Devil Takes A Bride (5 page)

“Oh, I don't know,” Lizzie answered with caution. “I rather like it on the shelf, safely out of harm's way—where certain ‘cats' of my acquaintance cannot knock one down and shatter one into a hundred bits, like your poor vase.”

Lady Strathmore leaned nearer, sliding her a mischievous smile. “But on the shelf, my dear, all you get is dusty.”

Lizzie burst out laughing and shook her head at the incorrigible old woman. Nevertheless, she was eager for a change of subject rather than her nonexistent love life. She turned to show Lady Strathmore the progress she had made on repairing her treasured vase, when suddenly a high-pitched shriek pierced the air from somewhere near the entrance hall.

“Good heavens, what now?” her employer exclaimed.

Lizzie was already on her feet, rushing to see what was the matter. She was halfway across the room when Margaret burst into the doorway with a look of wild excitement.

“Oh, milady, it's Master Dev! He's come! He's riding up the drive!”

“Devlin?” the old woman breathed, her face lighting up with instantaneous joy.

“Aye, ma'am!” Margaret cried, her eyes sparkling. “He'll be here in a trice!”

“Heaven preserve us!” she whispered. “He's come!” Radiating shocked amazement and motherly pride, the formidable old dragon did not seem to know what to do with herself all of a sudden. She was breathless, positively fluttering. “Why, that rascal, he gave no warning! Isn't that just like him? Well, don't just stand there, daft creature! Run and tell Cook to set another place for supper! My nephew will be hungry—he always is! Lusty appetite, that boy—no doubt it's why he's grown into such a fine, strapping figure of a man.”

“Yes, ma'am!” Margaret agreed a bit too eagerly, then dashed out a curtsy and raced off to carry out the divine privilege of feeding Master Dev.

“I don't trust a man who doesn't relish a good meal,” Lady Strathmore went on, quickly wiping away a tear that she thought no one saw, but Lizzie barely paid heed.

She stood frozen with astonishment, her mind in a whirl.

Good God, her ruse had worked!

But how? How on earth had he gotten here so fast? He would have had to have traveled all night through the blizzard at breakneck speed—

“Quickly, child, how do I look?” Lady Strathmore demanded. Busily adjusting the lappets of her black lace house cap, her cheeks were flushed with pleasure, her coloring better than Lizzie had seen it in weeks.

It was miraculous.

Darling Dev had not even shown his face yet, but somehow he had the power to revitalize the old woman with an impact that all Lizzie's patient, cheerful, daily companionship could not begin to approach. And that, she supposed with a lonely pang, was the power of genuine love.

“You look beautiful, ma'am,” she forced out. “As ever.”

“Well, don't just stand there, Lizzie, go and change that frumpy gown!”

“Ma'am!” she said indignantly.

“I've told you how stylish he is.”

A hint of temper flashed across her brow. “It's not the Regent come, my lady.”

“Headstrong gel. Take that awful thing off, at least.” Lady Strathmore pointed to her head.

Lizzie frowned, touching her white muslin house cap. “What's wrong with it?”

“It makes you look
old
.”

“I am old,” she insisted.

“Child, I have gowns in my closet that are older than you. Well, suit yourself, stubborn creature. You always do. But don't blame me if Devlin teases you about your dress. He is always teasing,” she added with lavish doting.

“He wouldn't dare.”

“Oh-ho, dear miss, there is little my nephew would not dare. I cannot wait for you to meet him at last!”

“My lady, I pray you, do not set your hopes too high,” Lizzie warned with an earnest shake of her head. “I doubt His Lordship will be able to stay long.”

Especially when he realized the truth of her deception.

“Of course he won't stay long, silly chit. One can hardly expect a Corinthian of Devlin's mettle to spend his days squiring his old dragon aunt around Bath. Now, do hurry, Miss Carlisle. It is a grand occasion!” Lady Strathmore gripped the wheels of her Bath chair and rolled herself out of the ground-floor parlor and toward the entrance hall.

