Wolf Who Loved Me (11 page)

He winked at her. “Haven’t you heard, Madeline dear, Hadley men are far from proper? Now turn around. I can’t imagine you can get yourself out of that dress.”

Maddie felt heat creep up her cheeks. “You think to undress me, Mr. Hadley? Did you bump your head when I wasn’t looking?” She turned her back on him. “You can send a maid to help me.”

Maddie heard the bed creak as he sat down on it. “We can’t afford a maid,” he informed her as she stepped behind the screen.

“How much does a maid cost?” she called out. Honestly, she had no idea. She’d always had a maid of her own to travel with her.

“More than we have,” he said as she saw his stocking feet lift up on the end of the bed.

“I can do it myself.” She’d never done it before, but she felt certain she could manage to get herself out of her clothes.

“Sure, you can,” he called back to her. Did he chuckle?

Yet, after a few moments, Maddie realized he was right. There was no way she would be able to get herself out of her dress. She sighed heavily and ground her teeth. What was she to do now?

“Are you ready to ask for help yet?” he called from the other side of the screen.

“As soon as you tell me how you became so adept at removing women’s clothing,” she called back.

“You haven’t tried my services yet. I could be terrible at it,” he replied. Somehow, she doubted that. With the way that he’d kissed her, she doubted he was bad at anything when it related to women’s clothing.

“Just how many women have availed themselves of your services, Mr. Hadley?” she sniped as she glared around the end of the screen at him. He lay on the bed with his feet raised, his hands beneath his head. He looked so handsome that she had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from smiling at him.

“Call me Weston and I might tell you,” he called back without even looking at her.

Maddie reached behind her back until her arms ached from the stretch. There was no way she could unbutton the blasted gown on her own. “Weston,” she called sweetly. He was beside her in seconds. He looked down at her, his eyes warm and inviting. “How did you move that quickly?” she gasped.

“Don’t you know that all good dogs come when called?” he said with a wolfish grin.

She elbowed him in the side. “Stop teasing me. Really, how did you move so fast?”

He shrugged and took her shoulder in his palm, spinning her slowly to face away from him. “It’s a Lycan trait,” he said quietly by her ear. He brushed her hair to lie over one shoulder slowly as though he relished the feel of the strands moving between his fingertips. She didn’t understand how that could possibly be the case, as dirty as she was, but he didn’t seem to care. “There are quite a few traits we have that you should probably know about.”

Her voice quivered as he unfastened her dress at the highest point on her back. “Such as?” she breathed.

Hot breath enveloped the skin he uncovered as he worked his way down the row of fastenings. Then as he moved down, he replaced his breath with his lips. Maddie could barely put two words together, but she forced herself to concentrate despite his quiet ministrations and the soft hum that reverberated from his lips, sending chills across her skin. He lifted his lips only briefly. “We can hear really well.”

He unfastened another button. His hand swept across the naked skin of her back in a gentle stroke that nearly knocked her knees from beneath her. Yet he almost seemed to sense it and his arm encircled her waist. “What else?” she breathed.

“We heal quickly.” His lips trailed from the inside of her neck down to the vee of her back, across the chemise she still wore, his lips whispering across the silk like wind after a rain, drowsy and wet.

“I remember that one,” she gasped. “From when I kicked you.”

“I do, too,” he said, his lips more firmly attached to her shoulder as he shoved her gown down her arm with one hand and held her up with the other. Thank God, he held her up. Otherwise, she’d have dissolved into a puddle on the floor. His arm was anchored around her directly below her breasts, like a band of strength she never wanted to let her go.

“I thought you said you wouldn’t kiss me again until I ask for it,” she said softly, her eyes closing at the sheer pleasure his lips wrought. Wes very gently scraped at her shoulder with his teeth.

“If I were kissing you,” he breathed across the shell of her ear, “it would be because you wanted it. And because you informed me that you wanted it in no uncertain terms. That is correct.”

“And you do not consider what you’re doing to be kissing me?”

“No,” he said, and then he sucked very lightly at the place where her neck met her shoulder.

Maddie’s breath caught in her throat.

“Did you want me to kiss you, Madeline?” he asked.

“I’m not certain,” she gasped out as his hand rose to stroke the line beneath her breasts. What was he doing to her?

“When do you think you might have a good idea, my dear? Of whether or not I should kiss you?”

A knock pounded fiercely on the door. “More water, sir,” a man’s voice called out.

