Devil's Bargain

by Marlene Suson

  As they rode to the hotel, Tia learned from Doris that Pitson’s two brigands had been delivered to Mr. Keller at his temporary headquarters behind Castleton House and turned over to the Bow Street Runners. The again-garrulous Doris explained that her employer had let the place weeks ago because of concern that Pitson might try to invade Castleton’s House through a back entrance.

  When Tia pointed out that those doors were all locked and bolted, Doris reminded her of the fear that one of the servants was in league with Pitson.

  “It wasn’t Marie!” Tia exclaimed. Of that she was certain. But that also meant that the traitor might still be within Castleton House. In fact, the more she thought about it, the more certain she was that this was the case. How else would Pitson have known what costume she would be wearing at Vauxhall the previous night?

  When Tia asked herself who besides Marie could have known that she and Freddie were going to Hounslow Heath that day, the answer came to her with frightening clarity. Robert! Marie’s faithless lover could have wormed anything out of her. The little maid adored him so.

  Tia recalled the night of the peace illuminations when Marc had kissed her so lovingly in the hall in front of the footman. The attacks on her had come not long after that.

  She thought of Robert as she had last seen him, standing outside Castleton House talking to a young man who had been so careful not to let her see his face.

  Belatedly, tentative recognition dawned on Tia. She strongly suspected that Robert’s skittish companion was the counterfeit messenger who had told her Freddie was ill. He was the same size and build as Robert and could easily have been wearing Robert’s livery that night.

  What nefarious plans had the two knaves been laying? Tia thought of her aunt’s professed concern about Pitson killing Marc. If her aunt were sincere... Tia’s blood ran cold at the possibility.

  The hackney stopped in front of the Pulteney. Instead of getting out, Tia told the driver to take her to Castleton House. Angry as she was at her husband, she had to tell him her suspicions concerning Robert.

  If her aunt were right, Marc was in grave danger, and Tia would not be able to live with herself if something were to happen to him as a result of her failing to expose the spy in his household. She would warn Marc, and then return to the Pulteney.

  The muzzle of Robert’s pistol remained firmly planted against Marc’s back while one of the two men who had seized his arms busily set about tying his wrists together. When the intruder finished, he and his companion shoved Marc into the anteroom off the hall. The small chamber was lit by only a solitary candle on a table beside a wing chair, where a man lounged as though he were the house’s master.

  Marc looked into the colourless eyes and dissipated face of Sir Francis Pitson, smirking in triumph at his captive.

  Pitson picked up a silver-mounted duelling pistol that lay next to the candle and pointed it at Marc as though he meant to put a period to his life then and there.

  But Marc faced him without flinching. The icy mask the duke presented to the world was firmly in place. He demanded, “What have you done to my servants?” He longed to add, “And to Jennie?” The poor child had thought herself safe in his house. But Marc did not ask about her. He did not want to remind Pitson of her.

  The light from the single candle cast a shadow over part of Pitson’s face, making it seem even more sinister. “They are... indisposed, and in no position to raise an alarm. Nor is your incognita.”

  Marc interpreted this to mean that they were all Pitson’s prisoners, but still alive. He said coldly, “Jennie is not my mistress.”

  “That is not what the world will believe after her cruelly ravished body is found on the morrow along with those of your servants. You will go down in history as the fiend who, in an insane frenzy, slaughtered them all. Then, coming to your senses and realizing what you had done, killed yourself.”

  So that was the final, demoniac revenge his enemy had conceived for him. Marc would not give his enemy the satisfaction of seeing his horror. It had never occurred to him that Pitson might invade his home through the front door, and he cursed himself for that oversight. Keller’s men were watching the back, but there was no way to alert them now.

  Marc, trying to calculate the odds, wondered how many men all told Pitson had brought with him. In addition to the perfidious footman and the pair who held him, there must be at least two more men guarding the servants. Or perhaps double or triple that number. It was hard to figure, for not that many brigands would have been required to take his people prisoner. Surprise would have been their most valuable weapon. After Robert had let them in the front door, they could easily have picked off the unsuspecting servants one by one, never giving any of them a chance to raise an alarm.

  Pitson’s smirk broadened, “Once you made me a prisoner awaiting execution, but I outwitted you. Now, my dear duke, the same fate has befallen you. How does it feel to have the tables turned?”

  Marc countered with a question of his own. “Why don’t you meet me like a man instead of waylaying me from behind, you snivelling coward?”

  Pitson shrugged off the duke’s deliberate insult. “Whatever else I may be, Castleton, I am not a fool.”

  Marc snapped, “How happy I am that I revealed to the world what a contemptible cur you are.”

  This wiped the smirk from Pitson’s face. His colourless eyes glinted dangerously. “And I am about to repay you for that a thousand fold. I have arranged a death for you, Castleton, that will cloak your memory in infamy.”

  Marc had only one small consolation. Thank God, he had been unable to persuade Tia to return home with him. At least she was safe. Her anger at him had saved her life. He prayed that Lady Mobry would be equally unsuccessful in persuading Tia to return to Castleton House.

