DEVILISH

by Devilish (lit)

  The coach halted in front of the handsome portico and servants poured out to assist them.

  “Why not Malloren Square, then?” she asked.

  “My grandfather was a friend and admirer of the Duke of Marlborough.” He stepped down from the coach and turned to assist her.

  Journey over. And what a journey it had been.

  As they entered the house it became clear that a message had been sent ahead to tell of the delay and the cause. Of course it had. They had been expected last night. Clearly, despite the attack and the death of his servant, Bey had dealt with a great deal of business before settling down with that decanter of port.

  She still didn’t really grasp the man he was, and so she looked around at his London home, wondering what it could tell her.

  The entrance hall was oak paneled, and more in the style of the country house his grandfather had planned than the modern town house it had become. The oak was not yet painted in the modern fashion, but the room was saved from gloom by four long windows at the top of the sweeping staircase.

  Pictures, furniture, and ornaments were all around, and all of finest quality, but unlike most fashionable houses, the effect was not of careful display, just the accumulation of the years. This great house managed to feel like a home, and she couldn’t help thinking how wonderful it would be to be arriving as his bride.

  It had to be possible! Two lives could not be wasted in this way. No family was free of physical and mental taint, and even people who seemed unflawed could have children with problems. She turned to speak to him, but he was giving crisp orders to various servants, organizing the machine again.

  With a sigh, she strolled closer to one large painting. Bey in his robes and coronet looking haughtily down on lesser mortals. He looked remarkably chilly and intimidating. Just as she’d imagined him once.

  She sensed him come to stand beside her and gave him a quizzical glance.

  His lips twitched. “I deliberately chose an artist who was terrified of me. Don’t you think it sets the right tone?”

  “If you wish everyone to quake in their shoes.”

  “But of course.”

  She rejoiced that some trace of lightness remained between them. “You must give me the artist’s name. I need a similar portrait just inside the door.”

  “You wouldn’t terrify him. Which means he’s a fool.” He turned to speak to someone, then said, “The baggage carts arrived safely last night, and your boxes await you upstairs.”

  He looked unaffected by the news, but Diana could easily have screamed. She masked disappointment as best she could and allowed herself to be taken away to prepare for court.

  As she climbed the stairs she became aware of another painting on the landing at the top. This one was of a couple in the fashion of a generation ago. Bey’s parents, she assumed. The resemblance between him and the man was clear. Even though the painted features were a little softer, the dark hair and dark eyes were the same. He looked to be a much gentler man than his eldest son, however, though a little sad.

  Then she realized that the russet-haired woman must be his second wife—the resemblance to the “red Mallorens” was clear. So, she thought, pausing beneath the portrait, that tragedy explained the haunted sadness.

  The marquess in the painting was quite young. People tended to think of parents as middle aged or older, but a portrait such as this reminded that even parents at one time were in their twenties, and possibly as confused and uncertain as oneself.

  Despite the waiting servants, she studied the second wife. Golden russet hair and a mouth generous with smiles and kindness. Beauty, too, which she’d passed on particularly to her oldest son, Bryght, melded with the father’s dark coloring. It was the warmth and kindness, however, that shone through most.

  A woman bitterly missed by all. Perhaps, having lost her, her husband had not fought very hard to live.

  You or no other. She sensed it here, too.

  Two halves which when divided left bleeding wounds, or at best, terrible scars.

  There had to be a way!

  She allowed herself to be directed on, to a suite of rooms in which the woodwork had been painted white, and Chinese wallpaper set in the panels. The furnishings were all of the latest style, too, delicately carved and inlaid with decorative woods.

  “Lady Elf’s rooms, milady,” said the housekeeper. “Lady Walgrave now, of course, and with her husband’s house to live in.”

  Long curtains at long windows. Birdsong from nearby trees, and quite close by, children playing. A poignant reminder of the life so many people took for granted.

  Warmth, love, marriage, and children.

  “We haven’t unpacked your boxes, milady,” the housekeeper continued, “since you are to move to the Queen’s House, but if you would be so kind as to say what you require for the Drawing Room, I will have it prepared.”

  Diana put aside longings and focused on her coming challenge. If she failed with the king, Bey would feel obliged to keep his promise and marry her. She wanted it desperately, but only a full marriage. One in name only would be worse than none at all.

  Therefore, she must create the correct first impression before the king and queen, and play her conventional role to perfection. One of the things he’d told her during her training for this was that the king and queen wished to support English trade. Fortunate, then, that her court dress was made from Spitalfields silk.

  She turned to the housekeeper. “Clara knows where my court dress is packed. In the meantime, I would like a bath.”

  “Of course, milady. And tea as you wait?”

  “Perfect.”

  Alone for a brief moment, Diana removed her small hat and rubbed her aching head. It wasn’t really aching. It was tense. Even the bones felt tense.

  Where was he now? Doubtless he too was preparing for court. Was he already naked under Fettler’s unappreciative eye… ?

  Rothgar made sure that everything was in order, and then started up the stairs. He paused, however, seeing Diana studying the portrait of his father and stepmother.

  What did she see?

  Nothing he could offer her.

