by Kresley Cole
Yet her excitement was tempered with a growing sense of uneasiness. The idea of her being mistress to an estate like this seemed…fantastical.
Fortune favors the bold, she reminded herself.Yes, but this is ridiculous.
"So, did you find out why Silas was remiss in his duties?" Madeleine asked after an uncomfortable, reserved dinner with Ethan. He'd brusquely adjourned to his study, without inviting her, but she'd followed him anyway.
"Aye. Strong drink. All day long," he said, taking a seat behind an imposing, mahogany desk. "The estate's been neglected sorely. Which makes me fear how my other properties are faring under myriad stewardships."
He looked so concerned that she sidled behind him to knead his shoulders. "Surely you'll be able to find a suitable replacement. It seems Carillon would be a feather in any steward's cap."
"I suppose."
"You can run an advertisement in the paper and have inquiries forwarded."
"What do you mean?" He tensed beneath her fingers. "We're staying here until this is resolved."
She forced herself to ask in an even tone, "So how long do you predict we'll be delayed here?"
"I have to find a replacement, then acquaint him with the operations."
She drew her hands away, then crossed to the other side of his desk. "How long?"
"A week. Maybe two."
Maddy's heart sank. "I can't stay here with you unmarried that long."
He waved her concerns away. "I've already told everyone we're wed."
"You could marry me in the village Sorcha told me about earlier, and then we could stay here for as long as you needed."
"My God, is that all you care about? My tenants have endured three harsh winters because of Silas, and now they have no hay or vegetable stores for this winter."
"I don't understand. What did he do?"
"It's what he dinna do. If a field flooded, he dinna have it drained. He neglected to order seeds at the correct intervals throughout the year. There are a dozen other examples of dereliction."
"But why wouldn't anyone write to you, to alert—?"
"They canna bloody read and write! And it's no' their responsibility. It'smine ." He pinched the bridge of his nose, exhaling wearily. "Madeleine, I'm going to be gone most days salvaging this situation. I hope you can entertain yourself."
"Of course," she said, exhaling with disappointment. "I'm used to not seeing you until the night." She rose to leave, but at the doorway, she turned back. "I'll stay here ten days on the outside, Scot."
"What's that supposed to be? A threat?"
"No, just a statement of intent. Maybe I am selfish, but I need this security."
He narrowed his eyes. "You doona trust me."
She nodded, clearly surprising him. "You're right. I don't, not yet."
"So what does a man like me have to do to earn your trust?"
"Honestly, I don't know. I guess it just has to grow over time."
"You mean in ten days?" he said. "That's all the time Miss Van Rowen has allotted me."
The ship had seemed a different world.
Now Ethan was on his property, introducing Madeleine as his wife, to his own people. And the lie didn't bother him nearly so much as how easily the words slipped from his tongue.
Ethan's steward problems were very real, but at the same time, he was using the situation for his own ends. He could in fact advertise and have inquiries forwarded. And of course, he could simply marry Madeleine here.
He'd always abided by his decisions, stuck to his plans. Now, he began to feel like he was losing control—the reins slipping from his grasp.
He'd made a decision to keep several various estates because they'd been in the family for generations and because when run correctly, they paid for themselves or even produced a profit. He'd thought he'd hired the best land agents in his absence.
Instead, his tenants here had suffered, and he was becoming increasingly uneasy about the state of his other properties. When he went back to the Network, he wouldn't have time to check on each of them and right any wrongs.
Slip.
He'd made a decision to appease his anger on the only child of the Van Rowens. Now he wanted her more and more each day. Another slip.
Ethan was brutal, selfish. He knew this, had no wish to change. Yet now he'd caught himself wanting to put Madeleine's needs over his own. Slip.
He'd always held something of himself back in bed; her kisses could make him lose his mind….
I think I want her…for my own.Damn it, if a man consigned a woman to hell for ten years, he'd best not envision a cheery domestic future with her.
Ethan had always felt things too strongly. And if he allowed himself to feel something more for her, then lost her, he didn't think he'd ever be right again.
He found himself eyeing the whisky service.Another slip to come?
Chapter Thirty-two
"No, no, Ethan," Maddy muttered to herself, kicking a stone as she explored Carillon. "I can show myself around." For the last three days, she'd done just that.
On her first foray, she'd discovered an orangery, with walls of glazed glass and a glass dome roof. When she'd been about to exclaim with delight—citrus, there for the grabbing—she realized it was no longer in use and had only a couple of scraggly orange trees within. A great furnace with pipes leading under the floor had probably once supplied heating and steam, but now looked broken.
Another day, she'd come across a stair to a widow's walk high above the house, where wives had gazed out at the sea, spying for their husbands' return. She wondered if any woman before her had climbed this spot to gaze out—in the other direction….
Maddy endeavored to stay away each day, going for long strolls. But there was no coterie here. Sorcha was kind but content to keep her distance from the mistress of the house. Maddy was terribly lonely, missing Bea and Corrine so much that she ached.
If she ever did see Ethan during the days, his manner with her was brisk and unapproachable. But when he came to her in the nights…his body told a completely different story.
