Devil's Lady

by Patricia Rice

  A man had to fight for what was his. But as Morgan reached the cottage and swung down from his horse, he was assailed by doubts as to what was his. The cottage was his. He had earned this piece of land with his years in the armies of others.

  But did he have any right to anything else? The lands in Ireland had been his father’s. Maeve had been his, but he had avenged her theft more than once. They’d taken his family, but how could he bring back the dead? He could have taken one of theirs, had taken one of theirs, but he would still never see his family again. Fighting wouldn’t return them.

  Dawn broke over a bank of clouds as Morgan opened the cottage door. The mustiness assailed him, and he knew with sinking heart that Faith had long been gone from these walls. Somewhere in the back of his mind he had imagined her here, waiting for him, keeping the hearth fire burning. That was a fool’s thought.

  The meager light of daybreak illuminated the emptiness. Dust coated the tall bed they had shared. She had left the pallet covered with a single sheet to protect from dirt, and there was still a faint odor of rosemary coming from the linen.

  He smiled, remembering her earnestness in telling him the uses of the various plants she had grown in their garden. He had paid little attention at the time, but he remembered the scent now. Rosemary kept the insects away.

  The gleam of white on his trunk caught his eye, and Morgan crossed the room to touch the lovingly sewn shirt Faith had left behind. He read her gratitude in the gesture, or perhaps her despair, and it made him feel more the filthy bastard.

  Straightening his shoulders and shoving that thought away, Morgan turned and faced the table that Faith had polished so carefully once a week. The surface was coated with dust. A vase of brittle flowers waited where it had been left, the beauty and life long since dried and gone, as what had once been now was gone.

  Morgan’s heart twisted in remembrance of other such touches of the home he had left behind. He remembered Faith’s blithe fingers plucking the flowers and lovingly arranging them, as she had brightened those portions of his life she had touched. He knew of a certainty that she had left this bouquet to welcome him. But he had never come. The emptiness of that lost bouquet tore at what remained of his heart.

  He wondered when she had gone, how long she had waited, or if she had even come back here at all. Those flowers could have been picked while he was in Newgate and she was here dying inside, wondering what had become of him. She had never accused him of heartlessness, never held him back with possessive words or gazes, but Morgan knew he had hurt her, and hurt her badly. His Faith wouldn’t have given herself had she not felt something for him.

  Morgan sneered at the sentimentality of his thoughts. Faith had human needs just as everyone else did. She wasn’t a saint. He had merely played upon her natural desires. By now she had probably found some quiet religious man who could offer her home and family, and she was contentedly sleeping in his bed.

  He didn’t want to think about that either. He wanted to remember Faith as purely his. He needed that tonight. Or this morning. The dawn was brighter, sending golden rays across the dust-covered floor, catching on the polished kettle and plate on the shelves. Creeping across the table, the light illuminated a scrap of paper held down by the vase, and Morgan felt an odd catch in his throat as he crossed the room to examine it.

  The words were hers, a piece of the past stealing back to seize him. He recognized the style immediately. Who else would apologize for saving his life while sacrificing her own? His guilt crystallized as Morgan read Faith’s farewells. He had done it again, destroyed another tender life. The bloody Sassenachs held nothing in comparison to his single-handed destruction of the best thing ever to come into his life. Someone should just hold a gun to his head and put him out of his misery.

  It was her final words that delivered the fatal blow. “Thank you for restoring my life, Morgan. I will carry you always in my heart. Love, Faith.”

  Love. Faith. The letter crumpled in his fingers as tears swam to his eyes. Love. Faith. God, but he’d been a fool.

  Anguish ripping at his entrails, Morgan strode out of the cottage he had once called home, carrying nothing with him but a hand-sewn shirt and a crumpled bit of paper.

  ***

  “Come here, my love. I’ve got an awful itch and I need you to scratch it.”

  Since she was lying naked in his bed with her fingers placed suggestively between her thighs, Thomas well understood the nature of the strumpet’s itch, but he wasn’t in the mood. She was too damned demanding. He liked the challenge of the chase, but Sarah made it too easy.

