Page 10 of What A Rogue Wants (Lords Of Deception #1)

A dratted flush heated Madelaine’s cheeks. Well, she certainly couldn’t feign bafflement now that her skin had given her away. “Yes. It’s difficult but has become easier with practice.”

“Brava, dear. I like a woman who is honest.”

“Well, my flush left me little choice.”

“Still, you could have lied.”

“I suppose I could have.” Madelaine could tell already she was going to like Lady Elizabeth’s aunt.

“Niece, does this young lady have anything to do with your mission?”

Lady Elizabeth nodded. “Aunt, this is my friend Lady Madelaine Aldridge. Helping her is my mission.”

“Aldridge, you said?”

The older woman was staring at Madelaine with the oddest expression. Madelaine began to fidget under her scrutiny. “Yes, Lady…?”

“Oh, gracious. I’m sorry, Lady Madelaine,” Lady Elizabeth rushed out. “This is my aunt, Lady Denton.”

Lady Denton smiled warmly at Madelaine. “You may call me Helen in private . All my friends do.”

Madelaine blinked in surprise. “Are we to be friends?” Her cheeks immediately flamed again at the bluntness of her words.

Helen chuckled. “What’s the matter, dear? Are you not used to having friends?”

“Not at Court,” Madelaine answered truthfully.

“But we are now friends!” Lady Elizabeth exclaimed as she clutched Madelaine’s hand. “If you are to call my aunt ‘Helen,’ I insist you call me ‘Elizabeth’. I know I didn’t show myself to be worthy of friendship before, but I swear I can be a good friend.”

“What’s this about not being a worthy friend?” Helen fixed Elizabeth with a narrow-eyed look. “Your mother and I taught you better.”

Lady Elizabeth blushed. “Yes, I remember. However belatedly.”

“You two had better spit out what’s afoot. I’m to sit by the queen at dinner tonight, so I mustn’t be late.”

“The problem is the queen.”

Helen’s eyes rounded and she waved a hand at her lady’s maid. “Make sure the door is shut tightly.”

“Yes, my lady.” The servant scurried to the door and a soft click filled the air.

“Niece, you must learn to make sure no one can overhear you before you ever speak negatively of the queen or king.”

“I know, Aunt. Grey already reminded me earlier.”

“Then do try to actually remember. Now, is Her Majesty causing you problems?”

“Not me.” Elizabeth glanced at Madelaine. “It’s her. The queen dislikes Madelaine for some reason and she takes every opportunity to belittle her. I thought if Madelaine knew why, she could work to earn the queen’s favor.”

Helen regarded Madelaine with probing eyes. “Do you want the queen’s favor?”

Madelaine shifted her feet. Why was she constantly being put in a position to either tell a truth that could hurt her or lie?

A fool would speak plainly to someone she had just met, and she may not be accomplished at feminine pursuits, but that did not mean she was a fool.

“I don’t want to be miserable at Court.”

“Take a lesson, Elizabeth,” Helen said. “This young lady has mastered the art of answering a question without really doing so. I predict you will rise to glorious heights in this Court.”

“I do not want to rise to glorious heights here,” Madelaine said.

“I’m pleased to hear that,” Helen said, surprising her. “I find women who want to rise to great heights often are the very ones who should not. So you don’t want to ascend to the top of the social heap, but what do you want?”

All she wanted was to find a husband she could love or learn to love, who if she was very lucky would be pleased, and not horrified, by a wife who enjoyed the same things he did.

Then she would become betrothed and leave this wretched place of cattiness, debauchery and lying behind.

Her mother would smile in her grave, her father would rest easier, and then she would feel as if she had somehow made amends for putting a rift between her parents.

Here she was again stuck in a position of truth or lies.

Instinct told her only the truth might persuade this woman to help her.

And she needed all the help she could get.

“I want to find a good man to marry, so I can fulfill my mother’s dying wish to see me properly wed. I was not an easy daughter.”

Helen’s eyebrows raised high. “How so?”

Madelaine quickly told Helen about her affinity for all things her father loved and nothing her mother did. When she was finished, that same niggling guilt that had plagued her since her mother’s death coiled in her stomach.

Helen sighed. “You remind me of my much younger self. I was gloriously willful and my husband appreciated and adored it.” Helen patted Madelaine’s hand. “Take heart. There’s a man lurking beyond this door for you. One who will appreciate who you truly are.”

“Do you think you can do anything to help me?”

“Dearie, I can more than help you.” Helen linked her arm through Madelaine’s and moved toward the door.

“Aunt Helen is the keeper of the castle secrets,” Elizabeth said with a giggle. “She was one of Queen Charlotte’s very first confidants.”

Madelaine pulled back a bit. “I don’t want to put you in a position to betray a trust.”

“Nonsense.” Helen fairly shoved Madelaine into the hall and motioned for them to proceed. She took Madelaine’s arm and leaned close as they walked so their heads were side by side. “No one places me in any position. If I do something, it’s because I want to.”

That was exactly how Madelaine had lived her life thus far and a fat lot of good it had done her. But she refrained from sharing those specific thoughts. “Do you have any idea why the queen dislikes me?”

“It’s not you.” Helen paused in her step. “Well, actually by default of your bloodline it is. Her Majesty considered your mother an enemy from day one.”