He'd nuzzle her neck and rumble how much she pleased him as they touched each other. If she kissed or stroked him in a way he liked, he made sure she knew it, lavishing praise. These idylls were so perfect and fulfilling that she'd actually begun to crave making love to him, often imagining what he would feel like inside her once more. Denying him that final step was becoming increasingly difficult with each encounter, even as he inexplicably pressed for it less and less.
After they were spent, he would cradle her face and kiss her so tenderly that she thought she might cry. Each night, he trapped her in his arms, making her sleep against him, but she was growing used to his strong, warm presence.
At night, she was adored, protected. In the days, she felt utterly alone.
The difference in his demeanor was enough to make her crazed. Was he so anxious about the property that he was behaving differently with her? With her determination to stay away, there was no way he could accuse her of being irritatingly "underfoot."
Maddy knew there were aspects about her that would be unattractive to a potential husband—much less to a rich, powerful peer. She was dowryless, uneducated, and, well, a former criminal. Ethan had known all that and had still pressed for her hand.
But perhaps revealing the wretched details of her family's past had tipped the balance out of her favor….
From his study window, Ethan watched Madeleine endeavor to tame a peacock with bread crumbs. When it fanned its tail feathers and chased her, she laughed all the way across the lawn.
Ethan wanted to be down there with her.
After just a week here, he was beginning to understand that it didn't matter if they weren't together. She was still in his thoughts constantly. He wasn't eating. His sleep was restless. Each day grew closer to inevitable pain, and he resented it.
He was never supposed to have wanted her like this.
With her bright smile and laughter, she w
as everything a soulless bastard like him would crave as a dying man does life—a feeling he well knew.
There was something more with her, fundamentally more. A connection, a yearning fulfilled, he didn't bloody know. He couldn't even explain it to himself. Sometimes, he felt like she was already a part of him—had always been.
The stronger his feelings became, the more he realized he would be destroyed when he and Madeleine parted.What if I just keep her? he asked himself again and again.
Sometimes he wondered what it would be like if he quit the Network and assumed the life that had always awaited in the background.
Take a wife, oversee his properties, look after his tenants. He'd discovered something deeply appealing about working so closely with his lands. Indeed, it seemed to call to him.
Yet the last time he'd had these thoughts had resulted in tragedy.
When he'd planned to marry Sarah MacReedy, it had been out of a sense of obligation to the title. Now Ethan found he mightneed that life—if Madeleine was part of the bargain.
But if he kept her, Ethan would just end up hurting her worse than he already had. It was inevitable. She would discover his involvement in her past and his present deceit, and it would devastate her.
To partially exonerate himself, would he tell Maddy her parents hadn't been as she'd believed? Would he tell her that her father, whom she spoke of so lovingly, had been a pathetic cuckold, and her mother hadn't been merely spoiled and selfish, as Madeleine seemed to believe, but out-and-out evil?
Did Madeleine need to know that her parents were responsible for a twenty-three-year-old man being strung up in their stables and tortured?
There could be no union more doomed than his and Madeleine's. If he did have children with her, they would beVan Rowen's grandchildren—Sylvie'sgrandchildren; Ethan had bloody made sure Madeleinestarved .
Doomed…
Damn it, he'd made a decision not to marry her, and he never wavered from his decisions. When had he lost sight of all he'd planned? His first impulse was to leave her. Give her money to see her happy and let her have one or—sod it all—allof his homes. The problem with that plan? He was already too attached to her to part from her willingly. Ethan was snared.
He'd hurt her, and she was unwittingly repaying him a thousand fold—just by being herself. Every time he saw her utter lust for delicacies, and every night she woke, cheeks wet from some nightmare, his chest hurt.
The more attached he grew to the lass, the more guilt and strangling frustration he battled. The regret was riding him hard, and having never wrestled with that emotion before, he had no idea what to do with it.
He resented being saddled with that unbearable guilt; he bloody resentedher for being everything he could dream of in a wife.
Though he hadn't had a drop of liquor in years, he now found himself lurching to the drink service, pouring a whisky with shaking hands.
Staring into the glass, he muttered, "Slip."
As if he were attempting to drive Maddy away, Ethan hadn't come to her the last two nights, instead spending the time drinking—though he'd repeatedly assured her that he never did.
Maddy certainly had seen pleasanter drinkers. Lying on stoops. In La Marais.
If she and Ethan crossed paths during the day, he'd taken to snapping at her. Indeed, at times she could swear that he begrudged her very presence at Carillon. Occasionally, she'd caught him staring at her from his study window, sometimes frowning, sometimes gazing at her with a disquieting anger.
So each day she climbed up to the widow's walk. When the weather was clear, she could see all the way to the Irish shore. Pondering her situation, she'd stare at the sea for hours, watching the ferries jaunt back and forth to Ireland.
She'd finally admitted to herself that Ethan's behavior had nothing to do with the strain of work. Either he believed she would endure any kind of treatment just to marry him, or he was seeking to drive her away….
That evening she returned at sunset and found him sitting in his study, staring blankly at the whisky in a crystal glass in his palm. Her heart sank when she saw he was well on his way to getting foxed.
