Read What A Rogue Wants Online

Authors: Julie Johnstone

Tags: #romance, #love, #suspense, #england, #historical romance, #regency romance, #ladies, #lords, #alpha male, #julie johnstone

What A Rogue Wants (4 page)

BOOK: What A Rogue Wants
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Madelaine gripped her embroidery box
tighter to her side with her left arm and swallowed the catch that
had suddenly come up in her throat. “It’s just
embroidery.”

Lady Elizabeth shrugged. “Yes, but you
messed up the precious pink peony. No more chances for you.” The
corners of Lady Elizabeth’s mouth tugged into a smile.

Madelaine slowly released her breath,
too happy that Lady Elizabeth had been teasing her to be angry. “I
didn’t know you had a sense of humor.”


I’m terribly funny, once
you get to know me. You should have seen your face.”


I can imagine.” Madelaine
pressed her hand to her chest. “For a moment, my heart
stopped.”


Oh dear. I’m sorry. I was
only teasing. Come, we better go. Oh, and Her Majesty says to leave
your embroidery.”


Does she now? You expect
me to believe the queen means to be kind to me? I may be gullible
but I’m not a fool.” She hated how prickly she sounded, but her
nerves were already on edge.


No more foolery. I
promise. We’re to take an invigorating walk in the gardens since
the weather’s unusually warm. The queen is beside herself at the
prospect of pointing out new plants to us.”


A punishment worse than
the tower.” The minute the words left Madelaine’s mouth she froze.
Had she gone too far?


I know!” Lady Elizabeth
burst out laughing. Madelaine’s immense relief made her laugh
almost hysterically.


The queen will be most
displeased to hear what I just have,” a voice said from the
doorway.

Madelaine abruptly stopped laughing
and met Grace’s hostile stare. If she pleaded, it would only give
Grace satisfaction and make matters worse. She watched as Lady
Elizabeth flew across the room.


Lady Grace, please.
She’ll throw us from Court.”


I imagine she will.”
Grace untangled her arm from Lady Elizabeth’s desperate
clutch.


Please, you mustn’t say a
word.” Lady Elizabeth glanced over her shoulder at Madelaine. “We
meant no harm.”

Madelaine fought the urge to
intervene, clenching her teeth on her need to speak.


It sounded harmful to
me,” Grace said.

Unable to stand the helplessness and
Lady Elizabeth’s groveling a moment longer, Madelaine blurted,
“I’ll buy your silence with my quarterly allowance.”


How much?” Grace
demanded.


Ten pounds.”


Not enough.”


I’ll recommend you to my
brother,” Lady Elizabeth pleaded.

Lady Grace’s eyes narrowed. “Which
brother?”


Whichever you prefer.”
Lady Elizabeth turned deathly pale.


Well, Lord Foxhaven is
the heir, but Lord Grey does thrill me to the bone every time with
just one look.”

Madelaine wanted to silence Grace’s
viperous tongue, but the way she had in mind wouldn’t garner her in
any better favor with the queen. Proper ladies did not resort to
violence. Oh, how she wished she didn’t have to be a proper
lady.

Lady Elizabeth sighed. “Fine. I’ll
post a letter to Grey tonight.


That’ll do nicely. Yet I
require one more thing.”


What is it?” Lady
Elizabeth’s shoulders slumped and her voice shook.

Grace gave Madelaine a narrow-eyed
look. “No more speaking to her, unless it’s to insult her, of
course.”

Madelaine’s pulse shot from a simmer
to a boil, but she struggled to keep her face relaxed. She ignored
Grace’s stare and instead looked at Lady Elizabeth and tried to
convey with a quick smile that it was all right. It wasn’t at all,
but she’d never let Lady Elizabeth know that. A tear trickled down
Lady Elizabeth’s cheek which she quickly dashed away. “I
understand,” she whispered, dropped her arms and walked out the
door.

Grace stared at Madelaine from across
the room. “I’ll expect your allowance in my hands by
nightfall.”


I’d expect no less from
the likes of you,” Madelaine replied. A small sense of satisfaction
filled her as Grace opened and closed her mouth. No doubt the ninny
struggled to find some nasty words to say. Too bad she wasn’t
quick-witted. Grace settled on a glare, turned and departed the
room.

Madelaine stood for a moment with
nothing but the crackle of the fire as her company. It seemed worse
somehow to have found a possible friend and then lost her so
suddenly than to have never had a friend at all. At least before,
she had become numb to the cruelty of the other
ladies-in-waiting.

She hated this place. But she couldn’t
begrudge her father. He’d done what he thought best for his odd
daughter. He wanted her married and had judged she needed all the
help she could get to finally learn to be a proper lady since she’d
failed miserably to become one when her mother was alive. If only
she had tried harder, not caused her mother so much heartache. Her
heart twisted with memories.

A commotion at the door drew her
attention back to the area. The chambermaid with the red hair swept
in. “I need to draw the curtains.”

Madelaine glanced at the windows and
frowned. The curtains were all drawn wide.

The chambermaid laughed. “Sorry, my
lady. I meant I need to straighten the pillows.”

To Madelaine’s eye not a single pillow
in the room was out of place, but she waved the woman into the
room. “Constance, correct?”


Yes, my lady.”


Were you lingering
outside the room this entire time?” She hated to be accusatory, but
she needed to be pragmatic. Silence may need to be bought. Her skin
crawled at her thoughts. She was becoming a true member of this
wretched Court.


