Devil in My Bed (22 page)

Aidan nodded. “Yes. We should definitely check the park. I’m certain she took Melody to the park.”

In the deceptive serenity of St. James Park, Madeleine pressed herself against a tree, then carefully leaned around it to spy on Critchley and Melody where they stood at the edge of the canal.

What should she do? Her most urgent desire was to march over there and rip sweet innocence away from the perilous maw of depravity . . . but what if Critchley had not yet seen her with Melody?

Wouldn’t that only betray Melody’s involvement in this mess?

Critchley looked bored and watchful at the same moment. He often raised his eyes from the chattering child to flick his beady gaze all about them. Madeleine had the horrifying suspicion that he already knew too much.

The park was too sparsely occupied today to hope for any help from strangers. Madeleine looked about her for some kind of weapon and spied a ring of fist-sized stones circling the base of the tree. Kneeling, she quickly stood with one in each trembling fist.

The first stone went into the canal, creating a satisfying splash and putting a dozen ducks to startled, quacking flight. Both Critchley and Melody turned to look at the commotion.

No, Melody, look at me!

Madeleine sent the second stone rolling and bouncing across the grass like a bowling ball, directly to Melody’s feet.

Melody gazed down at the stone, then looked up curiously. When Melody made eye contact with her, Madeleine put her finger to her lips and grinned mischievously. Come here, she signaled to Melody with her hands.

Knowing that Melody was always ready for a game, Madeleine ducked back behind the tree and watched. In a matter of seconds, Melody calmly walked around the tree, humming a little tune.

Madeleine pulled her down into her lap and squeezed her hard in relief. “Does the bad man know where you went?”

Melody wrinkled her nose. “The bad man smells.”

“He certainly does.” Madeleine twisted about to risk a look around the edge of the tree. Critchley stood blinking in confusion and kicking at some of the ducks who had come to rest near his feet.

She turned back around to gaze into Melody’s eyes. “We’re going to play Hide from the Bad Man, mousie. We’re going to run from tree to tree, making sure he can’t see us. Then, when we’re far away from him, we’re going to run straight home to Brown’s. How does that sound?”

“Can we make the ducks fly again first?”

Madeleine gave her another squeeze. “Not today, my love. Uncle Aidan will bring you to the park soon and you can show him how to make the ducks fly, all right?” She stood and picked Melody up, settling her on one hip. “Are you hanging on?” She hitched up her skirts a bit with the other hand.

Melody wrapped her little monkey fists into Madeleine’s spencer and nodded. “Ready, steady, go!”

Madeleine ran.

* * *

Aidan and Colin set out at once, striding through the West End streets, splitting up as necessary, joining again at the corner, setting out once more to scan the crowds, to accost many a slender woman in black, to follow the high piping of a childish voice for several minutes before realizing that it was someone’s little boy squealing for a sweet. They hunted through every shop, every tearoom, every cluster of people surrounding a street hawker.

Then there was St. James Park. It was one of the first places Aidan looked, but as he stood in the center, having inspected every tree, every shrub, every cobble in the walkway for signs of them, all he could think was that every time he’d turned a corner, he’d turned the wrong direction, that every time he’d entered a shop, they’d passed by the door outside it. They were the pea in a street thief’s shell game and he was the hapless loser who couldn’t spot the sleight of hand.

Madeleine held the small grubby hand tightly in hers as they scurried down another strange street. “I know you’re tired, mousie, but we must be sure of which way we’re going.” She wasn’t precisely lost.

When they had fled the park, she had mistakenly run in the wrong direction. She had the vague notion that she was a bit east of St. James Street. Being lost wasn’t what made the fear swirl through her.

Perhaps she traced this London maze for nothing. Perhaps they were not being followed and there was no danger of leading danger back to Brown’s. Perhaps Critchley hadn’t even seen her—perhaps his seeming interest in Melody had been random and unrelated.

The very thought of Melody within a yard of Critchley left her cold. Some people in this world were bad, some were weak.

And some were evil.

Even so, she fought to believe that it was a coincidence—or even that Critchley knew her general location but not her precise one. After all, she was useless as a source of money, and he must know that she would only run again the moment she had the chance.

