Kitabı oku: «The Countess Misbehaves», sayfa 3
When at long last his conquering lips released hers, her head fell back against his rock-hard biceps. She looked into his eyes and trembled with rising desire.
“Mr. de Chevalier,” she said finally, almost shouting to be heard above the wind’s constant roar, “will you…that is, I…could we…?”
“What? I can’t hear you.” He leaned down, placed his ear close to her lips.
“Make love to me, Mr. de Chevalier,” she blurted out. Armand raised his head, looked at her, one dark eyebrow lifting slightly. She rushed her words, “We are going to go down with this ship. You know we are, I know we are. So what difference would it make if we…we…” Her words trailed away and she lowered her eyes, sorry that she had made such a preposterous proposal.
Until he put his thumb and forefinger to her chin, raised her face to his, and looking straight into her eyes, said, “I’ll make love to you on one condition.” He brushed a kiss to her temple. Madeleine’s brows knitted in puzzlement. He smiled and said, “If you’ll stop calling me Mr. de Chevalier. Say ‘Armand, make love to me.”’
Aroused by his stirring kiss and the granite hardness and awesome heat of his lean body, Lady Madeleine eagerly said, “Armand, make love to me.”
“With pleasure, Countess.”
Five
For a long, tense moment, Armand de Chevalier did nothing, didn’t move a muscle. He simply held Madeleine in his arms and looked into her eyes. Unable to look away or even to breathe properly, Madeleine felt as if she were being pulled into the fathomless depths of his unforgettable black eyes.
The winds howled and the cabin plunged sharply into the sea, then rose again. Madeleine hardly noticed. She was totally mesmerized by this dark stranger with whom she wanted desperately to be intimate.
She drew a sharp intake of air as Armand slowly lowered his face to hers. Expecting another of those instantly ardent, breath-stealing kisses, she was surprised when he brushed his smooth, warm lips ever so lightly against hers. For several sweet, unhurried moments, he kissed her softly, undemandingly, as if she were actually his treasured love.
Madeleine found it incredibly moving. Stirring. Exciting. Each gentle, unhurried kiss became more thrilling than the last. His mouth seemed to fit so perfectly with hers. As if their lips were made solely for each other’s kisses.
Pressing one last feathery kiss to her slightly parted lips, Armand flipped open the buckle to the restraints holding her in place. He lifted her and sat her on his right knee and both were almost dumped to the floor when a great gust of wind hit the ship. Armand gripped the bunk’s frame with one hand and held Madeleine with the other. Then quickly drew the restraints around both of them, buckling them loosely behind her back.
Clutching his neck, Madeleine was both astonished and thrilled when he took her hand, placed it directly over his heart and said in a low, husky voice, “Touch me. Feel me, sweetheart.”
She immediately complied. Her fingers spread, palm flush against him, she eagerly explored the perfect symmetry of his naked bronzed torso. She stroked and rubbed and examined him thoroughly, letting her fingertips circle the flat brown nipples almost hidden in the dense black chest hair. She felt a small tremor surge through him at her touch and was excited by the knowledge that she had so titillated him. Her eyes focused on the broad expanse of bare flesh before her, she popped her finger into her mouth and sucked it briefly. She then circled his left nipple with her wet fingertip before looking up to get his reaction.
Incredible heat radiated from his dark eyes and he wrapped a hand around the back of her neck, drew her to him and kissed her hungrily. As he kissed her, Madeleine continued to toy with him, raking her nails down his chest, fanning her hand over his hot skin, tangling her fingertips in the crisp, springy hair.
When their heated lips finally separated, Madeleine was surprised to find that Armand had managed—during the prolonged kiss—to completely unbutton the jacket of her peach traveling suit. When he pushed it apart, she suffered a mild twinge of doubt. But when he bent his head and placed the gentlest of kisses in the valley between her breasts, all misgivings fled. She felt her nipples tighten and her stomach contract. And she made no move to stop him when he pushed the open jacket down her arms and tossed it aside.
“God, you are so sweet, so beautiful,” he said, placing the tip of his little finger under the lacy strap of her camisole.
Madeleine felt the strap being slipped off her shoulder and sliding down her upper arm. She took a quick excited breath through her mouth and heard him say, “Look at me, chérie.”
Her eyes met his and again she experienced the feeling of being pulled into him.
