A Dance with the Devil (The Devilish Devalles)

by Gayle, Catherine

  But… Well… Were there any such means of breaking off an engagement? Luke tried to imagine what he and Gabriel would do if they found Amelia in a similar circumstance as he had placed Miss Selwyn, and he couldn’t fathom any instance in which he wouldn’t, at the very least, cut off the lout’s bollocks with a dull, rusted blade and toss them into a blazing fire.

  His hope for a merciful end of their betrothal further dwindled with each face he dared to look into.

  There was her eldest brother, Phillip, of course, who Luke recognized from their years at Eton. He stood beside the window with his hands clasped so forcefully behind his back that Luke wondered if the purpose of the action was to refrain from placing those very hands around Luke’s neck and squeezing all the air from his lungs.

  Two more brothers, who looked every bit as menacing as Phillip, sat upon a sofa near the hearth, their long legs sprawled out and taking up far more space than any man ought to fill. Their arms were folded over their chests, their eyes fixed menacingly on Luke.

  A fourth brother paced near the hearth, occasionally pausing in his stride long enough to glare daggers in Luke’s direction. With every step this man took, his hands clenched and unclenched at his sides. Luke couldn’t decide if this brother wished to plant him a facer or join Phillip in wringing Luke’s neck.

  Not that the specifics mattered. The simple fact that all four of these men wished to do him bodily harm was all he needed to know.

  The butler cleared his throat when none of the brothers said anything. “I shall inform his lordship of Lord Blackmore’s arrival. Should I order tea?”

  Phillip gave the butler a sharp look and said, “No,” just as Lady Selwyn and Miss Selwyn herself breezed into the drawing room, the younger lady giving Luke a timid smile before turning to the butler and saying, “Yes, please, Hammond. Enough for eight.”

  She really shouldn’t be smiling at him or trying to make him comfortable. Not after what he’d done last night. He could only guess what she must have gone through with her parents and brothers after they left the ball. She ought to be railing against him and demanding that her brothers do everything they can to defend her honor. If not that, then she should at the very least be scowling at him like her mother and brothers were doing, or sobbing, or any of the numerous other things a reasonable young lady would do in such a situation.

  Yet, she smiled at him again, with a sort of brightness in her eyes this time that Luke couldn’t recall ever having shone upon him before in his life. There’d been laughter over the years, of course, but he and his siblings had always veered more toward the sarcastic and defensive side of humor than this—whatever this was—particularly since their father had died and they had been left with their cold shell of a mother.

  He wasn’t sure what to do with Miss Selwyn’s reaction.

  “Have you been here long, my lord?” she asked. She edged farther into the drawing room and sat on a green-and-gold-striped satin armchair close to her two brothers on the sofa. “Please, come and sit.” She indicated the chair directly next to her, that playful twinkling coming back to her eyes, but her mother took it before he could.

  Luke inclined his head and crossed to the open settee opposite Miss Selwyn and her mother. “I’ve only just arrived,” he said as amiably as he could with all his confusion over the proceedings. Her family wasn’t going to make this easy for him, but there was no call for him to behave as a persona non grata, whether they would treat him thus or not. “Your brothers were just welcoming me.”

  The one pacing before the hearth let out a snorting sound that reminded Luke of a wild animal, and Miss Selwyn shot her brother an irritated look.

  “Papa will be down soon,” she said, continuing as though her brother hadn’t just let out such a derisive sound. “He’s anxious to discuss the marriage contract with you.”

  “As am I.”

  “I do hope you’ll stay to visit afterward,” she rushed on. Her blue eyes had taken on a sort of pleading expression, one that made him curious as to what she wished to speak to him about.

  He hadn’t intended to stay overlong today. He’d just wanted to meet with Sir Henry and finalize the contract, which would be voided soon enough, and then move on with his day, but if they were to convince anyone that he intended to follow through with the betrothal, he would have to act as though they were truly engaged. That would mean spending time with her, going to events with her…

  The fact of the matter was that he really didn’t know Miss Selwyn at all, or the problems he might have created for her and her family with his rashness. Luke supposed it was now his duty to ensure her family wouldn’t mistreat her when she cried off, that they would be as accepting of matters as he’d stupidly assumed they would.

