Against Nash’s pull, Uncle raised his hands in surrender. “I’m a peer, I’d remind you. And besides, didn’t I train her up well for you?”
He should not have smirked.
Maddie swung the tankard up as she rose to her feet. It connected hard with Uncle’s cheek, knocking him out of Nash’s grasp and back onto the dirt. She sank onto her knees in front of him, just as he always liked. Hands fisted one inside the other, she lifted her arms and slammed them down on his pretty face. And his shoulder, and his leg, and back to his face.
She had been a good girl, all along. It was Wetherby who had been bad. Very bad. Not again. Never again. Never, never, never, never.
“Maddie?” Nash knelt on the other side of the body, which had stopped groaning.
“I won’t be his whore anymore.” Her tears softened his face, but not the shock upon it. She had shocked him. She had shamed him.
Maddie shrunk back from the body, from Nash’s outstretched hand. She was unclean. She would be forever unclean.
She had to get away, run away, hide. He sometimes got tired of looking for her when she hid. Down the path, strange to be outside. There was a pond here somewhere. She needed to wash, too, and find a place to hide.
He was calling her name, angry. She must get away. She was still sore from the last time. She needed to rest.
Her breaths pounded in her head. The pictures wouldn’t stop. Now she could sense the smells, too. And the sounds.
“You are nothing, you hear me? This is all you are good for. And you’re not even good at this. I should keep you in the sty with the pigs, you’re so useless.”
“Give me that bread. You know to take crusts only. And stay upstairs, out of sight. Don’t let the clean people see you.”
“Swallow, bitch.”
Maddie pounded at her head, but nothing blocked the river of memories. Her eyes were cloudy, and the path she ran was narrow. A wild-pig path? Exactly where she deserved to be.
She heard his voice calling, too close, and ducked under two crossed trees lying on the ground.
He’d never find her here.
* * * *
Nash couldn’t hold her. Maddie had pulled away from his outstretched hand as if it were on fire. By the time he was on his feet again, she was at full run, deeper into the wood.
Bloody hell.
But before he could go after her, he heard Deacon stumbling into the chaos.
“Bloody hell, Nash. Not again.” He knelt beside Wetherby. “The coat is ruined. What have you done?”
“Maddie did that, and from what I heard he deserves a damn sight more. He…he…my god, Deacon. He was having his way with her, and her but a child.” His mind skittered away from the picture, it so disgusted him, but his heart wouldn’t hear of shrinking back. “No wonder Father sent her away. His goddaughter.” Nash looked at the prone form on the ground. He should be under the ground. “Bastard.”
“Nash! Step back from him. And the sister?” He looked at Kitty sitting still against a tree.
“I’m fine,” she said. “Bit of a cracked head.”
Nash would not be distracted. “Wetherby attacked her. He was forcing himself on her.”
“And your bruiser? Where is she?”
“She ran.” He had to find her, now. His red-hot gaze pleaded with the cool of his brother’s.
“Leave it. Go.”
Nash ran, glad to put space between himself and the man he longed to slaughter. The bastard betrayed a little girl. He probably broke her little body.
His Maddie.
Wetherby deserved to be shot, or castrated, or both. But as a peer, he was nearly untouchable, unless he attacked another peer.
He hadn’t, had he? He’d attacked a defenseless girl, an orphan, looking to him for solace and safety. Fucking bastard. No—it was precisely because he was not a bastard but a titled heir that he could get away with this.
Nash ran past the broken branches he could see she’d crashed through and up the trail, but Maddie had simply vanished. He retraced his steps. Gone.
He pounded down on a young ash in frustration. Its snap back nearly beheaded him. How could he have been so blind? She could barely speak to the man back at Deacon’s birthday supper, and they’d all thought her shy, overcome by the long-awaited reunion. Overcome, true, but by loathing and disgust.
And that scene in the barnyard. Hadn’t Wetherby actually touched her? Lucky she merely fainted, or whatever she did. Run away. Well, he knew all about that move, too.
