Devil in Winter

by Lisa Kleypas

  As Jenner whispered to him, the boy inclined his head and rubbed the old man’s hands soothingly. “Yes,” Cam said readily, though Evie sensed from the tension of his broad shoulders that he had not liked whatever it was that her father had asked of him. “I will see that it is done.”

  After that, Jenner relaxed and closed his eyes. Cam eased away from the bedside and drew Evie forward. “It’s all right,” the boy murmured as he felt her trembling. “My grandmother always told me, ‘Never try to turn back on a new road—you don’t know what adventures await you.’”

  Evie tried to take comfort in the words, but her eyes blurred and her throat hurt. Sitting beside her father, she curled an arm around his head and laid a gentle hand on his chest. His rattling breath quieted, and he made a slight sound as if he welcomed her touch. As she felt the life gradually passing from him, she felt Cam’s large hand slide around her upper arm in a gentle grip.

  It was painfully quiet in the room. Evie’s heart thudded almost audibly. She had never encountered death before, and to have to confront it now, and lose the one person who had ever loved her, filled her with the cold pressure of fear. Throwing a watery glance to the doorway, she found Sebastian’s tall form standing there, his face unreadable, and she realized suddenly that she did need him to be there after all. As he stared at her with his bright moonstone eyes, something in his gaze helped to steady her.

  The softest of exhalations left Ivo Jenner’s lips…and then there was nothing more.

  Realizing that it was finally over, Evie pressed her cheek to his head and closed her brimming eyes. “Good-bye,” she whispered, tears slipping into the locks of his once-ruddy hair.

  After a moment, Evie felt Cam’s capable hands lifting her away from the bed.

  “Evie,” the boy murmured, his face averted, “I have to…have to arrange the body. Go with your husband.”

  Evie nodded and tried to move, but her legs had locked. She felt Cam smooth her hair back, and then the dry brush of his mouth over her forehead in a sweet, chaste kiss. Blindly she turned away and stumbled toward her husband. Sebastian came to her in a few strides and pressed a handkerchief into her palm. She took it gratefully. Too distraught to notice or care where they were going, she wiped her eyes and blew her nose, while Sebastian led her from Ivo Jenner’s apartments. His arm was strong behind her back, his hand anchored at her waist.

  “He was in constant pain,” Sebastian said in a matter-of-fact tone. “This is better.”

  “Yes,” Evie managed to reply numbly. “Yes, of course.”

  “Did he say anything to you?”

  “He mentioned…my mother.” The thought brought a fresh burn to her eyes, but a crooked smile pulled at her lips. “He said she was going to help him through the back door of heaven.”

  Sebastian guided her into her bedroom. Sinking onto the bed, Evie clamped the handkerchief over her nose and curled on her side. She had never cried like this before, without sobs, misery oozing from her throat, while the pressure of grief in her chest refused to abate. She was dimly aware of the curtains being drawn and of Sebastian sending a housemaid for some wine and a jug of cold water.

  Although Sebastian stayed in the room, he did not come near, only paced for a few minutes and eventually lowered himself into a bedside chair. It was obvious that he did not want to hold Evie while she cried, that he would shrink from such emotional intimacy. She could abandon herself to him in passion, but not in grief. And yet it was clear that he had no intentions of leaving her.

  After the housemaid brought the wine, Sebastian propped Evie up on the pillows and gave her a liberally filled glass. As she drank, he took a cold wet cloth and pressed it gently to her swollen eyes. His manner was kind and oddly careful, as if he were taking care of a young child.

  “The employees,” Evie mumbled after a while. “The club. The funeral…”

  “I’ll take care of all of it,” Sebastian said calmly. “We’ll close the club. I’ll make the funeral arrangements. Shall I send for one of your friends?”

  Evie shook her head immediately. “It would put them in a difficult position. And I don’t feel like talking to anyone.”

  “I understand.”

  Sebastian stayed with her until she had downed a second glass of wine. Realizing that he was waiting for some cue from her, Evie set the empty vessel on the night table. Her tongue felt thick as she spoke. “I think I could rest now. There’s no need for you to watch over me, when there is so much to be done.”

