Devil's Bargain

by Marlene Suson

  “To see my Aunt Augusta.”

  So Lady Mobry had come to persuade her niece to agree to the match that she had proposed. Marc inquired blandly, “What did she have to say?”

  “She made me see that it is my inescapable duty to marry you.

  Chagrined that Tia would look upon marriage to him as an “inescapable duty” he said coldly, “Inescapable, but not onerous.”

  “Not if you keep your word that we will see little of each other,” she agreed pleasantly.

  Stung, he demanded, “And what will you do when you find yourself lonely for male—er—attention?”

  She shrugged. “Like you, I am not the least romantic.”

  “Every woman is romantic!” he snapped. “I was deadly serious when I said you would be permitted no other connections.”

  Anger flashed in her eyes. “While you are! What if I feel the same way about your fidelity as you do about mine?”

  “It is different for a man,” he said carelessly.

  “You would not agree if you were female.”

  He gave her a startled look, then grinned. “Perhaps not.” The smile vanished abruptly. “However, I will not be held to the same standard of conduct as you are. If this is unacceptable—”

  “It is very acceptable, Your Grace! The more your attentions are directed elsewhere, the less likely they are to be directed toward me.”

  He was nonplussed. He had expected her to agree to his other amours because she had no choice, but she was telling him she would welcome them because she wanted no part of his lovemaking.

  Well, by God, she would not feel that way for long, he thought, accepting the challenge she had unconsciously hurled at him. He would make her yearn for his attentions.

  Smiling, he asked softly, “So you agree to my terms?”

  Tia blinked in surprise and apprehension at the sudden change in him, recognizing it for what it was. She had unwittingly challenged him to make her want him. Swallowing her unease, she said quietly, “I agree.”

  “Good, then we will be married as soon as possible.” The duke’s seductive smile told Tia that he had not the smallest doubt he could easily add her to his long list of conquests. He reminded her of a cat toying with a mouse.

  Well, he would not find her such easy game. With frigid hauteur, she inquired, “Am I to assume then that we are betrothed?”

  Marc said mockingly, “Surely you do not require me to go down on bent knee.”

  “No, but I feared that the Duke of Castleton, in his enormous consequence, might require it of me.”

  Marc grinned. She was understandably miffed at him for such an unromantic proposal, but he knew just how to coax a lady out of the sullens. A rich enough bauble succeeded every time. He wondered how large Tia’s price would be. Would her demand be modest or would she ask for diamonds that cost a king’s ransom? Her answer would tell him much about how avaricious a heart beat in that pretty breast. She had, he noted with appreciation, a lovely body, one he was beginning to look forward to exploring.

  “It occurs to me that I must make you a betrothal gift. Is there something that you covet? A diamond necklace perhaps? Whatever you want, you may have.”

  “Anything at all?”

  “Yes, anything at all.”

  Her gray eyes suddenly glowed, reminding him of a child on Christmas mom. “There is something that I desire above all else!”

  What could she want so much? Whatever it was, Marc decided glumly, it would cost hundreds of guineas.

  “It would make me the happiest of women.”

  Thousands of guineas! What a fool he had been to make such an offer. He knew better. But having done so, he could not withdraw it. “You shall have it,” he said grimly, resigned to a request so costly that it would leave him speechless. “What is it?”

  “To have my little brother Freddie live with us.” Marc had been right. The request did leave him speechless. But not for the reason he had expected.

  Misinterpreting his stunned look, Tia went on hastily, “You said I could ask for anything.”

  “How old is Freddie?” he queried in trepidation. “Six, but he will be no trouble,” Tia assured him. Marc had had enough experience with his own little brother years earlier to know that was not true. He studied her expressive face. The love and concern for Freddie that he read there touched his heart as it had not been touched since the night he had first seen Jennie Martin.

  “Papa does not like him,” Tia confessed. “I cannot bear to leave him here.”

