The Devil Takes a Bride

by Julia London

  Merryton’s gaze riveted on her. Grace smiled prettily. “I beg your pardon, I’ve spilled.”

  He looked away as Mr. Cox hurried to blot it up with his serving towel. When he had finished, Grace smiled at him and held out her glass for more. She could almost feel the waves of disapproval coming from her husband, but when she glanced over her shoulder at him, silently challenging him to speak, he would not.

  She spent another interminable supper watching him eat without enthusiasm, his finger tapping absently against the table. Tap tap tap tap—pause. Tap tap tap tap—pause.

  When the first course had been cleared from the table, Merryton said, “Cox informs me you did not find the village girls he’d brought around to your liking.”

  Well, then, the ogre spoke, after all. “No, I didn’t. I prefer Hattie. I rather like her.”

  Merryton’s unflinching gaze locked on hers. “As I said, you may have anyone you like. But you may not have Hattie.”

  “Then I can’t have anyone I like, can I?”

  His expression did not change, but he slowly leaned forward, bracing his arm against the table. “You tend toward obstinacy. I cannot make myself more clear—Hattie will not become your lady’s maid. Choose anyone else you like or choose no one at all. It makes no difference to me.”

  Grace despised him. She didn’t care any longer that she was the cause of this marriage—she despised him. She shrugged insouciantly. “You tend toward the inflexible.”

  He drew a slow breath. “By God, you are impudent.”

  Grace laughed. “Thank you.”

  “It is in no way a compliment.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said, still smiling with delight. “By the by, today you suggested I mitigate the damage I have caused you by performing charitable acts. But I don’t see how I might do that if I am never to be beyond the walls of Blackwood Hall.”

  He had one hand on the table, watching her, his gaze sharp, like a hawk. “You may inquire of the vicar, Lady Merryton. He will be more than happy to assist you in atoning for your sins.”

  Oh! He was maddening, truly maddening! She picked up her fork, but she could scarcely eat now, as angry as she was. Therefore, the meal was finished as it had been every night since they had arrived at Blackwood Hall—Merryton impatiently waiting for her to finish so that he might take his leave.

  This evening, when he so eagerly left the dining room, Grace took a candelabrum in hand and wandered aimlessly about. Her strolling took her past his study. She paused before the closed door. With a glance up the hall to assure herself that no one followed, she opened it. It was dark within, of course, and the room cold. Grace stepped inside, saw the four pens on the writing desk, still neatly and perfectly aligned. She ran her hand over them, sending them in various directions, and smiled to herself as she stepped out of his study and shut the door.

  She carried on to the music room. She’d found it earlier today tucked at the back of the house near the garden doors.

  It was a cozy room, with a pair of music stands and a pianoforte and harp.

  Grace sat at the pianoforte, idly picking out notes to play. Prudence was the most musically inclined of the family. When she played, Grace, Mercy and Honor would dance, practicing their reels and their minuets. Naturally, Grace had been instructed in music as all wellborn girls were, but she didn’t have the same ear for it as Prudence. She put her hands on the keys and played a chord and smiled at the cheery sound. At least this was one diversion available to her. Perhaps she would practice her music on lonely afternoons and hone her skill.

  She remembered one piece, Autumnal Melody, and began to play. Her rendition was fraught with discordant sounds that she quickly sought to correct. It was a bit jarring to her own ears, but if there was anyone in this house who took issue with her admittedly awful playing, they did not come forward.

  When she had tired of attempting to regain her musical dexterity, she retired to her rooms. Someone had built a cheerful fire and had turned down her bed. She grimaced at the bed and walked past to her dressing room and donned her nightclothes. She braided her hair, performed her toilette and then climbed onto the bed.

  She propped herself against the pillows to begin her wait for her husband.

  He did not come.

  Was there a rule for how long one waited? Did husband and wife generally discuss these things, arriving on a time and place agreeable to them both? Or did every wife sit in her bed, waiting?

