“What do we—”
The door to Devil’s office was thrown open, bouncing off the wall with a bang as his wife stormed in.
“You bastard,” Jacqueline hissed, throwing the bloody gag and a piece of rope on her husband’s desk. She’d had the hack take her to Purgatory. It was a safe bet her husband would be there dealing with whatever problem delivered Finn to their doorstep that morning.
On the way there, she’d worked through the likely scenarios and came to only one possible conclusion. Her husband had her kidnapped, left her to be raped, and then dropped her on her father’s doorstep.
Only one questions remained.
“Why?”
Devil tore his eyes away from the proof littering his desk and faced his wife. She was trembling with rage, her hands fisted at her side.
Devil didn’t bother trying to deny it. “I needed your father’s vote.”
Jacqueline blinked, the answer forcing her back a step. “His vote?”
Devil heaved a sigh, his eyes darting past Jacqueline to where Finn and Moose stood watching. “Can you give me and my wife a minute?”
“Stay,” Jacqueline ordered. “They were there that night. They might as well be here for this as well.”
“I would prefer we discuss this in private.”
“I don’t care what you would prefer,” Jacqueline snapped.
Devil’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but he let it go. “Queen Victoria has proposed the reformation of St. Giles. A bill went before the House of Lords that would have funded the measure, and eventually displaced thousands of residents of St. Giles. There is only once place for them to go; Devil’s Acre.”
“So you decided to kidnap me and blackmail my father for his vote?”
“Do you know what would happen to Devil’s Acre if that many people came here looking for work, for a place to live? Devil’s Acre doesn’t have those kinds of resources. It might not be much, but mothers don’t sell their babies for gin, and people don’t kill each other over rotten scraps of food.”
“No, you just kidnap and rape—”
“Rape?” Moose looked back and forth between Lady J and his boss.
“To get what you want,” Jacqueline finished, ignoring Moose’s surprise outburst.
“I never intended for you to get hurt,” Devil said, his voice fierce.
“To hell with your intentions!” Jacqueline hissed. “You ruined my life!”
“I’m trying to make it up to you!”
Jacqueline blinked. “What did you say?”
“I never meant for you to get hurt, but it was my fault. That’s why I married you.” Devil held out his hands, asking her to understand. “It was the only way I could think of to make amends.”
Jacqueline was silent for a long moment, considering. “You married me out of guilt, and pity.” Somehow, that was so much worse than a marriage based on a business arrangement. “You never needed my name,” Jacqueline choked on a sob. What an idiot she had been! “Which would make sense, considering it’s no longer worth anything.”
“Jac—” Devil watched his wife start to curl in on herself, the rage leaving her body.
“Don’t.” Jacqueline held out her hand, silencing Devil. She didn’t want to hear anymore. She needed to get out of there, away from this man who had destroyed her life, not once, but twice. “Just, don’t.”
“Where are you going?” Devil asked, watching his wife leave. Somewhere in the vicinity of his heart, his chest ached with the need to reach out to her. What she said was true. He had married her out of guilt, but that wasn’t why he loved her.
“Home.”
Staring straight ahead, Jacqueline concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, not stopping until she reached the door. “What was his name?”
“What?”
“The man who raped me. I know it wasn’t you…”
Devil hesitated. “Carver.”
Jacqueline laughed. One hand braced against the door, she let the sound bubble over until she was bent over, clutching her stomach.
Devil didn’t like the slightly hysterical sound of his wife’s laughter, and he took a step toward her. The sound cut off abruptly.
Wiping the tears from her eyes, Jacqueline stood up and straightened her shoulders. “Appropriate, don’t you think?”
“Jac -”
“Good-bye, Devil.”
“Aren’t you going to tell her Carver may still be alive?” Finn asked, watching the door close.
“No.” Devil moved behind his desk. “Moose—”
“What happened to Lady J?”
