Flowers From The Storm (67 page)

Sutherland is come.”

Maddy took the note. It was not sealed; the girl held the paper out open to show her the writing.
Sendthe parcel to me
, it said, in his conspicuous hand.

“Oh,” Maddy said. “Well, then. Thou must bring it in. There is no need to wait out—”

A low wail issued from the bundle in the girl’s arms. She hiked it up onto her shoulder, crooning softly, and glanced up at Maddy with an apologetic smile.

For one moment, Maddy stood motionless. She felt as if she were hung at the top of a great fall—not thinking—not breathing.

Then she whispered, “From Mrs. Sutherland?”

The girl curtsied. “Yes, mum.”

Maddy began to shiver. The cold suddenly took hold of her. She clutched her arms around herself. “A parcel? Is that the parcel?” Her voice was shaking hard. “Is that—the parcel?”

“Yes, mum.” She smiled again, with a tinge of sadness. “Aren’t they awful, the nobs, to call it so? It’s a sweet little girl. I’m wet nurse—I lost me own boy two months back.”

This simple confession broke the dream-like suspension that held Maddy. The fall began, the real fall, a plummeting, nauseating descent into comprehension.

Eydie
. Mrs. Sutherland.

They had been lovers.

They had a child.

“Are you all right, mum?” the girl asked.

Maddy blinked. She could not stop the shivers that racked her. Water had come to her eyes. She saw the girl through a slur of light and dark. “I’m all right,” she said, in a ghastly voice. She cleared her throat.

“I’m all right.”

They had a baby; he had done—with her—with
Eydie
…

All his kisses. He knew so much; he knew everything— and Maddy, besotted, bewitched—she had thought it wicked to keep a lock of hair and a miniature.

She’d been blind. She was blind and dazzled and utterly lost. She heard the fragile whimper of the child and instead of righteous repugnance felt only a surge of love and pain and misery that drowned her—because it was his, because it belonged to him, and she loved even dishonor and iniquity if it was his.

“You’re colder than us, mum, shakin” so. Should we go in, then?“

With a clash like a fire alarm, the stable bell began to ring madly. Maddy and the girl both leaped back as lanterns flashed and grooms seemed to come running from everywhere. The baby began to wail.

Behind the girl, a sharp blaze of light appeared at the end of the alley. A pair of horses came trotting under the arch, their riders emblazoned in scarlet and gold, carrying torches, posting ahead of a coach that wheeled smartly around the corner. The coachman was seated on a sumptuous blue and purple hammer-cloth: bewigged and epauletted, royally turned out. The king had come.

On the front walk, Christian was in a silent tumult, elated and distracted, supporting His Majesty’s painful progress from the curb to the stairs. Christian was on one side—and Wellington on the other.

Wellington, for the love of God. Christian found himself in the middle of politics—he might use the king; so the king might use him. Christian hadn’t spent much of his concentration on the newspapers, but he’d followed enough to know that strong currents were running, and likely to sweep the present ministry away. And there was no other interpretation for a public healing of the breach between George and the Iron Duke than to pave the way for Wellington to assume the premiership.

They chose Christian’s ball to advertise it, a stroke of brilliant luck, but he had no time for contemplation. He’d no idea where Maddy had gone—she ought to have been at his side to greet the king at his carriage—she ought to be here now at the door—she ought to
be
here—God damn her,
where was she
?

George got one swollen leg up onto the second step, gripping hard on Christian’s left arm. Wellington on the king’s other side took his turn, bracing His Majesty’s all-too-majestic bulk. The strong scent of hair oil rose from the shiny curls of George’s nut-brown wig, mingling with the heavy perfume of his pocket handkerchief. Christian turned his face away for a covert breath of cold fresh air, and then glanced up.

Heady relief flooded him.

She was there, standing in the open doorway, with Calvin and a pair of tall footmen behind her. The tiara flashed; her cheeks were red spots in white, her lips absolutely bloodless. He hoped to God she wasn’t going to faint.

