He yelled out in pain, covering his damaged face with his hand. “Hateful bitch!”
“Stay back!” she warned, holding the board aloft once more.
He lunged again, and this time he was ready for her attack. When she swung, he caught the board and ripped it from her hands. It was tossed aside, and then he grabbed her, shoving her roughly against the wall. Willa let out a startled scream as her head connected painfully with the rough timbers of the wall. The sound was cut off abruptly as his hands closed about her throat. He was so large it seemed his hands wrapped nearly double about her neck, his own clumsy fingers in his way as he tried to choke the life out of her. She struggled in vain to pry his fingers free, but his grip held firm. The room began to dim, growing blacker with each passing second, and then the loud report of a pistol echoed throughout the shack. There was no time to even wonder where it had come from or who might have discharged the shot. The threatening blackness claimed her and Willa slipped into unconsciousness.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Highcliff held the still smoking pistol aloft as Devil rushed past him. He didn’t even pause to check the assailant. There was little doubt the man was dead as Highcliff’s aim had been quite true. The pistol ball had struck the man in the head, and he’d been felled like a tree. It was Wilhelmina who held his attention. She lay on the floor much like one of Marina’s often discarded dolls, her body limp. Dark bruises were already forming about her throat. But as he checked for a pulse, he found it beating steadily and with a strength that prompted a great sigh of relief from him.
“She lives. But we must get her far from here,” Devil said and lifted her easily into his arms. She was as light as a feather, delicate in ways that her often fierce personality belied. Seeing her thus would haunt him for all of his days, mostly because she was only in such a predicament due to her involvement with him.
“I’ll summon a carriage. It would be best to carry her beyond the church. If you’re caught carting her through the cemetery in such a state, they’ll think you are a resurrection man,” Highcliff warned.
Devil followed his friend from the dirty hovel and past the church toward the street. It was not a highly trafficked area, especially at night. But they were in luck and a hack was passing them as it headed back into the city. Giving their direction only as Mayfair, Devil guessed that Highcliff was hoping for a bit of anonymity. Both their addresses were well known, after all.
As the vehicle lurched forward, Willa stirred. Her lashes fluttered for a moment and then her eyes slowly opened. Recognition was instant. “You came for me,” she said, half in wonderment. Her voice was hoarse and thick from the abuse she’d so recently suffered.
“Always, darling girl. Now rest. We’ll be home soon,” he said softly. Her eyes closed again, and she relaxed in his arms. Unable to help himself, he pulled her closer still, the firmness of his hold on her far more for his own peace of mind than for hers.
“My God! You really do love her,” Highcliff said. “I never thought I’d see the day!”
A quick denial sprang to his lips, but Devil didn’t utter it. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he was not quite so eager to completely disavow the notion. For his part, he wasn’t certain it was love. But then he’d never known love and would be unlikely to recognize it, Devil thought. But he cared deeply for her, more so than for himself, and he supposed that was the start of it. “Are you shocked at my ability to have such depth of feeling or scandalized by the recipient of those feelings?”
“A bit of both, actually,” Highcliff said. “You know she will never be accepted in society. Are you prepared for that?”
Yes, he was. He’d found himself in such trouble prior to his exile to India because he’d been bored. His disenchantment with London and its entertainments had led him to take stupid risks for stupid reasons. Wenching, gaming, fighting, dueling. He’d been struggling to feel something, anything. And within a matter of days of entering his life, it was as if Wilhelmina Marks had brought him to life. “I think I’d rather like rusticating in the country for some time. I think I might even prefer it.”
Highcliff shook his head. “I would never have thought this day would come.”
“What day is that?”
“The day that you give up your wild, wicked bachelorhood for a mere slip of a girl… but I daresay if she is anything like Euphemia Darrow, she would be worth it.”
There was something in Highcliff’s tone that alerted him. He might have fallen entirely under Willa’s spell, but it was clear that Highcliff was just as enamored of her benefactress and mentor. “What precisely is the nature of your acquaintance with Miss Euphemia Darrow?”