  He nodded, looking at Lady Selwyn. “I would be glad to stay for a visit. If such an arrangement is agreeable to your mother, of course.”

  Before Lady Selwyn could do anything other than renew her scowl, the doors opened once more, and a maid came in with a tea service. She’d hardly set it on the table in front of Lady Selwyn and scurried away before Sir Henry barreled through the doors. Luke rose to greet him, unflinching beneath the elder man’s heated glare.

  “Blackmore,” the baronet grumbled. “Follow me.” Without another word, he spun on his heels and quit the drawing room, the determined steps of his boots echoing off the marble floors in the corridor.

  Luke didn’t have much choice. He glanced over at Miss Selwyn, who looked positively mortified and more than a bit concerned. He gave her a reassuring smile, but she cast her expressive eyes down to her lap.

  Without knowing whether she’d seen his gesture or not, he had to follow Sir Henry out of the drawing room so they could come to terms. As he crossed over the threshold, the heat of her brothers’ and mother’s stares felt liable to sear a hole in his coat.

  This plan of his already looked ugly, and it was only going to get worse from here.

  “You don’t have to marry him, you know,” Phillip said as he crossed over from the window. He took a seat next to Julianna and reached across to take her hand. “I’ll challenge him here and now. We can have this all settled and move forward as though none of this ever happened.”

  Jack, Edward, and William—her other three brothers—all made masculine sounds of agreement, and even Mama gave a decisive nod. Papa had told her the same last night in the carriage as they came home. Which, of course, was exactly what she should expect from her family. They’d always stuck together, through thick and thin.

  Julianna couldn’t do that, though. A duel might satisfy the grand idea of honor in the eyes of her family, or even in the eyes of Society, but it couldn’t erase history. The entire ton was sure to know every detail of what happened at last night’s ball by now. It wouldn’t surprise her in the least if some description of the events, with certain moments dramatized for greater effect, had made their way into the morning gossip rags. Even if that hadn’t happened, the ordeal was surely being discussed in every drawing room in Mayfair right at this very moment.

  If she didn’t follow through with the rest of what she and Lord Blackmore had agreed upon, she would never make a decent match. Not now. She had to play her part and then cast him aside or else it would look as though he had tossed her over—a horrid thing for a gentleman to do, to be sure, but precisely the sort of thing her reputation would never survive. She’d end up a spinster. Either that or she might be forced into marrying someone like Medeley, which was exactly what she was trying to avoid.

  This may not have been how she and Lord Blackmore had expected their little plan to play out, but this was what she had to work with. And whether it was happening in the way she would have preferred or not, the fact remained that Lord Medeley would have to back off from his pursuit if she betrothed herself, however temporarily, to Blackmore.

  In that way, the earl had done her an enormous favor, and she doubted she could ever repay it.

  And if she were to allow Phillip or
any of the other men in her family to attempt to satisfy honor as they clearly hoped, then she might as well open herself up for an even more fervent attempt by Lord Medeley to woo her. He might take what had happened last night as an indication that she needed to marry as soon as possible and try to force Papa’s hand in the matter.

  Yes, Julianna had gained her majority, but a lady could never truly make decisions such as these on her own. That simply was not how things in Society worked.

  “It did happen, though,” she finally said.

  The youngest of her older brothers, Jack, punched his fist into the hearth, something it looked as though he’d been aching to do for quite some time. “But that’s no reason—”

  “No reason to what? To marry him?” Julianna squeezed Phillip’s hand and turned pleading eyes upon Jack. “What if I told you that I truly want to marry him?”

  “You only met him last night,” Edward said, almost mimicking Papa’s response once they had returned to Selwyn House after the ball. “You can’t possibly have any true feelings for him.”

