Devil in My Bed (29 page)

Wilhelm sneered. “What can you tell anyone if you’re dead? Poor Lady Madeleine, dead these four years past. I have rank. I have resources. Do you think anyone will believe that you—you scrawny, tatty harpy!—you could be Lord Whittaker’s lady wife? Not that you’ll get a chance to breathe a word, for your last breath is soon coming.” He lifted Melody and shook her harshly. “Say goodbye to your mummy, mousie. ”

Madeleine’s breath left her body at the way Melody’s head flopped limply back and forth. God, please!

Please, don’t let it be too late!

“It’s me you want, Wilhelm. Put the child down and I’ll go with you, anywhere you want.”

“Why would I want you, you betraying bitch, after everything you’ve done to me?” He thrust his arm up to shake back his sleeve to show her the fibrous burn scars that distorted his arm and welded his fingers into a claw. “Look at it!”

Madeleine swallowed at the gruesomeness of it. “I’m very sorry, Wilhelm.” She held her hands out, placatingly. “It must have been terribly painful. But I did not set that fire, I swear to you.”

He snorted and yanked his sleeve back down. “Of course you didn’t. Thrice-damned Critchley did it. He’s always had an urge to burn.” Then he switched Melody under his scarred arm and pointed his finger at her, Madeleine. “Nevertheless, he only set that fire in order to cover his plan to steal you away. He confessed the entire plan to me afterward, blubbering all the while.” Wilhelm laughed derisively. “He was so in love with you, and for years now that cretinous maggot thought he’d killed you instead!”

Madeleine scarcely heard him. She was trying very hard not to let her gaze slip past him to where Aidan and Colin had crept onto the roof during Wilhelm’s tirade.

Please, mousie, don’t look. Don’t see them. Don’t make a sound.

“Wilhelm, I know you hate me. I don’t blame you. But you can’t . . .” Her voice failed her. She let the branch drop. “You can’t harm a child, Wilhelm! Not even you!”

He raised a brow and sneered. “Oh really? Haven’t you realized yet that it’s easy to kill.” He held Melody out over the precipice. “All I have to do is let go—”

He was struck from both sides at full force. Aidan swept Melody out of his grasp even as Colin delivered a mighty blow that sent Wilhelm sprawling onto the roof slates.

“Oh, God!” Madeleine rushed forward, stepping over the prone Wilhelm on her way to Melody. “How is she? Is she breathing? Oh, dear lord! Is she—”

Melody, finally safe in the strong arms of her Uncle Aidan, tipped back her head and let out a healthy, earsplitting wail. “He—he—he—pinched me!”

Thank heaven!

A damp sob of laughter left Madeleine’s throat. She pressed both trembling hands over her face, dizzy with relief and reaction, the terror of the last half hour catching up to her. Melody was safe. Aidan was safe.

And she was safe, at l—

The arm that came about her throat was rippled with scars. It tightened cruelly, cutting off her warning cry.

Aidan thrust Melody into Colin’s arms for safekeeping and lunged after Whittaker. The scarred madman was dragging Madeleine closer to the edge of the roof. Madeleine fought him even as her eyes widened and her mouth opened, gasping for air that could not come.

“Stay back, Blankenship!” Whittaker locked his chokehold with his other hand. “I’ll break her deceitful neck!”

Aidan slowed and held up both hands. “You can’t get away with it, Whittaker,” he reasoned, even as he desperately searched for an opening. “So far you haven’t really hurt anyone—”

He saw Madeleine’s eyes bulge at that and faltered. Obviously the lunatic had already hurt someone.

Had he killed? God, how was he going to get her away?

“She’s my wife, Blankenship. I have every right to punish my own property!” Whittaker was so close to the edge that a broken slate went spinning away to shatter far below with a faint, tinkling sound.

Madeleine’s struggles weakened and she slumped in his grasp.

He shifted his grip to accommodate her collapse—

She spun upon him, striking wildly and shrieking like a banshee. “Don’t touch me, you revolting animal!

You filthy, treacherous lunatic! Go away and leave us alone! Better yet, just die! Do you hear me? Die!”

With only one hand to hang onto her and no real way to defend himself against her wild attack, Wilhelm took one step back. Then another. She scratched and clawed and screamed, ripping at his face, his neck, his waistcoat and shirt. Years of suppressed fury and pain came spilling out—

He struck her hard across the face with his scarred hand. She went down onto her knees, one wrist still locked in his grasp.

