has a hunched back. And a wart.”
“He has all those things…and worse,” Eustacia assured her, with enough vinegar and salt to season further dark ideas in her cousin’s overactive imagination.
Suddenly Maddie understood. Striding around her sister’s chair, she cried, “Incapable! Of course, I see! You mean he cannot get his cock erect.” Remarkably pleased with herself for figuring it out, she retrieved the embroidery that fell at her feet and used it to cool her sister’s scorched cheeks. “I don’t know why no one ever speaks plainly about these matters. It is only rumpy pumpy and we all know it exists.”
“Ladies,” Eustacia sternly reminded her, “do not use words of that nature in public.”
“None of us would be here without it, would we?” Maddie replied. But her mind already moved on. So much for seduction. Still, there was always an alternative. She could try talking to the man. As her father often said, when there was a favor she wanted badly enough, she could talk the wax out of a man’s ears.
Later, when Gabriel Mallory arrived at the house, Madolyn asked if he might arrange an audience for her with his brother.
His slurred reply was thus: “My dear Mistress Madolyn, he’ll eat you alive. I could not, in all conscience, put you in his way, for he has a temper like the very devil when roused. If you catch him on a bad day he is likely to hunt you down, and your family, to see you hoisted on the gibbet and left for scavengers to pick out your eyes.”
Although he laughed, she was not entirely sure he teased. Luckily she kept a contingency plan already in place. Cousin Nathaniel must be saved and she would put his case before the Beast, one way or another.
It was not in her nature to give up on a good cause, and peril only made her goal that much more alluring.
Chapter 5
The day, which began so fine, now returned to its usual mood. A bone-cold wind blew through the arches of the gallery, and the first fat drops of rain spattered Griff’s boots. Looking up, he saw a lit candle fluttering wildly in the open window of his apartments, where the rain would eventually put it out. His new manservant, Wickes, was either airing out the room or too slow to shut the window.
Entering his chambers, he swept off his cloak, yelling for Wickes and kicking the door shut with his foot. There was no refreshment left out, nothing to wet his dry mouth, and he was in no state to survive a visit from his wife without wine to dull the senses. But there was no reply to his gruff summons.
At least the fire was lit.
He sincerely hoped Wickes wouldn’t turn unpredictable or brain-addled, like Matthew, the last good man he was forced to dismiss. Wickes was possibly the most unprepossessing fellow he’d ever hired, but he’d learned his lesson with handsome, spirited, talkative Matthew, who’d had the sheer audacity to fall in “love” and choose a woman over his duty to the earl. Wickes, with his lank, greasy hair, limp demeanor and perpetually moist nose, the contents of which were often smeared along his sleeve, was a welcome change. He, at least, wasn’t likely to run off with a giggling female.
Flinging his drenched cloak across the nearest chair, he cursed the English weather. He’d almost forgotten how quickly the sky could fall.
“Wickes!” he bellowed again.
Striding to the door, he swung it open and looked out into the hall. There was no guard outside his door, an odd fact he was in too bad a mood to consider long. Slamming the door shut, he turned, suddenly catching some slight movement in the shadows.
It was too late for wine. His wife was already there, sitting primly in the corner by the open window, her large, full-lipped mouth curled in disgust and disappointment. Perhaps she’d hoped he wouldn’t return to England, at least not in one piece. The fluttering candle drew sinister shadows across her face, accentuating the elegant slope of her broad brow, the slender line of her nose