by Sara Ramsey
Aunt Augusta hadn’t said a word since they entered the room. Madeleine would have noticed such unusual silence if she had not been so concerned about what Alex knew. She looked over at her aunt and was horrified to see the glimmer of what looked like tears.
Madeleine hadn’t seen Aunt Augusta cry since Uncle Edward’s funeral.
And then Madeleine knew their ambush was about more than just her acting.
“You know about Ferguson too, don’t you?” she whispered.
“Ferguson?” Alex said, his brows slamming together. “So now you’re calling that bounder by his nickname instead of his title?”
Damn. They didn’t know about Ferguson — and she had given herself away. “He made it clear at every turn that he prefers not to use his title.”
Alex ignored her explanation. “And yes, we know. Everyone in London is talking about how the duke is back to his old tricks, taking the most desirable actress of her generation as his mistress.”
She heard Aunt Augusta sniffle, but she kept her gaze locked on Alex’s. He was turning positively feral. She had a very real suspicion that he had never been angrier in his life. She held her breath, waiting for his next words.
But they were even worse than she could have imagined. “You have thirty seconds to convince me you haven’t become his whore, or I’m going to kill him.”
Madeleine felt dizzy, and a dull roar in her ears almost drowned out the end of Alex’s threat. Aunt Augusta finally intervened. “Alexander, there is no need for such vulgarity. Madeleine is still ours, despite whatever she has done.”
Madeleine had felt guilty about rejecting Ferguson’s proposal, but it was nothing compared to what she felt now. She used to wish for her real family to come back and take her away, dreamed of what it would have been like to grow up with them in France. But Aunt Augusta had never treated her as anything less than a daughter — and Madeleine had just repaid the kindness by disappointing her more than any of them could have imagined.
Alex didn’t back down. “Thirty seconds, Madeleine.”
She could barely breathe, let alone come up with a coherent, non-incriminating sentence. Finally, she just held up her hands. “Ferguson offered to protect me from others who might try to seduce me, and I thought it best to accept his help. By pretending that I am his mistress, he’s kept other interested men away from me while I am at the theatre.” Then she steeled herself for the lie. “But I would never do anything improper with him, and he is too much of a gentleman to take advantage. He is only helping me to keep me from ruining his sisters by association.”
Alex snorted, then demanded more detail. She explained it all — the desire to act, Madame Legrand’s blackmail, how Ferguson had saved her, and even the earl of Westbrook’s attempt to make her his mistress. Her cousin scowled at that, and she suspected Ferguson wasn’t the only man in danger. But when she reached the end of the story — mentioning the house Ferguson had procured so she could return to Salford House safely, but leaving out what they had done in that house just hours earlier — Alex leaned back, looking satisfied.
“At least your story matches that of your conspirators. If you lied to my face, I would be much less inclined to forgive you.”
Madeleine ignored the possibility of forgiveness. It was probably too late for that. But Alex said “conspirators,” which meant he had talked to someone besides Josephine. Someone who would know of her acting — someone who, when Madeleine glared at her, looked like she was trying to swallow her own tongue.
“What did you tell them, Amelia?” she asked. It wasn’t a nice feeling, the way something inside her saw her cousin as the enemy — but anger felt better than guilt.
“I couldn’t keep your secret anymore,” Amelia said, sounding both sad and defensive. “I was prepared to help you act in the theatre, but this business with Rothwell is dangerous. We should have gone to Alex as soon as Madame Legrand blackmailed you so he could help you.”
“We should have gone to Alex?” Madeleine repeated. “Do you forget that I am the one who is in trouble, not you?”
Aunt Augusta cut them both off. “Everyone in this family is at risk because of what you both have done. And I simply cannot understand what on earth possessed you to do this — I let you put on plays twice a year at our country estate specifically so you wouldn’t take such a foolish risk.”
