Devil in My Bed (5 page)

Colin blanched. “I can’t, man. I’m done in!” He looked nearly ready to cry. “She’s a monster,” he whispered.

Aidan lifted a corner of his lips. “Well, the carpet won’t fight back. We can hardly ask the staff in to clean it up, now can we?”

Colin resisted. “But . . . I’ve never cleaned in my life.” Aidan raised a brow. “You’ve mucked out your horse’s stall, haven’t you?”

Colin shrugged. “Once, perhaps, as a boy.”

“Same principle. Scrape up the mess. Scrub down the rest.” Much the same as he’d done with Melody, now that he thought about it. Perhaps this child thing wasn’t so difficult after all.

An hour later, Aidan too was ready to cry uncle. Yet somehow he found the strength to struggle grimly on, determined to see the madness through. At last he sat back. “There. All done.”

Colin leaned forward from his chair by the fire, where he sat smoking Aidan’s tobacco and savoring Aidan’s brandy while doing absolutely nothing of use. He frowned critically at Aidan’s latest attempt at a braid. “You mucked it a bit there.”

Aidan looked down to where Colin pointed and nearly cried at the sight of the long dark lock which was most certainly not caught properly up in Melody’s lopsided braid. Since grown men did not cry, Aidan did what all men did and scowled fiercely.

Melody giggled and then mimicked his thunderous expression, with her delicate brows nearly meeting and her little chin thrust forward belligerently. Aidan doubted that it was an attractive expression on him, but on her it was adorable. He fought the urge to turn to sugary goo. Colin was apparently having difficulty as well, for Aidan caught a glimpse of smitten adoration on his face before he abruptly turned away with a cough.

“Marshmallow,” Aidan accused him gruffly.

“Speak for yourself,” Colin retorted. “You melt like candle wax.”

They both grumbled deeply, satisfied at having fulfilled their manly duty of name-calling and denial of sentiment.

“That’s a brilliant bit of mimicry,” Colin said lazily. “She looked positively primitive, just like you.”

Colin was only needling, yet Aidan felt alarm jolt through him, unfortunately tainted with uncertainty.

Melody pulled her braid forward and examined it.

“You mucked it, Uncle Aidan,” she pointed out calmly. “It’s all bunged up.”

Aidan blinked at the vulgarity, then looked at Colin in panic. Alas, Colin had buried his face in his brandy snifter, where he sputtered quietly. Aidan cleared his throat and gazed down at Melody. “I apologize for the damage, little one, but . . . one ought not to say words like ‘muck’ and ‘bung’.”

She blinked her large dark eyes at him. “You said it, Uncle Aidan. So did Uncle Colin.”

“Er . . . well, we ought not have. Sometimes gentlemen use bad language, but they should never do so in the company of ladies. I deeply regret that, and I know Uncle Colin does as well—”

The sputtering by the fire became louder, so Aidan raised his voice. “But you must remember that ladies never use crude language.”

Melody blinked. “I’m a lady?”

Aidan smiled. “You most certainly are.” Any daughter of Jack’s, legitimate or not, could be raised quite nicely on such connections. Society’s rules were easier on “natural” daughters than sons, especially if they were openly claimed by their fathers.

Which Jack was going to do promptly on his return, or Aidan would beat him soundly until he did.

Pleased, Melody dreamily considered her new status. “Do ladies get pretty dresses?”

Aidan smiled. Feminine to the core. “Of course. The very prettiest.”

Melody dimpled with pleasure. “Do ladies get cake?”

Aidan laughed. “Indeed.”

“Do ladies get a kitten?”

Aidan found himself nodding. “Yes, that would be—”

Colin broke out in howls while Aidan did his best to backtrack on his inadvertent promise. “Now, Melody, I don’t think it’s a very good idea—”

Melody bestowed an angelic smile on him and threw her arms about his neck. “Thank you, Uncle Aidan!”

If Colin didn’t stop sputtering into the brandy, he was going to need a dunk in a cold tub. Aidan wasn’t about to be bested by a vixen he could pick up with one hand!

Yet gooey sentiment threatened again. He could only glare helplessly at Colin, who now lay draped over the chair, gasping. “You’re no help at all, you know that?”

