“And that does not bother you? To have a life without love?”
Madeline kept her chin up and her shoulders straight.
“No,” she lied smoothly.
CHAPTER 15
The footman at the door eyed Madeline suspiciously.
“Ladies don’t often come in here,” he repeated. “This is the Devil’s Clubhouse.”
“I knowthat,” Madeline snapped. “I am the Duchess of Tolford. I am here to see my husband.”
The footman wavered. She had a feeling that he would have very much liked to dismiss her and close the door in her face. However, that terrible title,duchess,dissuaded him.
And of course, the even more frightening title ofduke.
At last, the footman sighed and stepped aside.
“Ladies are not generally admitted,” he said snippily.
Madeline, who knew this was not true, said nothing. She strode past the footman, careful to keep her head up, and hurried into the clubhouse. She heard the door slam behind her and flinched.
This was where the poetry reading was held,she thought.It looks entirely different in the daylight.
For the reading, a platform had been set up in the middle of the huge clubhouse floor, and chairs arranged around it. If she closed her eyes, Madeline could still see the audience peering up at her, swathed in gloom. There had been candlelight, of course, but not much of it, creating a strange, eerie glow in the room.
Even in her imagination, Tristan sat front and center, staring straight at her.
She shivered and swallowed hard.
Enough of that,she scolded herself, and turned to face the footman. The man still hovered behind her, sour-faced.
“Where is His Grace, the Duke of Tolford?” she demanded.
The footman barely smothered a sigh. “He is training, Your Grace. He has asked not to be disturbed.”
She lifted her chin, careful to meet the man’s gaze square in the eyes.
“And surely you cannot imagine that this exclusion applies to hiswife, do you?”
The footman began to wilt. “The thing is, Your Grace, His Grace is so very pointed. So veryclear. He generally doesn’t like to be disturbed, and for this particular match…”
“Match? What match? What is he doing?”
The poor footman appeared to be on the brink of tears. Madeline narrowed her eyes at him.
“This is important,” she said at last. “Go on, show me. Take me to him.”
Madeline found herself trotting along a high, railed open corridor, higher even than the mezzanine, ringing the ample space. She peered down at the clubhouse floor far below, and her head swam with the height. They were right against the ceiling, so close that if she were a foot or so taller, she would be able to touch the exquisite molding and carvings there.
There were doors set at regular intervals in the wall, all closed. This did not seem to be an area of interest for the average club member. The footman stopped at a door, seemingly at random, and lifted his hand as if to knock. His knuckles never quite touched the wood. Abruptly, he stepped back.
“You can go in if you wish,” he managed, swallowing, and scuttled away. Madeline watched him go with something like amazement.
Ridiculous man,she thought, and shoved open the door.
It had occurred to her, of course, that Tristan might be enjoying an assignation with a lady. Perhaps Miss Juliana Bolt, perhaps somebody else.
