Madalena by Sheila Walsh

Author:Sheila Walsh [Walsh, Sheila]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: regency, nineteenth century, handsome hero, Barbara Hazard, georgian, Laura Matthews, second chance, Dorothy Mack, romance, Megan Daniel, Alice Chetwynd Ley, historical fiction, Vanessa Gray, Judith Harkness, Gayle Buck, Elizabeth Hewitt, 1800s
Publisher: Wyndham Books (Regency Romance)
Published: 2017-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

Madalena was surprised to hear a sound from within her brother’s room. After a moment’s hesitation she tapped lightly on the door and went in.

Armand was sitting on the edge of the bed, facing the window. Apart from a single, nervous jerk of the head as she entered, he made no attempt to greet her.

‘Armand, mon cher! No one said that you were returned!’

Undeterred by his silence Madalena bounced on to the bed beside him, not noticing how he flinched with the sudden movement.

‘We have only just arrived ourselves, you know,’ she chattered on, ‘and oh, how it makes one stiff to be sitting in a chaise for so long. Our poor aunt ‒ she is quite prostrate and is gone to lie down ‒ and Phoebe must be pining for her John, for she has spoken hardly a word on the way home. I must tell you ‒ we had the most dreadful quarrel and for days I was not popular ‒ but all is now well.’

She sprang suddenly to her feet. ‘Oh, but the time we have had! It will take me an age to tell it all to you. You will never guess who we met …’

In her excitement she put out a hand to grasp her brother and was totally unprepared for the violence of his reaction.

‘Non! Ne me touche pas!’

‘Armand! What is wrong? Are you ill?’ Madalena looked more closely and noticed for the first time his extreme pallor, the tight-drawn line of his mouth. ‘Ah, mon pauvre! You are ill!’

‘I am all right,’ he muttered through shut teeth. ‘Just go and leave me alone.’

‘Indeed I will not! A fine sister that would make of me!’

His eyes closed in a kind of weary despair and she sank at once to her knees beside him, her own stiffness forgotten. ‘Oh come now!’ she coaxed him. ‘It is only your own Maddie. Tell me, I implore you! You know how stubborn I can be and I do not mean to leave until I know what it is that troubles you so.’

Armand made a curious choking sound, halfway between a laugh and a groan. ‘Dieu ‒ why do I bother!’ He turned a little so that his right side became visible to her, exposing the torn sleeve and the makeshift bandage.

Madalena exclaimed in horror and demanded to know how he had come by such an injury.

‘No fuss, Maddie ‒ I beg you! It is a scratch only.’

‘As to that, we must without a doubt remove your coat at once so that I may see this scratch.’ Alternately coaxing and bullying, she eased him out of the coat, her eyes flying constantly to his face lest she should be hurting him.

Her fingers struggled with the complex knot Sir Vyvian had wrought, while her tongue scolded, ‘I said, did I not, how all this gallivanting with Daniel would come to no good. Oh, I shall have much to say to him when next I see him, to let you travel in such a state!’

The handkerchief came away at last.

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