“Trust me. I won’t hurt you,” he promised and as her gaze stayed locked with his, he raised her damp skirts and ran a hand up her stockinged left leg. When his fingers encountered the ruffled border of her knee-length pantalets, he gave the lacy trim a playful tug, then urged her knees apart.
Madeleine inhaled anxiously as his warm fingers moved steadily upward along the inside of her thigh.
“Kiss me,” he coaxed and she eagerly obeyed.
Wildly she kissed him, cupping his lean cheeks in her hands, anxiously moving her questing lips against his and thrusting her tongue deep into his mouth. During the fervent kiss she felt his lean fingers move all the way up between her legs to touch her in that most intimate spot.
Through the soft cotton of her pantalets he slowly, expertly caressed her until the fabric, which was the only barrier between his moving fingers and her tingling flesh, was damp from her body’s response.
Sucking anxiously at his lips, she sighed and squirmed and became more aroused with each passing second.
“Feel good, sweetheart?” Armand murmured against her lips.
“Mmm,” was all she could manage in reply.
“I want you to feel even better,” Armand told her, and with the speed and wizardry of a trained magician, he deftly relieved her of her pantelets.
Naked now beneath the skirts of her damp dress, Madeleine held her breath, waiting expectantly for him to touch her again. Armand made her wait. But only long enough to unhook her lace-trimmed camisole and remove it.
“I knew it,” he said, when she was bare to the waist.
“W-what?” she asked, trembling.
“That you don’t wear those horrible corsets. You have no need for them. Your waist is naturally small and your breasts—” his eyes lowered to the twin mounds of pale flesh topped with satiny pink nipples “—are full and need no stays to enhance or lift them.” As if to punctuate the sentence, he bent his head and kissed the rising swell of Madeleine’s left breast.
After that, everything became an electrifying blur of sheer ecstasy to the highly aroused Madeleine. While the storm raged on with winds so forceful that the couple was at constant risk of being dumped onto the rolling, pitching floor, Armand de Chevalier made passionate, prolonged love to Lady Madeleine Cavendish as if they had forever.
Madeleine wiggled and sighed with pleasure as Armand’s warm hand again stole up under her skirts to touch and tease and toy. His fingers slid easily in the silky wetness flowing freely from her, as he leaned to her and brushed a kiss to her right nipple. Instinctively Madeleine arched her back, thrusting her breasts more fully against his hot, handsome face. Armand kissed her, then opened his mouth and gently nibbled on her rapidly stiffening nipples.
Dizzy with desire, Madeleine hugged Armand’s dark head to her while he sucked on her responsive nipples and his fingers gently circled that ultrasensitive button of pure sensation between her parted legs.
Armand felt her climax beginning even before Madeleine realized it was happening. He gave her nipple one last plucking kiss, raised his head, and watched the changing expressions march across her beautiful face as she ascended steadily toward total release.
And all the while she was pleading, “Don’t stop, don’t stop, please, please.”
“Never, my love,” he assured her, not rushing her, patiently taking her all the way, carefully guiding her to an all-encompassing climax.
“Armand! Armand! Armand!” she cried out at last and dug her nails into his muscular biceps as she reached the shattering zenith.
“Yes, baby, yes,” he soothed, continuing to caress her until he was certain her powerful orgasm was totally completed.
Frantically she grabbed his arm to stay his hand, then went limp against him, shaking and trembling with emotion. He pressed her head onto his shoulder and kissed her parted lips, her closed eyes, her flushed cheeks.
Gale-force winds continued to buffet the sinking ship and the bunk upon which the two were strapped rose and fell with the high, tossing waves. It had little effect on the pair. Hot for each other, determined to fill their last minutes on earth with abandoned carnal joy, they ignored the roar of the wind, the rolling of the ship.
When Madeleine had calmed a little and had caught her breath, Armand finished undressing her. He managed the pleasant task as she continued to sit on his right knee. And as he disrobed her, he lovingly caressed each portion of bare skin he exposed. She was like malleable clay in his artistic hands, stirring to the slightest touch of his fiery fingertips.
When she was as naked as the day she was born, save for her silk stockings and leather slippers, Armand placed a hand behind her right knee and raised it, lifting her foot up onto his own left knee. He took the slipper from her foot and dropped it to the floor. Then he smiled at her, slipped a hand under her lace-trimmed, blue satin garter and peeled it down her leg.
