Mary Nichols – A Lady of Consequence (страница 2)

‘You want me to go down and fetch you some more milk?’ she asked, her only thought that she would never get to sleep at this rate.

‘No, my dear Madeleine,’ he said, sitting on the bed beside her and taking her hand; it was red raw from the all the washing up she did, but he did not seem to notice. ‘I think I could go to sleep if I could cuddle up to you.’

‘Sir!’ She was astonished and confused and, in some way, strangely excited. Her heart was beating in her throat and that one strangled cry was all she could utter.

He smiled. ‘You are so warm and so beautiful. You have the body of a goddess, don’t you know, and I cannot sleep for thinking of it. I want to touch you, touch your warm, pink flesh, feel you, kiss you.’ He leaned forward and, taking her head in his hands, bent his mouth to hers. His lips were soft and moist and his breath smelt of the wine and brandy he had consumed. His hands began to roam over her body, pulling up her nightgown and forcing her legs apart.

She realised suddenly that what he was trying to do was wrong. Hadn’t the women at the orphanage told her all about men’s carnal desires, hadn’t she been warned time and time again, against allowing her maidenhood to be taken before she had a wedding ring on her finger? It was, she had been told, the worst of sins, and they cited examples of children whose mothers had never been married. Bastards they were called. It was what happened if you lay with a man before the wedding night.

Some of them had called her a bastard, saying her mother had never been to church with her father, whoever he was, but she had furiously told them of her hero father, who had died fighting for his country, simply to shut them up. Now, in a sudden flash of insight, the servants’ talk began to make sense. This was no fantasy, no wished-for miracle, but a nightmare.

‘No!’ she cried, trying to wriggle out of his grasp. ‘You mustn’t.’

‘Mustn’t?’ he queried, throwing himself on top of her so that she was effectively imprisoned under the weight of his body. ‘But, my dear Madeleine, it is not up to you to say what I mustn’t do. I do as I please. You are a servant and must do as you are told. You would not want to be turned off without a character, would you?’

‘You wouldn’t do that?’ she asked fearfully.

‘I could, but I won’t, if you are a good girl.’ He buried his head in the valley between her breasts.

‘I am a good girl,’ she said, struggling to free herself. ‘Please let me go.’

He looked up. ‘When I’m done with you.’ He was not smiling now, but grimly determined and in a way that stiffened her will to resist. Had he continued to ply her with compliments, to whisper endearing words and been gentle, who knows if she might have succumbed? Such was her longing to be loved by someone, to be seen as a human being with feelings, to be treated with tenderness, she might have given up struggling. But, unused to being denied anything, he was angry. And that made her angry too.

She used the last of her strength to push her knee sharply into his groin and heard him yelp with pain as he leapt off her. She rushed for the door and, pulling it open, fled along the corridor and down the stairs in her nightgown, making for the safety of the kitchen. But she never reached it. She ran slap into Lord Bulford, who had left his bed and was coming along the landing, tying the cord of his undress gown, to see what all the commotion was about.

‘Where’s the fire?’ he roared.

‘Fire? I don’t know anything about a fire,’ she said.

‘Then what’s to do?’

‘Your son is in my room,’ she said, without stopping to think of the consequences such an accusation might have. ‘He tried…he shouldn’t have…’

‘My son? Don’t be ridiculous, you impertinent baggage. What would my son want in your room?’

‘George, what’s going on?’ Lady Bulford, having hastily donned a peignoir, joined her husband.

‘This ill-bred chit has accused Henry of going to her room.’

Her ladyship looked Maddy up and down, her lip curled in distaste. ‘She is clearly demented. Been having a dream, I shouldn’t wonder. Or mistook one of the footmen. If she has been entertaining them in her room, there is only one thing for it…’

‘I have not been entertaining anyone in my room,’ she retorted, forgetting that it was simply not done to answer back. ‘Your son came uninvited. Do you think I don’t know the Honourable Henry when I see him? He came down to the kitchen for milk and I gave him some, then he waited for me to go to bed and came to my room…’

‘Good Lord! The effrontery of it,’ Lady Bulford said to her husband. ‘As if Henry would look twice at a misbegotten nobody like her.’ She turned back to Maddy. ‘What were you hoping to gain by this Banbury tale, money?’

