How to Entice an Earl (27 page)

“May I help you?” Maddie asked, not quite sure what to say. After the other girl’s outburst at her betrothal ball, Maddie had put the blond beauty out of her thoughts. She’d been busy with wedding plans and the like. Her erstwhile nemesis hadn’t really figured into that.

At least the other girl had the grace to blush, Maddie thought wryly.

“I apologize for intruding upon your wedding breakfast,” Amelia said, looking a bit sheepish. “I did tell the footman that I could wait if necessary.”

She looked about the small room. “I have a suspicion he put me here and forgot about me.”

“The servants are quite busy today,” Maddie said with a slight inclination of her head. Then, not wishing to prolong the interview, she got to the heart of the matter. “What brings you here, Amelia? We are hardly friends enough to warrant your coming here to wish me happy.”

To Maddie’s relief, Amelia seemed to appreciate her plain speaking. “You are correct, of course, Lady … Gresham,” she said, pausing to remember her new title. “Especially after my outburst at your betrothal ball.”

Maddie was rather shocked the other girl would bring it up, but she supposed it was brave in its way.

“Think nothing of it,” she said, feeling magnanimous. “We all have days where we wish a large hole would open up in the ground and swallow us up.”

Amelia looked relieved. “You are more kind than I deserve,” she said quietly. “I’ve been perfectly wretched to you and your cousins. I have little excuse for it, except to say that I feel a great deal of unease about my own position in society. After all, I haven’t your titled family, or the knowledge that my mother was once considered the toast of London.”

She went on, “In any event, I do wish you to know that I am sorry for my ill behavior. And I hope that even if you cannot find it in yourself to forgive me, you will at least allow me to tell you what I’ve come here to say.”

At Maddie’s nod, her blue eyes looked troubled. “I acknowledge that today is perhaps not the best of days to reveal this to you. I wish I’d known yesterday so that you might have been able to take action before the wedding, but I cannot help that now.”

Feeling a shiver of fear slide down her spine, Maddie turned and shut the door of the little chamber.

“What is it you wish to tell me, Miss Snowe?” If the other girl had something to say that might affect her marriage, she wished to know it sooner rather than later.

“Lady Gresham,” Amelia said, for once looking sincere, “I dislike being the bearer of such tidings, but it has come to my attention that your new husband, Lord Gresham, was seen visiting a … a house of ill repute earlier this week.”

Maddie felt the color drain from her cheeks. “How do you know such a thing?” she demanded of Amelia. After all, young ladies were hardly in the habit of loitering in the neighborhoods where brothels plied their trade.

Amelia looked at the floor. “I overheard my brother mentioning it to one of his male friends.”

Maddie’s ears began to ring. “And do you know which establishment my husband is said to have visited?” she demanded, trying like mad to keep her voice from breaking.

The thought that Christian might have gone from her bed to a mistress would have been bad enough. But a brothel was even worse than that. At least if he kept a mistress she might be able to rationalize that he was using the visit to break things off. With a brothel, there would not be the sort of arrangement as one had with a mistress. She felt her stomach lurch at the thought.

“I think my brother said it was the Hidden Pearl,” Amelia said, looking ill herself. “I remember because I thought it an eloquent name for such a vile place.”

The Hidden Pearl? Maddie thought back. She could have sworn she’d heard someone speak about the place before. Someone not related to Christian. She searched her memory, desperate to make the connection. The only other men she was around were her father and her brother. Both of whom were … Wait. She suddenly remembered that she’d overheard Tretham and one of the other men at Lady Emily’s card party discussing the place.

Put together with her gut instinct that told her that despite his flaws, Christian would not be so crass as to visit a brothel for the usual reasons so soon after taking her virginity, the information made Maddie angry for another reason altogether.

The devious man was investigating the case without her. And had not bothered to share whatever he’d learned with her.

Still annoyed, but not heartbroken as she’d felt when Amelia first disclosed her awful news, Maddie turned back to her unwelcome visitor.

