What had built the wall around Selina’s heart, he did not know. She had rebuffed his effort to find out, saying tartly that she was entitled to her secrets as he was to his.
Although the initial blaze of passion that had brought them together had cooled a little after nearly two years, they preferred each other’s company to anyone else’s.
Lucian had been surprised at how vehemently she had objected to his marrying Kitty, even though he had made it clear to Selina that his marriage would not change their relationship.
“It is not your marrying I object to,” she had retorted scornfully. “It is your choice of bride. She will not make you the kind of wife you need.”
“And what kind do I need?” he had teased.
Selina, usually so frank, had replied evasively, “Whatever it is, Kitty is not it.”
Lucian drained the last of the wine from his glass. Fernhill was quiet now. Even the most stubborn revellers had gone to bed. Lucian rose from the chair to retire and discovered that he was somewhat unsteady from all the claret that he had consumed.
A candle was burning when he went into his room. He stopped abruptly at the sight of the voluptuous woman lying in an inviting position on his bed. A lace night rail had been carefully arranged to display enticingly her large breasts and other charms.
Lucian felt his body’s instant, uncontrollable response to this flagrant provocation. He should not have drunk so much. It undermined his self-control and his will to resist.
Belatedly he recognized the maid, Maude, and his mouth hardened.
“Oh, my lord, you have kept me waiting so long,” she whispered huskily.
“And you have wasted your time,” he told her bluntly. “I do not pay for a woman. So be on your way.”
He had thought that would discourage her, but instead she batted her eyes at him and cooed, “Oh, la, my lord, I want no money. Such a fine specimen as yourself is reward enough.”
Lucian let his scepticism show on his face.
Maude hurried on. “It will be an honour for me to bed a great hero like the Earl of Vayle.”
He had met more than a few females who were eager to sleep with him for that reason. They wanted the legend, not the man.
She giggled. “Might say ‘tis my patriotic duty.”
He should send the bold baggage packing, but her wanton display of herself had had its intended effect on his body.
Since Maude was so eager to offer herself to him, why should he not take advantage of it? Lucian’s body ached for relief, and his brain was dulled by too much claret.
He began to remove his clothes. As he dropped his brocade coat across a chair and started to unbutton his long matching vest, she protested, “No, no, let me do that.”
Rising seductively from the bed, she moved close to him. His nose discovered that she had made liberal use of civet in trying to enhance her charms. It had been a mistake. Lucian wistfully recalled the sweet, refreshing scent that had clung to Angel Winter.
Maude finished undressing him, taking advantage of every opportunity it offered to excite his body.
As she divested him of the last of his clothing, he noticed that her hand shook a little. Seizing it in his own, he observed, “How nervous you are.”
It trembled more violently. “Aye, I am,” she agreed. “’Tis the honour of bedding a great man like you. I declare I need a bit of claret to steady my nerves.”
Maude went to a table near the bed. Lucian noticed for the first time that it held two glasses of wine and an empty bottle. From the rich, ruby shade of the liquor, it looked to be of excellent quality.
Raising his eyebrow, he inquired coldly, “Prigging our host’s claret?”
“Nay, ‘tis none of his!”
Lucian gave her a sceptical look.
She said hurriedly, “’Tis my mistress’s. Brings it with her, she does. Likes it before she goes to sleep, if you take my meaning. Calls it her sleeping medicine.” Maude held one of the glasses out to him. “Let us drink a toast to our night together.”
He wanted no more to drink. When he declined the glass, she cried angrily, “So, fine gentleman that you are, I am not good enough to drink a toast with, only good enough to bed!”
God’s oath, Lucian thought wearily, he did not want a noisy scene of wounded feminine sensibility. All he wanted was to satisfy the urgent need of his body in hers. Irritably, he took the glass from her. He’d already had so much to drink that one more glass hardly mattered.
He raised it to her and said, “To a pleasurable night.”