“I admire her greatly,” Highcliff said. “And she tolerates me… well, tolerably. We are both in a fine kettle, my friend, enamored of women too fine in character and too low in station for either of us.”
Devil looked down at her once more. “Does any of that really matter? Station and legitimacy?”
“Not to me, no. But they matter to Miss Darrow… just as I imagine they matter greatly to Miss Marks. You and I, Devil, have the benefit of being born with a kind social currency that protects us from censure, even when we deserve it. Had any other man engaged in the wild escapades you had, they’d have been disowned, imprisoned, or swinging at Tyburn. You were spared by virtue of your birth and your name!”
He knew all of that, Devil thought somewhat bitterly. His father had made it a point to remind him of it almost daily until the cold-hearted bastard had finally shuffled off the mortal coil. “I’m well aware.”
“You must also be aware that without such social currency, women such as Miss Marks and Miss Darrow must walk a very narrow path or face utter ruin. Whatever their stations may be, they have a far firmer grasp of propriety than either of us ever shall,” Highcliff noted. “But at least in the case of Miss Marks, I imagine you may sway her to your way of thinking. She seemed to be exceedingly glad of your presence. I can only presume that her feelings for you might be a strong inducement to ignore any perceived obstacles in regards to your social standing.”
“Let us hope that is the case,” Devil agreed. He hadn’t any notion of what he would do otherwise. The very thought of her continued refusal made him feel reckless and unsettled in ways that he had not for many, many years.
“I would caution you, my friend, to have a care what promises you make,” Highcliff said. “She’s a beautiful woman, and no doubt very different from anyone you have ever known. Be certain that you love her for who she is and not the novelty she presents. Because novelty fades. And she deserves far better than that. You both do.”
*
As the hired hackney rolled to a rather abrupt stop before the Mayfair townhouse that she’d come to think of as her home in only a short while, Willa had finally managed to attain some degree of wakefulness. The events of the day were repeating themselves again and again in her mind, and yet with each repetition, the outcome was different and wholly disastrous. Lord Deveril and Lord Highcliff had not arrived in time. They had not arrived at all. They’d arrived and then simply abandoned her to her fate. A dozen scenarios played out for her, each one horrifying and each one playing on a different aspect of her fears. But she was safe, warm, and cared for within the confines of that hired conveyance, if only she could make herself believe it.
At some point, someone had draped a heavy cloak over her, shielding the fact that she wore only her underthings. As Lord Deveril disembarked from the carriage, he reached back for her and lifted her out easily.
“I’m awake. I can walk,” she protested.
“You’re shaking like a leaf, Wilhelmina. Do not let pride send you tumbling into the street,” he said softly. “Besides, you haven’t any shoes.”
Any protest would have been simply that—her pride. She was trembling from head to toe, and it felt as if she hadn’t drawn a full breath in ages. Panic and fear had seized her lungs, leaving her breathless and her heart pounding in her chest
like a battlefield drum. Unable to formulate a response, Willa simply granted a jerky nod.
Seemingly effortlessly, he lifted her out and carried her up the wide steps to the front door. It was opened by the butler long before they reached it, and she could hear Mrs. Farrelly wailing inside.
“Oh, heavens, she’s dead! She’s dead! I knew it.”
“She is not dead, Mrs. Farrelly,” Lord Deveril said with a snap as he entered the foyer, his voice echoing in the space. “However, if you do not cease your caterwauling, her head may ache so that she would wish for it!”
The cook immediately dropped her head, chastened. “Aye, my lord. I’m just ever so glad to see her back. Poor wee thing upstairs would be heartbroken without her.”
“I’m quite all right, Mrs. Farrelly, just a bit unsteady on my feet at the moment,” Willa offered as she leveled a halting glance at the man who still held her cradled in his arms. “And Lord Deveril did not mean to be short with you. Did you?”
He cocked one eyebrow at her and asked softly, “Am I apologize to my own servants then?”
