Chapter 19

Beau walked along side Madeline as they made their way out of the garden. She, at least, seemed able to delight in her surroundings, pointing out one plant or another as walked back to the entrance. Perhaps it was her way of shielding herself from any awkwardness that had arisen from their coupling. Beau remained silent, still grappling with a torrent of emotion that left him completely out of his depths. Normally his carnal activities were like much of his life; satisfying in the moment for both parties, but largely transactional.

Crossing the little bridge, they soon came upon a large oak tree that had been felled by some mighty storm.

“Did you see this?” Madeline said, pulling Beau out of his thoughts. She’d jumped over a bit of brush and pointed to a series of markings in the tree. They were weathered, but there was no mistaking the initials:

H.C. + E. R.

Beau was silent as a wave of melancholy washed over him. An echo of a past love, and heartache, scratched into a tree by two people whose brief affair had created him. He’d never experienced a broken heart—at least, not from a lover. That his parents—or at least Hollis—had, brought him a measure of sadness he hadn’t anticipated.

“I wonder if they would have been happy here,” he said.

“Perhaps for a while,” she said. “But perhaps what your mother did was best for both of them, in the end. She was quite brave, I think.”

“Risky,” Beau answered, unable to keep the sharpness at bay. Why did this hurt him so much?

“Men do risky things all the time, and are celebrated for it, even when the stakes are much lower for them,” she countered. “Your mother clearly knew she would not be happy here. To have that knowledge at such a young age is a gift. They would have had to marry, and how sad would it have been for the both of them, and you, if that one event had left them in a loveless union?”

Beau sat with that for a moment. For all Frank’s faults, he worshipped Beau’s mother. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for her. The one solace he now possessed was that Frank and his mother may have been reunited. He’d showed Beau what it meant to be head over heels for a woman who was, as far as he could recall, equally in love with him.

“You’re a wise woman,” he said, fighting the urge to pull her into his arms and kiss her again. It was a selfish act, he knew, because he wanted it to soothe his own hurts.

“I have the gift of distance from all this,” she said. “It’s easy to seem wise when the pain isn’t your own.”

The back of his hand grazed hers, sending a tendril of longing throughout his body, begging him to reach out and take her hand. But she had already turned away.

They continued on toward the house. “What will you do, when this is over?”

If she had asked him this question two days ago—heck, maybe even this morning—he would have known the answer. But basking in an afterglow of lovemaking had left him paradoxically satisfied and greedy for more. He was surrounded by the equally tempting threads of possibility in this tangled garden, with its riot of colour, scent, and untapped potential. Everything he thought he wanted had tilted.

“I have to run that company,” he said, as if to reinforce to himself what was expected of him, even if the thought of the day-to-day running of a lumber empire made Beau want to crawl out of his skin “People depend on Silver Lumber for their livelihoods. Frank worked too hard for it.”

“What will you do with this land, then?”

She might as well asked him how he would walk to China.

“I don’t know,” he said, and smiled to himself at the pleasure he took in being able to be honest with her. He had no idea. But he’d seen the way she’d looked at it—with such longing. “What do you think I should do with it?”

“Gift it to someone who will love it,” she said, her expression bright with enthusiasm. It was so contagious, it seemed to swell in Beau’s chest. “Someone who will tend its gardens. I could see it being a lovely haven for people who need nature’s embrace.”

“Gift it?” Beau said, and in that moment, he realized that perhaps he was Frank’s son after all. “The proceeds from this would make a tidy legal fund.”

“I am sure the contents of your closet could be sold to make a tidy legal fund,” she said, a darkness edging her tone.

“Do you want it?” he asked.

If he had offered her the moon, she would not have looked more surprised than she did at this moment.

“I have Everwell,” she said, as if that was the answer to everything.

“Do you?” he asked. “Do you plan to stay there forever?”

She nodded with what he might assume to be complete confidence, save for the hint of doubt in her eyes.

“What happens to the place when Miss Everwell dies?”

“Tilda will run it,” she answered.

“Mrs. Gilman is of an age,” he said. “I assume—and certainly hope—that you will outlive her. She is at least twenty years your senior.”

“Thirty, actually,” Maddy said.

“More to the point,” he said. “Does it go in trust?”

“Technically, Rimple Jones is their heir,” Maddy offered. “She has been Lady Em’s ward since she was a child. The property will be hers when the time comes. But Rimple would never throw us out. Everwell will endure.”