  Her plea evoked in Marc a painful memory of himself as a boy being sent off to Eton after his father’s death. He had used almost the same words in begging that he not be separated from Paul whom he had loved as much as Tia clearly loved Freddie. He swallowed hard at the thought of his brother. By God, he would find the man responsible for Paul’s death if it was the last thing he ever did.

  His expression hardened, provoking a frustrated cry from Tia who had no notion of its cause. “If only I could make you understand how I feel about Freddie.”

  “I do understand. He may live with us if you want,” he said, wondering whether he had taken leave of his senses.

  Tia’s face was suddenly so radiant that Marc stared at her in admiration. She was positively lovely when she was so happy and animated.

  “Allowing your brother to live with us is hardly a fitting betrothal present,” the duke said. “I want to buy you something, too.”

  “No, I don’t want—”

  “I insist,” Marc interrupted firmly. Never before had he had to argue with a woman to accept a gift. “Surely there is something.”

  “Yes,” she admitted, almost timidly.

  “I was certain there would be,” he said ironically. “What is it?”

  “A pair of colours for my brother Antony.”

  “What?” he exclaimed, once more incredulous. “Why?”

  Again Tia’s face told him before she spoke how worried she was about her other brother. She said slowly, “He is army-mad and has been in black despair since November when Wellington defeated Marshal Soult.”

  A less perceptive man might have inquired why a loyal subject should be distressed by a British victory over the French, but Castleton said, “I collect Antony fears Napoleon will be routed and the war over before he can get into battle.”

  Tia smiled approvingly at his comprehension. “I confess I devoutly pray that will be the case. But Antony is growing increasingly surly and rebellious. He frequently is jug bitten, and I am told he has been seen in unsavoury company.”

  “Your papa is the one to deal with that.”

  “Papa pays no attention to any of us. Besides, he and Antony hold each other in mutual disdain. Antony is not in the slightest bookish, and it is a great disappointment to Papa to have a son who cares only for riding and shooting.”

  What a lonely struggle Tia must have had since her mother’s death, trying to care for her family with no help from her father. It made Marc angry to think about it, and he said, “I shall be delighted to buy Antony a pair of colours.”

  “Delighted?” she echoed in surprise.

  “Yes,” he teased, “otherwise I shall surely find myself adding him to my household, too.”

  Belatedly, Marc realized that there was something oddly familiar about Tia’s gray eyes. “Have we met before?” he demanded abruptly.

  Her frightened look gave him his answer. Her incomprehensible conversation when she had opened the door to him that afternoon suddenly made sense to him, and he burst out laughing.

  “What is so amusing, Your Grace?” she asked in confusion.

  “Were you trespassing on Ashmore today despite my threats?”

  “Oh!” she gasped, flushing guiltily. “I did not think you remembered me.”

  “Now that we are betrothed, you have my permission to trespass on Ashmore whenever you wish.”

  “Then it will no longer be nearly so pleasant for me to do so,” she said tartly.

  He li
ked her spirit. “Enjoyed defying my order, did you?”

  “We were doing no harm that day. You did not have to be so—so violent.”

  “You disturbed me at a most inopportune moment.”

  “What were you doing?” she asked innocently. He could hardly tell her. He tried to disguise his sudden discomfort by retorting sharply, “That is none of your concern.” His brusque response was his typical way of disposing of a question he did not wish to answer.

  Tia’s eyes narrowed angrily. “You are as bad as Papa,” she said scornfully. “That is what he always says when he does not want to deal with a problem.”

  Marc was offended at being compared to that fool, but before he could protest she asked, “Why did you find me so repulsive that day? I have never forgotten the look on your face.”

  He glanced down at her breast, considerably fuller now than when it had betrayed her sex to him that day. “The revulsion was for myself when I discovered that you were a girl.”

  “Oh!” Her face told him she had never suspected that. “But you threatened to—”

  “I only wanted to frighten you off my property. I had no intention of carrying out my threats. I may be arrogant and overbearing and rude, as you charge, but I am not a monster, Tia.” Marc smiled reassuringly at her. “I collect that ‘Tia’ is a corruption of ‘Portia.’ Everything here seems to take its name from Shakespeare.”

