by Devon, Eva
Between
the
Devil
and
the Duke
A Duke’s Secret Novel
Book 4
by
Eva Devon
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
Between the Duke and the Devil
Copyright © 2019 by Máire Creegan
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. No redistribution is authorized.
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.
For my sons and Mr. D. You are the reason.
Special thanks to:
Scott, Lindsey, Patricia, and Judy. All essential to the publication of this tale.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Other Books by Eva Devon
Prologue
“Forgive me.”
Forgive? Tristan Trent, The Duke of Ardore, hauled back his fist and rammed it into Edward deBeresford’s pretty face.
The crunch of bone exploded into the sooty, London night air.
Och, it felt good. So, bloody good. But not good enough. So, Tristan wrenched his arm back and let fly again. He blew out a long breath. It puffed out white in the cold darkness. The din of drunks and sailors wandering the dockside filled the air. It was the perfect chorus to this moment.
He wanted deBeresford to die, face down in the mud. Writhing and weeping. He deserved it, after all. A few more punches would see it done. Or maybe, he’d wrap his hands around the man’s lily-white neck.
Ardore knew violence intimately. He’d killed men on the battlefield and this felt just as righteous. More so.
A pair of hands grabbed him from behind. “You’re going to kill him, Ardore.”
Ardore tried to shake off the grip. “Good,” he growled.
Those hands grabbed harder and whipped him around. “You’re not a deuced murderer, man.”
No. Not yet, he wasn’t. He’d done many, many things that would condemn him to hell. Murder wasn’t one. “I want him to die.”
DeBeresford whimpered, curling into a ball on the soaked cobbles. “F-forgive me.”
The damned pathetic cry only intensified Tristan’s anger. He pulled back his boot, ready to kick the piece of filth’s jaw.
Rafe Carrow, Duke of Royland, shoved him back against the crumbling brick wall then pointed at deBeresford. “Shut it, or you’re a dead man.”
Tristan’s entire body coiled with rage and it was all he could do not to brain his friend so he could get to the man who deserved his vengeance.
“This won’t save her.” Royland snapped his sharp amber gaze back to him.
The Duke of Raventon stood in the shadows, keeping watch. His rough voice cut through the night. “Killing him won’t change a damned thing.”
Ardore choked on his anger. On his sorrow. He wanted nothing to do with logic. Logic would stop him from fulfilling his desire. But two double firsts at Oxford and a lifetime of grim-faced duty gave him pause. Raventon was correct, of course. So was Royland. Nothing could save her now. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t make deBeresford’s life hell. A living hell for years and years.
Ardore sucked in a long, shuddering breath, savoring the ice cold rain now beating down on his face. The world slowed around him. The screeching of the fiddle not two doors down at The Merman’s Tail mixed with the drunken laughter of the whores slipping over the muddy stones, gin bottles clutched in their mittened hands.
A quick death would be too good for deBeresford. After all, she wasn’t going to die quickly.
He nodded at his two friends, friends whose loyalty followed him down the darkest paths.
Slowly, as Ardore relaxed, Royland released his grip.
There would be no death tonight.
Ardore crouched down beside the man he loathed so deeply.
DeBeresford scrambled back. The blood dripping from his nose streamed steadily as he gasped, “P-please.”
Ardore folded his hands, using the burn of his scraped and bruised knuckles to help him focus. “I’m going to let ye live today.”
DeBeresford let out a rattled, relieved breath. “T-thank you. T-thank—”
Ardore held up a hand. “Ye haud yer wheesht about this. If I hear ye’ve gone to yer friends and warned them, I’ll come to ye in the dark of night, and then ye’ll know what pain is.”
Gesturing to the bloodied cuts on deBeresford’s face, Ardore growled, “This? This is only the beginning.”
Chapter 1
Annabelle Winters stood over her uncle’s sleeping body and longed to kill him. The golden glow of the candelabra gripped tightly in her white-knuckled hand danced over his velvet counterpane and threw shadows over his face.
He looked like a corpse in slumber. His face was naught but a skull, the old skin stretched tight over the bones, the eyes sunken shadows.
Oh, how she wished she could.
The wind whipped at the Elizabethan castle’s windows, shaking the glass in the casing. Not even a hint of moonlight spilled through the fog-ridden night.
No. No, silver glow. Just the darkness barely broken by firelight. But there was no warmth to be found in this room. She hadn’t been warm in years and she highly doubted she’d ever be warm again. Not if she kept having nights like this one.
