Shayla Black (36 page)

Brock paused, weighing Maddie’s words. A little amusement at the stuffy lady’s expense or an ally who could help pave his future? And why was Maddie trying to help her?

Rolling his eyes, Brock whispered, “Blast, and I so looked forward to toying with her small mind.”

“
You are incorrigible.”

At Maddie’s scold, Brock grinned. “You like me that way.”

Maddie peered at him once more, the haunted expression back in her gaze.

Concern niggled him. “Maddie, what—”

“
Good evening, Lady Wolcott.”

Brock turned to find Lady Litchfield regarding him. Scarcely disguised curiosity governed her expression.

“
Good evening,” Maddie murmured at his side.

Brock wanted to say something to Cropthorne’s haughty lady friend. However, he knew that a man always waited for a lady to acknowledge him. And a person of lesser birth always waited for the one of greater rank to recognize him.

The social stricture gave Lady Litchfield the perfect opportunity to cut him again, if she chose.

Brock waited for her snub as he stared into her pale alabaster face and impersonal blue eyes not three feet away.

“
Mr. Taylor,” Lady Litchfield said finally, regarding him with a stiff smile.

To his surprise, she offered him her hand.

“
My lady,” he murmured, bowing over her hand.

“
Cropthorne tells me you’re brilliant with money.”

“
He is all kindness,” Brock evaded.

She sent him a cynical smile. “He is never kind without cause.”

Where was Lady Litchfield’s conversation headed?

“
Would you be partial to the idea of more subscribers in your venture?”

“
Naturally.” He paused, then added, “More capital means an accelerated production schedule. The sooner we are operational, the sooner we beat our competition in providing rail service from Birmingham to London.”

“
Indeed. Can you guarantee every subscriber a return on his investment?” she asked archly.

Was this her trick? To back him into a verbal corner?

“
I cannot guarantee any investment. That is not the nature of things monetary, my lady. Anyone who makes such a guarantee speaks falsely.”

“
Of course.” The lady’s blue eyes regarded him with interest. “Such honesty can be to your detriment, Mr. Taylor.”

Nodding, Brock conceded the point. “Perhaps, but I insist upon being a gentleman of honor.”
Whatever you may think.

The unspoken words hung in the air. Brock had no doubt everyone could hear them. Even Maddie’s hand tightened on his elbow.

“
How noble.” Lady Litchfield smiled, as if greatly amused. “Good evening.”

Mutely, Brock bowed his head and watched the steel-tongued woman leave.

At least she spoke civilly to him. The fact the rest of the party, including several important members of the
ton
contemplating investment, had seen the exchange would be helpful.

“
I did not understand the point of her conversation,” Maddie whispered.

“
Nor did I. She did not
seem
to possess ill intent...” Brock shrugged.

Maddie did the same.

Then the press of questions came from the others in the room. How soon would they be operational? What sort of reasonable return could they expect the first year after opening? Would they likely turn a profit in the first three years? Could competition beat them to opening and completely ruin their plans?

Cropthorne stood silently beside Brock, arms crossed over his chest. Brock assumed his grace might field a question or two, but Cropthorne merely glanced at him, then gestured to the crowd.

In his element, Brock smiled and took questions one by one.

Two hours—and eighty thousand pounds later—the railroad was funded beyond his dreams. Had Lady Litchfield intentionally opened that door for him? It seemed unlikely, but...who knew?

Not long after, guests began leaving in a steady trickle. The clock chimed one in the morning when Brock, Maddie, and Cropthorne all sat in his study. The duke’s satisfied smile matched his own. Maddie, on the other hand, looked exhausted and pale.

“
You look ready to fall over,” he murmured to her. “I shall take you home.”

She nodded, apparently too tired to say a word.

Brock turned to Cropthorne. “I think we can say the party was a success. Thank you for having it.”

The duke waved his words away. “Take care of my cousin. That is more important—”

The plump old butler opened the door to the study, halting conversation. “Your grace, I am sorry to interrupt. You have a visitor, Lord Belwick, who says he wishes most urgently to see you.”

“
A visit from the competition?” Cropthorne surmised.

“
An admission of defeat?” Brock raised a brow.

At his side, Maddie stiffened, eyes suddenly alert. Apprehension flattened her red mouth into a pale line.

“
Don’t admit him, Gavin,” she begged. “H-he is unpleasant.”

“
But harmless, I am sure,” answered her cousin. “Let us find out what he wants, eh? Especially should he wish to concede defeat.”

Brock hesitated, then nodded cautiously.

“
Very good, your grace.” The butler said, then disappeared.

While Brock agreed that Belwick was unpleasant, Maddie seemed almost afraid of the man’s rude demand to see Cropthorne. Why? Did it have something to do with why she had been behaving oddly all evening?

A minute later, the round little butler announced Belwick, who entered the room. The well-groomed snake looked surprised to see he and Maddie there. But most pleased by the unexpected development.

A moment later, he turned a malevolent smile on Maddie. She clutched Brock’s arm. Anger surged. Brock glared at his competitor as a furious instinct to protect Maddie rose. The man merely turned the same terrible smile on him, tenfold.

What the hell was going on?

Even more oddly, Lady Roberta Dudley entered just behind him, looking decidedly smug.

They both sat on a sofa at Cropthorne’s left elbow, and the air thickened around them.

Why had this damned miserable pair come here?

Cropthorne dispensed with the formalities. “A drink, my lord? My lady?”