  Mama sighed. “If this all goes back to Lord Medeley…”

  “Medeley?” Will, the second oldest of Julianna’s brothers, dragged a hand through his too-long brown hair and leapt up from the couch. “You’re not going to marry that scoundrel just to avoid Medeley, of all people. Are you? I know Medeley’s no great prize, but—”

  “It’s not just about Lord Medeley,” Julianna cut in. She abhorred lying to them. Telling lies, in general, was not something she ever condoned. Particularly not when it came to her family. But she wasn’t entirely sure this was a lie, all things considered. Yes, it had all started with wanting to avoid the marquess and his advances, but a thought had struck her in the carriage ride home last night that made her question if there wasn’t something more to her willingness to go along with Lord Blackmore’s schemes.

  There was something very exciting about the idea of readily taking part in something as scandalous as a pretend engagement and a planned jilting. As a Selwyn, she’d never once in her life done anything remotely outside of the norm. They all—the entire family—did exactly as they were expected to do, never stepping a toe out of line, never seeing how the world looked from somewhere on the outside of propriety.

  Julianna didn’t want to spend too much time behaving in a scandalous manner, but would a small jaunt into the unexpected really hurt anyone? And wouldn’t she regret it someday down the line if she’d never once done anything even slightly naughty? She held it as an utter certainty that she would, and heavens, but that would be a travesty.

  Her mother and brothers were all staring at her questioningly, their eyebrows lifted up in a way that mimicked Papa. It must be a behavior they’d all picked up from him.

  Taking a deep breath for courage, Julianna fixed her gaze upon Mama. “I will not deny that I am rather desperate to avoid a courtship, or more, with Medeley, but I would never betroth myself to another man—”

  “A blackguard,” Edward interrupted sullenly.

  “—to another man,” she repeated, “solely for that purpose. I honestly do wish to marry Lord Blackmore.”

  Jack crossed his arms over his chest and scowled. “What could he have possibly said to convince you he was more worthy than Medeley? He spends all night, every night holed up in a gaming hell.”

  Will nodded. “For all we know, he has pockets to let and hopes to fill them with your dowry.”

  Julianna sucked in a breath. “Is that true?” she asked Phillip. If any of her brothers would know something of that nature, it would be him.

  He thought for a long moment before he responded. “He has been gambling heavily for as long as I can remember, but to my knowledge he has always been rather successful at the tables. I don’t know any specifics of his finances, but I don’t think he is after your money.”

  Not that she had much to begin with. Fortune hunting did not seem to fit in this instance.

  “Which begs the question,” Edward said, “what is he after?”

  That was an excellent question, now that she thought about it. After all, the only thing she’d done for him was to interrupt before things had gotten out of hand with Miss Hunt. He had to want something more from her. But what?

  It felt like an eternity had passed before Papa and Lord Blackmore returned to the drawing room. Indeed, the tea had gone cold, and so Mama rang for a new pot as the earl took a seat across from Julianna.

  All four of her brothers remained where they were, and Papa joined Mama on the settee. What would typically feel like a cozy afternoon together with her family felt as tense as anything Julianna could ever remember experiencing.

  After the maid left fresh tea and carried away the cold pot, Papa cleared his throat and looked straight at Julianna.

  “If you are still of a mind to marry Blackmore,” he said slowly, each word punctuated in such a manner that it felt as though he was waiting for her to contradict him, “then the banns will be called on the first Sunday after we return to Essex. You’ll marry three weeks later at our parish church.”

  “Not sooner?” Mama said. “But wouldn’t purchasing a license and marrying quickly be wiser? The papers…”

  “The papers and the gossips will be appeased when they see me courting Miss Selwyn,” Lord Blackmore replied kindly. “I shall be by her side at every given opportunity, and therefore they will have no cause to bandy her name about.”

  Every given opportunity? Courting her? She’d thought they would make it known among the ton that they had an understanding, not that she would have to spend time in his presence until the end of the Season when she could put an end to it and head back to the country with her family. This was growing into something far more complicated than the ruse she’d initially expected it to be.