Melody whined and stomped her little feet but kept going nonetheless. Madeleine paused to pick her up. She suspected that she hadn’t been nearly as successful at hiding her terror as she’d hoped. She’d managed to make the child think that slipping away from the fat man was a game, and Melody, clever little minx that she was, had caught on quickly. But now the game had gone on too long.

Then they rounded a corner and found themselves on St. James Street once more, not two establishments away from Brown’s.

Slipping into the servants’ entrance wasn’t too difficult. She told Melody they were playing the secret game again and that she should walk on her toes and whisper. The staff was busy in the kitchen preparing dinner, with their backs to the door and their minds on their work. Only that one moment of danger and then they were on the back stair, heading up as quickly and quietly as they could.

Once they’d safely reached the third floor, Madeline had to stop and breathe. There was a small window high on the outer wall to provide light for the stair and on impulse she stood on her toes to peer out of it. She promised herself that if she saw him, she would tell Aidan everything. If Critchley wasn’t in sight, she would consider herself safe and free. Not logical, but the fizzing panic within her wasn’t a rational emotion.

The street was plainly visible. She took her time, squinting to make out every gentleman’s face and form. Relief began to coil through her. She braced one hand on the wall, keeping the other firmly clutching Melody’s while she stretched as tall as she was able in order to see.

He was there, a still, solid, bilious green object in the swimming tide of humanity walking in both directions.

And he was looking right at her.

She froze. Surely he couldn’t make her out through this high, small, dusty window? Perhaps he couldn’t, but he was certainly watching Brown’s most intently. Not even her active imagination could convince her he wasn’t.

So he suspected she was here.

Suspected? Don’t you think it’s time to stop lying to yourself?

He knew. He knew and he was waiting out there to pounce upon her the moment she stepped foot from the building.

The sickening chill that he’d brought with him lodged firmly in her stomach now, growing until it pressed up against her throat, stealing her breath away.

Black spots of panic began to spread across her vision and she felt her locked knees go weak. Turning her back on the window, she slid down the wall to sit awkwardly on the stair. Through the roaring in her ears she heard Melody complain.

“Maddie, you hold too tight.”

Madeline used everything she had to order her hand to loosen from Melody’s. Oh, God, Melody! He knew about her, knew that she had something to do with Madeleine, knew that she had something to do with this refuge at Brown’s—

The back of her throat burned but she fought back the sick, tearing fear, forcing down the urge to run far and fast away. All reluctance to tell Aidan the truth was incinerated by the danger she’d put Melody in with her secrets.

There was no time to waste. No fear, no wavering. No more hiding. Aidan must know everything.

At last, there was nowhere left to search. Aidan returned to his rooms to find Colin already there, sitting on the edge of the sofa with his head in his hands, his hair wild from absently running his fingers through it. Colin looked up when he entered, but his hopeful gaze faded quickly into further panic.

“I fell asleep. I shouldn’t have fallen asleep.”

Aidan fought back the dread freezing solid in his own chest. Tossing his coat down violently, he went to gaze out of the window, his eyes still helplessly searching even though there was nothing to see but the dreary garden fading into the dusk. “Don’t be tedious. We simply need more pairs of eyes. I’m calling Wilberforce up. The staff can help us search.”

Colin looked up. “You still don’t think Madeleine disappeared intentionally?”

Aidan didn’t turn away from the window. “She is no liar,” he said firmly. “I’d stake my life on it.”

“I can see you’ve already staked your heart.” Colin sighed. “Perhaps you’re right.” He stood. “After all, if she wanted Melody, all she had to do was marry you.” He hesitated. “Aidan, you did propose, didn’t you?”

Aidan grunted. “More or less.”

“Oh, no,” Colin groaned. “You buggered it, didn’t you? You said something about a reasonable arrangement, or a logical solution, or something else cold and soulless and bound to send any woman running for a fast boat to elsewhere!”

Aidan whirled on him. “I didn’t bugger it!”