Devil sighed, fingering the bit of rope still on his desk. He’d forgotten that Moose hadn’t gone back to the room with him and Finn that night.
“Did Carver hurt her?”
In all their years together, he’d never heard that tone before. “Yes, he did.”
“Where is he now?”
“I slit his throat.” Moose stared at him, and Devil had the distinct impression that his sins against his wife were being weighed against that one, single statement.
Moose nodded, once.
“Follow her,” Devil said, tipping his head towards the door. “Make sure she’s safe, but don’t let her see you.”
Finn waited until Moose was gone. “What’s next?”
“Find Stubs. Bring him to me.” Devil needed to know if Carver was still alive. And if he was? Well, Devil would have to correct that mistake. He wouldn’t be able to begin to repair things with his wife until he could give her at least that much.
And this time, he’d have Carver’s head.
“Not here.” Jacqueline looked up at the house she shared with Devil and shuddered.
“I thought you said you wanted to go home?” the driver asked.
“This isn’t home.”
“Where’s home then?”
God, did she even have one?
Jacqueline couldn’t bring herself to get out of the hack and walk back into the life she’d started to build inside the house she shared with Devil. Was it only yesterday they’d made love for the first time? And just this morning when her husband taught her how to defend herself?
Jacqueline’s bark of laughter startled the driver.
Everything about her marriage was a farce, a carefully created delusion designed to appease one man’s guilt.
Where did that leave her? Alone, and with no place left to go. Jacqueline refused to consider going back to her father. There would be no escaping Lord John a second time. The failure of her marriage was all the proof he would need to hold on to her forever, and that was if he deemed her worthy enough to welcome back.
Jacqueline couldn’t go to Catherine, and she didn’t know anyone in Devil’s Acre. She’d lost everything.
Jacqueline turned her face from the house. This wasn’t home, but somewhere in her heart she knew it could have been.
“Drive.”
“Where we going?” the driver turned back to the horses.
There was maybe one man Jacqueline could turn to. “Grosvenor Square.”
Carver fingered the stitches on his neck. The doctor had been drunk, and the stitches were sloppy and uneven, but the man had managed to sew Carver up before he bled to death.
Too bad the doctor couldn’t say the same for himself.
The stitches itched and pulled at his skin. Studying himself in the mirror for the first time, Carver had traced the ragged wound from ear to ear. He liked it, he decided. The scar warned off most men, and it terrified the whores.
Carver smiled. He’d been busy since his resurrection, and he had no plans to stop anytime soon. Not until he got to Devil and took everything the bastard held dear. The man had tried to kill him, slitting his throat and tossing him in the Thames like trash.
No one threw Carver away, and lived.
His mother had thrown him away. A whore, she’d squeezed him out and left him in a pile of garbage behind a slaughterhouse to die. Carver’s father, or the ma
n he’d come to know as such, found him and took him home.
The man hadn’t given much thought to raising a babe, but his wife had always wanted one, and Carver was the answer to her prayers. Carver had grown up knowing he’d started life in the trash. His “parents” had told him often enough, making sure he knew the kind of life—and death—they’d saved him from.
His whore of a mother had considered him too much trouble to bother strangling. But he’d made her pay. Oh, yes he had. Carver smiled at the memory. He’d spent years searching for the woman who had given birth behind the slaughterhouse, leaving her young to die. It didn’t take long, and one look at those gin-glazed eyes and Carver had known she was his mother.
She’d known it, too. By the end, she was spitting curses at him, the light leaving her eyes as her blood spilled onto the ground behind the same slaughterhouse.
It was the same thing Carver planned to do to Devil, that traitorous bastard! No way he got away with slitting Carver’s throat and lived. That was unacceptable. No, that kind of insult had to be answered and responded to in kind.
The slaughterhouse was abandoned now, and Carver had visions of hanging Devil from a hook. Those expensive clothes would fall away under Carver’s knife, revealing the man’s white belly. At that point, all men became cowards, and Devil would start to beg.