  But his prayer was not answered. The anteroom fronted on the street, and the sound of a carriage rattling to a stop on the cobblestones outside penetrated the room. A moment later, he heard his wife’s voice ordering the driver to wait, that she should only be a few minutes.

  “Gag our host,” Pitson instructed one of the men. “A pity your duchess has come, Castleton. I shall not enjoy killing her. I confess to liking your wife.”

  Marc knew that to betray any affection for Tia would be signing her death warrant, but perhaps he could manipulate Sir Francis’s sick mind into sparing her. He had nothing to lose by trying.

  As Pitson’s hireling approached him with a gag, Marc twisted his face into a grimace of distaste. “I cannot fathom why you like such a dull creature. She is a dead bore.”

  “She will be .dead, period, once she steps inside this house,” his enemy said as the gag was secured over Marc’s mouth.

  Pitson instructed Robert and the other two men to arrange themselves behind the door in the same fashion as they had when the duke returned. One of the men pulled out a short-barrelled pocket pistol and held it at the ready as he concealed himself.

  “Wait until the duchess and her two servants are inside the house and the door is closed before seizing them,” Pitson said. “We cannot risk one of them escaping or giving an alarm.”

  Marc was racked by bitter frustration and defeat. All the pain that he had caused Tia and himself in his effort to save her from Sir Francis would go for naught.

  Now she, too, would die.

  Chapter 25

  Silenced by the gag, listened as Robert opened the door to Tia.

  “Is my husband at home?” her voice, as cold as he had ever heard it, carried through the open door of the anteroom.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” Robert replied.

  “Then I shall not come in. I will not enter this house while he is under its roof.”

  “Nor would His Grace wish to be disturbed,” Robert said with bland, convincing mendacity, “seeing how he’s abed with his lovely guest.”

  The bastard! Marc strained at the rope binding his hands, wanting to kill the treacherous footman.

  Tia’s shocked gasp was audible in
the drawing room. For a moment, Marc feared that instead of leaving, she would storm into the house. That undoubtedly was what Robert hoped would happen.

  But he was to be disappointed.

  “The lovely guest is welcome to him,” Tia said in a tone that left no doubt of her loathing for her husband.

  Marc heard his wife’s footsteps retreating to the coach. He waited, his breath suspended, until he heard it pull away at a gallop. Only when he knew that she was safe did he breathe again.

  If he died now at his enemy’s hands, the only woman he ever loved would despise his memory all the rest of her days. But at least she would be alive to do so. It was his only solace.

  Pitson chortled in glee. “I guarantee, Castleton, your wife won’t mourn you. Nor will anyone else when the bodies of your servants and your mistress are discovered tomorrow.”

  Marc did not intend to perish without putting up a fight that would negate all attempts by Pitson to make his death appear a suicide.

  He had no illusions that one man against four would have any hope of succeeding in such a struggle, but he would die trying. He would be aided in his endeavour by the stupidity of his captors in binding his wrists in front of him instead of behind his back.

  Marc watched his opponents carefully, intent on choosing the best possible moment for his desperate offensive.

  “Take the gag from his mouth,” Pitson ordered suddenly, his eyes glittering triumphantly. “I want to hear what the duke thinks of his fate.”

  The man with the pocket pistol stuffed it into his waistband so that he could remove the gag.

  When Marc could speak, he said calmly, “No matter what my fate, Pitson, you will ride the three- legged mare this time. That I promise you.”

  Fear shone for a moment in the colourless eyes at Marc’s cant reference to the gallows. Then Pitson recovered, and raised the duelling pistol he still held so that it was aimed at his prisoner’s heart. “Not even your great power, my duke, can reach beyond the grave.”

  He turned to the traitorous Robert, telling him to stand guard at the door and admit no one. The footman obeyed. Then Piston, armed with his duelling pistol, headed toward the stairs, ordering the other two men to follow him with the duke between them. Each one grabbed an arm and forced Marc toward the door.

  He blessed his luck. He had not thought Pitson would be fool enough to turn his back on his prisoner. Marc cast a sidelong glance at the pocket pistol that was still stuck carelessly into the waistband of the man on his left. It was a double-barrelled under-and-over weapon. If he could get his hands on it, he would be able to get off two quick shots.

  As they moved toward the door to the hall, Marc thrust his foot sideways, tripping the guard on his right. The cull lost his balance, releasing his hold on Marc’s arm as he fell. His head cracked sickeningly against the ormolu mount that decorated the corner of a large display cabinet, and he lay senseless upon the Aubusson carpet.

  The other guard, momentarily distracted by his companion’s plight, loosened his grip on the duke’s other arm. Marc jerked free, swinging his bound hands around to snatch the pistol from the man’s waistband, then jumped behind him just as Pitson whirled and, panicking, fired his single-shot duelling pistol. The ball struck his own man in the chest, and he collapsed upon the floor.

  Marc started toward his enemy, his gun aimed at him. Pitson, realizing his own weapon was useless until he could reload it, screamed at Robert to shoot Castleton.

  The footman raised his pistol, but Marc was too quick for him. He fired first, and the perfidious servant fell.

  Shouts rang out from below stairs, and Marc surmised it was the rest of Pitson’s men, guarding the servants, who would now be coming to their employer’s rescue.

