Devil's Bargain

by Marlene Suson

  Perhaps it was, but it did not seem so to Tia, chilled as she was by the thought of removing her protective flannel before him, and she made no effort to comply.

  “I am not a patient man,” Marc said curtly, reaching for the drawstring that fastened the offensive garment around his wife’s neck.

  “Don’t touch her!” Freddie cried from the doorway. His thin little body was swathed in the borrowed white nightshirt. Many sizes too large, it hung about his feet in folds.

  “What the devil are you doing here?” Marc demanded harshly.

  Instead of answering the question, Freddie glared at the duke and asked one of his own. “What are you doing here?”

  “I belong here,” Marc replied.

  “No, you don’t,” the boy responded indignantly. “This is Tia’s room.”

  “Freddie,” his sister interjected, hoping to stop him from burying himself even deeper than he already was in the duke’s black books. But the boy did not hear her above Puck’s din. Her brother’s familiar voice had inspired the spaniel, shut in the dressing room, to a new frenzy of yapping and scratching at the door that barred him from his mistress.

  “Yes, Freddie,” Marc said in a frigid voice that was easily heard above Puck’s noise, “this is Tia’s room, and yours is down the hall. You will go to it at once,” he added in a tone known to cause heart palpitations among his servants.

  But Freddie was made of sterner stuff. “I won’t,” he cried.

  “Oh, but you will,” Castleton said, snatching the boy up.

  Tia shivered at the black look on her husband’s face.

  “Good God,” he snapped, “this is not a wedding night, it is a farce.” As he carried the struggling child from the room, he told Tia, “You, madam, shall have much to answer for when I return.”

  Marc marched down the hall, dimly lit by sconces set at intervals along the wall, with his recalcitrant, squirming bundle held firmly in his arms, The frail boy was not much heavier than a feather, Marc reflected as he carried Freddie into his bedroom, where a lone candle flickered, and deposited him on the bed.

  “Now, young man,” the duke said sternly to his unwelcome guest, “you will not come uninvited to your sister’s room again this night or any other.”

  Freddie thrust his jaw out and glared mutinously at his new brother-in-law. “I will go to Tia if I want.”

  The duke was in no mood to humor insurrection, and he resorted to the one threat that he knew would quell it instantly. “Not if you wish to remain under my roof, you won’t. If you disobey me, I will send you packing back to your aunt’s.”

  The boy’s defiance crumbled instantly, as Marc had known it would, and two huge tears trickled down his cheeks.

  The duke turned abruptly away to hide the sympathy that he suddenly felt for the child who looked so tiny and lost in the big bed. As he was leaving, he stopped to blow out the one candle. Glancing back at Freddie, he saw terror in the boy’s eyes at the prospect of being left alone in the dark in a strange house of intimidating size.

  Marc’s heart went out to the pathetic figure. He remembered how terrified his own little brother had been of the dark when he was small. Paul had frequently invaded his big brother’s bed, seeking reassurance against unseen dangers that might be lying in wait in the inky blackness.

  “Would you like me to leave the candle burning for you?” Marc asked in a gentler tone than he had yet used with the boy.

  The child did not look at the duke, but kept his eyes cast down toward the coverlet as he bobbed his head up and down, trying to hide his tears from his enemy.

  Marc went back to the bed and sat beside the boy. “I give you my word of honor, Freddie, you will be perfectly safe here.”

  The boy, clearly surprised by this unexpected understanding, confessed with a gulp, “I heard scary noises.”

  “This is an old house, and sometimes it creaks, but you should not be alarmed. I will leave the can- die lit so you can see that nothing is lurking in the dark.” Marc gave the child’s hand a reassuring squeeze with his own larger, warmer one.

  When Marc went back to his wife’s room, she was in her big tester bed, sitting against the pillows with the covers pulled up about her neck.

  Hearing his return, the outraged Puck, still imprisoned in his mistress’s dressing room, once again began yapping and scratching at its door.