Madeleine watched, puzzled and amused, as he slid the garter up his bare right arm, and released it when it tightly encircled his biceps.
“A keepsake from you,” he explained and she nodded.
He stripped the silken stocking down her bent leg and tossed it aside. She suddenly felt very foolish and awkward. Here she was, naked, sitting on his knee with one of her legs bent and raised, her bare foot propped on his knee. She shuddered when he cupped her foot in his palm, raised it slightly and bent to kiss her instep. Then she giggled uncontrollably when she felt his tongue go between her ticklish toes.
He laughed, raised his head and lowered her bare foot to the floor. She waited for him to remove the other stocking. But he didn’t do it and she didn’t complain although she was sure she looked quite silly wearing nothing but one stocking and one garter.
He didn’t think so. “God, you’re desirable,” he murmured, his hand sweeping down her silk-encased leg. “I want you to leave this one stocking on for me.”
“Whatever you want,” she said, unhampered by conscience or inhibitions or thoughts of tomorrow, “I want.”
“I want you,” he said. “I want you to give me every kind of love you can possibly express. I want you to tell me everything you’ve ever wanted to do and never did. I want you to reveal to me every secret yearning you’ve ever had and never told. I want you share with me every craving you’ve ever experienced. I want you to give yourself to me completely and let me love you as no one ever has. I want you. I want you, over and over again.”
Already aroused, his bold words further awakened Madeleine’s innate sensuality. The things he said excited her, made her want to give him all she had to give, to lose herself in him and his love-making, to actually do all the forbidden things she had never done with anyone.
Armand kissed her, took her hand, and placed it on the waistband of his dark trousers. Her lips fused with his, her fingers found the buttons of his trousers and she hastily undid them. Then, without his urging, she laid her hand against the ridge of hard flesh restrained by his white linen underwear. As the probing kiss continued, Armand made a half-strangled sound that Madeleine easily interpreted.
She pulled the white underwear out and away from his flat belly, freeing his straining masculinity. Her hand was back on him then, stroking, caressing, arousing.
Until Armand could stand it no more.
He clasped her fragile wrist, stayed her hand and said, “I can’t wait any longer, sweetheart.”
In seconds he was naked and Madeleine was stretched out on her back on the bunk with Armand lying atop her. The restraining straps were buckled loosely behind his back. His weight supported on stiffened arms, Armand lay between Madeleine’s parted legs, kissing her, murmuring shockingly forbidden words of passion, arousing her to a fever pitch by carefully positioning himself so that his heavy, pulsing erection was warmly cradled by her open female flesh.
Madeleine lay squirming beneath him, gazing into his eyes and clutching his upper arms. His handsome face, broad chest and muscular shoulders filled the entire scope of her vision. She could see nothing else. Nothing but him. He was her whole world, this giver of such exquisite erotic pleasure.
When Armand bent his head to press a kiss to her breasts, she sighed with prickling pleasure as his silky hair ruffled against her chin and his lips tugged at her nipple. She turned her head on the pillow and smiled dreamily at the sight of her blue satin garter encircling his muscular upper arm.
But when he raised his head and put his hand between their pressing bodies, Madeleine automatically tensed for what was to come.
“Don’t, chérie,” he said. “Relax. I’ll be gentle. Let me love you.”
She did.
And he did.
She released a shallow breath as she felt his throbbing tumescence slide slowly, cautiously into her. She knew that he was watching her face for signs of pain so she was very careful not to exhibit any traces of the discomfort she briefly experienced. It did hurt. It had been a long, long time. And he was so…so big. She felt as if her body were being filled and stretched far beyond its capacity.
But not for long. Amazingly enough, she found that her yielding flesh was indeed able to accommodate his impressive erection. And when he began to move inside her, Madeleine gave silent thanks that this stranger to whom she was willingly surrendering her body was so very well endowed.
In this dark lover’s arms, Madeleine became oblivious to the raging storm. Swept away in a tempest of white-hot passion, deeply impaled upon his thrusting flesh, she rocked and bucked against him, finding the rhythm of the rocking, bucking bunk beneath them.
It was a wild, erotic ride as neither Madeleine nor Armand held anything back. Mating in an almost animalistic manner, they moaned and gasped as they made hot, totally uninhibited love as the ship rose and fell violently, the fierce movements only adding to the savage joy of their vigorous coupling.