Madeleine couldn’t answer. How could she explain to the aunt who raised her that she felt trapped by the life they gave her? “I am truly sorry,” she finally said. “I did not think I would be caught. And other than you, I still haven’t been found out.”
“It is only a matter of time,” Aunt Augusta snapped. “The first lesson anyone should learn in the ton is that every scandal eventually comes out. Someday, someone will recognize you. When that happens, my reputation won’t be enough to save you.”
“I won’t be caught,” Madeleine said, although she wasn’t nearly as confident as she sounded. “It is only another fortnight before Madame Legrand releases me, and then you will never hear of the theatre again.”
“And will Ferguson release you when the play ends?” Alex asked, his voice silky and dangerous.
Madeleine lifted her chin. “Ferguson will not hurt me. If it weren’t for him, this may have ended much worse than one would hope.”
Aunt Augusta sighed. “Alex, we can discuss Ferguson later. But first, we must decide what to do if Madeleine is caught.”
“You can always send me to the country,” Madeleine said, not liking the sad, hard tone in Aunt Augusta’s voice.
Alex cleared his throat. “We discussed some possibilities while we waited for you to come home from the theatre. Sebastian will come home for a visit this summer. If your identity is discovered, it would be best if you returned to Bermuda with him.”
“Bermuda? What would I do in Bermuda? I would prefer to live out my ignominy in Lancashire.”
“And we would prefer to have you there. But as much as it pains me, I must marry someday. If your role as Ferguson’s mistress is discovered, your reputation will be so far gone that my wife and daughters could not share a house with you.”
Alex sounded regretful — but resolute. Her palms felt clammy, and she wiped them on her gown. She turned to Amelia, knowing her cousin had always wanted them to move to the country together if their spinsterhoods continued. “‘Tis a shame you do not like warm weather. We must hope I do not get caught.”
Amelia retreated into herself, shrinking away from the conversation in a way so unlike her usual mode of direct confrontation. In contrast, Aunt Augusta drew herself up. “Amelia will attend every event I can drag her to this season. If you are caught, no one can think she was at the theatre too,” she said. “Unless Madame drops dead — and we considered helping her to that end, but I cannot bear the idea — we can’t see a way to extricate you from her blackmail. But it seems wise to limit the possibility that Amelia would be caught up in this scandal too.”
Madeleine felt like she had been punched in the chest. Her breath seized up, her heart shuddered — and she felt a flash of heat as every nerve lit up with rage.
“You would send me away to protect Amelia?” Through the ringing in her ears, her voice still sounded almost calm.
“If the roles were reversed, I would send Amelia away to save you,” Aunt Augusta said. “Regardless, the most important thing now is to contain the damage.”
Damage. As though Madeleine was already a spoiled good who might spread her blight to the family.
If that wasn’t stunning enough, Alex’s words were enough to make her heart stop. “And by the way, Madeleine, you can’t fool me into thinking you spent the past two hours playing charades with Rothwell and half a dozen proper chaperones. If by some miracle no one ever catches you, I will see Rothwell marry you — or I will call him out for it.”
Alex was better known as an antiquities collector than a dueler, but he wasn’t a milquetoast, and the look in his eyes said he would happily kill the duk
e if given the opportunity. “There’s no reason for Ferguson to marry me since I haven’t been compromised,” Madeleine said, looking him straight in the eye as she lied to him.
“I would castrate him and send him to a monastery before I saw you tied to him, but we are too civilized in the modern era to give him what he deserves,” Alex said. “But if I have reason to suspect he has touched you — and another night like tonight would be enough — you will marry him, whether either of you want to or not.”
Madeleine couldn’t defend Ferguson without arousing even more suspicion. She was exhausted, too emotionally devastated by everything that had happened in the past few hours to start an argument about her future marital state. Her legs shook as she stood, but she masked the tremor by swooping to grab her gloves from the table. “Before I damage you any more, I shall go to my room.”
