Heiress Without a Cause

CHAPTER TWENTY

Ferguson wasn't in the hallway when she finished dressing, and Madeleine didn't seek him out. She slipped out of the townhouse and through the door cut in the Stauntons' high stone wall, hurrying across the darkened gardens toward Salford House. It was a clear night and the path was easy to find, but she still shivered in her thin gown. She couldn't risk wearing a cloak - it would already raise enough eyebrows if a servant saw her wandering around the lower floors long after her family left for the evening.

But even though she was freezing, and even though she wanted to avoid seeing Ferguson, she wasn't eager to return to her room. With the events of the last two hours - losing her virginity, and then refusing a marriage proposal from a man she thought she might love - she knew she would not sleep easily.

Still, she couldn't delay. Her family could return at any moment. Josephine had surely made excuses for Madeleine, but with Aunt Augusta growing increasingly concerned about Madeleine's health, Madeleine needed to be in bed before anyone came home. Light filtered through the curtains of Alex's study, but it was several rooms away from her preferred entrance - he wouldn't hear her. Otherwise, the back of the house was dark, with a low lamp shining in the small sitting room the girls used during the day. Josephine would be there, loitering to keep the butler from locking the French doors. Madeleine pushed the door open, stepped over the threshold - and shrieked as a man's hand grabbed her arm.

She jerked away, every instinct screaming at her to flee, but his grip was unbreakable. He swung her around to face him, and she relaxed as she realized Alex was the one who had caught her.

The worst of her panic drained out of her, but a different kind of fear replaced it. She saw the grim set of his jaw and the hardness in his eyes - like nothing she had ever seen there before - and her need to flee surged again. There was nowhere to go, though, not when her cousin had just caught her sneaking into the house hours after she had supposedly taken to her bed.

"Where have you been?" he demanded as he marched her out of the sitting room and down the hall to his study.

She had dreaded this moment, almost more than the possibility of being ruined in the eyes of the ton. She didn't say a word, not willing to incriminate herself until she discovered what Alex already knew. If he only thought she had been outside alone, she could talk her way out of it, claim she'd had a nightmare, play on his sympathy. She had already betrayed them so deeply - would another lie hurt?

But if he knew she was acting as Marguerite Guerrier, he would guess her connection with the duke of Rothwell. Everyone knew about his mistress. At least Alex would understand her passion for the theatre, even if he would be annoyed that she had done it without his permission. But if he knew she was acting as Ferguson's mistress...

He opened the door to the study and pushed her inside, gently enough that she didn't fall but forcefully enough to show he was taking over. Every lamp was lit and the brilliance made her blink.

Then she saw Aunt Augusta and Amelia ensconced on the small settee beside Alex's desk. Aunt Augusta was ramrod straight, with a severity to her expression that Madeleine hadn't seen since those first awful weeks after Uncle Edward's death. Amelia huddled beside her, her knees drawn up under her chin as though she were five years old. She was thoroughly miserable - and the look in her eyes was something between an apology and a warning.

"Sit down, Madeleine," Alex ordered. There was no invitation in his voice; it was pure command.

She sank into an armchair across from Alex, angled to look at him rather than Augusta and Amelia. She still didn't want to answer his question, so she slowly peeled off her gloves and tossed them onto the table next to her. Her guilt was probably written on her face, but at least her maid had reset her hair and clothed her completely. Despite Ferguson's lovemaking, she knew she looked innocent.