Devil in My Bed (8 page)

her knees would go unexpectedly weak and she would have to sit.

Oh, my love, I want you to do it all again . . . and again . . .

“Are you unwell?” His jaw was hard but his tone was formal, his shadowed expression carefully neutral.

“I am fine.” I am not fine. I am fevered, short of breath and I can feel my own pulse between my thighs.

Does that seem well to you?

Memories of that first night together overwhelmed her. The first taste of his mouth, the first touch of his hand upon her breast, her thigh . . .

The first moment of having the depth of him inside her, unlike anything she’d known before.

Those firsts—those panting, sweat-dampened, aching firsts—were burned upon her memory like brands. For the rest of her life, the first night with Aidan would live in her memory as the moment she had woken as a woman.

The Madeleine she had once been would have been appalled at making love to a man she’d known for only hours, a man not her husband.

She might have blamed it on the sheer romance of that moment of rescue, or she might have chalked it up to her own loneliness and fear of being truly on her own for the first time in her life, but Madeline always told herself the truth, if no one else. She’d thrown herself into Aidan’s arms that very evening because she’d fallen in love with him in that single insane moment when he said, quite earnestly, “You ought never to walk alone.”

Finding Aidan had been a gift—the gift of herself when she was with him, a self she’d never truly known before. With him, she did not exercise her wit in order to charm or entertain. Nor did she repress her thoughts or impressions. She was merely, and ultimately, herself. She was able to be out loud the woman she’d always been in the privacy of her own mind.

And in the privacy of my own mind, I love you still.

Idiot. Recall that daughter that isn’t yours?

Fine. She would go get a look at that daughter and take away an image to keep in her mind when she was wont to dwell on Aidan’s virtues. After all, this was a man who abandoned her simply because she wouldn’t allow herself to be owned. What became of his midnight whisperings of devotion then?

Marriage—what a horrible concept, undoubtedly dreamed up by men for the benefit of men! She was better off on her own.

Even when that man was Aidan?

Even more so, for she would lose her will altogether anytime he should so much as touch her hand. She would adhere to her plan. If she could not catch the ship today, there was another in three days time. In a few days, she would slip away again, this time forever.

The hired carriage, woefully unmarked, took Madeleine and “my lord” off down the street, leaving Critchley behind. Still burning from the humiliation of being stared down by that beefy colossus, Critchley snarled as he dabbed at his sweating face with a mildew-speckled handkerchief. Who did that rotter think he was?

That single moment had been enough to transform Critchley back into the pudgy, sullen boy he’d been in school, and he hated the blighter for it. Memories swept him of the bullying and pranks he’d endured before Wilhelm had selected him as a companion. Of course, Wilhelm’s bullying and pranks had been every bit as severe and humiliating, but those had mostly been in secret, and at least young Critchley had belonged at last.

Now he was lost again. Having lost Wilhelm’s favor, he now slunk about London, gambling away most of his meager family allowance at the games and races he was unable to win, and spending the rest on absinthe and the hookah. He’d never been the brightest, at least that’s what his father had said once, but recently his mind had seemed to wander more and more.

Seeing Lady Madeleine had brought what was left of his mind into nearly sharp focus. Lovely, delicate, vulnerable Madeleine . . .

She had obsessed him since the moment Wilhelm had brought her home. He’d known immediately why Wilhelm had chosen her above all the others. She was more than beautiful, more than simply sexually desirable. Young, sweet Madeleine had a glow about her, as if she were alight with innocence and purity. It emanated from her and pulled at Critchley like a natural force. Ugly moth to the lovely flame, he’d made a fool of himself from the start.

Wilhelm had laughed so. He’d delighted in giving Critchley every detail of her deflowering, of her cringing and crying, and then came stories of her becoming a jaded sexual addict, eagerly begging for all the most humiliating acts. That the bloom was off the rose did not matter much to Critchley. It only fired his weak imagination with lurid detail.

Wilhelm had even offered her to Critchley once during a rare lucky run at cards. Then, when Critchley had dared to actually arrive in her ladyship’s bedchamber, perspiring and fervent, Wilhelm had been waiting with two burly footmen, who had beaten him soundly and tossed him from the house. It had taken Critchley months to beseech his way back into favor, and then only by way of subtle blackmail.

