The apartment was a great deal better than that, she discovered when she followed Polly down the back staircase, careful to avoid the captain’s… no, Luca’s fiancée in case she lingered. She might very well be counting the dinnerware she was going to end up with or something equally intrusive. If she was, she was going to be very disappointed with the silver.
The Croziers had used two adjoining rooms, the front room containing a table and chairs and a settee that should surely belong in one of the upper rooms. Doubtless the Croziers had brought it down for their own use, as well as the large bed with the carved, rococo headboard with cavorting angels and nymphs doing things that were far from celestial. It wasn’t to her taste, and the thought of what the dour Mrs. Crozier and her unnerving husband did beneath that headboard gave her pause, when Polly seemed to read her mind.
“That bed was in storage—the one the Croziers used was past saving. The captain said to bring anything down you might need, and I thought you might like this one.” She cocked her head, looking at the carvings. “Maybe not such a good idea after all.”
“It has a certain charm,” Maddy said mendaciously, wondering if she could find a blanket to throw over it while she slept. If she slept.
At least the two rooms were spotless, even the small, high windows that looked out into the street, and she was certain she knew she could thank Polly for that. She hated to think what kind of shape the rooms had been in.
“I’ll be making us all some tea and scones,” Polly said. “And getting an early start on supper. While the captain’s gone we’ll have simple food, Miss Haviland said, but I imagine she’ll send Monsieur Henri over when the captain returns and she starts haunting the place. Good country cooking is a bit too rough for her refined palate.”
Maddy’d be gone by then—the longer she stayed the deeper she sank. She’d always been able to trust her instincts, and the longer she spent around Luca the more certain she was that her father had been wrong. Luca might have been a pirate and pirates were, by definition, thieves, but he would never sneak around, embezzle, murder. She knew he was innocent in her father’s death, her foolish heart told her so, and she could force her sisters to take her word for it.
She should leave. She just wasn’t sure what she should do next. There was always Lord Eversham. His love letters had grown more effusive, and it had become clear that she could be Lady Eversham the moment she snapped her fingers.
But would Eversham be enough? Was it simply a cruel trick of fate that she should suddenly start feeling the things she should have felt for Tarkington, the man she had supposedly loved? He’d touched her bare breasts and she’d felt nothing. He’d put his… thing inside her and it had been painful and messy.
So why was she longing for Luca? Had giving herself to Tarkington turned her into a harlot?
No, not if she looked at handsome, earnest Matthew Fulton and felt nothing at all. The idea of marriage and conjugal relations with him was as unpleasant as the thought of sharing Eversham’s bed. At least in Eversham’s case he wouldn’t live as long—the man was sixty if he was a day.
Perhaps she was now ready to face it. Eversham. Was it an even trade? Because the wretched, stupid, heartbreaking truth was that she wanted the captain, her captain, Luca, to be innocent. Well, he could hardly be innocent, she thought fairly, but at least not guilty in her father’s so-called crimes.
She couldn’t decide what to wish for. In the end it didn’t matter—it was clear fate or God or whoever wasn’t paying the slightest bit of attention to her interests. It would play out as it was meant to, and all she could do was act her part.
Miss Haviland’s housekeeper had apparently been over the house while Maddy lay sleeping and come up with a surprisingly short list of chores, assigning tasks to the makeshift staff now in residence. Oddly enough, none of those tasks were allotted to her, a fact she found disturbing. Most likely she was out the door the moment the captain returned, and she’d best redouble her efforts before she was on the streets. She needed to wipe out any last question in her mind before she could leave here.
She needed proof.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON the same day, and Maddy was in the midst of arguing with Polly about whether she could help with the preparation for dinner, when one of the new footmen appeared in the kitchens. “You have a caller, Miss Greaves.”
For a moment she didn’t react, both at the unfamiliar name and that she would be addressed with a title. Momentary panic swamped her, before she realized it simply had to be Matthew Fulton, trying once more to pry her away. For a man who didn’t care for her he seemed most eager to make her leave. Of course, she’d gotten in under his aegis, and there were bound to be repercussions if the truth came out. Which it never would. She sighed. “I’ll be there in a moment. Did you offer the gentleman tea, Mr.…” She didn’t even know his last name, she realized in sudden embarrassment.
“Just Curtis, Miss Greaves. I did, but the gentleman said he preferred brandy, so I served him some of the captain’s best, seeing as he’s already been a guest in this house.”
How odd of Matthew to drink in the middle of the day. He’d seemed like such a straight-laced sort of fellow, Maddy thought, moving through the hallways. The door to the salon was closed, but there was no other room Curtis would have taken him.
She pushed open the door without knocking. “What in God’s name are you doing here, Matthew…?” The words trailed off into horrified silence as she realized the man in the room was a complete stranger. The midday light illuminated him perfectly as he sat in one of the comfortable, slightly shabby chairs that the captain favored and Miss Haviland would doubtless get rid of, and he made no effort to rise upon her entrance. She was about to give him an affronted look when she remembered she was a maid, not a lady, and gentlemen certainly didn’t rise when maids entered the room, they ignored them.
She pulled herself together with an effort. “Begging your pardon, sir,” she said, not having to make any effort to appear flustered. “I thought you were someone else.”
“Mr. Fulton, I presume? I don’t think Captain Morgan realizes you’re on first name terms with him.”
A very slight shiver ran down Maddy’s spine. Just what she needed—an observant stranger to cause her trouble. “Oh, no, sir, I’m not,” she said blithely, not giving an inch. “I was thinking it might be a lad I’ve been seeing recently.”
“And Curtis would show him in the front door and offer him brandy?”
She gave him a cheeky smile. “Curtis is very fond of me.” It was a calculated risk, but she was tired of scrambling. Might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb.
“I imagine he is, and rightly so.” He smiled at her, a singularly charming smile. He was a very handsome man, with longish, coal black hair that fell in a single curl in the midst of his high forehead. He had a close-trimmed beard and mustache, pale skin suggesting a recent illness, a supposition borne out by the cane by his outstretched leg. Another handsome man who left her cold. Perhaps she wasn’t a harlot after all. Or merely a harlot for Luca. For some reason that was even more disturbing.
“Please sit down, Miss Greaves,” he continued, surveying her. “It hurts my neck to look up at you.”
She didn’t move. She didn’t trust charming men—in truth, she didn’t trust men at all. Some instinct told her to leave, but curiosity, always her besetting sin, overruled her seldom-utilized sense of caution. “How may I help you, sir?”
“Sit.”