IfYouDeceive_lit

by kc

  “What about your instincts?” Corrine asked. “Surely you were warned away if he was so terrible?”

  “My instincts told me he was…good.” She didn’t miss that Bea and Corrine shared a look. Corrine never rented a room to a male unless Maddy gave approval.

  “Why didn’t you tell your London friends of your plight?” Corrine asked.

  “I thought about it. I imagined revealing all over tea and scones. I would begin with the setup: ‘Well, the thing of it is…after Papa died, my mother and I didn’t move to Paris because she’d missed her birthplace—we fled creditors in the middle of the night. After a year in a slum, she did marry a rich man, named Guillaume, and for a while we lived in the wealthy part of Paris—what you believe is my current address and my present situation. But it’s not now! I pay the maid there to save my mail for me and tell visitors I’m away.’

  “Then would come the denouement: ‘Sylvie died years ago, and my miserlyoncle Guillaume tossed me out on my ear. Actually, I live in a slum teeming with danger and filth. I’m really an orphan, and not in the exciting sense of an heiress orphan but in the penniless pitiful sense. Because I couldn’tsteal enough to pay for the dresses and paste jewels necessary for my plot to ensnare Quin, I borrowed money from a lender who will happily break my arms over a late payment.’”

  Corrine pursed her lips and sniffed, “Well, when you put it that way…”

  Bea added, “Oh, Maddée,c’est déplorable !”

  As if bored by Maddy’s dramatics, Chat Noir deserted her with a yawn. He leapt to the railing, sidling along, drawing Maddy’s gaze down to the street. Two burly men had just arrived at the building. “Are those Toumard’s men?” she asked without looking back. “Who else besides me would be foolish enough to get involved with Toumard?”

  She’d borrowed heavily—for more than she could make in a year with sporadic work selling cigarettes, serving in the cafés, bettingmutuels, or picking pockets. When she turned back, she saw that their expressions were pensive. “What is it?” Maddy asked. “Tell me. My day can’t possibly get worse.”

  “Come, then, let’s go in so they can’t spot us,” Corrine said. They grabbed their milk crates and hurried inside. “Maddy love, those henchmen came round yesterday, too. They were searching for you, demanding to be let into the building. We’re keeping it locked at all times.”

  “And I will only see regulars!” Bea added with an earnest nod.

  “They were here already?” Maddy pinched her forehead. “I’m not even late.”

  “They said Toumard raised his rates. The interest is escalating each week.”

  Maddy sank onto her bed again. “But why?”

  “You know how gossip spreads around here,” Corrine said. “You went into debt to buy a new wardrobe, and then you left town. Everyone figured a cull was happening. Berthé or Odette probably told him, and he could be betting on your success.”

  But even after delivering the news, Corrine was still wringing her lye-eaten hands. Beatrix had begun studying her chipped cup.

  “What else?” Maddy forced a smile. “I can take it.” She could find a way to weather bad news. Somehow she always did.

  Corrine hesitantly said, “Toumard might have another agenda. He might not be keen on getting paid back at all.”

  Maddy swallowed. She’d heard that was how Berthé and Odette had gotten started in their present line of work. They were barmaids who’d owed money. Instead of getting their arms broken, they’d gone into a more lucrative trade—facilitated and overseen by Toumard.

  Corrine set her cup aside. “If we can’t come up with the money…”

  Bea’s eyes started watering. “Maddée will have to flee for her life.”

  “No, Bea, no,” she rushed to assure her. “Maddée’snot fleeing anywhere. I have all this under control. I’m going to marry the count.”

  Le Daex was her mother’s only legacy to her, the alliance having been arranged by her years ago. Maddy was supposed to have wed him when she’d turnedfourteen— but her mother had died just before then, Maddy had balked, and that’s when Guillaume had kicked her out.

  “But you told me you sense Le Daex is a bad man,” Corrine said. “And there are those rumors….”

  Maddy stifled a shiver. “No, no. I will outwit Le Daex, outlive him, and inherit.” She’d heard his last three wives had entertained similar aspirations before dying under mysterious circumstances. “Then we’ll all be rich, and we’ll leave La Marais for good. Everything will be fine. You’ll see.”

  Ten

  Maddy lived in a ruthless world.

  Growing up in La Marais, she’d made observations—she’d learned her environment. And she’d quickly comprehended that here, for most, civility and ethics had been stripped away, until nothing remained but the pursuit of elemental needs—food, shelter, intercourse—and the overwhelming drive to avoid death and pain.

  The latter had compelled her to don her last gown, trudge down one hundred and two steps, and begin making her way to Le Daex’s. She couldn’t afford the omnibus fare to the count’s, so she walked. She didn’t need to be walking—she was losing weight already, after just a week back—and she’d had to take in her clothes, including this last fine gown she owned.

  Each day in La Marais, Maddy made countless decisions, and the stakes were high. At every turn, her choices could lead her to reward—or fate would ruthlessly check her.

