Seducing the Beast (27 page)

Madolyn considered telling her how she’d spent
her
night, but she had no chance.

“What does the Beast plan to do?” Eustacia clasped her shoulders and shook her until her teeth rattled. “I warned Gabriel we shouldn’t come here yet. It’s too soon, I said, the earl hasn’t had time to calm his temper. Is he going to strike Gabriel out of his will?”

Aha, and here was the crux of the matter, her cousin’s only true concern.

Madolyn grasped her skeletal wrists and threw those claws aside. “I should warn you cousin, I’m never in my best temper when forced awake before I’m ready, but even if I were a morning person, I must still ask what you mean by coming into my room, unannounced, unexpected and most certainly unwanted, to yell at me like a fish wife. If you don’t shut up at once, I might be of a mood to beat you, as I would an old rug that needs fleas knocked out of it.”

“How dare you speak to me thus?” Eustacia’s skirt rustled noisily against the bed. “You get above yourself now, simply because you caught the earl’s perverse attention. Truly, I’m shocked, for he is supposed to be incapable, but,” her eyes flicked over Maddie like two disdainful dust rags, “some men have curious tastes. Perhaps you fulfill an eccentric fancy for coal above diamonds.”

She was too tired and angry to reply.

Her cousin strolled to the window and looked out. “This view is nothing. I would rather see the bustle and life of London, than this…dull, nothingness…acres of boring fields. I cannot see what Gabriel loves about this place.”

“Have you been to see your sick husband this morning? He asked for you last night.”

Eustacia shuddered, arms folded. “Why do they always get sick? I must be the unluckiest woman alive. I suppose he’ll die now too.” She didn’t like attention diverted from her, of course, and viewed Gabriel’s fever as a deliberate attempt to sabotage her happiness.

Even when Maddie assured her Gabriel improved steadily, she refused to believe it. “I might have known it was too good to last,” she said. “I thought this time if I chose a young man--”

“Eustacia, that is marriage, you know--in sickness and in health.”

But she turned up her thin nose and sniffed. “As if you know.”

Maddie shrugged, giving up.

“This house is wretchedly drafty,” Eustacia continued, shivering. “And those truculent servants. Not one of them came to undress me last night. I pulled the bell chord in my room for a full five and twenty minutes before anyone came to remove the bed warmer. I’m surprised the bed didn’t catch fire.”

“The servants were busy tending to your sick husband.”

“Then the earl should keep more staff, if there are not enough to serve his guests properly. Of course, he never keeps servants for long. His rages chase them away before they’ve stayed barely a month. He’s a brute, I hear, and wears out so many whips he has ten made at a time.”

“From whom did you hear that?”

“Oh,” she waved her fingers and wandered off again around the bed, “Perhaps from Gabriel.”

But surely Eustacia understood Gabriel loved his brother and the things he said were only in jest. Madolyn knew that now. The night before, as she’d sat by his bed, Gabriel spoke as if the earl was a saint, rather than the devious, conniving ogre the rest of the world painted him. Eustacia, however, preferred to believe the worst and gladly spread any nasty rumor. Maddie wondered what other canards were begun to harm the man few folk knew or had even met.

Now she sat up, shaking off her sleepiness, and asked Eustacia not to give the earl any information about her. “He thinks you put me up to it,” she added, chagrined. “He suspects you of leaving me in his path as a diversion while you escaped London with his brother.”

Her cousin scoffed, “You needn’t worry. I certainly don’t want him thinking you’re any relative of mine. I’ll deny any knowledge of your antics.”

Relieved, Madolyn hugged her knees. “You shouldn’t have left London as you did, cousin. Gabriel’s brother must have worried. It wasn’t right to sneak away. If you had been honest and confronted him to his face, I daresay things would be different. The earl has a right to be angry now, don’t you think?” She could hardly believe this was her voice, defending the Beast.

The pearls hanging from Eustacia’s ears trembled indignantly. “Who are you to lecture me? Since when have you cared for what is right?”

Maddie picked guiltily at the embroidered pattern on the coverlet. “I hope you’ll treat Gabriel kindly today. Think of him for once and not yourself. If you can.”

