Devil in My Bed (7 page)

It was time to leave. Her ship was due to undock by noon. She might already be too late.

Forcing herself to ignore the inconceivable fact that Aidan de Quincy was standing on her very doorstep, Madeleine tightened her grip on her valise and began to step around him. Heavens, he smelled good!

Despite the fact that he was definitely, absolutely over her, Aidan was at the edge of his self-control. The scent of her was fair to driving him mad. He could hardly think for the heat pulsing through his body.

He’d thought himself well and truly cured—what a terrible joke that was.

The first sight of her was like a blow to the gut. It was as if he’d had the breath knocked out of him, and yet as if he’d finally remembered how to breathe.

She was as beautiful as ever. She ought not to be. Her evil acts ought to show upon her face. Instead, she looked lovely, all willowy grace and deceptive vulnerability. Her eyes, so huge and dark, so bottomless—he’d nearly fallen into them all over again.

Then the memory of his humilation, still hot and cringe inducing, swept him, and he could scarcely look at her. How unbearable that she could still have so much power over him.

Then that fellow had the temerity to pretend ownership of her! Love her or hate her, Aidan wouldn’t leave any woman in the hands of such a scoundrel.

Yes, she was as lovely as ever. Except . . .

Ah, yes. There were no more teasing smiles or husky laughter. The light that was Madeleine’s lust for life had dimmed. She seemed . . . careful?

Well, that was fair enough. He’d been a bit short on joie de vivre himself.

She picked up her bag and began to march past him. His chest spasmed at the thought of letting her walk away.

It wasn’t the ache of loss. It couldn’t be. It was because of Melody. He still required the answers he’d come for. He needed to know if Melody was his child.

That, and only that, was what made him reach for her at that moment.

As she passed Aidan, the tentative touch of his hand on her shoulder stopped Madeleine as Critchley’s cruel grip never could have. She felt the world slow until her heartbeat resonated like the bells in a church tower.

If she closed her eyes, she would see that hand smoothing over her naked skin, feel the hard yet tender heat of it scorch her most delicate places . . .

But her eyes were open now and they would stay that way, by God!

Madeleine took a deep breath and turned to face him, taking a single step to move out from under that undemanding touch. Aidan wasn’t a grabber. He wouldn’t stop her if she turned to flee him. As long as she remembered what she was about, she could afford to spare him a moment.

Then she would be on her way.

Yet her determination didn’t change the fact that as she gazed into his eyes, the sounds of the busy street around them faded away like a dream. She heard her own heart and she swore she could hear his as well.

I missed you so.

His shadowed gaze—when had he become so somber?—moved over her slowly, then fixed on the valise in her hand. “You are going on a journey?”

Oh, yes. She was fleeing for her life. How silly of her to forget, even for a moment. She raised her chin. “I am leaving London.”

His dark eyes met hers once more. Would she always feel such a jolt from his gaze? It was a good thing she would be far from here by the time the sun had set.

“You do not intend to come back.” A statement, not a question. She didn’t bother to answer.

“What is it you require, my lord?” He did not deserve her impatience, but if she did not turn and leave him now she might very well fall upon her knees and beg him to take her back into the house and make love to her until she lost her mind. Which plea would no doubt cause him to pull away in revulsion.

Wouldn’t that simply complete this splendid day?

“I have something of great importance to discuss with you. I realize that we did not part on the best of terms . . .”

Dear lord, he’d chosen now to apologize? Sickening urgency grew in her belly. Every instinct she possessed cried out for her run.

“It has come to my attention that there may have been consequences to our assignation . . .”

As he spoke, Madeleine’s gaze flickered past him to spot Critchley loitering at the corner. Fear twisted her gut. Oh, God, how was she going to slip away now? Aidan asked her something. She moved to one side to use his big body to hide herself from Critchley’s view and murmured an abstracted assent.

“Bloody hell!” Aidan burst out.

