Kresley Cole - [MacCarrick Brothers 03] Read online

  Moreover, what could possibly have given her the impression that he’d be honorable enough to offer for her once she’d made her play?

  And he wouldn’t mind knowing why his shaft had been hard, miserably tight and throbbing, from the time he’d left her. He took it in his fist and stroked, but stopped directly, drawing his hand away with a hissed oath. Why should he spend in his hand—instead of inside her once more?

  There was nothing to be done for it.

  Ethan would make her his mistress.

  With a resigned exhalation, he rose to wash and dress, determined to enter into some kind of arrangement with her this morning. As he set up to shave, he realized there were obstacles to this plan.

  The first? If she truly hadn’t been thinking to trap him, then she would be outraged by his accusation and disinclined to accept him.

  The second? He’d hurt her last night. Ethan recalled her responses, her exquisite body writhing beneath his, first in pleasure—but then in…agony.

  Now that the haze of the night had faded, he comprehended that the pain he’d given her would have been substantial. She had asked him to go slowly, yet he hadn’t taken the time to ready her. He’d been frenzied for release, stupid with lust. He’d taken her hard, rutting over her, when she’d been so delicate and fragile.

  Damn it, he hadn’t meant to hurt her, to make her…cry.

  Women’s tears did not affect him—this was simply a fact, a part of the coldheartedness others had seen in him since he was a teen. So why had seeing hers troubled him so much?

  There’d been a brief moment when he might’ve promised her anything to get her to stop.

  With practiced care, he grazed his razor past the jagged end of his scar. Another obstacle? Quin might actually care for the little witch. Or Ethan’s superior, Edward Weyland, might step in. The girl’s parents were probably shabby-genteel, land-rich and cash-

  poor but still influential, if they were friends of the Weylands. Though none of them could force Ethan to wed her, they could bloody well irritate him on this subject.

  Yet everyone had a price—she’d been hunting a rich husband for a reason—and Ethan had already ruined her. Perhaps there were debts weighing on her family, or maybe she had sisters who needed dowries. Ethan was prepared to pay a fortune to make her his mistress, to slake himself on her for a time, and get past her. All he wanted was to put her up in a house close by, somewhere convenient to his needs, and in return, he could make her family’s problems go away.

  He drew the razor across his face again, then stared into the mirror, regarding the greatest obstacle to his plan.

  If I see the girl again, there will be no mask. For the first time in years, he studied his reflection. His scar was deep, stretching taut over the length of his right cheekbone, then twisting down the front of his cheek. Stitches had left uniform depressions at the edges. Every inch of the mark whitened starkly with any expression.

  Brymer had done his job well.

  That night, once Van Rowen had realized his mistake, he’d hurried to the stable and had grown sick at what Brymer had already done to Ethan. Dazed, Van Rowen had offered restitution or an exact reprisal to himself.

  But Ethan had had bigger plans for him and his wife—and for Brymer. When freed, Ethan had just gritted his teeth against the pain and blindly lurched to his horse. Sheer will had gotten him off Van Rowen lands before he’d blacked out in a ditch for two days.

  Just months later, before Ethan had been able to finalize his revenge, Van Rowen had provoked a drunken duel. He’d turned without drawing, dying in what was known as a “gentleman’s suicide.”

  As for Sylvie, Ethan had rendered her penniless, leaving her to rot in a slum.

  For some reason, Ethan had spared Tully. But his confrontation had left the man so shaken, Tully had promptly disappeared from the area and likely still lived in fear.

  And Brymer? Ethan had gutted him—his scarred visage the last sight the bastard had seen on this earth….

  Before he’d been cut, Ethan would have been a fitting match for the girl. Now she would probably laugh at his appearance. Hadn’t she professed herself—what had she called it?—an aficionada of male beauty?

  Ethan tried to smile, but he found it uncomfortable, the sight repulsive, even to himself. Hating the Van Rowens anew, he threw down the straight razor, sending it clattering into the basin.

  Eight

  An hour later, after having run into Hugh—and engaging in yet another brotherly row—Ethan made his way to Quin’s. This morning, Ethan was more acutely aware of how people on the street stared at him. In return, he gave them his most menacing glower.