“But do you want to stay there forever?”

Why was he pursuing this? He’d bedded Miss Murray. More to the point, he’d deflowered her. Still, he’d expected that the encounter would satisfy whatever hold she had on his senses. Instead, it magnified them.

“I suppose I do,” she said. “After all, it has all my books and my gardens. And I have work there. My life is there. Everyone I care about is there. And everyone who cares about me.”

Not everyone, Beau wanted to shout.

“Nothing about this appeals to you?” he asked.

“But you are not really offering it to me,” she said. “And beautiful as it is, I couldn’t do this on my own. I wouldn’t want to.”

Maddy and Beau returned to the house in companionable silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Beau had promised to worship her, and he’d made good on that promise. And if it was only once, to sate his own curiosity, Maddy had selfishly taken the experience and pleasure for herself. She would not let Malcolm Ferguson be the last man to have touched her; a touch that had begun in deceit and ended in anger. If there was nothing else between her and Beau, he had given her something more. Beau had given her pleasure, and more importantly, the sense that she was, in that moment, the one thing he desired.

His provocative question about Everwell played in her mind. The place was not immune to change. Students came and went. As the city’s circumstances changed, and not for the better, as the number of people knocking on their doors looking for help grew. Foster, Lady Em’s beloved butler, had passed away several years ago. And in the past year, both Elouise and Gemma had found husbands and no longer resided under Everwell’s roof. She would love Everwell and be devoted to it until her dying day. But there was something magical about The Grove. Just like there was something about Beau.

The sky, which had been brilliant blue with a few blousy clouds, darkened as they approached the house. As if amplifying Maddy’s internal turmoil, the wind picked up, moving through the grass, and tossing the leaves in nearby trees, showing the silvery backs of the maples.

“I think it’s going to rain,” she said, peering up into the sky. “I think we got back just in time.”

“Making love under a summer rain seems like a wonderful idea,” he said, coming back to that playful part of himself. “Don’t you think?”

“Perhaps,” she said, trying hard to suppress a smile. She was completely out of her depths. The idea of Beau making love to her in a summer rain sounded as equally appealing as him making love to her by the fire on a cool fall evening—like a dream. A dream she was terrified to have.

“You are hard on a man’s ego,” he said. “But lucky for me, mine is strong enough to bear it.”

A few drops of rain started to fall, and they quickened their pace. As they got to the house, Beau let out a curse.

“Shit,” he said, gesturing to a handful of tools that had been left aside. “I was supposed to take these to the tool shed. I guess I was too distracted by the thought that I might find a beautiful woman bathing herself in the river like a forest nymph.”

Maddy blinked. He kept saying these things, these words that should have been lovely and wonderful but, even after everything, felt like an illusion—some sleight-of-hand trick.

“I’m going to get these out of the rain before they rust,” he continued, seemingly unaware of her unease. He picked up the tools and ran down the path toward the tool shed.

Maddy watched him go, partially because that’s what she was here to do, and partially because she seemed unable to help herself. But after all that had happened this afternoon—as wonderful and thrilling as it was, she felt a compulsion to turn away… as if she needed to detach herself from him.

She continued toward the house, the raindrops falling here and there, as if the clouds themselves were uncertain of their intent. Maddy paused at the pergola, taking a moment to appreciate the work Beau and the Chandlers had done. Soon, however, the rain started to fall in earnest. She ran inside the back door, surprised by the contentment that settled on her like a warm embrace as she entered the house. She brushed it off as nothing more than the relief one might feel from getting to shelter in the middle of a rain. After all, the only place she could truly be at home was Everwell. Everwell was where she belonged. This was only a job. A job she’d only taken to keep Veronica Turnbull and her NWL cronies from exposing the truth about The Everwell Society.

Who here was the selfish one?

After returning from her room to refresh herself and change her clothes, Maddy was about to start supper when the sound of carriage wheels caught her attention. At first, she assumed that the Chandlers had returned, perhaps to take back a large piece of lumber, but as she peeked out her window, which looked onto the back of the house, there were no horses. Frowning, she walked to the front parlour window, where a small but well-equipped gig sat in the same path where she and Beau had upon their arrival. Her body tensed, and she immediately felt for the small knife she’d tucked in her sleeve when she realized she hadn’t strapped it on. It was too late to retrieve it when a knock at front door stopped her in her tracks.