  From the cacophony of voices, Marc realized in despair that Pitson must have brought far more hirelings with him than he had expected, a dozen at least. Now he would have only a moment before they ran up the stairs. With his bound hands, he raised the pocket pistol, its second shot still unfired, and aimed it at Pitson.

  His enemy, ever a coward, turned, shrieking in terror. Marc hesitated, unable to shoot anyone, even this vile devil, in the back.

  “Halt,” he yelled.

  But Pitson fled through the front door, running straight into the arms of a quartet of Bow Street Runners rushing the house.

  He surrendered without a struggle, more terrified of the duke behind him than of the Runners.

  One of the detectives pulled a knife from a scabbard at his waist to cut the rope binding the duke’s wrists.

  Marc warned them of Pitson’s men below stairs, but the Runner disposing of the rope said, “What you are hearing is Keller and his men securing the servants’ quarters.”

  “Pitson may have additional men upstairs,” Marc said, rushing for the stairs, afraid that they might already have killed Jennie.

  But he and the two Runners who followed him found her alone upstairs. She was lying bound and gagged in her night shift on Marc’s bed, where Pitson had ordered her placed in anticipation of carrying out his scheme to have the duke’s memory go down in iniquity.

  After they freed her, Marc sent the Runners away. Poor Jennie was catatonic with fear. Sitting down on the bed, he held her rigid body to him, attempting to reassure the terrorized child that Pitson would never again plague her.

  Hearing a sound at the door, he looked up and saw his wife with Doris behind her. Tia was already turning away from the sight of him upon his bed with Jennie in his arms. Marc cursed silently. If Tia had not believed what that cur Robert had told her when she had come to the door, she certainly would do so now. For the second time that day she had caught her husband in a situation that, compromising as it appeared, was entirely innocent.

  Marc gently put Jennie aside, telling Doris to care for her. Then he went after his wife, who had gone into her bedchamber.

  He locked the door to ensure against any interruption until he had made her listen to reason. It might be a very long time before he managed to do that, he thought grimly. How the devil could he possibly make her believe his improbable tale of what had happened?

  “Tia,” he said, advancing into the room, “you do not know the truth about what went on here tonight.”

  She turned to him, her usually transparent face cold and unreadable. “But I do know—even better than you.”

  And she did. When her hackney coach had pulled up in front of Castleton House, she had known instantly that something was wrong. Instead of its windows being ablaze with lights as they usually were, the house was shrouded in darkness.

  Then Robert instead of the porter had opened the door, confirming her fears. Hastily improvising, she had used her husband’s presence in the house as an excuse to retreat with Doris and Sebastian to the hackney, which took them at a gallop to Mr. Keller’s temporary headquarters where he had been conferring with the Runners.

  Within moments Mr. Keller and his men, in a well-rehearsed manoeuvre, were quietly invading the rear of Castleton House while the Runners approached the house from the front.

  As Tia had waited apprehensively for what seemed an eternity for word of whether her husband was safe, she realized how much she still loved him. Those terrible minutes of waiting had taught her to appreciate, as she had not been able to before, what Marc, desperately afraid for her safety must have suffered. “The past weeks have been as agonizing for me as for you.”

  Nevertheless, she was still sufficiently outraged that he had failed to trust her enough to tell her the truth that she resolved to give him a small taste of what it had been like for her when she thought herself unloved by him.

  Now, as she informed him that he had her to thank for his rescue, she exercised the iron control over her face that those awful weeks had taught her.

  When she finished her story, she said icily, “You see, I can be quite a good actress when your life depends on it. You should have had enough faith in me to tell me the truth.”

  “My love, I wou
ld happily trust you with my life, but yours was too precious to me to trust even to you. I was trapped in a nightmare, adoring you and having to act as though you repelled me.”

  She silently looked at him with such coldness that he thought in despair that he had lost her. Shaken to his soul by her emotionless face, he reminded himself that even if Tia no longer loved him, she still belonged to him.

  She had made him certain promises when he offered for her, and now he would insist that she keep them, using them to hold her at his side until he could prove to her that he would be the kind and faithful and loving husband that she had once dreamed of having.

  He told her abruptly, “We leave for Rosedale tomorrow.”

  “We or I?” she asked suspiciously.

  “We. I married for an heir, and I intend to devote myself to producing one.”

  Although Tia was overjoyed at the thought of returning there with him, she inquired coolly, “What if I wish to remain in London?”

  “Ah, yes, the Czar. I know that you love him.”

  So astonished was Tia that her husband should think that, she forgot to maintain her emotionless facade. “I do not!” she exclaimed indignantly,

  He read in her eyes the love for him that she had been so careful to conceal from him until that moment.

  “My darling!” he crushed her to him. “You say I do not know what love is. Teach me, promise me you will!”

  The Duke of Castleton and his duchess lounged on a blanket spread along the bank of a narrow creek that twisted through Rosedale. It was a rare day in late September, as warm as summertime, and they had taken advantage of it with a picnic.

  They had picked an isolated spot, heavily screened by surrounding alders and white willows. After they had eaten, he had made exhilarating love to her.