“Bugger!” A high childish voice delighted in the forbidden word. The two men spun about to see a pale, ill-looking Madeleine standing in the doorway, holding the hand of a cheerfully dirty Melody. “We went to the park and then we hided from the bad man,” Melody informed them enthusiastically. “It was fun!”

Aidan locked gazes with Madeleine, whose eyes were filled with fear and shame. Whatever was wrong, he knew he was about to see a brand-new Madeleine—one he was suddenly quite certain would break his heart for good. Something inside him, something newborn and helpless started to die at that moment. “Colin.” Was that his voice? It sounded so far away. “Would you take Melody to your rooms please and give her some supper?”

Colin glanced back and forth between them for a moment. To Aidan it seemed that his friend was tempted to leap to Madeleine’s defense. One flat, empty look was all that was needed to prompt Colin to sweep Melody into his arms. “Let’s take Gordy Ann down and tell her a story, shall we, my pocket darling?”

“I want carrots,” Melody declared as they left the room. “I hided very hard.”

Colin took Melody away. Aidan saw Madeleine reach a hand toward Melody as Colin passed, but then she dropped it before touching the child. The gesture filled Aidan with bitter premonition. The door closed on a new high-tension silence.

“You’re leaving me.”

She flinched. Then she took a deep breath. “Aidan, don’t speak for a moment. Please, simply listen to everything I have to tell you. When I’m done, if you want me to leave, I will.”

He opened his mouth to protest, but she stopped him with a hand. “Please, Aidan.”

He’d never seen her like this. She was deathly pale, and her hands shook with fear. Sickening alarm swept him, for it seemed his worst nightmares might not have been imaginative enough.

With slow deliberate movements she removed her spencer and lay it carefully over the arm of the chair nearest the door. The silence grew until Aidan could scarcely bear it.

Then she raised bleak eyes to meet his gaze. “Aidan, you asked me once how my husband died.” She took another deep breath. “He didn’t. He is, I believe, alive and well and about to arrive in London.”

Shock went through him. “You’re divorced?” It was scandalous. It made her an impossible match for him, socially. It was also, he realized with a chill, the better of the only two options left.

She met his gaze and crushed his hope. “No,” she said simply. “I am quite thoroughly married.”

“But—” He could not help it. He had to make it untrue. He stepped forward, his hand out to her. “You wore black. You’re still in black.” It was a ridiculous thing to say. It was the only thing he could think of.

She looked down, pressing her hands down over her skirts. “Mere protective coloration. A tan dove in a field of straw. So many widows, so many women alone. I knew no one would question me about it.” Her lips twisted wryly. “I wasn’t prepared for you, of course.”

He shook his head disbelievingly. “It was a way to lie?”

She met his gaze, not trying to defend, only explain. “It was a way to hide.” She stepped forward, lifting her hands urgently to him. “When we met and I defied that thief, it was because what was in my reticule was all that I had in the world—what I stole before I ran away.”

He recoiled. “Stole?”

She rushed on. “I’d been taking things, small valuable things and concealing them in a spot in the wood.

He kept me locked in my rooms for over a year—”

Aidan’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “A year? Yet you managed to go to the wood?”

She took a breath. “Yes. Once in a while I was able to persuade one of the housemaids to change clothes with me. She felt sorry for me for she knew my lady’s maid was aligned with my husband, as were most of the servants. I suppose I cannot blame them—it was not I who paid their salaries. Even so, I never dared be out long. A few brief moments in the outside world was like heaven. It was the only thing that kept me from going mad. Only sometimes I wasn’t sure it worked.”

Her words tumbled over each other in the rush to tell him everything he’d ever wanted to know—yet he no longer wanted to know any of it. He wanted to rewind the clock, turn back time to when he’d only thought her secretive and mysterious, not full of falsehoods and married!

She went on, gazing down at her twisting hands, compulsively talking—she who had been so silent before.

“Then one evening while I was outside, there was a fire. The wing I occupied went up in flames so quickly. I’d hoped Sally got out. It seems she did not.

“I realized that either he knew I was out of my room or he believed me burned inside it. Either way, I could not go back. I found my little cache and ran for my life.” Madeleine took a breath at last. She’d thought she would feel unburdened by her confession. She’d thought the truth would be freeing.