Impatiently, Belwick waved a refusal. “We apologize, your grace, for our oddly-timed visit. But Lady Dudley and I have only just realized something of terrible import we think you should know.”

“
Seeing as how you abhor scandal, your grace,” Roberta added.

Cropthorne’s face shuttered at Lady Dudley’s words.

The only thing the duke hated more than a scandal was his deceased father, but the two ran a close race.

“
Indeed.” Belwick stood and puffed out his chest. “I cannot believe you wish to do business with a man who is no gentleman.”

Some of the tension left Cropthorne. “I am aware that Mr. Taylor’s birth is somewhat less exalted than my own in the eyes of most. I hardly fault him for something in which he had no hand.”

Brock checked both an urge to cheer and to laugh. He had not truly considered Cropthorne a friend until now.

“
Not at all. We refer to Mr. Taylor’s indecent conduct,” Roberta declared.

“
And with your very own cousin!” Belwick did his best to sound scandalized.

Again, Cropthorne sent the ill-invited duo a condescending glare. “I am aware that Mr. Taylor is courting my cousin. She is well past her mourning, and the match will be financially advantageous. Again, his birth has no bearing here.”

“
Your grace, it is hardly the courting behavior we refer to. The information we have is of a far more lascivious nature.”

Brock tensed. Could Roberta or Belwick have learned about his trysting with Maddie? Cropthorne would condone courting, yes. Brock doubted his grace would approve of the myriad ways in which he’d recently taken Maddie to his bed.

“
They have been lovers,” Belwick announced.

Shock slammed into Brock. Beside him, Maddie tensed. He forced himself to calm. They were guessing, surely. Belwick could have no real proof of that, could he?

Cropthorne paused, flicking a censorious glance in Brock’s direction. “Then so much the better for them to wed, wouldn’t you say?”

“
Your grace!” Roberta chastised, sounding scandalized. “They have been lovers for five years.”

Brock jumped to his feet and growled, “If you were a man, I would call you out.”

As if Brock had said nothing, Roberta turned a hateful glare on Maddie. “Why don’t you tell them who fathered Aimee?”

Brock stared at her in shock. Why wasn’t Maddie insulted by Lady Dudley’s ugly insinuation?

“
Tell them, Lady Wolcott!” Belwick demanded.

Maddie bit her lip, all too silent. Brock turned to her. Shock roared in his head. His mind raced. Were they implying… No, it was impossible. Wasn’t it?

“
Maddie?” he prompted.

She only looked to her hands, now folded tightly in her lap and swallowed. “Brock.”

He was aware of the fact she did not answer him. And his heart beat with the ferocity of a careening steam engine.

“
Are you insinuating that Mr. Taylor is Aimee’s father?” Cropthorne demanded.

“
Impossible,” Brock said. “Aimee was born nearly a year after I…”
took your cousin’s innocence
. He couldn’t say that. “After I left Ashdown Manor.”

Still, Cropthorne heard the words he hadn’t spoken.

“
You ruined my cousin when you worked for Lord Avesbury?” Cropthorne thundered.

Brock focused on Maddie, his head reeling. Aimee could not his be daughter. Maddie would have told him. She would have sent for him in London when she first realized—

A tear splashed down her pale cheek, splattered onto her clenched hands below. Alarm staggered him. Had Roberta told the truth?

“
Confess, Madeline,” Roberta sneered, then looked at Cropthorne. “My brother could not father children—a terrible childhood fever my parents were told.”

Lady Dudley hated Maddie. Surely this was a poison arrow designed to maim her former sister-in-law. Wasn’t it? With questions tumbling over one another in his head, Brock turned to Maddie. She had shock and horror written across her waxen face.

Was there a chance that Roberta told the truth?

Gaping, he whispered, “Maddie? Is she right?”

Lady Dudley scoffed. “Why else would Colin marry a woman he knew to be with child?”

Brock ignored the self-centered shrew and stared at Maddie. She didn’t speak, didn’t move. She only gazed at him with watery gray eyes. They swam in tears and guilt.

Brock’s world shifted, tilted crazily, fell out beneath him.

Aimee was his daughter.

Dear God. Elation, fury, joy, and betrayal all rushed Brock at once. He struggled for a breath, then another. Comprehension eluded him. He was a father.

Brock had felt a real fondness for the clever little Aimee the first time he met her. She’d made him laugh more than once.

And Maddie had deprived him of knowing her for four years.

He drilled her with a stony gaze, demanding she answer him now.

She refused to meet his gaze.

Instead, Maddie frowned at Roberta. “Colin never wanted Aimee. He hated her.”

“
Of course. He prayed every day you carried that little bastard girl that she would be a boy, but you disappointed him even then,” Roberta sneered.

“
He hated me for
that
?”

“
Stupid girl.” Roberta sighed in impatience. “You came to him pregnant and in need of a husband. Colin wed you, even as you refused to name Aimee’s father. He needed you to grant him a son! How else was he to have an heir?”

Belwick speared Brock with a glance. “We only realized you must have been the one to compromise Lady Wolcott when I remembered the gossip that Lord Avesbury dismissed you without reference shortly before she married Sedgewick.”

“
Oh, dear God,” Maddie sobbed, shoulders shaking.

“
You’re certain Aimee is my daughter?” Brock asked Maddie directly. Somehow, he managed to keep his voice steady.

Shocking, considering how desperately he wanted to rail at her for stealing the joy of his daughter from him.

Maddie cast him a discomfited glance. Then she nodded. “I’m certain.”