  When he reached Quin’s home, he found himself anxious. Hell, the girl would likely spurn him for his behavior last night anyway. He supposed it didn’t matter as long as he got this settled with her, for good or ill.

  Quin scowled when Ethan strode uninvited and unannounced into his study. “Excellent, another MacCarrick to deal with. Already this morning, I’ve had to haul your brother away from a fight with another man over Jane.”

  “I saw Hugh just a short while ago—he dinna tell me there was a fight.” So much for loving her secretly from afar, Hugh.

  “In reality, I wouldn’t so much call it a fight—that would imply two contenders,” Quin amended. “Needless to say, after witnessing Hugh in a rage like that, Jane’s reluctant to be near him, much less to go into hiding with him.”

  Going into hiding. And that had been the subject of the brothers’ dispute. Hugh had actually agreed to take Jane out of the city—just the two of them. Disaster awaits….

  “What are you doing here?” Quin asked. “I thought you were going after Grey.”

  “I combed his haunts last night. I doona believe he’s made London from the Continent yet.”

  “Then what do you want?”

  “To talk to the lass staying with your sisters.”

  “Madeleine? Is this about Grey? How could she know anything?”

  Madeleine. Ethan liked the name. But then he frowned as some memory tugged at his consciousness. “This is no’ about Grey. It’s…personal.”

  “What in the hell could you have to say to her? How do you even know her?”

  “I met her last night, at the masquerade.”

  “I wondered what had spooked her!” Quin rose and paced to the window. “I should have known only one man in London could terrorize the poor girl like that.”

  “Terrorize? Oh, aye, such a sweet, innocent girl. Did you know she’s been trying to trap you into marriage?”

  Quin turned back. “I might have suspected something when she told me she’d dreamed of being my wife since she was a girl and then asked me if I would ever consider marrying her. So devious—how does she sleep nights?”

  Dreamed of marrying Quin. Ethan ground his teeth, suddenly needing to pummel Quin’s unscarred face.

  “Here’s the thing, MacCarrick. I did consider it. She’s secretive, occasionally dishonest, and inordinately concerned with money, but she’s also kind and winsome and intelligent. Any man would be proud to call her his wife.”

  “Then why did you no’ keep her?”

  “You know why.” Quin’s role in the Network required him to seduce women, often traveling the world to do it. “Besides, she has a proposal in hand,” Quin said as he returned to his desk. “She’s going to accept him directly.”

  The hell she was. “Who?”

  “You don’t expect me to tell you that?”

  “You know I can have that information in a day.” Ethan’s job wasn’t only to deal the blows that no one else wanted to deal. He also brokered information.

  “Why are you so bloody interested in her? She’s a lady and a virgin, not your usual fare of jaded whore.”

  “Do you want me to hit you?”

  “Just stay the hell away from her, MacCarrick. I don’t know what dire thing happened at the masquerade—she refused to talk about it even to Claudia—but when I
saw her this morning, she looked as if she’d cried all night.”

  Cried all night? Had it been that bad? “Aye, Quin, something dire happened. She made a play to get me to marry her. One that failed.”

  “A play to wed you?” Quin gave a harsh laugh. “You’ve some nerve. The girl is utterly lovely. Yes, that’s clearly what she wanted, as evidenced by the fact that she fled London this morning.”

  Ethan froze. “What did you say?”

  “She’s gone, couldn’t get out of here fast enough.”

  Goddamn it! Ethan would have to kill Grey before he could go after her. “Tell me the chit’s name and how to find her.” He stalked around the desk, and Quin shot to his feet.

  “Throw her to the wolf? I don’t know why you’ve suddenly taken an interest in a well-bred girl, much less someone who’s a friend of my sister’s, but you won’t get the information from me.”

  “She does no’ get much say in the matter, no’ after I relieved her of her virtue last night.”

  Quin’s eyes widened, and he lunged at Ethan, throwing a punch. Ethan caught his fist, crushing it with his hand. “Doona fuck with me, Quin. My patience wears thin.”