Change my gown, indeed. For what?
Lizzie scoffed. Glamorous, highborn rakes did not even
see
plain, sensible women like her, she knew from experience. Besides, she had too much self-respect to go prancing about in finery merely to attract the notice of a loose-living scoundrel whose character she doubted and whose manner of living she disparaged.

But despite her employer's urge to hurry, she lingered in the parlor a moment longer, a trifle apprehensive to learn what manner of man she had deceived. Hearing his horse's hoofbeats approaching even now, she sidled over to the window, nudged one of the lace curtains aside, and stole a discreet peek out.

Instantly, her eyes flared with alarm—and a certain measure of confusion.

There must be some mistake. The man she saw did not match her expectations one iota—not a pampered prince, but a fierce-eyed, black-haired warrior-hellion, who yanked his snorting horse to a clattering halt and flung down from the saddle, his sodden greatcoat whirling around his massive frame with the motion. A brooding scowl hardened the ruthless planes and angles of his fiendishly handsome face, sun-coppered, she realized, by his adventures in more sultry climes.

Stalking swiftly toward the house, he was wild and wind tousled, dripping with the elements, his chiseled face flecked with mud and cold with hellbent will. He paid no mind to the groom who dashed out to meet him and captured the pawing horse's bridle. His battle stare was fixed on the front door.

Lizzie's heart stopped for a second in sheer disbelief as she stared at him, fascinated and appalled. It was all too easy, in a flash, to imagine him in flowing desert garb, strapped with a huge, curved sword; too easy to picture him roaring orders at his crew from the storm-lashed rigging of his gun-ship.

Good heavenly Lord.
She gulped.

Surely this ruthless-looking giant was not the man she had crossed. Not the decadent London rake she had planned to take to task like a truant schoolboy.

Devil Strathmore could not have been more intimidating if he were clad in black chain mail with a broadsword in his leather-gauntleted hands.

His jet-black mane was a wild tangle that flowed over his shoulders. Her eyes widened to spy the small gold hoop that glinted in his left earlobe, paganlike.

Then he cast a glance over his shoulder at his horse—perhaps making sure he had not killed the animal in his haste—and it was then that Lizzie spotted the scarlet streak of blood that marred his right cheek, beneath the spatters of mud and grime from the road.

With a gasp, she clapped her hand to her mouth. He was bleeding! But why? What had happened? He marched on, and she leaned forward so fast to keep watching him that she bumped her forehead on the wavy glass, but he exited her line of vision, disappearing into the house.

Oh, dear.
She winced and rubbed her brow in dazed dismay as she withdrew from the window.
Oh, dear, oh, dear.
For the first time, the possibility occurred to her that she might have made a…serious miscalculation. She heard the front door open from a distance through the house, but suddenly did not know what to think. Until this moment, the main evidence on which she had based her admittedly low opinion of the dowager's nephew was the steady stream of his bills that arrived each month on Her Ladyship's desk.

Lizzie knew she knew she had no business peeking at her employer's correspondence, but once she had begun to suspect how Darling Dev was taking advantage of his aunt's blind love, she had made it her business to keep an eye on those despicable endless bills. Each one had made her a little more resentful than the last, but his gambling debt that had come last week had been the last straw, pushing her past the point of fury into brazen action. For reasons she did not care to examine, Lizzie had been so outraged by his insolent assumption that his rich aunt would pay his gambling debts, no questions asked, that she had dashed out her letter with shaking hands and had sent it to London by the express messenger, bent on teaching the cad a lesson.

If he came every now and then—if he cared—it would be different, but the blackguard could not even be bothered to write his aunt the occasional letter, never mind the old woman thought the sun shone for him and paid all his bills, placing no restraints on him whatsoever. Lady Strathmore might never complain, but as Her Ladyship's caretaker, Lizzie was fed up with it. She could not bear another day of watching the lonely old woman staring out the window for endless hours with her heart slowly breaking, thinking she had been forgotten by her only living kin.

Coldly satisfied with her dispatch, she had thought herself fully prepared for Lord Strathmore's reaction when he arrived. She had imagined a pampered rogue sulking and huffing and stomping about in his overpriced boots, fretting over the fact that he would miss a few nights' revels all for naught, but his ire would not ruffle her calm nature, and her ruse had at least a chance, she had hoped, of teaching him to appreciate his aunt's love.