Though uninvited, she entered the room, sitting in the chair in front of the desk. "How was your day, Ethan?" When he shrugged, she said, "What did you do?"
"Worked."
"You're drinking," she said.
"You're observant."
Honey!She could be patient. "Have there been any leads on a new steward?" she asked.
"No."
"Can I do anything to help you? I find I have a lot of time on my hands," she added, struggling to keep a rein on her temper.
"No, no' a thing."
"We're supposed to leave in four days."
He finally faced her. "Do you think I doona bloody ken that? As if you'd let me forget it. It's always got to be about Madeleine."
"Already we've been here for—"
"And I'm no' done here yet!"
In as calm a tone as she could manage, she said, "Perhaps you'd accomplish more if you drank less?"
Ethan's expression turned menacing, his scar stark against the tan skin of his face. "Aingeal, you doona want to begin this with me, no' tonight."
"Have I done something to you, Ethan? Have I offended you or failed to please you in some way?"
"Aye, it's called intercourse."
Enough! Deuce the honey."You'll have intercourse as soon as I have matrimony—just as we agreed! It isn't as if I just sprang this on you at the last second."
"No, but then I never expected you to hold out, or I'd never have agreed to something as asinine as that."
"You can be so hateful, Scot. You love to give me reminders that I really shouldn't marry you." And, as she'd begun to suspect, he was doing it purposely, with intent. Maddy knew men.
This one was angling for a way out.
"I'm the best you're going to get"—he raised his glass—"and doona ever forget that."
She gasped, drawing back her head as if slapped. It hurt all the worse because he was…right.
"I see. I fear this is all growing wearisome."
He gave a humorless laugh. "Aye, that's what I've been saying—"
"Forme, Ethan."
Chapter Thirty-three
Maddy was finished.
Living across from Bea had taught her that it didn't matter how lovable she was, or how hard she tried to please, some men couldn't see when they had a woman to be treasured. MacCarrick had never hit her, as Bea's man had, but he could still wound.
Last night, she'd stayed awake till nearly dawn, mulling over her options. She'd heard him in the adjoining room, pacing for just as long, it had seemed.
Before she'd gone to sleep, she'd reached a startling conclusion. She didn't agree that MacCarrick was the best she could do.
When she woke, she'd started packing her bags.
Maddy could see now that when she'd accepted MacCarrick's proposition, she'd been cowed, hungry, and afraid of Toumard. Of course the Scot had looked like a godsend in light of those circumstances.
Now she concluded that there was no way she would become his legal chattel. She had other options. At worst, the ring he'd given her would see her through a few years.
When he came downstairs that morning and saw her bags, he said, "You're leaving me?"
"You're observant," she said, repeating his words from the previous night, astounded to see he was already drunk.
He leaned back against the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. "And how do you think you're going to get anywhere?"
"I was thinking the posting coach. I've been outside so much, I've noted it comes every other day at five on the dot."
His rapidly fading smirk was satisfying. "You little fool. You're going to throw away marriage and wealth because you'reimpatient ? I've told you I'm no' done here yet."
She gave him a pitying look. "No, but I am. Ethan, I have too often and for too long been forced into unwelcome situations. Do you think I can't re
cognize the same trapped feeling in another? You don't want to marry me. You've made that abundantly clear. I'm merely making this easier for you."
"No, you're no'. This is naught but added pressure. An idle threat. Understand that I doona respond well to pressure."
"I'm quite serious."
"You told me you'd stay ten days. I've three days left."
"Don't play games with me, Ethan. You could have married me in this town and then again in your county. You could have done a lot of things differently. All I wanted was to be treated decently by a faithful husband. It would have taken so little to make me love you."
"Loveme, is it now?" He made a scoffing sound. "So all I would have to do is throw you some scraps of kindness and keep my prick in my pants?"
She didn't bother hiding her disgust at his drunken coarseness.
"Do you think things will be better for you without me?" he demanded. "When you go back to the gutter?"
"Actually, I'm planning to visit Claudia—"
"You mean Quin." He narrowed his eyes. "Well, it's like I said, your precious Quin was ready to offer for you. Especially after I told him I'd plucked your virtue the night of the masquerade."
She gasped. "You told him that?"Oh, God, how humiliating. "You utter bastard! You're making this so easy for me. But thank you for reminding me of Quin as an option. I'll be sure to inquire if he's still interested."
Ethan gritted his teeth, staring back at her. "You would," he said, his tone seething. "You'd take him today."
"I'd be a fool not to. He's kind and honorable—and I know that if he promised me marriage, he'd do it!"
So Madeleine was truly leaving him? The idea made his head swim.
When had she gotten under his skin this badly? When had the thought of life without her begun to make him crazed? He felt physically ill picturing her and Quin together. They'd be a perfect bloody match.Unlike her paired with me.
This had to end.
She'd won. Whether he married her or not, she'd defeated him.
"If you're going to be too selfish or too impatient to wait for me," Ethan told her, "then what can I do?" He let her see all the fury he was feeling. She blanched.