by Anne Stuart
He was watching her too closely beneath those half-closed lids, trying to gauge her reaction to his odd proposition. She had no intention of giving him one. “You’re very kind to think of me, Mr. Brown,” she said, “but as you know I already have employment, and I find I like being here. I have a great fondness for the sea.” She was surprised to realize it was the truth. The captain aside, she loved looking out the front windows of the house to the harbor, the boats and ships bobbing up and down on the swell, the noise and confusion of the docks. The idea of actually stepping onto the deck of a ship might terrify her, but that didn’t mean she didn’t love watching the world of shipping, a world she knew so well. She realized with a shock that she’d missed it. Sorting through the captain’s rain-soaked papers, she’d felt more at home than she had since her father had died.
“Ah, but Miss Greaves… may I call you Mary?” he said, leaning forward, holding his elegant malacca cane with its gold head in both hands. “Well, Mary, the truth of it is, in a very short time you’ll be out of a job and we both know it. Miss Haviland is a close friend, but she’s plagued by the green-eyed devil.”
Maddy blinked, momentarily confused. “She drinks absinthe?”
He let out a short bark of laughter. “No, my dear. That’s the green fairy. She’s jealous, whether she’d admit it or not. She doesn’t like the idea of a beautiful woman swanning around her fiancé’s house, and who can blame her? She’s a lovely young woman, but she looks just a bit faded next to you. She’ll boot you out the first chance she gets, and if she doesn’t have a reason I have no doubt she’ll manufacture one. Why don’t you save her the trouble and accept my generous offer?”
Odd, how it didn’t sound the slightest bit flattering. “I’ve told you, sir. I have a job, and I signed papers promising to stay for at least six months.” That was a complete lie. She’d heard of people insisting on such contracts, to offset the expense of training a new employee and ordering uniforms, but the Russells had never insisted on such a thing and neither had the captain. Luca. “And besides, I like it here.”
Mr. Brown was not looking as benevolent as he had, though the smile was unwavering. “Ah, Mary, I was so hoping you’d want to come with me on a permanent basis. But the truth of the matter is that Captain Morgan offered me your services for the next few months, just to help me out; a great kindness on his part. I was hoping you might be interested in a permanent change, and once you’re at Highfields you may find you like it very much indeed, but if, once I find the right person for the job, you wish to return then I would hardly detain you. It was very thoughtful of Morgan to lend you to me, and I think you’ll find you enjoy the change of scene.”
Maddy blinked. “But I don’t wish to go.”
The benevolence was slipping a bit. “My dear, you’re a servant. You go where your employer sends you, do what he tells you to do, if you wish to retain your job. Indeed, if you have no wish to continue on here you may refuse Captain Morgan’s orders, but I think that would be a mistake, since I believe it’s your fondness for your employer’s… house that makes you reluctant to come to my aid.”
Maddy lowered her eyes to her lap, glad she’d hidden her hands, which were now clenched in impotent fury. How much did the man know? What had she given away in this short conversation? How could he know what she wouldn’t admit to herself?
Gwendolyn Haviland! The woman was so possessive she would think everyone wanted her fiancé. It was no great perception on Mr. Brown’s side, though she had hardly been as circumspect as she ought to be. But why was she worrying about giving away emotions that she was doing an excellent job of resisting? Wasn’t she?
Now what was she going to do? Was a servant really at her employer’s beck and call to this extent that she had to go wherever she was sent? It seemed grossly unfair, but then, life in service was hardly a world of equality. She suspected Mr. Brown was right—she either had to go with him or lose her position entirely.
Going with him would ruin her plans anyway, but perhaps she could put him off for a bit. After all, her time was rapidly running out here anyway, and if she couldn’t find anything incriminating she had no choice but to return to Nanny Gruen’s, a failure.
The one good thing was that she’d never have to see him, Luca, again. Never feel his dark, flashing eyes running over her, never risk the touch of his hands, the taste of his mouth. Her future was set—Lord Eastham would do what Tarkington had done, she would have a baby, and the old man would eventually die, leaving her a complacent widow with no need for a man like the unsettling captain.