  Quin gritted his teeth in pain. “Ethan, I know you’re not a man concerned with morals. But I didn’t think you’d despoil an innocent more than a decade younger than you are.” When Ethan released Quin, he sank to his chair, shaking feeling back into his hand. “My God, she’s ruined. I know you will never do the honorable thing, and her betrothed won’t want her now. I must go offer for her at once.”

  “Stay away from her,” Ethan grated. “She’s mine.” When Quin still looked to argue, Ethan made things simple. “Marry her, and I’ll kill you.”

  “You don’t even know who she is!” Quin snapped. “And you won’t marry her yourself.”

  “No, I will no’.”

  “Then why are you here? What had you planned to do with her?”

  “After I’ve taken care of Grey, I’ll bloody figure it out then. I’m going off to save your cousin’s life, so you ken why there’s a time element here.” Ethan couldn’t care less about Jane, other than the fact that his brother was in love with her to an unspeakable degree and would be devastated if she died. “The sooner I get my mind on killing, the better for everyone. So tell me the girl’s name. Then we’ll talk about her betrothed.”

  Quin got an analytical air about him, studying Ethan for a long moment. Then he flashed an expression of realization. “Little Madeleine got under your skin, didn’t she? She has that way about her. I knew to be on guard, but you…you were probably blindsided.” He nodded, giving Ethan a smug grin. “I’m going to give you her information because Grey must be stopped at all costs—and unfortunately, you are the best hope we have. But I’m also assisting you because in this kind of arena, you’re no match for her. She’ll have you not knowing up from down.”

  Ethan gave a humorless laugh. “That so?”

  Quin met his eyes. “Ethan, I could almost feel sorry for you.”

  “Just tell me her bloody name.”

  “Very well. Her name is Madeleine Van Rowen.”

  Nine

  Sharp pops of gunfire, screams, and the sound of breaking glass.

  Maddy sighed as she finally reached La Marais. Ah, home sweet home….

  Though the distance across the Channel from Dover to Calais was only twenty miles, the crossing usually proved grueling. Her return had been no exception. For the better part of a day, the small steamer—a floating tub awash in vomit and choking coal smoke—had labored against treacherous currents and boiling gales.

  Then, in the third-class train car from Calais to Paris, miners and garishly dressed confidence men had leered at her—and very nearly fleeced her. For some reason, every time she rode in a train she dropped off, asleep in seconds if she didn’t battle it.

  Even knowing her fellow travelers would steal from her, she’d begun her familiar cycle of blinking her lids, then jerking awake, as though one of those mesmerists from le théâtre whispered in her ear, luring her down. Luckily, she’d escaped unscathed, but as usual, she was in a torpor for hours after the train, groggy and lethargic.

  And after she’d completed those arduous travels, she was rewarded with…La Marais.

  Her cab rolled to a jerky stop in front of her ancient tenement building. Centuries ago, this area had been the playground of kings, and her building, with its slate roof and high Gothic style, had probably been a lord’s mansion in the sixteen hundreds. Yet it had since been sectioned off into cheap boarding rooms, and like the entire area, it had been ravaged by time and marked by decay.

  As soon as she stepped from the cab, Maddy heard the unmistakable, heavily accented English of her two nemeses, the sisters Odette and Berthé Crenate.

  “Miss High-and-Mighty Madeleine’s returned,” Odette called from their stoop across the street, fluffing her titian-dyed hair. “And in a cab, too. No omnibus for her.”

  When the driver lugged Maddy’s trunk from the rear boot, Berthé added, “Careful, driver, she’ll try to get you to take her trunk up—and she’s au sixième.”

  Maddy swung a glare at the sisters. They loved to ridicule her sixth-floor home. In Paris, the highest floors were reserved for the poorest—her building only went to six.

  “Au sixième?” the man asked with raised eyebrows and an outstretched palm. After Maddy paid him, he drove off without a backward glance.

  Fantastic. Somehow she had to get the trunk up one hundred and two stairs. In an unlit stairwell.

  “La gamine has her work cut out for her,” Odette added, snickering.

  Maddy stilled, balling her hands into fists. Gamine meant “imp” or “urchin,” but it also meant “street child.” She loathed it when they called her that.

