Devil Takes A Bride

by Gaelen Foley

  Progressing in this manner, he came to the corner of the hallway. An odd sound reached his ears, a low, mournful crooning. His heartbeat quickened. Gathering himself, he flashed around the corner, legs planted wide in target-shooting stance, and beheld a very strange sight.

  He scanned the hallway, narrowing his eyes in skeptical confusion. Carstairs sprawled in a heap against the baseboards, dead or perhaps only unconscious. His back to Dev, Quint was crouched down cradling the limp, black-clad body of a woman in his arms, rocking her slightly.

  Ginny Highgate, Dev presumed. He recognized her widow’s weeds as those of the woman who had been following him weeks ago. As he sized up the situation, he did not stop to wonder why she had been so interested in watching him; he merely noted in a bitter, final irony that the answers he had chased for so long had just expired with her last breath.

  “Wake up, Ginny. Stay with me. Oh, Ginny, we can be together now, like we once were,” Quint whispered, but it was no use.

  Her eyes fluttered closed, and he could not be certain whether she still lived or not. Resting her gently on the floor, he pressed his shaking fingertips to her throat, desperately feeling for the pulse.

  His guilt was too damning. In this awful moment, there was no way to escape the truth. He had believed Carstairs’s lie all those years ago when he should have believed Ginny. She had protested her innocence, denying Carstairs’s allegation that she had cheated on Quint, trying to seduce his rich, handsome friend. Why should he not have believed it? Quint knew he was no prize. Carstairs was richer than he, smarter than he, and had always possessed a suave glamour that Quint could never hope to achieve. Carstairs said he had found her waiting for him in his bed…all those years ago. Before Quint the country bumpkin finally comprehended that the urbane Carstairs had no real interest in women.

  The damage had already been done, and Quint did not know how he had lived with it all these awful, empty years. He had raped the only woman he had ever loved, had shot an innocent, unarmed man in his wrath, and had helped to burn alive a building full of people—all for a lie. If he were half the man Dev’s father had been, the stranger he had slain in a moment’s fit of rage, he would have turned himself in, or at the very least, snuffed himself out years ago.

  Instead, with the heart rotting inside him, Quint had done his best to carry his crime in secret, living hard and fast, surrounding himself with rowdy mates, drinking and whoring like a sailor, cheerfully battering one opponent after another at the boxing studio, always looking for something innocent to ease his pain because, down deep, he knew he was one of the damned. For more than a decade, he had lived on the edge, half-wishing for death.

  He did not know how near it was now.

  Dev had a clean shot, but though his stare bored into Quint’s broad back, he lowered his pistol. Afraid not, old boy. You’re not getting off so easily. He craved more satisfaction of the man than one fleeting squeeze of the trigger could provide. Besides, he had never shot a man in the back in his life and did not intend to lower himself by doing so now.

  With brooding hatred flickering in his eyes, Dev holstered his gun and unsheathed his knife, then alerted Quint of his presence by striking the wall with his blade.

  Quint tensed, jarred by the sound. Then a low, deadly voice spoke from a few yards behind him: “You killed my father. It was you. Wasn’t it.”

  Strathmore. Holding very still, Quint exhaled slowly. It seemed the time had come. Suicide by Strathmore. The viscount was sure to be obliging.

  Quint’s fighting anger came easily. One look at Ginny lying motionless was all it took to make his eyes flare with dangerous wrath.

  “Get up,” Strathmore ordered.

  Quint rose stiffly to his feet. “You bested Torquil?” he asked, turning around.

  “Gutted him, actually,” the viscount said, his cheek smeared with Torquil’s blood. “Just as I shall do to you.”

  “I don’t advise trying it, old boy.” Quint flexed his fists, cracking his knuckles in warning. “I’ve beaten you before.”

  “Quentin, you fool.” Dev’s eyes burned strangely, ice reflecting fire. “I let you win.”

  Quint pulled out his dagger. The man gave him no other choice. “I’m sorry about your father. He should have known better than to insert himself into the midst of a lover’s quarrel.”

  “Am I supposed to accept your apology?”

