Devil's Embrace

by Catherine Coulter

  “Miss Pennworthy has such great brown eyes, I think she will do it quite nicely. Eliza already hangs on his every word, Edward, as if he were some sort of Greek god, bestowing gems of wisdom on us mortals.”

  Eliott gave his sister a crooked grin and Edward a quick salute. “Beat her, my lord, that’s my advice.”

  Once they were alone, Edward held out his hand to her. “Come here, love.”

  “Will you beat me, my lord?”

  “There are too many other things to do with you that first require my attention.”

  She shyly took his hand. “I trust that we will always be in such perfect agreement. I do not believe, my lord, that I have told you how much I love you since last evening.”

  “Do you mean you love me today as well?” he asked, his fingers tracing over her parted lips.

  “I suppose that I have no choice,” she said, as she rubbed her cheek lightly along his palm, “else you would think me a fallen woman, for just thinking about you brings all sorts of very physical thoughts to mind.”

  She kissed his palm, then stepped into the circle of his arms and pressed her cheek against his shoulder.

  “There can be no more fortunate man than I,” he said, and drew her tightly against him. He felt an awakening shudder pass through her body as he lightly kissed her mouth, and knew with certainty that her passion would rival his own. He kissed her small white ears and reluctantly pulled her away.

  “Come, Cass, Old Winslow has put up a hunter for sale and I have promised to see her this afternoon. May I have the pleasure of your company?”

  “Indeed you may, my lord. If we must spend the afternoon looking at a hunter, I would far rather do it now than after we are married.”

  Chapter 4

  “Drat you, Miss Cassie. Hold still, else you’ll have your buttons all askew.”

  “Oh, do hurry, Dolly, our guests will arrive at any moment.”

  Dolly Mintlow shook her head fondly at her fidgeting mistress and curled her arthritic fingers to fasten the tiny buttons on the back of Cassie’s ivory satin gown. “There, Miss, all done now. But look at your hair, you’ve already shook loose a curl.”

  Cassie sighed and forced herself to sit quietly as Dolly put her hair to rights again. She frowned at herself in the mirror.

  “I wish we didn’t have to bother with all this nonsense. Why can’t I just look like me? All that powder, it makes me feel like an old woman.”

  “You’re no longer a girl, Miss Cassie, and young ladies powder their hair. If only you had more vanity. With the way you’re always bouncing about, I wager you’ll have white powder all over your gown.”

  “At least the gown is white.”

  “Dolly is right, Cassandra. A little more decorum on your part would not be at all amiss. There are many important guests coming tonight, and I don’t want them to think you a hoyden.”

  Cassie assumed a docile expression, lowered her head, and began to twiddle her thumbs. “Now do I have your approval, Becky?”

  Miss Petersham merely grunted, and patted several errant strands of pepper-colored hair primly into place beneath her lacy cap. “No need to play off your tricks with me, Cassie. Now stand up and let me see how the gown fits.”

  Cassie rose and obligingly performed a slow pirouette in front of Miss Petersham.

  “You’ll do. Come along now, you must needs greet the guests with Eliott and the viscount.”

  “Oh, Becky, why must you always refer to Edward as the viscount? It’s so terribly impersonal, as though he is nothing more than a casual guest in this house.”

  Miss Petersham merely gave her an austere look, and said, “And you treat him with far too much familiarity.”

  “Very well, my beloved dragon, I shall be most circumspect—at least for the next week. But after Edward and I are married, I vow I shall become very sinful.”

  “You look like an angel, Miss Cassie,” Dolly said, unaware that she had interrupted at an opportune moment.

  “With all this white powder, I even feel like an angel. You will help me brush it all out later, Dolly?”

  “Of course, Miss Cassandra. I’ll be waiting up for you.”

  Cassie gave her maid a quick hug and followed Miss Petersham from the bedchamber. As she trailed after her companion down the wide, winding stairs, she felt a delicious shudder. Just one more week and she would be the Viscountess Delford. She smiled at Miss Petersham’s straight back, knowing that her thoughts would bring a shocked squeal from that lady. Only that afternoon, Becky had called Cassie to her room and, after some roundabout conversation, had stiffly inquired if Cassie understood what would be demanded of her on her wedding night.