Colin recovered enough to send him an unapologetic salute. “It was just so much fun to watch you go down in flames.”

“Heartless wretch.”

“Spineless dupe.”

Aidan stood. Melody still clung to his neck, her little feet dangling beneath the giant night shirt. Aidan hefted her on one arm and patted her awkwardly on the head. “A kitten then, as soon as—” As soon as your papa comes home. But there was no way to promise that when they didn’t know for sure until Jack returned. “As soon as we’ve got you settled properly. It wouldn’t do to bring a kitten into this room, would it? Kittens need to play outside.”

Melody yawned, considered his logic for a moment, then acquiesced by laying her head comfortably on his shoulder. “A white . . . kitten . . .”

Just like that, she was asleep in his arms. Aidan felt his heart stutter just a bit as she became oddly heavier in her relaxation, going entirely limp upon his chest.

It was an entirely different sensation than holding her awake. Awake Melody was like a coiled spring always in danger of being loosed. She was loud and busy and bursting with energy. Sleeping Melody was soft and tiny, her baby features lax and sweet; even her freshly bathed little feet were limp and soft, with toes like small pink peas.

Strange emotions assaulted him. Helpless alarm—what should he do now?—mingled with a sense of being insanely honored by her unconditional trust in him. No one had ever depended upon him so utterly. No one had ever bestowed upon him such simple and absolute faith.

It was outrageously daunting. How could he ever live up to such a thing? He looked up at Colin. “This is a mistake,” he whispered frantically. “We can’t do this. We have to give her back!”

Colin scoffed. “Back to whom? Do you think she’d be better off ware housed in some crowded orphanage?”

Aidan’s panicked thoughts circled. “No. Not orphanage. School!”

Colin folded his arms. “She’s barely off the wet-nurse and you want to send her to school? Are you mad?”

Aidan shook his head. “No, no. Of course not.” God, there had to be an answer! “What if we do something wrong? What if we break her somehow?”

Colin glared at him. “Coward!”

“Shh!” Aidan lay Melody down on the giant bed. She looked no larger than a doll on the vast mattress.

“Sleep now, poppet.” He brought the crimson coverlet up to her little chin and fought the urge to drop a kiss on her brow. He ought not to get attached. He ought not to allow such a complication.

Then he gave up the fight and leaned down to brush his lips over the downy curls at her temple. When he straightened, he glared at Colin, daring him to mock the gesture.

Colin only gazed at him for a moment, then looked down at Melody, who had now gone thoroughly limp, her little fingers curled loosely at her chin.

“What was her mother thinking, to cast her off this way?” Colin murmured, his low tone not masking his anger.

Aidan wasn’t nearly so surprised. “Heartless women in London are as common as snails in the garden,”

he said with a snort.

The lovely widow Madeleine, for example. Madeleine of the dark eyes full of secrets and lies, the insincere touch, the deceitful lips . . .

But he never thought of Madeleine anymore. He’d recovered from her poison years ago.

As he shooed Colin from the bedchamber and resigned himself to a night on his sofa, he firmly put away thoughts of Madeleine and ridiculous new suspicions of Melody’s origins.

Or, at least, he tried.

Far from London, a man prepared to leave on a journey. He ordered his horse brought round, for he no longer owned a carriage fine enough to transport him in the manner to which he’d become accustomed.

He’d lost everything. He now lived in the gatekeeper’s lodge at his own gates. The manor was a scorched ruin and the farms were a wasteland. He did not have the money to rebuild so vastly. He had debts mounting enough already.

He dressed in his best riding habit—which, due to his lack of enthusiasm, was only a bit worn where no one would notice—and ordered the footman, who was really no better than a horse groom but now served as his valet, to pack his things into the leather panniers that went behind his saddle.

When his horse was brought around, he mounted with a grimace. He wasn’t fond of riding, but a man who rode to Town might be considered a sporting fellow, too youthful and impatient to bear the tedious ride on wheels.

Town life awaited him, which he’d once enjoyed, but now saw only as an escape from the dreary ruin his existence and his estate had become. He needed a speedy inflow of cash most direly. Gambling might do it, but he’d been badly cheated too many times and hardly had enough left with which to start a game.

