"Sorry," she murmured. "I just couldn't resist."
Why was he oddly...flattered?
At her building, he followed Madeleine inside and to the stairwell. "Hold onto the rope," she said, taking the bottles and hastening ahead of him as though she could see in the dark.
As soon as the stair head groaned, Bea's door swung open, but it was Corrine who rushed out to meet them. "Toumard's men came by again," she said. "You have to get out of here, Maddy! They roughed up Bea - "
"What?" Madeleine cried. "Bea?"
Corrine nodded. "She wouldn't tell them where you'd gone, and then she had to go and spit in one's face. She'll be all right, but she's lying down now, resting."
The news of this threat made that feeling of protectiveness for Madeleine surge in him again. "Go check on Bea," Ethan told her. "Corrine will tell me what happened."
Once Madeleine hurried to Bea's room and softly closed the door behind her, Corrine said, "I see that look in your eyes. You really are going to take care of Maddy from now on."
He hesitated before giving her a quick nod. "Madeleine accepted my proposal."
Corrine sighed in relief.
"But I need to know some things about her past, and the lass is tight-lipped." When Corrine nodded ruefully, he asked, "How did she burn her arm?"
"Oh, that was in the fire of forty-seven. Her building went up like a wick, and she was trapped upstairs. She very nearly lost her arm and came close to losing her life."
If she had been eleven or twelve, she'd just been forced away from her home to move to a foreign city. Her father had just died....
"That's one of the reasons Maddy's so terrified of Toumard - his men love to break arms," she continued. "Maddy's been like a cat sidling round a boiling pot of porridge these last few weeks. Fit to break your heart."
The idea of her being afraid, day after day...
Toumard was as good as dead.
"Why does Madeleine no' live with her mother?"
Corrine lowered her voice. "Well, she doesn't like people to know this, but her mother's...dead."
"You canna be serious," he snapped. She nodded, and suddenly all Ethan could hear was his heart pounding in his ears. "Dead..."
All the time I've wasted hating, wanting to hurt someone - someone who didn't even exist any longer....
Corrine's hands twined. "Maddy's been an orphan for years. Her mother died when Maddy was fourteen."
He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Anorphan ."
Ethan had thought he'd been hell-bound before. Now there was no doubt. He gave a bitter laugh. This must be a jest.
He'd deflowered a penniless waif. An orphan.
"She had friends in England," Ethan said. "When her mother died, she could have petitioned them for help, and they would gladly have given it."
"She'd been here for some time already. Living in La Marais makes you feel a bit...worthless, especially in the young. She was ashamed. The only reason she went after that man in England was because Bea and I wouldn't let it rest. We eventually got her to promise to try before she married Le Daex."
"Le Daex, the count?" he demanded. "Her mother didn't arrange that?"
"Yes, years ago. But after she died, Maddy ran away before the wedding. We only recently revived that cull with La Daex. But all it did was get Maddy in debt."
And put an unprotected young woman under Toumard's notice.
Ethan supposed he'd hoped Madeleine had been close to Sylvie, that they were two of a kind. Instead, Sylvie was dead, and Madeleine had suffered destitution for years by Ethan's hand, bearing the brunt of a revenge meant for another. She'd suffered alone.
And Ethan had planned to hurt her worse.
How could it be worse for her? He remembered the look on her face as she'd picked herself up in that tavern. How many times had she had to do just that over the last ten years here...?
Just walk away.
This information, taken with the way Madeleine had said his name like a bloody benediction - with that undisguised longing...Even I'm no' cruel enough to do anything more to her.
He briefly closed his eyes as he finally admitted the truth to himself. He had come here because hewanted Madeleine. The revenge aspect only allowed him to justify the idea of a man like him using a young innocent like her.
If you are no' bent on punishing her, then what right do you have to her?
None. None whatsoever.
He couldn't take her away to hurt her, and he sure as hell couldn't keep her. He'd fix her problem with the lender, then get out of her life. Hell, he could even send some money later.
Abandon her here?After he'd convinced her that he was taking her with him?
What choice did he have? If he took her away, would he find himself saddled with her? He had a profession, a solitary one, and he wanted to get back to it.Damn it, I doona want to get stuck with her.
Help her, then leave her. Of course. "Tell me how to find Toumard."
Chapter Twenty-six
"Shouldn't you be resting?" Maddy asked when Bea rose from the bed and dressed.
"Maddée, if I rested every time I had a blue eye," she said in a deliberate tone as though explaining to a child, "I would do little else,n'est-ce pas ? Now, let's sit on your balcony and you can tell me everything that happened last night."
When Bea opened her door, MacCarrick and Corrine appeared to have just finished their conversation. His stony gaze flickered over Bea's eye, and his jaw clenched.
To Maddy, he said, "I'll return soon."
"Are you going to see Toumard?" At his short nod, she said, "Can I come with you?"
"Absolutely no'. Stay here, enjoy a going-away drink together."
"Very well," she finally said, confused by his mood change. He seemed to have trouble looking her in the eyes just before he left them to wait in Maddy's apartment.
The three had just agreed to sell the pricey bottles when the door opened once more. MacCarrick had returned.
To open the champagne.
"Some things are meant to be enjoyed in the moment, are they no'?" he said, with another fuming glance at Bea's face. To Maddy, he added, "So that you doona go out to sell it by the glass..."He filled her new reticule with cash.
Her jaw dropped at the wad of money. "This is four hundred francs! Do you want me to go buy a piano? Or a cabriolet?"
"Un bateau!" Bea cried with a clap. "A boat!"
Maddy leaned into her, play-shoving her with her shoulder. MacCarrick didn't come close to smiling.
"Well, let's pour it up!" Corrine said, taking out chipped porcelain mugs from under Maddy's stove. When she offered a cup to MacCarrick, he waved his share away. "Doona drink."
"Plus pour nous," Bea said, her tone delighted.More for us . Even after her run-in with the henchmen, Bea was likely deeming this one of the best days of her life.
"I'll be back," MacCarrick said to Maddy with a curt nod.
"Please be careful, Scot."
When the door shut behind MacCarrick once more and they heard him stomping down the stairs, Bea fanned herself and whispered, "I'm in love. Maddée, do you know he sent us lobsters last night? I'm not jesting." She added with a sigh, "Pretty lobsters..."
Maddy grinned. MacCarrick was turning out to be such a...surprise, giving her a new day, a new beginning. She hurried to the balcony to watch him striding away.So tall, strapping, confident. Just as he had been the first time she'd spotted him - when he'd been huntingfor her .
"I think you might have a diamond in the rough there," Corrine said behind her.
Maddy was beginning to think so, as well. In London, he'd been the first person ever to fight for her - and now he was marching out to do battle again.
"Très viril," Bea added, joining them.
There was that, too. She blushed to recall the way he'd pleasured her so perfectly in the shop - twice. She believed that her nights spent tossing in her sheets, yearning and lonely, were ended.
"Now, Maddy girl," Corrine began with a sniffle, "we've got to drink two bottles of champagne and get you packed by the time your fiancé comes back."
Maddy nodded, then set about divvying between her two friends the new cash windfall, her stash of coupons, and her contraband. After she'd packed the few things that were dear to her, they sat outside drinking and awaiting his return.
She was stunned to realize this could be the last time the three ever sat here like this. "If he's legitimate, I'll send more money as soon as I can." In fact, she'd be sendingfor them , but she didn't want to get their hopes up before she knew if she could trust him implicitly.