  Grace waited long enough that she fell asleep. She was awakened by the creaking sound of the door and sat up with a start. Her candle had burned down; only two inches of beeswax remained.

  She could see Merryton looming in the doorway, one hand on the door handle, the other on the frame, as if he were uncertain he would enter. He was dressed the same as last night, in his trousers and his shirttails. When he saw her stir, he stepped inside, then shut the door behind him.

  As he neared the bed, she could see the low light glimmering in his eyes, making Grace think of the demons Mercy liked to talk about at every turn. He stood over her bed, looking down at her, and something about the light in his eyes changed. It stunned Grace—she thought she saw a glint of tenderness. And then he casually touched her face with the back of his hand.

  It surprised Grace so that she treated it suspiciously, recoiling from it. It was so incongruent that she couldn’t understand what he was doing or what she was to do in return. He caressed her cheek, and with his gaze on hers, he slowly and deliberately leaned over her, bracing himself on his hands on either side of her. His gaze slipped to her lips and he lowered his head to kiss her.

  His kiss was gentle and his lips like velvet, and it swirled through Grace—a delicious and deceptive heat growing warmer as it moved. His lips were moist, his tongue a whisper against her lips. He shifted, cupped her chin with his big hand and kissed the corner of her mouth.

  A thousand tiny ripples of delight rushed through her, tingling on her skin. Grace’s eyes fluttered shut; she tilted her head slightly so that he might kiss her neck. He moved to her chest, leaving a warm, wet trail of butterfly kisses across her skin. The pleasure he stoked in her made her feel weightless. His hands and mouth were incredibly provocative as they moved on the body, drawing a spark from deep within her and flaring in the surface of her skin. He moved to her breast, mouthing the hardened peak through her nightgown. She gasped softly and lifted to his mouth without conscious thought. He teased her with his tongue as he slid his hand down to her abdomen, down her leg. His hand, warm on her bare skin, slid up her thigh and in between her legs.

  The sensation of his fingers on her intimate flesh sent a white-hot flame through her. Grace could feel the dampness of her body, desire thrumming and rising up in her.

  Merryton released a long breath. His touch grew more urgent, and he returned to her breast, pulling at her nightgown until she felt a button fly off. With a groan, he took her bare breast in his mouth, nipping and sucking her. She raked her fingers through his hair, holding him to her as she lost herself in the utterly gratifying sensation of his mouth and hands. It was an exquisite, a perfect stir of feelings. This is what she had experienced that night in the tea shop.

  He freed his cock and moved between her legs. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down, so that she was on her back, then shifted between her legs and rubbed his erection against her.

  Grace pressed against him. She lifted one knee, ready for him, eager for him—

  Merryton suddenly thrust his arm beneath her back and lifted her up, roughly turning her over. He drew her up by the abdomen and, without a word, pushed her knees apart, and entered her from behind, almost as if he did not want her to see him. He began to move in her, keeping his arm around her waist, pulling her into his body as he thrust into her, one hand on the bed to brace himself. He made quick work of it, pumping into her, his strokes faster and faster.

  It was all terribly confusing. Grace’s body was responding to his touch, but her mind was not.
She tried again to turn, to sit up, but he put her back down.

  He made a guttural sound as he spilled his seed hot and hard into her. He bent over her back, kissed the nape of her neck and then withdrew himself from her person.

  Grace was stunned. She fell onto her side and pulled her nightgown down. She lay with her back to him. He didn’t speak, but he stroked her hair. She closed her eyes, silently willing him to leave her.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, his voice rough.

  “Fine,” she said.

  “Did I... Are you hurt?”

  She was hurt, but not in the way he meant. “No,” she said firmly.

  She felt him stand, could hear him dressing. He stood a moment, waiting, she supposed, for her to turn and face him. When she did not, he stroked her hair and said quietly, “Good night, Grace.”

  Grace! He would use her name now?

  Grace didn’t cry this time. She rolled onto her back when he’d gone, her arms splayed wide, and stared up at the embroidered canopy above her head.

