The Devil and the Heiress

by Harper St. George

  “Christian.” She spoke his name in part to keep herself awake, in part to gain his attention, but he was unmoved. He kept reading. Perhaps she hadn’t spoken very loudly, if at all.

  Forcing her eyelids to cooperate, she opened them. He sat at her bedside facing her, but nearly in profile as he held the book open near a lamp. The cover of the book was a dark blue fabric that appeared worn at the corners. It was not her copy of Jane Eyre, which was deep red and leather bound. Interesting.

  A growth of beard darkened the lower half of his face. His valet would not be pleased if he saw him, but Violet was beyond pleased at the sight. She had never seen a man thus. They were either clean-shaven, or had fully developed beards. There must be some in-between phase, but she had never seen it. In the evenings on their trip, he would sometimes have a light growth that he must have shaved off by himself, because he appeared clean-shaven in the mornings. But this was probably a couple of days’ worth. Her fingertips itched to rake over it and feel if it would scrape her skin or be soft to the touch. It made him appear rugged in a way that she found extremely appealing, as if the proper English gentleman had been undone to give way to this man who was far more carnal and raw. He only wore his shirtsleeves and trousers. She had never seen a man so scarcely clothed.

  She moved her hand to reach for him, but like everything else, it didn’t immediately obey her command. In fact, it didn’t feel as if it moved at all, and a pain so white-hot in its intensity that it drew a gasp from her moved through her. It felt as if a poker, hot and glowing from the coals of a fire, had stabbed her.

  He looked up immediately and set the book aside. “Violet?” She must have closed her eyes, because when next she was aware, he was suddenly over her, his face swimming in the haze brought on by her pain. “You are awake.” This he breathed on a heavy sigh, as if speaking to himself.

  He pushed the hair back from her forehead, causing her to wince as she became aware of an extreme soreness there. For that matter, his own face was mottled with bruising along one side—the side that had been facing away from her—and his perfect lower lip had a cut near the corner. “Apologies,” he whispered, removing his hand but keeping it nearby.

  “What has happened?” Her voice was a mere croak, not the sort of thing one went for when addressing the man one hoped to impress. An attempt at clearing her throat resulted in more pain somehow, so she gave up.

  “Do you recall the accident?”

  “Accident?” It would certainly explain the pain she was in right now. “What do you mean?” She tried to go over the last few days, but the attempt only gave her a headache. Their time riding in the carriage seemed endless. Little odd scraps of the days passed through her mind like images in a zoetrope.

  His face blanched, turning the palest white she had ever seen it. “Do you remember anything? Do you know who I am?” Stunned by the ferocity of his questions, she could only watch him. “Violet?”

  “Who’s Violet?” She was a very wicked woman. This was not the time to tease him, yet she had become so accustomed to tugging that elusive smile from his lips over the last few days that the words were out before she could think better of them.

  “Oh, dear God!” He fell back down into his chair. “What have I done?” he asked God, presumably, as his face dropped into his hands.

  “I’m teasing you.” Instinctively, she reached out for him only to have the pain shoot through her arm again. This time she realized that it truly was immobile, because it was somehow tied to her body beneath the layers of blankets. When he didn’t look up, she said, “Lord Leigh?” Then louder, “Christian.”

  He slowly dropped his hands and looked up. It was only then that she noticed that his eyes were rimmed with red and there were dark circles underneath. He was tired and had likely been at her bedside for . . . How long had she been here?

  “That was terrible of me. I’m sorry.” She reached for him with her left hand, and he reached out and took it, moving forward to bring her palm to his lips.

  “You remember?” he asked, his mouth against her skin. “You know who you are?” He kept her palm pressed to his cheek as he looked at her. The hair there was both soft and rough. She longed to rake her fingers across his beard, but she dared not break the moment. His eyes were glassy.

  “Violet Roberta Crenshaw,” she whispered, because she had lost the ability to do more.

  A grin tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Roberta?”

  “Never call me that.”

  “I like it.”

  He seemed sincere, but she had never cared for the name given her to honor a grandfather she had never met. “We were traveling to Windermere. I remember that much. I remember the days in the carriage . . . the suppers at the inns . . . but I don’t know where we are now. What happened? Is this another inn?”

  Relief allowed color to flood back into his face. “You are a brat, Violet Crenshaw.” He kissed her palm again, taking the sting out his words. He drew a deep breath before looking at her again. “We were in an accident last evening. The rain appears to have uprooted a tree, which fell and hit the carriage. It knocked us off the roadway and into a ravine that was unfortunately overflowing with water. Somehow, I was flung free as the vehicle tumbled down the hill, but you were trapped inside. I was able to rescue you, but not until after you had sustained considerable injuries.” If his expression was any indication as it roamed over her face, she imagined her patchwork of bruising to be even worse than his. “You swallowed a great amount of water. You weren’t breathing. I was so afraid . . .” But he seemed unable to complete the thought.

