She rearranged her features, realising she had indeed been scowling at them and hadn’t moved an inch for the last twenty minutes.
“You read that letter of his yet?” Mrs Baxter asked, a shrewd look in her eyes as she brought a basket of potatoes to the table and sat down opposite her.
Charity ignored the question. They both knew the answer. What Mrs Baxter didn’t know was that she stared at the damn thing every night before she went to bed for at least an hour. The truth was she was frightened to open it, frightened to discover what it was he’d said to her. What would it change? If he begged for her forgiveness and told her he loved her it wouldn’t change a thing, because no matter what his feelings, he was a viscount.
Viscounts did not marry women with hands like a navvy and a temper hot enough to scorch the sun. They might keep such a woman as a mistress, but not a wife.
If the letter he’d given Mrs Baxter so much as hinted that was something he hoped for… her heart could not endure that too.
A tempting little voice in her ear asked, what if he wants to marry you?, but even that was hopeless. As much as she wanted to trust in the loving expression she remembered in his eyes, as much as she wanted to forgive him for the lies and the deceit and all the harm he’d done… it was a ridiculous idea.
She imagined herself as the Viscountess Devlin and the flush crept up her neck as she imagined next what his friends would say of her. He’d be a laughingstock. He’d grow to hate and resent her as he was cut from society for having had the audacity to flout convention.
So, it really didn’t matter what his letter said. He could be every bit the scoundrel she had accused him of being at the height of her fury, or he could be the kind and loving man she suspected might linger beneath that cool exterior. Either way, there was no future for them.
Better she held onto her hurt and learned to hate him again. At least then she could protect what remained of her heart for, if she knew that he loved her as she had loved him, the knowledge would eat away at her for the rest of her days.
She sighed again, jumping as Mrs Baxter cursed and threw down the knife she was peeling the spuds with.
“That’s it!” the woman said, wiping her hands on her apron. “I can’t take another day of this.”
She hurried out of the kitchen and Charity watched, open mouthed as she headed for the stairs.
“What… what are you doing?” she demanded, getting to her feet so fast she almost knocked her chair over. She righted it and hurried to the hallway, looking up to see Mrs Baxter as she opened Charity’s bedroom door.
“Oh!” Charity cried in horror, snatching at her skirts and running up the stairs two at a time. “Batty! Batty, don’t you dare!” she screeched, heart pounding as she rounded the corner. She almost knocked Kit flat as he emerged from his room, hair awry as it often was when he was writing.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” he shouted, infuriated. “I’m trying to work!”
“Oh, do mind out, Kit!” she snapped, pushing him from her path and running to her own room as her brother swore and stomped after her.
She got to the door just as Mrs Baxter tore the seal open on the envelope.
“That’s private!” she cried, disbelieving that the woman would go so far.
That she’d taken David’s… Devlin’s… ugh… his side, was obvious. She’d been making remarks and dropping less than subtle hints for weeks, all of which Charity had ignored.
“I don’t care,” Mrs Baxter threw back at her. “I can’t watch you throw away a fine man like that because you’re too pig-headed to even see what he wrote to you!”
“Batty, please,” Charity begged, unable to find the words to explain that it wasn’t stubbornness on her part, not this time. It was self-preservation.
It was too late though.
Batty’s eyes scanned the paper and she gasped, sitting down on the edge of Charity’s bed with her hand over her heart.
“What?” Charity demanded, sick to her stomach with apprehension.
Mrs Baxter seemed shocked so… what the hell had he said? She snatched the paper from her hands, knowing she would have to read it now.
She was trembling so hard she couldn’t hold the paper still and it took her several attempts to understand what she was reading. Her breath snagged in her throat and she covered her mouth at the sob that threatened to escape.
“What the devil did the wretch say to you now?” Kit demanded, his eyes alight with fury. “If that bastard has upset you again, I swear to God—”
“Language, Kit!” Mrs Baxter snapped.
Kit glared at her but held his tongue. “Will someone be so kind as to tell me what the bloo—what on earth is going on?”
“He’s given it to me, Kit,” Charity said, her voice faint as she looked up at her twin. “The farm, the land… all of it. It isn’t a letter, it’s the deed to Brasted Farm, in my name.”
Kit stared at her, opening and closing his mouth as her words sunk in.
“Oh,” he said, sitting down beside Batty as his anger leached away. “Well, that is… unexpected.”
They’d known Lord Devlin had stopped the sale, having heard Squire Thompson had agreed to buy the old Sampson farm instead, some ten miles from Brasted. As Kit had said, though, it was the least the devil could do. The relief of not being made homeless had been negated by their hurt and fury at the way he had deceived them.
And yet now….
Charity stared at the deed in her hand and swallowed, emotions pushing at her throat, demanding release.
“Well then, Miss,” Mrs Baxter said, folding her arms and fixing her with a rather piercing expression. “What now?”
“I… I don’t know,” Charity said, and burst into tears.
Chapter 18
“Wherein a dismal world envelops our hero, and our heroine suffers a greater shock.”
It had been a month. A month that felt like an eternity.