  She returned his smile, and suddenly marriage no longer seemed quite so onerous a prospect to him.

  He put his hands lightly on her arms. “It is time we sealed our betrothal with a kiss.”

  She stiffened. “You said you wanted no part of... romance.”

  “Perhaps you can change my mind,” he said lazily.

  “I don’t want to change your mind.” But even as the words left her lips, Tia wondered if she were telling the truth. Her emotions were in utter disarray. She did not understand her reaction to Castleton. But equally unsettling, she did not understand him.

  In the beginning, the odious man had acted just as she had expected him to: cold, arrogant, demanding. So arrogant that her dislike of him merely amused him. But then he had smiled at her in a way that made her knees weak. And his teasing surprised her. She had thought him a man devoid of humour. And of generosity. Yet he had been exceedingly generous, too. And understanding. It had been easy to confide in him her concerns about her brothers.

  He said softly, his voice a caress, “A betrothal kiss is a required formality.”

  As his lips descended toward hers, she tried to evade him. His hand caught the back of her head, holding it firmly so that his mouth could capture hers. His hard blue eyes glittered dangerously, frightening her a little.

  Yet when his kiss came, it confounded her. It was gentle, sweet, not at all like the man who gave it. While one hand still cupped the back of her head, the other stroked her cheek.

  Then his mouth grew more demanding, teasing her tightly closed lips until they relaxed and opened slightly. His arms enclosed her and held her to him. The feel of his hard body thrilled her. Deep within her, the trembling excitement that she had felt when first she saw him flared anew. The last vestige of her resistance faded.

  She could not remain passive in his embrace. Her arms, moving as though controlled by a force independent of her intellect, encircled him, and she was kissing him back with an abandon that shocked her.

  When the kiss ended, his eyes were no longer icy, but bright with a strange light. The uncompromising set of his face had relaxed, softening his aristocratic features, and she was struck by how handsome he was. For a long moment, she could only stare at him, breathless, her lips still parted, her body awash in the strange sensations he had kindled within her. She no longer understood herself either.

  Then her cheeks flamed scarlet with embarrassment at the thought of her appallingly uninhibited response to him. “I have surely given you a disgust of me,” she stammered, staring down at the floor. “I do not know what possessed me.”

  He smiled. “I do.” He brushed her cheek gently with his fingertips. “And I intend to see that it possesses you frequently once we are married.”

  She raised her gaze to his. His eyes gleamed as assessingly as they had when she had unintentionally challenged him to make her want him.

  A dark shadow fell across her happiness. Was he merely toying with her?

  Chapter 5

  Moment had come for the Duke of Castleton .and his new bride to leave Mobry Park after their wedding. Because he was still in mourning for his brother, it had been a small family affair in the chapel there.

  As a footman fetched Tia’s pelisse, Freddie suddenly launched himself at his sister, grabbing the skirt of her new lavender travelling gown.

  “I want to go with you,” the child cried.

  Although the duke had agreed that her little brother might live with him and Tia, he had stipulated that the boy could not accompany them to Rosedale, his principal country seat in Derbyshire, where they would honeymoon for the customary month before going to London, Instead Freddie would remain with his aunt, the Marchioness of Mobry, until the newlyweds arrived in the city, when she would bring him there.

  “Please, Tia,” the child wailed, “don’t leave me behind with Aunt Augusta. I want to go with you.”

  His desperate, woebegone little face was very pale against the lavender of Tia’s gown, and tears trickled down his cheeks.

  Unable to rebuff the child she loved as her own, she looked up pleadingly at her husband. His lean, handsome face above the high notched collar of his cutaway coat was as hard as the stony crags of his native Derbyshire. “No,” he said sharply.

  The boy sobbed, “I’m scared I won’t ever see you again.”

  “Of course you will, dearest,” Tia assured him. “We will only be apart a month.” She prayed that she was speaking the truth, that her husband would not renege on his agreement to give the boy a home. “Until then, Aunt Augusta will take very good care of you.”

