Temptation Read online

  “You what?”

  “I think I’ll do things a bit differently,” she said. “I might—”

  “There’s someone coming!” Alys yelled as she ran up the stairs, causing Temperance to break off her sentence. “And she’s beautiful!”

  “Tell her the McCairn already has a bride,” Temperance shouted toward the door, making Grace smile.

  “No,” Alys said when she reached the doorway. “She’s come to see you.”

  “Me?” Temperance said. “I hope it isn’t an early wedding guest,” she said as she followed Alys down the stairs.

  “Her name’s Deborah Madison and she’s from America.”

  At that Temperance stopped on the stairs. At first she wasn’t sure where she’d heard the name before; then it hit her hard. The Contender, she thought, for that’s what the woman’s name had come to be inside her head. This was the woman who wanted to take away what Temperance had started and had built. This was the woman whom Temperance was going to have to fight as soon as she returned to New York and to her real work.

  Deborah Madison wasn’t beautiful; she was cute. She had lots of reddish hair, an upturned nose, freckles, and a little-girl mouth. As she stood on the stairs and looked down at her, Temperance knew that she was the kind of woman who’d always look twenty years younger than she actually was. And Temperance could also see why men adored her. She had no doubt that Miss Madison could look up at a man with those big green eyes, bat her lashes, and make the weakest man feel strong.

  “There you are,” she said, looking up. “I would have known you anywhere.” Her voice was that of an excited child’s.

  “Won’t you come in,” Temperance said cautiously.

  “So you do know who I am,” the girl said, for Temperance could only think of her as a “girl.” Already, she was making Temperance feel quite old. However, the way she said “who,” as in “who I am,” made Temperance even more cautious.

  “Yes, I’ve read about you. Perhaps we should go in here and sit down,” Temperance said, opening a door on a rarely used drawing room. The room was quite shabby, and she hadn’t bothered to do much with it, as it was so seldom used.

  “I heard that you’d been exiled, but this is ridiculous,” Deborah said, looking around her as she unpinned her hat and set it on a round table in the center of the room. “My hat’s not as big as yours, but then, it’s not my trademark,” Deborah said, looking at Temperance as though they shared some secret.

  Silently, Temperance motioned toward a deep sofa, and Deborah sat down. “Why are you here?” Temperance said once they were seated.

  “I was sent for; didn’t you know that?”

  “No . . .” Temperance said slowly. “Who sent for you?”

  “I thought you did.” Before Temperance could answer, Deborah stood up and began to pace about the room. “You’re my hero, did you know that? Of course I plan to surpass you, and now that you’ve given up everything—”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You are staying here in Scotland, aren’t you?”

  “No, actually—”

  “Well, good then,” Deborah interrupted. “I can stand the competition, but I warn you that I do indeed plan to give you a run for your money.”

  “Pardon me,” Temperance said, “but I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about. Compete with me about what?”

  Deborah stopped pacing and looked at Temperance for a moment; then she picked up her bag off the sofa and opened it. “I do hope that you don’t mind that I smoke. Willie—you remember him, don’t you?—Willie says that smoking makes me look more sophisticated.” At that she took out a short, fat cigarette and lit it with a match. However, she started coughing so hard that she had to stub it out, unfortunately on a Meissen plate.

  “They take some getting used to. Now where was I? Oh, yes, competing. Dear,” she said to Temperance, “you and I are competing for the history books. You know that, don’t you?”

  “No, I had no idea we were competing at all, so why don’t you explain this to me?” Temperance sat still, her hands folded on her lap, and listened to this woman she’d never met before talk about famous women in history. Deborah Madison included Joan of Arc, Elizabeth I, and Catherine the Great in what was an obviously well-rehearsed speech. In conclusion, Deborah said that she planned to add herself to that illustrious list.

  All in all, Temperance was feeling very stupid. First of all, she couldn’t figure out who had summoned this woman and what she wanted from Temperance. That she wanted something was a sure bet, because already Temperance could see that Deborah Madison didn’t do anything without receiving something in return. It was obvious that Miss Madison was one ambitious young lady.

  “However, if you don’t mind, I plan to borrow some ideas from you. You have your hats, and I’ll . . . Actually I haven’t come up with my trademark yet, but it’ll be something like your hat, something that makes people notice and remember me.”

  “I used the hat to help call attention to the people I was trying to help,” Temperance said softly, but her teeth were clenched. This girl was not going to make her angry!

  “Yes, yes, of course you did,” Deborah said quickly. “All those destitute women. I know. The prostitutes, the drug addicts, all those illegitimate children. But then we never really touch them, do we?”

  “Yes,” Temperance said firmly. “They are people, and they need—”

  “A bath,” Deborah said, then laughed at her own joke. “Yes, I know that at first you had a great deal to do with them, but then you were just starting out and couldn’t help it, but later, you learned to deal with the mayor and the governor—the important people. Willie says that I should set my sights on the president, and that I should try to get him to create some position for me. He said—and you’ll die at this—you do remember how funny Willie is, don’t you? He said that I should have the president form a House of Prostitution and I’d be the director of it. Get it? House of Prostitution?” When Temperance didn’t seem to understand, Deborah pushed. “Like the House of Representatives, but since we work with prostitutes and where they work are called houses . . .”

  Temperance still didn’t smile. She didn’t remember Willie as being particularly funny. In fact, she couldn’t seem to remember Willie as much of anything except a nuisance.

  “So, anyway,” Deborah said, “I was sent for, so I’m here.”

  “But why and by whom?” Temperance asked.

  “I have no idea. A lawyer visited me and handed me tickets for the first ship out. He said I was to get to Edinburgh pronto. I had four long days on the voyage over to think about all this, and I decided that maybe, instead of competing, we should form a team. I could be the one in front of the cameras, and—”

  “I could be the old cow in the background who does the work,” Temperance said with a smile.

  At that Deborah laughed. “Willie said that you had a great sense of humor, and he was right.”

  “Tell me, Miss Madison, what would you advise a young, unmarried woman who told you she was in the family way?”

  “Well, first of all, I’d let Agnes handle her. You remember Agnes?”

  “Yes,” Temperance said, then thought with embarrassment of the night that she’d thrown her hat into the audience and how she, Temperance, had enjoyed the adoring look Agnes gave her. That seemed so long ago. Had she needed worshipers?

  “Well, Agnes handles all those women, but if I had to advise her, I’d tell her that she should have controlled herself. If you know what I mean.”

  “I see,” Temperance said, then realized that she’d seen more than enough, so she stood up. “It has been so nice to meet you and I do hope you can stay for the wedding of the McCairn to Miss Kenna Lockwood. And although I’d like to invite you to stay here, I can’t, as we will have a full house.”

  As Deborah stood, she looked about her. “That’s all right. I’d be afraid of bedbugs anyway. No, the ticket included a good hotel in Edinburgh,