A Lady Betrayed (12 page)

Which only went to show, the beaming Madame Alexanderine proclaimed, that it was Fate herself who had sent Maddie to Madame's door. While the changes were made, Maddie and Felicity were served tea in the fitting room, while the viscount did at last depart to see a tailor and haberdasher for some needs of his own.

Maddie was feeling guilty to receive so much when she knew that Felicity's wardrobe was also very meagerly furnished. When she tried to intimate as much, her friend shook her head.

“No, indeed, you are the bride, my dear! You should be the one who receives such good fortune, and from your magnanimous fiancé.” She took a sip of tea. “I am making good progress with the gowns you have kindly given me to redo, and that is a great gift. I'm only delighted to see that Lord Weller is so generous. I believe that he may make a very good husband for you.”

Maddie smiled. “I don't believe I will be able to fault his generosity, at any rate.” She still felt a bit dazzled.

When Adrian returned, he directed the modiste to send the dresses on to the posting house when the alterations were completed, and they strolled leisurely back to the luncheon that awaited them.

The sunlight was now dappled, with clouds obscuring the blue sky, and a wind that tossed the ladies' bonnets made them shiver. Maddie was glad to reach the inn and go upstairs to the private room and the handsome meal that waited for them. What fun it was to have an outing like this, she thought.

Felicity must have found such an occasion even rarer, as she was bright eyed and obviously enjoying herself. Maddie was so glad they had become friends; the widow's means were so straitened that she had no hope of getting out of the village on her own. When Maddie and Adrian entertained…

Again her thoughts came up against the brick wall that his doubts always erected. Did she have a future after her wedding—or, more properly, did they have a future? It was all very well to say that he would marry her to protect her good name, but if he feared the man who pursued him all across Britain, how long before the lunatic located him in Yorkshire and destroyed the happiness that Maddie increasingly had become to believe that they could create together?

There must be a way to eliminate the danger…Adrian could not keep running all his life.

The day suddenly seemed darker, and she was not sure if it was the sunlight dimming or her mood. She had to bite her tongue to keep from snapping at a maidservant carrying a pitcher who spilled water on Maddie's lap when she moved too abruptly away from the table.

“Oh, miss, I'm that sorry!” The girl looked both embarrassed and frightened. “I'll just get a cloth and dry your gown.”

Maddie was ashamed of her moment of temper. She hadn't said a word, but her expression must have been black indeed, judging by the girl's recoil.

“It's quite all right,” she said.

The food arrived, and they all applied themselves to the meal. But Maddie's appetite seemed to have left her, and presently she was alarmed to see that the candles' flames seemed to waver before her eyes, and a familiar feeling of pressure was growing in her right temple.

“Oh, please God,” she whispered. “Not now.” It had been such a lovely day.

She put down her fork, and glanced at Felicity. “I believe I shall have to excuse myself.”

“I will go with you,” her friend said at once.

“You don't have to go,” she told her. “It may not be—ah—pleasant.”

“You've gone quite pale, my dear. I think I should be with you,” the widow said, her voice firm.

“Are you ill?” the viscount said, standing as the two women stood up from their chairs. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Just leave this to the females,” Felicity advised him.

He bowed and said no more, but he watched them go with an expression of concern on his face.

Maddie was concentrating on not losing her meal until they made it to the necessary. Afterwards, when Felicity had bid one of the inn's servant to bring them water and a towel, and she had washed her hands and face, she groaned.

“Is it bad already?” the widow asked, keeping her voice low. She knew from conversations earlier that noises were painful when the headaches started.

“It's just beginning,” Maddie said. “I don't know—oh, this is wretched luck.”

“I believe storm clouds are coming up; the weather may have caught you again,” Felicity told her. “Come, let's go back to the room. The viscount will be worried.”

Indeed, they found Adrian pacing up and down. “Is it your head?” he asked at once. “I see clouds rising outside.”

Felicity nodded. Maddie could not move her head without pain lancing through her temple. She braced her head and tried to contain or slow the pain, though she knew it did little good.

Adrian took both her hands in his. “My dear Madeline, tell me what you wish. Would it help you to summon a local physician?”

“No,” she answered, her voice a little hoarse. “They can do nothing helpful, except give me laudanum, which leaves me heavily sedated. It makes me ill in itself, and it helps the pain only briefly. When I wake, I am very nauseated, and the pain seems to have grown more than it usually does. It can cause cravings for the drug, and unless you are careful, you can end up like some pathetic opium eater sleeping your life away. So I do not care for it.”

“Would you wish to engage a room here, so you can sleep? The rain will start before long. Or do you wish to leave at once and get ahead of it if we can? I hate for the carriage to rock you about when you are feeling ill, but we will do whatever you wish.”

“Aside from giving the scandalmongers more fuel,” she began, her tone rueful.

“To hell with the old cats,” he interrupted. “No, my dear, as I said, we will do what makes you most comfortable. Do not even consider anything else!”

She smiled up at him, for a second even forgetting her growing discomfort. “You are a wonder. I would truly rather be home, my lord. If I have to suffer, I would rather do it in my own bed.”

“Then that is what we shall do,” he said. “I have already ordered the carriage made ready and all our parcels packed and tied on beneath a canvas, just in case that was your answer, so that we did not lose a minute.”

“You begin to know me well,” she told him, smiling a little despite her feelings of illness.

He offered to carry her down, but Maddie insisted that she was still well enough to walk, although she did accept his arm to lean on.

When they reached the courtyard, she found that he had had a brick warmed and put into the vehicle for her feet to rest on, and another warmed and wrapped in a towel for her hands.