She lifted her eyes, perfecting shy deference. “Very good, sir,” she said meekly. “And when would we be leaving?”
For a moment he looked slightly taken aback, as if he hadn’t expected her to agree, but he rallied immediately. “Excellent. Why not now?”
Oh, hell no, she thought, looking demure. “I’m so sorry, sir, but if it’s immediate help you’ll be needing then Lucy might suit you better.”
He frowned. “But why can’t you come now?” He brushed aside the notion of taking Lucy, one of the new maids, as inconsequential.
“Well, sir,” she said in a low, confidential voice, “I’m afraid I have certain… er… difficulties with my health, which can make things a bit… complicated.”
Most of the affability had vanished from Mr. Brown’s handsome face, which was just fine with Maddy. She’d never believed it in the first place. “Enlighten me,” he said with a bit of a snap.
You asked for it, she thought. “Well, it’s me women’s parts,” she said in a confiding tone. “When I get me monthlies, which have just started, I expect, because I saw some blood on my pantalets, I find I have to take to me bed for three days at least, and nothing gives me ease.”
He had been pale already, but now it was faintly tinged with green. But he wasn’t ready to give up, no matter how graphic she was being. “That’s no problem. A bit of morphine should take the edge off your pain, and you may ride in the good carriage with a warm brick to your stomach.”
“Ah, sir, it sounds lovely, it does, but I’m afraid that won’t do. You see…” she leaned forward, “I bleed too much, and then something happens and it stops for a while, and then bursts through and the blood runs down my legs and makes a fair mess. I’d be ready to go in less than a week’s time, but I’m really not fit to be around when I have my monthlies. I tend to cast up my accounts as well, plus there’s the problem of needing a water closet without any warning, and…”
“I understand,” he said swiftly, shutting down her graphic details just as she was about to get even more colorful. She’d seen someone with the flux, and a full description of the symptoms would be enough to disgust a man as fainthearted as Mr. Brown. She was astonished he’d held out as long as he did. “We will leave Monday week. You should be more than recovered by then. I am not well acquainted with women’s maladies, but I gather your courses last no more than a week.” His voice was icy with disdain, as if the way a woman’s body functioned was a personal affront to him.
A week would do it. She’d be gone before he came to collect her, back to Nanny Gruen with some kind of truth about Luca. No, she shouldn’t think of him that way. It was too intimate. He needed to remain the captain. The captain, who had kissed her, touched her, intimately, his mouth on her breasts, his hand between her legs.
Nanny Gruen would have had a heart attack if she heard about Maddy’s discussion of the forbidden. It had been such an effective weapon she almost wanted to laugh. Poor, squeamish Mr. Brown. Served him right for trying to force her.
“Yes, sir. I’ll be ready.” She couldn’t control her color, but she could certainly simulate a frail constitution. “Would you mind if I got back to me rooms, sir? I find one of me little fits coming on.”
“Little fits?” he echoed, sounding horrified. “No, don’t tell me. I trust the other servants will be able to assist you. They’ll be near enough in the servants’ quarters to hear you if you call?”
Now that was a peculiar question, one that deserved an outright lie. “Oh, yes sir. I’ll be sharing a room with Polly up in the attics, and Caitlin and Lucy will be next door, not to mention the footmen down the hall.” She couldn’t imagine how they’d all fit into the crowded attic, but fortunately that wasn’t her problem. And the anxious Mr. Brown didn’t need to know she was going to be sleeping three flights below in the basement apartments once allotted to the Croziers. He was up to something.
She rose, and he automatically started to rise as well, then covered up the movement by reaching for his cane. He’d already deliberately refused to rise for a maid—why was he about to make the mistake of doing so? Either she was failing in her impersonation of a servant or he knew far more than he was letting on.