  Just as she was about to wade into the fray, Maddy heard from behind her, “Berthé, Odette, fermez vos bouches.” Maddy turned to find her friend Corrine emerging from the dark building, descending the front steps. Corrine, a fellow expatriate Englishwoman, was like a mother to her. Years before, when Maddy had had nowhere else to go, Corrine had taken her in.

  Grabbing one end of the trunk, Corrine raised her eyebrows and waved Maddy on to pick up the other. With a sigh, Maddy did, and together they wound around the harmless drunks snoozing on the stoop. Inside, they entered the tunnel-like stairwell. Maddy had climbed the rickety steps to her room in the pitch blackness so often that she didn’t even have to use the rope that acted as a banister.

  Once they reached her landing and dropped the trunk, Blue-Eyed Beatrix swung open her apartment door directly across from Maddy’s. Whenever Bea heard the board at the stair-head groan, she hurried out, hoping either Maddy or Corrine was leaving the building and would fetch her goods from outside—any of the three Cs she lived on: coffee, croissants, and cigarettes—so she wouldn’t have to make the journey down the stairs more than twice a day.

  Bea was a prostitute, known in La Marais as Bea the Whore. Maddy found the name offensive; moreover, it really was useless in a definitive sense, considering that most of the females here—like Berthé and Odette—were prostitutes as well.

  Maddy had begun to call her Blue-Eyed Bea because of her pretty eyes, but this had proved eerily prophetic. Maurice, the man Bea had fallen in love with, had a nasty habit of giving her black eyes—or “blue eyes” as the people in La Marais called them. She had one right now.

  “How did you fare, Maddée?” Bea asked breathlessly. “Was the trip a success?”

  Maddy was bedraggled, exhausted—and back here. A good wager said no. Bea was a bit simple sometimes. “I failed. I told you both he was out of my league.” She removed the key ribbon she usually wore around her neck and unlocked the door to her colorful apartment. Scuffing directly to the bed, she fell forward on it. “It was a debacle, all the way around,” she muttered against her threadbare cover.

  Corrine sat beside her and patted her shoulder. “Let’s have some tea, then,” she said. “And yo
u can tell us all about it.”

  Talk about her disastrous trip? What could it hurt? Maddy couldn’t feel worse. “Very well. Faisons du thé. Lots of tea.”

  While the water boiled and her friends began unpacking all the dazzling gowns she’d soon have to sell, Maddy drew back her scarlet baize curtains to open the casement windows to her balcony.

  She was secretly proud of her home, pleased with what she’d been able to do to it with such limited resources. To conceal the crumbling plaster, she’d pasted a collage of bright playbills and opera posters on the wall. The entire room was awash with sumptuous fabrics, thanks to a friend at le théâtre who alerted Maddy whenever a company discarded props and materials. Maddy always got there before the ragpickers.

  On her diminuitive balcony, ivy flourished in tin cans and petunias still bloomed. Chat Noir, a fickle rooftop cat owned by no one, was patronizing her balcony to laze in the sun, and a late summer breeze blew, fluttering her wooden wind chimes. Maddy wasn’t au sixième solely because she was poor. The sour smell permeating the street didn’t reach this high, and from her vantage, she could see all the way up to Montmartre over a sea of roofs and a forest of clay chimneys.

  When she turned back to the room, the sun caught Bea’s face. “Maurice or a client?” Maddy asked, pointing at Bea’s puffy eye.

  Bea sighed. “Maurice. He gets so angry.” Her tone forlorn, she said, “If only I didn’t anger him so much.”

  Corrine and Maddy made disgusted noises, and Maddy bent down to toss pumps at her. There was no convincing Bea that she deserved more, no matter how hard they tried. Though she was lovely and kind, Bea wouldn’t believe that anything better than Maurice awaited her.

  La Marais had a way of doing that to its inhabitants. Their unofficial motto was de mal en pire— “from bad to worse.” Their reasoning was that one’s situation, no matter how unbearable, could always deteriorate. Especially if one dared aspire to more.

  “Best to accept one’s lot,” they said. To which Maddy inwardly answered, “Fortune favors the bold.”