Madeline followed with mounting concern. The housekeeper certainly seemed to be labouring. ‘Mrs Babcock, perhaps you should take a short rest.’
‘Nonsense!’ exclaimed Mrs Babcock cheerfully. ‘Up and down these stairs all the day long, I am. Not too old to be showin’ the new mistress to her rooms.’
‘No. I didn’t mean to suggest—’
Mrs Babcock cut her off. ‘Trethevyn is a lovely house. I’m sure you’ll come to love it as much as his lordship does. Not the best of weather to be arrivin’ in, but old George reckons as the weather will turn cold and fine again in the mornin’, and then you’ll see the place in all its glory. Expect you don’t want to be bothered thinkin’ about nothin’ ’cept gettin’ some nice warm food down you. But don’t you fret, m’lady, Cook has got a special treat prepared, a lovely selection, and his lordship’s favourite apple puddin’ an’ all.’
Madeline absorbed all this in silence. Her stomach felt small and tight and not a bit hungry. She forced a smile to her face and tried to sound enthusiastic. ‘That sounds lovely.’
The wheeze of Mrs Babcock’s breath grew louder. From down below there was the bustle of footmen unloading the baggage from the coach. Voices shouted and the fast flurry of footsteps on marble and wooden floors sounded. Madeline followed the housekeeper as the stairs swept back on themselves to reach a landing. From there Mrs Babcock turned to her right and followed down a dimly lit passageway.
‘It seems a pleasant house,’ said Madeline.
‘Once you’re settled, m’lady, you won’t want to leave. I can promise you that,’ replied the housekeeper.
Madeline sincerely doubted the truth of that remark, but said nothing.
Eventually they stopped outside a door, a door that looked to be the same as every other dark mahogany door along the passageway. Mrs Babcock reached forward, turned the handle, and swung the door open.
‘The bedchamber of the mistress of the house. In you go, m’lady.’ She waited for Madeline to move.
Madeline hesitated, peering in through the heavy mahogany doorway with a feeling of awe.
‘Just as her ladyship left it,’ said Mrs Babcock.
Madeline looked round with a start. ‘Her ladyship?’
The housekeeper chuckled. ‘The dowager Lady Tregellas. His lordship’s mum, ’fore she passed on, that was. God rest her soul.’
‘Oh.’
‘And now the bedchamber is yours,’ beamed Mrs Babcock, linking her arm through Madeline’s and walking her into the room. ‘I’m sure you’ll be very happy here, m’lady.’
Madeline bit at her lip. ‘Yes,’ she murmured, unable to meet Mrs Babcock’s eye.
The room was large in the extreme, bigger even than the one in Lucien’s London house. Even the four-poster bed seemed small in comparison.
Mrs Babcock nodded towards the full-length window in the middle of the opposite wall. ‘Have a care if you go out on the balcony until them there railings are mended. There was a right bad thunderstorm a few nights past and lightnin’ hit the ironwork. All of a crumpled mess it is.’ An ancient finger pointed to the side. ‘Dressing room and bath’s through there. His lordship even has one of them new water closets installed. Newfangled falderal, if you ask me. A chamberpot was good enough for his father and his grandfather before, but Master Lucien always was rather headstrong. Wouldn’t listen as a boy. Still won’t listen.’ Mrs Babcock sniffed loudly to show what she thought of Lucien’s wilful ways. ‘Sit yourself down, m’lady. I’ll have Betsy bring you a nice strong cup of tea with plenty of sugar. You’re lookin’ a bit pasty, if you don’t mind me sayin’.’
Madeline found herself being steered towards the sofa, an elderly hand patting at her shoulder.
‘I’ll stop my chatterin’ and let you catch your breath then. Anythin’ you want, just ring. Betsy’ll be right up.’ Mrs Babcock got as far as the door before turning her face back towards Madeline. ‘Took his lordship long enough to find himself a bride. But I reckon he’s made the right choice with you, m’lady. Welcome to Trethevyn.’ Then she was off and lumbering back along the length of the corridor.
Madeline stood where she was, listening to the scuffling of Mrs Babcock’s shoes against the wooden flooring, eyes scanning what lay before her. A rose-coloured bedchamber, warm from a fire that had clearly been burning for some time within the centre of the carved white marble fireplace. Rain battered against the large full-length window in the centre of the room, and would have lent a greyness to the light had it not been for the warming yellow glow from a multitude of lighted candles. The room did indeed have a peaceful air to it, just as Mrs Babcock had said.
