Devil in My Bed (25 page)

Not quite the sinister origins of her imagination.

Her foolishness subsiding, she began to see the room as it really was. The piled refuse in the shadowy corners suddenly became clearly the odd broken furnishing and detritus of an untidy attic. The club had been popular in an earlier century, Aidan had said. This space was extra, probably for laundry overflow when the rooms were full during Parliament.

There was no overflow now. Brown’s few servants had no trouble keeping up with the few gentlemen staying here.

Laundry.

There was something important about laundry . . . something she needed to remember.

Her ship had sailed today. Madeleine had given up her chance of freedom—perhaps of life itself!—to spend these few precious days with Aidan. Yet she could not regret it for her own sake. It was only Aidan’s and Melody’s fates that made her mind go numb with terror.

She closed her eyes, forcing her anxious thoughts to still. Here she was, trapped but safe, at least for the moment, on the top floor of a gentlemen’s club in the middle of St. James Street. Wilhelm might be watching but he wasn’t in the room. He couldn’t hurt her at this moment.

As her speeding heart stilled and her breathing slowed, an image came into her mind. Aidan’s bedchamber.

Aidan’s arms about her . . . his hands on her . . . his mouth—

She opened her eyes. Enough of that.

She closed her eyes again. Laundry . . . and Aidan’s bedchamber. What did the two have in common?

She turned slowly in a circle. If she was standing in Aidan’s bedchamber, the window would be at her right and she would be facing . . .

She opened her eyes. There was nothing before her but an elderly wardrobe, dusty and broken, its doors hanging awry on their hinges. Aidan’s wardrobe was on the left. There was nothing on this wall but the washstand.

And the dumbwaiter.

Her heart sped again. Yes! The dumbwaiter was in that wall—a dumbwaiter that would have been used for transporting linens from the rooms to the basement laundry, and then up to the attic for drying and then back down to the rooms!

Slowly, as though she were dully, hopelessly examining her prison, she moved forward to the decrepit wardrobe. If it blocked the dumbwaiter, how could she move it without Wilhelm being aware?

It didn’t, quite. The wardrobe stood crookedly, tossed aside as it had been for finer things. It listed to one side, leaning a corner on the wall while the rest of it angled outward into the room. The door that concealed the dumbwaiter hung just behind it!

There wasn’t quite room behind the wardrobe to open the door. However, Madeleine could just fit behind it—which would only bring Wilhelm running. Perhaps tonight, in the dark, she could carefully nudge it aside, hopefully masking the noise in the creaks and groans of the old building. It wouldn’t much change his view. He might not notice.

She was surprised he’d not already rearranged the room for better viewing. His lack of preparation did illustrate the spontaneity of his plan.

Madeleine only hoped he’d made more serious mistakes as well.

Come and get me, Aidan!

Wilhelm chuckled. What a charming memory. He decided it might be one of his favorite moments so far.

Not to mention, silly Madeleine had provided the final clue to her protector’s identity.

Critchley had claimed he knew, but Critchley was a liar. Wilhelm never trusted Critchley’s word about anything.

He didn’t know why he hadn’t thought about staying at a club before. He’d scorned them in general for so long, he’d quite forgotten how comfortable they could be. His family belonged to several. Brown’s simply had the added value of the enticing floor show.

He leaned back in the deeply padded leather chair and sipped at his rather decent brandy in the main club room and watched with great enjoyment as Madeleine’s lover brooded in the most isolated corner of the room.

Aidan de Quincy, fifth Earl of Blankenship—wealthy, respected, and unscarred. He was everything that Wilhelm had once been—or at least, had purported himself to be. His own wealth had been mostly show and credit, which wasn’t hard when one knew how.

Blankenship, now . . . there was real money. Rumor had it that the man had actually increased his family’s holdings since assuming the title. Unheard of.

Yet, for all his riches and power, didn’t old Blankenship look fixed in the doldrums? Wilhelm sneered behind his paper. The blighter had fancied himself in love, no doubt.

Hogwash.

Still, such a nasty ailment could have its uses. If one blackmailed a certain lady’s lover—or perhaps ransom?