She could think of no reason for him to be so determined to get her away from the captain, unless he was doing it for his jealous friend. That was a reasonable enough explanation, given that he said he was very close with Gwendolyn Haviland. Reasonable, but her instincts told her it was much more than that.
“I’ll return in a week, Miss… Mary,” he said, stumbling over the words, another troubling thing. She thought she’d done a good job of the accent, but then why was he reacting to her with the automatic courtesy of a gentleman confronted by a lady of quality? “You may, of course, let me know if you find you recover sooner. And I would think it might be wise to leave Captain Morgan’s household as soon as possible.”
She was already at the door, one hand on her stomach in a dramatic gesture, when his words stopped her. “Why?” she said bluntly.
“Captain Morgan is not exactly who or what he says he is,” Mr. Brown murmured.
Hell and damnation. Maybe Mr. Brown was a better source of information about the captain than all her attempts at detective work. She might have found out more, faster, if she’d simply agreed to go with him.
Too late for that, and her instincts agreed. There was more to Mr. Brown than met the eye, and she had no intention of going anywhere with him, no matter what enticement he might dangle in front of her.
So she gave him a slight smile as she clenched her stomach. “No one is.”
The bitch. The filthy little slut had outfoxed him, and he wanted to strangle her. Rufus settled back into his carriage, necessary for even the short distance to his lodgings, given the condition of his leg, and cursed Madeleine Russell to hell and back again. He could almost be impressed with her acting abilities and her quick wit, except there wasn’t any room in his fury for such emotions. He was going to take a great deal of pleasure in ending her life. This would have been so much simpler if the sisters had been in residence when he’d set fire to their house on Curzon Street, but unbeknownst to him they’d left that morning for the countryside. For Somerset, where they had no business being.
He’d made sure they were tossed out of there soon enough, but poverty and shame weren’t enough to render them harmless. Now he had to go to a great deal of trouble to silence each of them, and the first one, the easiest one, the scarred, shy, eldest sister, had managed to get away entirely.
He wasn’t about to let this one escape. He could employ his old favorite, fire, and burn down the captain’s house with the people inside. He wasn’t sure if he wanted Morgan alive to be a scapegoat, or whether he might serve that purpose just as well if he were burnt to a cinder. And there was Morgan’s damned watchdog in the mews. If he were to kill Morgan he would have to kill William Quarrells as well, or he’d never have any peace again. Quarrells was the kind of man who held grudges and suspected everyone, and he would scarcely believe in a convenient accidental fire. If he could figure some way to get Quarrells into the house as well it would be convenient, but right now he was too weak to manage such a feat with Quarrells’s large body, and he wasn’t completely sure of his man. Parsons seemed to have very few moral qualms, but people were surprisingly squeamish when it came to murdering pretty young women. He was good enough and lucky enough to have managed the sabotage of Morgan’s boat with no one, not even the captain, realizing it, though the bloody man was too good a sailor to die. Parsons could carry off the girl’s death with no problem whatsoever.
Rufus would need to consider things carefully. He’d let his fury get in the way in London, and he’d ended up suffering a major setback. Not a defeat—never that. But matters were much more complicated with Bryony Russell and her new husband somewhere on the continent, and he preferred elegant simplicity.
He had no intention of waiting. He had no idea how long it would take Morgan to return to Devonport—he gathered the man usually spent a week or more in London when he traveled to the city, but he doubted he’d have that luxury.
He had no idea whether Morgan suspected his housemaid was anything other than what she pretended to be, but he didn’t need Gwendolyn’s jealous whining or his man’s spying to know the captain was going to bed her sooner or later. Not yet—Rufus was a good enough observer to know she hadn’t been whoring around yet.
But she would. And Morgan would be in a hurry to make it happen. He wouldn’t be gone long.