He grinned at her, to give her courage, and looked down to his work without waiting for a reaction. The royal attendants swarmed forward, and he lost her as they reached the door and George stepped through. The king patted Christian’s arm. “Thank you, thank you, dear boy. I can make a go of it from here, eh? Where’s my stick?”

The king leaned on his cane. There were guests in the hall—those who knew they had the entree had taken initiative to come downstairs. George shook hands all around, with every sign of pleasure, while Calvin and the footmen kept him discreetly steered toward the room prepared for him.

Christian could hear the reaction to Wellington. It rose up the stairs like a breaking wave, turning a dull rumble to a roar. Hang “em. Hang ‘em all—the Ape and the blood-man and Manning and his family.

Wellington stood back from the king while His Majesty was occupied. Christian, no favorite of this high Tory war-horse-hero, felt himself raked by those famous bright blue eyes that had assessed whole battlefields at a glance. The Iron Duke bowed. “His Majesty commanded me to attend him tonight. I hope it’s not an imposition?”

Christian offered his hand. “It is… an honor,” he said, and meant it. He saw the other man’s quick perception of his speech. “I’m different,” he added bluntly, judging that Wellington, with his ear in the upper reaches of government, would be no stranger to Christian’s debacle in the Lord Chancellor’s office. He gave a slight dry smile. “You of all… know trial by fire… changes.”

Wellington gave him a hard, quizzical look as they shook hands. Christian endured it. He’d won through his own particular inferno—he didn’t reckon he had to look away on account of his politics.

Wellington lifted his brows. “Any hope of a change in your liberal opinions?”

Christian shrugged. “Wrong fire.”

The commander snorted. “You’re your own man, at least. I give you that.” He smiled grimly. “A
visagedefer
. It’s the only choice in life, eh?”

Christian opened his hands, indicating the ball around him—his own face of iron. Wellington, no fool, inclined his head with a look of acknowledgment. He put his hand on Christian’s shoulder and gripped hard before turning back to the king.

George had made the parlor and sofa at last, sinking down with a creak of corset stays. He called to Christian, smiling like a rosy-cheeked obese cherub. “Won’t you bring your duchess to us?”

Christian turned. Maddy had been hanging back near the door, half hidden among the guests and court attendants while Lady Conyngham and Knighton were seated.

He held out his hand. Maddy did not look up at him, but came forward and stood before the king. The hum of conversation in the room grew quiet.

“Archimedea,” Christian said. “Duchess of Jervaulx.”

She offered her hand, without nodding or curtsying. “I welcome thee here,” she said gravely.

George gave a burst of a laugh. “My dear! A Quaker indeed! They had told me so, but I could scarce believe it.” He took her hand, kissed and then held it. “I’ve a great fondness for your people, a very great fondness. Good, kind, honest people. Schools. Bibles. Banks. You are a credit to them.”

In a small, steady voice, she said, “I must tell thee that I am not esteemed a Friend any longer.”

He patted her hand. “Your marriage, is it? Ah, me—the principles of religion are sometimes a weight upon us, are they not? But you have a consolation in this fine husband of yours.” He looked past her at Christian. “You must remember my friendship, dear boy. I am at your service whenever you choose to call upon me.”

Christian bowed. It was only with an effort that he kept himself from laughing out loud in elation. The king… and Wellington.

Damn their eyes—let them try to touch him now.

He opened the ball merely by taking Maddy to the head of the room, bowing to the guests and to her, and signaling the maestro to begin. The deuce for excuses and explanations. The whole world could think what they pleased of a duchess who did not dance.

There was a moment as they walked off the ballroom floor, while the sets were forming and everyone turned toward the dancing, that Christian found himself and his wife unobserved in the stairway hall.

He was so full of success that he gripped her ice-cold hand in his, drew her to him and kissed her amid the sweep of music.