  “Deuce take it, Sarah, you shouldn’t be coming here like this. You’re a pious Methodist, remember?”

  The woman in his bed pouted and sat up, pulling her long legs beneath her. “Well, marry me, and that problem will be solved. I can’t hide the bun in my oven much longer, you know. That old harridan has eyes like a hawk.”

  There was the crux of it. Thomas kicked the washstand. He had to marry her as long as she was parading as Faith, or the marquess would have his head. Or something a little more personal. His loins shriveled at just the thought. But marrying Sarah now was pointless. He’d already soaked every guinea out of the old man he would ever get, and the old lady was growing deuced suspicious. There wouldn’t be much more forthcoming from that direction unless she had a sudden apoplexy and died. He wasn’t even certain her granddaughter would be provided for in that alternative, either. Not unless he proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that Sarah was the real Faith Montague.

  Thomas played with the thought awhile. There were any number of paths he could take. After all, he couldn’t be certain the real Faith was alive. The man he had sent to the Raging Bull couldn’t even locate Alice Henwood. Like Faith, she had disappeared off the face of the earth. Deuced suspicious, but not impossible. The kind of lowlife inhabiting that den of iniquity would soon make mincemeat of any gently bred female hapless enough to fall into their hands. No doubt Faith and her counterpart, Alice, were long since raped and dead of disease, or used and forgotten in one of London’s brothels. He would be doing everyone a favor to prove Sarah was the true Faith.

  The damned highwayman was the sticking point. He’d seen the rogue in a gambling hell just the other night, parading as a gentleman. De Lacy, he called himself. De Lacy, hell. A damned Irishman, and a highwayman to boot. But the rogue knew what the real Faith looked like, he’d wager his last ha’penny on that. And he might even know where to find her original papers.

  The threads thickened as he neared his goal. He would have to be cautious not to get caught in one. Turning and finding his mistress gazing in a mirror and worrying at a blemish, Thomas began to unbutton his breeches. Women were easily disposable. He’d not worry about the wench just yet.

  But wouldn’t it be amazingly fortunate if the highwayman should take it into his head to rob and murder Earl Stepney, the man who had turned him over to the law?

  ***

  “Mrs. O’Neill! Will you come here and tell this rascal we won’t pay a ha’penny more for this watered-down rum than we paid last week? He don’t seem to be hearing me.”

  Faith looked up from her books to find the sturdy frame of Acton Amory in the doorway. He was not an over-tall man, but there was strength in his solid shoulders and broad chest, and he served very well as their bartender.

  Unfortunately, he could neither read nor write, and the merchants took advantage of him when they could. But he was clever, and he knew the price of things in his head. She nodded at his request and picked up her ledger.

  Amory instantly reached to help her up. Gratefully she took his arm. Although the babe was not large, he drew on her strength, and she felt awkward and ungainly when she moved about. She found her balance and released Amory’s arm, but he continued to frown upon her with concern.

  “You ought to be resting, Mrs. O’Neill. You’re not big enough to carry such a burden. My wife was a large, healthy woman, but carrying a babe worked on
her, it did.”

  Amory’s wife had died of fever, not childbirth, but he never failed to mention his concerns. Faith offered him a smile and set out to find the rum merchant. She didn’t need to hear about Amory’s fears. He meant well, but he had been left with a small daughter to rear and he was searching for someone to take his wife’s place. She hadn’t a mind to be that woman.

  After dealing with the merchant, Faith stopped to talk with the cook, agreed on the market list, and went in search of Mrs. Needham. The widow had taken on the responsibility of dealing with the housekeeping staff, such as it was. She had a granddaughter who worked hard when there were no men about to flirt with, and an indentured servant who did as little as she could. Faith had some sympathy with that attitude and thought it might be preferable to hire someone for wages rather than buy a person’s life, but the inn belonged to Mrs. Needham and she couldn’t change her ways.