Glorying in the intimacy and the ecstasy, Madeleine was certain that this handsome Creole was indisputably the world’s most thrilling lover. She was totally enchanted, loving the look in his flashing black eyes, the taste of his burning lips and the splendid feel of his lean body on hers—and in hers.
She was amazed that he had the power and the stamina and the skill to make her climax again and again until she was practically weeping his name in near sexual hysteria. And she was shocked that he could attain his own hot, spurting orgasm and then be able and ready to pleasure her again within just a few short minutes.
And so it went.
While the hurricane howled and punished and threatened to capsize the already sinking ship, the lovers continued to thrill and please and pleasure each other as if there were no tomorrow.
And there wasn’t. But it didn’t matter.
As Madeleine again felt her lover’s hard flesh seek the soft warmth of hers, she sighed and gazed at him, enthralled.
He was everything. He was the only thing. There was no future and no past. Only now with him moving inside her as he looked into her eyes and murmured her name in low, soft tones that she magically managed to hear above the deafening din.
Only him.
Only now.
And now was forever.
Six
Forever came to the end seconds later.
The world intruded.
Loud shouts from out on deck brought the lovers abruptly back to reality. Heads snapped around, listening intently, Armand and Madeleine learned that the sudden flurry of excitement was over a coastal steamer that had been spotted making its way toward the crippled ship.
The sea, they now realized with some surprise, had calmed dramatically in the last few minutes of their lovemaking. They were not going to die after all.
Armand gave Madeleine a quick kiss, levered himself up and drew her to her feet. In haste they dressed and hurried out on deck, hearts pumping with adrenaline.
The steamer had reached the sinking ship, but it was a small vessel. Passengers were already clamoring over the Starlight’s railing and crowding onto the steamer’s deck, endangering the vessel that offered safety.
“No more!” shouted the worried steamer captain, “we can’t take any more passengers. We’ll swamp if we do! Water’s already to the gunnels! Get back, get back!”
A cry of protest rose from the pushing, shoving mob of men. Determined to get Madeleine on the steamer and save her life, Armand swept her up into his arms and forced his way through the crowd.
“Wait!” he shouted to the captain of the City of Mobile, handing Madeleine down onto its decks, “You must take her! She’s the last woman on board. Show a little mercy, Captain!”
“Very well,” the frowning captain reluctantly agreed, “but she’s the last one I’ll take.” He drew a pistol from his waistband and shouted, “I’ll shoot the next man who tries to board this vessel!”
Amidst curses and threats from those left behind, the dangerously overloaded steamboat backed away from the sinking ocean liner. Jostled and pushed about, Lady Madeleine stood on the crowded deck and looked back at the sinking ship.
Her tear-filled eyes clung to Armand de Chevalier as he gallantly smiled, waved and threw her a kiss. The lump in her throat grew bigger as she kissed her fingertips and threw the kiss back. And when he hastily unbuttoned his soiled white shirt and whipped it off his left shoulder to reveal her blue satin garter encircling his hard brown biceps, she laughed and sobbed at the same time.
“Armand,” she said without sound, realizing that her lover was going to die. She would never see him again.
After many long, nightmarish hours spent on the badly over-crowded City of Mobile as it steamed through the Gulf and made its slow way upriver, Lady Madeleine at long last arrived in New Orleans.
It was sunset.
Wan and exhausted from the ordeal, Madeleine stood at the riverboat’s lacy railing wondering if her Uncle Colfax and Lord Enfield would be at the landing to meet her. She wondered if they had heard of the hurricane in the Gulf and the sinking of the S. S. Starlight. Would they think she had perished? Gone down with the ship? They would have no way of knowing that she had been spared.
Madeleine sighed as she shaded her eyes from the dying summer sun. She couldn’t expect them to meet every river steamer making port in hopes she would be on it. It didn’t matter. As soon as she reached the levee, she’d hire a carriage to drive her straight to her Uncle Colfax’s French Quarter mansion.
Her eyes lighted in anticipation of seeing her adored uncle. It would be so pleasant to have a little time alone with him before she had to face her fiancé, Lord Enfield. The prospect of looking the lord in the eye and pretending that she was still the high-moraled lady he thought her to be, filled Madeleine with dread and apprehension. She was eager to see him, of course, but now that reality had sunk in, she was so riddled with guilt she wasn’t sure she could conceal her anxiety.
