A Wild Night's Bride (The Devil DeVere #1)

by Victoria Vane

  The prince ambled over to a large mahogany desk, unlocked a drawer, and rifled for a moment. “Ah, here it is.” He returned bearing a subtle smile and a small box designed to hold jewels. He popped the latch. She flicked a glance inside and discovered, to her deep chagrin, a dozen or more locks of hair, each a different color and bound with a satin ribbon.

  “Blue to match her eyes,” he said, retrieving a bright gold curl tied with blue ribbon. He held it up to her hair. “What do you know? A perfect match.” His smile grew to blazingly smug proportions. “You may have bested DeVere, Sir Edward, but I believe I claimed the supreme prize about four years ago.”

  With this humiliatingly public pronouncement, Phoebe gave a strangled cry and fled the prince’s apartments only to be caught in the foyer when Ned clasped her arm in an iron grip. “Oh, no you don’t! I’m far from finished with you.” She would have pulled away, but his look portended dire consequences.

  Like a mother hen, Mrs. Andrews was instantly in his face. “And just what business do you think you have with the girl?”

  “Some very personal business.” He glared at the wardrobe mistress who looked to Phoebe with concern. Ned retrieved a small coin purse from his pocket. “For a hackney and for your trouble, madam.”

  “It’s all right, Mrs. Andrews. He means me no harm.” Phoebe rasped and gave a nod of reassurance she wasn’t sure she really felt. With a shrug and a final wary glance over her shoulder, the elder woman clutched the purse to her expansive bosom and departed.

  “I have DeVere’s carriage,” Ned said, steering her toward it. His manner was mechanical and his speech terse as he gave directions to the coachman and helped her inside.

  “Where are you taking me?” she asked.

  “Where we can speak privately,” he answered, adding ominously, “We have several matters to settle between us, you and I, and I want no audience.”

  They rode for a never-ending quarter-hour in uncompromising silence before the carriage came to a jerking halt. Ned opened the window. “To the mews,” he instructed the driver, explaining to her, “So we won’t be remarked upon. I want no witnesses to your arrival here.”

  His words gave her a chill of foreboding.

  They pulled around to the back of the house where the footman let down the steps. When they descended, Ned dismissed the carriage. “I’ll send for it if needed,” he told her.

  Her apprehension only increased.

  They approached the servants’ entrance where he pulled a key from his pocket and opened the door.

  “Is this your house?” she asked with a frown. “I thought you resided in the country?”

  “It is mine for the season,” he said. “DeVere’s man of business wasted no time in acquiring it on my behalf. To be truthful, I had yet to see it until this moment.”

  They passed through the kitchen, down a hallway, and into the main living areas, all fully and tastefully furnished, but Ned hardly gave any of it a glance. They ascended a grand staircase.

  “There are no servants?” she remarked upon the obvious in her growing agitation.

  “Not yet. They will be hired in the coming weeks. We are quite alone here.” He gave her a portentous look. His hand was on her arm again, steering her past several doors to a forbidding dark mahogany double portal at the corridor’s end. “This must be the one,” he said, retrieving another key.

  “Why have you brought me here?” she whispered.

  “I told you we have matters to settle. The house is uninhabited and seemed the perfect place...for what I have in mind.”

  Her spine stiffened. “And what is that? You now think to use me whenever you wish?”

  “Oh no, my dear.” He gave her a foreboding look. “Something far worse than that.”

  She swallowed hard. The lock clicked, and the doors opened into a darkened chamber. Although it was barely noon, with no fire, no candles, and the heavy drapes drawn closed, it might have been night.

  Her feet dragged as he ushered her inside. Her gaze darting about the large chamber, she struggled to adjust her vision while he turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. “There now. I shall answer your one question, and then you will answer all of mine. I want information,” he said. “I want the truth from you, and I intend to use any means fair or foul to get it.”

  Her racing heart pounded against her breastbone, her palms were damp. “Fair or foul?” she repeated, real fear beginning to enshroud her.

