Heiress Without a Cause Read online

  Aunt Augusta would be outraged to see her before such an audience — but the bigger outrage was that this was her last performance. She knew she should make her exit, but she lingered in adoration of the crowd. Their roars, the uncouth stamping of feet, even the smell of hundreds of warm bodies undisguised by expensive perfumes — it was all so intoxicating. She finally knew why so many lower class girls gave in to the lure of the stage.

  She waved a final time. The stage crew shot her dark glances from the wings; they needed to reset the props for the pantomime following the play. She sauntered offstage, never breaking character — until she found her maid waiting for her behind the curtain.

  “Josephine!” Madeleine said as she embraced the woman and twirled her around in a circle. “Have you ever heard such an audience?”

  Josephine sniffed and patted Madeleine on the head. She was in her fifties, the same age as Aunt Augusta, but her dark hair was almost entirely grey and her once-slim figure was now round — a travesty she blamed on the Stauntons’ English cook. She and her husband Pierre had spirited Madeleine out of France at the age of nine, delivering her to Augusta while her parents went to Paris to die. While Josephine did not approve of her charge’s first act of rebellion in over twenty years, she did not stop her. “If these two weeks have ended your passion for theatricals, I think it a very good thing.”

  Madeleine pulled her out of the way as a man wheeled out a Gypsy cart for the next set. “I promised you only two weeks, and now I will never speak of theatricals again. I will go back to being a dull spinster, and you can burn these breeches as you would like to.”

  She said it lightly, but from the sharp look Josephine gave her, Madeleine suspected she did not sound cheerful enough. Two weeks of freedom had whetted her appetite, not sated it.

  And now that her life included chaperoning other girls as they made brilliant matches and left her sitting on the shelf, she would like it even less.

  But an agreement was an agreement. With the season starting in earnest, it would be harder to maintain the illusion of illness that gave her these precious two weeks. Her career had to end now, whether she was ready to give it up or not.

  She walked behind the stage, past the old painted scenes of forests and castles, to the small, closet-sized room where she stored her clothes. “Stay here, mademoiselle,” Josephine said. “I will ask the door guard to find a cab.”

  Josephine’s husband was now one of the Stauntons’ coachmen and usually brought them to the theatre. But he was driving Aunt Augusta tonight, leaving Josephine and Madeleine to navigate alone. It felt foolhardy, but it had to be safer than taking another driver into their confidences.

  As she waited, she ran a hand over the slightly tarnished mirror leaning drunkenly against the bare wooden wall. With her wig and men’s clothes, she barely recognized herself — or perhaps it was the light of triumph in her eyes that she didn’t recognize.

  It didn’t matter, though. While she was hard to recognize and therefore unlikely to be caught, particularly in Seven Dials, Aunt Augusta or Alex would someday catch her if she kept sneaking out. She turned away from the mirror. She was ready to go home, if only so she could mourn privately. But when Josephine returned, Madame Legrand swept into the room behind her.

  “Madame Guerrier, darling, you were marvelous!” Madame exclaimed in the contrived French accent that always made Josephine roll her eyes. No one had ever seen Monsieur Legrand, and Madame was definitely not French, but Madeleine admired the woman for starting a theatre alone. Madame opened her arms wide as though to capture Madeleine — and the patrons she brought to the theatre — within her embrace. “All of London is transported!”

  Madeleine extended her hand to Madame Legrand. “Many thanks, Madame. What play shall you stage next?”

  Madame looked outside the closet, then shut the door and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Lady Madeleine, please. I know you could only risk staging this play for two weeks. But is there anything I can offer to keep you? My theatre is full for every performance, and with such little time to spread word of your talent. Tonight there was even a party of gentlemen in the audience — think of how well we would do if the gentry came to see you!”

  After making their agreement, Madame never used Madeleine’s real name — but it was the news she imparted, not the usage of her name, that made Madeleine’s stomach rebel. “Who were they?”