  “No,” Quint answered after a moment.

  Dev’s glance flicked to Ginny lying behind him on the floor. “You couldn’t be happy till you had finished the job, eh?”

  “I didn’t shoot her. Carstairs did.” Quint shook his head, bringing his knife up in fighting stance. “I’m warning you, Strathmore, keep your distance. Carstairs has slain the only woman I’ve ever loved. I’ve got nothing left to lose.”

  “That makes two of us,” he snarled, but as they sized each other up, a cold smile twisted Strathmore’s mouth. “Never fear, Quint. I shall soon put you out of your misery.”

  “Allow me to return the favor.”

  As their vicious duel exploded, both men knew it was a fight to the death. Both welcomed it.

  The rumble and shake of the earth beneath him roused Carstairs from his stupor. At first, he could not feel his face; then he felt it throbbing. Lifting his chin, he had to struggle to see through his left eye, which was swelling shut. He must look a fright.

  The last thing he remembered was Quint’s fist coming at him like a cannonball, but somehow, in the interim, Strathmore had arrived. He wondered if Johnny was still alive downstairs, but could not afford to care. His mind cleared with the self-preserving instinct that had never failed him; he shook his head to settle his blurred vision and assessed his situation.

  Ginny was dead, he saw. Good. One less thing to worry about. Quint would take care of Strathmore—or Strathmore would take care of Quint. It scarcely mattered which. They were so well matched that Carstairs deemed he could safely count on at least one of them killing the other. When the surviving warrior lay wounded, he would simply finish him off with a bullet.

  But the Strathmore child had gotten away, and so had Miss Carlisle. He sobered. The former was an eyewitness to the night of the fire, while the latter had nearly become his murder victim earlier tonight, so it was only prudent that he find the pair and silence them forever.

  His pistol still nestled snugly in its holster, but he had spent the shot on Ginny, and now he saw his leather ammunition case had flown several feet down the hallway when Quint had attacked him.

  He had to retrieve it, but in his current groggy state, he had no desire to flag the attention of the battling titans above him. He glanced up at them, slicing and slashing at each other, feral snarls on their faces.

  Barbarians.

  They were too busy tearing each other apart to pay him any mind. Elbow-crawling on his belly, Carstairs inched toward the leather case.

  He’s here. Lizzie froze on her way out the back door when she heard Devlin’s dark cry of rage.

  “Come, Miss Carlisle!” Sorscha urged. “We must hurry!”

  She could not answer, turning to gape in amazement at the stairwell they had just left. He beat Torquil!

  Somehow Devlin had tracked them here.

  “Come on!”

  “One moment, Sorscha,” she breathed. For all her supposed maturity, Lizzie proved no better able to ignore her emotions than Sorscha had, physically incapable of leaving her love until she had had one glimpse of him to assure herself he was not hurt. His nearness infused her with fresh courage.

  When Sorscha took her arm, Lizzie brushed her off. “I just want to make sure he’s all right. Stay here.”

  Ignoring the girl’s protest, Lizzie glided back to the steps and silently climbed them as far as the small, square landing where the staircase turned. She stared in dread toward the upper hallway, where two huge, grappling shadows twisted and thrashed, one with a long, flying mane of thick hair. They stabbed at each other with dizzying speed,
warding off each other’s blows with blinding parries, the silhouettes of their knives sweeping at each other in deadly arcs.

  She gasped when she saw Quint cut Dev’s side, but her lover’s answer was the blackest laugh she’d ever heard, all bitter mocking despair.

  He fell back against the wall, and for a second, she could see him from her vantage point. One glance told her that something was terribly wrong.

  “Is that the best you can do, old boy?”

  “Oh, you want to die?” came Quint’s labored challenged.

  “Carstairs took my love away as well, Quint. I’ve got nothing left to live for now. Fight harder!” Devlin attacked again, launching out of her line of vision.

  Lizzie paled; understanding came in an appalling flash. He thinks I’m dead. That explained why he fought so savagely now.

  Good God, he would not stop till he got himself killed. Dread gripped her. She knew she must not distract his concentration, but she could not let that happen. She had to show herself so he could see she was alive—stop him from throwing his life away in the fury of despair. Her face hardened.