At that moment, a shot rang out. Whittaker jerked in surprise.

Aidan flinched, then cast a glance over his shoulder to see Wilberforce standing behind him with pistol raised high and sure, and Bailiwick behind him, ferociously wielding one of the ornamental swords that hung over the fire in the main club room.

Turning back quickly, Aidan saw Whittaker look down at himself in confusion.

A bright red stain began to spread from just below his neck down over his chest, darkening his shirt to crimson. He blinked, then staggered.

Then he fell across the decorative railing with a crash, still clutching Madeleine’s wrist in his grasp. The elderly iron work separated from the roof with a groan, then broke with a sound like a bell. Aidan lunged forward, but the body started to slide over the edge.

Taking Madeleine with it.

Madeleine screamed in fear and tried to resist the pull over the edge, her free hand scrambling to hold something, anything to break the inexorable slide down the sloping section of roof.

Aidan reached her even as her head and shoulders started to go over. Throwing his body over hers to provide counterweight, he reached for her wrist with both hands, trying to unfix Whittaker’s deathgrip.

He managed to peel the madman’s fingers back but something was tying them together—

He and Madeleine both began to slither over the edge. Desperately, Aidan tore at Whittaker’s fingers, ripping them free of the cord that had wrapped about Madeleine’s hands in the struggle.

Whittaker fell, flying down and away from them to spin once, twice—

Then he crashed to the cobbles of St. James Street, a broken, staring mannequin of death.

Gasping, Aidan pulled Madeleine back from the edge, tugging her far from danger before he stopped to breathe. They clung together, sprawled awkwardly on the roof slates, the air harsh and sweet in their lungs.

Wilberforce stepped forward. “Lord Aldrich sent us to aid you, my lords. Are you well?”

Aidan drew back so he could lift Madeleine’s face to his. Gently he stroked back the fallen tangle of her dark hair. “Are you all right? Do you need a physician?”

She opened her eyes. Her face was a mess of bruising, old and new, with a few fresh, bloody scrapes to fill out the blank spots.

“My God,” he whispered. “I wish he’d survived the bullet and the fall so that I could kill him again.”

Her eyes blazed. “As do I.”

Colin squatted next to them. “Well, resurrection aside, I think someone had better get down there to explain matters to the watch.”

“Oh, no need, my lord,” Wilberforce said easily. “I’ll take care of everything.” With the pistol in his hand, he turned and strode back to the easiest access point of the roof, Bailiwick close behind him.

Aidan and Colin stared after them. Madeleine laughed shakily. “Just another example of the excellent service provided by Brown’s Club for Distinguished Gentlemen.”

Melody scrambled into their laps. “I like Wibbley-force. He gave me a candy stick.” She thrust it into her mouth, sucking happily. Then she pulled it out again. “Can we go home now? This is too high.”

Madeleine pulled her close and lay her cheek upon the tangled curls. “We can go anywhere you like, mousie. I’m so glad you’re not hurt.”

“Me, too. I’m glad Wibbley-force killeded the bad man. Now I can play in the park.”

Aidan tipped the little chin up with one finger. “Mellie, I will take you to the park every day for the rest of your life, but right now I think we should all climb down and go back to our rooms.” He glanced at Colin. “Take Melody, will you?”

Colin lifted Melody away, but Madeleine’s hands wanted to cling. She turned haunted eyes to Aidan. “I never should have—”

He pressed a finger gently over the unswollen half of her lips. “Later.”

He helped her stand shakily on her own feet.

“Wait,” she said suddenly. “What’s that?”

Aidan looked down to see something glinting at his feet. He bent to pick it up. The cord that had entangled Whittaker’s hand with Madeleine’s wasn’t a cord at all—it was a gold chain. At the end of that chain was a gleaming gold locket.

Madeleine drew back. “Destroy that,” she said and then turned away from it.

Aidan shrugged and tossed the pretty thing onto the street below them. Then he supported her as she slowly made her way across the roof.

Madeleine had a marvelous vantage point of the scene on the street from the window in Colin’s sitting room. With the window opened she could hear nearly every word as well.

She stood just behind the draperies and watched the entire business with great concern. Though she might have every faith in Wilberforce—for the man had certainly helped save her life—she couldn’t help but worry how her own role would appear in this drama.