  His assessing gaze swept over her, and he stood from the chair. “Send for me when you awaken.”

  Lying tipsy and drowsing and alone in the semidarkness, Evie wondered why people always said that the death of a loved one was easier when one had time to prepare for it. This didn’t seem easy. And those same people might have added that her grief should be lessened by the fact that she had never really known her father. That made it worse, however. There were so few memories with which she could comfort herself…so little time they had spent together. Along with the sadness came a gloomy sense of deprivation…and beneath that, even a touch of anger. Was she so unworthy of love, that she’d had so little of it in her life? Did she lack some essential gift for drawing others to herself?

  Aware that her thoughts were drifting dangerously toward self-pity, she closed her eyes and let out a shaking sigh.

  Just as Cam left Ivo Jenner’s apartments, St. Vincent met him in the hall. There was a scowl on the blond man’s face, and a vein of chilling arrogance in his tone. “If my wife finds comfort in trite Gypsy homilies, I have no objection to your offering them. However, if you ever kiss her again, no matter how platonic the fashion, I’ll make a eunuch of you.”

  The fact that St. Vincent could stoop to petty jealousy when Ivo Jenner was not yet cold in his bed might have outraged some men. Cam, however, regarded the autocratic viscount with speculative interest.

  Deliberately calibrating his reply to test the other man, Cam said softly, “Had I ever wanted her that way, I would have had her by now.”

  There it was—a flash of warning in St. Vincent’s ice-blue eyes that revealed a depth of feeling he would not admit to. Cam had never seen anything like the mute longing that St. Vincent felt for his own wife. No one could fail to observe that whenever Evie entered the room, St.Vincent practically vibrated like a tuning fork.

  “It is possible to care about a woman without wanting to bed her,” Cam pointed out. “But it appears that you don’t agree. Or are you so obsessed with her that you can’t fathom how anyone else could fail to feel the same?”

  “I’m not obsessed with her,” St. Vincent snapped.

  Leaning a shoulder against the wall, Cam stared into the man’s hard eyes, his usual reserve of patience nearly depleted. “Of course you are. Anyone could see it.”

  St. Vincent gave him a warning glance. “Another word,” he said thickly, “and you’ll go the way of Egan.”

  Cam raised his hands in a mocking gesture of self-defense. “Warning taken. By the way…Jenner’s last words were about Bullard. There is a financial bequest for him in the will…Jenner wanted it to be honored.”

  St. Vincent’s eyes narrowed. “Why would he leave money to Bullard?”

  Cam shrugged. “I couldn’t say. But if I were you, I wouldn’t gainsay Jenner’s last wish.”

  “If I do, there isn’t much that he or anyone else can do about it.”

  “Then you’ll take the risk of having his ghost haunt the club because of unfinished business.”

  “Ghost?” St. Vincent shot him an incredulous glance. “Christ. You’re not serious, are you?”

  “I’m a Gypsy,” Cam replied matter-of-factly. “Of course I believe in ghosts.”

  “Only half Gypsy. Which led me to assume that the rest of you was at least marginally sane and rational.”

  “The other half is Irish,” Cam said, a touch apologetically.

  “Christ,” St. Vincent said again, shaking his head as he strode awa
y.

  With the funeral to be arranged, and the club’s business in disarray, and the building itself in dire need of restoration, Sebastian should have been far too busy to take notice of Evie and her condition. However, she soon realized that he was demanding frequent reports from the housemaids about how much she had slept, and whether she had eaten, and her activities in general. Upon learning that Evie had gone without breakfast or lunch, Sebastian had a supper tray sent upstairs, accompanied by a terse note.

  My lady,

  This tray will be returned for my inspection within the hour. If everything on it is not eaten, I will personally force-feed it to you.

  Bon appetit,

  S.

  To Sebastian’s satisfaction, Evie obeyed the edict. She wondered with annoyance if his orders were motivated by concern or by a desire to browbeat her. However, soon after that, Sebastian did something very considerate, by paying a dressmaker double her usual commission to have three mourning frocks run up for Evie at remarkable speed. Unfortunately, the fabric selection was entirely inappropriate.