Madeleine blinked in surprise, fixing her attention upon him once more. He was furious! What had she said? “Ah . . .” Swiftly, she played his words back through her mind. Something about three years gone by and had she perhaps forgotten to mention having his child—

Oops. She held up both hands against Aidan’s towering rage. “Now, my lord, I fear you have misunderstood—”

His eyes narrowed. “I understand perfectly well. You hate me so much that you would send my daughter to live in squalor!”

Aidan had a daughter? For a moment she was stunned to realize he thought she’d had his child. Of course, it wasn’t an impossible misconception. It was a rather lovely thought, really.

Yet, conceived by him at that same time? A child who wasn’t hers, obviously. Which could only mean that Aidan had had another lover during their time together.

The bastard. The liar!

You’re hardly the pot to call the kettle “liar.”

Irrelevant. Besides, he didn’t know that! Which meant that while he’d believed her to be faithful and true, he’d been taking another woman to his bed! To make it worse, it sounded as though he’d abandoned that wanton creature as well!

She folded her arms and faced down his fury with her own. “You walked away, if you recall. You decided we were finished and you removed yourself from my life. I owe you no explanation whatsoever!” All true . . . for once. She must not forget the damage her heart had sustained as well. For a single moment she had been less than the perfect woman of his fantasy, and so he had deserted her.

Never taking his furious gaze from hers, Aidan snapped his fingers in the air. In seconds, his carriage pulled up alongside them. Bloody hell, the man had style.

“Get in,” he growled. “It’s high time you met your responsibilities.”

At that moment, Madeleine remembered Critchley dawdling around the corner and climbed swiftly into the carriage without argument. As she settled into the unaccustomed luxury of velvet cushions and expensive springs, she was already trying to figure a way out.

She could work this out with Aidan on the way—and perhaps even finagle a ride to the docks. He owed her that at least—imagine thinking she could ever abandon her own child! What an idiot!

You’re only angry because now you must imagine his talented hands on someone else’s skin.

Too bloody right! And she was going to stay angry until she made him pay at least a little!

Not to mention that she would have claimed to give birth to a litter of kittens if it would get her out and away from prying eyes watching . . . always watching.

Aidan hesitated a long moment before following Madeleine into the carriage. It wasn’t even his own.

He’d hired a hack from the club. The Breedloves had the use of the Blankenship carriages for the moment. For a ridiculous moment he wished he had his own transport—that he had the upper hand upon his own turf.

He tightened his grip on the strange door handle, fighting the trembling in his hand.

Get hold of yourself, man!

Her eyes had flashed when she’d rightfully berated him for his neglect. He blamed himself every bit as much as he blamed her. Yet through it all, he’d been unable to ignore the high color in her cheeks, the way her hair always tended to fall from its pins on the left side—so endearing, that little flaw—and the thinness of her wrists within her gloves, and the way her gown had faded away from its seams.

Sympathy twanged beneath his fury and confusion.

Was she penniless, then? That man had not been her lover. The scorn in Madeleine’s face had told him that. Creditor? It would explain the note pinned to Melody’s coat. “The mony stopped coming.”

She has no current protector. That simplifies matters.

Relief, that was all that thought inspired in him—simple relief that he wasn’t going to have to detach some rich old man or wealthy callow youth from her clutches before he shipped her off to live at the Blankenship estate. It was not satisfaction, nor the irrational hope that no man had touched her since him.

He would not be such a fool as that again.

Madeleine wasn’t going to like his plans for her. He only hoped that reconnecting her with her child would inspire some glimmering of maternal instinct within her cold soul. If she could only see that it would be best for Melody, he was sure she’d agree to take up residence there until the child was grown.

If necessary, he would make it financially rewarding for her, but she would go.

A pretty bird, kept in a gilded cage, whom you visit for your own pleasure? Does that sound like the woman you know?

Ah, but he didn’t truly know Madeleine, did he? She’d made that perfectly clear years ago.

He took the step into the carriage, his fury now well set in stone. As he settled into the seat opposite her, he forced himself to gaze directly at her, his expression hard.