He inhaled night air, an island of crisp cleanliness in the heavy, perfumed atmosphere. She had not once looked directly at him, but he didn’t care; he felt crazily invulnerable now; he felt that nothing could go wrong.

For a grim moment it seemed he’d been mistaken. She was stiff, repulsing him with a sharp withdrawal.

He let go of her. She stepped away and looked back at him, his Maddygirl, his sparkling wise Athena, silver and beautiful to him even in her astringency. She stared at him through the lashes that turned her green eyes to gold, chaste and sensual at once, setting the current moving fast and hard in his blood.

“I love you,” he said under his breath, the words riding the music. He knew she could not hear them. He didn’t want her to hear. He didn’t want her answer to it, not tonight, his night, when everything, even his flawed self, was a victory.

“Thou wilt be safe now?” she asked, standing clear of him.

Christian made no move closer. “The Ape… here,” he told her.

Her hands closed. She made a convulsive step toward him, and stopped.

“The Ape,” he said. “Doctor… from the madhouse. Calvin found them… skulk bastards… among the guests.”

Her body was tense, her hands white fists against the silver gown.

He smiled slyly. “Arrested now. Trespassers. Thief.”

“Arrested?” Her eyes widened in stupefaction. “Cousin Edward—thou hadst him arrested as a
thief
?”

“Chain up… toss in the watch house.” His lip curled in satisfaction at the thought. “See how they like it.”

He could see that she wasn’t entirely delighted; she was staring at him with an expression he could not interpret. He shrugged. “Maybe tomorrow… maybe a week… withdraw the charges. I’m a better man.

For you. Let ”em go.“

Something in her face altered. The severity left her. She reached for him, embraced him, her hands rising up and pulling him against her as she lifted her mouth to his.

Christian made a sound of excitement and pleasure, answering. She came into his arms with a willingness that shocked him, opened her lips and kissed him frantically, as if she had never done it before and never would again, as if there were no one to see, no one to stare. He forgot the ball and the music, lost himself in the feel of her, her body against his with a new urgency, a promise that he found himself hard pressed to postpone.

“Maddygirl, Maddy…” He made himself set her away. He felt his own foolish smile, but he couldn’t help it; he was so glad; happier than he ever remembered being in his life.

She held her lower lip caught in her teeth, watching him intensely. She looked almost ill with the paleness and color naming in her cheeks.

“Soon,” he said, touching her hot face. “First… get rid of the king.” He ran his finger down her nose and kissed the tip of it. “Then only you… and me.”

She lowered her lashes. Without a word, she slipped her hand from his and turned away to descend the stairs.

His Majesty, damn him, lingered until six. By that time Christian saw it all through a dizzying haze of exhaustion. He was exhilarated almost to euphoria: he didn’t trust himself to do anything properly, but somehow, minute by minute, he got through.

Maddy amazed him. A hundred times he looked at her and thought she was beautiful. In her silver simplicity, in her sober grace, she anchored him. He was proud of her: she hadn’t curtsied before the king; she hadn’t given up her integrity— she didn’t fail her honesty or herself one inch. She even spent a half hour talking to Wellington, by God—no doubt canvassing him on the political disabilities of Nonconformists. The two of them were a pair, both so dignified and serious—she made Christian smile.

He could look about him and see any number of women he might have had for a wife, but none he could imagine at his side through this. The devil that she could not dance. It only made her more unique.

He kept watching for Manning and Stoneham, but never saw them. It didn’t matter; it was only that he would have enjoyed seeing their faces. By dawn, when the last of the carriages rolled away from the door in the frigid light, leaving a house that smelled of stale wine and perfume, he wanted only to lie down and let blessed unconsciousness take him.

He watched Calvin close the door and stoop to pick up a broken plume from the floor. Maddy had disappeared some time ago—for that he didn’t blame her. He could hardly see his own hands, he was so tired.