“If an apology is warranted, the station of the recipient should make no difference,” she replied. “She was worried. With good reason.”
He sighed in response. “Pardon my sharpness, Mrs. Farrelly. It has been a trying day for us all.”
“Aye, my lord, aye it has!” the cook replied, beaming at him beatifically.
“Let’s get you upstairs,” he said to Willa.
“It would be better if I walked,” she protested.
“I’m going to remind you that you have no shoes upon your feet, and this cloak, held as you are, camouflages the fact that you wear only your underclothes beneath it,” he reminded her, whispering against her ear. “Let me carry you.”
Relenting in the wake of such compelling arguments, Willa submitted. It was difficult being so close to him, not because it was an unpleasant sensation, but because it reminded her too greatly of the events that had passed between them in his chamber. And because, if she were to be honest, it offered her such comfort that she feared it. Needing him, craving his touch, his company, the sound of his voice—it would be her downfall.
Willa sighed. She wasn’t oblivious to the fact that the traumas of her day had left her vulnerable, that his heroic rescue of her had only complicated her already tangled feelings for him. As they neared her room, the maid that had been assigned to her during her stay rushed past them to open the door. He swept them inside and carried her directly to the bed, depositing her upon it.
“Have a bath prepared for her… steaming, if you please, and a pot of tea with brandy,” he said.
“You’re drinking?” she asked.
“The brandy is for you… under the circumstances, a bit of bracing of the nerves will be a requirement I think,” he replied.
Willa didn’t deny it. Truthfully, she’d have preferred just the brandy to the laced tea, but she could hardly tell him so when she’d made such a fuss about his consumption of spirits. When the maid left to do his bidding, she uttered the lie, “I’m quite all right. I’m fine, really.”
“I’m not,” he said and settled onto a chair near the fire. “Not in the least. I’m horrified that you were taken from my home, where you should have been safe and protected.”
“It was the garden. And it was foolish of me to be out there alone. I took an unnecessary risk.”
“It was foolish of me to assume that two guards would be enough to keep West away… Munro, actually. His real name is Alaric Munro. He’s a traitor, by the way, and if I can manage to see him apprehended, he will be hanged.”
“A traitor?” Willa asked. “How?”
“His stepfather supplied munitions to the army… and Alaric supplied information about those shipments of guns and ammunitions to our enemies. Likely over a card table or to cover his gaming debts,” Devil explained. “But I don’t want to talk about him anymore today. I want to talk about you, and more specifically, I want to talk about us.”
“There is no us,” Willa denied quickly. “Not really.”
“There can be. There should be,” he insisted. “And to that end, I have a proposition for you, Miss Wilhelmina Marks.”
Willa’s heart sank. She knew what was coming. He’d spoken of marriage, but surely he’d seen the error of such a plan. He was likely on the cusp of making an indecent offer to her, and while it pained her, it thrilled her as well. “And what is that?”
“Half the ton thinks Marina is my child… a bastard I sired before my exile to India. And given who her actual father is, I’m reaching the conclusion that it might be best for her if all of society views her as such. But only if I were to marry the woman whom they would believe to be her mother.”
It was not at all what she’d expected. “You can’t be suggesting that I take on that role,” she protested.
“I am suggesting it. Marry me, Wilhelmina. Not some sham we’ve concocted to cover your presence here… I want you to be my wife in truth. And Marina’s mother. She is so young, I am not even certain she will hold any memory of Alice as she grows up. And while it pains me to say it, I’m not even certain she should, given what I learned today.”
“What did you learn?”
Lord Deveril looked up, his gaze haunted and impossibly sad. She’d never seen such grief before. “He killed Alice. Not just with neglect and poverty, as I had initially suspected. He slowly poisoned her to death, and only by the grace of God did Marina not succumb to the same fate.”
“I don’t understand. How? Unless I am mistaken, he was an absentee father at best!”
