alert under his bored façade. The types he saw before were still there — rowdy off-duty footmen, maids and their beaus, shopkeepers, secretaries, and members of the more-respectable middle classes.

But sprinkled throughout the crowd, looking by turns aghast and titillated, were people who could only be part of the ton. He watched a matronly woman swish her silk skirts away from a pair of footmen who were cracking walnuts onto the floor. But where her anger would have cost them their jobs in her own home, here it made them laugh.

This mixture of rich and poor at the theatre was unremarkable. Even the Theatre Royal allowed footmen in the gallery. But his concern grew. With this many members of the aristocracy in attendance, the actress would surely be found out.

And given his role in bringing them here, it would be his fault if she were ruined.

He settled into a seat and tried to force himself to relax. He had only associated the actress with the Stauntons because he followed her carriage. If she was Madeleine, she was well disguised.

There was one fact to take comfort in: if she had been discovered, the play would have already ended. The audience was enraptured, eager for the final act to begin.

He scanned the crowd, looking for clues. Two rows ahead of him sat Viscount Osborne — a wealthy old roué who had kept a string of the most desirable courtesans for the last four decades. Off to his left, the earl of Westbrook sat with Caroline, Lady Greville, on his arm. Neither looked happy, and Ferguson felt a small pang of remorse. He was involved with Caro before his Scottish exile, and it looked like the intervening years had hardened her. He knew Westbrook from the worst of his days as a rake — if Westbrook planned to replace Caro, he would not wait long before finding a new mistress.

As that thought sank in, his blood went cold. A top actress would be an immediate attraction on the mistress mart. In the darker world of the demimonde, there were no titles or chaperones to protect her.

Ferguson would bet his birthright that whoever Madame Guerrier was, she never seriously considered that actresses usually became mistresses, even if the example of the great Mrs. Jordan and her large brood of royal bastards should have concerned her.

And if the woman was as naïve as she seemed in the alleyway, she would be wholly unprepared for the onslaught of men who would try to claim her.

Damn
. If only he had kept his mouth shut about the theatre. If the woman wasn’t ruined by the ton discovering her, she would be if Westbrook started sniffing around her skirts.

Or rather, around her breeches — he looked up just as she sauntered onstage, her lithe legs perfectly showcased in the light. He cursed again under his breath.

As he glanced at Westbrook, then back to her, a plan began to form. He couldn’t stop the others from wanting her. But he could remove her eligibility as a mistress. All he had to do was get to her first...

*         *         *

Madeleine took another bow, trying to relax in the face of the audience’s acclaim. The applause was thunderous. Even with only two days to print handbills and send out announcements, Madame Legrand had sold out the theatre.

However, while the applause was gratifying, her stomach knotted up under her waistcoat. She felt like she could barely breathe with the bindings around her breasts. She had learned during intermission just how many members of the ton were in the audience, and the damp, moist air of the playhouse felt like her ruin closing in on her.

But some secret place, which she would never confess to, was thrilled at her forced return to the stage. In all her years as a debutante, she had never walked into a room and felt —
adored.

Tonight, they adored her. The sound crashed around her, and the stage reverberated under her with the stamping of their boots. At her next ball, she would be Madeleine again, and these same men wouldn’t look at her twice.

Here, they were at her feet.

She mentally shook herself as she bowed a final time and left the stage. She was still in danger of being caught and she needed to hurry if she wished to reach Salford House in time for that night’s round of parties. But when she entered the backstage area, a very agitated Madame Legrand greeted her. “Madame Guerrier,” she said, using the pseudonym almost warningly. “The duke from the other night. He’s back here and we can’t get him away. He said he would cause a scene if we tried.”

Madeleine compressed her lips. How dare he come back here like this? It was yet more grist for Madame’s blackmail — and a temptation Madeleine needed to avoid. “I will send him away,” she said forcefully.

“It’s not him what I’m worrying over,” Madame said, her accent slipping. “It’s the line of gents outside waiting to see you.”

“What?” Madeleine demanded.

“You must be careful — act like you have been in the theatre all your life,” Madame said urgently. “No one will recognize you if you stay in costume, but I forgot what the fancy men will think of a pretty thing like you when you’ve no high-born name to protect you.”

Madeleine’s blood turned to ice. “I must find Josephine. She will know what to do.” She brushed past Madame, too angry to spare consideration for the woman she once trusted.

But when she shoved open the door to her dressing room, it was Ferguson who leaned against her wall. Josephine was nowhere to be found. She wanted to rail at him for his presumption, but the dark, dangerous look in his eyes stopped her short.

“What are you doing here?” she demanded.

“Saving you,” he said, striding toward her. He looked like he should be bare-chested and holding a dagger, like a Grecian marble come to life and ready to do battle for her.