  Bess Needham took one look at her new manager’s weary face, took her arm, and steered Faith toward her bedroom. “That’s enough. You’re to lie down now and not get up until morning. Mary will bring you your dinner. I don’t know where I’d be without you, and I mean to take care of you.”

  “You’d probably be a wealthy woman sitting in luxury with servants at your beck and call,” Faith responded wryly. “I’ll sit down for a bit, but I need to see that the new tavern maid doesn’t turn out like the last one. I persuaded you to keep this place open. I’ll not let it become overrun with the types she attracted.”

  Bess helped Faith to a chair and then stood with hands on hips, glaring at her. “You only persuaded me to do what I wanted to do in the first place but didn’t have the courage on my own. There’s no reason I can’t tame a saucy maid as well as you. Acton is about to chew my ear off for letting you downstairs in the evening, and he’s quite right. You no more belong in that taproom than I belong in a duke’s ballroom. You earn your keep. There’s no need for you to risk the babe for naught.”

  Faith murmured words of assent, but by the time the April darkness fell, she was nimbly maneuvering the stairs to greet their regular guests and check that the cook did not leave the lamb on the fire too long. It still surprised her that their customers treated her with respect.

  Of course, she had to take into account that Needham Inn attracted a much better class of customer than the Raging Bull.

  She shouldn’t be appearing in public now that her skirts couldn’t hide her pregnancy. Faith did her best to stay behind her desk in the room off the front lobby, but she had begun to make friends here, and they didn’t hesitate to search her out.

  Toby was the worst of the lot. He haunted the place on a regular basis, bringing his brother and his brother’s new wife, introducing their neighbors, and proudly showing off his newfound respectability.

  Faith had to laugh when Mary always seemed to appear whenever Toby was about, or his gaze swept the inn in search of her if she did not appear. Faith had no illusion that she was the reason Toby came into town.

  Tonight the young solicitor who had taken permanent rooms hovered in the office doorway, telling her of the latest activities in the Assembly, nervously working up the courage to ask her to dine with him. He was a nice young man with a great deal of intelligence. Faith was certain he would go far someday, but she had no words to tell him that her world was closed, that all she wanted right now was to stay busy and care for Morgan’s child. She had no thought beyond the babe.

  Except to occasionally wonder where Morgan was now. She had sent a letter to Miles giving her new direction but imploring that he not reveal it to anyone. She merely wished to be kept informed of what was happening in London, she had told herself at the time. The fact that Miles’s letters never mentioned Morgan brought home the truth. She continued to read each one eagerly in hopes of some grain of information.

  But it had been well over half a year since she had last seen Morgan, and she was learning to resign herself to his loss. It wasn’t as if he had ever really been hers in the first place. She would never know another man like him, would probably never marry because of that, but he had given her a child to make her days brighter. When she felt the familiar longing build inside her, she could always imagine the future when a young Morgan would romp at her feet, and the blackness receded for a while.

  Faith placed her hand in the small of her back where an ache had begun to build earlier in the day. Perhaps she was working too hard. It wouldn’t do to harm the child. She would go up early and get some rest.

  Waving a hand to some new arrivals, Faith began to take the steps to her room. The simple task of lifting her foot to the next step brought a pain across her middle, and she halted, grabbing her abdomen as the contraction increased rather than passing on.

  As a flood of hot liquid burst down her legs, someone screamed, but Faith was no longer conscious of anything but the pain as she crumpled toward the floor.

  Chapter 29

  All eyes focused on the tiny woman sitting straight and stiff on the bow-legged damask chair near the fire. Behind her stood an incongruous sight in rough-woven, ill-fitted coat and a wig that looked as if it had been made for another. The men lounging around the room glared at the burly intruder, but in respect for the elderly woman, they held their tongues.

  “Thomas, I believe it is time you had the banns declared. If you wish to pass that woman off as my granddaughter, I will not have her bearing a bastard. If Harry will not, I suppose I could settle a sum on you so you will not starve, but do not expect more than that. I do not believe for a minute that she is my granddaughter.”