  “They did not introduce themselves, but I could never forget the red-haired gent. He was a fixture in Covent Garden when I was a dancer there. He’s the one what just inherited the dukedom.”

  “Ferguson? Or rather, Rothwell?” Madeleine asked, closing her eyes against the blow.

  “Aye, Rothwell,” Madame exclaimed, slipping into the Yorkshire accent she worked so hard to hide. “He was enthralled. As soon as he saw you enter, he only had eyes for you.”

  “My God,” Madeleine whispered. “I am ruined.”

  “Ruined? No, this is excellent news. We will make a fortune!”

  Madeleine had trusted Madame Legrand for five years. Despite her misgivings, Augusta let Madeleine stage holiday theatricals at Whitworth, the Stauntons’ country estate in Lancashire. Madame was still a dancer when Madeleine hired her to produce the first performance, since it was customary to let professionals run the show while the amateur houseguests giggled their way through their assigned parts.

  The last Yuletide theatrical had been particularly unbearable. Augusta’s friends were too well starched to participate, and Alex and Sebastian would only play along for so long before escaping to the billiards room. Madeleine wanted to act on a real stage, with real actors and a real audience. Madame had somehow saved enough to open her own theatre the previous year, and she was the only one Madeleine could trust with such a mad request.

  Madeleine tried to reason with her. “We cannot continue. If I am caught...”

  “But your talent! You cannot walk away — I have never seen a debut like this. Besides, I’ve seen you many times as Lady Madeleine. I vow no one would recognize you as Hamlet.”

  Madeleine could hear the roar of the crowd in her ears again, the sound filling her to the brim. She did have talent, she knew she did — but she also had a reputation, and expectations, and responsibilities.

  She had stolen two weeks from her real life. But real life always came back.

  “I can’t,” she said, her voice matching her misery.

  Madame pursed her lips. In the awkward silence, Madeleine heard the distant laughter of the audience watching the pantomime. She wanted to go home, crawl into bed, and stay there the rest of her life, reliving the memories of tonight and letting her possible ruin wash over her.

  The chance that Ferguson — she had dreamed of him with that name the night before, even if she would die before admitting it — recognized her under her wig and breeches was enough to make her feel ill. How could he not recognize her, despite her disguise?

  Madame interrupted her thoughts. In a brisk voice, she said, “I am truly sorry, but I have to think of my theatre. You simply must extend your performance.”

  “It is impossible,” Madeleine said, firmer now, like Madame was a chambermaid banging the tinderbox too early in the morning. “I am not some desperate country girl. Why would I continue now that I have almost been caught?”

  “You may not be starving, but I think you would do anything for your reputation. The gossip column of the Gazette would pay richly for my story.”

  Madeleine’s backbone crumbled. “Why would you do that to me?”

  “I really do not want to force you, my lady,” she said, with such sympathy that Madeleine almost believed her.

  Then her face hardened. Madeleine saw the steel that enabled her to rise from penniless opera dancer to successful theatre owner. “You saw the clientele before your debut. Your talent could accomplish in a month what it would take me years to build. We can make a new agreement — just another month, I promise. If you play four nights a week, I will let
you go at the end of it and never breathe a word of your identity to anyone.”

  “How can I know you won’t betray me again?”

  “My word is good, Lady Madeleine,” Madame said, sounding almost affronted. “I won’t keep you forever, and I know it is a risk for you. But a sold-out month would be enough for me to lease a bigger venue next season.”

  Madeleine couldn’t breathe. It might have been the bindings around her breasts that still kept her compressed. More likely, it was the thought of Ferguson cutting her in front of the entire ton that made her pulse flutter and her vision swim.

  “I could buy you a new theatre. Salford will write you a cheque if it saves me from ruin.” She didn’t want to tell Alex about her acting, but he would surely help her to end it.