Dev stared at the rain falling outside his window. London was grey. Grey clouds, grey weather, dirty, dingy, devoid of any colour. It was as though losing Charity had sucked the vibrancy from the entire world, not just his life.
He’d tried to keep hope alive, remembering that Mrs Baxter was on his side. Yet he knew the passion with which Charity hated Viscount Devlin. He’d been there when she’d raged against his dissolute lifestyle, against his selfishness and his cruel lack of regard for anyone but himself. He still had the letters she’d sent him. The ones where she had done such a thorough job of revealing how low an opinion she held of him. He’d read them several times now, as if he sought penance for his past sins in their pages. Every time he read her words his hopes diminished as he saw the truth of the man he’d been, the one she’d seen him to be. How could she ever forgive him when he could not forgive himself?
He’d allowed his hatred for his father—his hurt at his father’s rejection and his mother’s neglect—to colour every aspect of his life. He’d allowed that taint to spread so far he’d ruined every hope of ever being anything different than them, anything better.
Since he’d returned to his London home, he’d tried to act as Charity would have wanted him to. He was polite to his staff; he learned their names and enquired after their families. That, at least, had brought rewards. Mistrust had been their first reaction, perhaps suspecting a trap, but little by little they accepted the changes in their devilish master. Now he was greeted with smiles that appeared genuine, if a little cautious. It was… nice.
His life had changed beyond recognition because of her.
Dev no longer socialised, staying out until all hours and awaking in strange beds. He didn’t want that life back. Although he’d known it was shallow and contemptuous when he’d lived it, he’d felt there was no alternative for him, no other way. He’d believed he deserved no better, hadn’t even known what better looked like. Now, however he’d lived for a brief time in a life so utterly different from his own it had been like being reborn, only to hav
e it taken away from him.
Now he couldn’t sleep because he dreamed of her. He couldn’t eat because he longed for simple wholesome fare that tasted real and fresh. There was something satisfying in eating produce you’d picked with your own hands. It was such a modest pleasure his old self would have sneered and had a scathing remark to make, but now it seemed important to him.
Tonight, he felt his hopes were little more than a flickering light, burning with defiance in the dark of a raging storm. He wouldn’t give up. He would return to Brasted Farm and try again… once he had mustered the courage to face her.
For the moment he was drowning his sorrows.
It had been awhile since he’d drunk with such single-minded determination, but it appeared he hadn’t lost the knack. The decanter at his elbow emptied as the skies darkened, the streets below evacuating as everyone hurried home to get out of the filthy weather.
Dev closed his eyes and remembered the sun upon his face, the sound of John and Jane laughing as they played with the kittens. In his mind he heard Kit cursing everyone and yelling for quiet and inhaled the smell of dinner drifting from the kitchens as he rubbed down the horses, their contented whickering a soft sound in the cool of the barn.
Most of all he remembered Charity, her sun-browned face and the little scattering of freckles over her nose. He saw the warmth in her eyes, and the fire when she was cross with him. He remembered with too much clarity the feel of her in his arms when he’d held her close, and how willing she’d been to give him everything… before she’d known the truth.
Dev rubbed at the ache in his chest, knowing it would never leave him.
Not until he got her back.
***
Charity watched the imposing sight of Devlin Hall as it got closer, her heart beating so hard she felt it might break free of her ribs.
She didn’t know what she was doing here, what she would say, but she had to say something, to thank him at least for… for giving her the farm.
She didn’t know if she ought to tell him he was forgiven.
If what he’d said to her was true, if he really wanted to court her, then if she forgave him he might repeat the offer, and she could never live the life he would need her to. She had no notion of how a fine lady behaved, or what would be expected of her, and—what was more—she didn’t want to learn. She belonged here, in the wild expanses of Dartmoor, where the wind felt like it would wipe every living thing from the face of the earth and everything clung on, determined for survival. Spending half the year in town and going to parties and the theatre and endless dinners….
Her throat grew tight, panic closing in on her at the thought. It seemed such a narrow world, so confining, stealing her breath and making her feel trapped.
Charity sucked in a deep breath, her fingers tightening on the simple cotton of her best day dress. There was no need for fancy silks and muslins and fine fabrics that would only get torn and dragged in the mud or end up snagged and tangled in a bramble. That was not her world. This was.
She stared around her at a landscape that rolled as far as the eye could see. A man could walk into that wilderness and disappear, never to be seen again. It appeared barren and yet teemed with life; it was rugged and harsh and dangerous… beautiful, and where she belonged.
With all her heart, she wanted him back. She wanted him to be David, to come and live in her world and fit back into the part of her life that was now empty. There was a gaping, ragged hole where he had made a space for himself, forcing apart that tender spot under her ribs and making a void only he could fill.
But he was the Viscount Devlin, not David, and she wasn’t foolish enough not to know that made them an impossibility. Their lives did not fit together, could not intertwine, and trying would only make them both miserable.
Mr Baxter eased the cart to a halt and Charity frowned, exchanging glances with him as they looked at the activity around the vast building. There were rows of covered wagons, and staff hurrying in and out of the building, removing furniture, carrying endless chests and containers.