Madeline surveyed the furniture. There was a matching desk and chair, a small bookcase, a large wooden box on top of a stand, and an easel. There was even a vase of snowdrops, bowing their shy white little heads low towards their green stems. She pushed the door shut and walked quietly across the pink patterned rug. A pale brocade-covered sofa with matching cushions was positioned before the fireplace, a corresponding armchair by its side. A tallboy and a wardrobe in the left-hand corner. Two bedside tables. Symmetrically placed in the walls of both the left-and right-hand sides of the bedchamber were two identical doors, painted the same pale rose colour to merge with the walls. Madeline moved first to the right, the side that Mrs Babcock had indicated. The door led into a dressing room complete with dressing table and mirrors, and from there into a bathroom. She looked across the length of the bedchamber towards the matching door on the other side. Madeline suspected what lay behind that. She walked steadily towards it, placed her hand on the smooth wooden handle and turned. The door was locked. She backed away from it. Only in her retreat did she notice the walls.
Every inch of space upon the walls had been hung with framed paintings: paintings of woodland scenes, paintings of dogs, paintings of wild sweeping moorland, and colourful bright studies of flowers. Two children playing in the sunlight, a man walking through the snow. A rainbow lighting a dark sky, and a rugged ruined castle on a cliff edge so sheer as to plunge into a white-foamed sea. They drew Madeline like a magnet. Chilled fingers soon warmed, tension and unease melted away. Madeline forgot all else as she studied the works. Delicate translucence of watercolour, and bold rich oils. Absorbing her into the scenes, drawing her in with the artist’s eye. At the bottom of every paper, every canvas, were the same entwined initials: A and T. The same artist had rendered all these paintings, and with such love and passion and clarity. Everyday scenes immortalised for ever by the careful strokes of a brush.
A quiet knock sounded, timid knuckles tapping on wood.
‘Come in.’ Madeline looked up to find a young woman carrying a tray hovering by the doorway.
‘Beggin’ your pardon, m’lady, but Mrs Babcock sent me with your tea.’ The girl hunched her lanky frame and smiled a nervous little smile.
Madeline returned the smile. ‘Thank you. You must be Betsy.’
‘Yes, m’lady. Betsy Porter.’ Another nervous smile. ‘Shall I set it down here on the table by the fire?’
‘Yes, please.’ The girl’s hair was fair, not unlike Madeline’s own, but the eyes that looked back were blue washed with grey. ‘Betsy, I was just admiring the pictures on the walls. Who painted them?’
‘Oh, that was old Lady Tregellas. Mrs Babcock says that her ladyship painted all her life. ’Cept at the end. Wasn’t well enough to paint ’fore she died.’
‘When was that?’ asked Madeline, intrigued to learn something more of Lucien’s family.
‘Long time ’fore I started work here,’ answered Betsy. ‘Perhaps five years, or so, ago.’ A little silence before she said, ‘I hope you like the flowers, m’lady. Mrs Babcock had me pick them specially for you.’
Madeline glanced towards the vase holding the snowdrops. ‘They’re beautiful, Betsy. I like them very much, thank you.’
Betsy pleated her apron and smiled. ‘Mrs Babcock says to tell you that dinner will be served at five o’clock, so there’
s time for a short nap if you’re tired. I’m to come back to help you dress at half past four. There ain’t no lady’s maid here. Mrs Babcock thought you would be bringin’ your own.’ Betsy ground to an awkward halt.
‘No,’ said Madeline, and then, making a spur-of-the-moment decision, ‘Perhaps you might like to be my maid?’
Betsy looked as if she’d been struck by lightning. Then the blood rushed with a fury to heat her pale cheeks. ‘But I ain’t trained, m’lady. I don’t know how to do hair stylin’ or…’ The words trailed off.
‘I don’t know how to be a countess,’ confided Madeline. ‘Perhaps we could learn together.’
‘Oh, m’lady!’ burst out Betsy. ‘I won’t let you down, that I won’t, m’lady.’
Madeline was left with reassurances from Betsy that she only needed to ring and the maid would be straight there. If Betsy and Mrs Babcock were anything to judge by, it seemed that perhaps Trethevyn’s staff were a great deal more welcoming than its master. ‘Betsy, please can you send up some—’
But Betsy had gone.