Dear, kind, unsuspecting Desmond. If he knew what she had done, his heart would break and he would surely hate her for all eternity.
The Louisiana sun finally sank beneath the horizon as the slow-moving riverboat approached the levee. In the lingering orange afterglow Madeleine spotted, standing side-by-side on the bustling levee, her Uncle Colfax Sumner and Desmond Chilton.
Torn by conflicting emotions, she raised a hand and waved madly.
“My sweet little Madeleine!” exclaimed her beaming uncle after the riverboat captain had personally escorted her down the gangway and into the outstretched arms of the spry, sixty-seven-year-old Colfax Sumner. “We heard about the terrible storm,” he said, embracing Madeleine, but addressing the captain. “The S. S. Starlight, did she make it?”
Madeleine’s heart hurt when the captain replied, “Afraid not, sir. The last we saw of her, she was swiftly going down. Those left on board most surely perished.”
“Such a tragedy,” said Colfax, then hugged his precious niece so tightly he almost crushed her ribs, unaware of his own strength. Against her ear, he said, “I never gave up hope. Thank the Almighty you’re safe!”
He released her and Madeleine stiffened slightly when the tall, blondly handsome Lord Enfield immediately took her in his arms. He hugged her, but made no attempt to kiss her and for that she was grateful. He was a well-mannered, blue-blooded nobleman who thought it common and vulgar to demonstrate affection in public. Thank heaven. She was not yet ready to kiss him. She needed a few days, or at least a few hours, before she kissed anyone again.
Holding her in a much gentler embrace than her spirited uncle, Lord Enfield said softly, “My dear, we were so worried.” He pulled back to look down at her. “Are you unharmed?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him, not feeling fine at all. Forcing a smile, she glanced at her uncle and added, “Now that I’m here with the two of you.”
The trio climbed into the waiting carriage and Colfax himself drove them directly to his Royal Street town house. The troubled Madeleine experienced a measure of well-being when the carriage passed through the mansion’s heavy iron gates and rolled through the porte cochere.
She loved this comfortable French Quarter home with its captivating gardens and private courtyard. A charming Creole town house, the structure consisted of a ground floor containing the kitchen and service rooms that opened onto the courtyard. Stairs to the living quarters were mounted outside the galleries in the courtyard. At the far back edge of the property, beyond the courtyard, were a couple of two-story garçonnières, carriage houses that had originally been built for male relatives or guests. Their only occupant was the indomitable black woman, Avalina, who single-handedly tended the Sumner house.
On the second floor of the main house were the entertaining rooms: drawing room, dining room, small ballroom, and Colfax’s book-lined study and spacious bedroom suite. On the third floor were a number of bedrooms, one of which belonged to Madeleine, even though she had stayed in it only two or three times in her life.
As she alighted from the carriage, Madeleine automatically inhaled deeply and sighed with satisfaction. The sweet scent of magnolias and azaleas and honeysuckle and japonica and Cherokee roses made her realize fully that she was back in the seductive semitropics of New Orleans.
That, and the damp, muggy heat that caused her hair to curl around her face and beads of perspiration to stand out on her forehead.
Eagerly climbing the stairs to the second floor gallery that was embellished with fancy iron lace, Madeleine hurried through the tall, fan-lighted double doors and stepped into the spacious entryway. She had taken but a few short steps before Avalina, her signature white tignon on her head, her broad black face radiating pleasure, was there to meet her.
“My stars above, Lady Madeleine, you had us all worried sick,” exclaimed the smiling woman who for the past thirty-one years had demonstrated unquestioned efficiency, style and undying loyalty to the man whose home she so capably ran.
“I know and I’m so sorry,” Madeleine replied, wrapping her arms around the stout woman.
Half embarrassed, as she always was, when the spirited young noblewoman embraced her—a mere servant—Avalina quickly pulled away, nodded to Lord Enfield and said to Colfax Sumner, “Welcoming celebrations and countless questions about her ordeal will have to wait until Lady Madeleine has fully recovered. She looks weak and pallid and she needs rest.”
Nodding, Colfax Sumner quickly agreed with the intuitive Avalina. Lord Enfield similarly demonstrated his caring and kindness, insisting, along with her concerned uncle, that she go directly up to bed and remain there for a least a week. She surely needed that long to recover from all she’d been through.
