Devil Takes A Bride (20 page)

“I said drop it, Torquil,” Quint repeated.

“I will not! This is absurd! I can't believe you two! Carstairs wants to bend over for him, and you're trying to relive your youth through the man! Am I the only one who can see this bastard's got the whole club in his crosshairs? I am
not
going to the gibbet for you two sons of a bitch. I didn't do it.”

“You helped,” Carstairs coolly reminded him.

Staines turned to the baron. “Quint—”

Without warning, Quint slammed Staines against the wall with all its myriad smiling portraits and jammed his thick, hairy forearm across the man's throat. “I said drop it,” he ordered. “Understand? It's in the past, Torq. As far as I'm concerned, it
never happened
.”

“You haven't got the stomach for it! Both of you have gone soft!”

“Don't push me, Staines,” Quint growled.

“Boys, boys.” Carstairs leaned against the wall beside the spot where Quint dangled Staines up on his toes. He looked from one to the other with another suave smile. It was ever so pleasant having a tame giant of one's own. “I propose that we agree to leave Strathmore alone for another month or two, continue to watch him, just as we have been doing, then reconsider at that time as to whether or not we have cause to suspect him. If he makes one wrong move, why, then, Torquil, you may have him. Until then, let him be presumed innocent until proven guilty. I daresay he's suffered enough. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” Quint murmured, nodding.

“Innocent? By the time he's proved guilty, we could be on the gallows!” Staines choked out.

Quint smashed his arm harder against the man's throat.

“I'm not worried,” Carstairs said.

“Neither am I,” Quint agreed.

“Fine,” Staines growled at last.

Quint released him. As Staines stalked away from them with a surly look, Quint loosened up his big prizefighter's shoulders with a restless shrug.

“Well done,” Carstairs said, giving the brute a friendly slap on his bulging arm.

Quint immediately pulled away, bristling. “Don't touch me.” He shot Carstairs a look of wary contempt, then strutted back to his latest redheaded whore.

Carstairs absorbed the unearned insult in silent chagrin.

How droll it was to think that he could once have wanted an ogre like Quint, years ago, when he had first seen him—a towering, tanned, young barbarian with a body of steel. That was ages ago, when he had been less discriminating in his tastes, well before Quint had developed that saggy paunch around his middle, too. When the baron had first come to London from the wilds of Yorkshire, Carstairs had helped him acquire a bit of polish—Town Bronze—lust, his ulterior motive. But he had never actually attempted to entice the man, realizing all it would get him was a fist in his face, and it would have been a great shame to mar the perfection of Carstairs's handsome nose.

He would have been perfectly happy if he never laid eyes on Quint again, or on Staines, for that matter, but they were bound together by their blood oath of secrecy, tied to each other in guilt and hatred and pain. How Carstairs longed for a new start.

As he ambled back toward the flamboyant tented salon, hands in his impeccable trouser pockets, he heard rude cheering down the hallway and glanced over just as Devil Strathmore emerged from the private chamber with his blushing virgin.

Carstairs smiled.
Ex
-virgin.

Then he shuddered a little, staring at the conquering hero. Strathmore was flushed and sweaty, his shirt hanging open down his muscled chest. His black hair was tousled; holding up his black trousers with one hand, he asked in a scratchy voice if anyone had a cheroot.

The lads laughed at his satyric smile.

Someone handed him a lit cigar and he took a puff, sighing smoke from it as though it was the best thing he had ever tasted in his life. He slung his other arm around the young girl's shoulders and blew the smoke over her head.

She huddled closer to him, slipping her arms around his waist and burying her face against him in embarrassment as the old crone, Mother Iniquity, slipped into the room behind them and certified by the blood on the sheets that the deed had been done.

Carstairs laughed under his breath and shook his head to himself, relieved that Dev had just played right into his hands.

If it turned out he
was
deceiving them, it would be so much easier to keep him under control now that they could hold this misdeed over his head. The club provided the unblemished lamb for the sacrifice, but each aspirant had the privilege of slitting his own throat. It was not a matter of virgin-deflowerment, when it came down to it, but of gaining leverage over every man in their organization, should a test of loyalty or the need for some strong persuasion ever arise.