There was no choice but to sell his minor title and connections to the highest bidder and wed that shipping magnate’s horse-faced daughter. A shudder of revulsion went through him at the thought. He could hardly bear to expend himself on something so unattractive when he’d once had the most beautiful wife in the county.

As he mounted his horse and rode away from the blackened ruin that had once been his very fine house, he eased his mind with thoughts of his former delicate, smoky-eyed wife.

Beautiful and obedient—at least, she’d become so with a bit of training. Those had been such satisfactory times. The more vulnerable and eager to please she had become, the easier it had become to exploit that vulnerability. After all, had he not fed her and sheltered her and provided her with the finest of everything?

And then to have her say, directly to his face, that she intended to betray him? Hot tendrils of rage threatened to escape the tightly locked cage he kept within himself. Had she really thought he’d allow her to unmask him to the world?

He was fond of that mask. It was a handsome one by birth and he’d spent a lifetime learning to use it well. There was little he craved that he could not get by persuasion . . . but persuasion wasn’t quite as satisfying as it had once been, not since the Incident.

He’d been an ordinary man before. Well, an ordinary aristocrat at any rate. He’d kept mostly to the conventions of Society, at least outwardly, never realizing that he had the potential to be more, the potential to achieve total mastery of his world, the potential to hold the godlike power of life and death in his hands.

He smiled as sweet memory eased back the hot burn of betrayal. That was a moment he very much looked forward to enjoying again.

It was really too bad his pretty wife had died so young. Such a waste, losing her in the blaze like that, burned to ash—like kindling—like paper. He let out a sigh of deep regret. After all, he’d missed the whole thing.

It must have been a lovely sight to see.

The next morning, Aidan was up and dressed before Colin tapped upon his door. Better to say, he was still dressed, having not gone to sleep at all.

He’d spent some hours of the night composing letters to be mailed out to various ports of call that Jack might make before landing at London. Unlikely that any of them would get to Jack before then, but worth the effort nonetheless.

The rest of the night he’d spent circling about a single thought. It was a thought he did not want to have—a thought he refused to have!—yet it would not go away.

He greeted Colin absently and went about gathering up Melody’s few things to get her dressed. Aidan found her sad, dilapidated little buttoned boot, still a bit sticky from last evening’s adventures. It was hardly worth cleaning. When he got his hands on this Nurse Pruitt he was going to drag her before the magistrate.

Yet who was truly to blame here? A nurse gone unpaid? Melody’s mother for hiding her away and then refusing to pay? Or her father, for never even bothering to inquire as a man should after . . . well, after.

As he had never bothered to inquire after Madeleine.

His job of dressing her finished, with not too many mistakes, he hoped, he straightened and gazed down at little Melody. The daylight made her dark hair gleam and her little fingers were busily tying far too many knots in the frayed bow on the front of her little dress.

She spoke so well and she was so bright . . .

Perhaps she was older than Colin believed her to be. She could be small for her age, if she hadn’t been cared for properly. Perhaps she was a little older . . . just enough older . . .

Old enough to be mine.

He narrowed his eyes and pounded his fist on the doorjamb. “Damn and blast!”

“Damn and blast!” The girlish piping echo made both men freeze, then guiltily turn their heads. Melody gazed brightly at them, then narrowed her eyes and pounded her fist on the nearby bedpost. “Damn and blast!”

Colin snorted. “Are you sure she’s not yours?”

Aidan’s gut went cold because he realized that at that moment, no, he wasn’t completely sure of anything.

And that meant that he was going to have make sure. And to make sure, he was going to have to see her one more time.

Madeleine.

Distaste roiled through him. It was distaste, revulsion, disgust even. It was in no way—and would never be—anticipation. Absolutely not.

That was his explanation and he would die defending it.

By dawn, Lady Madeleine had her affairs in order, her few things packed in a small valise, and the last strand of pearls from Aidan in her reticule, ready to be bartered for a berth on a ship.

She’d found a discarded newssheet from the previous day that listed the departure dates and destinations for the larger ships leaving the London Docks. There was one leaving for Jamaica that very day. Foreign and warm to be sure!

All that she waited for now was the morning crowds to swell so she could lose herself in them. She brushed away a strand of falling hair and counted slowly backward from five as she put her hand on the front door latch. She hadn’t been out in days, fearing recognition by that insect, Critchley. Three . . . two