  Women in their first year of mourning were obliged to dress only in crepe, a dull, stiff, scratchy fabric made of gummed threads. No one considered this a pleasant choice, as crepe was dangerously flammable, and it tended to shrivel and nearly fall to pieces in the rain. Sebastian, however, had ordered one gown made of rich black velvet, one of soft cambric, and one of cashmere.

  “I can’t wear these,” Evie told him with a frown, smoothing her hands over the gowns. She had put them on the counterpane of her bed, where the garments lay heaped like midnight flowers.

  Sebastian had brought the gowns upstairs himself, as soon as they had been delivered to the club. He stood at the corner of the bed, casually leaning back against the heavy carved post. With the exception of his snowy white shirt and collar, he was dressed in black from head to toe. As one would expect, he was astonishingly handsome in the severe clothes, their darkness providing an exotic contrast to his glowing golden skin and hair. Not for the first time, Evie wondered wryly if any man with such remarkable looks could possess a decent character—no doubt he had been spoiled since infancy.

  “What is your objection to the clothes?” Sebastian asked, glancing at the gowns. “They’re black, aren’t they?”

  “Well, yes, but they’re not made of crepe.”

  “Do you want to wear crepe?”

  “Of course not—no one does. But if people saw me wearing anything else, there would be terrible gossip.”

  One of Sebastian’s brows arched. “Evie,” he said dryly, “you eloped against your family’s wishes, you married a notorious rake, and you’re living in a gaming club. How much more damned gossip do you think you could cause?”

  She cast an uncertain glance over the dress she was wearing, one of the three that she had taken with her the night that she had escaped the Maybricks. Although she and the maids had done their best to clean it, the brown wool was travel-stained, and shrunken in the places where it had gotten wet and muddy. And it was itchy. She wanted to wear something fresh and soft and clean. Reaching out to the folds of the black velvet, she stroked it gently, her fingertips leaving sleek trails in the soft nap.

  “You must learn to ignore what people say,” Sebastian murmured, coming to her. Standing behind her, he rested his fingers lightly on her shoulders, causing her to start a little. “You’ll be much happier that way.” Suddenly his voice was tipped with amusement. “I’ve learned that while gossip about others is often true, it’s never true when it is about oneself.”

  Evie stiffened nervously when she felt his hands moving along the line of fasteners on the back of her brown wool. “What are you doing?”

  “Helping you to change your gown.”

  “I don’t want to. Not now. I…oh, please don’t!”

  But he persisted, sliding one hand around her front to keep her in place, while his other continued to release the row of buttons. Rather than resort to an undignified struggle, Evie flushed and held still, goose bumps rising on her exposed skin. “I w-wish you wouldn’t handle me in such a cavalier manner!”

  “The word ‘cavalier’ implies indifference,” he replied, pushing the gown over her hips. It fell in a scratchy heap to the floor. “And there is nothing indifferent about my reaction to you, love.”

  “One could wish for a bit of respect,” Evie exclaimed, shivering before him in her underclothes. “Especially after…after…”

  “You don’t need respect. You need comfort, and holding, and possibly a good long tumble in bed with me. But since you won’t allow that, you’ll get a shoulder rub and a few words of advice.” Sebastian settled his warm hands over her shoulders, which were bare except for the tapes of her chemise straps. He began to rub her stiff muscles, his thumbs fanning in strong arcs across her upper back. Evie made a little sound and tried to step away, but he hushed her and continued to massage her with infinite skill.

  “You’re not the same as you were a few days ago,” he murmured. “You’re no longer a wallflower, nor a virgin, nor the helpless child who had to endure life with the Maybricks. You’re a viscountess with a sizable fortune, and a scoundrel of a husband. Whose rules will you adhere to now?”