And Heywood’s face at that first supper. He must have known something of it, as well. His friend had kept it damned close to his vest, if he did. Small wonder Heywood offered her work rather than return to Wetherby.
With clues so obvious, the Quinns were but three blind mice, and him the blindest. Lord, she flinched at his touch. The barest stroke brought her to tears. The miracle was that she did join with him, forcing herself to submit for the sake of—what?—propriety? Wetherby had trained her to submit, but he couldn’t train her to like it.
Nash tripped over a root, sprawling into the grass along the path. He lay, dazed, unsure where exactly he was in his family’s own damned play forest. Maddie must be completely lost. The trees canopied, spilling fresh green light through the air. He sat up, head reeling, hands gripping the cool sod as if to pull up the earth itself and look under it for her.
He knew Maddie had a history, a sad story indeed. But it was easier to blame himself, for lacking some critical skill to please gentle ladies, than to consider that something that had happened so long ago could leave a trace in the adult mind.
It had; he couldn’t deny it now. Just as, if he would but admit it, his own childhood terrors and longings diverted the currents of his thoughts.
The look on her face, green flecks giant in her rounded eyes. Her mouth, drawn down at an impossible, a painful, angle. The arch of her back as she raised her fists, rounding as she brought them down, her body a guillotine.
She would turn that force on herself. She mustn’t be alone. The very moment she needed a loving hand, she stole herself away. Didn’t that sound familiar, too. Just what one would do, if one believed love brought only pain.
He had to find her. He pushed up to standing. He was just south of the castle. Where was she? She wouldn’t leave the safety of the woods, surely. Only an acre. He’d already crossed and re-crossed it twice.
Maddie held joy in her, he was sure of it. She must have learned to protect herself inside, tricks to keep her sane. She hadn’t attacked Wetherby when he propositioned her, but when he threatened Kitty. Why not? It didn’t make sense.
And then it did. Kitty was new, untouched, at least by Wetherby. Maddie might save her sister, if she could not save herself. Kitty was clean.
What did Maddie say, sometimes? I’m so dirty. She’d call for yet another bloody bath. The iron fear turning in his gut melted into leaden dread. She’d find her way to the pond, sooner or later. He had to get there first.
{ 29 }
Maddie floated back to life, the speckles behind her eyelids resolving into sunlight through dappled leaves.
She lay on the dirty ground, the dead tree above her dropping shards of bark onto her dress. She was just as filthy inside, far beyond redemption.
She was nothing human. She’d been sold as a pup, coddled like a pet, used like a dishrag, and then discarded as trash. She didn’t know for what use the old earl had intended her, but the present one had the right of it. She was not marriage material.
Worse, she had lied to Nash. She hadn’t saved herself for marriage, yet had pretended to be a fragile virgin, even to herself. The truth was she was a filthy manikin, not a God-loved human at all. Not even the biggest ocean could wash away all her sins.
Or perhaps it could.
She crawled from under the tree, and sat upon it. Her vision was still spotty, the trees looming close, and then fading away. The air tasted of metal.
She would try the pond. Perhaps it would
be large enough to wash away some of the dirt. But it would keep collecting, attracted to her, knowing her. She could never hold the blackness back.
Her feet moved after a fashion. Her toes dragged, and she had to keep reminding herself to pick them up. It was quiet here in the woods, empty, even the animals had fled from her presence. She heard a crashing on her left, as if a family of deer were bounding away from her. Wise deer.
She wiped at her eyes, and her vision improved somewhat. She was so tired. How could not remembering something be so exhausting?
She heard the soft rustle of wind on water, and in a moment the edge of the pond drew close.
Maddie slid in the mud, and stopped as the water caressed the toe of her boot.
A shiver of a breeze pinched ruffles into the surface of the water. Its familiar agitation warmed her. The water was as restless in its thoughts as she. As hungry to be saved.
She slid the boot deeper, lifting her skirt dry. With the next step, her arms were too tired, and she let the pretty, ruined fabric go free. Nash said the green brought out the color in her eyes. He was so pretty.