She tore her gaze from the street and raised her chin. “So flinty, my lord. Are you willing to hear what I have to say now?”

“No,” he said curtly. “Not a word until we reach Brown’s.”

Her brows drew together. Ignoring his command, she leaned forward. “Your gentlemen’s club? I shan’t be allowed in.”

“I managed to get your daughter inside. I believe I can do so for you as well.”

Her brows rose. “Really?” She glanced out the window on the near side, then leaned forward to look out the opposite one. Was she still worried about that greasy creditor?

Finally she sat back with an air of relief. “Brown’s will do for now,” she said primly. “But you will have to listen sooner or later, my lord.”

How could he listen when his mind was full of the past? Fresh hunger vied with old pain, still sharp. He still craved her, damn it!

From the instant he had first touched her hand, Aidan couldn’t stay away from his fey, sprightly Madeleine. Far from sad, the widow seemed determined to suck the marrow from every moment as if she truly didn’t believe she would have another chance.

When they tumbled into her bed that first night, she was breathless and pliant in his hands. For a strange moment he thought virgin, but of course she wasn’t. It did cross his mind that her late husband hadn’t been much of a lover, but he didn’t ask and she didn’t volunteer.

It was as if there was no past. There was only each breathless moment, more thrilling than the last.

When they talked—and they did talk, occasionally!—it was of childish dreams, of likes and dislikes, of passion and ideas. No past, no future.

By unspoken agreement there was no one else allowed in their world. They were new and pure for each other and it made them brave. They gave each other what they had never given before.

She’d brought out the wild creature in him. He’d never been such a lover before. In fact, before Madeleine, he’d been so damned gentlemanly in bed that he’d scarcely broken a sweat! She had a way of sweeping away his righteous boundaries, of laughing away his moral inhibitions and unleashing a man he’d never realized lived within him. She’d made him see his own darkness, his own towering passions, his own possessive animal nature that lived beneath the façade of reason and civilization. He’d reveled in it then, though he’d denounced it later.

Yet he couldn’t forgive her for it. How was he to go back to being the man he’d been before, tightly wound and quietly forlorn, knowing what he knew about himself?

Instead, he’d become hard. Grim, even. Jack had complained of it, but even his friendship could not ease the burden of being a passionate, primal man with no outlet for that passion.

Now, he could only glare wordlessly at the creator of his misery. Beautiful, fragile devil in a faded dress, what am I to do with you?

Madeleine gazed down at her hands, pretending fascination with the strings of her reticule. Aidan was glaring at her again. She could feel the repressed animal inside him, ready to rise up and spring at her.

She wasn’t afraid. No matter how enraged he might become, Aidan would sooner leap out a window than strike a woman. No, what she ought to fear was her own weakness.

Letting her eyelids droop, she allowed herself to feel his presence like heated pressure upon her skin.

She could imagine setting aside her things, undoing her bonnet, and moving catlike across the carriage to sit astride his lap, riding the jolting motion of the carriage until they both cried out in completion—

With shock she realized that she’d dropped her reticule and was even now slowly tugging at her bonnet ribbons! She hurriedly masked the motion, pretending to tuck a fallen strand of hair away. Madness, that’s what this man inspired in her!

She would hide at Brown’s only long enough to explain this terrible misunderstanding and then she would be on her way!

Her way to where? She would miss her departure time now and there wasn’t another boat to Jamaica for days. She would have to maintain the lie at least that long, for she could hardly expect the furious glowering man opposite her to nod understandingly at her lies, then allow her to stay at his expense for three days!

Blast it, why had she gotten into this carriage? Because he’d ordered her to?

No, because you wanted to be near him.

Sentimental idiot, passing up her chance for escape so she could moon over a man who hated her!

He hadn’t always been so hard. Madeleine still sometimes reddened in the light of day, suddenly recalling an outrageously delicious moment with Aidan from years before.

She had not known she possessed such a wicked animal nature, nor that she would explore it so shamelessly. When she thought of the things she allowed him to do—the things she’d done to him!—