Devil in My Bed (27 page)

“Wait—” Aidan held up a hand as something struck him. “If you were watching, you must have seen Mrs. Chandler leave again—you must have seen which way she went, at least!”

“I’m sorry, lad. I didn’t see her go.” He shrugged. “I do leave the room occasionally, though I wouldn’t have if I’d known it was the last I’d see of her. Lovely girl. A charming laugh. How were you brainless enough to lose her?”

Aidan bridled. Aldrich only raised a brow. “What do I have to fear from you? Not even death frightens me now. So don’t raise your quills at me, boy. I was brainless once, too. I never got the girl back. Liked my wife well enough, but there is only one girl like that for any man.”

“So if the fat man is that Critchley fellow,” Colin mused, “then who is the thin man?”

Aidan turned to Aldrich. “Can you describe him?”

Aldrich looked thoughtful. “He was tall. He wore a hat so I never saw his hair or all of his face. He dressed well enough, I suppose. Had an air about him, like he thought everyone on the street should get out of his way.” The old fellow shrugged thin shoulders. “Other than that, he looked just like you lot.

Young and annoying.”

“Are you a grampapa?”

The three men looked down to see Melody amongst them, staring intently up at Aldrich.

Aldrich blinked. “No, child. I don’t have any grandchildren.”

Melody considered him for a long moment. “I don’t have a grampapa.” She twisted one foot shyly. “I could be your gramchildren, if you wanted.”

Aldrich blinked. Then a slow smile rearranged the wrinkles. “Well, why not?” He bent down, but not as far as Aidan would have had to, and held out his hand. “Shall we shake on that, young miss?”

Melody giggled and stuck her small, breakfast-sticky paw into the old man’s hand. Aidan and Colin exchanged a look. Another willing victim.

“Can you imagine her in fifteen years?” Colin muttered. Aidan nodded. Poor Jack. Perhaps doting uncle was an easier position to be in.

Aldrich’s visit had been edifying, yet still Aidan knew nothing—except that she had not, in fact, been lying about her danger. Then again, he’d already begun to believe. Aidan rubbed the back of his neck.

There were two men involved. An important clue, yet they were no closer to finding Madeleine.

Alone in her attic prison, Madeleine had spent a busy morning. It had rained during the night, waking her with an insistent drizzle onto her nest of blankets. Disconcerted at first, she’d soon laughed and put the pitcher beneath the leak to catch a bit of sooty drinking water. At least in this way Wilhelm held no power—not over nature and elderly roofing!

Now she sat on her “bed” with her back to the door—though Wilhelm was not typically an early riser, she would put nothing past him—and perused her options.

The dumbwaiter, unfortunately, had not proven to be a possible escape route. Even if she trusted the rusted gears and elderly cords to work properly—which she didn’t, really—the casebox of the dumbwaiter itself would never hold her weight.

She’d tried cautiously, but the immediate creaks and cracks when she was but halfway in were too alarming. She’d shuddered and backed out again. She might risk it if there were no other choice, but it was a long way to the hard cellar floor at the other end of the shaft.

Then she’d hit upon the idea of using a bit of coal from the old fireplace to scratch a message on the inside of the casebox. Clumsy, but she believed she’d gotten her point across.

But it would be better if there were some way to get someone to open it once it went down a storey.

She couldn’t ensure that would happen, but if someone did open it, she wanted to be sure to catch their attention.

Madeleine debated sending down her shoes, perhaps one at a time. In the end, she decided not to.

Should the opportunity come, she ought to be prepared to run for her life. These were good, sturdy, leather traveling shoes, the ones she’d originally donned to catch her ship, and then again to walk to the park. Picking up her skirts slightly, she looked down at her shoes critically. It was possible that they could do some damage should she ever get close enough to kick Wilhelm. Besides, the attic was cold. Taking a chill would not help her cause.

Everything else in the attic was too large except for her blankets. She didn’t think a blanket in a laundry chute would get much attention.

So, that meant that the only items she had to send down the dumbwaiter were the contents of her pockets: her handkerchief, a button from a not-too-strategic place on her gown, the blue ribbon she’d used to tie her hair, and a small, heart-shaped stone she had carried in her pocket for years.