Weston let her go as quickly as he’d appeared. She nearly fell to the ground when he turned her loose, her limbs were so weak. There was a thumping everywhere that was unlike anything else she’d ever experienced. He crossed to the door and took the buckets from the man, then poked his head back around the corner of the screen. “Do you still need my help?”

Did she? She needed him to resume his ministrations. To go back to touching her. But she couldn’t say that. It wouldn’t be proper, not at all. So she squeaked out, “I think I can take it from here.”

“You’re certain you can get your dress off?”

“Maybe?” she said with a glance down and a frown.

Weston crossed the room in three strides. He shoved her gown down over her hips, tapped the outside of her leg to get her to step out of the gown, and kicked it to the side.

He turned as though he was going to walk away. “Weston,” she said hesitantly.

“Yes?” he barked.

She didn’t want him to go. She really didn’t. “Would you consider helping me wash my hair?”

He very unceremoniously picked her up, set her on her feet in the tub, and then crossed to the nearest bucket. She squealed when he dumped the water over her head. Then he set the bucket to the side, crossed his arms and glared at her. She must have looked like an idiot there in her dripping wet chemise and her hair a stringy mess across her face.

She blew water from her lips as she gasped. Maddie cracked one eye to look at him, but all she saw was his retreating back as he slipped out the door. Then she heard the lock slide into place. He’d dumped water over her head. And then locked her in this awful room.

Wes stared at the full tankard of whisky before him, still furious. More at himself than with her. Though he was plenty annoyed with her, too. Touching her made him want her more than ever. To taste her. To claim her. He was only one night past the full moon and struggled for control with the beast inside himself.

But she was in complete control, wasn’t she? How lowering to realize he was the only one affected by the other, damned fool that he was.
I
think
I
can
take
it
from
here
. Her voice echoed in his ears. If that blasted oaf hadn’t come back upstairs with a bucket of water when he had and interrupted Wes’ seduction… Now that he thought about it, Wes was beyond furious with that particular fellow, too. Damn his eyes.

When he’d dumped the water over her head, it had poured down her body like a silky ribbon, leaving a trail he wanted to lick from her body. Her chemise had revealed all her secrets with its dampness and the way it clung to her body. He’d wanted to explore her secrets. He
still
wanted to explore them. He should have dumped the bucket of water over his own head. Wes huffed in frustration. He never should have treated her that way. He would kick himself if he were able.

“I suppose I’m paying for that drink.” Renshaw’s voice from beside Wes brought him out of his murderous reverie.

Wes glared at his brother’s coachman. “Shouldn’t you be asleep somewhere?”

The driver smiled slowly at him. “Do you know why I agreed to this foolhardy journey, Mr. Hadley?”

“Because you’re afraid of Cait?”

Renshaw furrowed his brow as though he considered that possibility. Then he shook his head. “I have wondered about her ladyship a time or two over the years. There’s something a bit mystical about her on occasion, but I’ve never been
afraid
of her. Lord Eynsford, on the other hand…”

Wes nodded in understanding. Only a fool wouldn’t be afraid of Dash.

“…I’ve been in his employ for more than a decade. Long enough to notice certain things, if you know what I mean. And I feel certain you do.”

Meaning Renshaw either knew what he was or suspected something equally frightening. “Well, I hardly think Eynsford would sack you for
not
helping me kidnap the lady abovestairs.”

The coachman took a swig from his own tankard. “I traveled this same road with the two of them years ago, you know?”

Not really. Wes shrugged.

“At least
your
lady looks at you.”

But Madeline wasn’t his lady, was she? Just because he desired her, had longed for her since the day he first met her, didn’t mean
she
felt the same way—and she might never do so. He couldn’t force her to want him in return. But it mattered little since tomorrow he’d marry her because he didn’t have a choice. Neither of them did. Then he’d pine for his own wife ’til the end of time. “Don’t you mean she
glares
at me?”

“She hasn’t poisoned you, so you’ve already had a better journey than Lord Eynsford had in his pursuit of the then Miss Macleod.”

Poisoned? Wes gave his full attention to the coachman. “I beg your pardon?”

Renshaw chuckled. “Her ladyship led him on a merry chase. Left him unconscious for two days in her attempt to escape him.”

How did Wes not know this? Because it made Dash look like a fool, most likely. “Interesting as this is, Renshaw, I hardly see how this has any bearing on my situation.”

“It doesn’t,” the coachman agreed as he took another drink. “I suppose I just thought you might like to know things could be worse.”

Things were bad enough as they were. “You mean she could try to poison me?”

The man shrugged. “After you’ve seen such a thing once, it tends to stick in your mind.”

