Chapter 19

CHAPTER 19

“ C ome, Gabrielle,” Madeline ordered, incensed by what she was seeing.

Determined to follow the Duke, she picked up her step. This really was the limit. The insult to her as his wife was bad enough, but was Charles really so stupid that he didn’t see that Lady Juliette’s reputation could be irretrievably besmirched by meeting a married man alone so late at night? And that such a scandal might even taint Madeline and Cecilia in its wake?

Even if any imminent meeting was innocent in intention, it would make a mockery of Madeline’s high-minded handling of Lord Oakley earlier. What worth did the protection of the Duke of Huntington’s name have when he trifled so easily with the reputation of young women in his own house?

“Duchess Madeline,” said Gabrielle warningly and then put a hand on her mistress’s arm when Madeline seemed inclined to ignore her intervention.

Halfway across the room, another odd scene was taking place. She saw Cecilia alone, walking in the direction of the ladies’ retiring rooms. Absorbed in her own thoughts, the young woman had not noticed that someone was trailing her — Lord Oakley, with yet another glass in his hand and his eyes fixed firmly on his prey.

“I will deal with that man,” said her maid with a resolute tilt of her elegant head and fire in her eyes. “Lord Oakley might remember Paris fondly, but Paris remembers him another way, I assure you. You go after the Duke, Duchess Madeline.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Madeline nodded her assent, and Gabrielle sped away far faster than the Duchess would have imagined she could move. There was no time to think or argue. Either situation could become a major crisis if it was not disrupted immediately, and they were the only two people immediately on hand.

Thankfully, Madeline caught sight of Loxton nearby and instructed him to place himself near the women’s retiring rooms in case assistance was required with an indisposed guest. Whatever happened, she could only hope the young footman would show sense and tact in following Gabrielle’s lead.

Once through the doorway and in the corridor, Madeline picked up her skirts and ran. The long connecting passage felt dark and shadowy after the brilliant light of the thousands of candles and mirrored walls of the ballroom, but she was glad to encounter no one else who might question her behavior.

Presumably, Charles and Lady Juliette would have been heading for the main living rooms of the house, and once she turned onto the corridor of the main hallway, she stopped and checked for voices or lights at each doorway.

There was no evidence of occupation from either of the two most used drawing rooms, the library, or the dining room. The breakfast room, billiard room, study, and blue sitting room were also dark and silent.

The yellow drawing room, which looked out onto the gardens through its French windows, showed a dim light from under its doors, however. Madeline was both relieved and enraged to hear two people speaking together inside. A man and a woman.

“He said he would be here,” said Juliette Barton’s sweet voice. “Perhaps, someone has delayed him. Do wait a few more minutes.”

“Lady Juliette, I am needed in the ballroom,” the Duke of Huntingdon replied rather less sweetly. “We can speak tomorrow at our leisure…”

Without knocking, Madeline pushed open the door and regarded the two of them with ice-cold anger. Lady Juliette had the good sense to look shocked and then slightly frightened at their discovery, biting her lip and wringing her hands. Charles looked merely shocked.

“I am not going to ask for any explanation from you tonight, Lady Juliette,” said Madeline coldly. “Please return to your family now, and be glad that it was me who followed you and found you alone in here with my husband. It could have been anyone.”

Pale and scared, the younger woman nodded and went to the door.

“It is not how it looked, Your Grace,” she pleaded, her voice sincere but grating on Madeline’s nerves. “I thought my father would be here. He said I was to bring His Grace to meet him in here five minutes ago.”

“Your father has drunk far too much tonight, Lady Juliette. I would not set too much store by anything he has said if I were you. I suggest you and your brother find Lord Oakley and make sure he retires to bed for his own good. I hope we need say no more of this.”

With a crestfallen nod, Lady Juliette left the room, closing the door quietly behind her.

“Thank you, Madeline,” said Charles quietly, and Madeline exploded.