  She knew she was a target, but she still had Mary’s gun with which to defend herself. Creeping farther up the stairs, Lizzie kept her shoulder to the wall, the pistol at the ready in her left hand if she should need it.

  Inching up over the stairs, she could now see them down the hallway. She felt almost sorry for Quint. The crude baron was as strong as an ox and as big as one, too. He had three inches on Dev and at least twenty pounds, but he had surely never before encountered anything like Devil Strathmore.

  She did not know what to make of him herself, but she could not look away. His face looked primal, streaked with blood; his hellish eyes glowed like lava. He was coated in sweat, muscles straining as he drove Quint back before his onslaught. If he felt the gash on his right side, he gave no sign; she stared, aghast, at the crimson bloom where his white shirt clung to the cut. But even more than the wound on his body, Lizzie ached for the suffering inside him.

  The stark intensity on his face was at odds with the tortured fury in his eyes; oh, he was somewhere else, somewhere far away, lost and wandering through the desolate badlands of his own scorched soul.

  She knew he had never needed her as he did now. How much time remained for her to call him back softly from the edge of destruction, she did not know, yet she dared not speak for fear of breaking his warrior’s concentration. The results could be disastrous. Nor could she shoot at Quint with Dev so close; she dared not trust her untested aim. She could do naught but stand by in helpless frustration until he thrust Quint from him and sent the baron crashing across the hallway.

  In the brief reprieve, Dev stole half a second to mop the sweat off his brow, lifting his arm with a quick shrug of one shoulder, when suddenly, he felt someone watching him.

  He glanced over—and went motionless. Too caught up in the scarlet exaltation of violence to comprehend for a moment what his eyes beheld, he blinked hard, sweat still trickling down, stinging his eyes. His chest heaved.

  Lizzie…

  He forgot his enemy, staring at the vision in confusion. Reality split, the red haze clearing. Could it be? But—

  How?

  Something very near to a sob choked from him. Torquil Staines had either lied or been mistaken. It scarcely mattered which.

  Alive.

  Time stopped.

  Light streamed into his darkness as he held her beautiful gaze, some superior force, radiant, awesome in its power casting his demons into oblivion. All in an instant, he was redeemed. He stared in stunned worship.

  Alive.

  Yes. A second chance.

  “Sweeting,” Lizzie whispered, her eyes filling with tears.

  Dev’s eyes misted in answer as he held her stare, his whole body trembling like a horse that had been run too hard and too fast. Nothing else mattered when he saw her standing there, alive and as beautiful as the dawn. The delicate strain of exquisite joy that pierced his heart was as clean and sharp as a needle. It made him light-headed, not quite able to trust his own eyes. He was so transfixed by the sight of her that he failed to notice that Quint had regrouped.

  “Devlin, look out!”

  The baron charged him.

  Instantly, Dev spun and fell back with a sweeping step that arced under the line of Quint’s attack and came back at him with deadly precision; they stood frozen, Dev’s dagger rooted deep in the baron’s gut.

  Quint let out a low rough grunt, absorbing his deathblow.

  Dev gripped the man’s shoulder, withdrawing the red blade.

  Quint reeled back against the opposite wall and leaned there, staring at him for a second in astonishment.

  “Ginny,” he rasped, then sank down the dingy plaster wall. He slumped to the floor, his glazed stare fixed on the fallen woman, but Dev was already scanning the floor of the hallway.

  His chin snapped up, the color suddenly draining from his face. “Where’s Carstairs?”

  He had no sooner uttered the words than a flicker of motion in Lizzie’s peripheral vision made her turn her head toward an open guest-room door.

  She heard Dev scream at Carstairs as the earl sprang through the jagged opening at her, wielding a dagger.

  He swung it at her with a malevolent snarl. She threw herself backwards out of range, falling against the opposite wall of the cramped corridor.

  In a heartbeat, she lifted the pistol in her left hand and brought it level, pausing only a second to stare coldly into Carstairs’s wild eyes.