“Something to look forward to then.” Though Wes couldn’t imagine Madeline poisoning anyone. She might
get
her
hands
dirty.
He shook the uncharitable thought away. It wasn’t her fault she’d been raised in the lap of luxury. Her feminine, delicate nature was one of the things that called out to him. He adored that about her. Usually.

“Oh, I think your lady seems more resigned to her fate than Lady Eynsford was.” Then he shuddered. “His lordship could barely speak after he woke up two mornings later and found her gone.”

Perhaps the coachman really was afraid of Cait, despite his protestations otherwise. Wes might be a little scared of her himself now. Apparently he’d been more than lucky to escape with his tail intact after crashing his phaeton with Lia on his lap. The thought of his adorable niece brought a smile to Wes’ face. No one could be happier than Dash with his wife and children. “How did he do it, Renshaw? If her ladyship went to the lengths of poisoning Eynsford, what did he do to change her mind? She adores him now.”

The coachman yawned. “Some of us take a little longer to accept our fate than others. Like I said, your lady seems resigned. That’s a good sign.”

But Wes didn’t want Madeline to be resigned to her fate; he wanted her to be happy. But could she be happy with him? He would have sworn she was on the precipice of asking him to kiss her when that dolt knocked on the door with his damned bucket of water. Wes wasn’t foolish enough to believe that if he’d seduced her, she would suddenly fall at his feet in love with him, but it would have been a start. A wonderful start. A start he was dying for.

What was she doing at this moment? Had she climbed in the bed all clean after her bath? Wes rose to his feet, scraping the legs of the wooden chair across the floor in his haste. “I suppose I should go see about her.”

Renshaw motioned to Wes’ untouched whisky. “As I’m paying for it anyway, sir, I think I’ll finish that up for you.”

He could drink all the damned whisky he wanted. “Get some rest so we can leave at first light, will you?”

The coachman nodded. “I could drive this road in my sleep I’ve done it so many times, Mr. Hadley.”

***

Maddie sat in the middle of the tub, looking around the small room. She had nothing to wear. Not one thing. Her dress was, if not ruined, filthier than the Hythe stables. She couldn’t imagine slipping it back over her skin after she’d finally scrubbed the grime from herself. Her chemise had seen better days, too. Somehow one of the ties had even been torn off.

What a miserable night. She couldn’t even enjoy her bath after Weston had stormed out and locked her in this hovel. The entire time she tried to figure out what she’d done that had made him so angry. He’d
dumped
an entire bucket of water over her head, blast him. No one had ever done anything like that to her in her life, and she didn’t appreciate it. She’d done nothing wrong except want to be
clean
, for heaven’s sake. That was hardly a crime. Certainly it didn’t warrant him storming off to sulk for some unknown reason.

She shivered a bit as the water began to turn cold. Well she had to wear something, if not tonight, then tomorrow in the carriage for sure. Maddie glanced again at her soiled gown and almost cried. But crying wouldn’t get her a clean dress. She peered tentatively over the edge of the tub to the floor, keeping a watch out for any mice in the vicinity. Not seeing one, she stepped out of the tub and picked her dress up off the floor. Then she eyed the tub once more.

If she was feeling generous, she’d save the water for Weston in case he wanted to make use of it himself. But as he’d stormed out of the room like an infant, she wasn’t feeling terribly generous at the moment. Maddie knelt beside the tub and dipped her lemon muslin in the bathwater. She cringed as she scrubbed at the muddy stains on her dress. It would never recover but it at least it would be a bit cleaner in the morning. She’d have the thing burnt when she got home…

Dear heavens.

Where
was
home? She certainly couldn’t call Castle Hythe home any longer. But where did that leave her? Wherever Weston Hadley took her, that’s where. Maddie scrubbed harder at the stains, taking out her frustration with Weston on her ill-treated dress. Where would he take her? Where would they live? What could they
afford
? All day long he’d told her what they couldn’t afford. No maids, no baths. What if she was made to live in a hovel like this for the rest of her days?

Certainly being a ruined woman had to be better than living with vermin and dirt and… What had he said to her earlier, something about not bolting when they stopped to change horses? She couldn’t bolt this evening as she had nothing to wear. But in the morning when they made their first stop, perhaps she could make a run for it.

A knock sounded at the door. “Madeline,” Weston called as the handle jiggled.

She glanced down at her completely naked state and squeaked, “Don’t come in here!”

Something, perhaps his thick head, bumped against the door. “I have to come in, darling. I can’t sleep in the hallway.”