Lucian drained the glass in three gulps. The claret was not as good as it had looked to be. It left a bitter, unpleasant aftertaste in his mouth.
She took the empty glass from him, replaced it on the tray, then took a dainty sip from her own glass. “You must forgive me, but I cannot drink it as quickly as you do.”
“Don’t bother to drink it at all,” he growled impatiently, sinking down on the bed. “You have had your toast; now let us make it come true.”
“Only a few sips, my lord, to quiet my nerves.”
He felt a prickling along his own nerves. It was the intuitive warning of danger that had more than once saved his life, but Lucian was suddenly so sleepy that he could not isolate what it was that bothered him about Maude.
He must order her out of his room. Lucian opened his mouth to do so, but his tongue would not work properly. He fell back on the pillows, unable to keep his eyes open any longer.
Angel turned over in her sleep and bumped against something very warm and very hard in her bed.
She was having a dream, she decided, more asleep than awake. It was not the first strange dream she had had that night. In an earlier one, she had been picked up and carried in a man’s arms.
This latest dream, however, was much more pleasant. The object in her bed was as warm as a hot brick and far nicer to snuggle against.
Suddenly, the object shifted, and she found herself pulled tightly against it. A sudden heat, delicious and thrilling, permeated to the very marrow of her bones. Angel wanted to stay next to this wonderful, comforting warmth forever.
Slowly it penetrated her sleep-fogged brain that somewhere in the distance, a great commotion was going on. It sounded as though a hunt were in progress.
Then much nearer, not more than two inches above her head, she heard a sigh. A male voice, deep and thick with sleep, muttered, “So sweet. Smell nice, too.”
Angel’s eyes flew open. A man’s chest, thick with dark curling hair, was pressed against her. She realized that it was his arms that were holding her—and so closely that she could not see his face.
For a moment, Angel was too stunned to move. Then she tried to wriggle from his embrace, but his arms tightened around her so fiercely that she complained, “You’re hurting me.”
His grip instantly relaxed. “Don’t go,” he mumbled, clearly still asleep. One of his hands lightly caressed her hair. The sensations that his touch sent coursing through her made her forget all about trying to squirm away from him.
She was so bemused by the feelings he aroused in her that she hardly noticed that the distant furore she had been hearing was much closer now.
The door to her room burst open. The bed curtains had not been closed, and suddenly the faces of Lord Bloom- field, her stepfather, and several of the guests appeared hovering over the bed. They stared down in shocked horror at her.
The noise apparently penetrated her companion’s sleep deadened senses. He stirred and loosened his grip on her.
Angel hastily scooted away from him. For the first time, she was able to see his face.
Lord Vayle! What on earth was he doing in her bed?
He looked dazed and terribly groggy, as though he were in the grip of a sleep so strong that he could not seem to shake himself awake.
Angel sympathized with him, for she felt terribly dull and lethargic, too, and her head ached dreadfully.
More people, both men and women, many in nightclo
thes, were crowding into the room. There were at least a score now.
“What is the meaning of this?” Sir Rupert roared, yanking away the bedcovers from Angel and her companion.
She was mortified for she was clad only in her thin, lawn night rail, but that was better than Lord Vayle.
He wore nothing at all.
Angel stared in helpless admiration at the powerful muscles of his bronzed shoulders, arms, and chest. Then she looked lower. She had never before seen a nude man, and she was startled by the differences between his anatomy and hers.
He did not appear in the least embarrassed by his nakedness. Indeed, he did not even seem to notice it. Instead he looked as furious as she had ever seen a man look.
“Bloody hell!” he exploded, thrusting himself into a sitting position. “Damned, sodding whoresons!”
Angel sat up, too, wondering why he was so angry. Violent words continued to spew from his mouth. Unfortunately, he seemed to have reverted to Dutch again, and she could not understand what he was saying.
“Hold your tongue!” Bloomfield ordered, looking as incensed as Vayle. “There are ladies present.”