She hesitated over the stone. A silly thing, not valuable except for the memory it evoked. Aidan, smiling, coming to see her on a fine day. He’d walked through Hyde Park, he’d told her, and had handed her the stone he’d found. “There, I’ve given you my heart.” He’d laughed and she had as well, but the silly gift meant more to her than any of the jewels he’d presented her with.

Well, better to lose it now than to be buried with it. Gathering up her meager arsenal, she prepared to get on with her plan.

The slender thread of hope within her could not bear much more.

Please, please let someone notice. Let someone open it and see!

Colin and Aidan prepared to canvass Madeleine’s neighborhood for any sign of her. They’d already spoken to every doorman and shopkeeper on St. James Street and none of them remembered a pretty dark-haired woman walking by or hailing a hack that night. She’d simply disappeared like a ghost.

Aidan knocked on the door of the house to the right of Madeleine’s. A young housemaid opened the door. Her eyes widened at the sight of Aidan and Colin on the doorstep, but she quickly recovered, licked her lips, and smiled saucily.

“ ’Ello, sirs. ‘Ave ye come to see Himself?”

Since Aidan had no idea who that might be, he shook his head. “Don’t disturb your master just yet.

Perhaps you can help us.”

She sank her teeth into her lower lip and lifted a brow. “What ye got in mind, sir?”

Despite the situation, Colin had an inane grin on his face. Aidan delivered an elbow to his ribs for it.

“We’re looking for the lady who lived next door. Have you seen her recently?”

The flirtatious maid slid a knowing glance in Colin’s direction, then returned her attention to Aidan.

“Ain’t seen ’er for days. She’s right quiet, that one. Doesn’t go about much. I don’t know her name, but I do see her going to market sometimes. The house’s been dark now since . . .” She folded her arms beneath her considerable bosom while she gazed into the air, thinking. Colin teetered forward as if about to fall into the abyss of her spectacular cleavage. Aidan rescued him with another quick elbow.

“I reckon I ain’t seen ’er for near a week,” concluded the maid. “Sorry, sirs.”

They thanked her and left her staring wistfully after Colin.

The tale at the house on the other side was much the same. “No, sirs. Haven’t seen her in days. Never did get her name.”

They tried a few more doors, but it seemed that although Madeleine had lived next to them for more than four years, no one in the vicinity knew anything about her or her life.

“That’s odd, don’t you think?” Colin studied the street before them. “She’s a true Original, if you ask me.

She ought to have had the city eating out of her hand.”

“Protective coloration,” Aidan said curtly. He was becoming quite frantic, in truth.

This was all his fault. He hadn’t known anything of Madeleine’s life during their affair. Then again, he’d never thought to ask her.

Now, it seemed that her life had been nothing—nothing but hiding.

And him.

And he had walked away, leaving her, alas, with nothing once more.

* * *

Wilhelm lingered in the entrance hall of Brown’s, torn between the desire to see the defeat etched upon Blankenship’s face when he returned without his lady and the pleasure of watching Madeleine weepily struggling to accept her impending demise.

He’d never been so thoroughly entertained. Really, this was such a treat.

Not since the Incident had he tasted the sweetness of pure power. And that had been an accident—a prank really. An irritating young fellow needed taking down a peg. Hardly more than schoolboy tomfoolery. When matters had then gone rather seriously astray . . . well, that was hardly his fault.

Yet that moment—the moment when his lovely young wife had screamed and cried and begged him so desperately to do something—that moment, that taste of absolute power in his mouth, flavored sharp and metallic as blood . . . that had been sweet indeed.

And this feat promised to surpass that one by far.

He decided that once Madeleine died, he must find a way to get her body out of the house and down to the Thames. Wouldn’t it be delicious to be an innocent bystander when the authorities informed Blankenship that his love had drowned herself in grief at losing him? He snickered nastily.

Oh, my. A note in Madeleine’s pocket, declaring her intention to die. Now that would be perfection itself. How to manage that one . . .

Blankenship walked in the door just then. Wilhelm busied himself with tugging his gloves more tightly and settling his hat upon his head. Black of brow and wretched with worry, Blankenship strode past without a word, although that Lambert fellow cast Wilhelm a curious glance. Wilhelm simply gave him a vague toothy grin and a nod and turned toward the door.