  To avoid overtaking her, he turned back to go along a corridor to a room at the back of the house. There he supervised the unbundling of the drummer boy and checked for new damage. Thank heavens he’d ordered it carried in the boot of the main coach. It seemed to have survived the adventurous journey safely. He sent a message to John Joseph Merlin to examine it at his earliest convenience, and to make an appointment to speak to him about the repairs.

  The servants bowed out of the room, and he stood alone with the still and silent figure, strangely tempted to wind it and switch it on. To bring the boy to life. He hunkered down so they were eye to eye.

  “You are likely to torment me, you know. Evidence of what might have been. Warning of what might be if the gods are unkind.”

  The eerily realistic glass eyes, fringed by long lashes, gazed back at him. They seemed to say, “Do you truly not want me to be real?”

  He rose sharply and left the room, locking the door behind him.

  Nothing had changed. The logic upon which he had based his life was still sound. This unsteadiness he suffered now was weakness, nothing more.

  He was infinitely practiced at resisting weakness.

  Chapter 18

  Diana distracted herself by exploring the charming boudoir, but found little of interest. The paintings were insignificant, and the few books in a glass-fronted set of shelves unlikely to be Elf’s choices. Elf had moved on to her husband’s house, and these rooms held only ghostly whispers of her.

  A side door opened into a bedchamber, and beyond, Diana found the dressing room. Clara and another servant were carefully extracting her formal court dress along with its awkward panniers, while others filled a huge tub lined with thick linen cloths. A fire already burned in the grate to warm the room for bathing.

  It was not a newly laid fire. This had clearly been t
hought of ahead of time, too, and this evidence of planning chipped at her hopes. Most of the time, Bey ran his affairs with efficient perfection. Nothing was neglected or done on impulse.

  Clockwork precision, not easily changed.

  That clicked her thoughts to the automaton. Presumably it had been unloaded by now and placed tenderly somewhere in this house. The drummer boy looked as she had as a child. What had Bey looked like at five or six? Was there a picture of him as an even younger child, before his mother’s cruel act? Did later ones show the change, even in childhood features?

  When the housekeeper returned, followed by a footman bearing the tea tray, Diana asked, “Is there a portrait gallery here?”

  “A small one in the corridor outside the ballroom, milady. Most of the family portraits are at the Abbey, of course.”

  “I would like to see the portraits that hang here.”

  The woman was clearly startled, for the tea awaited and the bath would soon be ready, but she curtsied. “Of course, milady. Be so kind as to follow me.”

  She was led past the stairs to the other half of the house where a wider corridor was indeed lined with portraits. Diana thanked the housekeeper and dismissed her, then turned to stroll by the pictures.

  The first were ancient paintings, one small miniature going back perhaps to the early Tudor period. Farther along she found two large portraits of a man and a woman in the opulent dress of the Restoration. Probably Bey’s grandparents, and again she saw a resemblance in the woman’s sculpted lids and the man’s classic bones.

  Nothing here of his parents, however. She wondered if any portraits survived of his mother, and if so, in what secluded corner they hung.

  The end of the corridor contained one moderately sized portrait surrounded by miniatures, rather like the sun and the planets. With a smile, she wondered if he thought of the arrangement that way, too.

  The central portrait had to be Bey as a young man, a youth almost. It was probably the usual one painted in Italy when on the Grand Tour for he leaned against a stone pillar, book in hand, and revealed a glimpse of some Italian town behind him. She understood that many Italian artists kept a stock of canvasses already painted with background and pillar, so that the English milord could choose the one that suited his fancy, and have his figure painted in. This looked of that sort, but the artist had been skilled in capturing his subject as in life.

  Bey had probably been about seventeen, and showed no sign of childhood shadows. A tribute, that, to his father and stepmother. He looked what he had been then—a young man with the world in his hands, enjoying life to the full. With his brilliant mind, she was sure he had enjoyed his Grand Tour as it was meant to be enjoyed—for learning and exploration of the classical world. The smile and wicked eyes told her he was already enjoying other aspects of foreign travel.

  My, but the Italian ladies must have been mad over him. Devastatingly handsome, with the well-shaped bones already clear but softened by the lingering blush of youth. Those mysterious, guarded eyes were larger, brighter, and full of the joys of life.

  He was handsome now, grown into himself perfectly, but there was something toothsome about such youthful beauty accompanied by lordly confidence.

  She dragged her eyes away to look at the smaller paintings, but they were all of his half-brothers and sisters, also in their teen years. No baby pictures at all, which wasn’t surprising. They were usually kept in less public areas and often done with the mother. Any pictures of Bey with his mother were likely hidden away, or even destroyed.

  What was it like to have a parent whom everyone wanted to forget? No wonder it hovered over him like a shadow.

  She looked back at the central portrait, but it gave no answers except to tell her that the shadows he lived with had not all come from his mother’s dreadful act. The death of his father and stepmother had played a part. Rosa had said they’d died of a fever he’d brought back to his home.

  She knew they would not want him to suffer for it, but he must know that too. At heart, it was his mother who chained him. She turned and walked briskly back to her room, resolved to find a way to break those chains.