Eustacia sneered. “You have an instinct for your own survival, coz. You’re no better than me.” Fond of a grand exit, she swirled her way to the door. “Make the most of this. It won’t last. A man with wealth like his can buy as many women as he wants and change them as often as his shirts. You’ll be naught to the Earl of Swafford but a temporary plaything. There’s only one thing he wants from you. It’s the only thing men think of when they look at us, and once they’ve had it, they want it elsewhere.”

Instead of hitting that snow-white face, Maddie’s pillow smacked against the door as her cousin closed it. After that, she couldn’t get back to sleep.

To Maddie’s surprise, the servants each came up to her at some point that morning and found a way to be kind, whether it was reaching for something too high upon the shelf, or opening a door for her when her hands were full.

“Anyone would think I’d brought Master Gabriel back from the brink of death,” she exclaimed to Jennet, bemused.

Griff remained with his brother for most of the day, emerging occasionally to be sure she had not yet burned down his house, so he said. He even ate his supper in Gabriel’s chamber, claiming he had much to discuss with his brother. Suspecting he avoided Eustacia, Maddie couldn’t blame him for that. Eager to escape her cousin’s grim complaining herself, she found entertainment in the cookhouse with the staff. By now they were accustomed to her presence and Wickes was absent, so there was no chill in the air, nothing to spoil the camaraderie. Even Gregory relinquished his last doubts when she made a mint and lavender foot potion for his aching feet. Another recipe of her mother’s, it was a remedy much sought after by elderly folk at home, often hailed as a miraculous restorative.

She was explaining the recipe to Jennet, when Luke whispered in her ear, “Come with me then, missy.” He put his finger to his lips and led her out to the hothouse, where he passed her a bundle of tattered, old clothes. “Put them on,” he said.

“Me?”

“I’ll take you to see Matthew tonight. It’ll do you a service to see he bears the earl no anger. But you must wear this, or you’ll stick out like a Frenchman in a nunnery.”

She dressed behind the great leaves of the earl’s more exotic captives, pulling on the breeches, shirt and cloak with fumbling, excitable fingers. Her hair was tucked under a hat, a few smudges of dirt wiped across her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. Luke was still not entirely satisfied, grumbling that she should keep her head down and not speak to anyone when they got there. Again he warned her Gregory would have his guts for garters if he found out.

“I’ll not tell a soul,” she exclaimed, caught up in the drama. “They won’t beat it out of me, not even with a cat o’ nine tails.”

Laughing, he gestured her on ahead. A horse and cart stood ready and waiting. A few moments later they were off into the night.

* * * *

The tavern was crammed full of men who worked on the earl’s land and took their ease now in the comforting glow of the warm little room. There were no women in the place, none welcomed there. These men, in worn, stained tunics and frayed hats, were tired and thirsty after a long day in the fields, and the last thing they wanted was to put any effort into polite conversation. They sprawled about with their feet up, their bellies hanging out, burping with a glad sort of carelessness into the thick air of wood smoke, earth and sweat.

When he found her lagging behind, Luke returned to drag her along by the long, loose sleeve of her shirt, muttering dour warnings of what would become of them both if she was discovered there.

Matthew waited on a bench in the corner, and she almost laughed in shock at the sight of him, for he was nothing like his brother in shape and size. Where Luke was short and square, he was tall and lean with a handsome, scrubbed face. Unlike his flaxen-haired brother, he was dark, with curls that might possibly have been brushed, but he had the same merry grin. “By all that’s holy,” he exclaimed when he saw her, “I thought she’d be a fine lookin’ woman, not a little squirt like this ’un!” Grinning, he sent Luke for another jug of cider and gestured at her to sit. “I wonder what the earl would say to see you now here with us, little missy.”

“That is of little to no account,” she assured him. “I shall get straight to the point, Matthew.”

He nodded, looking surprised.

“He was wrong when he accused you of stealing the Swafford pearls and he knows it now. You must come back to Starling’s Roost and work for him again.”

With one grimy fingernail he scratched his cheek. “And what do you know about it, little missy?”

“A very great deal,” she replied firmly. “Do you want your post back?”

Matthew hesitated. “I doubt his lordship would take kindly to you interfering in the matter.”

“He may have difficulties apologizing for mistakes,” she agreed. “But he needs you back Matthew.”