Charity got down from the cart, moving through the melee and wondering what on earth was going on, though it was clear enough.
He was leaving.
Her breath hitched and she ran for the stairs, hiking her skirts and running as she ignored the curious looks from the men who worked around her.
The snooty butler was nowhere to be seen and Charity’s heart crashed against her ribs harder than before. He couldn’t have left already, surely? She had to at least say goodbye.
With panic tightening her chest and making her breathless it was hard to get the words out, but she grabbed at each man in turn as they passed her and lugged paintings or carpets, or heavy boxes of Lord knew what.
“Where is Lord Devlin? Is he here? Please, could you tell me—”
“Lord Devlin no longer owns this building.”
A deep, rumbling voice filled the now echoing entrance hall, as though the house was already hollowed out without its master in residence. Charity turned and then gasped at the sight of the man before her, if he was a man. He seemed more a giant, some hulking monster from a child’s story.
“W-What do you mean?” she asked, a cold sensation creeping under her skin. “This is Devlin Hall, it’s been their seat for generations, he….” Charity stopped in her tracks as a terrible truth occurred to her. David, Devlin… whoever the hell he really was, had been selling their farm and the land to raise money to pay a debt to a Mr Blackehart. A ruthless man who would likely not take kindly to not being paid.
A dangerous man.
The man who stood in front of her would certainly fit that description.
She swallowed, taking an involuntary step away, though the man had made no move towards her.
“Lord Devlin sold the hall to me,” he said, watching her, a curious look in his dark eyes. He had a rough voice, a harsh accent that spoke of back alleys and low company in a big city.
“You’re Mr Blackehart?”
He nodded, the faintest trace of a smile at his lips. A scar ran the right side of his face, pulling his eye down and she suppressed a shudder. A dangerous man indeed.
Charity reached out, grasping the newel post as the ground seemed to lurch beneath her feet.
“Are you quite well, Miss?”
To her surprise he crossed towards her and then hesitated, as if he would steady her but was aware his nearness would frighten her. She sank down to sit on the stairs, uncaring that she was making a show of herself, too shocked to worry for it.
“You, there. Bring me some brandy.”
Charity watched as Mr Blackehart barked out an order, still too dazed to point out that there would be unlikely to be such a thing in the house as it was being packed up and taken away. From the authoritative tone of the man’s voice and the terror in the eyes of the one he’d addressed, however, brandy would be found from somewhere.
“You didn’t know he’d gone?” Blackehart demanded, a considering look in his eyes.
Charity shook her head, still trying to come to terms with the enormity of what David—he would have to be David for now—of what he’d done, for them, for her. He’d sold his inheritance, his history, the home of generations of Devlins before him, just to save a small farm that scrabbled for survival in a rough environment.
She frowned, remembering that Squire Thompson was buying another farm, so why …
Casting a glance up at Mr Blackehart who was still watching her, his dark eyes full of interest, she knew he was not a man to wait for what he wanted. Had it been the only way David could get out from under his grasp alive?
Charity shivered, forcing herself to stand as a beleaguered looking servant hurried up with a tray bearing a bottle of brandy and two glasses. Blackehart poured a small measure and handed it to her.
“Drink it.”
Her instincts bristled, unused to being ordered about and disliking it. Bravery seemed in short supply as the man towered over her
though and she did as she was bid, she needed it too much to protest. As the liquor pooled in her belly, creating a warm glow that eased through her, calming her shattered nerves, she knew she had to see David again. She had to know why… why had he done it? Had it been for her?
“Thank you, sir,” she said, replacing the glass and turning to leave.
“He has a house in London.”
She paused, eyeing the man with distrust.
“I didn’t leave the poor bugger destitute, if that’s what’s got you in such a pucker.”
The man folded his huge arms and Charity pitied his tailor as she saw the way the fabric strained over his biceps. It must be like clothing an oak tree. He might dress like a gentleman, but no amount of fine tailoring could hide the fact he certainly wasn’t one. What the locals would make of Devlin Hall going to a man of his ilk she couldn’t fathom. There’d be uproar.
“You’ll find him on Harley Street, if you care to look. All arms and legs intact last I saw.”
There was a devilish glint of amusement in his eyes at that comment and Charity gritted her teeth.
“Thank you for the information, sir,” she said, her tone brittle as she glowered back at him. “I will bid you a good day.”
***
Charity stared up at the grand house on Harley Street and gripped her umbrella tighter as the wind threatened to snatch it from her grasp. Certainly not destitute, then.
This had been a ridiculous idea.
It had taken a deal of persuasion to get Kit to accompany her to London. Getting out of their lodgings before he’d woken and without arousing the notice of the busybody of a house keeper had been worse. She’d been careful not to share David’s precise address with him, so he wouldn’t know where to look for her.
Now she’d done it, she rather wished she hadn’t.
If Kit had been here David could not say things that would stir up her heart and her hopes and fears. He could not give her hope, nor shatter her forbidden dreams. It would simply be a polite visit in which they expressed their gratitude and he told them it was really nothing… selling his family’s inheritance meant nothing at all. What nonsense.
Charity and The Devil (Rogues and Gentlemen Book 11) Page 17