  “Indeed. It’s all very simple,” he explained. “I will ask. You will answer. Should you choose not to answer, I will torture you.”

  “Wh—what?” She choked out the words.

  “You heard me.” He grasped both her wrists and brought them behind her back. “Fair or foul. Reward and punishment, my love. And I intend to show no mercy.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  She thought she had known him, trusted him even, but Ned was showing a completely different side, as if he were another person altogether. A stranger. His manner was forceful and commanding as he backed her against the locked door. His hazel gaze was steady, but the warmth was gone. He regarded her with an emotionless mask.

  He still held her wrists tightly and now raised her arms over her head and wedged his hard muscular thigh between hers, effectively pinning her in place.

  “Now we begin,” he said, his breath hot on her cheek. “No more games. No more lies. No more playacting.”

  She closed her eyes with a shudder of apprehension.

  “What is your name? Your real full name.”

  “Phoebe,” she whispered.

  “That’s not what I asked.” He shifted his grip to hold both her wrists with one hand, and his free one came to her throat.

  Fear gripped her. She closed her eyes.

  He cupped her jaw, his warm lips slowly grazing the side of her face. He kissed her eyelid. “I said your full name.” He kissed the other.

  “Phoebe Alice Scott.” She exhaled in a sudden gush of relief and understanding. She had played games with him from the very start. This was merely his clever method of much-deserved payback.

  “A good beginning, Phoebe Alice Scott,” he murmured against her lips. She parted them in anticipation of his kiss, but he withdrew. “I don’t think you deserve it yet. Where are you from?” he asked.

  “Kent.”

  His mouth moved to her ear. “Kent is a very big place.” His teeth took hold of her lobe and gently bit down. The backs of his fingers stroked her neck.

  She inhaled sharply and then exhaled her answer. “In the parish of Braborne, near Scottshall. My relict aunt owns the estate.”

  His hot breath tickled her ear. “You are well-known by the prince, Phoebe.”

  “Please,” she begged. “I don’t wish to discuss it.”

  His teeth softly grazed her throat, his tongue tracing her racing pulse from ear to collarbone. “Sometimes we must face unpleasantness in order to get beyond it.”

  “I can’t,” she whimpered.

  He paused there at the juncture of her neck and shoulder. “Very well.” With both wrists still in one hand, he spun her around to face the door. His free hand promptly went to work on her laces. He stepped closer until she could feel the thickness of his staff pressing against her bottom. “We will pass on that one...for the moment. You said you were a nursery maid. How did that come about?”

  When she hesitated, his mouth and tongue began a tantalizing exploration from her nape to the hollow behind her ear.

  “My aunt Margaret, the one who owns Scottshall, was wet nurse to the Prince of Wales.”

  “So your aunt was part of the Royal Household?”

  “Yes.” She breathed out, tilting her head to the side to ease his access.

  He pulled back again. “Am I to presume your aunt helped you to secure a position as well?”

  “Please, don’t stop,” she begged.

  “Answer the question.”

  “Yes. When my father was killed in the war with the colonies six
years ago, there was little money for our needs and no dowry for me or my sisters. As the eldest, I sought work to ease my mother’s burden.”

  “How old were you?” He licked the shell of her ear. She quivered from the inside out.

  “Sixteen.”

  His arm wrapped around her waist. His hand found a breast and freed it from her loosened bodice. “That now makes you?”

  She hesitated until he thumbed her nipple. “Two and twenty.”

  “You’re but a child,” he said quietly, as though half to himself as he toyed with her breast.

  “On the contrary,” she said. “I am quite a woman grown.” She arched her back and pressed her bottom against him.

  “Don’t think to distract me from this interrogation.” He growled and gathered the folds of her petticoat. The cool air brushed her calves, and his warm fingers skirted the skin he had just exposed. She shivered.

  “You implied that you were dismissed from your position.”

  “Yes. I was.” He stroked the inside of her leg from knee to thigh. He palmed her bottom and gave a squeeze that stole her breath.