  Cassie stifled a laugh and displayed what she hoped was maidenly shock. “I believe I do have a very general idea, Becky.”

  Miss Petersham breathed an audible sigh of relief. “A very general idea is all that is necessary. Your husband will see to the specifics.”

  “I daresay Edward does have sufficient experience to be able to carry everything off smoothly.” She gazed up apprehensively at Miss Petersham after her unthinking comment, and saw that she was regarding her oddly, her expression serious and her hazel eyes narrowed in concern.

  “I am sorry, Becky, to tease you so,” Cassie said quickly, her hand on her companion’s arm.

  “No, child, you are not teasing me.” She looked as if she would have said more. Quickly, she was behaving in much her old way, briskly reminding Cassie not to chew on her thumbnail like some peasant child.

  “You look beautiful, Cassie.”

  Cassie looked up to see Edward standing at the foot of the stairway, dressed elegantly, without affectation, in black and silver, his chestnut hair powdered like hers and drawn back with a black ribbon at the nape of his neck.

  “And very grown up.”

  “It’s all this dratted white powder,” she said, smiling up at him as she rested her hand in the crook of his arm.

  “What? My lady doesn’t want to be fashionable?”

  “If that is what you wish, my lord,” she said demurely. “Realize though that it all must be brushed out at night—before one can go to bed.”

  “An irrefutable point. Ah, Eliott and Miss Pennworthy.” Eliott’s fair curls were powdered and brushed in artful disarray. He took Miss Pennworthy’s small hand in his, thinking that she made the perfect foil to Eliott’s blond handsomeness, with her pert oval face framed with rich black curls.

  “Well, one more week, old boy, and she’s all yours.” Eliott cast a critical eye over his sister and gave her a wink.

  “Take care, Eliott, else Eliza will think that you don’t care for your poor sister.” Cass turned and smiled down at the diminutive Miss Pennworthy. “I am so abused, my dear. Eliott throws me at the first gentleman who offers marriage.”

  “Oh no, Cassandra, you disremember,” Miss Pennworthy said in great seriousness. “Eliott told me that he’d been plagued for the past six months by your suitors. Why, there was Oliver Claybourne, somewhat of a slowtop, I admit, but still—”

  Eliott groaned and firmly took Miss Pennworthy’s hand in his. “She’s teasing you, Eliza, don’t heed a word she says.”

  “Well, I know, Eliott,” Miss Pennworthy said. “But it amuses you so to see me teased. Come, my dear, I must return to my mama.”

  “You mean that it is marriage that I offered?” Edward said in an appalled voice after Miss Pennworthy had removed Eliott.

  “If you want my money, my lord, then you must first place a wedding ring on my finger.”

  “Since I am a fortune hunter—at least in Miss Petersham’s eyes—I suppose I am doomed to take the chaff with the wheat.”

  Cassie suddenly felt the baleful eyes of Edward’s mother turn in her direction. She held out her hands to the short, sparse little woman.

  “I am delighted that you could come, ma’am. We shall see to it that you do not overtire yourself.”

  “Dear child.” Lady Delford sighed. “Though I am unw
ell, I felt it my duty to stand together with you as one family this evening. How very white you look, Cassandra. I vow I would not have recognized you. And look at Miss Petersham. Such energy she has. She tells me that she has never been ill for a single day in her life.” Lady Delford sighed again and gazed up at her son.

  “You must be brave this evening, Mama, else people might think that your illness is not really illness at all, but rather that you are not delighted to welcome Cassie into the family.”

  “People who know me, dear Edward, are quite aware that my illness is never feigned. Now, my dears, I believe I shall speak to Lady Halfax. Such a wasting cold she has suffered, and all because she wouldn’t heed my advice. Riding in the rain after the hounds with Lord Halfax. I trust that you, Cassandra, will be more alert to the dangers that can afflict a lady’s fragile health.”