“What do you mean ‘thank you?’” she demanded. “Don’t you realize you could have caused the scandal of the Season, meeting that girl alone in here? Do you actually want to become known as a rake who seduces young ladies while their families are hosted under his very roof?”

“No,” he said shortly, unleashing his own temper. “You know perfectly well that is not what happened here. You cannot say that is what you saw when you came in!”

“Isn’t it? Tell me what I saw. I’d like to hear this.”

Their voices clashed like thunder as they faced one another across the room.

“I believed I was meeting Lord Oakley, Madeline. We’re very close to reaching an arrangement on business in Holland, a very substantial investment. The complicating factor is that Oakley is practically retired. He will only do new business now with the right partner and the right project, and he hadn’t made his mind up about me. I hoped tonight’s summons, however odd, meant a positive decision.”

“Lord Oakley is a sot, a lecher, and a general nuisance,” Madeline stated plainly, seeing no reason to hide this from him even if, for Cecilia’s own sake, she would not yet reveal the man’s insult to Charles’s sister. “I can give you multiple well-witnessed examples of his conduct tonight if you require them.”

The Duke blinked and took a deep breath. Some of the wind had been taken out of his sails although his eyes still glowed dangerously.

“I am sorry to hear that and do not doubt your word. I might have planned his presence for a more sober and restricted gathering had I known of such proclivities. But while Oakley might be a nuisance in his cups, and he has inconvenienced you tonight, he is still one of the country’s foremost experts on economic investment in Holland.”

“Foremost experts!” Madeline repeated incredulously. “Foremost swindlers rather from the stories he told me.”

“He was drunk, Madeline. He has clearly been talking nonsense to everyone: you, Lady Juliette, God only knows who else. As you say, we can set no store by him tonight. Where is he now?”

“Gabrielle is dealing with him. I feared he was about to enter the ladies’ retiring room.”

“Gabrielle D’Orsay?” questioned Charles, his eyebrows rising. “But she is tiny and so young. How could you…”

“I also put Loxton on sentry duty nearby in case she requires assistance. There was no time to do anything further because I had to run after you. Don’t you dare to criticize me, you insufferable man!”

“I’m insufferable?!” he shouted back at her with a passion equal to her own. “Believe me, I’m suffering a great deal, mostly at the hands of my damned wife!”

“What was that?” Madeline said sharply, turning towards a faint sound from the clear glass panels of the French windows and noting for the first time that all the curtains were open, giving a full view into the room on two sides.

Glowering, Charles stomped to the French windows and peered out. Only the torches flaming along the path down to the rose garden were visible in the darkness. The garden on this side was slightly separate to that easily accessible from the ballroom although not inaccessible to guests who knew their way in the darkness.

“I thought I heard something,” Madeline spoke again, slightly lamely.

Impatiently, her husband pulled open the doors and stepped outside onto the terrace with one of the lamps he must have lit when he first entered the room.

“Only Lord and Lady Martin strolling back to their haunted accommodation in the old building,” he reported, some of the tension resolving in his brow as he stepped back inside and fastened the doors. “And Lady Bentham presumably heading towards the main entrance.”

“But why through the garden at this time of night?”

“Maybe Lady Martin was hoping to commune with ghosts. I can’t say I care.”

“You should care. What if they, or someone else, saw you in here with that girl through the windows? Anyone could have been out there in the last ten minutes.”

“Don’t be ridiculous!”

“I’m not being ridiculous!”

Abruptly they were at war again, the air in the room almost crackling with their unresolved tension.

The Duke stormed across the room and put his hands on Madeline’s shoulders.

“Why do you want to fight with me so badly?” he demanded.

“I don’t want to fight,” Madeline denied, her heart racing even faster now than it had done in his arms for the waltz. “I can’t bear seeing you doing such foolish things. I can’t bear being taken for a fool myself. I certainly can’t bear seeing you so close to another woman.”

