An Untitled Lady (27 page)

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 of 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.”

She opened her eyes, dark pupils ringed in greens and browns. She rolled up onto her knees, and then sat on her haunches, her back a clean curve. He poured the still-clean but cool basin water back into the pitcher and set the basin on the towels. She put an arm under the hair at the base of her neck and leaned forward, flipping the bulk of it over to cover her face and fall into the basin. He ran his fingers carefully through the tangles in her hair. Once she winced.

“Sorry,” he said.

“It always pulls. It’s the curls.”

“You have beautiful hair. Why keep it so short?”

“It reaches nearly my shoulder blades,” she protested.

“I suppose hair that falls below one’s rump must be hard to care for. I am glad my first time is with you.”

She pulled away, turning her head to look through the tangles at him. Her gaze was here, with him.

“You don’t think I’ve acted the ladies’ maid with all the women about town, do you? Lean over.” He pushed her shoulders down to get more hair into the basin, and then lifted the pitcher and rinsed the soap out. She braced herself with her left hand, using her right to help push the water through her thick tresses.

This was bliss, just the two of them without interruption. Passion was wonderful, and ecstasy celestial, but such quiet intimacy held marvels of its own. Setting the pitcher down, he watched her push onto her knees and reach two hands to her hair. She twisted the length of it, squeezing water out, and then sat up.

“Towel.”

He reached behind him for another dry cloth, and handed it to her.

“Smaller.” He chuckled and gave her a smaller one. She did some sort of special folding, and fashioned a turban of it over her head.

“How did you do that?”

“Ladies need some secrets,” she said, his nude goddess, shining and sparkling in the firelight.

He draped the bigger towel around her shoulders, pulling the ends to him to bring them closer together. He kissed her brow, each eyelid, and then the tip of her nose. Her lids flew open again, her eyes sparkling.

“Checking to see if your face is clean enough. I see we still have some work to do.”

Her expression fell so far so fast, Nash was taken off-guard. Idiot. He had worked so hard to help her feel clean, and he turns around and tells her she’s still dirty.

“Just one last, tiny speck,” he said, trying to salvage her pride. He wiped the warm cloth in feather motions from her nose onto her forehead, then around her cheeks, chin, and finally her nose.

He kissed her again, slower, savoring her soft scent hidden under the mild soap smell. He lingered on her cheeks, and then the corner of her lips, slowly moving toward the center. He pulled her lower lip a bit, and her lips opened a crack.

He took her mouth in a demanding, forgiving embrace, a kiss that carried all he had to give. His passion, his understanding, his hopes, his love. She responded to his gift in kind, a sweet return.

On their knees, hip to hip, chest to chest, their tongues entwined, Nash remade his marriage vows in his mind, promising her no one would ever hurt her again.

In the eyes of the law, she belonged to him, his proud, careful, broken wife. But law or no, he belonged to her, as well.

And God help anyone who came between them.