  “Yes, ma’am, of course,” Cassie said.

  Edward grinned at his mother’s retreating back and said behind his gloved hand, “Don’t worry, Cass. She is leaving for Bath, to live with her sister.”

  “Oh, that is terrible, Edward,” Cassie said, truly distressed. “I am certain that we can deal well together under the same roof. I promise you that I am not the managing type of female.”

  “It has nothing to do with you, Cass. If you must know, I told her that Miss Petersham would be making her home with us. That information quite resolved her to leave.”

  “You are a wicked man, Edward Lyndhurst.”

  “That is probably very true. Come, love, let us greet our guests.”

  They stood with Eliott and Miss Petersham beneath the great stone arch that led into the ballroom, an addition to Hemphill Hall made by the third Baron Tinnsdale, their father, some twenty years before, and accepted congratulations from the colorfully attired local gentry. Sir John Winslow, Old Winslow as Edward called him, greeted them; he was bluff, good-natured, and suffering from gout.

  “He always smells of the stables,” Cassie whispered behind her hand. “I think I should take him swimming with me in the sea.”

  “Lord and Lady Dawes,” Menkle said.

  Poor Lady Dawes, Cassie thought, as she bade them welcome, she must needs tolerate a profligate husband who treats her like a stick of wood, deaf and dumb to his rakehell behavior.

  Cassie was beginning to shift her weight uncomfortably on her high-heeled slippers when half an hour later, Anthony Welles, Earl of Clare, strolled negligently toward them, his powdered hair in startling contrast to his deeply tanned face.

  “Lord Clare, how kind of you to come,” Cassie said, smiling at the elegant man she had known most of her life.

  The earl lightly kissed the palm of her hand, then bowed slightly to Edward and Eliott. “You have assembled an elegant group, I see,” he said, gazing for a moment into the crowded ballroom. “Ah, the musicians from Colchester. They have a nice way with the minuet, I believe. I trust you will save a dance for me, Cassandra. Eliott, Lord Edward, Miss Petersham, your servant, ma’am.”

  “He is usually the last to arrive at any party,” Eliott said.

  “Poor Menkle will be quite hoarse in the morning if there are many more guests to arrive. I, for one, have very sore feet.” Even as Cassie spoke, Mr. and Mrs. Webster appeared, ready to be greeted and to be pleased.

  “I shall have to hide the brandy,” Eliott said.

  “Mr. Webster and your father were very close,” Miss Petersham said severely. She saw a drooping Menkle signal to her. “You may now rest your tired feet, Cassie, but first, of course, you must dance with the viscount.”

  “Such sacrifices I already make for you, my lord.” As she took Edward’s arm, she heard Miss Petersham say sternly to Eliott, “Do not spend the evening in Miss Pennworthy’s pocket, else her doting mama will have you to the altar before you catch your breath.”

  Chapter 5

  Edward negligently wrapped a curl of golden hair about his finger as he looked past the tree branches overhead to the tranquil sea beyond the cliffs. During his five years of army life on the baked, miserably hot plains north of Calcutta and in the ruggedly beautiful Port of Pondicherry, he had almost forgotten the placid life of the English countryside, where foreign upheavals, the misery of war, even the growing political chaos surrounding King George III and his inept ministers, seemed as far away as England’s colonies across the Atlantic.

  He would never regret his years in the army, though he knew that to his dying day he would remain appalled at the devastation and the utter waste of human life he had seen. Still, he wondered if he would have so readily given up the disciplined life to which he had grown accustomed had it not been for Cassie. Now, he thought, he was embarking on the unexceptionable career of the English country gentleman. Though objectively it seemed like a rather boring prospect, he could not imagine it being so with Cassie beside him, Cassie and his sons and daughters.

  He released her hair and watched the curl he had wound over his finger spring back over his hand.

  Cassie awoke from a light sleep and raised her head from Edward’s shoulder to gaze up at his face, a face whose expressions she had come to know quite as well as her own in the two months since his return.

  “So pensive, my love?” she said, raising her fingertips to his lips. “I do hope that you are not regretting taking me to wife.”

