‘That’s a terrible thing to say!’ His revulsion at her sent her emotions swinging into a violent downward spiral, the bitter words thrashing against her wretched senses as he twirled her around the dance-floor, his hand biting into her as cruelly as his words were doing, restricting her ability to breathe, think, to even notice the tears filling her eyes.
‘I didn’t promise to be nice to you, Madeline,’ he gritted. ‘Only to dance one damned dance with you!’
‘Then let me go.’ She tried to pull away from him, but his grip only tightened. ‘I don’t need your benevolence.’
‘Oh, no,’ he refused through clenched white teeth. ‘You’ll stay right here and see this through! I’ve been humiliated enough by you already!’
‘And you didn’t humiliate me the other night?’ she shot back, the tears gone now, replaced with an anger that always c
ame alongside pain for her.
‘Because I wouldn’t take what was so—cheaply offered?’ he scoffed. ‘Behave like a whore and you get treated like one, Madeline. And you were playing the whore to the bloody hilt! Don’t!’ he warned when her head came up, eyes like midnight fire in her paste-white face. ‘Don’t cause that scene, or you’ll get more than you bargained for from me.’
‘Revenge, Dominic?’ she suggested shrilly. ‘Is that what this is really all about: you want revenge on me, so you’ve decided to give me my one conciliatory dance then intend to walk away so everyone will know exactly why you danced with me at all!’
‘That’s your problem to deal with, Madeline, not mine,’ he threw back carelessly. ‘You could have stayed away tonight and saved us all this, but you didn’t, so now you have the choice of either finishing it with a bit of class or doing what these people have come to expect from you, and showing yourself up for the crazy fool you really are!’
‘Oh, by all means, let’s not disappoint the punters by not giving them what they expect,’ she drawled, her eyes brilliant with intent, heart cracking wide like an egg slowly seeping its dying contents. ‘Now, what should it be, Dominic? Would you prefer me to dash out of here in a flood of tears, or would it be rather more amusing if I prostrate myself at your feet and humbly beg forgiveness?’
With a violent jerk, Madeline removed herself from his arms, and lifted her chin to send him a final glinting look from her pain-darkened eyes. ‘I think the latter, don’t you?’ she murmured, and, with an odd twist spoiling the perfect contours of her mouth, she dropped into a low, deep and humbling curtsy at his feet, pale lime silk billowing around her, her gleaming black head bowed in mute contrition.
It was dramatic. It was utterly diabolical of her to do it. But as a country club ball stopper, it threw the whole room into total silence. And now, Madeline could actually find it in her to smile a little at her own wicked temerity.
Dominic could have laughed, but he didn’t. He could have seen the humour in the precocious Madeline Gilburn abasing herself in front of him like some lowly serf, but he didn’t. He could even have dragged her up by the hair and given her another beating for causing the scene he had specifically warned her against! But he did none of these things. Instead, and on a filthy curse which only reached as far as Madeline’s ears, he derided, ‘Why don’t you just grow up, Madeline? For God’s sake grow up!’ and walked angrily away.
To everyone watching the little scene from the sidelines, they saw Dominic get his revenge that night, because Madeline’s dramatic little gesture looked like a desperate plea for forgiveness—not given. And in true Madeline Gilburn style, she begged with optimum impact—or that was how it appeared to the onlookers. In truth—and as Dominic had known—she was mocking him, and he walked away because he could see no other way of dealing with the situation without appearing the fool once again.
Madeline, by contrast, remained exactly where she was, dying a little more with each second that passed, taking with it all her brave defiance, her mind going over and over every cruel word he had thrown at her, adding them to the long list of criticisms he had hurled at her the week before, and by the time her father gently lifted her back to her feet and led her out of the room the old Madeline was already dead, and the new one floundering somewhere close to hell. It took six months in Boston before the new woman began to form any real substance, and years to build her into the person she was today.
No one, Madeline had vowed often since, was going to find a single thing to criticise about her again.
* * *
She and Perry spent Sunday morning on horseback, riding across the lovely spring-green countryside to stop for lunch at a small riverside inn.
Afterwards, they went for a walk by the river, drawing the eyes of other Sunday strollers by the sheer balance one made against the other, Madeline long-legged and slender in her buff riding breeches and brown check tweed jacket, with her long hair caught up on a simple coil high on the crown of her head, and Perry dressed similarly, tall and lean, with his light brown hair and classically clean features.
They had been walking for a good ten minutes before Madeline plucked up enough courage to ask him the question which had been gnawing at her all weekend. ‘Perry…’ she murmured carefully. ‘Can I ask a favour of you?’
‘Of course,’ he said agreeably. ‘Anything you want.’
Just like that. Madeline smiled a little ruefully to herself. That was not going to be his attitude in a moment. ‘If I tell my parents I am dining with you in London on Wednesday night, will you cover for me?’
He stopped walking. ‘Why?’ he demanded. ‘Why do you need cover?’
Madeline ran her tongue around her suddenly dry lips. ‘Because I’ve arranged to meet someone,’ she explained. ‘And they’re going to disapprove thoroughly if they know who.’
‘Who?’
Logical next question, she acknowledged. Oh, gosh! She took a deep breath. ‘Dominic,’ she said, then cringed when he turned angrily on her.
‘Are you losing your mind?’ he cried. ‘The man virtually crucified you in public four years ago, and now you calmly tell me that you’ve arranged to have dinner with him!’
There was nothing calm about the decision, Madeline thought drily. ‘I crucified him first, Perry,’ she pointed out. ‘This community is small and tightly knit. For as long as this stupid feud between our two families goes on, that dual crucifixion will never be forgotten. And it’s hurting people who have no right to be hurt by it. I am meeting Dominic because we both accept that something has to be done to bring it all to an end, and it seems that we are the only ones who can do it.’
‘How?’ he jeered. ‘By seeing each other again? Pretending the past never existed?’
‘Yes,’ she answered, then more fiercely, ‘Yes! If that is what it takes!’