  She thought of murder. Mercy was particularly fond of gruesome tales, and she imagined how her youngest sister might create this man’s demise. Grace liked the image of him tumbling from his horse and bouncing down a ravine. Or perhaps a tragic fall from the grand staircase, wheeling head over toe to the marble tiles below.

  Better yet, the unexpected kick of a goat right between his bloody eyes.

  But then Grace thought of her mother. Before the carriage accident that had begun her mother’s descent into madness—before her mother had begun to unravel the embroidery of her sleeve and call Grace by the name of her deceased sister, or believe she was living in a past year—she’d been an elegant, beautiful woman.

  Joan Cabot was a mainstay in London society, a clever, witty woman considered to be one of the true beauties among the ton. Scarcely a year after Grace’s father, a bishop, had died, her mother had received an offer of marriage from the older Earl of Beckington.

  Once, Grace had asked her mother how she’d managed to love Beckington after loving Grace’s father. Grace was only ten years old, and then, Beckington had seemed rather ancient to her. But her mother had laughed gaily and had folded Grace into an embrace. “Oh, my darling! There is so much of the world you’ve yet to learn!”

  “But you do love him, don’t you?” Grace had asked. She could think of nothing worse than being married to a man one did not love. She couldn’t imagine wanting another husband after Pappa.

  “Oh, I do. But that took time, darling. And I had to convince him that he loved me first,” she’d said, and had laughed gaily while Hannah, her longtime lady’s maid, had giggled, too.

  Grace had been shocked—she’d assumed anyone who met her mother would love her. “He didn’t love you straightaway?” she’d asked incredulously.

  Her mother had smiled and touched her fingers to Grace’s face. “No, darling, he scarcely knew me. But I persuaded him to desire me above all others. Do you want to know how?”

  Grace had nodded.

  “By making myself desirable in a manner that he himself wanted to be desired.”

  “You make it sound very simple, my lady,” Hannah had said.

  It hadn’t sounded simple to Grace at all; it had sounded nonsensical. She recalled how her mother had laughed at her expression. “One day, you’ll understand.”

  Grace wasn’t sure she understood it even now, but the thought occurred to her that perhaps she was going about this all wrong. Perhaps the key to turning this awful marriage into one that both of them could endure would be to become what Merryton wanted Grace to desire in him.

  “That’s not the least bit convoluted,” she muttered sarcastically to herself. She could hear Honor now, wailing about how Grace was her own person, and should command to be treated as such. And while Grace would find merit in what Honor would say were she here, she also understood that as she had caused this, it was her lot to repair it, however she could.

  For the thousandth time in the past year or so, she wished for her mother to come back to her. She wished desperately she could ask her now what to do with this strange man. But the mother she’d known all her life had slipped away, and in her place, a woman whose madness had pushed all that she knew from her mind.

  Grace would have to go this alone.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  HOT RED SHAME filled Jeffrey.

  He had rutted in his wife like a pig, the carnal sensation taking over all rational thought. He feared he’d been too rough. Jeffrey closed his eyes and tapped his fist against his leg.

  But he could not banish the images of her, lying there with her eyes closed, the lustful, earthy sounds of pleasure escaping her. Her scent was still in his nose, still torturing him, an intoxicating mix of perfume and the scent of an aroused woman, and it had been all he could do to keep from unleashing his base desires on her.

  She was beautiful, and she was a hellish temptation to the beast in him. Today, he would leave Blackwood Hall. He would put some distance between them, find his balance once more. He would ride into Ashton Down and hopefully displace the inflaming images that littered his brain.

  He left quite early, riding hard, pushing his horse to a gallop. The more he exerted himself, the better he was able to contain himself. He pushed until he could breathe normally. Until the shame had been pounded out of him.

  He trotted into town, reining up at the Three Georges, Ashton Down’s public inn.

  “My lord Merryton!” Dawson, the innkeeper, called out to Jeffrey when he entered. “You are welcome, sir!”