  The infernal spaniel’s commotion ignited Marc’s temper. Was there no end to the barriers that Tia would try to erect against him? First her dog, then that wretched gown, and finally her brother. He should have known better to trust her—or any woman—to keep a bargain.

  “Did you think, madam, to use your little brother to evade me tonight?” he snapped.

  “No, I did not,” she cried, indignant that he could think such a thing.

  As he crossed to her bed, he noticed that she had discarded the ugly flannel gown on a giltwood chair near her bed. Looking from the chair to his wife, he saw that the fingers clutching the bedclothes about her neck were trembling. Too late, he remembered her innocence and silently cursed himself. For a man noted for his skill in bed, he was making a terrible mull of his wedding night.

  Sitting down on the bed, he drew her, blankets and all, into his arms and held her to him. Puck was still yelping fiercely in the dressing room. Tia remained rigid, her eyes closed against the sight of her husband.

  Tia and her little brother were the only persons he had ever met who could make him feel ashamed of himself. “I am sorry,” he whispered. “I won’t hurt you, I swear I won’t.”

  He dipped his lips to her mouth and kissed her, not with passion but with tenderness, offering her comfort and consolation.

  Tia’ eyes flew open in surprise. The kiss was so gentle and kind that it made her feel strangely protected. She saw that his eyes were no longer icy, but concerned, and her fear receded.

  Marc smiled a little sadly at her. He smiled so rarely, Tia thought, yet he was so irresistibly handsome when he did.

  “I have a damnably quick temper,” he said softly. “You would be wise in the future not to incite it.” Tia tossed her head indignantly, and the luxurious fall of her hair swirled about her, “I do not see why it should be my responsibility when it is your failing.”

  He chuckled, relieved that she was beginning to recover her spirit. Puck had finally fallen silent, apparently conceding temporary defeat.

  Tia’s hair fascinated Marc. He had not suspected that it was so long and lovely. Marc could not resist burying his hands in the dark cloud that was as soft and fine as fur. He began to stroke it, loving its silkiness.

  “How beautiful your hair is,” he murmured.

  “But it isn’t,” she replied sincerely. “It is such a dark, drab color.”

  “No, it is lovely,” he corrected her, “and so are you.”

  Never one to overrate her charms, Tia was certain that he was either hoaxing her or that his eyesight was defective.

  His caressing hand gave her such unexpected pleasure that slowly she relaxed beneath his touch, and a little sigh escaped her lips. She watched him, her eyes wide, her lips moist and slightly parted, unconsciously tempting his own.

  His kiss began gently but quickly increased in intensity. Tia, caught up in a pulsating excitement that he always seemed to generate in her, was helpless to resist.

  He moved his mouth to her ear, pink as a delicate seashell he had found once upon the beach at Brighton. “Do you like that, my sweet?” he whispered.

  “Oh, yes,” she admitted, truthful as always. “You make me feel so good and yet”—her face was suddenly puzzled—“so odd. I have this strange ache…”

  He grinned, enchanted by her naive honesty. “Never fear,” he promised her, his voice rich and deep, “I know just how to cure it.”

  Chapter 7

  Turning in her sleep, bumped into a large, warm object that was far too large to be Puck and instantly came awake. She opened her eyes and saw her slumbering husband’s face on t
he pillow beside her. How handsome he looked in repose, with his tousled blond hair tumbled over his forehead.

  She smiled at the memory of their night together. Now that he had introduced her to the pleasures of marriage, she could not comprehend her mama’s distaste for it.

  Tia’s smile faded, however, when she remembered Marc’s final words to her as he drifted off to sleep.

  “I think, my duchess, that you will give me fine sons.”

  The remark had shattered her happiness. His words that day at Birnam Wood echoed in her memory “I am marrying for sons, not romance.” In the ecstasy of their lovemaking, she had forgotten that he cared naught for her, only for the heir that she would bear him.

  He had glimpsed her face in the flickering light of a single candle stub that still burned and, puzzled, had asked, “What is wrong? I meant that as a compliment. Why did it distress you?”