On impulse, she grabbed her apron, hanging on a peg near the front door, and tied it around her waist. Smoothing her skirts and schooling her expression, she fell into the mode she had time after time at Everwell.

She pulled the door open and her stomach dropped.

Nelson Taylor stood on the front step. He looked up at her, regarding her with an expression that moved from disinterest to discontent.

It took every ounce of Maddy’s strength to keep herself fixed where she stood.

“Good afternoon,” she said, keeping her voice polite and firm, and not giving a tinker’s damn he was standing in the weather. “Can I help you?”

“Is Mr. da Silva about?” he asked. “And do not tell me he isn’t at home. I know he is in the area.”

Maddy stifled a groan. Nelson Taylor was many things, but stupid was not one of them.

“He is not,” she said, which was a lie and yet somehow perfectly true. Convenient, that. “Is there a message I can give him?”

“He can’t be far,” he said, rather insistent. “I can wait and speak with him, or I can bring the authorities. Your choice.”

Maddy pressed her lips together, carefully trying to decide her next move. She was here to play Beau’s housekeeper as well as his bodyguard, and she didn’t want to overreact—yet. It would have been so easy to send Nelson to the ground and make him regret ever coming to this door. But that would send him straight to the authorities, and further prejudice them against Beau. Elouise Charming, Everwell’s talented actress whose ability to use disguise was second to none, often reminded her fellow Scandalous Spinsters that people generally see what they expect to see. Nelson Taylor shouldn’t expect to see Madeline Murray, the naive girl that had been at the centre of that cruel game he, Malcolm, and a few others had concocted. He expected to see an aged, humourless spinster who was housekeeper to Beau da Silva, the man from whom he wanted to buy this property.

She led him into the parlour and silently congratulated herself that she remembered to offer him refreshments. She was tempted to lace it with something from the big recipe book, but had not yet come to the remedies on laxatives. She decided, however, that if she was ever to try forcing mustard seeds in fresh horse dung, she knew exactly who she’d feed those greens to.

Beau returned as she prepared the tea. Despite the fact his clothes were rumpled and wet from the rain, he was still as handsome as ever.

“I saw some horses,” he said, coming into the kitchen and wiping his face with a linen towel, his expression far more guarded.

“Nelson Taylor is here,” she said. At the mention of him, Beau stilled, took her hand, and gave it a gentle squeeze. “I was going to send him away, but he knows you are here.”

“You don’t have to go back there.”

“He didn’t recognize me,” she said, gently pulling her hand away. She had to be sharp now. “At least, I don’t think so.”

“You don’t need to say anything else, Madeline,” he said. “I can deal with him.”

“But I’m here to protect you,” she protested. “That’s what you are paying me for.”

His eyes went hard then. “I am not paying you to put yourself in that kind of danger.”

“I’m not afraid of him,” she said, swallowing the lie. Nelson had found Malcolm’s body—had seen her run and reported her crime to the local authorities. She’d lived in fear of him ever since. “Do not use my name around him—he could use that against you. It might put you in greater jeopardy.”

“He’s here to see me,” he said. “He’s been talking to the Chandlers. A brute with a shovel might be beyond my skill, but a greedy man looking to make a bargain? That is my specialty. Give me five minutes.”

He gave her a reassuring smile, then bounded up the stairs. Maddy followed, carrying a tray with tea and a few of the biscuits Annie had brought over that morning. Her arrival barely drew Nelson’s attention, as he’d already concluded that she was beneath her notice. She had to keep it that way. He was standing in front of her bookshelves, pawing her precious books. It took all her self-control not to tear him away from them and throw him out the front door.

“He will be here shortly,” she said as she set the tea down and poured out a cup for him.

As if on command, Beau appeared in the doorway. Somehow, the man who’d ravished her in the garden in his shirtsleeves had disappeared, replaced by this polished gentleman in a fresh suit, looking every bit the relaxed country gentleman.

“Can I help you?” he said, putting on a polite, disarming smile. He turned to Maddy. “You may go.”

His dismissal was one of an employer to a servant, and it jarred Maddy more than she’d imagined. Still, it was part of the charade she’d agreed to, and a moment like this, it truly mattered. Maddy nodded silently and left.

She would not go far.