If the water caressed her ankles, it slapped her shins with cold. But soon enough she was used to it, and in a few more steps she was in a patch of sunlight. Her shoulders warmed as her hips drew in the cold. She might crack in half, but it would be pretty symmetry.
“Maddie.” The wind whispered her name. No, that was Nash’s voice. She looked back. He stood on the bank. His chest filled and emptied so fast.
She turned to face him, and stepped back. Her belly chilled, the butterflies inside slowing their wings.
“Wait.” He reached for her.
She took another step back and slipped, arms pinwheeling before the water pushed at her and she righted herself.
Nash’s face flashed anger. He splashed two steps into the water and stopped. His rapid breaths seemed to add a counterpoint of ripples to the surface of the water.
What could he want? Not her. She turned away from him, toward a bigger patch of sun.
But he made so much noise in the water, with all that breathing and thrashing about. She pushed deeper, away from his flurry, water to the top of her corset, and then over. The chill stole her breath for a moment. It could have it all.
Her arm jerked back, and she turned. He held her by the wrist, water sluicing off their arms.
They stood, her chest deep, him legs splayed, waist under water. His cheekbones cut against the pale of his skin. His eyes burned and bruised as if he’d never been so angry. But his jaw was set, stubborn.
It took her a moment to notice he was reeling her in, so slowly she made little ripple.
She wrenched out of his grasp so hard she lost her footing. Her knees buckled, and she tumbled under the surface. The cool on her scalp was bliss.
But the skirts got all tangled, or he tangled them, pushing into her. She felt his fingertips on the skin of her neck, and then he had hold of the corset and was hauling her back into the air.
She spluttered, hot with shame, anger, and the blinding pain she’d run from for so long. She pounded on his arm, but he didn’t break his grip. With his other hand, he pushed the hair from her face. His gaze burned her, accusations, recriminations, hate. She gasped a breath deep, hurting her chest, reaching for the words, pushing them out.
“Let go.”
His look said she was a fool. “Not again.” He pulled her closer. She pressed her hands against his chest, but he pushed them away as if they were gnats and trapped her against him, sealing her cage with the staccato beat of his heart.
“Come inside. I’ll make a bath. I’ll bathe you.”
He was so solid, so warm. She felt herself melting into him. All she wanted was his arms around her and no thoughts at all. But she didn’t deserve him. She was a liar. He would despise her if he knew all she’d done. He’d leave.
“Don’t cry like that. This isn’t you, Maddie.”
“You can’t see. You don’t want to see.”
“Maddie, love.” The heat of him crept past the chill and the wet. He ran his fingers into her hair, and she gasped at the pain as he pulled the wrong way.
He undid the combs holding her hair. The release unlocked something deep inside her. It welled up through her heart, past her soul and out her throat, deep sobs wracking her like a rag doll in a hurricane.
This time Nash didn’t tell her to hush, he simply held her, stroking a glowing path down her back, for hours or minutes or even until the end of days, it felt the same.
At last her sobs ebbed, but her body kept shaking.
He had not left. He had not deserted her. But his body was shaking now, too.
“You’re chilled through. Will you come with me?”
She would.
{ 30 }
Nash supported Maddie’s dragging form along the cart-path that snaked around the back of the castle, past the stables, away from the hubbub of the lawn party. Deacon must have been watching; he met them at the door to the kitchens. A quick conference, and he went down to the kitchens to commandeer hot water.
Nash and Maddie managed the servants’ stairs. He set her on the stuffed chair in the blue bedroom, the one most comfortable for her.
Even under Deacon’s order, there was nowhere near enough hot water to spare for a bath. Still, he did wrest a large soup-pot’s worth from the much-put-upon cook. Nash took it from the servant at the bedroom’s door.
“All they could spare,” he said, setting it near the hearth. He quickly built up a blazing fire, and fetched the sheets and toweling, pan and pitcher, from the washstand. He knelt in front of her, his hand gentle on her knee. She’d been broken the last time he took this pose, and now he knew why.