No, Rufus was going to have to deal with the girl promptly and efficiently, and if that involved strangling her with his bare hands then so much the better.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
IT SEEMED TO MADDY as if she’d slept for days. Leaving Mr. Brown and his very suspicious demands, she’d gone back to her room and lain down beneath the disgraceful headboard. She’d fallen into a deep sleep, and hadn’t woken up until close to dawn, ravenous. She’d raided the kitchen, making herself a plate of cold lamb, crusty rolls with butter, and a mélange of root vegetables seasoned with nutmeg, and seated herself at the wooden table where she’d eaten before under the scornful eye of Mrs. Crozier. There was something almost blissful about the silence of the predawn kitchen, the light just coming in through the windows. Polly and the others would probably be up soon enough—a servant’s day started early, particularly for a cook, but for the moment Maddy savored the stillness, simply happy not to have to rush and do anything.
There were five new servants in the household: Polly, two other maids, and two footmen, and somehow they’d managed to all cram into the attics. Her own meager belongings had been transferred to her new rooms, but she wondered how they’d dealt with all the broken furniture and detritus of an old house. Had they finally managed to rid the place of bats?
And what about the locked cupboard? She’d forgotten all about that in the last few days—she’d been too tired at night to do anything more than collapse in bed, and she hadn’t had time to do more than try to pick the lock with a hairpin. She was going to have to get up there again, though preferably when the new servants were out and about. Though perhaps they’d already opened it—after all, the space up there wasn’t vast. Three beds in one room, two in another would leave things crowded, and what would they do with the leftover furniture? She moved to the window and looked out past the garden into the mews. The pile of broken chairs and rat-chewed mattresses created an almost sinister bulk near the back gate, and she wondered what else had found itself onto that pile. Had they come across anything interesting?
She went back to the table and her meal, thoughtful. She had no idea how long the captain intended to be gone, but once he was back she would have the devil to face. Literally. The devil with the face of a fallen angel, which was far more tempting. If he stayed away longer than a week she’d have to deal with Mr. Brown, and she certainly wasn’t about to take off into the unknown countryside with the man.
She couldn’t imagine why Mr. Brown was so determined to have her. She believed him when he said he had no interest in her body, but as handsome footmen were a symbol of status in the world she had once lived in, pretty maidservants were probably almost as valuable, and Maddy had no delusions. She was pretty—it was one of the few weapons she possessed along with her intellect and pure determination, and she had every intention of using what a perverse God had given her.
&n
bsp; She didn’t trust Mr. Brown. Didn’t trust his determination to remove her, though it might simply be a favor to Gwendolyn Haviland. The woman viewed Maddy as some major rival, which was absurd. Luca would hardly trade a solicitor’s daughter for a housemaid, and while he might be interested in bedding her, that was most likely a normal male reaction and meant nothing. He would have kissed any marginally pretty woman.
No, his relationship with his fiancée would rise or fall on its own merits, and Maddy had the strong feeling that it was descending rapidly. The captain was too wise to chain himself to a harpy like Gwendolyn Haviland, and Maddy expected the woman would be gone soon after she herself left Devonport, if not sooner.
Of course, that was assuming that the captain wasn’t guilty of conspiring against Eustace Russell. That kind of scandal would send Gwendolyn packing at the first hint—she wasn’t a woman to stand by her man in the face of adversity. Even if Maddy was wrong, and they were married before she found proof, Miss Haviland would be out the door if the captain was accused of murder.
Except if that were the case, she’d be Mrs. Morgan by then. Mrs. Thomas Morgan. Which wasn’t even his name—would the marriage be legal if he used an alias? And wouldn’t the additional scandal be delicious, if Gwendolyn found she’d been living in sin?
Maddy leaned back. She never would have thought she’d be so petty, but the captain’s fiancée had declared her enmity the moment they met. She deserved anything she got. Maddy and her sisters had had disaster rain down on their heads through no fault of their own. At least Gwendolyn might get a taste of it.
Except, of course, she was coming to the reluctant conclusion that Luca was innocent, and perhaps she was wrong and he truly adored Gwendolyn and they would marry, have herds of children, and live happily ever after. Maddy heard an odd noise, and realized it had come from her. She’d made a growling sound.