“And quite an eyeful they are getting, too!” Vayle said scornfully. “Surely you ought to be as anxious to spare their eyes as their ears from this travesty.”
Angel realized to her acute shame that her night rail was twisted up about her thighs, leaving her bare legs exposed. She started to pull the material down, but Sir Rupert’s hand shot out and seized her wrist in an iron grip.
“Only look at that, the bastard!” He was pointing at something on the skirt of her night rail. Horrified gasps escaped the staring onlookers gathered around the bed.
Looking down, Angel was startled to see bloodstains on the skirt of her garment.
“Where did that come from?” she wondered aloud. “I did not cut myself.”
Lord Vayle gave her a look so full of fury that she shivered.
Before she could ask him what was wrong, Sir Rupert blustered, “I will not let you get away with this outrage, Vayle. Explain—”
“Explain this farce?” the earl snapped. “I could not begin to try. But you could, damn you! I have no idea how this female”—he glared so contemptuously at Angel that her soul seemed to shrivel—”got into my bed.”
Dear God, could he be right? For the first time, Angel noticed that the bed hangings were of beige tapestry, not the green silk that had been on the bed she had gone to sleep in. Was she in his bed? Certainly she was not in her own. Yet her wrapper was lying at the foot of the bed.
He turned on her. His silver eyes were as hard and piercing as a sword’s point, and his voice was ominous. “Come, my angel from hell, why don’t you tell me and our audience how you happen to be in my bed?”
“I do not know,” she admitted. “I—”
Sir Rupert drowned out her answer by shouting at Vayle. “Do not try to turn attention from your own despicable behaviour.”
It was almost as though her stepfather were declaiming on the stage of a large theatre and wanted everyone in it to hear him.
Angel asked him, “Why are you yelling at Lord Vayle when he is no more than two feet from you?”
Rupert ignored her. So did the people gathered around the bed. They were too busy staring down at the tangled skirt of her night rail.
Terribly embarrassed by her state of undress, Angel tried to tug the covers back up around her, but Rupert held them so that she could not.
“Let me cover myself,” she cried angrily.
Suddenly Lord Vayle, a ferocious look in his eye, yanked the blankets out of her stepfather’s hands and pulled them up about both her and himself. “Damn you, Crowe! At least allow her a little belated modesty now that she has done your dirty work for you.”
“What dirty work?” Angel asked, baffled.
Vayle whirled on her. Angel was not easily frightened, but the savagery of his expression did so now. How apt his nickname was. Never had she seen a man who looked more like Lucifer.
“As if you didn’t know,” he growled, “you damned little whore!”
Angel blanched. She knew that she was plain, but she truly did not think that she was so ugly that she could be called a horror. It was terribly unkind of Lord Vayle, and she objected indignantly, “I am not a horror!”
“No?” His eyes raked her with contempt and derision. “Of course, you are not a whore, my dear, sweet innocent,” her stepfather assured her soothingly.
Lord Vayle demanded, “How does it happen that your dear, sweet innocent is the one who has come to my room and my bed?”
“Because you seduced her into doing so,” Rupert shouted. “We all saw how you singled her out for your attention at the ball.”
An angry hiss echoed among those crowded into the room.
A perplexed Angel frowned. “What does seduced—”
“Damn you, Vayle,” Rupert interrupted, “you lured her away from the watchful eye of her maid, who would have immediately warned me of what you were about. My Angel has lived a secluded life. The poor girl knew nothing about evil, debauching men like you, who would use her for their amusement, ruin her, and then abandon her.”
“Laying it on rather too thick, aren’t you Crowe?” Vayle inquired scornfully. “But then the role of defender of lost innocence is such a novel one for you.”
Rupert flushed but was not silenced. “Angel is my responsibility and, by God, you will marry her!”
Lord Vayle did not seem in the least surprised at her stepfather’s astonishing statement, but Angel was stunned. Why would Rupert think his lordship should marry her when he was betrothed to Kitty.
“But I do not want to marry him!” she protested loudly.
