Shayla Black (6 page)

Upon his agreement, she left.

Exhaustion claimed her body; despair seized her heart. As Maddie found her horse outside, she held back her tears. She must find a way to fend off Brock’s proposal. Neither Fleet nor marriage were viable options. But dread and anxiety taunted her with the knowledge that her chances of evading Brock Taylor and his unthinkable ultimatum were dwindling by the hour.

CHAPTER THREE

When Maddie arrived home, she found a pleasant surprise from an unpleasant source.

Spread out across her bed was a gown, a beautiful confection of pale, creamy green. Unlike anything she had ever possessed, it was made of a thick moiré, dazzling her with its subtle hues and shimmers as the light caressed the fabric. Tiny ivory flowers had been embroidered with painstaking care on the bodice, as well as the epaulettes layered over the large puffed sleeves.

Maddie lifted the garment against her in delight and fingered the edge of the off-the-shoulder bodice, touched the embroidered belt. When had she last held something so fine? Superior craftsmanship showed in every stitch. An eye for cuts and colors was evident in the design. A lilt of excitement lifted her grim mood.

The dress made her giddy. How had it come to be on her bed? As soon as the thought drifted through Maddie’s mind, she realized Brock Taylor must have sent it.

She dropped it as if she’d been burned.

Then she noticed he’d sent over a boned chemise made with a soft, thin silk, trimmed in expensive Swiss lace. A ribbon tied beneath her bosom. The brief cut of the garments and sheer appearance made her gasp. What the devil was he up to?

On her coverlet, she glimpsed an ivory-colored card bearing the name of an expensive London
modiste
. She lifted the heavy vellum between her fingers. Dread beating like a drum in her stomach, she turned the card over.

Se souvenir de moi souvent.

“
Remember me often,” she translated with a whisper.

Brock had signed it, adding how beautiful she would look at the theater on his arm, in this dress. Frowning, she wondered when he had learned French.

Humiliation washed over her in a sick, cold wave. An unmarried woman of little means accepting such garments from a single man made her feel every bit like his mistress.

Damning him, Maddie tossed away the card. Then she espied a pair of drop earrings on her secretary in stunning, flawless pearls. A matching necklace sat nearby. With a gasp, she fingered the smooth surface of the pale orbs. When had she last seen anything so pretty—or high-priced?

The cad had known she had nothing suitable to wear to the theater and had provided it. That he had remembered her preferences and given her a spectacular dress in one of her favorite colors sent a reluctant flutter of excitement through her.

Brock refused to forgive her debts, but bought her costly clothing and matching jewelry? Did he plot something more than buying a well-born wife to improve his social status? Discerning that would take time.

Maddie wanted to throw this dress back in his face, tell him she refused to be either his charity case or accept lavish gifts, as a woman who gave her body to a protector for money would do.

“
My lady?” Matheson called on the other side of her door with a knock.

Before she could reply, Aimee burst inside her room.

“
Mama,” the girl called, skipping around her in a circle. “Mr. Taylor is here. Where are you going?”

He had arrived already?

Maddie knelt to Aimee and held her warm little hand. “The theater, dear. I promise not be gone long.”

Dashing for her wardrobe, Maddie opened the doors, finding only serviceable garments. Brown and gray jumped out at her, worn fabrics with patches over patches. Even the respectable day dresses she had preserved and updated as possible were hopelessly casual for a night out.

Maddie hadn’t cared much about her wardrobe since Colin’s death. Most of the
ton
thought her still in mourning, so the lack of funds to dress had hardly been an issue.

Brock had changed all that.

If Maddie could wear one of her own dresses without embarrassing herself she would. But a glance told her that was impossible.

Her gaze fell upon the dress Brock had given her. With a sigh, she peeked into the hall and shouted for Vema, who had been kind enough to act as her lady’s maid since finances had forced Maddie to let her own go.

Moments later, Vema entered the room with a cryptic smile. “So he is here, and you wish to look well?”

Maddie harrumphed. “Presentable, and nothing more. Please help me into this dress so I can end this farce.”

“
As you wish.”

Maddie ignored the trickle of laughter she heard in Vema’s quiet words.

Some minutes later, the Indian woman closed the last fastening. Maddie turned to stare at herself in the mirror, stunned by her own reflection. The muted green brought out the peaches in her complexion, giving her a flawless look that flat brown never did. And her eyes, always gray, took on the sparkle of the dress, appearing a unique shade somewhere between the two colors. As she stood mutely, Vema braided her hair before twisting the strands upon Maddie’s head. Auburn tendrils curled about Maddie’s neck. Golden light from the candlewicks made her hair shine a deep red.

As Maddie attached the ear drops, Vema fastened the pearls about her throat, the orbs luminescent against her skin.

“
Mama, you look like a princess!” Aimee exclaimed.

Brushing a quick kiss across her daughter’s cheek, Maddie pondered the girl’s observation. She felt like a princess, like Cinderella on her way to a magical ball where anything was possible. It was untrue, and she must remember that Brock Taylor, no matter how intriguing, was no charming prince.

#

Brock stood in the same threadbare drawing room at Ashdown Manor that he and Maddie had occupied only the day before. Cursing the empty doorway, he turned his top hat over in his hands.

Twenty minutes ago the butler had gone to fetch Maddie, and still no sign of her. Damn, what if she refused to accompany him? His pride wanted her to see exactly the life she’d missed out on by marrying Wolcott—the life she could still have, if only she would consent to wed him. Besides, for trifling with his affections and playing him for a fool years ago, she owed him.

He intended to make certain she repaid him in full with her body and pleasure every night.