And then Lady Madeleine had come to him herself. Disguised as a housemaid, she’d arrived in his guest room before dawn one morning with a proposition. If he would steal her from this house and take her safely to London, she would lie with him willingly. Of course, at first she’d offered him jewels instead, but Critchley knew desperation when he saw it. It had taken some doing to convince her that one night with him was a small price to pay for a lifetime of freedom, but in the end she’d quietly agreed.

How he’d mourned her when he’d thought her lost forever. How he’d mourned his lost chance at heaven between her thighs.

He’d never had his night with her, yet here she was, a free woman living in London after all. To his somewhat muddled thinking, that meant he was owed, by God!

And now here he stood on this shabby street corner, his hand still burning from its brief, luscious encounter with her breast, and his face burning with humiliation once again. His mind clearing in direct proportion to his anger, he scowled at the disappearing carriage and turned his fury into effort at discovering the minor detail of that giant bastard’s identity.

He would have what was owed him . . . and so would Lady Madeleine.

Hidden away in Brown’s, Melody lay on her belly on the carpet, her chin propped on her hands, her feet waving idly in the air. The coals glowed in the fireplace and the floor was warm, not like at Nurse Pruitt’s where she’d had to wear rags wrapped about her legs in the winter. Still, Melody wriggled restlessly.

Uncle Colin wouldn’t let her move because he said she’d only set disaster in motion and that wouldn’t do because he’d just got her clean again.

She hadn’t meant to dribble the porridge down her pinafore. The porridge here was much nicer to eat than the thick, chewy mess that Nurse Pruitt made, but it was also harder to keep on the spoon.

Sighing loudly, Melody began to roll over onto her back.

“Ah! Don’t move!”

She froze obediently and waited while Uncle Colin saved the pitcher from falling off the washstand she’d just kicked with her feet. She blinked up at him. “Sorry, Uncle Colin,” she said sadly.

He picked her up and held her high so he could look her in the eye. “Captain Melody, it was a near miss but we have saved the ship from sinking again.”

Penitence happily banished, she dangled, twisting her feet eagerly. “Is it the Dizzonor’s Plunder?”

“Aye, captain, ’tis the Dishonor’s Plunder indeed. But we hove to and hoisted the mains’l. All is right at sea once more.” He hefted her to his hip. “Listen, Mellie—”

She held up one finger. “Cap’n Melody.”

He grinned. “Captain Melody,” he corrected. “Uncle Aidan has gone to look for your m—for someone.

He’ll be back soon, and when he comes I want you to be clean and ready. So just play quietly, all right?”

She looked at him. “With what?”

“Er . . .” He looked around, turning them both in a circle. “With . . .” He moved to the wardrobe and began to open drawers. “With this!” He pulled out a long white piece of cloth and handed it to her.

She took it. “Thank you,” she said seriously.

“You’re welcome,” he said and put her back on the floor where she had started. “Go on now.”

Melody looked at the long cloth for a minute, then started to wind it around her arm. “Look, Uncle Colin, I’m broken!”

“That’s good, pet,” he said absently.

Melody frowned at him where he stood looking out the window. Then she balled up the white cloth and threw it on the floor. “Don’t like it!”

He turned and looked at her then. “Why not? It’s a wonderful cravat—I mean, it’s anything you want it to be.” He knelt on the floor with her and began to do something with the cloth. “Look, you can practice knots. Pirates tie knots, you know.”

“Pirate knots?”

He coughed. “Well, not exactly . . . but I do know a few neckcloth styles. This one is called an Osbaldston. Watch me.”

Melody watched but it didn’t look like anything but a fat knot like Uncle Aidan had tied around his neck this morning.

Uncle Colin untied it and started another one. “This one is called a Gordian—”

Melody shrieked and grabbed the knotted cloth. “It’s a doll!”

Uncle Colin frowned at her but she was too excited to care. “See, she has a head and arms and legs and she needs a face, Uncle Colin, make a face, make a face!”