Madeline jumped up and half-ran out the door to catch the maid, but of Betsy there was no sign. She’d drink her tea and then ring for warm water to wash in, giving poor Betsy time to catch her breath. She left the door ajar and went to pour the tea. A hot cup of tea and she would feel much better…perhaps.
‘Max, come back here at once,’ Lucien bellowed. ‘Confound that blasted dog!’ Lucien strode out of the library, dressed casually in only his shirt and waistcoat. The superfine black coat lay disregarded upon the library chair. ‘Back five minutes and the hound deserts me,’ he told an amused-looking Mrs Babcock, who just happened to be hobbling past the library at the time.
‘Dear, oh, dear,’ she said, casting a beady eye over the dark circles beneath his lordship’s eyes and the stubborn tilt to his chin. ‘Whyever that might be I just wouldn’t know.’ She surveyed the new leanness to his face and the tiny worry line that always appeared between his brows when he was at his most aggrieved…and wondered. ‘Savin’ that you look like you’ve been suckin’ lemons. Bad journey down from London, was it?’
Lucien’s glare would have had most other women beating a hasty and apologetic retreat.
Mrs Babcock was made of sterner stuff. ‘Surprised you haven’t frightened that poor girl to death if you’ve been glarin’ at her like that.’
‘Mrs Babcock…’ began Lucien with indignant pomposity.
Obviously a raw nerve had been touched if his lordship had abandoned the use of her pet name in favour of full formality. Mrs Babcock placed her hands on her ample hips and sniffed. ‘Now, don’t you Mrs Babcock me, m’lord. That dog’s not daft. Knows a sourpuss when he sees one and seeks out better company up them stairs.’ Mrs Babcock shook her head. ‘Cook’s down there makin’ you your favourite apple puddin’ an’ all and you’re up here with a face like thunder.’
‘Did you say Max ran upstairs?’
‘Disappearin’ up there like he’d caught the scent of a rabbit, he was.’
Lucien raked a hand through his hair. ‘But Madeline’s up there and you know how Max hates strangers.’
Mrs Babcock chuckled, ‘Nearly took Lady Radford’s hand off the last time she called.’ She delivered Lucien a hefty pat on the arm. ‘Now don’t you worry, her ladyship’s door will be shut. He won’t get into her room. And besides, don’t you think we would have heard by now if it wasn’t?’
Earl Tregellas’s face was still creased into a frown. ‘True. But the dog’s too quiet. No doubt up to something he shouldn’t be. I’d best find him.’
‘Dinner at five, m’lord,’ said Mrs Babcock, and limped off in the direction of the kitchen.
Blasted dog. Probably chewing on his favourite top boots. Ten years hadn’t diminished Max’s taste for good-quality leather. Lucien took the stairs two at a time, reaching the upper landing in a matter of seconds. He scanned the corridor running in both directions. Thankfully the door to his own room appeared to be closed. Indeed, every other door along both passageways seemed to be in the same position, save for one. And that was the door that led into the bedchamber of the Countess Tregellas. A sudden trepidation gripped Lucien. ‘Max!’ he shouted and hurried down the length of the hallway to reach the room. He thrust the door open and barged in, fully expecting to find his wife backed into a corner by a snarling Max. Really, the dog could be a bad-tempered brute at times.
The sight that greeted his eyes could not have been more different. His jaw dropped. For there on the sofa was Madeline with the great black dog lying docilely across her lap, angling himself so that she could scratch his head in just the right spot. Lucien’s entry brought only the most casual of glances from Max. Madeline looked up with a start.
‘Lucien? Is something wrong?’ She tried to stand, but Max showed no inclination to move from the warm comfort of her lap.
Lucien cleared his throat, feeling a turnip for dashing in to solve a crisis that did not exist. He fixed Max with an accusatory stare. ‘I thought that Max might have found his way in here, and he can be somewhat…aggressive with those he doesn’t know.’
Max turned his best sad expression towards Madeline and gave a pathetic little whimper.
‘Oh, poor old boy,’ said Madeline, tickling the dog’s ears. ‘Do you hear what he’s saying about you? Look at those eyes.’ The innocence in Max’s liquid brown eyes intensified. ‘As if he could even know what aggression was.’ Max’s tail set up a thumping wag against the pink brocade of the sofa and he laid his head on Madeline’s thigh, looking up at Lucien with as smug an expression as is possible for an old dog to give.