It had seemed a perfect plan. From the moment she had penned her angry letter, there had been no doubt in her mind that she had done the right thing.

But now the thought of that hard-eyed giant's wrath made her heart pump with trepidation, while guilt begin poking at her overactive conscience. Why was he bleeding?

It was unlike her to lie under any circumstances: she had certainly not intended for the man to suffer physical injury because of her deception. Had he taken a spill on the road? Well, it was no wonder, given the weather last night, she mused, then shook her head to herself uneasily. Riding all night through blizzardlike conditions was hardly the sign of a man who did not care.

Normally rock-sure of her judgment, she felt thrown off balance and glanced toward the parlor door, wondering how to proceed. A disturbing suspicion was forming at the back of her mind that she had somehow confused Devil Strathmore with someone else. Some other London rake. Someone whose name had been struck from the book of her mind with a great, black
X
and who, henceforth, would only be referred to as A Certain Person.

And then another thought struck her, one so dire that the color drained from her face. Lady Strathmore was going to be furious.

Good God, it was bad enough that she had dared to deceive a man so far above her station, even if her intentions had been the very best. But if Darling Dev had been injured because of her meddling, why, that could be grounds for dismissal! This might well cost her her job.

A wave of faint nausea washed over her as she remembered anew of the bitter reality of her station. Would she never learn? She was not part of the family. The dowager's villa had begun to feel like home, but it was not really her home, and if she displeased, she could be sent packing, like any other employee. Truly scared now, her mouth going dry, Lizzie bunched her fists at her sides, gathered her courage, and forced herself out of the parlor to meet her fate.

Instead of going directly to the entrance hall, however, she glided down the hallway to the closet tucked beneath the stairs, reached in, and took out a nice, clean, folded, white towel. She shut the closet silently, then turned and squared her shoulders. Holding the towel against her chest, she did her best to school her expression into one that she hoped resembled her usual serenity and marched resolutely toward the entrance hall, fairly certain she was about to get the sack.
What then?
she thought.
Where will I go?
She had no home of her own. She never had. All her life she had lived on the fringes of other people's families.

Dragging her feet down the corridor to the entrance hall, Lizzie heard Lady Strathmore's regal voice lifted in joy to greet her nephew while the staff made much of him.

The man, no doubt, was baffled.

She could hear a deep, gentle baritone voice anxiously questioning Her Ladyship. She closed her eyes at the bewildered anguish in his tone. He sounded thoroughly shaken.

“What's happened, Aunt Augusta? Tell me everything at once. Why are you out of bed? Shouldn't you be lying down?”

“Lying down? Devlin, it is the middle of the day.”

“Yes, but—”

“But what?” The dowager sounded bemused.

A pause.

“I thought—That is to say—Do you mean you're…all right?”

“Of course, I'm all right.” The dowager laughed unconcernedly. “Darling, what in the world?”

Lizzie arrived at the far end of the entrance hall and stopped, her presence yet unnoticed. Seeing them, her heart clenched at the unexpected tableau before her: Lady Strathmore was an aged queen on her throne, her nephew on one knee before her like her most devoted knight, mud streaked and bloodied from battle. Dripping with cold and shivering a little, he searched her face with an earnest, upward gaze, the shadow of frantic fear in his light eyes.

“You're sure—there's nothing wrong? You would not lie to me, Aunt Augusta? You are feeling well?”

“I'm fine, Devlin!” The dowager chuckled. “Dear boy, did you come all this way to ask me that?”

“Yes,” he whispered, and stared at her for a long moment, comprehending at last that she was telling the truth. Then he closed his eyes with a look of utter relief and slowly laid his forehead on her knee.

“Darling, what is the matter?” Lady Strathmore rested her hand on his tousled hair. “You're beginning to scare me, Devlin. Where is your carriage? You're a mess.”

“I know. Sorry.” He did not lift his head.

“My God, Devlin, is that blood on your cheek? What's happened?” the dowager cried.

“Mishap on the road. It's nothing,” he said, quickly ending her fright.