Madeleine put up no arguments. There was nothing she desired more than to escape the unsettling presence of her devoted fiancé, whom she could hardly face, so plagued was she with guilt.
“You go on now, dearest,” said Lord Enfield. “I’ll come up to say good-night once you’re settled in bed.” He glanced at Colfax Sumner. “That is, with your permission, sir.”
“Permission granted,” said Colfax, smiling.
The lord turned his attention back to Madeleine. “Dear?”
Madeleine inwardly cringed, but managed a smile as she said, “Yes, that would be nice.” She turned and hugged her uncle, then followed Avalina.
Upstairs, Madeleine released a soft sigh of relief and nodded gratefully when Avalina asked if she would like to take a nice, long bath.
Moments later Madeleine sank down into the depths of a tub filled to the brim with hot sudsy water. While Avalina gathered up her soiled clothing and laid out a clean white nightgown, Madeleine laid her head back against the tub’s rim, closed her eyes and began to unwind as she tried to fully relax.
But with her eyes closed she saw again the handsome face that had been just above her own when the Creole had made love to her during the storm. She was heartsick to think that Armand de Chevalier had drowned, but she knew that it was true. She was genuinely saddened by his death and at the same time filled with remorse for what she had done.
Madeleine opened her eyes and reached for a loofah and bar of sweet-scented soap. She began to anxiously lather her body and to scrub vigorously, determined to wash away any lingering traces of Armand de Chevalier.
As she avidly lathered every inch of her flesh with the soap and hot water, Madeleine told herself that this cleansing bath was exactly what she needed to put everything right. She would, she was determined, successfully wash away even the nagging memories of what she and Armand de Chevalier had impetuously done.
But when, fresh and clean from the bath, she lay in the big four-poster awaiting Lord Enfield, Armand de Chevalier was still very much in her thoughts. It was, she realized, going to take more than a hot bath to free her from the clutches of the Creole.
At the gentle knock on the door, Madeleine glanced at Avalina, half tempted to ask her to stay. “Please invite Desmond in,” she said to the housekeeper.
Avalina nodded, opened the door and left as Lord Enfield entered. When he quietly closed the door, Madeleine automatically stiffened. Smiling, he crossed to her, sat down on the edge of the bed facing her and held out his arms.
“Alone at last,” he said and reached for her.
He drew her up into his arms and Madeleine fought a perplexing desire to push him away, to order him out of her room, to tell him to leave her alone, that she wasn’t feeling well. She sat there in bed with her arms around his neck, her cheek pressed to his chest, feeling trapped and uneasy.
She felt his lips in her hair as he murmured, “How I yearn for the day when we’re married and I no longer have to leave you at bedtime.” He pulled back to look at her and said, “If only we were already man and wife. I could undress, get into bed with you and hold you all through the night.”
Madeleine swallowed convulsively. “Yes, that would be…wonderful.”
He read the anxiety in her expressive emerald eyes and felt her slender body tremble. He gave her a puzzled look. “What is it, my dear? You’re not yourself. Why, you’re trembling.”
“It’s just…well, I am very tired and I…”
“Oh, of course you are.” He was immediately contrite and sympathetic. “How thoughtless and selfish of me. I’ll run along now and let you get some rest.”
“Thank you, Desmond.”
“Good night, my dearest love,” he said softly, and his face slowly descended to hers. Terrified he was going to kiss her, Madeleine sighed with relief when he merely brushed his lips to her forehead.
“I love you very much, Madeleine,” he whispered, “and I’m so relieved that you came through that terrible disaster unharmed.”
Lord Enfield rose to his feet, smiled down at her, and said, “Dream of me tonight, darling.”
“I will,” she said.
But after he had gone and she’d put out the lamp and lowered the gauzy mosquito baire around the bed, it was not Desmond Chilton who filled her thoughts. Armand de Chevalier again intruded.
Madeleine impatiently kicked off the covering sheet, yanked her long nightgown up around her thighs in an effort to battle the sultry New Orleans heat, and closed her eyes.
Exhausted, she fell instantly asleep. But the man who tortured her waking hours followed her into her dreams to hold her and kiss her and make her misbehave.
“She’s sound asleep.” Avalina, having looked in on Madeleine after Lord Enfield left, announced to Colfax Sumner. “I expect she’ll sleep round the clock.”
