What A Rogue Wants (34 page)

Overturned furniture and paper
littered the floors. After pushing a chair out of her way, she
stalked from the entrance hall to the library, then through the
ballroom and drawing room. Disorder reigned in every room. Drawers
lay half open or pulled all the way out and left on the floor. The
books in the library had been removed from the shelves. Chairs were
overturned, no doubt in the men’s haste to try to locate the paper
that would prove her father’s guilt. But Father was clever. Thank
God! If he’d not hidden the paper he would be dead already. Neither
Lord Ashford nor the king was likely to give a whit that her father
meant only to protect England. Men and their games. They were all
arrogant and self-serving, except for Grey.

Ugly treacherous thoughts
reared as she picked her way through the disorder and toward the
kitchen and the door that led to the cellar. Every step on the
marble floor echoed in the eerie silence. She passed a ball of
ribbon lying on the floor. Abby’s ribbon! She bent, picked up the
ribbon and fingered the silken thread. “
Abby
. Where are you?”

Madelaine gulped back the sadness
threatening to overcome her. She’d not given one thought to her
childhood friend or any of the servants, for that matter. And blast
Father, neither had he! His betrayal of the king had put them all
in a precarious position.

She prayed Abby and her mother had
found someone to take them in or even new employment. If they
hadn’t, maybe when things settled she could find Abby and bring her
and her mother back here, or if not here wherever fate forced them
to settle. God! She clenched the ribbon in her hand. It may do Abby
more harm than good if she worked for Madelaine and her father,
assuming they’d be in any sort of position to employ a
servant.

She squeezed her eyes shut and
breathed deeply. She had to quit thinking about the future and
secure the list for the prince. Opening her eyes, she strode down
the hall and made her way to the back and through the door to the
kitchen. Here everything was perfectly in its place. They’d never
thought to look in the kitchen, let alone the wine cellar. With her
lips pressed together, she quickly found a candle and then made her
way down the dark cellar stairs.

She’d always hated the damp, dark
cellar. Her heart raced and her palms sweated. She shuffled past
the barrels to the back where the wine bottles were. The endless
rows filled her with dread. Dusty containers lined the walls eight
rows deep. Dirt and dust filled her lungs and made her
cough.

Something creaked in the room, and she
darted a look around seeing nothing but glass and wood. Trying to
ignore the despair the rows conjured, she eyed the towering racks
and hurried to the fourth row. In the middle of a sea of white
bottles was a green one. The relief that poured through her made
her tremble so that she had to set her taper on the shelf. It was
just as well. She needed her hands free. She closed her fingers
around the green bottle, and after a moment she managed to open it
and turn it upside down. Inside the empty bottle the smooth edge of
a rolled up piece of paper protruded.

Grabbing the edge of the
scroll, she tugged it out. For a moment, she eyed the paper,
suspended between duty and curiosity. If she was going to risk her
life and betray her king, she wanted to see exactly what he had
written. After unrolling the paper, it shook as she brought it
close to read. The first lines were the king’s mad statement about
the angel visiting him, just as her father had said. Her scalp
tingled as she read the king’s disturbing words. She moved her gaze
down the paper. The distinctive slanted scrawl of her father’s
handwriting leapt out at her and made her gasp. Trembling, she
moved her finger along the first line.
Primary Code of the Network Language.

She traced the second
entry. “
QOTM” and “AKUXMK.”
The code made no sense to her, but after reading
further, she thought she had it. Her father had always made her
solve elaborate puzzles he’d created and for the first time ever
she was glad for it. This was not a complicated puzzle. The English
word was written below the coded word which represented it. The
coded word was her father’s handwriting, but the decoded word was
not.

She rubbed the paper between her
fingers as she thought. Why had Father created ciphers for the
king? Not enough sleep and lack of food sent a wave of exhaustion
rolling through her that left her dizzy. For one bleak second, she
thought she might swoon, but after a moment the spinning stopped,
and she once again composed herself to study the paper.

Blast her father.

Her belly clenched in denial but the
truth was in swirly dark ink before her eyes. Father had not told
her the whole truth. He’d not said a word about being involved in
creating a code for the king. Dizziness overwhelmed her again. She
squeezed her eyes shut, breathed deeply and reached a steadying
hand toward the shelf. Gripping the wood so tight her fingers
ached, she swayed as wave after wave of nausea consumed her. Sweat,
damp and sticky, trickled down her sides and covered her
brow.

If Father had omitted part of the
truth, what else might he have lied about? Her mother’s voice,
bitter and accusing, filled Madelaine’s head. How many times had
her father returned from a long trip only for her mother to scream
that he was lying about where he’d been, what he’d been doing. For
years, her parents had scurried off to the garden to argue in
private, only they were never alone.

Madelaine’s secret hiding place had
been in the garden. By the age of ten, she knew Mother thought
Father was in love with someone else and that he secretly went to
meet her time and again. And Madelaine would never forget the awful
day her Mother had begged him not to go on the trip he had planned.
She promised to be sweeter, more loving and make Madelaine a
better, more dutiful daughter.

Her mother’s pleas had
fallen on deaf ears. He’d left, not to return for two months, and
the beatings while he was gone had been the worst Madelaine had
ever received. But the beatings paled in comparison to the guilt
that ate at her. She vowed to be a better daughter, one that would
not cause her mother heartache and make her so angry that she
fought with Father. She vowed to be the kind of daughter Father
would want to come back to.
Then
he would stay with them.
Then
he would love them.

