Chapter Six

Carrington lay stretched across the settee in his drawing room, his eyes trained on the crackling fire a few feet away, even as he mind was miles away.

He couldn’t get Madeline out of his head, and truth be told, he didn’t want to.

Even if those thoughts were far from “proper”.

That would had haunted him the entire walk back to Queen’s Square.

Madeline Winchester desired propriety, deserved to be surrounded by good, kind people, not people like him.

Damaged people.

Though he had a few inklings that perhaps her interest in him went beyond friendship, he knew it could never be.

Carrington knew he had to be the bigger man in this situation.

He was exactly the wrong man for Madeline Winchester.

She was all pureness and light, and after what he had seen in France, what he had experienced, how he had changed in the course of the campaigns…

She deserved someone who wasn’t so… broken.

And yet he couldn’t get her out of his head, either.

He’d had his share of lovers before leaving for France, and even a few “in the line of duty”, as it were, but he always felt – unsatisfied by the liaisons. He always supposed it had to do with a lack of emotion, but after that night in Amiens, he had his suspicions it was something altogether different.

Something… wrong.

Something deeply wrong with him.

How could something so dangerous, so treacherous have been so…

So erotic?

He shook his head, erasing the memory of Amiens despite the unconscious tightening of his groin. That night changed him, and not for the better.

He resolved this Season to find a nice woman, settle down, have children, and lead a quiet life. Without danger, and without…

Without that charge of eroticism that Amiens had given him.

God, he was a fool.

And yet, it was Madeline that haunted his thoughts for the rest of the evening – the crinkle of her eyes when she smiled, the feel of her hand on his arm, the lightness of her step.

She was so changed from when they had last known each other; he remembered a slip of a girl always trailing behind Fitz and himself as they explored the woods, begging to climb trees when they did, and always looking so forlorn when she was left behind.

He remembered skinned knees, and a bark of a laugh, and a constant feeling that she was his little sister, not just Fitz’s.

She was a sweet girl, even as she grew into a young lady, but she was always just Maddy to him – easy to talk to, easy to tease, easy to please.

But now… now she was altogether different. Poised and beautiful, having grown into her features, and so elegant. Still she laughed and teased, but it was measured now, different.

Was he so captivated by her because she represented happiness and safety from his childhood, or was he captivated as he would be by any new acquaintance like her that he would meet for the first time today? Any lady who looked and acted like her would cause a flare of emotion in any man with a pulse, not just him.
And yet, behind the grown up lady, he still held deep affection for the charming girl she had been.

Perhaps it was just a sense of security… of home.

Or just her exquisiteness.

God, he was a cad.

Madeline was the sort of lady a man like him should settle down with, but she was now so far out of his league, it wasn’t funny, no matter her protestations that she was ‘damaged goods’ as far as society went.
If she were damaged goods, he mused, he was something altogether worse.

Though he had longed to be back in England and among the ton, now he wondered if it was a bad idea instead to be here at all. At least in France he’d had a purpose, a plan for every day, and knew what he was fighting for.

Now, he still seemed to be fighting – his inner turmoil and his pressing need for a woman to fix him.
But no woman of society could fix this.

It wouldn’t be proper.

Taking a sip of brandy, he sighed and waited for night to fall.

###

Madeline blew out the candle and crawled into bed, tugging the sheets and quilts up around her neck, not only to stave off the chill of the evening in her bedroom, but to try and hide from the outside world altogether.

The outside world where Jameson Carrington resided.

If she added it up, they truly hadn’t spent much time together since his return from France, and yet, it felt as though those moments were fraught with attraction and interest.

At least on her part.

What Lord Carrington was thinking was anyone’s guess, she mused, punching her pillow and rolling over.
He treated her so politely, so properly, which was to be expected, but what she yearned for was some sign, some word that perhaps he returned her interests.

Alas, there had been none.

But she couldn’t stop the quickening of her heart at the thought of him.

She had loved him as a girl, and apparently, she loved him again as a widow.

But he seemed so much more – reserved, exact – than she remembered.

Knowing he was a spy, she imagined he must have spent the last few years continually on his guard, watching every word, every move he made lest he was discovered and killed.

She shuddered at the thought.

She wondered if he had killed. She wondered if he’d bedded women for information. She wondered if he still looked over his shoulder everywhere he went.

She supposed that he had. All three.

It might explain his current character, but it didn’t explain her yearning for him.

Henry had been a good sort of person, she knew, but it was hardly a romance between them. It was arranged, pure and simple, by her father to protect her, lest she became unmarriageable by being too old.

And Henry was an officer, he had said, as though that were to be some sort of consolation.

But she knew, deep in her heart, that she could have married above her station – there were so many gentlemen, and she was a gentlemen’s daughter, and so she had always secretly resented being matched with someone not of the ton.

Henry was kind enough, and provided for her well enough financially, until he’d gone and gotten himself killed, leaving her with virtually nothing.

But Henry had never provided for her in love – he barely touched her, he spoke not of his feelings but of battle maneuvers and what was for dinner, and he never once told her how he felt about her.

And as for the bedroom…

Madeline sighed at the memory of their short, painful, infrequent fumblings in that department, Henry totally focused on getting her with child before his departure, rather than on making it even a vaguely pleasant experience.

Then her imaginings flipped to Jamie – Lord Carrington, she corrected – stretched across a set of white sheets, beckoning her with his smile to join him there.

And, she imagined, he knew exactly how to make it anything but a fumbling experience.

She flushed at the thought of him in a state of undress, the two of them on the bed together, and forced herself to erase the thought, relying on counting sheep instead.

But sleep was a long time coming.

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