Once the two men had turned the corner toward the stairs, Wilhelm stripped off his gloves and tossed his hat to the nearest servant. Then he, too, turned toward the stairs.

The floor show was over. Time to check out the view from the balcony.

In the entrance hall, Wilberforce stood there with Lord Whittaker’s hat and gloves in hand, gazing after the odd fellow with a thoughtful eye.

“Bailiwick.”

Instantly Bailiwick appeared from nowhere in particular. Wilberforce had trained him well in one respect at least. “Yes, Mr. Wilberforce?”

“Bailiwick, why would a man put on his hat and gloves to go out, then immediately take them off again and go back upstairs?”

Bailiwick’s handsome young brow creased. “Sir? Sorry, sir, but that doesn’t make sense.”

“Hmm.” Wilberforce tilted his head, considering the problem. “Precisely my thinking, lad.”

Back in his chambers, Aidan threw his hat viciously across the room as he entered. Colin watched him as he sat on the sofa with his elbows on his knees and head in his hands. Discomfited but not willing to leave his mourning friend alone, Colin restlessly paced. As he passed the table with the bowl full of apples, he picked one up to edgily toss it from hand to hand. Slap. Slap.

“We could make up printed posters,” he suggested to Aidan. “We could plaster London with them.”

Aidan made a noise. “And what if she is in hiding? Running for her life? Do you think that will help her disappear?”

The apple stopped its flight for a moment. “Um. No, I suppose not.” Then the pacing resumed and the apple continued its rhythmic sound against Colin’s palms. Slap. Slap.

Aidan leaned back into the sofa, rubbing his hands over his aching eyes. He’d been up all night, watching over Melody as she slept, trying to will Madeleine to return to him.

I wish to never set eyes on you again.

Good God, what an ass he was. What an unbelievable ass!

Stupid words, Maddie. Don’t believe them. Come back to me. Come home.

His weary body throbbed. Absently, he reached behind himself to remove something lumpy and uncomfortable. He pulled out a wadded cravat. Gordy Ann.

Colin whistled. “I can’t believe Melody agreed to play in Aldrich’s room without her.”

Aidan held the doll in his hands, distantly wondering at precisely what point a filthy cloth knot had taken on a gender. He stood, taking the doll with him. “I suppose I had better relieve Aldrich. I’m sure he’s had quite a morning.”

Colin stuck his apple into his pocket and came along.

They entered Aldrich’s rooms to find the elder lord incongruously clad in a tiny pink pinafore, draped over the front of his weskit like a bib, seated at the table, lifting a teacup to his lips, with his little finger daintily crooked.

Even the ludicrous tableau of Melody having a tea party with the fierce old lord wasn’t enough to cheer Aidan.

Colin tried, however. “Look who we found, Mellie.”

Melody brightened. “Maddie?”

“Er, no. Sorry. I meant—” He indicated the doll.

Melody ran to Aidan, who, instead of handing over the doll, picked up the tiny girl and held her close. He didn’t know who was comforting whom, for he felt every bit as devastated as Melody.

She tucked her little face into his neck. “I miss Maddie,” she said, thereby muffled.

“I miss her too, mousie.” He ran his hand over her head, smoothing her wispy braid. The end of the braid was fixed with a bright blue ribbon . . .

It was not the one he’d tied about her hair this morning. In fact, the last time he’d seen this particular blue ribbon—which was so long it was wrapped several times before being tied in an awkward knot—

was in Madeleine’s hair as she’d walked out of his room and disappeared. He rubbed it between his fingers.

“Mellie,” he said, his tone deliberately casual, “this is a very pretty ribbon.”

She sniffled into his neck. “Thank you.”

He carried her to one of the chairs at the table and sat with her in his lap. Holding her by her chubby midriff, he leaned back a bit to gaze into her eyes. “Mellie, is this ribbon new?”

Melody nodded as she played with the gold buttons on his surcoat.

“Where did you get this pretty ribbon?”

“I founded it,” she said clearly. “With the other presents.”

“Presents?” Aidan glanced at Aldrich, who was listening intently. Aldrich shrugged away any knowledge of them. Aidan turned back to Melody.

“Can you show me your presents, pet?”

“Sure!” Melody dug her hands into the pockets of her pinafore and then held them out, cupped for him to see.