I have every right to punish my own property.

No matter how unfair it might be, Wilhelm had been absolutely correct. Most men in London would view her as an adulterous, ungrateful wretch who had participated in causing her poor, righteous husband’s untimely death.

A shiver went through her. Women had been hanged for less!

Astonishingly enough, there was little mention of her at all.

Three men of the watch gathered about Wilhelm’s stiffening corpse and gazed at it in various states of confusion.

One looked up at Wilberforce and the members of the club gathered behind him. Colin and Aidan were there, but remained discreetly on the fringes.

“So you say this man killed himself?”

One of the other watchmen squatted next to the body and gave it a poke with his finger. “What would

’e go and do a thing like that for, d’ye think?”

“Do you see those scars there?” Wilberforce pointed. “On his hand, wrist, and arm?”

The three watchmen nodded. Wilberforce continued. “Lord Whittaker’s manor house burned to a ruin five years ago. He lost everything.”

Lord Bartles chimed in from behind Wilberforce. “Lost his wife, too. I heard she was a pretty little thing.”

The other members nodded sadly. “Poor bloke. He’s never been the same since,” one said.

Wilberforce nodded serenely. “Lord Whittaker hasn’t been back to Town in years. I believe he came to London a few days ago expressly for the purpose of trying to forget his pain.”

One watchman removed his hat and rubbed at his bald head. “Don’t think it worked, did it?”

Lord Bartles shook his head sagely. “Some things a man can’t forget.”

The others nodded, rather like connected puppets, Madeleine thought. She’d never heard such complete malarkey. They ought to be ashamed.

“So sad.”

“Still in his prime, poor fellow.”

“What a pity.”

One of the watchmen was not as gullible as the others. “You’re saying he shot himself and then threw himself off the roof?”

Colin cleared his throat. “Perhaps he got to the edge and found he hadn’t the nerve to leap?” His tone was mild, almost indifferent.

The liar!

The clever watchman frowned. “Then where is the pistol?”

“I have it.” Wilberforce held it up for them to see.

“How did you get it?” asked the clever one suspiciously.

“It was on the roof not far from where he went over. I assumed you’d want to see it so I brought it down to you.”

The wrinkled Lord Aldrich came up behind Madeleine and chuckled. “Have you noticed that every single word out of Wilberforce’s mouth is the absolute truth? Masterful. What an admirable fellow.”

Suddenly there was a commotion below. A fat fellow in a lurid waistcoat pushed to the fore of the crowd. “Wilhelm!”

The watchmen bridled. “You there! Stand back!”

Critchley held up both hands. “Don’t believe anything these men tell you,” he cried. “His wife killed him!

She’s in the club!”

The clever watchman frowned at him. “The dead wife?”

Critchley nodded earnestly. “Yes!” Then he grimaced. “I mean, no, she’s not dead anymore!”

The watchman folded his arms. “And you say she’s in there?” He indicated Brown’s with the angle of his head.

“Yes, yes! She’s been in there for days!”

All the members of the club broke out in laughter. The watchmen looked askance at Critchley, then one turned to Wilberforce.

“What ye got to say to that, then?”

Wilberforce lifted his chin to stare down his nose at Critchley. “Brown’s is for gentlemen. The presence of ladies is strictly against the rules.” He glanced at the more clever watchman. “I can state that this . . .

person . . . has never stepped foot in Brown’s. He is not in a position to speak one word about my club.”

Madeleine shook her head in admiration. “I see what you mean,” she said to Aldrich. “Masterful indeed.”

Critchley let out a howl of frustration. “It was him!” He pointed at Aidan, who had remained on the fringes of the crowd but who also unfortunately towered over most of them.

Aidan did his best to look mystified and insulted. “I beg your pardon?”

Critchley lunged forward a step. “He’s the one who took her away from me! I had her in my hands, and he stole her away!”

One of the watchmen snickered. “Weren’t hard, I expect, whoever she is.”

Critchley whirled, furious spittle wetting his lips. “She’s alive, I tell you! She’s alive and she belongs to me now!” He waved a wild arm toward Aidan. “Make him give her back!”

The intelligent watchman narrowed his eyes and gazed from Critchley to Aidan. It was clear that he was adding up the conflicting stories and felt he was coming out short one truth.