  Thomas jerked, then relaxed into his usual sprawl against the mantel. “I’m sorry if she does not live up to your expectations, Lady Carlisle, but there is no doubt as to who she is. We were only waiting for an appropriate time to announce our intentions. If you wish to provide Faith a dowry, we will gladly accept your gracious gift, but Uncle Harry has already offered a generous allowance. You need not burden yourself.”

  The sneer was evident in his voice, but Lady Carlisle ignored it. She had always found Thomas Montague to be beneath her dignity. She had never favored any of the Montagues, and her daughter had been a fool to fall in love with one, but at least she had fallen in love with an intelligent, respectable one. She turned her gaze to the marquess.

  “He is your brother’s son, and as such, deserves some share of the family fortune, but that is your concern and not mine. My concern is that after all this time you have not found my granddaughter, and I have taken it upon myself to do what should have been done long ago.”

  Mountjoy moved uncomfortably in the large chair by the window, trying not to disturb the leg propped against a stool. Gout had taken its toll these last months, and he cursed the inactivity that kept him tied to the house. “You’re getting senile, Lettice. The girl’s got all the papers to prove who she is. She even looks a bit like myself in my younger years. That rogue behind you is only after your pockets. He certainly robbed enough out of mine.”

  Watson drew himself up with an indignant sniff, but the lady ignored him and continued, “Did you never question what became of the original papers? You know as well as I the ones we’ve seen are copies. Did you never try to trace that woman’s activity before she came here? Watson has given me a report that should open your eyes. If you wish to invite a lightskirt into the family bosom, far be it from me to stop you, but I’ll not give up until I know my real granddaughter is safe.”

  The marquess’s heir lounging on the love seat lifted his wineglass in toast to the old woman. “Very good, my lady. But did Watson here tell you how he was bought off and so let the thief who may have abducted our dear relative go free after all my efforts to catch him? I would not rely too heavily on his honesty.”

  Watson could not hold his tongue another minute. “I tried to explain to you, milord... I was coshed over the head and tied up and kept hidden until it was all over. I could have found the rogue for you the minute I was free, but you told me to bugger of
f.”

  The shocked silence that followed this faux pas made him stutter and pull at his crumpled stock. “He was right here under your noses until just a few weeks ago, but there warn’t no sign of the lady.”

  “That is in the past. Look at this.” Lady Carlisle picked up the book in her lap. Watson took it and passed it to the marquess. All attention turned to the gout-ridden man as he opened the flyleaf and turned gray.

  “George? Are you trying to tell me George wrote this?” He looked at the Roman numerals across the bottom of the page and counted them mentally to be certain he read them correctly. “This has just come out. Are you saying George is still alive?”

  Lady Carlisle looked impatient. “Of course not. Read the dedication. Watson has already talked to the publisher. It seems the man who brought in this manuscript is related to the barrister who saw Edward’s thief free. I do not like coincidences, Harry. I want those men questioned. They know where my granddaughter is, I am sure of it.”

  The marquess looked up in astonishment as his massive son suddenly loomed over him to remove the book from his hands. Edward never stirred himself for anybody.

  “Plague take it,” he muttered as he read the dedication. “Devilish little witch, wait until I get my hands on her.”

  Thomas stirred uneasily from his post. “What is it? A forgery?”

  Edward shoved the book into his hands. “If you know how to read, see for yourself. I must be growing as dull-witted as you. You might as well marry your whore. She’s carrying the only heir you’ll ever know. The woman who wrote this isn’t fool enough to fall for your schemes.”

  Edward moved his heavy frame toward the door and waved impatiently at the Runner. “Come along, then, let’s find this plaguey Jew you ranted on about.”

  Lady Carlisle watched Watson and the earl leave; with a look of smug satisfaction she turned to Harry as soon as Thomas hurried after them. “Well, my lord, what do you think of your granddaughter now?”