“Miss Snowe,” she said, her anger giving her a resolve she’d not been feeling earlier in the day. “I must thank you for informing me of this. If you only knew how much this helps me.”

Amelia looked confused. “H-helps?” she asked hesitantly.

“Why, yes,” Maddie said grimly. “This is information that I most certainly needed to know. And I would never have learned it without your help. I have little doubt that my husband would not have told me.” The bounder.

“I suppose not,” Amelia said, looking at Maddie as if she’d just voiced a thirst for human blood. “I’ll just leave you to your…” She paused, as if searching for the right word. “Event,” she finally settled on before hurrying from the room.

Alone, Maddie reflected on how she would approach her new husband with the news that he’d been found out.

Sixteen

When Christian handed Maddie down from the carriage in front of the Gresham town house, he couldn’t help but notice just how quickly she pulled back from his grasp. Perhaps she was feeling a bit of nerves over the night to come, he thought.

“My lord, my lady,” his butler, Yeats, said with as much of a smile as Christian had ever seen him muster. “May I offer you the congratulations of the household. And may I welcome you to your new home, my lady.”

Maddie’s stiffness disappeared at the welcome. “Thank you so much, Mr. Yeats,” she said warmly. “I look forward to learning more about the house and about you and the other people who make it run so smoothly.”

The old man all but blushed. Directing her forward into the entryway, he indicated the line of servants waiting to bid her welcome.

Christian watched, fascinated, as his new wife moved down the line of servants, repeating their names back to them as if attempting to memorize them, and taking care to make some comment to each of them. She would make them an excellent mistress, he concluded. He was somewhat surprised because he had never considered her the domestic sort.

When they’d finished the introductions, Maddie turned back to Christian, and he could almost feel the air around her cool. He’d put her earlier distance down to nerves, but there was very clearly something on her mind.

“Will you show me to my chamber so that I might rest a bit before dinner?” she asked. Her tone was friendly enough, he thought, but nothing like the easy tone she’d used with him that morning between the church and the wedding breakfast.

“Of course,” he said, trying to remember if he’d done or said something that would have changed her manner toward him in the course of the afternoon.

Silently they made their way upstairs, down corridors, until finally they reached the hallway outside their bedchambers.

Opening a door between them, he ushered her in. “This is the sitting room that joins our two chambers,” he said, stepping behind her into the room, where a fire was lit to ward off the chill of the overcast day. “To the left is the door to my dressing room and the bedchamber beyond,” he said, nodding in that direction. “And to the right, you will find your own dressing room and bedchamber.”

He stepped closer to take her hand and lead her toward her rooms. But to his surprise, she pulled her hand from his. “I’m sorry, my lord,” she said coolly. “I’m afraid I am fatigued from the day’s events. I would like nothing more than to have a nice long nap.”

If she weren’t bristling with anger, Christian might have allowed her to retire to her chamber and a refreshing sleep. But she was obviously angry with him over something and he was dashed if he’d start his marriage with a quarrel between them.

He looked at her for a long moment as she waited for him to respond. Her eyes were wary, and her nostrils flared a little, as if she were smelling something bad.

“What have I done?” he asked, finally. He couldn’t think of any transgression he might have committed in the past few hours, but obviously something had happened to set her back up.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her mouth tight.

Women.

“Obviously something has happened to overset you,” he said, thrusting a hand through his hair. The windswept style his valet had so slaved over that morning had at least lasted this long, he thought wryly. “On our way to the breakfast things were fine, and then after the breakfast you grew distant. Did I do something during the gathering that gave you a disgust of me?”

He saw her inward debate as she stared at him for a long moment.

Finally, she gave a slight shrug. “All right, my lord,” she said tersely. “I will tell you. I had a visit from Miss Amelia Snowe during the wedding breakfast.”

What the…? “Why the devil would she call on you?” he demanded. He’d never been a great fan of the chit. She was pretty enough, but had the disposition of a sour apple. “You are hardly such friends that she would have come to offer her felicitations, I think.”