Vayle eyed her with sharp suspicion.
“Shut up,” Rupert ordered her.
But Angel ignored him. “Lord Vayle is Kitty’s betrothed. Even if he wasn’t, I scarcely know the man.”
“You know him in the most intimate way a woman can know a man,” Rupert shot back.
Angel had no idea what her stepfather was talking about. “I think you are mad,” she said with conviction. “And I will not marry him.”
“Nor will I marry her,” Lord Vayle said flatly.
A rumble of anger and hostility toward him rippled through the room. Someone hissed, “Lucifer.” By now Angel was certain that every guest at the house party must have crowded into this room. She caught sight of Lady Bloomfield’s shocked face.
“You will marry Angel, Vayle,” Sir Rupert cried. “Honour requires it.”
“Honour?” Lord Vayle scoffed. “What an odd word to hear on your lips. Am I to gather you will call me out if I do not marry her? I shall be delighted to oblige you.”
Sir Rupert suddenly looked very uneasy. “I am certain you would be happy to take on an old man like me.”
“Old!” Lord Vayle exclaimed derisively. “You are no more than five-and-forty. If you consider that too decrepit to fight for your daughter’s alleged honour, there is always your son to do it for you. He is some years younger than I.” The earl’s grim smile was full of menace. “I am convinced that I shall derive even more pleasure from running through that little snake than I would from doing the same to you.”
Angel glanced at Horace, standing near his father, His face was ashen with fear.
Lady Bloomfield worked her way to Angel’s side and squeezed her shoulder comfortingly.
Rupert shouted, “You cannot deny, Vayle, that my precious Angel was as pure as new-fallen snow until you touched her. The proof of her innocence is on her gown.”
Now it was Sir Rupert who made absolutely no sense to Angel. What did he mean by innocence, and how did a woman prove it?
She was certain of one thing, however, and she voiced it again, loudly and vehemently. “I tell you I will not marry Lord Vayle. Nothing will induce me to do so.”
Lady Bloomfield took Angel’s hand in her own. “You must, my dear. You may be with child.”
“
Not with my child, she isn’t!” Vayle interjected savagely. “That would be a bloody impossibility.”
Angel was utterly confused. “How could I be with child?”
Lady Bloomfield said very gently, “You have lain with a man.”
Angel’s eyes widened in astonishment. Was that all it took? She had only to lie down beside a man and his child began growing inside her.
“I never dreamed that making babies was so easy,” she said in wonder. How silly of Lord Vayle to have refused to tell her something that simple when she had asked him. She turned to him and in a voice laced with reproach said, “You should have told me.”
Vayle looked at her with murder in his silver eyes.
But Angel hardly noticed; she was so disappointed to learn that lying beside each other was all there was to the mysterious thing that a man and woman did behind the bedroom door. She was surprised that so much whispering and snickering went on about such a simple, insignificant act.
“If she is pregnant,” Lord Vayle snapped, “it is not my bastard she is carrying.”
Lady Bloomfield gave him a scathing look. “She has never lain with another man. As her stepfather says, the proof is on her gown. You must marry her.”
Chapter 5
Lucian glared at Lady Bloomfield. After this very public scene, he knew that she was right about his having to marry Angel, but he would be damned if he would concede defeat so easily. He would go down fighting every step of the way.
He silently cursed the Crowes, Angel, and himself, too. Lucian had made the fatal mistake that he had always been so careful never to make on the battlefield.
He had underestimated his enemy.
How could he have been so bloody stupid?
Even more stupidly, he had not suspected that Angel was in league with her step-relatives in their plot against him.
Fool that he was, Lucian had thought her a delightful innocent who had kindly tried to warn him of her evil relatives’ plot against him. All the while she had been telling him with such seeming candour about it, she had known full well that she was its linchpin.
The duplicitous little witch had let them drug him and then had willingly crawled into bed beside him until the Crowes could snap the trap shut on him.
Devil’s Angel Page 5
