“As Vayle says, you have no choice.”
Angel swallowed hard, then gave voice to a forlorn hope. “Do you think that I could somehow win Lord Vayle’s heart?”
Lady Bloomfield looked at her in alarm. “Do not, whatever you do, fall in love with him, child. If you do, he will break your heart. That is the way it is with a man who has none of his own.”
Angel’s fragile hope evaporated.
Lady Bloomfield held out her hand to Angel. “Come, child, we must go to the drawing room for your wedding.
To be followed by her wedding night, Angel thought nervously as she took her hostess’s hand. “Do. . do a bride and groom always sleep together on the night they are married?”
“Always.”
“Even if the groom does not want the bride?”
Lady Bloomfield snorted. “Every man wants his wedding night. I doubt there has ever been a groom in the history of mankind who despised his wife so much that he failed to claim his rights to her on it. I only pray that Vayle does not vent his anger on you during it.”
“What do you mean?” Angel asked in alarm.
Lady Bloomfield frowned. “Sometimes when a man must wed a woman against his will, he is not as gentle and patient as he should be with her on their wedding night.” She muttered more to herself than Angel. “Lord knows, it is painful enough under the best of circumstances.”
Angel struggled to conceal her fright. She despised cowards, and she would not allow herself to be one now. She followed her hostess into the hall with all the joy of a condemned woman being led to the hangman’s noose.
They met Lord Vayle, accompanied by David Inge, in the hall outside the drawing room. His lordship might not have wanted this wedding, but he had dressed impressively for the occasion in a midnight blue velvet coat, ornamented with gold braid, over a matching waistcoat and breeches. He looked so handsome that Angel’s heartbeat quickened.
When he saw her, he remarked dryly, “An unusual wedding gown.”
“You do not like it,” Angel said unhappily. Why did it suddenly seemed so important to her that he should find favour with what she wore? “You do not think it is pretty?”
He touched her arm comfortingly. “It is pretty enough, little one, but it makes me feel as though I am robbing the cradle. At least, it is not black. I take solace in that”
The Crowes were waiting outside the closed door of the drawing room.
Vayle told them coldly that he and Angel would be leaving immediately after the ceremony. “We will stop by Belle Haven so that Angel can collect her belongings.”
“No, you will not,” Sir Rupert Crowe snapped. “After the way Angel has humiliated us and the rest of her family by her scandalous, wanton behaviour this day, she has forfeited all right to set foot in Belle Haven again. I will not permit her to do so. The gates will be barred against her.”
Angel was so shocked that she could not even find her voice to protest. Never to be allowed at Belle Haven again. It was unthinkable!
Lucian demanded scornfully of Crowe, “Are you that afraid she might find her father’s missing will?”
Rupert’s eyes narrowed. “What lies has she been telling you? There is no missing will. Ashcott’s own attorney swears to the fact that the will entered for probate is the only one Ashcott ever made.”
“I saw a later will with my own eyes,” Angel cried.
Rupert sneered at her. “Amazing, is it not, that you, the one person who would benefit from it, are the only one to have seen it.”
“You cannot bar me from Belle Haven. It is my home!”
“No longer! In a few moments you will be this man’s wife and his home will be yours.” He turned to Lucian. “After the indecent spectacle the pair of you have made of yourself, she will come to you with only the clothes on her back, nothing else. She deserves nothing more.”
“What do you mean, ‘nothing more’?” Angel cried. “What of Fairleigh?”
“What is Fairleigh?” Lord Vayle asked.
“A small estate in Bedfordshire that, under the terms of my parents’ marriage settlement, was to be my portion when I married.”
“The settlement very clearly stipulated that it would come to you only if you married with the approval of your guardian, and you do not have that,” Rupert said. “While I was forced to permit this ceremony after the scandal you made of yourself with this man, I do not approve of the match.”
“So you mean to steal even that from her,” Vayle said contemptuously.
Angel, remembering the conversation she had overheard between the Crowes, cried furiously, “So that is what you meant by being rid of your other problem—and more cheaply than you could ever have hoped to do otherwise. I was your other problem.”
Her stepfather smirked.
Lucian said scornfully, “It is not enough that you have robbed Angel of her inheritance, mined her reputation, and tricked her into marrying a stranger. Now you must rob her even of her dowry.”
Sir Rupert gave him a look of malevolent triumph. “And you can do nothing about it.”
“You bastard!” Vayle growled. “The lowest circle of hell is too good for you.”
Angel turned anguished eyes to Lucian. “I must go back to Belle Haven.”
He took her little hand in his large one and squeezed it consolingly. “Do not worry, little one, I will buy you a new and better wardrobe.”
“It is not my clothes I care about,” she cried. “I want something of Papa’s to remember him by. I have nothing!”
The drawing room door opened, and the Reverend Thompson bustled out, carrying a very large leather-bound book beneath his arm. He fixed his attention on the elder Crowe, ignoring everyone else.
“I see the bride is here. Are we ready to begin the ceremony?” he asked Angel’s stepfather as though only his pleasure mattered.
“Aye, and keep it short. I want it over as quickly as possible.”