  He had saved her. The awe that accompanied that thought kept her silent. After a moment, she said, “My shoulder hurts, but I don’t seem to be very badly injured.”

  He reached forward and pulled the blanket and sheet back far enough for her to see that she was not clothed. Strips of white linen had been wrapped around her shoulder and upper arm, but near the top her skin was shades of indigo and maroon. The bruising likely extended farther down her arm if the pain was any indication. However, she could only think that she was naked while he was fully clothed.

  Or rather close to clothed. He wore shirtsleeves and trousers, but both seemed too rough to belong to him. They had to be borrowed. Yes, she was certain of it, because the shirt pulled a bit too tight across his shoulders. She would wager he did not own anything that had not been tailor-made to fit him perfectly.

  “Your shoulder was dislocated. I managed to move it back into place, but we must keep it wrapped up to allow the muscle time to heal.”

  “You put it back into place?”

  He nodded. “I have some knowledge of how it is done, thanks to the club.”

  Her mind swirled with that information. He had saved her and administered aid to her. Had he also disrobed her?

  “The physician wrapped it for you.”

  “Physician?”

  He nodded again. “I carried you to the small village we had passed about a mile before the accident. Had I not been so irresponsible, so afraid that your parents were on our heels, we would have stopped there for the night and none of this would have happened.”

  She could not focus on his self-loathing, because she was too fixated on what he had revealed. Not only had he saved her from the carriage, which must have been flooded with water from the rains, but he had also carried her over a mile to the village and found a physician to attend to her. “Christian.” He glanced up at her whisper. “You saved me.”

  “From a wreckage you would not have been a part of if not for me.”

  She curled her fingers against his beard, noting how his eyelashes fluttered in what she could only assume to be pleasure and approval. She was touching him, and he was enjoying it. Her heart soared with the knowledge, even as the aches in her body were making themselves known with every throbbing beat of her heart.

  “Perha
ps not, but I accepted what fate had in store for me when I took you up on your offer back in London.”

  He stared at her, perhaps locked in the same odd reality she found herself in, floating somewhere between pain and pleasure.

  “What happened to Peterson? Is he well?”

  “He lives. He jumped free and only suffered a fracture in his arm. You, however, may have a broken rib. Dr. Mitchell could not be sure. The one certainty is that they are bruised and you are concussed.” He leaned forward and gently pulled back the hair across her forehead. “You have an injury here, near your temple, that he had to sew closed.”

  “Here?” She reached up only to feel a bandage wrapped around her head. “Did he . . . Did he shave me?” It was a ridiculous fear considering how terrible the accident sounded and how close she was starting to realize that she might have come to death, but it was there regardless. Apparently, her vanity would make a strong showing all the way to the end, especially knowing that he was gazing upon her.

  Strangely, the question made his lips quirk in that elusive smile she had been searching for. “Only a little. You shall be able to cover it with your hair until it grows back.”

  Relief made her feel tired. “And you?” Her hand went back to his face, unable to pass up the opportunity to touch him. He leaned into her hand like a cat might. “How badly are you injured?”

  “Not very much. I was thrown free early on. I cannot be certain, but I believe the door must have flung open. I merely sustained some bruising and scratches.”

  “I’m glad.” And she was. Now that she knew how terrible things had been, she was so thankful that his life had been spared.

  “Here. Drink some water.” He moved to grab a glass waiting on the nightstand that held the lamp. His hand gently went behind her neck to cup the back of her head, and he raised her an inch or two, enough that she could drink without choking. She found she was parched. As the cool liquid touched her throat, she wanted more. Finally, he gently set her back and held another cup to her lips. “Laudanum,” he said. “It will help you rest. You need rest to heal.”

  Now she understood why her whole body felt so strange and heavy. It also explained why she felt as if she were floating in this odd interval with him. “I don’t want you to leave me.”

  “I won’t.” This time he smiled without reservation. “I had to tell the physician we were married, so he would allow me to stay here with you. Now I have nowhere else to go.”

  She smiled, and he pressed the medicine to her lips.

  After swallowing, she asked, “Where is my own copy of Jane Eyre? Aunt Hortense gave it to me, and I’d be devastated to lose it.”

  “Waterlogged, I’m afraid, as were your manuscripts, but I retrieved them and have them drying. They shall be serviceable if not pristine.”

  At least it was safe, if not a bit worse for wear. And her manuscripts. She was near dizzy with relief that they were salvaged.

  “Sleep,” he whispered, leaning forward to press a kiss to her forehead. “I promise I shall be here when you wake up.”

  “Is it nighttime?” she asked, already feeling the weight of sleep pulling at her. She had yet to look past his face to see the room, and now it didn’t seem important.

  “Yes.”

  “Where will you sleep?”

  “Here.” He indicated the chair. “Same as last night.”

  “No, sleep here with me.” The bed was smaller than her bed at home but bigger than the ones at the inns. They could both fit, but it would be snug. She smiled at the thought of being so close to him. Miss Hamilton would benefit from this research. Violet was certain of it.