  She fired; time seemed to slow to a drip. Turning her face away from the flying spatter of blood, she was swallowed up by the earl’s deafening roar.

  When she dared to look a split-second later, Carstairs was peering down at the bullet hole in his chest, just below his left collarbone. She was fairly sure she had just shot him in the heart, but with the eyes of a demon, he lifted his gaze to hers.

  “Run!” Dev bellowed.

  Her eyes widened in disbelief.

  Shot through the chest, Carstairs kept coming.

  With a scream, Lizzie whirled clear—but it was not an attack.

  Carstairs fell stone dead at her feet, his blue eyes staring blindly.

  She let out a jagged gasp, then dropped the empty gun and pressed her hand to her mouth, turning away from the corpse.

  Devlin stood frozen with amazement, staring from the slain Carstairs to her.

  Lizzie swallowed hard, then looked at Devlin. “I killed him.”

  He nodded slowly with an impressed glance at the body. “Good shot.”

  “Oh, Devlin.” She ran to him.

  He met her halfway, and in a heartbeat, they were in each other’s arms. He squeezed her hard, holding her and gathering her ever closer, like he would never let her go.

  “I love you,” she whispered frantically, pulling back to look up into his eyes. “Are you all right?” She touched his hair, his cheek, touching him everywhere to assure herself he was more or less unscathed.

  He nodded wearily, but his exhaustion from his battle was beginning to show. “I’m fine—now. I love you, too. Oh, sweeting,” he choked out, “I thought I’d lost you.”

  “Never, my love. Never,” she told him. “Come, sit. You’re hurt.”

  “It’s just a flesh wound. Oh, Lizzie,” he forced out, shaking his head as he captured her face between his hands. “I think I need you to kiss me right now, very hard.”

  “Gladly,” she whispered, a smile spreading over her face.

  He lowered his head and claimed her mouth in needy hunger. She gave him a deep kiss replete with all the tenderness and passion that burned in her soul for this man.

  After their kiss, he hugged her again, cupping her head to his chest. She nestled there for a moment with a sigh of soul-deep relief, when suddenly, they heard the muffled clatter of a carriage rumbling up to the inn.

  “My lord, where are you?” a familiar voice hollered.

  Ben.


  They exchanged a heartfelt smile that brimmed with warmth. Then Lizzie sobered. “Devlin, there’s someone I want you to meet.”

  He tilted his head in curiosity, but allowed her to lead him by the hand down the back stairs where Lizzie had left Sorscha.

  Turning at the landing, Lizzie stopped. Her eyes widened. The area was empty!

  “She’s gone! Sorscha! Sor—”

  “In here!” The high-pitched cry sounded thinly, coming, it seemed, from inside the stairwell wall.

  What the blazes? “Where the devil are you? Are you all right?” Lizzie called in confusion.

  “Is it safe now?” Sorscha asked from inside the wall.

  “Yes! Please come out.”

  “Just a moment.”

  Devlin sent Lizzie a puzzled glance. “Who is it?”

  “You’ll see.”

  From inside the wall, they heard the muffled creaking of rusty pulleys.

  “Ah, she’s in the dumbwaiter!” Lizzie exclaimed, chuckling as she walked down to the small, cupboard-like door at the bottom of the stairwell. “Clever girl.”

  The creaking grew louder as Sorscha worked the pulleys, lowering herself down the dumbwaiter shaft; then it stopped.

  Lizzie leaned down and opened the little door. She beckoned to Devlin over an arch smile. He furrowed his brow and bent down low to peer into the cramped dark space.

  Dev was slightly confused as he found himself face-to-face with a young girl who sat folded up on the dumbwaiter.

  He thought she looked vaguely familiar. Then he remembered he’d seen her at Lizzie’s school. Now, as she stared somberly back at him, he noticed that her hair was black and wavy, much like his own. Her eyes were blue with green in them, like his.

  “Hullo,” she said to him in a small voice.

  Dev turned to Lizzie and stared, not quite able to believe the miraculous whisper of recognition that teased at his memory. “It can’t be.”

  “It is,” Lizzie whispered, tears rushing into her eyes.