‘I assure you, he can be a brute at times,’ said Lucien.
‘Really?’ said Madeline, raising her clear brown eyes to his.
Lucien had the feeling that they were talking about something else altogether. A small silence stretched between them. He made an abrupt change of subject. ‘Is the room to your liking? If not, you have free rein to change it as you see fit. The same goes for the rest of the house, excepting the library, which is my…which I would prefer to remain as it is.’
First he ignores her for the whole day’s coach travel, then he tells her she might redecorate his entire house if she wants! ‘I love this room,’ she said. ‘I will not change it.’ Her fingers scratched a massage against Max’s head.
Lucien found his eyes drawn to the slender white fingers moving rhythmically against the dog’s sleek black coat. He felt mesmerised, a strange relaxation creeping across his scalp.
‘Your mother’s paintings are beautiful.’
Lucien dragged his gaze away. ‘Yes, they are. I’m glad you like them.’ Her face was raised to his. Not angry. Not afraid. Just peaceful.
‘Madeline…’
‘There you are, you naughty boy!’ Mrs Babcock heaved herself into the room.
Both Lucien and Madeline’s heads shot round, unsure whether the housekeeper was referring to the master of the house or his dog.
‘Ah, would you look at that,’ cooed Mrs Babcock. ‘I believe he’s fallen in love.’
Lucien felt the tips of his ears begin to burn. ‘Mrs Babcock,’ he said coolly, ‘was there something that you wanted?’
‘Oh, don’t mind me,’ the housekeeper said. ‘I just popped up to tell her ladyship that Betsy will bring her up some warm water to freshen herself in, shortly. I’ll be off then.’ And she promptly disappeared.
The moment was lost. ‘I’ll leave you to enjoy your tea in peace,’ said Lucien. ‘Come on, Max.’ Then, to Madeline, ‘I don’t know what’s got into him. He’s normally so obedient.’
Max yawned and snuggled closer into Madeline.
‘Max,’ Lucien persevered. ‘Come on, boy!’
Max shot him a speaking look. It said, loud and clear, Are you mad?
‘Can’t he stay?’ asked Madeline.
One last-ditch attempt from Lucien. ‘He’ll cast hairs all over your dress.’
‘I don’t mind a few h
airs,’ said Madeline.
‘Well, in that case…’
Max gave a little grunt of triumph.
Traitor! Lucien turned and walked alone from the room.
Lucien dozed fitfully, his dreams interspersed with Farquharson and the ever-present past. The muted sound of a woman’s voice pulled him free of the torture. He knew the words beneath that hushed mumble, had heard them every night over the past weeks since the journey down from London. Correction, every night save for when he had…That was something Lucien could not bring himself to think about. Guilt was not assuaged by the desire that burned low and steady for the woman who was his wife. He had not thought that he, Lucien Tregellas, could have lowered himself to the base level of Farquharson. It seemed that he was wrong. He had taken Madeline to save her from a fate that had befallen another young woman not so very different from herself. That, and as part of his scheme to deliver retribution to Farquharson.
He’d thought he could control that carnal part of himself. He had not slept with a woman in five long years. Since meeting Madeline, Lucien had found himself suddenly obsessed with the longing. Try as he might to deny it, he wanted his wife in his bed. He pushed the thought away, just as he had on every other occasion, and lay listening to her muffled cries.
God, but it rent at his soul! He found himself standing by the door that connected his room with hers. Hand resting on the doorknob, cheek pressed against the smoothness of the wood, listening and listening, fighting his every instinct to stride right in there and take her into his arms. He wanted to kiss away the worry and the fear, to tell her it was only a nightmare and that he would protect her. But who then would protect her from him? I do trust you, Lucien, she had said. He had taken that trust and destroyed it, like everything else in his life. So he stood and listened until there was silence once more and he knew that the nightmare had passed.
Every night was a torture. Every day, too. They dined together. Nothing else. The strain of keeping such a rigid formality between them wore at him. To make matters worse, Guy had written to say that Farquharson was still in London, feeding the ton a story that the Wicked Earl had abducted Farquharson’s bride-to-be and forced a marriage upon her. Little wonder that sleep evaded him. Lucien pulled on his dressing gown and quietly made his way down to his library, and the bottle of brandy that would deaden the sting of his thoughts.
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