Page 38 of What A Rogue Wants (Lords Of Deception #1)

Twenty-Three

Madelaine wept for the first hour of her ride.

In all her fantasies of her first time with Grey, she never imagined fleeing.

His undying love. Yes. Marriage. Absolutely.

Betraying him? No. The possibility hadn’t crossed her mind.

It didn’t matter she was doing what she had to.

Knowing she had no choice did nothing to obliterate the queasiness of betraying Grey nor the certainty that a future with him was lost to her forever.

Moreover, she was terrified about what her future would bring.

What would happen once she found the king’s paper and took it to the prince?

What sort of battle lines would be drawn then between the king and the prince as they fought for control of the throne?

The nagging feeling that she and her father would be standing on the wrong side of the battle plagued her.

Even if Father was correct and the king was going mad, to go behind the king’s back and strip away his power without consulting him or trying to come up with some sort of alternative seemed morally wrong.

She wished there was some other course, but she couldn’t think of one nor would anyone listen to her, even if she could.

She struggled to push the thoughts of the king and Grey out of her head and concentrate on the road.

As she neared her home and made her way down the long drive, she gripped the reins and her heart pounded in trepidation.

She gasped as the estate came into view.

This was not the home she had left over a year ago.

There was no welcoming light, no smell of fresh baked bread or apple tarts, no servants bustling about or even the whinny of the horses from the stables.

Hope and life had deserted this dark, silent place.

She had thought she’d been prepared for what she would find, since Grey had told her his brother had forced her father to dismiss all the servants with some cockamamie tale about financial woes, but she shook as she viewed her home so different than her memories.

Though Lord Ashford had done her father a favor, by removing the very people who would spread gossip about him being arrested for treason, she couldn’t squelch the anger running through her veins when she opened the front door and saw the shambles her childhood home had been left in.

Overturned furniture and paper littered the floors.

After pushing a chair out of her way, she stalked from the entrance hall to the library, then through the ballroom and drawing room.

Disorder reigned in every room. Drawers lay half open or pulled all the way out and left on the floor.

The books in the library had been removed from the shelves.

Chairs were overturned, no doubt in the men’s haste to try to locate the paper that would prove her father’s guilt.

But Father was clever. Thank God! If he’d not hidden the paper he would be dead already.

Neither Lord Ashford nor the king was likely to give a whit that her father meant only to protect England.

Men and their games. They were all arrogant and self-serving, except for Grey.

Ugly treacherous thoughts reared as she picked her way through the disorder and toward the kitchen and the door that led to the cellar.

Every step on the marble floor echoed in the eerie silence.

She passed a ball of ribbon lying on the floor.

Abby’s ribbon! She bent, picked up the ribbon and fingered the silken thread. “ Abby . Where are you?”

Madelaine gulped back the sadness threatening to overcome her. She’d not given one thought to her childhood friend or any of the servants, for that matter. And blast Father, neither had he! His betrayal of the king had put them all in a precarious position.

She prayed Abby and her mother had found someone to take them in or even new employment.

If they hadn’t, maybe when things settled she could find Abby and bring her and her mother back here, or if not here wherever fate forced them to settle.

God! She clenched the ribbon in her hand.

It may do Abby more harm than good if she worked for Madelaine and her father, assuming they’d be in any sort of position to employ a servant.

She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed deeply.

She had to quit thinking about the future and secure the list for the prince.

Opening her eyes, she strode down the hall and made her way to the back and through the door to the kitchen.

Here everything was perfectly in its place.

They’d never thought to look in the kitchen, let alone the wine cellar.

With her lips pressed together, she quickly found a candle and then made her way down the dark cellar stairs.

She’d always hated the damp, dark cellar. Her heart raced and her palms sweated. She shuffled past the barrels to the back where the wine bottles were. The endless rows filled her with dread. Dusty containers lined the walls eight rows deep. Dirt and dust filled her lungs and made her cough.

Something creaked in the room, and she darted a look around seeing nothing but glass and wood.

Trying to ignore the despair the rows conjured, she eyed the towering racks and hurried to the fourth row.

In the middle of a sea of white bottles was a green one.

The relief that poured through her made her tremble so that she had to set her taper on the shelf.

It was just as well. She needed her hands free.

She closed her fingers around the green bottle, and after a moment she managed to open it and turn it upside down.

Inside the empty bottle the smooth edge of a rolled up piece of paper protruded.

Grabbing the edge of the scroll, she tugged it out.

For a moment, she eyed the paper, suspended between duty and curiosity.

If she was going to risk her life and betray her king, she wanted to see exactly what he had written.

After unrolling the paper, it shook as she brought it close to read.

The first lines were the king’s mad statement about the angel visiting him, just as her father had said.

Her scalp tingled as she read the king’s disturbing words.

She moved her gaze down the paper. The distinctive slanted scrawl of her father’s handwriting leapt out at her and made her gasp.

Trembling, she moved her finger along the first line. Primary Code of the Network Language.

She traced the second entry. “ QOTM ” and “ AKUXMK .” The code made no sense to her, but after reading further, she thought she had it.

Her father had always made her solve elaborate puzzles he’d created and for the first time ever she was glad for it.

This was not a complicated puzzle. The English word was written below the coded word which represented it.

The coded word was her father’s handwriting, but the decoded word was not.

She rubbed the paper between her fingers as she thought.

Why had Father created ciphers for the king?

Not enough sleep and lack of food sent a wave of exhaustion rolling through her that left her dizzy.

For one bleak second, she thought she might swoon, but after a moment the spinning stopped, and she once again composed herself to study the paper.

Blast her father.

Her belly clenched in denial but the truth was in swirly dark ink before her eyes.

Father had not told her the whole truth.

He’d not said a word about being involved in creating a code for the king.

Dizziness overwhelmed her again. She squeezed her eyes shut, breathed deeply and reached a steadying hand toward the shelf.

Gripping the wood so tight her fingers ached, she swayed as wave after wave of nausea consumed her.

Sweat, damp and sticky, trickled down her sides and covered her brow.

If Father had omitted part of the truth, what else might he have lied about?

Her mother’s voice, bitter and accusing, filled Madelaine’s head.

How many times had her father returned from a long trip only for her mother to scream that he was lying about where he’d been, what he’d been doing.

For years, her parents had scurried off to the garden to argue in private, only they were never alone.

Madelaine’s secret hiding place had been in the garden.

By the age of ten, she knew Mother thought Father was in love with someone else and that he secretly went to meet her time and again.

And Madelaine would never forget the awful day her Mother had begged him not to go on the trip he had planned.

She promised to be sweeter, more loving and make Madelaine a better, more dutiful daughter.

Her mother’s pleas had fallen on deaf ears.

He’d left, not to return for two months, and the beatings while he was gone had been the worst Madelaine had ever received.

But the beatings paled in comparison to the guilt that ate at her.

She vowed to be a better daughter, one that would not cause her mother heartache and make her so angry that she fought with Father.

She vowed to be the kind of daughter Father would want to come back to.

Then he would stay with them. Then he would love them.

But when he came back from his trip, he’d sought her out instead of Mother.

That had been the best and worst day ever.

He’d taught her a new way he’d learned to shoot his bow, and she’d eagerly gone with him for the better part of a day into the woods to hunt and shoot.

Abby and her mother had even joined them for a time, which had never happened before and never happened again.

When they’d all returned to the house, her mother had been livid beyond reason and had smacked Madelaine across the face with a hairbrush.