‘No, my lady, all I want is to be allowed to go back to bed and not have people coming to my room uninvited.’ She spoke very clearly, enunciating her words as her mother had taught her. ‘Will you please tell your son his attentions are not welcome.’

‘By God! I’ve heard it all now,’ his lordship said, his face growing purple with indignation. ‘Go back to bed, is it? And who with, may I ask?’

‘No one. I am tired, I have been working all day…’

‘Oh, well, if it’s overwork you are complaining of, that is easily remedied,’ Lady Bulford said. ‘You may pack your bags and leave this instant. Your services are no longer required.’

‘But I’ve done nothing wrong.’

‘Making false accusations against my son is wrong and impudence to your betters is wrong and complaining about your work is wrong, when everyone knows I am the most benign of employers.’

‘And so is rushing about the house in your nightwear in the middle of the night,’ his lordship put in, eyeing her appreciatively from top to toe.

‘I only did it to escape.’

‘Then you may escape. Permanently. You may go back to bed, but I want you gone by the time I come down for my breakfast.’

‘But, my lord, where will I go?’

‘That is no concern of mine. Back where you came from, I suppose. And do not expect a character…’

‘My lord, I beg of you…’

‘Enough. I am not going to bandy words with you. Get out of my sight before I throw you out here and now.’

Maddy went back to her room, relieved to find her unwelcome visitor had gone, and flung herself on the bed, sobbing her heart out. Why didn’t they believe her? It was so unfair. Where could she go? How could she live? Who could she turn to? She couldn’t go back to the orphanage, she was too old for that now. Must it be the poorhouse?

If Henry Bulford had an ounce of shame, he would admit what he had done and exonerate her. But she knew he would not. He was one of the upper crust, people with more money than they could spend in a lifetime and they thought that meant they could do as they liked, just as the young dandy who had run down her mother thought he could do as he liked. People like her were the lowest of the low and didn’t matter.

But gradually her misery turned to anger and anger made her strong. She would not be cowed. She was as good as they were, better than they were, and one day she would prove she did matter. One day she would beat them. One day they would have to acknowledge her as their equal; if she trampled on a few aristocratic toes to get there, so be it. And if one of those aristocratic toes turned out to belong to the Honourable Henry Bulford, so much the better. She did not know how she would do it, nor how long it would take, but nothing and no one would stand in her way. She would make her dreams come true; she would be a lady.

Chapter One

1827

T he curtain came down on the last act to thunderous applause. The cast took several curtain calls, but everyone knew it was really Madeleine Charron the audience wanted. She had the theatre world at her feet; all the young men of the ton and several who were not so young were raving about her, including Duncan Stanmore, Marquis of Risley.

‘I don’t know which I admire more, her looks or her acting ability,’ he said to his friend, Benedict Willoughby, as he rose with everyone else to clap and call bravo. ‘Both are bang-up prime.’

‘If you’ve got your sights set on her, you will come home by weeping cross, don’t you know?’ Benedict said. ‘Unlike most of her kind, she is very particular.’

‘You only say that because she refused to go out to supper with you last week.’

‘Not at all,’ Benedict said huffily, as they made their way towards the exit. ‘I’m not the only disappointed one; she’s turned everyone down, though I did hear she went for a carriage ride in the park with Sir Percival Ponsonby last week, so she can’t be that fastidious.’

‘Sir Percy is a benign old gentleman who wouldn’t hurt a fly.’

‘I didn’t say he would, but you must admit he’s an old fogey. He must be sixty if he’s a day and those ridiculous clothes!’

‘He’s well-breeched and he knows how to treat a girl. And he has always had a liking for actresses, you know that. They appreciate his gallantry and they feel safe with him. It won’t last. Percy is a confirmed bachelor.’

‘Good God! You aren’t thinking of betting on the marriage stakes yourself, are you?’