“She was not making a social call,” Maddie said, her spine ramrod straight. “Though she did apologize for her outburst at the betrothal ball.”

“Are you angry with me because of something I’ve said to her, then?” Christian demanded, trying to understand what the devil Amelia Snowe might have to do with Maddie’s present state of rage.

“Of course not,” she said, waving away his suggestion with an impatient flick of her hand. “Amelia came to inform me of something. Something she would have liked to tell me before the wedding, but that she only just learned.”

Christian felt the prickle of unease between his shoulders. If Maddie were speaking in terms of before the wedding—as in, before the wedding so that she might be able to cry off—this was serious business, indeed.

“And?” he prompted.

“And,” Maddie said with disgust, “she told me that you were seen departing from an establishment called the Hidden Pearl earlier this week.”

Christian pinched the bridge of his nose, struggling to think of how best to explain that visit without digging himself into a deeper hole.

“Well, my lord?” she demanded, crossing her arms over her chest. One small foot tapped impatiently on the Aubusson carpet. “Have you an excuse? A denial? I have little doubt that most men are adept at issuing denials for any number of transgressions. Trips to brothels mere days before their weddings included.”

“It’s not what you think,” he said, knowing that he sounded like every bloody husband who had ever been caught out indulging in an affair. Which made the situation even more unfair, since he hadn’t been indulging in an affair. “I mean, I wasn’t there for what you think I was there for.”

She only raised one blond brow. Her eyes were like blue flint. This would take some finesse, he thought.

He thought about approaching her, maybe taking her hands in his. But Christian knew the unspoken language of the body and Maddie’s clearly said, “Do not approach.”

“Maddie,” he tried again, his voice croaking a little. “I am not the sort of man who would go from your bed to that of a wh—woman of ill repute—in the space of a few days. First of all, I hold you in far too great esteem to do such a thing to you. And secondly, I was quite thoroughly contented by our encounter, and if I were feeling the need to…”—He paused, searching for a delicate term—“see a woman, I would just have come to you.”

That was hardly something he liked to admit. Not that he was embarrassed by his needs, but he was somewhat abashed at just how much he needed her. Ever since their night together he’d found himself aching to get his hands on her again. Right now he should be peeling her out of that curve-enhancing gown and licking her from head to toe. Instead he was defending a visit to a brothel that he’d undertaken on behalf of saving her scapegrace brother.

To his surprise, however, his admission only seemed to make her more angry.

“Must you be such a
man
?” Maddie demanded, pronouncing the word as if it were a vile epithet. “Do you not think I have the intelligence to know that you were not there for the typical reasons one visits a brothel? Really, Gresham, credit me with a bit of sense.”

Christian stared. She couldn’t know why he’d actually gone there. Could she?

Apparently, she could.

“I know you were there because of something having to do with Tinker’s murder, Christian,” she said acidly. “That is why I am so angry.”

She was the damnedest woman.

“Let me make sure I understand you,” he said, his hands on his hips. “Amelia Snowe told you I’d been seen at a brothel just days after I—very ably, I might add—took your virginity. And you are angry not because you thought I’d gone there to whore, but because you know I went there to investigate Tinker’s death? Do I have that right?”

Maddie twisted her lips in disgust. “When you put it that way it sounds foolish,” she said with frustration. “How could you, Christian? We promised to work together! You were going to keep me informed of developments in our investigation.”

“And I did,” he said, almost shouting. “You have been a bit busy these past few days, have you not? When was I supposed to tell you about this? When you were being pinned to death by seamstresses? Or maybe when you and your cousins were closeted together deciding which of your gowns you would be bringing with you to Gresham House?”

“You could have found a way,” she said, striding toward him, stopping when their toes touched. “Why didn’t you tell me?” she demanded, poking him in the chest with an accusing finger.

“Because I was trying to keep you safe, damn it,” he all but roared. “Because I was trying to ensure that you did not suffer any more on behalf of your damned brother! And because the thought of you in that vile place was enough to set my teeth on edge!”