Aunt Augusta moved toward her, but Madeleine flinched away from her embrace. Her aunt could not have looked more shocked if she had slapped her. “There’s no need to explain,” Madeleine said in a brittle voice. “I must keep from getting caught, or I will be forced to spend the rest of my life on Sebastian’s godforsaken plantation. If I do get caught, I must not, under any circumstance, risk Amelia’s reputation or the reputations of Alex’s unborn daughters. And if I successfully keep from getting caught, I will be forced into a marriage I do not want. Is that correct?”
No one answered. She wanted to smash Alex’s decanters against the wall just to startle them out of their silence.
She turned and left, her steps becoming a run before she even reached the top of the stairs. She heard Amelia call her name from the hallway, heard the pain in her cousin’s voice, but she didn’t turn around. She ran to her room and locked herself in before collapsing onto her bed. The Stauntons may have seen her anger, but she didn’t want them to see her tears.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
Ferguson was turning into his father after all. The night before proved it — when Madeleine refused his proposal, his first instinct was to kidnap her and drive straight for Gretna Green. Or, even easier, drag her to Salford, still wrapped in his coverlet, and prove that she needed to marry him. She was lucky he was still new to his inheritance. His father would have forced the issue before she even left his bed.
But he wasn’t quite his father yet, and he had tamped down the desire to claim her long enough to let her flee. After he watched from a window until she safely crossed the alleyway, he returned to their bed, still warm from their bodies, and stared at the ceiling as he waited for sleep to take him. He couldn’t let her go, couldn’t lose her. He would just have to find a way to win her.
That would require finding out why she said no. When he had awoken to sunlight streaming through the windows of their little house, he realized he hadn’t even asked her for a reason.
He cast another glance at the clock across from his desk and sighed. After coming home and changing clothes, he had succumbed to duty and met his London steward for their daily exercise in overseeing the vast estate. They were in his father’s study, and the clock, like every other object in the room, was intimately familiar to him — either from his boyhood, when his father used to let him play with the exotic objects, or later, when he stared at anything but his father during the endless lectures. He swore the clock was rigged to make time seem like it had stopped — and it still felt that way, even though he was the master.
Berrings, the steward, coughed discreetly. Ferguson sighed. The London house’s steward also oversaw the duchy’s city holdings. If Ferguson could concentrate, there was more than enough work to distract him from the topic of Madeleine.
“What are your thoughts on the lease for Legrand’s Theatre, your grace?” Berrings asked. “Have you thought any more about the establishment?”
The man had a knack for raising controversial subjects in the blandest possible voice. He surely knew how well Ferguson was acquainted with the place. Anyone smart enough to survive nearly two years in the old duke’s service would pay close attention to his master’s actions.
“You must know I’ve attended, but the proprietress did not seem nervous about my presence. Does she not know I own her theatre?”
Berrings shook his head. “Places of that ilk are leased through a subsidiary so that your grace’s name is not besmirched by their entertainments.”
At least the gossips did not know of Ferguson’s ownership. It would look positively feudal for him to sample the charms of the theatre’s top performer. “We can leave the theatre alone for now, but I may wish to revisit the matter at the end of the season,” Ferguson said. At least he would have leverage if Madeleine continued to refuse him.
He winced. That was exactly what his father would have thought.
Berrings made a notation in his ledger. Then he looked up, awaiting more orders. He was nondescript, a man with a medium build, standard brown hair, and a moderate tone of voice — the type who would blend into the backdrop and work himself to death without complaint.
“How do you feel about your work, Berrings?” Ferguson asked.
The man carefully set his pen on the traveling desk he used to the left of Ferguson’s chair, and his face paled as he looked up from his writing. “Have I done anything to displease you, your grace? I know we’ve not worked together for long, but I assure you I hold your interests dearer than my own.”
“No, you’ve pleased me quite well. With your knowledge, I would be a fool to cut you loose.”
Berrings’s shoulders slumped just slightly, like a man given a reprieve he did not expect. “You are very kind, your grace.”