  Mama merely said, “Oh,” in response, but all four of Julianna’s brothers turned angry scowls upon the earl.

  “He is right,” Papa put in. “And Blackmore insists that his own marriage must not overshadow that of his brother. Particularly not after he himself caused such a scene at the ball that was meant to celebrate the engagement of Mr. Devalle and his intended.”

  Was that the true reason for the delay? Julianna met Lord Blackmore’s gaze, but she couldn’t discern anything from his expression. It was a perfect excuse for why they must wait for the end of the Season, after all. And if the banns had not yet been called, there would be even less harm done when she eventually broke things off between them.

  Perhaps she truly could come away from this unscathed.

  “That sounds lovely,” she said once she’d regained her voice.

  “Not half as lovely as the idea of taking you for a walk,” Lord Blackmore responded.

  Mama shot him a warning look. “I’ll have you know, Blackmore, I am fully aware of the circumstances surrounding your brother’s rushed engagement to Miss Miranda Hunt. I won’t stand by and allow you to take my daughter off some unbeaten path, whether you’ve betrothed yourself to her or not. Until you two are well and truly wed, you’ll not have an unsupervised moment alone.”

  “Which is precisely as I would expect, my lady.” The earl turned his practiced, charming smile upon Mama.

  Every warning her brothers had ever given her rang in her mind all at once as reality set in. Blackmore most certainly intended to court her for the next fortnight, whether it was merely to put on a performance for the beau monde or otherwise.

  She would have to be on her guard nonstop, lest she lose her head. Or, worse yet, her heart. He undoubtedly would not be one to lose his heart in the course of their subterfuge, and only she would be hurt in the end.

  “A walk?” he repeated when Julianna hadn’t responded. “Will you accompany me? I can have my carriage brought around to take us to Hyde Park.”

  With a mild case of panic clutching her chest, Julianna turned her eyes to her mother.

  “I’ll have Rose accompany you,” Mama said. “Go up and fetch a bonnet.”

&nb
sp; That, apparently, settled that. If only Julianna had the first inkling of how she would guard herself against Blackmore’s charms.

  When he’d first met her last night, Miss Selwyn hadn’t seemed even the slightest bit skittish. In fact, she had given him the impression that she was perhaps equally as mischievous as he and his siblings could be.

  Luke wished he could say the same today. Instead of that playful glimmer in her eyes, she seemed ready to jump at the slightest provocation. Something as simple as his voice was all it took to startle her, and he wasn’t even speaking loudly. He definitely wasn’t shouting for the whole of England to hear as he’d done at the ball, and she’d survived that without falling to pieces. In fact, he’d done everything he possibly could to be a perfectly amiable gentleman, not only with her family, but with Miss Selwyn herself. What was so different today?

  Once they arrived at Hyde Park, he handed her down from the carriage before reaching up to assist her maid, as well. When they were all three firmly on solid ground, Luke held out his arm for Miss Selwyn to take.

  The delicate blue of her eyes flitted up to meet his for the briefest of moments before she looked away again, but at least she placed her hand on the crook of his arm. A tendril of her light-brown hair fell free from the knot atop her head and curled against her high cheekbone. He had half a mind to tuck it behind her ear, but contact such as that would be entirely too familiar of him.

  They were only playing the parts of betrothed lovers; they weren’t actually going to marry. He couldn’t do anything during this fortnight that would force their pretend engagement to become something far more real and permanent. That was why he’d so readily agreed to having her maid come along with them today. In fact, he would have insisted upon that very thing if Lady Selwyn hadn’t first made the suggestion.

  Nothing inappropriate could happen between Luke and Miss Selwyn, and not just because of his bet with Gabriel. He needed to leave her reputation as fully intact when they parted as it had been when they’d first met. The line between taking things far enough to convince the ton that their engagement was real and taking things too far was very thin and far too easily crossed. Diligence in maintaining that balance was a necessity.