Certainly not, my lady.”
The woman’s voice held indignation, but her eyes darted with her
lies. It was on the tip of Madelaine’s tongue to offer Constance
coin, but then Madelaine remembered she now had no coin to offer.
It was all due to Lady Grace. This was awful.

She pasted a sweet smile
on her face, though she felt like screaming. “If you did happen to
overhear anything, I hope you know how
grateful
I’d be, how willing to help
you it would make me, if you kept your silence.”

Constance cleared her throat. “I
didn’t hear a thing, my lady.”

Madelaine clenched her fist.
Falsehoods. This entire Court was filled with people who had been
raised to lie.

The all too familiar sting of hurt
pierced Madelaine’s heart. She had to get out of here before she
became someone she did not recognize in an effort to simply defend
herself from those around her. The problem was she had to have an
offer of marriage before her father would allow her to leave the
Court, and as far as she could tell the men at Court with their
freely roaming hands and whispered innuendos wanted a whore―not a
wife.

After a week of being locked up in the
castle because of constant rain and bitter cold, Madelaine was
giddy when she awoke on the seventh day to sun and warmer
temperatures. Neither the queen’s glare nor Grace’s continuing
campaign to make Madelaine look foolish in front of the queen could
dampen Madelaine’s spirits today. They were to spend time outside
and the promise of riding her horse, though it would not be as fast
as she liked, lightened her heart and added a bounce to her
step.

As she raced down the stairs to meet
the queen and the other ladies-in-waiting she found Grace at the
bottom of the steps.


You’re dressed rather
oddly for sketching,” Grace said.

Madelaine’s spirits plummeted. “Are we
no longer riding?”


Did I forget to tell you
of the queen’s change of mind?” A wicked smile flittered across
Grace’s face. “You better hurry if you don’t want to anger the
queen by being tardy.”

Madelaine wanted to throttle Grace,
but unfortunately that would have to wait. She raced up the stairs
and quickly changed while categorizing the different ways she’d
like to take her revenge on Grace. By the time she returned to the
courtyard, she had ten solid retaliation methods in mind, and she
would have gladly employed method one, pushing Grace into the
fountain when no one was watching, but the queen and all the ladies
had already gone outside.

Fuming, she trudged in the
direction the guard pointed her, kicking stray pebbles as she
walked. Why had she fought her mother so? If only she’d paid
attention and learned how to do at least
one
thing normal ladies did. Her
mother had been right―Madelaine was willful and her father was too
soft. A reluctant smile tugged at her mouth. How easy it had always
been to get Father to take her side. A few well-placed tears and
she would be practicing archery with him instead of inside with her
mother trying to master embroidery. A gentle reminder about how
long he had been gone to see the king, and she could easily escape
practicing pianoforte for the much more pleasurable experience of
racing him on horseback across their wide expanse of land or having
a dagger-throwing contest.

None of the things she knew how to do
did her any good, just as her mother had always predicted. If only
she had listened, her parents would not have fought over her
behavior and then her mother would be alive. The familiar sting of
tears tickled her nose, but as the queen and the other
ladies-in-waiting came into sight, Madelaine sniffed back the
tears. She’d sooner be stuck with a hot poker than cry in front of
any of them.


How nice of you to join
us, Lady Madelaine,” the queen said.


I’m sorry, Your Majesty.
I had to change out of my riding habit.”


As did everyone else who
was here when I said to be.”

Madelaine gritted her teeth on her
response while sitting and carefully situating her skirts over her
ankles. Small blades of brittle grass pricked her skin through her
stockings. She ignored the desire to lean down and rub her ankles―a
lady did not rub her ankle in public no matter what. Even if her
ankle was twisted. One public smack of her hands by the queen had
ingrained that particular lesson into Madelaine’s mind for good.
The queen didn’t hit near as hard as Madelaine’s mother used to,
but then again her mother had not had an audience to force her
temper under control.

Inhaling a breath of the mildly cool
air, the familiar calm she always got when she was outside
descended on her. The emerging wintery beauty of Windsor Great Park
pushed away the weariness Grace had caused. Madelaine pulled out
her supplies and picked up her easel. At least if she had to be
humiliated it would be under a tree that still somehow stood lushly
green amongst the other trees whose leaves had already begun to
turn to a dull brown.

Madelaine chanced a look at Lady
Elizabeth, who had not spoken to her once in the last seven days
but had offered the occasional friendly smile when Grace had not
been present. It would be lovely to have one lady to count as a
friend but that was probably too much to hope for. As Madelaine
finished situating herself, the queen let out an irritated
sigh.


I’ve forgotten my
favorite sketching instrument.”


I’ll get it, Your
Majesty.” Grace jumped up and pushed back her chair.

Queen Charlotte bestowed a doting
smile on Grace that made Madelaine want to roll her eyes. Instead,
she kept her gaze trained on the paper before her and imagined
Grace falling, face first, straight into the mud. How Madelaine
would love to sketch that. The minute Grace disappeared from view,
Lady Elizabeth leaned toward Madelaine. “I’m so sorry,” she said
under her breath.


Don’t be,” Madelaine
whispered back.

Lady Elizabeth gazed around them, but
the queen was sitting with her eyes closed and her face raised
slightly to the sun. The other ladies-in-waiting were all busily
sketching. “I cannot be thrown from Court,” Lady Elizabeth
said.


Please, don’t worry about
me.” Madelaine understood Lady Elizabeth’s concern, but all the
same, it made her sad the woman wouldn’t chance being her
friend.

BOOK: What A Rogue Wants
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