Her breath came slowly, expanding her ribs against her expensive, silk stays, the layers of her undergarments and gown. It was hard to get used to such clothes. Even after years, she still felt like a masker in her rich clothes. They were tight and revealing. Tailored to her delicate frame. One gown could feed five families for a year from where she’d been spawned.
The stays pressed into her ribs.
She hadn’t had a good breath since the day she met her uncle.
Did such aching only add to her prison? And she did live in a prison. Almost all women did whether they knew it or not. Of course, her gown was just one more bar in the elaborately made hell that had been her life since childhood.
For Annabelle had been a prisoner for years. And if there was one thing she knew, it was what it took to survive captivity. She bit into her lower lip and felt the urge. The urge to lower her candelabra and let the flames dance towards the bed.
It would be so easy to touch the golden flames to the bedclothes and watch him burn. Maybe she’d burn, too. After the lives they’d destroyed, she likely deserved to burn with him.
A smile tugged at her lips. An angry, perverse smile. It made her a monster. She knew it. But after
all, wasn’t that what he had made her? She’d been nearly broken when he’d found her and now, he’d tempered her in his forge.
If only she had the courage. If only she wasn’t such a prisoner through and through, she would burn him alive in his bed and burn his ancient castle down around him.
Even though she knew how to survive, Annabelle was linked inexplicably to her captor and she couldn’t break free.
So, instead of setting him to flame, she bent down and gently shook his arm.
He’d taken a small draught of opium that afternoon to help him sleep, he’d said. To help rest before his guests descended. Given the list of men who were coming tonight, her uncle would have to be the most charming, the most nefarious, he’d ever been.
“Wake up, Uncle,” she said firmly.
His eyes twitched beneath the papery lids before he snapped them open. “It’s time?”
For an older man, his voice was remarkably strong. It was certainly cultured.
It had taken her a year to learn to emulate those beautiful and exclusive tones.
She nodded.
“Good.” He sat up quickly, rolled his head from side to side, his neck cracking like a pistol shot.
She winced. She couldn’t help herself. It was difficult to hide her hate for the man who had made her a monster. But hide it she would, if it meant she never had to go back to the place he’d found her.
God help her, being the monster’s assistant was far better than being his victim.
She placed her free hand on her middle, resting it along the boning, to steady herself.
“I need to go now and dress,” she said.
He snorted, his back to her as he gazed out his windows towards the inky blackness. “Do you think me a fool?”
“Uncle?” she queried, her voice higher than she liked. His anger was not something she cared to irk. The old man had a frightening streak.
He turned and narrowed his eyes. Raking them down her frame, he said quietly, “I can see the hem of your gown beneath that robe.”
She fought the urge to readjust the green silk dressing gown over her obsidian-hued frock.
“I know you go for a walk out in the fresh air to find your. . .” his lips twisted in amusement, “motivation.”
She looked away. It was the only way she got through these nights. A quick walk outdoors, a glance at the stars that had been hidden from her for what seemed her whole childhood.
Those stars were the only motivation she needed for their game. To see the firmament glittering overhead and not the towering dark walls of a freezing prison was worth almost any price.
He waved a wrinkled hand at her. “Go.”
Relieved, she bobbed a small curtsy then headed for the door.
“Annabelle,” he warned.
She paused, not daring to look back.
“Tonight is important.”
Her throat tightened, wondering whose life they might destroy in the coming hours.
“I need you at your most charming. Your most. . . persuasive.”
She didn’t reply. Instead, she nodded. She would do what he asked. Whatever he asked. Her own complicity made her sick but she wasn’t some naive miss either. What she did kept her safe. It kept her free. As free as a person like she could be.
She grabbed the brass door handle and wrenched the heavy wood panel open.
Without a backward glance, she left her uncle to await his manservant.
The shadowy hall barely revealed itself under the small dancing lights of her candles. But she knew that servants were racing about all over the house.
Already, the guests had been arriving in opulent waves. All arrived individually in their gilded coaches and were led to rooms where they could prepare for the night’s reveries.
So, she chose the back stairs, not the elaborate and vast stairs at the center of the house.
She wanted to sneak out, unseen, like a thief in the night. So, she blew out the candles then placed the candelabra down on a black marble table along the wide hall wall.
The way was familiar. She’d walked it many a night in the dark, avoiding drunken men in the throes of victory or blind drunk men in the depths of defeat.
Her uncle’s secret club was attended by only the most elite and only the most longing for secrecy. And she was its hostess. The gateway, so to speak, to another world.
Such a thing was no easy task.
Rushing down the narrow servant stairs, she traced her fingers along the cold wall, using it as a guide.