Who really needed brawn, anyway? Carstairs mused, gloating a little as the newest member of the Horse and Chariot Club led his traumatized victim out of the room. Brains won nine times out of ten, and blackmail was such an efficient solution.

 

“Do you th-think they believed us?” the frightened girl whispered, clinging to Dev as he walked her outside.

“Oh, yes. I'd say we were fairly convincing.” During the hour they had spent in that bedroom, Dev had taught the girl how to pitch cards until the terror had left her eyes, then had done several dozen push-ups to work up the requisite sweat.

Little Suzy had begun eyeing him as if she were beginning to think ravishment at his hands might not be a fate worse than death, after all, but she definitely didn't like Quint and the rest who had been so cruel to her.

“They're so horrid.”

“I know. Don't think of them anymore,” he murmured. “We're going to get you out of here, posthaste. Here's my carriage.” His glossy black racing drag rolled to a halt before the curved double stairs. “My servants will see you back safely to your village. But first—” Reaching the bottom of the steps, he turned her to face him, grasping her firmly by the shoulders. “—I want you to promise me on your most solemn oath that you will never,
ever
take a ride from strangers again.”

She gave him a somber nod. “I won't—I promise. You're not still bleeding, I hope?” She glanced anxiously at his side, but the wound was concealed by his shirt.

“I'm fine.”

“That's good. Oh, thank you, Lord Strathmore.” She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cheek.

He gave her a stern frown. “This is Ben,” he said gruffly as his servant joined them. “He will be escorting you home.”

Ben bowed to the girl. “Miss.”

She cast him an uncertain glance.

“You can trust him, Susannah,” Dev said softly. “Ben has been all over the world with me and has saved my life on several occasions.”

“Does he speak English?” she whispered.

“Of course. He's from America, not the moon.”

Ben's eyebrows lifted, but he was too accustomed to odd reactions from white people to let it ruffle his amiable nature. Dev helped the chit into the carriage; then Ben shut the door.

“What's going on?” Ben asked, walking forward to the driver's box with Dev.

Dev waited till they were out of Suzy's earshot. “The third requirement,” he muttered under his breath, glancing at the pavilion with rage in his eyes.

“The little girl?” Ben exclaimed in shock.

He nodded grimly. “They picked her up outside a village in Hertfordshire. I finally got her calmed down. See that she gets home safely. Then come back and pick me up so they don't suspect anything. It's not all that far. You should be back by dawn.”

“Be careful.”

Dev smirked. Ben got into the coach with Susannah, Dev directed the coachman to Stevenage, and in another moment, the vehicle rumbled off down the drive.

Susannah blew him a kiss through the carriage window, and Dev scowled. The last deuced thing he needed was an infatuated infant sighing over him. Hands in pockets, he watched his drag go speeding off down the moonlit road through the marshes, then glanced up reluctantly at the pavilion. Steeling himself, he walked back up the curving stairs.

Hard to believe, he mused, but now it was official—he was a “blooded” member of the notorious Horse and Chariot Club. Now that he had proved himself and had won more of their trust, passing their cursed tests, it would be much easier to press on in his quest, until he had discovered which of the twisted bastards had set that fateful fire twelve years ago.

He could hardly wait to pay the man back in full.

 

“Now then, girls, the hypotenuse is always the side across from the right angle. It makes no difference what the other two angles are. As long as one of the three is a right angle, then Pythagoras's theorem will work,” Lizzie explained in a firm tone to the roomful of bright-eyed sixteen-year-olds as she drew a right triangle on the chalkboard. “Here is the equation:
A
squared plus
B
squared equals
C
squared.”

As she finished writing out the simple formula, she turned around only to find the whole class staring back at her vacantly.

“Well, don't just sit there, ladies. Write it down.”

“Oh!” In the front row, Daisy Manning, a biddable innocent with big blue eyes and yellow sausage curls instantly obeyed. She glanced up anxiously at the board, copying down the formula on her slate with an air of distress.