“Madeline, there is no other woman,” Charles said, his face still frowning but his arms gentle as they slid around her. “There is only you in my life, in my thoughts, and in my bed. Let me prove that to you. With my hands, my mouth, my…”

He was a fraction of an inch from kissing her when she broke from his embrace and threw herself across the room, stumbling in her haste to escape the spell his touch always seemed able to cast on her.

“No, Charles! I will not have it. I will not be a pitiable and pitied wife whose husband dances attendance on other women under her very nose. Take a mistress discreetly if you need…physical relief, but at least spare me this week’s humiliation. I shall leave here as soon as the house party is over. We shall not share a home again. Unless you order it.”

Charles stood frozen on the other side of the room at these words as though he had turned to stone. Madeline left him there and rushed away back towards the ballroom, rubbing furiously at her tear-filled eyes.

Loxton was standing near the ladies’ retiring rooms as instructed and seemed relieved to see Duchess Madeline reappear. She wondered how much time had passed. The crowd had thinned significantly with many guests presumably having returned to their homes or retired to bed. She felt a twinge of conscience for a moment that neither she nor Charles had been there to bid them farewell.

“Has there been any problem here?” she asked the young footman quietly.

“Miss D’Orsay said that a gentleman had too much to drink, took a wrong turn, and was stung by a wasp.”

“A wasp?” Madeline repeated. “Where did it sting him?”

“I can’t say, Your Grace,” said Loxton uncomfortably. “Not to a lady. But it did not seem serious. He retired to bed soon after with his daughter’s assistance.”

Despite her recent tears, Madeline almost laughed at these words. Whatever had transpired, Gabrielle had apparently handled it as she had promised.

“Never mind. You have done well tonight, Loxton. I shall make sure that Mr. Lonsley is aware. You do not need to mention any of this to the other servants.”

“I understand. Thank you, Your Grace.”

“Where is Gabrielle now?”

“In the small retiring room over there, Your Grace.”

“Thank you, Loxton. You may go.”

Pushing at the door, Madeline found its handle unyielding and stood in incomprehension for a moment. Putting her head against the door, she could hear the faint murmur of voices.

“Gabrielle?” she called, and there was a flurry of activity.

“I come, Duchess Madeline!”

A moment later, something moved and scraped on the other side of the door before the handle turned, and Gabrielle’s face appeared, her hair in slight disarray but her face cheerful and resolute.

“It is best that we are alone, Duchess,” Gabrielle said, letting her inside and then closing the door before replacing the wooden chair beneath its handle.

Lady Cecilia was curled up on the sofa near the mirrors, pale and shaken, her limbs still slightly trembling from whatever fright she had received tonight.

“What happened?” said Madeline with concern, going to the young woman’s side and putting an arm around her shoulders.

Lady Cecilia buried her face in Madeline’s shoulder and shook her head.

At the mirrors, Gabrielle rinsed a long, sharp hairpin in a bowl of water and dried it with her handkerchief before regarding her hair critically in the mirror.

“That man thought he would come in here to the lady’s room and sneak up on poor Lady Cecilia. Quel horreur! Alas, a large wasp was right behind him and stung him right on his behind. You should have heard him shriek!”

She laughed to herself as she held up the pin with mischievous eyes and then rolled and fastened the loose section of her hair back into its earlier neat coiffure .

On Madeline’s shoulder, Cecilia managed a weak laugh.

“Did I say all that correctly, Lady Cecilia? It happened so fast.”

“Yes, you did. Thank you,” said Cecilia, raising her head. “I hardly knew what had happened until it was over. He said…something unrepeatable, and when I turned and saw him behind me, I thought I would die. I couldn’t even scream this time.”

She hugged herself tightly on the couch and closed her eyes, Gabrielle picking up the story again from her own perspective.

“I am there quickly, and the wasp too. Everyone wants to know why the man is shrieking and jumping about, and when I say it was a wasp, they all laugh. Lord Oakley was very drunk. He could not argue. Loxton asked if we require help, but I say no, the wasp is gone. Then that man’s nice daughter came and took him away. Good riddance, I say.”