  Madame Legrand shook her head. “It is not just the funds. You saw the audiences this past week. The theatre’s reputation rises daily. What good would a new building do if I can’t keep the audience after you leave? Staging your play for another month lets me improve the next offering. If you quit now, we are not ready to replace you and the audience will trickle away.”

  Her words struck home, right in the center of the place that secretly wanted to continue. Madeleine looked at Josephine, but the maid looked away. Josephine loved her, but she was still a servant. Only Madeleine could decide. She rubbed her temples, thought through her choices — and realized she had already made her choice.

  “Very well,” she said. “But if Ferguson recognized me, your blackmail won’t bring me back. I will be ruined before the night is out.”

  Madame smiled. “He will not recognize you. When you take off those breeches and become your prim society miss, he will never guess you could be such a delight onstage. And if he does recognize you, use your skills to convince him that he is mistaken.”

  Madeleine said nothing, stepping past Madame Legrand and making her way to the stage exit. She would think about her predicament later. At present, it was more important to sneak back to Salford House before anyone noticed her absence.

  If she was lucky, she wouldn’t see Ferguson again for several days — long enough for him to forget Madame Guerrier.

  But if luck was on her side, it had a diabolical sense of humor. She stepped out of the theatre, sought out the waiting cab — and stumbled straight into Ferguson’s arms.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  He had looked notorious the night before, striding through the ballroom with his devil-may-care smile.

  Tonight, dressed in stark black and holding her against him, he looked powerful and notorious. His icy blue eyes saw straight through her makeup and his sculpted jaw clenched as he looked her over.

  But where a gentleman would have apologized profusely to a lady of her birth and set her on her feet, he kept his grip on her arms. “Madame Guerrier, it was an honor to see you perform.”

  His silky voice stole her breath away. He hadn’t recognized her — unless he was toying with her. “Merci, your grace,” she said, keeping her voice low and heightening the French accent she used at the theatre.

  He arched a single brow. “I did not know we were acquainted. Surely I would remember being introduced to one such as you.”

  It was a fatal slip. If she was the actress she claimed to be, she would never have seen him before. “Of course not, your grace. Madame Legrand said a red-haired duke was in attendance. I merely guessed you to be the duke.”

  He still looked at her with those disturbingly perceptive eyes. “I do hope I haven’t inconvenienced you, but I must ask you a question of a rather... delicate nature. Shall I accompany you to your carriage?”

  This was the second time in twenty-four hours that he wanted to ask her a question, but she had no illusions this time. He knew who she was. She was certain he knew — the way he looked at her, as though assessing a target; how his hands gripped her, as though she might run. She would be ruined, and by a man whose own reputation was hardly spotless. The only question was whether he would ruin her with a clean cut direct — or demand something to buy his silence. The shiver that went through her on that thought didn’t feel much like fear, but she refused to consider what it might be instead.

  She dug deep, ready to brazen it out. “You may not escort me to my carriage. My mother does not permit me to associate with strange men.” She nodded in the direction of Josephine, who closed her mouth and attempted to look dignified.

  “Your mother?” Ferguson asked. He was understandably skeptical, since Josephine was nearly six inches shorter than Madeleine and dressed in plain, serviceable grey. “And what of Monsieur Guerrier?”

  “Sadly, he left me alone in the world,” she said, sniffing as though the memory of her nonexistent husband still caused her pain.

  “A pity, I am sure,” he said, a predatory smile playing on his lips.

  She swatted his arm and tried again to pull away. “It was a tragedy. Now if you will excuse me, I really must be home before the hour grows any later.”

  He smoothly turned her, taking her arm as though they were a couple on promenade. She could feel the taut muscles trapping her against him — and was reminded that this was not a weak lordling, but a man used to having his way. “My dear Madame Guerrier... what is your Christian name?”

  The question caught her off guard. “Marguerite,” she said, maintaining her fake identity despite the slamming of her heart against her ribs.

  “Marguerite,” he said, the word rolling over his tongue as though he could seduce her just with the sound of it. “Marguerite, I can hardly hope you will give me the answer I want to hear — but tell me, have you taken a protector?”