  Each night before she went to sleep, she catalogued her actions for the day, analyzing them for weaknesses or exposures. She would ask herself,Did I do anything today to leave myself vulnerable…?

  Marrying a man like Le Daex would be one of her most critical moves, yet she would do it to avoid Toumard’s punishments—or plans. She’d sold her other gowns and paste jewels, but she hadn’t been able to keep up with the man’s demands for money. His lackeys hounded her more and more.

  Out on the street, Maddy passed the usual prostitutes in the usual alleyways, perched on their knees servicing clients. The pained expressions on the men’s faces had always fascinated her. The young ones, usually dressed in regimental uniforms, pleaded with the tarts not to stop. The older ones commanded them not to. Maddy had always wondered what could be so pleasurable that they feared its incompletion so much.

  The Scot had certainly made sure he’d completed his, by his own hand. She stumbled, nearly catching the hem of her dress.

  With him, she’d had a taste of passion and had begun to understand more about the scenes she witnessed routinely. At night, when she was alone in her bed, she recalled the pleasure he’d given her—before the pain. Even after he’d hurt her so terribly, she thought of him—more than of Quin, whom she’d failed to snare.

  As the neighborhood grew higher in elevation and therefore more expensive, she passed the boulangerie shop that was the bane of her existence. As was her custom, she stopped to stare through the window.

  The warmed shelves were piled with glazed treats, begging her to come liberate them. Inside, behind the counter, were the downtrodden ice creams jailed in a patented ice cream freezer. Alas, she’d never figured out how to pocket goods that melted or flaked apart with the merest touch.

  Leering at the food was only an appetizer of anguish for her. Maddy’s true torment was watching the young bourgeoisie wives sitting inside. Her hungry gaze drifted to a group of them now.

  They were her age and happy, gossiping and glancing over fashion plates, leaving food untouched. Some had gurgling babies in perambulators with silver teething rings, and all of them probably had respectable husbands at home—men they could adore and be adored by in return, men who would protect them and their children.

  Maddy envied them so bitterly that her eyes watered and her stomach churned with it.

  I would give anything to be one among those women. Anything.

  She coveted everything they had. She wanted a happy, well-fed baby of her own whom she could love and care for, much better than her own self-serving mother h
ad cared for her. Maddy wanted to wear a watch pinned to her bodice to check if it was time to meet her husband back at their warm, secure home. She wanted to read fashion magazines—not todream about a new wardrobe but toplan one.

  Maddy admittedly sought a rich husband, but not for the reasons everyone supposed. Precious jewels and baubles were welcome, but incidental. She yearned for the safety and security money would bring to her—and to the family she imagined of having.

  She’d turned her matrimonial focus to the very rich because those men were in less danger of losing everything, as her own father had. Her papa had been dearer to her than anyone, always striving to make up for her mother’s lack of affection, but the fact remained that he’d left his daughter defenseless in a world that seemed to lie in wait, ready to punish any misstep she might make….

  The old boulangerie shopkeeper eyed Maddy through the window. Though she was dressed in her costly gown, he recognized her and glared. He put on a grandfatherly face to paying customers, but he was hateful to her, chasing her away with a broom on more than one occasion. She gave him a lewd gesture, turning on her heel and continuing on her way.

  A single woman in La Marais dreaming about a stable home life with a passel of children and a decent husband to safeguard them all was beyond ridiculous. She might as well yearn for a tree that bloomed gold.

  But even worse, Maddy still believed in…love.

  Even after her parents’ ill-fated May-December union, and even after seeing the twisted relationships in the garret, Maddy still longed for a man to love her.

  In a ruthless world, dreams like hers were liabilities….

  In lieu of them, she’d take Le Daex and the luxury of not having her arms broken.

  Ethan peered down at the informant whose throat he clenched, regarding him pitilessly. He released his grip enough for the man to gasp a breath, and then he squeezed harder. “Still saying that’s all you know about Grey?”

  The bug-eyed man nodded as best as he could, and Ethan finally released him, leaving him in a collapsed heap in an alleyway.

  He strode back inside the Lake District tavern from which he’d plucked that man earlier. But this time he took a seat at a back table, sinking into the shadows to contemplate all he’d learned in the last week.

  In his inexhaustible hunt, Ethan had ridden hundreds of miles and had thrashed so many informants that his knuckles stung. He’d discovered that Grey might indeed be afflicted with a hunger for opium, but he was far from being out of his mind—Grey had secretly reached England, surprising them all.

  Yet then the man had made the critical mistake of viciously knifing a woman in the Network. Grey’s preferred weapon was his blade, and the brutality of the killing had alerted Ethan to his whereabouts….

  Grey was already on Hugh’s trail.

  Ethan had to be faster than Grey, better. He’d always managed to be in the past, though they’d been closely matched adversaries, each with his own talents.

  Grey relied on technique; Ethan on brute strength. Grey spoke four languages with flawless native fluency and was eerily brilliant with strategic matters, but there was a reason he’d become so lethal with a blade—with a gun, he couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn.