“My mother? But she never even came to Court!” Madelaine clenched her hands together, outrage for her mother stirring in her blood.

“Calm yourself,” Helen hissed, but took Madelaine’s hand in hers and gently tugged. They started walking again, the tap of their slippered feet echoing in the deserted corridor. “Did you never wonder why your Father often came to Court but not your mother?”

Madelaine shook her head. She had assumed her mother stayed behind with her because she was an especially doting mother.

Helen sighed. “I knew your mother and liked her very much. She was childhood friends with Lady Napier, who was once Lady Sara Lennox. Sara is the heart of the trouble between your mother and the queen.”

When they reached the top of the steps that led to the dining hall, Helen paused.

“King George was smitten with Sara. When her family learned of it they made her abandon her plans to marry a man I think she truly did love. But then our king changed his mind or rather it was changed for him. He married Queen Charlotte instead and Sara—let us just say it took her a long time to find happiness and at great cost to her good name.”

“What’s my mother have to do with this?” Madelaine asked as she descended the stairs.

“Privately, Sara blamed her misfortunes on the king and therefore the queen. Your mother staunchly stood by Sara and never did take to the queen. Your mother was very beautiful. Beauty has power and the queen did not like coming newly to our Court only to have a beautiful woman who did not trip over herself to serve her. And your mother was clever. She never said an outright unkind word. Yet daily she pointed out to Her Majesty the little things of our culture she had not properly mastered.”

“As the queen does to me!” Madelaine stopped before the dining room hall.

Everything she had just learned vied for attention inside her head.

Ordering her thoughts was difficult, but she forced herself to the task.

“Yet my mother was not thrown from Court? How could it be if she openly needled the queen?”

“Because the queen knew better than to demand such a thing from the king. His Majesty and your father were close even then.”

“So the king didn’t know of the trouble between my mother and the queen?”

“No. Never.”

That explained why Madelaine’s father insisted she come to Court to find a proper husband even if it didn’t necessarily explain why her father seemed to want to have her married off so quickly.

She had thought to have a Season when their mourning was over, but he had been steadfast that Court was where she should be.

He’d said she would not be one of many debutantes here, but one of a few honored ladies-in-waiting, therefore she should be betrothed right away.

He had no inkling the men at Court would rather seduce than propose nor did he know the queen had hated his wife.

If he only knew. Madelaine pushed the errant thought away.

She could never tell her father. It would devastate him to think the queen had hated Mother and Mother had deceived him by never telling him.

It didn’t matter anyway. She had a debt to pay to her parents and a duty to fulfill.

“My mother’s lack of punishment must have eaten at the queen all these years. ”

“Now you see. The queen never got retribution as she wished, so now she punishes you.”

“It’s hopeless.”

“You give up too easily,” Helen chided.

“What must she do?” Lady Elizabeth asked.

The dining room door opened suddenly and the noise from within rolled into the corridor like the hum of a thousand birds’ wings flapping in unison. Lady Helen faced Madelaine. “Prove your loyalty to the queen above everyone else, and then you will have her forgiveness and her loyalty.”

“How am I supposed to do that?” Madelaine called to Helen’s departing figure.

Helen paused and turned back to her. “I don’t have all the answers. Bide your time. It will come. It always does if one is patient enough.”

Madelaine trudged behind Elizabeth to their appointed table.

As Elizabeth took a seat across from Lord Thorton, he grinned lecherously at Madelaine and patted the seat beside him.

She sat and his hand immediately found her knee under the table.

She retaliated by swatting him away as discreetly as she could.

She didn’t have a single moment to bide. She needed the queen’s favor. Without it, she dare not whisper a word of Lord Thorton’s attempts to take advantage of her. If the queen disliked her, that bit of information could easily be manipulated to make her look like she lacked morals.

When Lord Thorton’s hand found her leg again and massaged her knee, she picked up her fork, discreetly slid it under the bench and pressed the prongs into his flesh as hard as she could.

His hand ceased moving. She raised her gaze to meet his—sure he would be glaring at her, but the man stared as if she were the choicest piece of meat he’d ever seen.

Disgust rolled through her. Immediately, she released the fork and the pressure of his hand lifted from her leg.

If only she had her dagger then maybe he would see her as a danger instead of a conquest. Tomorrow, she would secure it under her dress in case she encountered him again.

As she took a large sip of wine from her goblet, he pressed his lips by her ear. She darted a quick gaze around. Thank God everyone was busily engaged in their own conversation. “I like feisty women,” he said in a slur of already consumed wine.

“You’ll find me deadly, not feisty,” she hissed, meaning every word.

She quickly stuffed a chunk of bread in her mouth to avoid more conversation with him.

But as she chewed, he slid closer. The sticky heat of his body enveloped her.

Her stomach turned and she could not swallow the hunk of bread in her mouth.

She couldn’t wait any longer. Time was her enemy.

If things stayed as they were, she would be forced to drastic measures.

She had excellent aim and had no doubt she could hit Lord Thorton if he tried to corner her alone and ravish her.

But it would be deuced hard to fulfill her mother’s wish and not disappoint her father if she was hung for murder.

And blast hell with ice, her life may not be all she had hoped so far, but living was far more preferable than death.