“I remember how icy your hands and feet were, that night in the gazebo,” he told her when he helped her in. “I have a blanket to wrap you in, as well. I think you should take this side, and Mrs. Barlow the other, and I will sit up by Thomas.”

“And be drenched when the rain starts, no, no, I am not that sick yet,” Maddie said. “I will be much more affected by my worry about you; you must not.”

She was insistent, so the viscount remained inside with them. She did find the hot brick very pleasant beneath her feet, and the extra warmth of the blanket also a welcome touch.

It was true that the day had changed swiftly. The blue skies and balmy air of the morning had been replaced by brisk, cold winds and dark clouds. They were able to cover almost half of their journey before the rain began, at first a slow patter against the carriage, then a harder rain with occasional crashing thunder that slowed the horses since poor Thomas, wrapped in his heavy cape, had to watch for holes in the road that might be disguised by puddles of rainwater.

Inside, Maddie braced herself against the jolting of the carriage and felt the pain in her temple grow with every passing minute. The smells of the rain outside, the horses, the damp clothing, all seemed too harsh in the small, contained space. Her stomach roiled, but she pressed her lips together, pushed her fingers against the stabbing in her temple, and tried not make the pain worse by becoming stiff with tension. The viscount sat beside her and gently rubbed her shoulders and neck. She leaned against him as they covered the last miles.

At last the carriage approached the Applegate residence and slowed. She heard Thomas's cry to the horses, and when they rolled to a stop, Adrian, who had been watching her with an increasingly worried gaze, did not wait for Thomas to open the door. He unlatched it himself and jumped out to lower the steps, then returned to gather her into his arms and lift her out, carrying her with long strides straight into the house.

Maddie felt she should protest, but the pain was too strong. She lay her face against his chest, comforted by his masculine scent, while he drew the blanket over her to protect her from the pelting rain. Once inside the house, Adrian allowed the blanket to fall away, and she sighed with relief.

She saw that her father waited in the hall, and his tone was anxious.

“How is she?” He looked up from his wheeled chair, trying to see her face. Bess hovered nearby.

“As might be expected,” the viscount said. “I shall take her straight up to her room, if I may, sir.”

“Of course, of course,” her father said.

For a moment, she felt a strange sense of déjà vu. The viscount had brought her home once before, much like this.

As Adrian rapidly ascended the stairs, she heard Felicity comforting her father in the hallway below. “We came home as quickly as we could. He took very good care of her, Mr. Applegate…”

In her own room, Adrian lay her upon the bed, and Bess swooped in and removed her pelisse and bonnet. “I'll make ye some of me 'erbal tea, and then I'll 'elp ye into yer nightgown, Miss Madeline.” The servant cast a stern look at the male in the room, as if warning that, lord or no, he should remember his place, and then bustled out the door.

Adrian pulled up a stool to sit on and took her hand in his. “Can I do anything to help you?” He kept his voice low.

“You have done a great deal already,” she whispered.

“It grieves me to see you in pain.”

“It will pass,” she told him. “Bess will take care of me, do what can be done. Thank you for the wonderful day.”

“I'm sorry it ended like this,” he said. “If you had stayed home—”

“The headache would have come, regardless, with the storm and the change of weather,” she told him.

“Are you sure we—I—did not make it worse?” he asked.

She smiled at him. “I am most thrilled at the prospect of my new gowns, Adrian. New clothes give no one a headache.” She would have laughed, but the pain was growing too severe, and she winced instead.

He sighed for her and sat silently, holding her hand while rain and high winds lashed at the windowpanes and a crash of thunder made the frames shake. When the maid returned, she brought a cup of bitter-smelling tea, a cold compress for Maddie's head, and a silent but definite command that it was time for menfolk to depart so her mistress could change clothes.

“If I can do anything, I am yours to command,” he said softly, then kissed her hand one last time and took his leave.

Maddie managed a smile, then, when the door was safely shut behind him, sighed and with Bess's help struggled out of her clothes and into a loose nightgown, curled up with the compress on her aching head, and shut her eyes, trying to think of the pleasing images of the day, anything except the waves of brutal and overwhelming pain.

Three mornings later she woke, as tired as if she had
been laboring in one of the coal mines that dotted the Yorkshire mountains. A lingering soreness afflicted her temple when she rubbed it gingerly, but the worst of the pain had gone, and—please God—would not return any time soon.

And she actually felt hollow with hunger. She had only been able to swallow a little tea and dry toast during the worst of her attack. Feeling slightly dizzy, she pushed herself up just as Bess came through her doorway.

“Ah, Miss Maddie, 'ow are ye?” The servant looked at her hopefully.

“Better, hungry, and much in need of a wash,” she told her.

“Oh, that's good,” Bess said, beaming. “I'll bring up some breakfast, and then some warm water. Just don't ye take it too fast, Miss, remember the time ye fell and busted yer chin open.”

Maddie nodded, then wished she hadn't, as it made her head spin again. But she managed to sit up in the bed. By the time Bess was back with a full tray of eggs and ham and buttered bread and hot tea, Maddie found her stomach rumbling. She could set to with a ready appetite.

“'Is lordship sends 'is regards,” Bess said, “and 'e picked ye a bouquet.” She had brought the flowers up. They had obviously been picked from the Applegates' own garden, and Bess had crammed them into one of the older vases, but still the autumn blooms were pretty.

Maddie felt a wave of pleasure. “How sweet. Thank you, Bess, and tell Lord Weller I was very pleased. I hope to be downstairs soon.”

“No, no, ye won't.” Bess's tone changed at once. “'Aven't we already turned aside Miss Nosy Parker to keep ye quiet and peaceful, like?”