  She paused at the head of the stairs for another look at the previous marquess and marchioness who must want happiness for all their family. All now had it, at least in part because of Bey’s loving care. Only he was left alone.

  Help me, she mouthed silently. Then she hurried on her way.

  Two hours later, Diana surveyed herself in her mirror and declared herself satisfied. Formal court events required wide panniers instead of the narrow ones or hoops of everyday. The panniers, however, served to spread the fabric of the skirt and show off precious materials, encouraging a blatant declaration of wealth.

  Her cream silk did that perfectly, rioting with embroidered spring flowers and leaves. The same material formed the niched border around the skirt and up the parted front to her waist, trimmed down the middle with glittering gold braid. Her petticoat was figured cream silk, and she wore shoes to match. The rich stomacher was formed of silk ribbon and gold lace, and a small bunch of the silk flowers nestled in the lace by her breasts.

  Breath caught as she thought of last night.

  Would the flowers remind him?

  She hoped so.

  She knew he would be working hard now to avoid, to block, to rebuild defenses, but she would do everything she could to break them down.

  Then she recalled that her purpose at the moment was not to break Bey’s will, but to convince the king that she was a safe, conventional lady.

  She looked the part. She would be expected to be grand as suited her station, and court fashion required face paint which allowed her to pretend a delicate pallor. She protected her complexion so it was honestly pale, but now the healthy glow in her cheeks was hidden as well. She’d not darkened her brows and lashes, and that too made her seem more faded, less strong, especially with powdered hair.

  Her eyes traveled to the flowers again, and she realized that her bodice was very low. Not unsuitable for court, but here was a chance to seem particularly modest.

  “My fichu,” she ordered. “The embroidered muslin one.”

  After a flurried return to the boxes, it was found and draped around her neck, the ends tucked between her breasts behind the flowers.

  Better. Sickeningly demure.

  With that in mind, she chose simple jewelry. She had left off her rings after the bath, even though they were her armor. They were too much of an idiosyncrasy to wear for this performance. Now she chose one small ruby and a modest pearl. Around her neck and in her ears she wore a seed pearl and ruby set she’d been given when sixteen. Paltry stuff.

  She took a last look and nodded. Rich but slightly mousy. No challenge to anyone.

  Would Bey approve? She took up her ivory fan and went to find out, foolish heart already trembling at the thought of seeing him again.

  After such a long time apart.

  A footman was stationed in the corridor to escort her. To her surprise, he took her downstairs and toward the back of the house which would usually be the household offices. With a tap on the door, he opened it and announced her.

  Diana went in and found herself in a very businesslike study. Most of the walls were covered with bookshelves and drawers. A map drawer stood open with a map on display. The huge desk in the center of the room was a masterpiece of marquetry and gilding, but it was still a desk, and Bey had been sitting there dealing with large amounts of paperwork before rising as she came in.

  He worked too hard, trying to hold the world together.

  All the same, she smiled at his beauty in rich red silk and elegant powder.

  Then she saw the picture on the wall to one side of him.

  A young woman with coiled dark hair, in a loose gown of flaming red, sat apparently at her ease, but with an arrogant or perhaps challenging turn to her body. At first glance she seemed strong, her smile confident and sure, her eyes direct, but almost immediately Diana se
nsed fear.

  Would she have even thought it if she hadn’t known what was to come? For this surely must be Bey’s mother. His father’s dark hair and eyes suggested a degree of likeness that wasn’t there. Bey had his mother’s exact features in stronger form—the high brow, the classic bones, the square chin, the straight, sculptured nose with flaring nostrils.

  Was that why he felt so threatened by her mental instability?

  Was that why he kept this picture here to remind him?

  Diana knew that he had brought her here to see this. He had even dressed in red to make the likeness clear.

  Undeclared, the war was on, and this was his defensive attack. The picture was to remind her of the facts, and to convince her that he had sound reasons to walk away from what they could have and be.

  Commanding her racing heart to calm, Diana moved closer to the picture, her stiff silks rustling in the quiet room. “She looks frightened. Did she not want to marry your father?”

  He stared, as if surprised. “She made no objection that I’ve heard, but it was somewhat of an arranged affair, yes. Arranged by loving parents on both sides. Her mother—my grandmother—is still alive, and still convinced that my father drove her daughter mad.”

  This was the discussion she’d wanted, but not now when they had so little time. She was pressingly aware that clocks had chimed the half hour as she came downstairs. Deliberate. She knew it was deliberate, so they could speak of this, but only briefly.

  Damn him.

  She was at war with an expert, ruthless strategist, and must not forget that.

  “You were a young child when she died,” she said, meeting his eyes. “Perhaps your grandmother is right and your father was not kind to her.”

  “My father was very like Brand. Can you imagine Brand distressing any woman into madness? And besides, what unkindness, what cruelty even, could drive a sane woman to strangle her own newborn child?”

  Diana gasped. “Strangle.”

  “Would some other manner of murder be more to your liking?”

  It was the Dark Marquess speaking, the one she had feared when they first met. She recognized, however, that this again was defense, frighteningly similar to his mother’s angled head and fierce smile.