Maddox's older brothers were intent on getting him drunk. Joseph Redepenning, handed a stray barony for services to science when he was a stripling, and thus, Lord Maddox, wasn't usually one for dulling his brain with alcohol. Tonight, he was prepared to admit, the twins might have managed to come up with a good idea.
He'd been relieved to hear the Duke of Wellbridge had wed Sally on Christmas Eve a few weeks ago, not 24 hours after Maddox had said farewell to him and Sally both. At least Maddox hadn't had to raise a glass to them and look happy.
But, of course, Toad and Sally couldn't leave it at that. "Let's hold a celebration in Bristol,' they said. 'We want to share our bliss with the whole family and all our friends." And Maddox's mother had pronounced it a fine idea, and long since overdue, given the Wellbridges' lifelong love. "We can welcome Sally home and show how happy we all are, both at the same time," she said.
"I'll stay home with Father," Maddox offered. But the Earl of Chirbury, who had been on his deathbed just before Christmas, made a lightning recovery and insisted on being driven to the coast in the family's most comfortable carriage and sailed to Bristol.
"We have told the truth," Mama proclaimed. "That betrothal notice in the London Gazette was a malicious joke on the Duchess of Wellbridge. You and she were never betrothed. The whole world knows she has been Wellbridge's intended since she was a child. You are cousins and friends. Our presence at the wedding party will scotch any rumours to the contrary, Joey. You do not wish the world to know she jilted you."
"She did not jilt me, Mama," Maddox said, for the thousandth time. "For her, it was always Wellbridge."
"Quite so. You will attend the party, Joey."
"I have business in New York," he'd patiently explained again. Business he'd ensured mere hours after he'd left Sally with Toad. "I'll sail from Bristol," Maddox suggested. "You can all come and see me off, and then go to the celebration. You can tell anyone who asks I had to meet the tides."
Mama shook her head. "There will be other tides. Come with us, Joey, for Sally's sake, if not for your own."
It was the argument he could not refuse, and so he had attended the wedding reception in the ballroom at Toadstone Hall and smiled and smiled till his face ached. He even shook Wellbridge's hand and kissed Sally's cheek, and there was not enough brandy in the world to take away the pain of that. The idea of spending the next two weeks at a house party with them was impossible.
His brother Stephen, Viscount Longford, was telling him he should get back on the horse. "Plenty of pretty widows ready to find out if the famous explorer is as adventurous in bed," he suggested, signalling wildly but incoherently with his eyebrows.
In the bare month he'd been back in England, Maddox thought he'd been propositioned by most of them; yes, and any number of straying wives. Even when he'd supposedly been betrothed to Sally, they were eager to seduce him, and after the Wellbridges married! Would-be lovers anxious to console him were probably the main source of the rumours that his heart was broken.
Which it was, but no one was supposed to know that.
Stephen's twin, John, Lord Stocke, pointed out the other problem driving him back out to sea as soon as he could decently shake off his family. "Or, if you want to settle down, the ton is full of maidens who'd give an arm and a leg to marry the Hero of the Retreat from the Punjab."
"He don't want to marry a cripple, idiot," Stephen jeered.
"He wants another brandy," John decided, and went off in search of a new bottle.
Another glass, Maddox thought, and he'd be on his ear. He'd learned to hold his liquor in some fairly wild parts of the world, but Stephen and John could still drink him under the table. They were, or so he'd heard, respectable adults. Seeing Stephen with his wife and children, Maddox had believed it, but tonight the pair of them were wild as they'd ever been.
No matter. He had a room upstairs and could stand to spend a night and leave in the morning. Early.
John opened the door with a flourish, and stepped inside, followed by several heavy-set men with grim expressions. "Look all you like, constables," he said. "Brothers, these men are looking for a murderess. I told them it was just us three, but..." He shrugged. The truth of his claim was apparent. The room was small enough to be seen at a glance, and without cupboards or other pieces of furniture large enough to conceal even a small woman. One of the men flicked aside the drapes, disclosing nothing but a chill that smote inwards from the glass.
"If I could just have your names, sirs," said the leader of the men. His tone was apologetic, but firm.
"The correct form of address is my lords." Stephen spoke without a slur, which Maddox considered rather marvellous. "I am Longford, this is Maddox, and the gentleman who let you in is Stocke."
The man bowed. "Thank you, my lord. I am sorry to trouble you, my lords."