  “Elaborate.”

  “Please. You said we needn’t discuss it.”

  “I said we would pass for the moment.” His finger traced the cleft of her buttocks. “The moment is gone.” He slid his hand between her thighs. Her channel clenched as instinctively, she clamped her thighs together. She felt the rumble of satisfaction in his chest.

  “Tell me why you were dismissed.” He breathed the question into her hair. His clever fingers went to work circling and teasing her outer passage. “You won’t win,” he said. “You will be begging for mercy in mere minutes. Surrender, Phoebe. Tell me all. Tell me about you and our feckless Prince of Wales.”

  “No, please. Don’t stop,” she cried.

  “Tell me more, and I won’t stop. Tell me all, and I’ll give you sweet release.”

  “I was nursery maid to the princesses and took them to the queen at Buckingham House every morning. Prince George had recently rebelled against the tight strictures of his governor and tutors. He made friends the king and queen disapproved of and began carousing.” Her voice was breathless, her heart hammering, her hips undulating in rhythm with his fingers. “To keep him under their watchful eyes, they moved him into the queen’s house.” She paused for breath.

  He delved his index finger into her passage and swirled the middle one around her clitoris. “Go on,” he urged.

  She shuddered with pleasure. “We met by accident. In the library. I was returning a volume of Shakespeare. He was kind. Charming. But terribly unhappy. I was lonely too. We spoke. We began meeting secretly at first to talk, to read plays. My head was turned.”

  His lips skimmed the side of her face. “You were young and impressionable. He is the heir to the throne. What girl’s head would not be turned?”

  “One thing led to another.” The tension low in her belly was mounting to a fevered pitch. She found it laborious now to either breathe or speak. He withdrew his hand from her, and she thought she would crumple against the wall in her need for release.

  He turned her to face him, his gaze burning into her. “Like us?”

  “No,” she said. She leaned into him for balance. She couldn’t meet his intense gaze, so she closed her eyes. “I was seduced by his attention and by the idea of love, but it was the weakest of infatuations. He took, and I gave. I sacrificed my only valuable possession for nothing in return. He cared nothing for my pleasure. I never felt like I would die of rapture in his arms...as I do with you.” She had also never experienced the invisible connection of souls as she felt with this man, but that was too much to confess. “It was nothing like us,” she cried. “Never like this!”

  ***

  Ned didn’t know how much longer he could have withstood the torment of his supposed torture when all he could think about was the throbbing ache of his straining cock and the need to have the tight clasp of her wet sex around it. But her passion-filled confession appealed to something much stronger than mere lust. It touched a deep place inside, one that he’d thought had long become barren ground, and it was simply too much for his heart to stand.

  He muffled her anguish with his mouth and poured his entire soul into the kiss. Nipping, gliding, tangling tongues, he yanked her breasts free from the confines of her gown, mouthing her nipples through her thin shift, while she went to work on his breeches with a mutual desperation to release him and share the sweet friction as he slid into her.

  Fumbling with clothing, they stumbled to the bed and collapsed in a wild tangle of limbs atop the thick featherbed. Her legs wrapped tightly about his waist, Ned rolled her beneath him with a low groan and plunged into her, burying his staff to the hilt where he held motionless.

  She rocked against him. “Please,” she begged. He answered by dragging against her and driving back in, his heart slamming against his breastbone from his effort for control. “How did you lose your position?”

  “The queen found out. I suspected Lord Malden. He was jealous.”

  He gave her one...two...three more agonizingly sublime strokes.

  “The prince should have protected you. A gentleman would have done so.”

  “But he had already lost interest and was fixated on the actress Mary Robinson.” She tried to laugh, but it emerged closer to a sob.

  “He left you to fend for yourself? He’s a damned fool. If he was any other man. I promise you, Phoebe...” His breathing was heavy. The blessed friction of plunge and drag increased in tempo as he pounded into her, willing her to understand the storm raging inside him.