It was an amusing story in hindsight, but Madeline dreaded to think what would have happened if Gabrielle had not been there. Cecilia had opened her eyes again and even smiled at the maid’s retelling.

“There were no other ladies in this room at the time?”

“No, I came to the smallest room because I wanted to be alone,” Cecilia said. “I’m sorry. I should have asked Lady Terrell to come with me, but she was enjoying the dancing so much, I didn’t like to disturb her.”

“Most ladies go to the larger rooms to talk together,” Gabrielle added. “After the fuss, I thought it best to lock the door and let Lady Cecilia recover here until you returned.”

“You both did absolutely the right thing,” Madeline said, impulsively kissing Cecilia’s forehead and then standing to kiss Gabrielle’s too. “Oakley is an odious man, and I’m only sorry that you were put in such a position. If you wish to keep to your rooms for the rest of Lord Oakley’s visit, Cecilia, I will entirely understand.”

“You don’t blame me?” asked Cecilia in a small voice.

“Of course not,” said Madeline stoutly.

“I don’t want to tell Charles,” the dark-haired young woman added. “He has been such a good brother, but what if he thinks it was my fault? What if he thinks I led Lord Oakley in here? What if Lord Oakley says that I did?”

Her questions sounded increasingly panicked. Madeline and Gabrielle exchanged confused glances.

“How could anyone ever take that drunken old lecher’s word over yours, Cecilia? I never would, and I don’t believe Charles would either.”

Cecilia’s face almost shone for a moment with this vote of confidence from Madeline but then fell again at the thought of her brother.

“Please don’t tell him what happened,” she said desperately, evidently unconvinced on Madeline’s last point for some reason. “I couldn’t bear it if he thought ill of me.”

“Very well. It is your decision, Cecilia. I will leave that to you. In time, you may change your mind. Now, I must go and say whatever farewells I can to my remaining guests. Would you like Gabrielle to accompany you to your rooms, or should we ring for your own maid?”

“Can I come with you?” Cecilia asked, surprising Madeline greatly. “I would like to.”

“Of course,” Madeline said with a smile, putting an arm around her sister-in-law’s waist as Gabrielle removed the chair and opened the door.

Charles was already at the ballroom’s exit when they arrived arm-in-arm and took up positions beside him. Although he was taken aback to see both Madeline and Cecilia, he hid it well and continued to shake hands and give thanks as though nothing out of the ordinary had occurred.

Madeline gave her share of thanks and appreciation, fielding numerous invitations of reciprocal hospitality, all of which she answered with delighted evasiveness, conscious that this was the first and only week she and Charles would ever present themselves as a couple on the social scene.

Even Cecilia joined in, actually managing a few short conversations and charming some elderly ladies who lived locally and hoped she might come over to read to them sometimes.

“My aunt has a handsome unmarried grandson,” mentioned the middle-aged relative of one of the ladies to Madeline and Charles in a stage whisper. “Perhaps he might be there too.”

Cecilia only smiled and blushed a little, giving Charles and Madeline license to laugh at the little joke, despite their other private miseries.

When the final guests were gone, Charles turned to Cecilia with an affectionate smile.

“You were marvelous, Cecilia. Thank you for joining us.”

“Madeline was marvelous too, Charles. She’s why I could do it. Madeline makes me believe I can do anything.”

“You can,” said Charles and Madeline at the same time and turned to one another before looking away.

“Madeline knows she was splendid tonight,” Charles said to Cecilia, as though unable to look at or talk directly to Madeline anymore.

“You should still tell her,” Cecilia insisted, and Charles looked away as though something pained him.

“Madeline has been told precisely what I think. Whether she chooses to believe it or not is up to her.”

Adding that he would take a stroll in the garden before retiring, the Duke left the ladies to their beds, and Madeline watched him sadly as he went.

“Why don’t you walk, too?” Cecilia suggested. “I do think Charles wants your company, whatever he says.”

“I can’t,” Madeline sighed, wishing life were as simple as people wanted. “It’s complicated.”