"Who is dead?" Maddox wondered, once the constables trooped out, closing the door behind them. "And why look for the killer here?"
"Ah, well, that's the thing." John liked to draw a story out, and he paused now to fill their glasses. "We know the couple. So does our whole family, so the constables are not just going from house to house, they're seeing every one of the guests at the celebration, and the Wellbridges, too, I imagine, though how anyone could imagine that Toad and Sally would hide Julia Soddenfield, I do not know. I don't suppose even his brother is going to weep over Soddenfeld's death."
Stephen let the chair he had been tipping back settle onto all four legs. "The hell you say. Lady Athol has topped her husband?"
John shrugged. "He's dead. She's missing. Neighbours heard screaming and shouting. The assumption is that the three are connected."
"Firthley won't be happy." Stephen seemed quite cheerful about the possibility. "Well, we don't have her."
They spent a few more minutes wondering where the murderous widow might have gone, while Maddox gave up on following the conversation and began, instead, to think about his planned trip to the United States of America. His ship was loaded and ready to sail; fully provisioned, the balloon neatly packed and aboard, even his luggage mostly stowed, all but the bag he needed for tonight. The crew thought they had another few days in harbour, but they could be collected at a moment's notice. Any not already aboard would be at one of the inns around the harbour.
He'd leave tomorrow, tempting though it was to head straight for the ship and get underway before they lost the tide. Mama wouldn't be pleased if he went without saying goodbye, and besides, he was drunk.
He interrupted a spat between the twins about whether Lord Athol or Lady Athol was the most obnoxious. "I'm drunk," he announced. "I am going to bed."
They jeered, of course, but Maddox had given up taking their insults seriously by the time he was fifteen. "Goodnight."
He stopped in the doorway. After all the wine they'd consumed at the party, and then the brandy tonight, they might still be asleep when he left tomorrow. He turned back. "I apprec—" His tongue tangled on the word and he started again. "Thanks. For the drinks. For the advice, not that I plan to take it, but thanks. I'm glad you're my brothers."
John grinned and waved his glass in a salute. "You are drunk. We quite like you, too, Joey. Go off to bed."
"That's what brothers are for," Stephen added. "You'd do the same for us."
It was always 'us.' Maddox was several years younger, with sisters either side of him, and he sometimes envied the twins their unity. They were self-sufficient, scrapping between themselves but standing shoulder to shoulder against everyone else. He fleetingly wondered how Stephen's wife managed, but then he reached the stairs and had to focus on climbing up them on legs that felt rubbery and that wouldn't stay where they were put.
He made it to the second floor, then to his room, counting six doors from the staircase. He opened the door and entered the room. One look at the bed, and he returned to the corridor and counted the doors again. No. This was definitely his room. So, what was Miss Celia Grampton—a distant and unmarried cousin of Toad's down his mother's Smithson line, whom the dowager duchess had been gently sponsoring—doing fast asleep in his bed?
As if he didn't know. She had been trying to get him alone for weeks, ever since the news came out that he was not, in fact, betrothed. His imminent departure must have tempted her to stronger measures. Her Grace would be horrified, and Maddox would be married. Otherwise, the girl would be forever tarnished and packed off to a manor house somewhere out of sight of London to live out her days unmarriageable.
If she was really here. There's a thought. Perhaps it was a drunken hallucination. No. It was the Grampton girl, and the parts of her not covered by the blanket were very, very naked. For a moment, he was tempted to pull back the blanket to see if the condition continued down the rest of her body, but his instinct for self-preservation kicked in.
She would not have left her discovery in his room to chance. At any moment some witnesses would burst in, armed with loud voices and plenty of indignation. He couldn't stay here. The danger had cleared his mind sufficiently to allow him to swiftly and silently pack his bag, and slip away down the back stairs.
Ten minutes later, he'd found his captain and set him to collecting the crew. "Don't know if we'll make the early morning tide, Lord Maddox," the man said, "but I'll do my best."
"You do that," Maddox agreed. The effects of the close encounter of the marital kind were wearing off, and Maddox wanted nothing more than his bed.
"Sail tonight if you can. If not, we'll be away on the next tide. I'm for my cabin and my bed and will see you tomorrow."
He stumbled up the gangplank, reeled down to his cabin, and fell into his bunk, barely pausing long enough to drop his bag on the floor, toss his hat on the top bunk, and pull off his boots and his coat. In moments, he was asleep.