Standing in the shadows, Carver’s breath came quick as the vision opened up. He could smell the stale scent of blood that not even time could erase from the slaughterhouse and see the stains marring the ground. He’d slip his blade in slow and enjoy penetrating Devil like a lover. A practiced tug of his wrist would separate skin, and he’d make sure Devil watched as his innards slithered out onto the ground.
Devil would have only minutes to live, but a lifetime of misery while he died.
Speaking of…
A hack rolled to a stop. Carver reached for his blades, silently cursing Devil’s foresight at taking the twin knives he always carried with him. He had yet to replace them, and he mourned the loss the way a mother might mourn a child.
Another thing to make Devil pay for.
Carver eyed the hack, reaching into his boot for the spare blade he kept with him. The world tilted sharply, and Carver reached out a hand, steadying himself against a tree.
He’d lost a lot of blood, the doctor warning him it would take time for his humors to regain balance.
Time was something Carver didn’t have.
The hack rolled away without releasing its passenger, unknowingly passing by Carver hidden in the trees and giving him a good look inside.
That bitch!
Carver would recognize Devil’s wife anywhere. He’d heard the rumors that Devil had married and that the lady had fallen from London to land in Devil’s Acre. It hadn’t taken Carver long to put the pieces together and realize Devil had married the woman responsible for nearly getting him killed.
Pleasure swept up Carver’s spine, and he stirred in his trousers as he slipped back into the shadows. He’d come here for Devil, but Carver was an opportunist at heart, and this was one he couldn’t pass up.
The old gray mare was waiting right where he left her, her head hanging placidly. The horse belonged to one of the public stables. Too old to be of any use, she’d been left in a stall unattended, easy picking for a man like him.
Marking the hack’s progress, Carver followed it out of Devil’s Acre to a sprawling townhouse in the middle of London. The driver disembarked, inquiring at the front door before returning to his fare. A few quickly exchanged words and Devil’s wife sailed up the stairs and through the front door.
Carver absently rubbed himself through his trousers. He could still remember the sweet taste of the bitch’s flesh and the way her skin quivered beneath his blade. She had been a delight, the first high-born woman to come under his blade. She was a treat he never thought to have again.
She was also the only woman wearing his mark, alive.
It made her his. She belonged to him. Theirs was a connection forged in blood and commemorated in flesh.
Carver watched the hack pull away, heading back to Devil’s Acre empty. Interesting. His eyes went back to the townhouse. It wouldn’t take much to discover who owned the place, and the relationship to his girl.
His girl. Carver stroked faster, his release tightening his sac and threatening to rush up his shaft. Not yet. Carver forced his hand away. He would save it until he had the bitch beneath him once again.
And he would have her again. Only this time he’d make Devil watch.
“Jacqueline! What are you doing here?” Marcus came out of his study, alerted to Jacqueline’s presence by his butler.
Jacqueline burst into tears. She couldn’t help it. And the entire story came pouring out, right there in Marcus’ foyer.
Marcus stood frozen, certain he couldn’t be hearing correctly. He’d heard the rumors surrounding Jacqueline’s ruin. The story circulating through the ton suggested that the kidnapping was a poorly contrived excuse for an unsuccessful elopement.
“I’m sorry,” Jacqueline said, wiping at her cheeks. “But I have nowhere to go.”
“You’ll stay here. There’s no question about that.” Marcus strode across the foyer, wrapping his arm around Jacqueline’s shoulder and guiding her into his study. She was small and slight against him, tucking her head under his chin. “It will do wonders for your reputation, I assure you.”
Jacqueline smiled at the bit of humor. “It will certainly round things out.”
Marcus left Jacqueline on the couch and went to fetch them each a drink. The bottle of brandy was already open on his desk. As promised, the announcement of Philip’s engagement had appeared in the paper, and Marcus had spent the better part of the day toasting to his friend’s happiness, alone.