The sound of soft footfall brought his gaze back to the door. He nearly swallowed his tongue.

Maddie stood mutely in the portal, chin raised, looking every inch a delectable challenge in the pale green finery and pearls he’d sent. With her hair piled atop her head and curls dangling at her temples, her flawless face stood out like some painter’s masterpiece, almost too beautiful to be believed. Brock craved her naked, skin to skin, the force of his desire as subtle as an explosion.

“
You look lovely, Maddie. Do you like the dress?”

“
Mr. Taylor—”

“
Brock,” he corrected with a raised brow. “We know one another well enough to warrant the use of first names.”

Maddie stiffened. “This outing is ridiculous. There is no purpose—”

“
We are courting. Or do you have an answer to my proposal?”

“
You gave me a week. I intend to consider this matter thoroughly first.”

Or search futilely for a way out of his grasp. “Your choices are only two. You won’t find me nearly as...confining as your other option, I assure you.”

“
Your assurances are of little comfort.” Her stormy eyes flashed. “If I alone would suffer in refusing you, be assured I would do so this instant.”

Though Brock knew that, her words stabbed like a knife to the chest. Five years ago, she had thought him beneath her. Nothing had changed.

“
I am not a man who likes to be gainsaid.”

Fear and resistance flickered in her eyes. Yes, she knew he deserved his ruthless reputation. Whose story had she heard? That of the banker who had tried to steal from him and found himself trapped within Newgate’s walls for the effort? Or mayhap she had heard of the factory manager who had substituted substandard materials and kept the profit for himself, earning him a lifelong trip to Australia. No matter, he thought, smiling. She knew enough.

“
Is refusing me in your best interest? In Aimee’s?”

Maddie tensed, looking ready to scratch his eyes out. For a moment, he envied Aimee that kind of maternal love. His own mother had died bringing him into the world.

“
You know nothing of my daughter’s best interest!”

In truth, once they were wed, he would provide for Aimee. He had no intention of neglecting the child or sending her off to an austere boarding school. It was hardly Aimee’s fault that he hated her father.

Brock stepped closer. Anxiety crossed Maddie’s face as he stopped within inches of her. Good. Disquieting her, keeping her off balance—all would play in his favor.

“
That is one of your qualities I always admired, Maddie, that passion you were never afraid to show.”

The passion he suspected had only grown. Before, she had possessed a girl’s ardor. Now, she surely had a woman’s needs. Though Sedgewick had surely shared Maddie’s bed before his death, Brock planned to kindle her desire into an inferno. He would bury himself so hot and so deep within her, fuck her both day and night. Soon, she would forget Sedgewick’s touch.

“
I have no need for the kind of fleshy passion you hint at so improperly.”

He watched Maddie swallow nervously with satisfaction. Then he inhaled. The scents of jasmine and vanilla lingered on her skin, rousing his slumbering senses. That perfume took him back five years, when he’d undressed her, held her, worked into her virginal body with more enthusiasm than finesse, his heart bursting with fierce need and hope for the future.

Desire seized him. He retreated a fraction to draw in a steadying breath.

“
Then I shall have to create such a need. Very soon.” He leaned forward to whisper in her ear, “You have the most delicious scent. I could breathe you in all night.”

“
You will not, Mr. Taylor, ever.”

She turned her back to him, presenting him with a small waist, slim shoulders, and a graceful neck made more tantalizing by honey-cream skin. Gritting his teeth against her rebuff, Brock cursed his urge to press his lips against the slender column of her neck, to seduce her until she was naked, gasping, sinking her pretty little nails into his back as he sank his cock into her lush body over and over.

He willed restraint and patience. Life and business had taught him never to show his enemies any weakness. It would not do for Lady Madeline Sedgewick to know how dangerously deep his desire for her ran.

#

An hour later, Maddie sat within Brock’s theater box, clutching a handkerchief in her gloved hands, gawking at the opulence. He had wonderful seats. Expensive ones. Her dress was all the finest, as his coach had been. Even now, attendants buzzed about them, ridiculously eager to please. Everything screamed that Brock had amassed a huge fortune. Seeing the evidence of that made her realize just how resourceful he’d been to grow a tidy sum of money into an enormous fortune in a handful of years. If she wasn’t so busy despising him, she might tell him that she respected his accomplishments.

Beside her, he brushed a speck of lint that could only exist in his imagination from his immaculate ebony evening coat. His hand brushed her arm—for the third time in ten minutes.

A fresh tingle danced across her skin. She folded her hands in her lap, doing her damnedest to ignore him.

With a grin, he stretched his arm behind her chair. While he toyed with her life, it was a merely a game to him.

Maddie tensed, readying her sharp tongue, then… his thumb brushed the back of her neck, a silky caress that spread a shiver through her entire body.

Squirming as far away as her seat allowed, Maddie cursed her fluttering stomach. How could he affect her so? She’d hoped that the harsh lesson he’d dealt her about love and betrayal would permanently curb any desire she might again feel for the manipulative rogue.

No such luck.

Beside her, a smile lifted the corners of Brock’s full lips, as if he knew he made her nervous and enjoyed that fact. He looked devastating in full evening black, serving only to further fluster her. The man was entirely too self-assured. And infuriating.

The scent of ale clogged the air as pot boys dispensing refreshments to the thickening crowd did little to distract her. Maddie stared resolutely at the green baize curtain, ignoring the curious stares of the ladies in attendance, whispering behind their fans about her choice of escort, the fact that he sat scandalously close, and touched her with such familiarity.

Brock had played this cleverly. Rumors would surely start swirling that they were headed to the altar. Or that she’d fallen below her station and become his mistress. The cad!