  “Thank you,” Jeffrey said. “An ale, please.” He walked to a table before the window and sat down. Before him, on the wall near the entrance, Dawson had tacked seven plates to the wall.

  Jeffrey turned his chair so that he could not see the plates and gazed out the window.

  “Good day, milord,” a woman said.

  Jeffrey glanced up to see Nell, a serving woman who had, on more than one occasion, spread her legs for him and allowed him to use a crop on her bare bottom.

  “I’ve no’ seen ye in a time, milord,” she said. “Ye are welcome upstairs as always.”

  He nodded. She’d always fascinated him with her ample hips and breasts, but today, she held no interest for him. His mind was fixated on a beautiful young woman with pale skin and eyes that reminded him of summer.

  My name is Grace.

  It was a peculiar thing, his inability to say her name aloud, but her name carried so much weight. If he said it, if the name fell off his tongue with any sort of familiarity, he feared he would slowly incorporate her into his depravity. Her name would be intertwined with his debauched thoughts, and there would be no hope for her.

  A jostle at his table brought his head up.

  “I thought it might be you, my lord.” Mr. Paulson, a member of the landed gentry, was standing before him, his hat in hand. He was dressed fashionably in gray trousers and a blue superfine coat. “I understand felicitations are in order,” he said, bowing grandly.

  “Thank you,” Jeffrey said, and gestured to the chair beside him.

  Paulson flipped his tails and sat, balancing his hat on his knee. “I’ve just come from London,” he said. “I had not heard of your nuptials until just yesterday. Many happy returns.”

  Jeffrey smiled.

  “May I ask, where is the lovely Lady Merryton? Have you brought her to the village?”

  “She is resting, presently.”

  “It is quite a lot of bother, a wedding, isn’t it?”

  Jeffrey didn’t know what that was supposed to imply exactly, but gave Paulson a curt nod of his head. He thought of his wife now and tried, with difficulty, to put away the images of her bathing the bruises from her body. He must have inflicted bruises. The memory of last night’s encounter had swelled in him, and now he believed it had been much rougher than it had seemed at the time. He’d gripped her too tight, had been too rough, too lecherous, he was certain.

  “I
f I may, you are a fortunate man indeed, my lord,” Paulson continued. “The Cabot girls are renowned for their looks.”

  Jeffrey was unaware of that and looked at Paulson curiously.

  “They say the younger ones, who are not yet out, are even more beautiful than the eldest two,” Paulson said. “A pity that I am already married.” He laughed politely, but he was eyeing Jeffrey shrewdly.

  Jeffrey said nothing.

  “I will admit to some surprise when I heard the news of your nuptials, given your aversion to scandal,” Paulson added, far too casually.

  Jeffrey knew the day would come when someone would mention the circumstances of his marriage, but he was not prepared to hear it this morning.

  “That was rather a stink with the oldest sister, was it not? What with the gambling and the public declaration for Easton?”

  Jeffrey knew of George Easton, the notorious bastard son of the Duke of Gloucester. He was not aware that his wife’s sister had married Easton as the result of a scandal. And now he had married under a similar cloud. God help him, but his life had twisted out of control, slipping through his fingers so quickly, so easily. He’d maintained such tight control, never erring, and in one evening, he’d managed to lose it all. The consequences of that one indiscretion were astounding.

  Paulson thought that Jeffrey’s look somehow constituted an agreement with him. “I know that you are averse to even the suggestion of scandal,” Paulson said low, as if they shared a confidence. “But I think you are far enough removed from it.”

  Jeffrey merely looked at him.

  “There now, we must have you and Lady Merryton to dine!” he said jovially, redirecting the conversation. “My Lucy will be quite keen to make her acquaintance.”

  “Likewise,” Jeffrey drawled, and stood. “Speaking of my wife, you will excuse me, will you, Paulson?” Jeffrey put a few coins on the table, nodded at Paulson and went out, studiously avoiding the seven plates as he did. But it was useless—he could feel the discomfort of seven in his chest.