But when he came back from his trip,
he’d sought her out instead of Mother. That had been the best and
worst day ever. He’d taught her a new way he’d learned to shoot his
bow, and she’d eagerly gone with him for the better part of a day
into the woods to hunt and shoot. Abby and her mother had even
joined them for a time, which had never happened before and never
happened again. When they’d all returned to the house, her mother
had been livid beyond reason and had smacked Madelaine across the
face with a hairbrush.

Madelaine opened her eyes and rubbed
her cheek, which throbbed as if just freshly hit. She could see her
parents standing before her as if time had not moved forward a
single second, minute, hour or day. Father grabbing Mother’s arm as
she raised it to strike again, and Mother’s stricken face before
she fled the room―those memories never faded. Abby and her mother
had scurried off to the kitchen when Father had commanded them to
go. Madelaine had crawled into bed early that night and prayed
things would be better on the morrow, but the next day her parents
barely spoke, and her mother made sure she knew it was all her
fault.

Madelaine kneaded her fingers into her
aching head. In her heart, she didn’t believe her father betrayed
her mother, nor was she sure he had really loved her. What was he
doing all those times he was gone? Was a glimmer of the truth here
in this paper?

Her pulse raced as she
read the next two lines written by the king’s hand. “King George
III’s personal spies and missions,” she muttered
aloud
.
Disbelief
caused her to laugh nervously
. Head of
circle of six – Fifth Duke of Ashdon– mission – deliver message to
Nelson regarding the movement of Napoleon’s fleet across the
Atlantic.

Dear God! Grey’s brother was a spy, or
did this note refer to Grey’s father? It must have been written
before Grey’s father’s death. Madelaine pressed a hand to her head
as her thoughts spun. The circle of six held no meaning for her,
but if Grey’s father had been a spy that could explain why Grey had
been held at arm’s length all his life. She became excited thinking
of how happy Grey would be to know his father really had loved him
and had only tried to protect him, but then she remembered she had
to avoid Grey, and even if she did see him at Court, it wasn’t as
if she could tell him what she knew.

Unless
―All the air in her lungs swooshed out in a rush. Did he
already know?
Was he a spy as well?
The paper crumpled as she curled her fingers into
a fist. Her blood rushed to her temples. Had Grey lied to
her?

Flashes of his injuries skimmed
through her thoughts. Cuts, scrapes, and fresh scars that seemed
too harsh for a mere equerry filled her with doubt. She couldn’t
consider that he might have lied. Because if he was the king’s man,
then did that mean he had used her to get to her father?
Ruthlessly, she shoved the doubt away and hugged
herself.

Yet the doubt was relentless, like a
driving rain that wouldn’t let up. It bore into her, chilling her
skin and froze her all the way through. Gulping, she forced herself
to look at the paper once again. Her heart pounded as she read each
line while holding her breath and praying she’d not see Grey’s
name, yet praying she’d find answers.

Her hopes rose as she read through the
names and the missions―Lord Gravenhurst and Grey’s brother were on
the list with missions by their names, but Grey was not mentioned.
The next name caused her to bite down hard on her lip, her stomach
pitching.

She blinked, yet the name was still
there. Her father was a spy for the king. Had he always been? It
explained his long absences and why he could never tell Mother
where he was or what he was doing. How horrible for Mother and him.
Madelaine groaned.

Her parents had barely stood a chance
at happiness with this secret between them. Maybe her willful ways
had been one thing too many between her parents. She had to make
amends for her part in driving her parents apart. She had to do her
Father’s bidding and trust him. Didn’t she? Doubt warred within
her. The king believed he could depend on her father, and her
father was betraying the king. Instinct made her want to know more,
but what would she do if what she learned made her think her father
was wrong? Could she still do what he demanded? It was better to
never know, to not have to decide.

A scratching noise behind her made her
jump. Whirling around, she grabbed the taper off the shelf. Light
flickered in front of her, illuminating the distance from her to
the stairs. There was no one there, yet her skin prickled. How long
before Grey caught up with her, or worse his brother or Lord
Gravenhurst? She might be able to convince Grey of her innocence,
but his brother and Lord Gravenhurst wouldn’t listen to a word she
said, especially since she’d wounded Grey’s brother. And then
another thought struck. Somewhere out there was a murderer and it
wasn’t her father. Fear stilled her breathing altogether. She
listened to the silence.

A clanking, as if a bottle had been
tipped over, resounded. Every instinct she possessed urged her to
flee but first she needed the money her father had hidden. She
snatched the bottle up, expecting to find money in it, but the
bottle was empty.

Her hands flew from bottle to bottle
in search of the money as her heart slammed painfully, making her
chest ache. She tried to calm herself, to order her thoughts, but
it was impossible as fear clawed its way up her insides and choked
her. Her hands shook. She could hardly grasp the bottles. In the
blackness, she could have sworn she heard a man’s voice.

Wildly, she gazed around at the
shadows, the walls, the hundreds of bottles. Were the walls closer,
the shadows darker, the bottles multiplying? She jerked away from
the shelf desperate to run upstairs to the open space and
light.

Her shoulder bumped a bottle on the
edge of the shelf as she turned. The bottle teetered before
toppling to the ground. Shards flew and crackled on impact with the
hard floor. To her left, the distinct sound of feet shuffling
pierced through her fear. An icy chill coursed down her spine.
Automatically, she lifted her boot to get the dagger she’d stolen.
She felt around for where she’d made a slit on the outside of her
boot for it, and then froze. Her heart plunged. Damnation. She’d
left the dagger buried in Grey’s brother’s shoulder.