Having returned with the cider jug, Luke said, “The lady is in earnest, brother. Hear her out now she’s come.” He passed her a full tankard. “Take care now,” he warned, “it creeps up on you.”

She was pleasantly surprised he poured some for her too, but no one there would preach ladylike manners to her. Besides, she was already dressed in male clothing, not a corset in sight. What difference would one mug of scrumpy make in the vast scheme of bad behavior?

She turned to Matthew. “You do want to come back, don’t you?”

He fixed her in a stern gaze, his eyes almost black. “I’d come back for his lordship, thus,” he clicked his fingers, “if he wanted me. If he asked.”

“I ask you on his behalf.”

He sputtered, indignant. “You can do that, can you, little missy? He gave you permission to speak for him?”

“No.” She frowned. “But Griff knows you didn’t steal the Swafford pearls and he’s forgiven you for falling in love.”

“
Griff
knows does he?” He looked at Luke. “Aye, now I see what you mean, brother. She’s a funny little thing.”

Frustrated, she watched them laugh with one another, and then she turned her attention to the thick, syrupy amber liquid in her tankard. It couldn’t be any stronger than Norfolk scrumpy surely, and she was capable of drinking the village carpenter under the table at home. The spiciness tickled her nose as she leaned over the mug and saw her face reflected there. She closed her eyes, took a breath and drank her cider straight down. It was warm and sweet, going down easily, leaving her tongue with a pleasant, tingling taste of apples. Her companions fell silent, watching in astonishment. Burping, she slammed her tankard down.

“Best pour the lady another,” Matthew exclaimed. “She’s dry this eve.”

She burped again in agreement and Matthew perused her face, apparently struck by an even deeper curiosity than she first roused. “Where did
he
find you, missy?”

“In the river Thames,” she answered solemnly, thinking back to that spring day and his kiss, taken without permission.

“You mean,
on it
.”

“No. In it.”

This made them hoot with laughter and Maddie, feeling the benefit of the scrumpy, laughed too. In fact, by the third tankard, she was laughing at everything anybody said. Nursing her tankard with both hands, she leaned back, bumped her head and was somewhat surprised to find the back of the settle much closer than expected.

Matthew looked at Luke. “She’s not what I expected.”

“Took him by surprise too, by all accounts.”

“I never thought he’d find one that suited.”

“They say he fell hard.”

Matthew nodded. “I’m glad of it. Time he had someone to come home to.”

She blinked drowsily, listening but too warm and relaxed to interrupt.

“She’s an odd little thing,” said Matthew.

“He’s deadly keen on keeping her. Gregory said he’s never seen him like it, in such a state he didn’t know what to do with himself.”

Matthew seemed to make his mind up. He nodded briskly. “Reckon this calls for another jug o’ scrumpy.”

Another cup later and she forgot silly things like time. What did it matter? Who was there to shout at her when she finally tumbled home? The earl would be with his brother still and her cousin was probably ironing out her wrinkles.

“Say you’ll come back, Matthew,” she begged with the peculiar depth of feeling only a drunkard possesses. “He needs you there. I think he’s in danger and he needs someone to protect him.”

“But he has a new man now.”

“Wickes?” She shuddered. “I don’t believe he has the earl’s interests at heart. Griff needs you back. He needs a good man at his side.”

He smiled. “Missy, I believe there are changes afoot at Starling’s Roost, and good ones too. So mayhap I shall think on it.”

When they left the tavern, she was obliged to lean heavily on Luke, but he made no protest. The sky was black velvet dotted with diamond chips and a kindly moon lit their path, but even as she rhapsodized on the heavenly beauty of the night, her eyes grew heavy. Luke’s hands were on her waist, lifting her up, and she felt the dip as he joined her on the cart. The fresh air blew away the last remnants of tavern wood smoke, and then she was fast asleep, her head on his shoulder.

* * * *

Eustacia’s voice echoed around the curiously empty chambers of her brain. “Where have you been? Are you mad? What are you…”

Maddie peeled her eyelashes apart to look up into that moonlit face. Gazing about with distant care, she found herself propped up at the foot of the staircase. Evidently Luke had been unable to prod her up the sweeping flight of stairs to her chamber, and in his own sauced mind, saw this as a fair compromise. She burped. “Good eve, Useless.”