  “Then the theater closed. Oh, please. Harder.”

  Teeth clenched, Ned grunted. “So you were forced to seek a protector to meet your needs.” He wasn’t finished with his questions yet, but he was avowed to fill her need, to show her bliss like she’d never known. He slid his hands under her hips and raised her higher, pushing harder, driving deeper.

  “But then I met you and only wanted you. I only need you, Ned!” Her body seized. She cried out, and with a great shudder, he joined her as their minds and bodies collided and shattered in ecstasy.

  ***

  Phoebe opened her eyes to find herself wrapped in the warmth and comfort of Ned’s body. The top of her head was pillowed by his shoulder. His chest rose and fell beneath her cheek, his beating heart a strong and solid comfort to her ear. In all her life, she had never felt more secure, more at peace, than lying in this man’s strong arms. Afraid to move, terrified to do anything to break the tranquil spell that enveloped her, she stole a glance up at his face only to find him studying her with a thoughtful look.

  “What are you thinking?” She kissed his chest, tracing her tongue around the disk of his nipple.

  He stroked her hair and sighed. “That I must return to West Riding soon. I had only intended a short stay in London to arrange for this house. But then I began to consider whether I might have a different use for it than what I had originally intended, that perhaps since I only rarely come to town, I could extend the lease and put it in your name instead.”

  She closed her eyes in an attempt to hide her irrational disappointment. “You said before that you would not be a suitable candidate to be my protector.”

  “I did say that, but then I began actually considering such an arrangement, only to realize I am simply not a man to keep a mistress. Thus, I have decided against it.”

  Her heart gave a painful lurch. “When do you leave London?”

  “As soon as I can wrap up a few loose ends. Speaking of which, as much as I truly desire to stay here alone with you in this great bed and make love to you until our minds and bones are jelly, I must tend to some pressing matters, DeVere being one of them.” He looked down at her, and his mouth twitched. “You do realize we’ve left the poor chap completely to his own devices.”

  “Try as I might, my darling, I am having difficulty commanding any true sympathy for the rogue.”

  �
��Tsk. Tsk,” he chided. “He is my best friend, after all. And while undoubtedly a rogue, he does have his moments.”

  She gave him a dubious arch of her brow.

  “I think it highly unlikely we ever would have met without his meddling machinations.”

  “I suppose there is that.” She offered a tiny smile and then sat up, taking care to avert her face. “It’s been lovely.” Her lips quivered. “Truly lovely. I’ll get dressed now. Could you perhaps convey me to Drury Lane? Or if it’s too much trouble, I shall call a hack.”

  A heavy weight shifted on the mattress, and warm hands gripped her bare shoulders. “I must disabuse you of that notion, my dear girl. While I must go out, you are going nowhere.”

  She turned around. “What are you saying?”

  He cupped her chin, forcing her to meet his warm, hazel gaze. “I won’t let you leave me. Like it or not, you are in my life to stay. I told you I briefly wondered if I could be content with you as my mistress. I am not such a man. I do not love either easily or lightly, Phoebe.”

  Her heart rose to her throat. “Love?”

  “Aye, love.” His thumb caressed her cheek. “And for the record, I have loved only once before.”

  “Please tell me,” she said, desperate to know.

  He pulled her into his arms. “There is surprisingly little to tell. I met Annalee the summer I graduated university. It was at a garden party thrown by my neighbor Diana, who was also her cousin. It was love at first sight, or at least calf love. When DeVere set his sights on her, as well, I knew I couldn’t let him have her. It came to blows.”

  “You implied that you had knocked him out before.”

  “Yes.” He laughed. “And while he takes inordinate pride in having never lost a wager, he sometimes needs reminding that I have never lost a fight.”

  “So like jousting knights of old, you prevailed to claim the lady?”

  “Something like that.” He looked rueful. “Claim her, I did, and we were wed three months later.”

  “Only three months?” she asked.

  “We were young and foolish...and she was carrying my child.”