“Certainly, Sir Rupert,” the rector said with servile alacrity. “It shall be just as you wish.”
He turned to Vayle. “As soon as the ceremony is finished, you and your bride must sign the parish register.” He nodded down at the large book he carried.
“You are to be commended for thinking of everything,” Vayle said sardonically, “even the parish register.”
“I confess the credit for that must go to Sir Rupert,” the rector said fawningly. “I might not have thought of it had he not reminded me yesterday when he told me my services would be needed.”
“Yesterday!” Lady Bloomfield cried. “Sir Rupert summoned you yesterday?”
“Why yes, my lady.”
“Prescient of Crowe, was it not?” Lucian observed dryly.
Lady Bloomfield turned on the Crowes in fury. “You evil, despicable blackguards! Get out of my house at once.”
“I will see my stepdaughter married,” Crowe said stonily. “It is my duty.”
“Your duty!” her ladyship cried in derision. “Get out or I will have my servants throw you out.”
She glared at the younger Crowe, “As for you, you snivelling little rodent, I will never permit Kitty to marry you! Not that she would have you.”
“Like it or not, she will have Horace, I promise you that,” the elder Crowe said, his expression so evil and menacing that Angel suddenly feared for Kitty. “It is what I want, and I get what I want.”
“Not this time,” Lord Vayle said.
Angel, seeing his determined, scowling countenance, understood more clearly than ever how he had gotten the nickname Lord Lucifer.
Even her stepfather seemed shaken.
“I promise you, Crowe, Vayle said in a voice made all the more menacing by its calm resolve, “that for your work this day, I will destroy both you and your son.”
Angel stared glumly through the window of Lord Vayle’s coach as it hurtled through the gates of Fernhill.
Her new husband lounged on the seat beside her. The ceremony uniting them in wedlock had been over much
too quickly for the bride’s peace of mind. The only witnesses to it, besides the principals and the rector, were Lady Bloomfield and David Inge. The Crowes, facing forcible ejection, had left. Lord Bloomfield and Kitty had flatly refused to be present.
Angel asked her bridegroom politely, “Where are we going?”
“Ardmore, my estate in Hampshire.”
Her heart sank at the thought of leaving Belle Haven and the people she loved.
Who would fight on behalf of the estate’s servants and dependents, now at the cruel mercy of the Crowes?
Who would tend the graves of her father and brother, lying side by side, beneath the great chestnut tree Ashcott had planted as a boy of eight?
Angel said sadly, “I do not want to leave Belle Haven.”
“Your stepfather left you no choice,” Lord Vayle reminded her.
“I cannot believe he would not permit me to return.”
“You should be delighted that he would not. It undoubtedly means that he has not succeeded in finding and destroying your father’s missing will. There is still hope that we can discover it before he does.”
“Not if we are barred from Belle Haven,” Angel pointed out.
Lord Vayle gave her an odd, enigmatic smile. “Perhaps your father did not hide it there.”
“He had to have. It was there that he showed it to me and my uncle, and he did not leave the estate after that.”
“Have you no idea at all where he might have hidden it?”
“I thought of many places, but it was in none of them. I cannot think of another spot where it might be.”
“Where did you look first for it?” he asked casually.
“In my father’s library and bedroom.”
“Does you father have an excellent view from his library?”
Angel, startled by this strange change in subject, said, “Why, yes, he does. It is the southwest corner of the house, overlooking the park.”
“What kind of view did he have from his bedroom?”
“The same,” she replied, baffled by her new husband’s sudden interest in views. “It is directly above the library. Papa even had a private staircase installed to connect the two.”
It was inconceivable to Angel that she might never again be permitted inside that house she loved so much, and she said in a choked voice, “I am going to miss Belle Haven so much.”
Her husband’s large, warm hand touched hers. “I promised you that I would get it back for you, and I am a man who keeps his word in all things.”
She gave him a grateful smile. “You are very kind after what I have cost you.”
It was as though she had touched a raw nerve. He withdrew his hand, and his silver eyes were suddenly cold. “You have no idea what you have cost me, no idea at all.”
He must have loved Kitty after all, Angel thought, and she blurted, “I cost you the woman to whom you lost your heart.”
“No,” he said scornfully. “I have no heart to lose.”
Angel was profoundly shocked. She had not believed Lady Bloomfield when she had said much the same thing, but now he himself was confirming it.
Dear heaven, what manner of man had she married?
Lord Lucifer.
He said more gently, “Do not look so stricken, little one, I told you before that love has nothing to do with marriage.”
“Certainly not with our marriage,” she retorted, turning away from him to watch through the coach window as her beloved Berkshire rolled past.
They rode in silence for several minutes before Angel asked, “How far will we travel today?”
“We will spend the night at the White Horse Inn outside Lower Hocking.”
“But that is only a short distance. Why are we stopping so soon?” Angel wondered uneasily whether it was because he was impatient to claim his wedding night. “Often when a woman lies with a man for the first time, the experience is agonizing for her especially if he does not love her”
And her husband had made it resoundingly clear that not only did he not love her, he never would.
