Corey McFadden by Deception at Midnight Read Free Book Online Page B

assure you I can oblige. Yet, how will that force her to the altar? She could just cry rape and have me hanged. I can’t say that a brief foray into Maudie’s nether treasures is worth the stretching of my neck.”
    “Don’t be a fool. She wouldn’t dare. You know as well as I do that forcible rape or not she’d be ruined in the eyes of society. She could never hold up her head again, and even Maude could not live under total censure. No, she’d not risk her good name, or that of the family with a cry of rape.”
    “Nevertheless, Mama, she need not marry me. She could remain unmarried, I suppose, or find a gentleman in distress who in exchange for her dowry would be delighted to overlook her somewhat shopworn state.”
    “As to her remaining unmarried, I care not for that. Under her father’s will, if she does not marry, James remains her guardian until she is thirty-five. Anything can happen in the space of seventeen years. James is her heir, you know, if she dies without husband or issue.”
    “Mama, I am shocked!” John’s eyes sparkled with amusement, mere slits in his puffy face. “First you sit here and tell me to rape my cousin, now you seem bent on murder. My friends’ mothers excel only at needlework and gossip.”
    “I said nothing about murder, precious, merely that seventeen years is a long time. Still, I do not plan to wait out seventeen years wondering if at any moment a suitor will show up prepared to take damaged goods. No, I have in mind a marriage to you. After you have done your part, I shall tell her that should she refuse to wed you and remedy her sullied state...after all, it will be obvious to me that she seduced you...” —Claire  laughed maliciously—“that one or two of the neighbors will hear of the sorry affair. She will not be able to bear having anyone know. The threat of exposure will be all it will take. Why, with a little luck, perhaps you could even get her with child. I could check with the laundress to see when she last had her courses....”
    “Gad, Mama, enough! I am mortified to discuss such things with my own mother! Still, after rape and murder, what’s a little flux?”
    “Silly boy! Well, perhaps you are right. If we do too much planning, we will never get to it. And we must move right away. Maude will be eighteen in a few weeks and I will have no excuse next year not to give her a Season. Several of her mother’s former friends accosted me at Amelia’s parties this year about Maude’s future. I was able to put it off this year because she was still shy of eighteen but I doubt if those old biddies will tolerate our keeping Maude under wraps much longer. I cannot risk exposing her to all those lovesick puppies in London. Her actual dowry is sufficient to attract modest attention and I suppose she could be considered pretty enough, although she’ll never hold a candle to Amelia.”
    “Spoken like a true mother. Amelia is lovely, no doubt, but Maude could be ravishing if she cared to clean herself up and take some pride in her appearance. Her hair is beautiful and that figure... Well, as I have said, I’ll have no trouble with my part in this little scenario.”
    “Hmmph, she is no beauty, nonetheless.” Claire would never see it. “I suggest we act right away. James and I are invited out to dinner in the neighborhood tomorrow night. We can take Joe with us to drive the carriage. If I give Cook the day off to see her ailing sister, she’ll be out of the house, too...”
    “If she doesn’t have to be put to bed in a state of collapse. When did you ever give any of the staff a day off?”
    Claire ignored the interruption. “That leaves only the scullery maid and the housemaid. They both sleep up in the attic. Do you think you can be quiet about it?”
    “Rape? Mama, surely you jest! ‘Excuse me, Maudie, could you be silent a moment while I ruin you?’ Really, Mama, we’ll have to improve upon that bit of the plan.”
    What to do, what to do? Claire