  Swallowing hard, she’d replied, “I had allowed myself to forget that the only reason you married me was for a son.”

  “But,” he’d said, smiling wickedly at her, “there is no reason why the process should not afford us both immeasurable pleasure.”

  Except, Tia thought miserably as she examined his sleeping face, that when the process was over and he had his heir, she would be left alone and ignored. It was enough to make her wish for a long line of daughters before a son made his appearance.

  From the light seeping in about the drapes, she surmised that it was long past dawn. Worried whether Freddie was suffering any ill effects from his exposure to the cold the previous day, she got up and went to his room.

  He was sleeping soundly, his breathing deep and normal, his forehead cool and unfeverish. Relieved, she returned to her own bedchamber, only to discover that her husband had vanished. She was disappointed and more than a little hurt that he could have left without so much as wishing her a good morning.

  But when she saw him in the breakfast parlor, he inquired in an aggrieved tone, “Why did you abandon me at such an ungodly hour this morning, my duchess?”

  “It was you who abandoned me,” she retorted. “I wanted to check on my brother, and you were gone when I returned.”

  He gave her an infuriatingly smug smile. “How gratifying that you were disappointed to find me gone.”

  Annoyed by his arrogance, she retaliated, saying in as cool a tone as she could muster, “It was a matter of supreme indifference to me.”

  But he laughed at her. “That’s not what your face tells me.”

  Silently cursing her telltale face, Tia turned it toward the long windows that looked out on a lawn dominated by a great red oak. The day was gloomy and bluster and she suspected that snow would fall before evening.

  Marc told her that he had arranged for the nurse who had once cared for Paul to serve Freddie in the same capacity. “Nurse Gowan is very competent and has a way with children. My brother loved her, and I am persuaded your brother will, too.”

  Tia did not object but Freddie pouted when he was told he would have a nurse again. Fortunately, however, he was immediately distracted by a bird with a black head, orange breast, and white belly that was alighting on a bare branch of the red oak tree. “Oh, Tia, what is that?” he exclaimed.

  The bird was strange to Tia, too, and she told him so.

  “It is a stonechat,” Marc said, earning surprised looks from her and Freddie. “Don’t look so amazed. I am a bird-watcher.”

  “Yes, but of birds of another feather,” Tia said tartly, the words out before she could curb her unruly tongue.

  Marc, amused by her reference to ladybirds, retorted with a grin, “Those, too.”

  “What birds are you talking about, Tia?” Freddie asked innocently. “Are there any here?”

  “No,” Marc said, his grin widening. “London is their habitat. They can often be sighted in Hyde Park in late afternoon.”

  Tia hastily nudged the conversation in another direction. “Freddie is fascinated by birds. When your brother was at Ashmore, he introduced him to birdwatching.”

  Her breath caught at the pain that momentarily flashed in Marc’s eyes when his dead brother was mentioned. She had not thought that her husband could care about anyone so deeply. Tia had doubted her aunt’s assertion that Paul’s death had devastated Marc, but Lady Mobry, as usual, had been right.

  On a bay mare that was as gentle as it was pretty Tia rode beside her husband down a narrow road lined on both sides with sycamores, their bare branches arching overhead. Although it was March, great patches of snow left from the hard, cold winter’s accumulation still lay on the ground.

  She could scarcely believe that she had been at Rosedale for three weeks. The time had flown by so quickly it seemed like three days. Her fear that she would spend an interminable month isolated there with an indifferent husband had been unwarranted.

  At first Tia, mindful of Marc’s instructions that he did not want a wife who would hang on him, had done her best to stay out of his way, but within a few days he began seeking her out, clearly enjoying her company. He took her on long walks through Rosedale’s lovely park and on longer horseback rides, like the one they were on today, through the Derbyshire countryside.

  Nor had Tia’s fear that Marc would shun Freddie or, worse, subject him to inflexible discipline been merited. He was extraordinarily forbearing with her little brother, taking him riding and bird-watching. He patiently answered all the child’s eager questions, never once brushing them off as Papa had done. The boy blossomed under this attention, and his fear and dislike of the duke quickly faded.