  Edward lightly nibbled her fingers and shifted her in his arms. “Actually, Cass, I was trying to decide if I prefer a boy or a girl as our first child.”

  “Good lord, Edward, can I not remain skinny for at least a while?”

  She was looking at his mouth. “I will allow you to remain skinny, if you promise not to fall asleep in my company, at least until after we are married. If you find me so boring now, I fear to think how you will treat me a year from now.”

  “A year from now, my lord, you will not be constrained by ridiculous codes of propriety, and I trust we will have discovered more entertaining pastimes.” For a moment Edward allowed her hand to move across his chest and down to his belly, in innocent exploration.

  He pulled them both to their feet. He was straining against his breeches and he turned away from her to get control of himself. He doubted that in her innocence she realized the effect her touch had on him.

  “And you, Edward,” he heard her say from behind him, “if you cannot bear to look upon me before we are married, will you force me to wear a sack over my head after a year?”

  “If you promise to wear nothing else, I suppose I would not quibble.”

  She laughed in delight, and he pictured the dimples deepening on either side of her mouth. He turned about, his desire for the moment calmed, to see her standing close to him, her eyes sparkling outrageously.

  She was wearing a light muslin gown of pale green, whose bodice was, thankfully, fastened with small buttons to her throat.

  “Look, Edward,” she said suddenly, shading her eyes with her hand as she gazed out to sea, “in the distance, to your left. What a gorgeous yacht. Look how her sails are billowing in the wind. I believe I can even make out gun mounts on her port side.”

  It was a beautiful craft, Edward thought, his eyes following her pointing finger, of sufficient size for ocean travel.

  “Drat,” Cassie said, turning back to him. “She is moving so swiftly that I cannot see whether she is English.” She added, with a small sigh, “How I wish I could captain her.”

  “She is probably London-bound. In any case, my love, you are going to be far too occupied to concern yourself with yachts. There is our wedding trip to Scotland, you know. And then we will be married and you will have far more interesting things to do than concern yourself with such unfeminine pursuits.”

  She frowned at him, but just for an instant. “There are undoubtedly sailing craft in Scotland, my lord, and if you would but once come sailing with me, I know you would change your opinion.”

  “It is not that I doubt your prowess, Cass, it is merely that I have a very healthy respect for the sea and its power. Come, le
t us walk down to the beach. I can tell that you are fairly itching to remove your sandals and stockings and wade in the water.”

  “It is so warm, my lord,” she said in a demure voice. “Perhaps I could convince you to come swimming with me.”

  “I suppose you have brought an extra shift for just that purpose.”

  “Oh no. I think it would be far more interesting to wear nothing at all.”

  At his threatening glance, she laughed aloud, picked up her skirts, and dashed away from him toward a path that led to the beach below them.

  “Don’t break your neck,” she heard him shout after her.

  Cassie gained the beach and turned, panting, to see him running down the rocky path toward her. The taut muscles in his thighs and belly flexed rhythmically as he neared her, and she wanted to touch him, to feel the lean hardness of him.

  Edward clasped her shoulders in his hands and shook her lightly, his eyes alight with laughter. She did not respond in kind, but merely stared up at him, her lips slightly parted.

  She realized dimly that they were standing motionless, in plain view; it was unlikely that she could even convince him to kiss her. She remembered a small cave, private and protected, some twenty yards up the beach, carved long ago by the crashing of the sea into the rocks. She pulled away from him and ran full speed up the beach, hoping she could reach the cave before he caught her.

  Startled, Edward stared after her a moment. “Cassie, what the devil,” he shouted, but she did not stop. He shook his head and galloped after her. The beach curved sharply, and when he rounded the cliff, she was nowhere to be seen. “Cassie, if you don’t come here this instant, I am going to beat your bottom.”

  He saw a flash of green from the corner of his eye and turned to see her standing in the mouth of a cave.

  “You must catch me first, my lord,” she cried, and disappeared into the cave.

  Edward’s eyes grew quickly accustomed to the dim interior, and he saw Cassie standing quietly some feet away from him.