No. He mustn’t, tempting though it might be. In the end, it was most important that Madeleine be quite thoroughly and irrevocably dead. A departed wife meant he could marry for the money he so desperately needed.

Besides, he could hardly be expected to pass up such reprisal-free fun!

The little girl, on the other hand . . . ah, yes, the little girl . . .

Wilhelm was fairly certain that the staff knew nothing about her. If she were kept in that room on the top floor, she was probably there alone much of the time. The possibilities . . . ah, the possibilities were endless.

Eagerness made his hands tremble slightly. He couldn’t kill her, not if he truly wanted the ransom. Still, there were ways . . .

Despite his plans of prolonged suffering for Madeleine, he almost hoped she would expire quickly, so he could move on to his next delicacy.

Sitting in a secluded corner of the main club room, Aidan toyed with a brandy and indulged in a fine fit of manly brooding. He’d been poorly used and he deserved a righteously dismal gloom, by God!

Madeleine had lied. Madeleine had turned him into an adulterer—which he had vowed never to be!

Madeleine had made him love a child who wasn’t his!

Though, if he were being entirely honest with himself—which Aidan truly wasn’t prepared to be—he would be forced to admit that he’d been entirely smitten with Melody from the first moment anyway.

He scowled. Self-examination had no place in a grand brooding!

He tried to force his thoughts into line, but they tended to wander.

As in, where did Madeleine go after she left him? Oddly enough, when she had disappeared, she’d done so completely. There had been no uproar from the staff at Brown’s, no one had appeared to pick up her things, no word of her destination, nothing. Aidan was furious with her and never wanted to see her again, yet he could not help feeling uneasy. Where had she gone?

Perhaps she simply couldn’t face him again. “Then she’s a coward as well as a liar,” he muttered into the brandy he wasn’t drinking.

Then he realized that he was sitting rather close to Lord Bartles and Sir James. He slid a glance in their direction, but they made no sign of noticing his somewhat mad behavior.

They were asleep, he was sure, as always dozing over their eternal game of chess.

Has anyone poked them lately?

He clenched his eyes shut tight. Damn it, Madeleine! Get out of my mind!

To hell with those unanswered questions. She was gone. What did any of it matter now? He raised the glass to his lips, determined to drink this time.

An abrupt clash and shattering of glass interrupted the near-dead silence in the room.

Aidan looked up to see young Bailiwick the footman quailing before the fury of a man Aidan didn’t remember seeing previously. A tray lay on the floor, surrounded by what looked to be the remains of the brandy decanter and glasses.

That was a terrible shame. Brown’s kept such marvelous brandy.

“You sniveling dolt!” the man snarled viciously. “Look what you’ve done!” He alternated between dabbing at his surcoat and advancing upon the young man.

“B-but, my lord—you tripped me!”

Aidan blinked. Bailiwick might not be the most talented of servants, but he’d never been known to be anything but earnest and pathetically eager to please. Aidan peered more closely at the man as Wilberforce smoothly moved into action, soothing the furious member and shooing the confused Bailiwick away with the mess.

The tall fellow seemed dimly familiar. Hadn’t he once been a fixture in the House of Lords? Not on his own behalf, for he hadn’t any real property or power. He’d been acting as proxy for some distant cousin who couldn’t make the sessions.

As Aidan recalled, the fellow had been more interested in currying favor and influence than in enacting his real responsibilities. Aidan had had no time for such a useless parasite, so he could hardly claim he knew the man at all.

After berating Wilberforce roundly, which the head of staff tolerated with an expression that could only be interpreted as serene boredom, the fellow stormed out of the club room, presumably to his rooms, to repair the damage.

“Haven’t seen him for years,” came a rusty voice from near Aidan.

Aidan looked up in surprise to see that, indeed, Lord Bartles was alive and well and peering nearsightedly after the obnoxious new member.

Or, apparently, old member, for Sir James also roused from his somnolence to nod agreement.

Wilberforce faced the two elder members and bowed. “Yes, my lords. His lordship returned yesterday after many fortunate years apart from us.”

Aidan blinked. Was that a cut? From Wilberforce? Then the fellow must indeed be unbearable.

As if he’d heard Aidan, Lord Bartles shook his head. “He’s a bad sort, that one.”