  Evie shook her head in weary confusion. She discovered that as Sebastian worked the tension out of her back, her control over her emotions seemed to dissolve at an equal rate. She was afraid that if she tried to speak, she might cry. Instead she remained silent, squeezing her eyes shut and fighting to keep her breathing even. “So far you’ve spent your life striving to please others,” she heard him say. “With a rather poor rate of success. Why don’t you try pleasing yourself for a change? Why not live by your own rules? What has obeying the conventions ever gotten you?”

  Evie pondered the questions, and her breath hissed in pleasure as he found a particularly sore spot. “I like the conventions,” she said after a moment. “There is nothing wrong with being an ordinary person, is there?”

  “No. But you’re not ordinary—or you never would have come to me instead of marrying cousin Eustace.”

  “I was desperate.”

  “That wasn’t the entire reason.” His low voice sounded like a purr. “You also had a taste for the devil.”

  “I didn’t! I don’t!”

  “You enjoyed cornering me, an infamous rake, in my own home with an offer I couldn’t afford to refuse. Don’t try to deny it—I know you well enough by now.”

  Incredibly, despite her grief and worry, Evie felt a smile working up to her lips. “Perhaps I did enjoy it, for a moment,” she admitted. “And I certainly enjoyed thinking about how furious my family would be when they learned of it.” The trace of a smile vanished as she added morosely, “How I hated living with them! If only my father had kept me with him. He could have paid someone to look after me…”

  “Good Lord,” Sebastian said, not sounding at all sympathetic, “why should he have wanted a young child in his sphere?”

  “Because I was his family. Because I was all that he had!”

  That earned a decisive shake of his head. “Men don’t think that way, sweet. Your father assumed—and rightly so—that you would be better off living away from him. He knew you would never marry well unless you were brought up in a respectable manner.”

  “But if he had known how the Maybricks would treat me…the way I was abused—”

  “What makes you assume that your father wouldn’t have done the same?” Sebastian shocked her by asking. “He was an ex-boxer, for God’s sake. He was hardly known for his self-restraint. You may have become entirely familiar with the back of his hand, had you seen him more often.”

  “I don’t believe that!” Evie said hotly.

  “Settle your feathers,” Sebastian murmured, reaching for the velvet gown on the bed. “As I told you, I would never condone striking a woman for any reason. But the world is full of men who don’t have that particular scruple, and it’s likely your father was one of them. Argue if you lik
e—but don’t be so naive as to put Jenner on a pedestal, love. In the context of his world—the rookeries, the gaming hells, the rogues, criminals, and confidence tricksters—he was a decent enough man. I’m sure he would think that a fitting eulogy. Lift your arms.” Expertly he pulled the velvet over her head, tugged the skirts into a soft, heavy fall over her hips, and helped her to push her arms through the sleeves. “This life isn’t for you,” he said, not unkindly. “You belong on some country estate, sitting on a blanket spread over green lawn, eating a dish of strawberries and cream. Going for carriage drives. Calling on your friends. Someday you should probably let me give you a baby. It would be something to occupy you. And it would give you something in common with your friends, who have doubtless have already begun breeding.”

  Startled by the casualness with which the suggestion had been delivered, Evie stared into the handsome face so close to hers. One might have thought he had just proposed to buy her a puppy. Was he really as callous as he seemed?

  “Would you take any interest in a baby?” Evie managed to ask after several hard swallows.

  “No, pet. I’m no more meant for a wife and family than your father was. But I would see to it that you were handsomely provided for.” A wicked spark entered his eyes. “And I would participate enthusiastically in the begetting of children, if not their rearing.” He moved behind her to fasten the gown. “Think about what you want,” he advised. “There’s very little you can’t have…so long as you dare to reach for it.”

  Chapter 11

  Any friendly feeling that Evie had for her husband promptly vanished the next morning when Sebastian left the club just before noon, ostensibly on an errand to Madame Bradshaw’s. He had finished making arrangements for Ivo Jenner’s funeral, which would be held the following day, and was now turning his attention to business matters involving the club. Jenner’s would be closed for a fortnight, during which there would be a massive invasion of carpenters, masons, painters, all employed to refurbish the building.