  Puck had proven more resistant to Marc’s charm. Initially, at the sight of the archenemy who had replaced him in his mistress’s bed, he would race to sink his teeth into the fine leather of whichever one of Marc’s boots was handiest. Hoby, the illustrious maker of this abused footwear, would most certainly have had apoplexy had he witnessed the spaniel’s attacks.

  But even Puck was brought to realize that the duke had some redeeming qualities. For instance, he could be counted upon to scratch the spaniel’s long ears and belly in exactly the right way. For that, Puck would forgive anything, and his former adversary’s boots were again safe.

  Tia smiled to herself. Marriage to Marc was proving much different from what she had expected. The black-tempered tyrant she had once thought him was nowhere in evidence.

  None of her unexpected discoveries about her husband surprised her more than his willingness to consider her views, happily discussing all matter of impersonal subjects with her. Tia, never one to keep her convictions to herself, did not mold them, as some wives might have, to fit her husband’s. She did not hesitate to disagree with him when her opinions differed from his own. Marc seemed to enjoy—even encourage—this contrary thinking. Sometimes she suspected him of being deliberately provocative. How different he was from her father, who had chastised her whenever she rebutted him, accusing her of displaying an inferior mind and a shocking lack of feminine delicacy for daring to question his superior wisdom.

  But whenever Tia tried to talk about something close to her husband’s heart, the barrier he erected to keep the world at a distance, a barrier as impenetrable as it was invisible, dropped into place. When this happened, Tia wanted to gnash her teeth in frustration for, try as she might, she could not remain politely indifferent to him as she had planned when she had accepted his offer.

  Despite his scorn for romantic love, he was capable of profound caring. She saw it whenever he looked at his father’s portrait that hung in the drawing room or heard his brother’s name mentioned, and she dared to hope that he might some day come to cherish her, too. Surely, if she tried hard enough, she could win a place in a heart that could be so deeply engaged. It would require his learning to accept her as a friend and companion, not merely a wife he had married for an heir, and to trust her enough to confide his deepest feelings to her. Somehow, she had to breach his protective barrier.

  Marc turned his big black thoroughbred off the road and do
wn a path by a hedgerow. As Tia followed, she envied him his mount. The mare he had picked for her was far too docile for her taste. She longed for the challenge of a more spirited animal, but she was shy about telling her husband so.

  The hedgerow they rode along formed the boundary that separated Marc’s land from that of the Earl of Leasingham. During the time Tia had been at Rosedale, Marc had introduced her to his estate’s dependents and neighbors with one notable exception, the Leasinghams. This was particularly puzzling to her because they were his nearest neighbors, and she knew that they had sent invitations for the newlyweds to call upon them. But Marc had ignored them.

  “Will I meet the Leasinghams before we leave for London?” she asked.

  Marc frowned at the mention of their name.

  He was silent for a moment, his frown deepening, then he said, “I cannot forgive them for introducing Major Hetton to my faithless, bird-witted sister-in- law.”

  Tia agreed with part of this assessment. Lady Amelia’s understanding and wit were sadly inferior to her beauty However, Tia found it difficult to believe that Paul’s wife had taken a lover. Having observed them during their visits to Ashmore, Tia had thought Amelia’s love too firmly fixed upon her husband to be deflected elsewhere.

  She had been less certain, however, about Paul’s. On his last visit to Ashmore only four months before his death, he seemed to have grown bored with his wife. But Amelia had been as adoring as ever of her husband, clinging to him like ivy to a wall.

  Marc said caustically, “Amelia killed my brother as surely as if she had pulled the trigger herself.”

  Tia wanted to protest that Marc might be doing Paul’s widow a terrible injustice, but she remained silent because she had nothing except intuition to support her belief.

  “God,” Marc continued, “how I rue the day Paul met that perfidious ninnyhammer.”

  It was the first time that Marc had revealed his feelings so frankly to Tia. Hope flared in her heart that she was at last beginning to win his trust, but his next words extinguished it.