“May I wash you?”
Maddie’s gaze was locked on some interior world, but he thought she nodded yes.
He rose and locked the door. Pulling her to her feet, he quickly stripped off her sodden clothes. He did the same for his own, wrapping a towel about his hips.
He laid two folded sheets on the carpet in front of the fireplace, and she laid herself upon them. Two pillows from the bed propped up her head.
Her hair was tangled as Medusa’s, so he started with her feet. Dipping the washcloth first into the steaming water, then in the cool in the washstand basin, he created the perfect temperature for her.
He picked up her foot, the toes bluish, and stroked up her sole. He ignored the tears rolling down her face as he ministered to her arch and ankle, and every little toe. Her second toe was longer than the big toe.
“Can it be Maundy Thursday already?” she said, her voice so soft.
He rinsed the cloth, and then took up her knee, and sluiced warmth in and dirt out of her well-formed calf and shin. Her sobs began to quiet, her breathing to ease.
He repeated the pattern with her other leg, monitoring the water levels. He didn’t dare run out.
But she would not stop crying. Tears streaked the streaks of earlier tears. It was killing him.
“Talk to me, Maddie.” He kept rubbing her calves, lazy eights, not looking at her tears.
“I lied to you.”
The anger shot out before he could stop it. “Don’t say that. You are not to blame yourself for any of it. Not when you were a babe, not when you were a child, not now.”
“I married under false pretenses. You should have it annulled.”
“Why ever would I want that? I want you, Maddie, only and ever you. You had trouble in the past, bad trouble. It’s no secret now. And it’s too bad. Or maybe it is good. You can cry and grieve out loud, instead of locking it deep inside. Let go of it, and perhaps you’ll have room for more. Room for me.”
His voice cracked on the last word. He ducked his head, warming the cloth. His tears were just more warmth. He set to work on her arms, and her beautiful hands. Her eyelids flickered, her breath slowed.
He rolled her onto her right side, toward him. With the warm, wet cloth, he slid his hands down the tempting curve o
f her side, sliding past the breast, along the waist and down the hip to the knee. Her skin was so pure, as if it had never been touched or seen by anyone but her maker. If only that were true. He leaned in and planted a kiss on her hip, as his hand slid between her hips, rinsing clean that place that had seen so much pain.
He swept up her belly and around her breasts and breastbone, and did a quick pass by her face. He’d return to that for a more thorough cleaning later.
He admired the shape of her curves, so exactly woman, while he mourned for the child she had once been. How could any man torment a child? There could be no grace in marring such beauty. “I’ll kill him,” he said.
“You would hang. I’d rather you be safe.”
“Kitty is a pistol. She looks so like you. Wetherby must have pissed his pants in surprise when she slugged him.”
“We’re not alike. She is strong.”
Did she truly believe she was not? “Kitty did not survive all that you did. And she had the constant guide of a parent.”
“She would have fought.”
“You fought.”
“Never succeeded. Not strong.” All the breath sighed out of her, a doleful breeze.
“Strong enough to run away and walk ten miles in the dark. Strong enough to plead your case to my demon of a father. And succeed.” The more he thought on it, the more he admired what she had done. He had run away, true, but at twelve, and toward something else. At four he was probably bawling in the garden with Nana.
“Madeline Quinn, you are a marvel. But you’ll have to help me here. What is the best way to wash your hair?” She rolled onto her back and stretched her arms over her head, weaving her hips to carry the stretch down her legs. Nash was instantly erect. He silently cursed himself. Now was not the time to be attracted to his wife. He shifted up to crouch on his feet, turning away from her and tightening his towel. Her eyes didn’t open.
“It’s damp, so that step is done. Just rub a little soap in your hands and run your fingers through it. Pour the basin water back into the pitcher. I lean over the basin and you pour the pitcher.”
An Untitled Lady: A Novel Page 24