“Just a moment, then.” Maddie scrambled to her feet and picked up her dripping wet chemise. It was much too cold to put it on. She glanced around the room and finally yanked the counterpane from the bed and wrapped it around herself.

The door opened just a crack. “Are you decent?” he said through the opening.

“I wouldn’t call this decent,” she said tentatively.

“Yet, it’s the best we can do, I suppose.” He entered the room and closed the door behind himself, turning a key in the lock. Wes’ eyes settled on her, and Maddie hitched the counterpane up under her arms. “I, um, I suppose I owe you an apology.”

As he did appear contrite, Maddie resisted the urge to snort. “For what?” After all, there were so many things he could apologize for. Locking her in the room, dumping a bucket of water over her head, getting her dirty in the first place, abducting her, stealing her future from her, or for being a Lycan. The list was endless.

“For everything.” He sat on the edge of the bed and tugged off one secondhand boot. “I know you’re accustomed to everything being just so, and I know this journey must seem like a rude awakening.” The boot hit the floor with a thud, and he looked at her out of the corner of his eye. “You don’t know anything about poisons, do you?”

Poisons?
Maddie’s mouth fell open a bit. “I beg your pardon.”

He shook his head. “I thought not.” Then he directed his attention to his other boot.

“Weston,” she began, “I do believe that is the strangest question I’ve ever been asked.” When he didn’t respond, but let his second boot hit the wooden floor, Maddie stared up at the ceiling. “Do you truly intend to sleep here with me tonight?”

He nodded once. “I thought you wanted me to keep all the vermin away from you.” Then he glanced over his shoulder at her. “Besides, we can’t really afford two rooms, my dear. I’m sorry for that, too. But things are as they are. We’ll have to find a way to make the best of it.” Weston stretched out beside her and turned on his side to face her. “Did you enjoy your bath?”

“I feel better now that I’m clean,” she replied softly.

He smiled at her, and once again Maddie was struck by how handsome he was when he smiled. “Good. I hate that you didn’t have any of your rosewater, but I’ll make it up to you once we get home.”

There was that word again. “Weston?” She bit her lip.

“Hmm?”

“Where is that exactly? Home, I mean.”

His smile vanished, and it seemed as though he hadn’t given any more thought to the question than she had. “Well, I was raised in Derbyshire at Hadley Hall.” He shook his head. “But these days I’m more often in Kent than anywhere else.”

The idea of remaining in Kent put her heart slightly at ease. “I want to live at
my
home. I’m sure Papa would be amenable to the idea.”

Weston tucked a wet lock of hair behind Maddie’s ear. “That doesn’t sound like the best idea, my dear. I think it would be in our best interests to be away from your family as you get used to your new station in life.”

Heavens, he made that sound dreadful, as though she’d be responsible for bedpans or mucking out the stables.

He must have seen the panic on her face because he hastened to add, “I have no claim on Eynsford Park, but I suppose it is home. And it’s close enough to your family and the castle, Madeline. I’m sure Cait will welcome you…”

Eynsford Park. Maddie breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t mean to make her live in a dirty hovel. Still, it would be odd living at The Park as there was no official relation between the Hadleys and Eynsford’s family. Would tongues wag at the unorthodox arrangement?

“…And, of course, Lady Sophia is in residence now. I think you’ll be happy enough there.”

How had Maddie forgotten about Sophie? There were so many things to wonder about. Still she shouldn’t have lost sight of her friend. “What is Sophie’s arrangement at The Park? I would have thought Eynsford’s children were a bit young for a governess.”

“You think she’s there to be the
children’s
governess?” A self-deprecating laugh escaped him. “Not quite.”

“Well, her note said she was to be Lady Eynsford’s special guest, but I’m not sure what she meant by that. And I know she was in need of employment. Or at least she felt like she was in need of employment. What else could she be doing at The Park, if not caring for the children?” Then an awful idea flashed in Maddie’s mind. She gasped. “Tell me she didn’t accept an indecent proposal from one of your brothers.” Certainly Lady Eynsford would never allow anything untoward to go on under her roof.

“No, she accepted an indecent proposal from Cait,” Weston admitted with a wince.

That didn’t make any sense at all. “What do you mean by that?”

He lay back on the bed and stared up at the ceiling. “Dash hired her as a governess for us.”

“Who’s ‘us’?”

“The Hadley men. Archer, Gray, and me. To make us respectable.” He scrubbed at his forehead as though he could wipe away the very thought of it.

“That’s preposterous,” Maddie scoffed. Such a thing was completely unheard of. Sophie would be ruined if anyone learned of it.