“Not the right sort at all, no, no, no.” Sir James had not stopped nodding. Perhaps, once begun, he found it hard to cease.

Noticing Aidan’s interest, Lord Bartles directed his next remarks directly to him. “A blighter, that Lord Wilhelm Whittaker. He hasn’t been in here for years . . . not since old Lord Aldrich smacked him in the face and called him a cowardly upstart and a cheat. Caught him with an ace up his sleeve or somewhat, Aldrich did, in his own club yet! Fool! He thought we were all too old to spot the cheat. Aldrich chased him out at a run with a fireplace poker. We were all agog.”

His companion nodded shakily but emphatically. “Agog.”

Aidan lost interest. How was he to get over Madeleine this time—this time when his feelings were so much stronger than before?

Somewhere in his brandy was the answer, so he gazed back down into it, letting the voices about him fade away.

Wilberforce seemed curious, however. “So Lord Wilhelm never came back until now? Why now, my lord?”

Lord Bartles scratched his grizzled head. “Well, it seems to me he was mourning in the country for a while. Lost his wife in a fire, I heard. Must be where he got those scars . . .”

Aidan’s thoughts were circling in his own pit of emotions, so he didn’t try to comprehend the conversation going on about him. Why did you do it, Madeleine? Why did you fixate on me to torture?

Dimly, the words resounded in his mind. Lost his wife in a fire . . .

For a moment, he almost knew something, something terribly important. Then a fresh wave of anger and betrayal swept him, drowning out everything else once more.

In the attic, Madeleine tried to remain focused on her task. Somewhere inside she suspected it was a fruitless one, but it was the only thing keeping gibbering panic at bay. She might as well as not, after all.

When she’d finished moving the wardrobe inch by inch—it had taken what seemed like hours—she’d begun to have that feeling again, the knowledge that she was being watched.

Fear snaked through her. She fought it. She needed to stay clear, to remain determined against it. Giving in to Wilhelm’s trap would mean being sucked back down into hell—tentacles of the past grabbing, pulling down, down into the darkness as the light faded and grew indistinct above her and the blackness consumed her.

No. She could not rest until she was free. A few drops of water remained in the bottom of the pitcher.

She drank it, for she believed Wilhelm’s promise to watch her die. There would be no more water or sustenance coming.

Afterward, she began to amble about the room, pausing aimlessly to examine various items in a listless manner. She managed to restrain herself from approaching the dumbwaiter during her first two turns about the room.

Then, as if she were too weary to take another step, she leaned her back against the far side of the wardrobe, keeping the edge of her body in view of the doorway. He would see only her shoulder and arm and a bit of her hip and, for the moment, her profile as she gazed unseeing and passive into space.

Then she slowly rolled her head until she was looking at the wall behind the wardrobe. The cables and gears and pulleys were not mysterious at all—not when a single lever, clearly labled “Lock,” could be moved to “Unlock.” She did so with a quick hand, then began to once again listlessly parade about the room.

She dared not stay in one area too long. Wilhelm was clever and suspicious and he knew her well. He would be alert to any odd behavior.

After a while, she lay down across the bed and feigned napping. Her eyes closed, she listened with everything she had. She waited as her mind began to distinguish between natural attic creaks and sounds from that one particular area on the other side of the heavy door.

Her imagination threatened to create noises that weren’t there so she suppressed it, willing herself to a passivity she hated. Breathe. Hold. Listen. Breathe. Hold. Listen.

At last she was rewarded by the obvious scrape of a shoe on a gritty, dusty floor. Again, with a step that sounded as though it might be a bit farther away. Then the unmistakable vibration of a door closing in the next room.

In a flash she was up, flattening herself to the door, stretching herself up on her toes, cupping her hands on either side of her face so she could peer through the hole.

There was light there! No shadow blocked it.

She blinked rapidly, forcing her eyes to focus. She could see into the next area. It was a commonplace attic, mounded with stored paraphernalia of days gone by. She could even see the far doorway, a dark rectangle in the dimmest end of the room.

The doorway to freedom, if she could only batter down this prison door! She wanted to hammer it with her fists and scream aloud in frustration, but all that would do would be to anger Wilhelm should he still be in hearing range.