Lord Vayle shrugged carelessly. “I understand it is a passable establishment, and we will be quite comfortable there.”
Angel cast a nervous, involuntary glance toward the apex of his thighs. Much as she hated to leave Berkshire, she would happily ride in this carriage all night if it would postpone her wedding night. Angel was not usually a faintheart, but Lady Bloomfield’s remarks had made her apprehensive, even a little frightened.
In a shaky voice, she said, “I am surprised that you do not wish to go farther, Lord Vayle.”
“Lucian,” he said.
She raised her gaze to his face and blinked. “What?”
His ominous expression had vanished. His eyes were alight with amusement, and he was grinning at her in a way that made her heart skip a beat. “Call me Lucian. We are married now, remember.”
How could she forget?
“We are stopping so soon because you have had a long, dreadful day, little one. The least I can do is allow you some rest.”
Angel stole another nervous look at his thighs, then stared out the window of the coach. It was accompanied by two armed outriders and a beautiful bay saddle horse.
“Why the horse’?” Angel asked.
“I had originally intended to ride to Ardmore on horseback, but now that I have acquired a wife, I must take the coach, too.”
“Is Hampshire so dangerous that we require outriders?”
“I should not think so. Kitty insisted upon them on the journey to Fernhill.” His disgust with his former betrothed’s timidness was clear in his voice. “She refused to leave London without them.”
The coach hit a series of hard bumps, bouncing them both. Lord Vayle put his arm protectively around her, and her breath quickened as he drew her against his warm, hard body.
He asked casually, “If Crowe had permitted you to take one memento of your father from Belle Haven, what would it have been?”
“His telescope,” Angel answered without hesitation. “It was Papa’s most prized possession. It was so precious to him that he would let no one else touch it. You see, it was made especially for him by Isaac Newton.”
“Isaac Newton himself?”
“You know of him?” Angel inquired.
“Of course. His Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy is a work of exceptional genius,” Lord Vayle exclaimed, his face lighting up much as her papa’s had when he had discussed the same book. “Nothing has ever been done like it. He has integrated for the first time the laws of motion for both celestial and terrestrial bodies. Why, it has changed the way we regard the universe.”
“Aye, it has,” Angel agreed. “Papa was very excited about it.”
Although the road was smoother now, Lord Vayle was still holding her in the protective circle of his arm. She decided he must have forgotten he was doing so. It felt so good that she hoped he did not remember. His closeness, though, seemed to play havoc with her heartbeat.
He said, “Tell me about the telescope Newton made for your father.”
“It was his special design in which he used a mirror in place of a lens. It is called a reflecting telescope, and Papa said it is better than any other he had used.”
“Where did your papa keep this valuable object?”
“In his library, on the desk where he did all his writing.”
“Did he keep more than one telescope there?” Vayle sounded bored, as though he were merely making conversation to pass the time, but something about his silver eyes told Angel that he had a very definite purpose in mind.
“No, only that one. Why do you ask?”
He shrugged. “Curiosity. I was a great admirer of your father’s.”
“You were?” she cried in surprise. It was hard for Angel to believe that this hard, unyielding man of action would have taken any notice of a man whose mind was most comfortable with the abstractions of natural philosophy.
“Aye, I read everything he publishe
d. My favourite was the Journal of Belle Haven. I hoped that someday he would write a sequel to it.”
“That is what he was working on when he was killed.” Angel’s face clouded at the memory. “If only I could make sense out of what happened.”
“I thought your father was killed in a riding accident.”
“He was, but . . .“ Her voice trailed off and she looked out the coach window as they passed a stout woman in a gray linsey-woolsey gown walking toward Lower Hocking. She carried a creel on her back.
“But what?” her husband asked. “What bothers you about it?”
“Where it occurred, for one thing.”
“Where was that?”
“On the path to the haunted cottage.”
“Haunted cottage?” Lucian raised one of his flaring eyebrows questioningly. “Don’t tell me the scientific earl’s daughter believes in ghosts.”
“No, but many of the people in the neighbourhood do, and that is what they call it. They won’t go near the place.”
“Why did your father go there the day he died?”
“No one knows! That Is what is so strange. It is the only time I ever knew of him going there—not that he believed it was haunted. He simply had no reason to go there.”
“What did he tell you when he left?”
“I was not at home. It was a Tuesday. That’s the day I always go to visit my old nurse, Mrs. Beard, who lives in a cottage that Papa gave her on the edge of Belle Haven.”
He withdrew his arm from around her, and Angel felt suddenly deprived.
“Near the haunted house?” her husband asked. “No, it lies in the opposite direction. When I left that day, Papa was in his library working on his sequel to the Journal of Belle Haven, and he told me he planned to spend the rest of the day there.”
“Do you have any idea why he changed his mind.” She nodded. “A note was delivered to him about three hours after I left. Jepson, our butler, said it upset him terribly. Papa did not say what was wrong but he ordered up the fastest horse in the stables. Then he set off at a gallop in the direction of the haunted cottage.”
Lucian frowned. “How odd.”
Devil’s Angel Page 11