  Freddie stared up at the duke with wet, beseeching eyes. “Please?”

  “No,” Castleton said sternly. “And no more tears. You are too big for that.”

  Flashing the duke a baleful look, Freddie broke away from his sister and fled.

  Tia would have followed him, but her husband caught her arm. “Let him go. We must leave immediately if we are to reach Rosedale tonight.” He nodded to the footman, who then helped her into her lavender pelisse, trimmed with sable around its collar and hem, that matched her gown.

  After a final round of farewells, the duke guided ha to his commodious travelling carriage where a footman tucked a fur lap rug about her and placed a hot brick at her feet to help ward off the cold.

  As Marc climbed into the coach to join his wife, Puck, her King Charles spaniel, scampered between his legs, nearly sending the duke sprawling to the ground. The little dog leaped into his mistress’s lap, barking happily. Tia was unable to suppress a giggle at the sight of her arrogant, self-assured husband teetering on the coach step, seeking to regain his balance.

  When he did, he reached into the carriage, grabbed the black, white and tan bundle from her lap, and hauled it out, muttering, “Brothers, dogs, what next?”

  Puck, unused to such rough treatment, yapped furiously.

  “Do you mean to deny me my dog, too?” Tia protested.

  “No, but I do not intend to spend several hours trapped in a closed carriage with this noisy beast.”

  The duke stalked back to a second carriage carrying his valet, the lady’s maid hired for Tia by her aunt, and the newlyweds’ baggage. Marc thrust the indignant spaniel into the hands of his hapless valet.

  When he was back in his own coach, the steps were quickly raised and both vehicles rumbled forward. Tia, waving through the window at her relatives assembled on the steps to watch their leave-taking, noticed that her little brother was not among them.

  “I wonder where Freddie is?” she cried in alarm. “Sulking somewhere most likel
y,” the duke answered. “Stop worrying about him. Your aunt will take good care of him.”

  He was right, of course, and Tia tried to relax. But that was very difficult when he sat so close to her on the brown velvet seat. She cast a surreptitious glance at the sharply chiselled profile of this stranger who was now her husband.

  During the month that had elapsed between his visit to Birnam Wood and his arrival late yesterday at Mobry Park, she had seen nothing of him. The day after offering for her, he had left Ashmore for London, taking Antony with him, while Tia had accompanied her aunt to Mobry Park for intensive instruction on the duties of a duchess.

  When Castleton had seen Tia again the previous day, he had greeted her politely, without emotion or so much as a peck on the cheek. It was as if the teasing man at Birnam Wood who had kissed her so memorably had never existed. Tia was momentarily startled. But then she remembered how emphatically he had stressed that theirs was to be only a business relationship, and she was careful to match his cool detachment.

  He had been brutally honest with her about what their marriage would be like, and she resolved to make the best of it. Crying over what could not be changed would only make her all the more unhappy. Nevertheless, she was apprehensive about the month ahead of her. To an uneasy bride, that seemed an inordinate length of time to spend in seclusion with an uncaring husband.

  Tia closed her eyes and let her head drop back on the brown velvet squab. She had slept poorly the previous night and she meant only to rest, but soon the rhythmic swaying of the well-sprung carriage lulled her to sleep.

  Marc studied his bride’s sleeping face—the wonderfully expressive face that had intruded upon his thoughts with surprising frequency the past month. It was a novelty to have a woman do so. Even the most beautiful and enticing of his convenients had not. But then Tia, with her candour and lack of guile, was a novelty, too. One that both amused and bemused him.

  Travelling to Mobry Park the previous day, he had been startled at how impatient he was to see her again. But he would not for the world have let anyone suspect that. Even if he had not been embarrassed by an eagerness more befitting a besotted calfling than a duke of Castleton, his training dictated he conceal his real feelings behind the cool, detached manner that had long since become habitual with him. Yet he was sorely disappointed when she returned his greeting with a reticence equal to his own.