Madeleine drew a deep, shuddering breath. He didn’t look like a savior. There was something too primal in the way he stalked toward her, despite the cool perfection of his waistcoat and cravat.

She started to back away from him. His hand shot out to stop her. “Stay here,” he grated. “It isn’t safe for you to leave alone.”

Somewhere at the back of the theatre, she heard a shout, followed by the slow tread of a man’s booted feet on the old floorboards. The man was coming closer, but his pace was almost leisurely — as though he did not expect to be denied.

She shivered. Ferguson’s hand skimmed down her cheek to lift her chin. He looked hard into her eyes, holding her gaze for a long moment, until he made a momentous decision that she could not fathom. Underneath his resolve, she saw the flickering of something deeper she could not name.

“Trust me, Madeleine,” he whispered.

She gasped as he used her real name, too shocked to argue.

And then he pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

The heat of his kiss, the firm pressure of his arms wrapped around her shoulders, and the wildfire of fear from the encroaching footsteps threatened to burn her. She tried squirming away from him, but he kept her trapped against him. So she kicked his shin, and she felt him flinch as her foot made gratifying contact with bone.

But just as she thought he might let her go, she heard the door open behind her. The sound of those booted feet coming to a stop froze her in Ferguson’s arms.

Holding her like she was a racing trophy, he looked over her head at whoever had entered behind them. “She’s a feisty lass, isn’t she?”

She tried to turn, but he draped his arms around her shoulders, a prison disguised as affection. Behind her, she heard a man drawl, “Indeed. I do hope you are prepared to give her up, though.”

“Give her up? You are better acquainted with me than that, Westbrook.”

Madeleine sucked in a breath. The earl of Westbrook’s name was whispered in the ton — more often around her now that she was on the shelf — but he did not frequent the debutante-rich circles Madeleine moved in.

She turned around to face him. It was stupid, but they had never spoken, so the chance he would recognize her was small. Westbrook was quite handsome, in a sinister way, with a physique and complexion not yet devastated by drink. He had dark hair that swept back from his face, and grey eyes that would be lovely when warm — but now, as they stared uncompromisingly at Ferguson, they were cold and intimidating.

He was accustomed to getting what he wanted. And what he wanted now was Madeleine as his mistress.

She might have found it funny if her situation weren’t so dire. Ferguson, however, was unamused. He took charge again, sitting in her dressing chair and pulling her down onto his lap. She landed with a muffled gasp, her legs falling astride his thigh, her back pressed to his chest, and his arms quite proprietarily encircling her waist.

He kissed the side of her neck, right over the vein, and she was surprised to discover how sensitive she was there. She arched her neck unconsciously, then realized that Westbrook, still watching from the doorway, would think she wanted more.

Westbrook’s grey eyes glittered. Madeleine felt utterly out of her depth.

“Madame Guerrier, I assure you that you would be more secure under my protection,” he said, with all the calm of a man conducting a business arrangement. “Ferguson — Rothwell now, I suppose — has been out of London for nearly a decade, and I doubt he will remain for any length of time. You should think about which of us is better placed to support you.”

He sounded like he had negotiated with mistresses for years. There was a lot about the demimonde she did not know. But she suspected his argument would sway a high-flying courtesan.

Ferguson cut her off before she could answer. “How does the lovely Lady Greville feel about this?” he asked, his lips still grazing over Madeleine’s throat.

The earl waved a hand and his onyx signet ring flashed in the candlelight. “Not that I should like to admit this, but it is the lady’s decision to end our arrangement. If she no longer wants me in her bed, I see no reason to delay finding a new companion.”

Ferguson’s lips pulled away from her and she felt his arms tighten. “I do hope you are not leaving Caro out in the cold.”

Westbrook laughed bitterly. “My dear Caroline can shift for herself better than any of us. But I forgot all about your connection with her — it was your precipitous flight from her bed that sent you off to Scotland in disgrace, was it not?”

Madeleine’s head snapped up at that. Westbrook met her eyes. “I did not intend to offend you with this nonsense, Madame Guerrier,” he said silkily. “But you should know what you are signing up for if you choose to align yourself with Rothwell.”

“You are no saint yourself, Westbrook,” Ferguson said. He sounded calm, but she could feel his legs tense beneath her as though preparing for a fight.

Madeleine was drowning in this conversation, and there was nowhere that offered safe purchase. Ferguson had behaved abominably by kissing her without so much as a by-your-leave, and apparently his illicit connections from ten years earlier still haunted him — but Westbrook had a reputation as a dangerous predator. Worse, he was a wealthy, titled predator, which made him nearly unstoppable. Without Ferguson there, he may have already carried her off. Josephine had disappeared, but neither she nor Madame could have saved Madeleine from Westbrook without giving her name away.