Ferguson laughed. “‘Kind’ is not a word I am accustomed to hearing. But I do intend to treat you fairly if you choose to stay on.”
Berrings was not likely to leave of his own accord. The position as a Rothwell estate manager would be very hard to eclipse. Although another steward oversaw the grand Rothwell estate on the Dover coast and a third managed the industrial interests in the north, Berrings was responsible for a substantial portion of an income that totaled more than £150,000 per annum. Rothwell rivaled Devonshire as the greatest non-royal duchy in England and made Ferguson’s comfortable inheritance in Scotland look like the meanest poverty. Berrings would be a fool to leave it. He said as much, stammering over his words, somehow navigating a course between pride in his work and abject flattery of the dukes who had hired him.
Ferguson waved all that aside. He would need to see if the other two stewards were as loyal, but since his father would have had them transported at any hint of fraud, he guessed they were more than competent. “Since you’ve no intention of leaving, I am relieved that the duchy will be under your expert care when I return to Scotland. You will still send reports, of course, but it is good to know I do not need to be involved.”
Berrings compressed his lips, looking down at his ledger as though searching for a new topic of conversation.
“You are far too easy to read,” Ferguson observed. “How did you ever survive my father with such a distinct inability to hide your thoughts?”
He laughed for the first time since Ferguson had met him, a rusty sound that left him mortified. “His grace asked me to sit behind him, your grace. He thought it easier to sign papers and toss them back to me, and he had no need for my opinion.”
Ferguson remembered the last time he had seen his father — ten years earlier, in this very room. The duke did not ask Ferguson’s opinion either. But he made sure his son stood right in the center, feeling like an insect pinned to the carpet, while he castigated him for being an insult to every ancestor who had conducted themselves honorably since the days of the Conqueror.
Then he ordered Ferguson to get out of his sight and never return. It was the victory Ferguson had fought for. So why had it hurt when his father did not see him off?
“Perhaps you were lucky he did not seat you before him,” Ferguson said, pulling himself out of the memories.
Berrings nodded. “If you will forgive m
e for being bold, your grace, may I offer my opinion?”
So the man did have a voice of his own — even better, if he were to manage the duchy during Ferguson’s absences. “I am not my father. Your job is to offer me counsel on the estate.”
“Then my counsel is that you should remain in England,” Berrings said in a rush, determined to get the words out before his courage failed. “There are thousands of people on your estates who would benefit from your leadership. You could do much good if you were directly involved in your affairs.”
“I hardly think anyone is clamoring for my leadership. As long as the estate’s coffers don’t run dry, they would be just as satisfied if a monkey sat at this desk. Maybe more, since the monkey wouldn’t be out making scandals.” Ferguson said.
Berrings had an obstinate set to his jaw that Ferguson hadn’t seen before. “The previous duke was very astute. It is why this estate prospered when so many are on the verge of failing. But he did not have a gift for talking to the lower classes. The tenants would appreciate knowing that you are both qualified to lead and approachable enough to consider their requests.”
“Are any of the tenants starving?” Ferguson demanded, feeling his temper spark.
Berrings shook his head.
“Then they will be fine without me. If they survived my father’s presence, it will be even easier for them to survive my absence.”
“Very well, your grace,” Berrings said stiffly. “But if you will pardon my boldness one more time, I believe everyone is relieved to have you, and not your brothers, at the helm. Your father wanted it too, although not in these circumstances.”
“I very much doubt he wanted me to inherit,” Ferguson said with a bitter laugh.
“He only said it once, your grace — when another of his letters to you came back unopened.”
Ferguson scowled. The letters had started several years after he left, shortly after Henry’s funeral, which he refused to attend. The first two offered to let Ferguson back into the fold if he would apologize to his father for the trouble — as though that would ever happen. He never read the letters after that, sent them all back with their seals intact. He wouldn’t have even read the one telling him about his father’s death had Sophronia not sent four footmen with it to drag him back to London if necessary.