He made that sound he made when he was trying not to laugh. “And here I was worried you lacked imagination.” He got up and rummaged through Uncle Aidan’s desk. He came back with an inkwell and a quill pen.

“Uncle Aidan is going to kill me, you know,” he said as he drew eyes and a smile on the smaller upper portion of the knot. “I think this is his favorite cravat.”

“Her name isn’t Cravat,” Melody insisted as she took the doll back and hugged it, forgetting to keep the fresh ink away from her pinafore. “Her name is Gordy Ann!”

* * *

Slipping a child into Brown’s under his coat didn’t prepare Aidan for the task of sneaking a grown woman into the club. Perhaps he ought to bring Melody out again . . . but then where would he take her?

No, the priority here was to sort this matter out once and for all. Besides, reuniting mother and child in the street didn’t seem . . . well, proper.

“Stay here,” he ordered Madeleine. Her eyes narrowed at his tone. Damn, he’d forgotten how she despised anything that smelled even faintly of authority. His jaw clenched as her stubborn chin rose a fraction. He hadn’t the time for a battle now. “Please,” he uttered from between gritted teeth.

Her brows went up and her lovely lips twitched. “That hurt, did it?”

She was laughing at him. She always had. His gut twisted. Once upon a time her irreverent viewpoint had freed him, had allowed him to be a man he’d never known he could be. Now it only reminded him of the way she’d laughed away his proposal, laughed away his nakedly offered heart.

He turned away before she could read his pain. How he loathed that she could see into him so plainly, as if he were no more obscure than a clean-running brook.

The way cleared. He’d never been more thankful for the skeletal staffing of the club. They had scarcely climbed one floor before Aidan heard the alarming sound of feet running down the stairs ahead and above them. One of the younger footmen must be in a terrible hurry to avoid Wilberforce’s wrath.

There was no time to do anything but react. Swiftly Aidan pulled open the nearest door and yanked Madeleine through behind him—

Directly into the main club room!

He froze. Madeleine impacted softly against his back, then he felt her freeze as well. Aidan winced, awaiting the inevitable uproar. None came. The few occupants of the vast club room continued to read, snooze, and play chess as if nothing whatsoever was amiss.

From where she stood mostly concealed behind him, Madeleine tugged at his sleeve. “Are those two gentlemen dead?” she whispered.

Aidan turned his head to where Lord Bartles and Sir James continued their allegedly decade-long chess battle before the fire. “They don’t look any different than usual. I believe Wilberforce gives them a poke occasionally, just to be sure.”

She made a small, dubious noise. “Yes, but has he poked lately?”

“Shh.”

He felt her go on tiptoe to whisper into his ear.

“I’m only asking because once I found a toad behind the kitchen stove, dry and hard as stone but as lifelike as could be, albeit wrinkled. And they are awfully close to the fire.”

He felt her go back down on her heels but within a moment she was back, pressing against him in distracting ways in order to reach his ear.

“And they are very wrinkled.”

His ears began to buzz and his neck burned hot where her soft breath touched his skin. It had really been entirely too long. Reaching behind him with both hands, he found her waist—after a moment of delightfully mysterious fumbling that made her catch a quick intake of breath and quickened his own pulse further—and pushed her gently back down and away from him.

He turned his head slightly. “Check the stair,” he said out of the corner of his mouth. “Just open it a crack.”

He heard the faint click of the door opening behind him, then a quick tug at his coattail. Backing carefully, he followed her into the stairwell once more, then turned to face her.

She was gazing at him with pursed lips. “You fit right in here,” she said. “It seems everyone is stuffed and mounted. Is it a condition of membership?”

Aidan didn’t dignify her impertinence with an answer. He merely grabbed her hand and continued up the servant stair to his floor, and then down the deserted hall to his door.

Madeleine was fascinated. She might very well be the only woman ever to step foot in this club! She almost felt as though she ought to take special note as the representative of her sisters everywhere.

It was a very handsome place. A great lot of polished wood. Men did seem to love wood.

The hallway was soothingly masculine in blue and gold. Patterned carpet ran the length of the hall, ending at a window draped in blue velvet. It was lined with doors on both sides, rather like a hotel. In fact, it was exactly like a hotel.