Behind her, Annabelle Swanson, the class rebel, made no move to obey. A skeptical and rather cheeky brunette, Annabelle slouched in her chair, furtively reading something that Lizzie feared was another love letter from an unsuitable boy named Tom.

“Annabelle, please pay attention. This equation has been with us since Ancient Greece. It deserves your best efforts,” Lizzie clipped out in her best Lady Strathmore tone. Indeed, she often thought of how much the dowager would have enjoyed talking with the youngsters, or rather, holding forth on how one ought to conduct one's life.

Annabelle huffed and picked up her slate. “Miss Bamworth never made us learn geometry,” she muttered under her breath.

“I beg your pardon?”

“She does have a point, Miss Carlisle,” Daisy offered, raising her hand in the first row. “We were told we would only have to learn addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.”

“Yes, Miss Bamworth never made us do anything this hard,” another student piped up in a plaintive tone.

“Well, I am your new teacher, and I know you girls are much cleverer than that,” Lizzie assured them and drew on all her famous patience to give them a pleasant smile.

“Yes, but, um, M-Miss Carlisle?”

“Yes, Daisy?” she asked in weary amusement.

“What if studying geometry ruins our temperament, so that when we come out next year, nobody wants to marry us?” She glanced back nervously at some of the other girls, who nodded solemnly. “Papa should be very cross indeed if that were to happen. Papa says gentlemen don't like bluestockings.”

Lizzie managed not to flinch. “Your papa is quite right, Daisy, but never fear. If I see any adverse effects on your temperaments, I give you my word of honor that we shall desist at once.”

“I still don't see why anybody cares about any silly old triangles,” Annabelle grumbled. “It's not as if I plan to build a bridge.”

The others dared to titter.

Lizzie swept the class with a sharp look; the tittering stopped. “It is not a matter of triangles, Annabelle. It is an
exercise
we undertake to develop our brains into keenly honed instruments, the better with which to direct our lives. I'm trying to teach you girls how to reason. She who cannot think for herself will never be the mistress of her own destiny.”

The class stared at her for a moment, absorbing this revolutionary notion, though the strict headmistress probably would have been appalled by it. Lizzie ignored the thought. Why should they be restricted from learning what was standard fare for their brothers?

“Now, copy the formula please. Then I want you to try applying it to the problems on the board.” Clasping her hands behind her back, she strolled up and down the aisles, looking over her students' work.

When she reached Annabelle's desk, she spied the paper tucked under the girl's slate and took it away with a chiding look. Annabelle sulked, but Lizzie was at least relieved to see it was not another love note. Instead, it was one of the racy scandal sheets that the girls obtained from heaven knew where.

Lizzie frowned at her and brought it back to her desk at the front of the classroom. She barely glanced at the trashy gossip page, but as she started to cast it aside, the first line leaped out at her. She froze, suddenly paling.
Oh, no.

Not again.
Her heart pounding, she sat down slowly at her desk and, with a little piece of her dying inside, furtively skimmed the paragraph while the girls struggled to tackle the first problem. His name had been appearing in such articles more and more frequently in the past few weeks since Lady Strathmore's funeral.

Devil St–—m——,
the piece began.

She closed her eyes for a second, her conscience twisting with a spasm of remorse as his aunt's last wish once again haunted her mind:
“Will you look in on him from time to time when I am gone? He has no one else….”

Well, no wonder he had no one else! she thought, shoving off guilt with a vengeance. The deuced man pushed away anybody who tried to get close to him!

He had ordered her to go away; she didn't need to be told twice. Perhaps, admittedly, in her heart, she felt somewhat honor-bound to reach out to him—for his aunt's sake, merely—but with scandalous stories like these, she could not fathom how it could even be accomplished. An unmarried young lady—especially a girls'-school governess employed by a high stickler like Mrs. Hall—could hardly take a hackney to the West End and go knocking on the front door of a gazetted rake like Devil Strathmore. Not, anyway, without severe damage to her reputation. Why risk it?