Devil rose and crossed to the window, looking out onto the streets below. “It was a tin of tea, the inside of it painted Paris Green and then refilled so that until it was empty, no one would ever know. Every cup she savored was slowly killing her.”
“Marina hates tea. She prefers milk or lemonade,” Willa said softly, horrified at the notion. It would have taken so little of the lethal substance to end the life of such a small child. “But I doubt he knew that. He wouldn’t have cared enough to know. It was his intent for the both of them to die at his hand.”
“I need for her, and you, to be out of his reach. And marriage is the most expedient way to ensure that is the case,” he said. “Will you consent to such a bargain, Wilhelmina Marks?”
There was a part of her that wanted to say yes. But it was for all the wrong reasons. Her feelings for him were growing more complex by the day, and yet she had no indication of his feelings for her. Oh, certainly he desired her, but in that regard, their sexes could not be more different. Her desire for him was only spurred by her feelings, and the reverse was rarely true. Men, especially those such as Lord Deveril who had indulged his vices so freely, did not require any involvement of the heart to spark such urges. Even then, desire wasn’t enough. There had to be some deeper and finer feeling involved.
“I’ve never given thought to marriage,” she said, after being silent for a very long while. “It’s something that, well, given my station, seemed out of reach for me. But if I were to marry, it wouldn’t be because a child needed a mother and I was an acceptable substitute. My selflessness has limits, Lord Deveril, and giving up the rest of my life to a man who will never love me is testing that limit. If I marry, Lord Deveril, I deserve to be married for myself, for who and what I am. I thank you for your offer, but I must decline.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
Deveril listened to her pretty little speech and then said something so autocratic that it stunned even himself. “My dear, it wasn’t an offer or even a request. We will be married and that is the end of it.”
Her head shot up, brows arched with her chin jutting forward stubbornly. “I beg your pardon?”
“Wilhelmina, we will be married. As for your ridiculous assumption that I am only wedding you for Marina’s sake, I need only remind you of what happened in my chamber just yesterday to combat that idiotic notion.”
“Idiotic?” she s
napped. “If your hope is to obtain my acquiescence, insulting me is hardly a manner I would recommend!”
“I want you for my wife, Willa,” he said boldly and without any hesitation.
“And your mistress? How will she… or should I say they? How will the bevy of women at your beck and call respond to such news?” Every word was bitten off in staccato manner, indicating just how far her temper had escalated.
“I have no mistress. I have not had a mistress since Marina came into my life. The last one, if you must know, presumed that Marina was actually my child and pitched a tantrum equal to one of Marina’s before storming out of this very house. And I’ve had other things on my mind in the interim!”
“Oh, so you simply haven’t had an opportunity to replace her yet? I see!”
“No, you bloody well do not!” he snapped. It was the bark of his tone, the fact that he was almost yelling at her after what had been an impossible day for them both that brought him back to reason. Devil sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. In a softer and more conciliatory tone, he said, “I cannot change my past, Willa. But I can dictate my future actions. I vow that I will be a good husband to you.”
“And a faithful one?” she queried, her doubt evident in her tone.
“So long as that is your desire, yes.” It was a far easier promise to make than he would have thought. In truth, no other woman had ever held him in sway to the degree that she did. It had been boredom or convenience that had driven him to the arms of most of his former lovers. Only with Willa did he feel compelled to be there, to be solely with her. From the moment he’d first met her, it was as if all other women had ceased to exist. Of course, it was one of the first times in his adult life that he’d been sober enough to actually examine his feelings instead of simply moving from one vice to another to fill the emptiness of his life. It had taken that moment of clarity to understand what it was that was missing. “I have done many things in my life that I am not proud of, Willa, but I am a man of my word, and that is what I give you now. Marrying you is what I want. That it benefits Marina is simply a fortuitous turn of events… I cannot pretend that your relationship with my niece is not part of this. Had it not been for her presence here and my need of your assistance in reaching her, in helping her, you would have not entered my life, Willa, and I would not have seen what was missing from it. Can you understand that?”
A Rogue to Remember Page 18