  “I could injure you.” He started to pull back, but she held on to his hand.

  “Please. Sleep here with me.”

  He sighed, seemed to reconsider, and then nodded. “For a little while,” he said and lay on top of the blanket. The mattress depressed so that she slid a bit toward him. The solid heat of him immediately warmed her side. She sighed as her entire body relaxed into him and drifted off into a medicine-induced sleep.

  Chapter 14

  He was certain that his penance would be to burn in the fire of his guilt while living in the bright affection of her stare.

  V. Lennox, An American and the London Season

  Christian had lied yet again. Although, to be fair, he could not have anticipated how good it felt to lie next to her all night. He could not have known that her small body cuddled next to his would be the closest thing to bliss he had ever felt, or that he would be lulled to sleep listening to the comforting sound of her breathing. Nothing in his entire life had prepared him for how she made him feel. He couldn’t have known that he would stay the night next to her.

  Women had been a part of his life since his fifteenth year. Soft and beautiful, eager and plain, wealthy or poor, he had not discriminated. His only requirements where they were concerned had been twofold: the time required between meeting them and bedding them must be short, and they must never become cloying. He much preferred the woman who had many lovers to call upon than the one who wanted only him. Toward the end, he had bedded only those sorts of women exclusively.

  He had had no inkling or desire to find a wife. The house of Leigh could fall to distant relations for all he cared, his father’s legacy along with it. Instead of finding a wife and begetting an heir, his attention had turned to building Montague Club into the name it was today. That included arranging the high-stakes fighting matches that had become so well-known even outside of London. Men and women alike came from all over Europe to watch their matches. However, his own reputation had darkened as Montague’s had brightened. Not that he cared for the stain. It kept the wrong sort of company away from him—noblemen who thought their birth elevated them to a superior morality that a few indiscretions could not tarnish.

  His reputation had begun to draw women who sought out wicked things. The viscountess who wanted to add him to her list of accomplishments, the disgruntled wife of a foreign dignitary, and once, a princess who wanted to know what it meant to be restrained and dominated. But then something subtle had changed. Those encounters had begun to lose their appeal. They felt hollow and unsatisfying beyond the initial itch they scratched, so he had slowly started to avoid them. His time and energy had been better spent at the club. The more energy he spent there, the more his reputation had grown, until almost every night a woman would arrive on the doorstep in search of him.

  Over a year had passed since he had last lain with a woman. Given the fact that his lust was now centered on a girl of nineteen years, he could only believe that his depravity had reached a new low. Self-loathing meant that he should rise and leave her in peace. But he fell asleep instead, the steady in and out of her breath lulling him into the deepest slumber he had experienced in years.

  A knock on the door woke him the next morning. He breathed in the scent of lavender mixed with rainwater. Opening his eyes, he saw that her hair was like a cloud before him, and her back was pressed to him, the side with her injured arm propped up against his chest. His erection strained eager and crude against the softness of her right buttock. If his earlier exploits hadn’t earned him a place in hell, this would certainly accomplish the task. He closed his eyes, allowing himself to imagine for one selfish moment how it would feel to roll her beneath him and sink into the glorious depths of her body. She would be tight, so damned tight he would—

  The knock came again, more insistent this time. Gently placing a hand on her hip still covered by her blanket, he slid out from beneath her, replacing his body with a pillow beneath her injured side. She moaned softly as she roused. He clenched his jaw as it sent a surge of blood straight to his already eager cock. Grabbing the blanket that hung over the back of the chair, he wrapped it around himself and opened the door.

  “Good morning, my lord,” said Mrs. Mitchell, sweeping into the room with a breakfast tr
ay. Her graying hair was tucked into a tight bun. “I have brought some porridge for the lass. Did she sleep well?”

  Christian was immediately seized by a fist of guilt tightening in his chest. He had slept so deeply he did not even know if Violet had awakened. Had she needed him?

  She blinked awake, her eyes puffy with sleep. “I slept well.” Her voice was raspy.

  God, that voice. It sent a frisson of need raking down his spine to settle in his bollocks.

  The room was so small that Christian had to step back for Mrs. Mitchell to go around the bed and set the tray on the table near the window. Her doughy arms and figure gave her the appearance of a welcoming grandmother, but she moved with brisk efficiency that would have done any military commander proud.

  “Good to hear, my lady,” she said as she moved around the room opening drapes and straightening blankets. “Dr. Mitchell will be in shortly for your morning examination. He is out making his early-morning rounds.” When Violet murmured her thanks, the woman turned to him. “Once she is settled, you can come to the table for your own breakfast.” Glancing at his beard with disapproval, she added, “I shall find you razor and shaving soap. Dr. Mitchell hardly uses them, but I am certain we can find you something in town, aye?”

  “Do not put yourself to any trouble, Mrs. Mitchell. You have been more than helpful.” He owed the woman more than he could ever repay. She had helped him undress Violet and clean the mud away from her wounds. She had seen to their every need.