The Northumberland night was at its darkest and cruelest tonight. It amazed her that so many men, used to comforts that the vast majority of the world would never know, would venture out into such punishing wind, such fog, such freezing cold for such sport.
But then they were all bored. All half-dead with their monotonous lives and they’d do anything to feel again. Even if it meant their ruin.
She raced down the last hall at the bottom of the stairs and came out to the rear of the house. She rushed along the raked gravel walk, determined to reach the copse of ancient oaks beyond the manmade lake.
She walked, not caring that the icy ground beneath her boots was slicking through her robe or that the wind was cutting through the fine silk.
Nothing could have felt better than the knife of cold cutting to her bones.
She turned her face up towards the cloudy sky and prayed.
She prayed with all her might that a narrow crack might appear and she’d glimpse the moon or stars she so loved.
Walking, head tilted back, she traced the private path she knew so well, towards the low but surprisingly rugged hills that were behind the house.
Her heart began to pound with the speed of her mission and the wind battered her skirts against her legs.
A cry of frustration parted her lips as fog began to drift in from the lake and the river in the distance.
All she wanted was to feel a moment’s purity. A moment in the face of God. Touched by the beauty of the universe so that she could go wade in the mud of humanity. It seemed that fate was sending her a message. She’d dwelt in darkness too long and, now, there wouldn’t even be a moment’s respite before she had to do what her uncle asked.
She looked back towards the castle, her chest rising and falling far too quickly for comfort. She had to go back. She had to be ready for the evening, and yet, she couldn’t. Not yet. Not before she’d somehow found the strength to continue the never-ending cruelty of what her life had become.
Determined to find some bit of beauty, some spot of sky, Annabelle whirled around.
A stallion charged out of the thick fog.
She screamed and staggered back. Her boots clattered over the pebbles and she nearly slipped.
The horse reared onto its hind quarters, its forehooves tearing wildly at the air, narrowly missing Annabelle’s head.
A man shouted a wild curse before he was thrown from the stallion’s back.
The animal tore off into the black night.
The man, on the other hand, lay still, half on the frozen grass and half on the pebbled path.
Annabelle ran to his side.
She’d seen death. Broken bodies had not been uncommon in the place she’d spent most of her life. She’d even seen death in her uncle’s house. But that didn’t stop the animal dread curling in her stomach.
Before she could reach the figure, the man curled his gloved fist into a ball and he pounded the earth with surprising force.
“Damnation!” he roared, his voice a shockingly seductive sound, touched with the Highlands.
Annabelle hesitated in her mad dash to his aid. Instead, now, she paused. “Sir, are you hurt?”
He rolled over then let out another curse. “Devil take it, lass, are ye a fool?”
She drew up, feeling completely on unstable ground now. Who was this man that had come out of the mists like a specter? Those in the north did say horses were made of magic. Was he some spirit?
“Are ye dea
f?” he demanded.
“No.”
“So, just a fool then?” he gritted, his gruff Scot’s burr rumbling through the night.
“Neither,” she bit out.
“Then get over here and help me up.”
Despite his incredible roughness, there was something about him which made her feel at ease. She’d known men who would hurt women. Not this man. Her instincts insisted on it.
She hurried to his side and knelt on the cold ground. The wind whipped her curled hair in front of her face and she shoved it back.
“Good God, ye do take yer time.” He rolled over and hauled himself up.
She stopped just as she was about to offer her hands to him. The man positively towered over her, his own dark hair a shocking mess about his hard face.
She could barely make out his features in the dim light, but the hard cheek bones and firm jaw set her heart slamming against her ribs.
There were sheep and wolves. Without any question, this man fell into the latter category.
And he was handsome. Too handsome. The sort of handsome which often led to cruelty. For handsome men were far too used to getting what they desired and didn’t take well to disappointment.
Yes, she preferred plain men.
Yet, she still stood by her initial feeling. He wouldn’t hurt her. Another man? Yes.
His lips tightened and he swayed forward.
Annabelle grabbed him, her hands meeting solid sinew beneath his clearly expensive clothes.
“Ye’re going to have to help me back to the house,” he bit out.
Help him? The man had to be almost twice her weight and several inches over six feet! How the devil was she going to help him back to the house?
“I can go get help,” she offered, which seemed like a much more intelligent plan.
He let out a derisive sound. “I thought ye said ye’re no’ a fool.”
“I’m not.”
He leaned on her heavily, his long cloak whirling about them. He glanced back the way he’d come.
“What the devil were ye doing on that path?” he demanded.
His arrogance was far too much to take. She’d survived years of being in other people’s power. Well, now, the only one she had to take such nonsense from was her uncle. Now, she led people in the dance, not the other way around.