“Drink this.”
Jacqueline looked up to find a glass hovering in front of her face. “It’s a bit early for whiskey.”
“It’s brandy, and it’s never too early.”
Jacqueline’s eyes darted to Marcus’ face. His features were strained and not from the news of her husband’s betrayal. “I’ve come at a bad time.”
“Your timing is perfect,” Marcus said, seriously, and dropped down onto the couch beside her. “I could use a distraction.”
They drank in silence, both of them sipping slowly. Late afternoon was shifting into early evening. A maid appeared, unobtrusively lighting the fire and several candles.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Jacqueline asked, curious.
Marcus considered his drink. Strangely enough, he did. “A friend of mine is getting married.”
Jacqueline waited, but Marcus didn’t explain further. “And you don’t care for his fiancée?”
“I don’t know her,” Marcus said, swirling the last of his brandy. “Well, that’s not entirely true. I’ve had the pleasure of meeting Miss. O’Brian exactly once. Once was enough,” he muttered, tossing back the last of his drink.
“I don’t understand…”
“No, I don’t expect you would.” No gently bred lady would ever consider the possibility of two men in love, and he did love Philip.
“Then explain it to me.” Jacqueline turned to Marcus. “Please, Marcus, I’ve shared my secret with you.”
“Quid pro quo, is it?”
“No, just two friends being there for each other.”
Silently, Marcus rose, aware of Jacqueline watching him. Walking to his desk, he returned and set the brandy on the table in front of them. “We’re going to need more brandy.”
Jacqueline nodded, lifting her glass and offering it to Marcus.
“I’ve known Philip since I was a boy,” he said.
“Philip is the friend engaged to be married?”
Marcus’ hand trembled, and he made his drink a double. “We were at Eton together, of an age that we shared everything. Philip is a third son, but his father believed all men should begin life with an education.”
“Very forward thinki
ng of him.” Third sons were often left on their own.
“Yes, well, not forward enough.” Marcus waved that cryptic statement away and left it for another time. “As a third son, Philip had considerable freedom and was just as likely to vacation in Chesham with me as go home, especially after my father’s death.”
“You two were close,” Jacqueline said.
“Very close,” Marcus stressed. He watched Jacqueline’s face. She was a pretty woman, the strain of the past several hours adding a depth to her features that hadn’t been there when they first met. “Do you understand my meaning?”
Jacqueline tipped her head. “Philip was your best friend, a close confidant. I can understand why it would be hard to see him married. I know from my own experience how much that changes a friendship.”
“It is true. I told Philip things I’ve never shared with anyone before or since.” The circumstances surrounding his father’s death, for one. “But it’s more than that. He and I…”
Jacqueline felt the first stirrings of understanding.
“We were more than just friends.”
Jacqueline blinked, her mouth forming a silent oh.
“Have I shocked you?” Marcus asked quietly. Shock he could deal with. What he feared was her disgust.
“No, I…I’m just surprised.” That was putting it mildly. “I mean, your reputation…” Jacqueline flushed.
“Which reputation would that be?” Marcus purred, slipping on the mask he showed the world. “My reputation as a gambler or as a rake?”
Jacqueline didn’t smile. She’d been given a glimpse of the man beneath the mask, and she wouldn’t let him retreat now. “It’s said you prefer your ladies married.”
“I do.”
“And Philip?”
“I prefer him unmarried.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Jacqueline huffed.
“I know, but that doesn’t change the fact.”
“I mean, how does your…relationship with Philip work?”
“Do you want the mechanics, or is a broad overview sufficient?”
Jacqueline resisted the urge to stomp her foot. “Marcus…”
“I’m sorry. It seems now that this particular skeleton is out of the closet, I am reluctant to discuss the matter.” Every breath was a reminder that he was facing a lifetime without Philip. “As for your question, Philip and I both enjoy women, oftentimes taking a lover together.”
The Bride of Devil's Acre Page 16