  She stopped in her tracks. Of all the questions she thought he might ask her — why she was in disguise, how she could act in such a place, what she would do to stop him from ruining her — she didn’t expect this. “How can you ask such a thing?”

  “This is surely not the first time a man has asked you?”

  She waved a hand in the air, pretending she had been offered for many times before. “The ton would expect you to do better than an unknown actress from Seven Dials.”

  He laughed. “All mistresses start somewhere, darling. But I must confess I have little use for the ton, nor it for me.”

  He said it lightly, but Madeleine caught a glimpse of the lost boy beneath his polished masculinity. He almost sounded lonely.

  Rather how she often felt herself.

  So even though she should have run shrieking from him, that flash of sympathy made her soften the blow. “It is too soon to speak of such things, your grace.”

  “I have not taken a mistress in years, nor have I ever offered for one without having a single conversation. But you are too lovely and too talented to miss. It is not just likely that you will become someone’s mistress — it is inevitable.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you think so little of my virtue, then I must bid you good evening.”

  “Your virtue is something you wish to protect?”

  “It is,” Madeleine said. If there was a tremor in her voice, it was from indignation at the way his hand forced her chin up to look into his face, not from the pleasure she got from his touch.

  He held her there for an endless minute. She couldn’t see him properly in the dark, but felt everything in his gaze — attraction, annoyance, a devilish sense of humor, an autocratic need to be obeyed. But it was the heat lurking underneath that made her nervous — and set off a matching heat as she blushed under his assessing eyes.

  Finally, he released her. She might have fallen from relief if her knees weren’t locked in place. “Madame Guerrier, you have my apologies. I should not have assumed you were like every other actress in London. Your virtue is as superlative as your talent.”

  She inclined her head, accepting his apology.

  Then he stepped closer. “But in case you do not realize what you are denying...”

  He pulled her into his arms, brushing a light kiss across her lips. The feel of his hands wa
s like the satin and steel of a corset as they wrapped around her, sensuous and unforgiving. The surprising heat of his mouth on hers made her gasp. Her shoes, higher than she normally wore, unbalanced her, and she leaned into him without thinking. As his kiss grew more insistent, she felt herself melting. This was the kind of kiss she imagined, the kind that made every other man fade into nothingness. Her dream the night before had not prepared her for the reality of Ferguson’s touch, hot and hungry for her. She might have even kissed him back...

  But then Josephine shrieked in outrage and clouted him on the back with her valise. The force of the blow pushed him against her for one moment before he caught himself and set her back on her feet with a laugh.

  “Very well, madame, I shall not attempt to seduce your daughter... tonight,” he said, winking at Madeleine.

  He let her pull away from him, although she still felt warm and trembly from the need that overrode her caution. “Perhaps I shall seek you out and ask for your company again,” he said. Then he picked up her hand and brought it to his lips. “Or perhaps we will find a more pleasurable method of persuasion.”

  She shivered under his touch as the implication of his words washed through her. “I really mustn’t.”

  He handed her up into the carriage. “Then I live in hope that you will change your mind.”

  It was a pretty phrase, but his eyes still looked hot and demanding as he stepped away from the coach. He helped Josephine into the coach as well, even though she glared at him like a revolutionary sizing up an aristocrat’s neck for the guillotine. Then he tipped his hat to Madeleine. “Until your next performance, Madame Guerrier.”

  He shut the door and Madeleine collapsed into the seat. She would be ruined. Whether caught by her family, recognized on the stage, or found out by the duke of Rothwell, she couldn’t keep the sterling reputation her years as a spinster had gained her.

  Ferguson’s gaze, the feel of his lips, the heat of his arms around her — she still felt it all, like a brand on her skin. She shifted in her seat as that tiny kernel of desire within her eased some of her fear. If her ruin was inevitable, she suspected that ruin at Ferguson’s hands would be the most pleasurable alternative.