  Ethan would take his humble street smarts and his aim any day.

  Weyland considered Grey the most talented natural killer he’d ever encountered; Ethan was deemed the most doggedly brutal and relentless in pursuit….

  Ethan knew he was closing in on the man now, but he hadn’t been able to force Grey into the open. So he’d decided to anticipate Grey’s moves.

  Hugh had taken Jane to Ethan’s remote lake house just a few miles north of this tavern, to stay for a few days before traveling to Scotland. Grey would likely have uncovered information about the residence by now and would pursue her there, but the place was most readily accessible from the ferry that ran from this very tavern. Otherwise, it would take days to go north and circle back south to get to the estate. This tavern was the portal, and Ethan would act as sentinel here, waiting for Grey to come to him.

  The trap had been baited; Ethanfelt he was close.

  As if there wasn’t enough pressure to kill Grey, Edward Weyland had demanded that Hugh and Jane enter into a hasty marriage of convenience before they’d departed together. Hugh hadn’t reacted particularly well to denying himself Jane ten years ago. Now, after being near her constantly, bloody married to her…Hugh was going to lose his mind.

  After the lake house, Hugh planned to go to the Highlands to hide out at their brother Courtland’s ramshackle estate. If Ethan couldn’t catch or kill Grey, then he at least wanted to buy time for Hugh to escape with Jane. Hugh would travel by horse into the Scottish forests. He was an expert rifleman and hunter, the wilderness his element….

  Ethan’s thoughts were interrupted when he spied Arthur MacReedy and his barely bewhiskered son entering the tavern.Of all the people.

  Ethan recalled then that the MacReedy family had a hunting lodge in the Lake District and spent the fall at leisure in this area. Ethan knew a lot of things about the MacReedys—he’d been a day away from marrying Arthur’s daughter, Sarah.

  Meeting up with them now was a timely reminder of when Ethan had ignored the curse and sought to have a normal life, to take a bride, and try to father an heir.

  To get past what had been done to him.

  His planned marriage to her had in no way been a love match—he and Sarah had never met until the days leading up to the ceremony—but the union had made sense. Sarah had been a renowned beauty, and Ethan had been a wealthy young laird. Everything was supposed to have been settled—until the night before their wedding, when she’d stood at a high turret of his family’s ancient hold. She’d gazed at his face, at his newly healed scar, alternately with pity and disgust.

  He reached out his hand and rasped, “You doona have to marry me, Sarah….”

  “Kavanagh,” MacReedy the elder said, nodding at him once, respectfully—as he should.

  In return, Ethan cast the man the menacing expression he deserved. MacReedy and his son walked on.

  When the barmaid finally sauntered over to Ethan’s table, she averted her eyes, no doubt thinking that with eye contact, he would proposition her. After all, a man with a face like his would have to be paying for it.

  He was sick of the furtive looks or horrified glances women always cast him. What he wouldn’t give for a woman to look him full in the face and address the fact that he was scarred, maybe even say, “How did you receive such an injury?” He would never reveal the truth, of course, but he wanted to experience what it would be like simply to have the subject on the table for once.

  Without facing him, the barmaid asked him what he wanted to drink or eat. He declined curtly, though he was tempted to snap, “As if I’d have you. Just five nights ago, I took a woman who would shame you.”

  And there his thoughts turned to Madeleine yet again—MadeleineVan Rowen . Ethan had barely hidden his amazement when Quin had revealed the girl’s identity, though the connection wasn’t improbable. The Weylands had a family seat near Iveley Hall, the former Van Rowen manor—which Ethan had seized at Van Rowen’s death. It made sense that upper-class families like theirs in the same county would associate.

  Yet Ethan could scarcely believe he’d slept with the girl, theMaddy referred to on that night—the one mention that had turned the tide of Ethan’s fate, putting Van Rowen in a fury.

  Learning Madeleine’s identity had made Ethan reevaluate the entire night of the masquerade. The morning after, he’d practically convinced himself that she’d been innocent of any deceit. He’d only recognized how truly devious she’d been, how arrogant, when he’d discovered that she was the child of two of the most vile people he had ever imagined.

  Ethan had always heard that those in desperate situations behaved in unpredictable ways. This had not been so for the Van Rowens. They had been so easily manipulated that Ethan’s revenge hadn’t satisfied
whatsoever.

  Van Rowen had already been in financial straits. He’d leveraged all his lands and investments to pay for his much younger wife’s jewels and silks, frantic to keep her happy.

  Working insidiously, Ethan had bought up the man’s loans, forcing himself to act slowly, though he’d burned to make them pay. He had never let them know he’d been the catalyst for their ruin, and they’d never suspected a young Scot could destroy a powerful English landholder.

  So many accused Ethan of being unfeeling. In truth, he felt too strongly—always had—and Ethan’s hatred for the Van Rowens had boiled over into every aspect of his life. He’d tried to let the revenge go when he’d won—when Van Rowen and Brymer had been killed, and Sylvie left penniless.