Between the Duke and the Devil

by Devon, Eva

And that had been the first blow to their happiness, his mother’s loss. But somehow, they’d continued on, as happy as they could be, never thinking that darkness had wound its way into their heart and that it would take root there and never let go.

  “Did she tell ye why she lives up above in one of the turrets?” he asked carefully. For he had no idea how much Jane had revealed and he had no intention of betraying his sister’s secrets.

  “No,” Annabelle said. “We did not get that far. I have only known her for a few hours, after all. One could not expect such a confession so quickly. And perhaps she never will tell me why.”

  Annabelle squared her shoulders. “And I don’t wish for you to tell me.”

  That shocked him. “No?” he queried.

  “No,” she replied firmly. “It is Jane’s secret to tell, and I will not hear it from anyone else but her. If she does not wish me to know, then I do not wish to know it. When she wishes me to understand her circumstance, I will, and until then, I must simply take her at face value and enjoy the Jane I know.”

  Good God, who was this remarkable woman? This wife of his?

  Suddenly, Tristan found his heart deepening in its warmth towards her.

  It was inexplicable. Drake had warned him. Warned him that he had fallen in love with his own wife, but he had hardly dared to believe it.

  For so long, he had felt as if his insides had been made of stone or ice, unapproachable, untouchable. But just in those few words, in her total acceptance of his sister just as she was, without the need to know what awful things had happened to her, he felt as if the affinity that he’d had with Annabelle suddenly deepened into something so much more.

  Love, he realized. It had to be love.

  “To tell the truth, I am surprised that she spoke with ye,” he breathed.

  “I do not know if she would have if I had not sought her out so specifically,” Annabelle agreed, folding her slender arms beneath her breasts. “You see, I saw her while walking and, tonight, I felt her presence in one of the galleries. I think she was following me. So, I turned about and I followed her.”

  Annabelle’s brows lifted, as if she realized that following Jane might have been ill-advised and she assured him, “Of course, I gave her a chance to send me away, but I pursued her to her room. She invited me in and she offered me a glass of wine.”

  Tristan could barely believe what he was hearing. “She offered ye a glass of wine?”

  “Indeed. We had more than one,” Annabelle said, her beautiful lips curving in a pleased smile. “It was quite nice, really, and I think that we were able to be very honest with each other, given the circumstances. I do think that she is concerned that you have married me for some strange reason, and that you have not married me for love. You should speak to her.”

  Tristan groaned. “Jane still hopes that everyone should have the sort of marriage our parents had which, I suppose, I should be very glad about.”

  “You should.” Annabelle blinked as she clearly struggled to understand what their childhood must have been like. “It is wonderful that she has not been entirely embittered by whatever has happened to her.”

  “Have ye been?” he asked softly. “Entirely embittered?”

  “Oh, not entirely,” she said with a practiced lightness. “For I am determined to make as much as I can of this life as possible. I told your sister very much the same thing and she, too, was surprised. But I think it did the strangest thing.” Annabelle’s eyes shone for a moment. “I think it gave her hope.”

  “Hope?” he echoed, as astonished and moved as she. His sister needed hope.

  “Yes.” Annabelle nodded and rushed on, “The idea that one doesn’t need to simply give up because one’s life is not full of sunshine, and happiness, and poetry, and flowers. In fact, we can find a great deal of happiness in the simplest things. You see, I used to find it simply in the stars.”

  “The stars?” He nearly laughed but he refrained for he realized she was absolutely serious.

  “Do not think it’s such a little thing,” she warned. “When you have not seen the stars in years, to see them is a most reverential experience.”

  He was silent for a moment. “No’ see them in years?”

  She sighed. “Do you really wish to hear my tale of woe?”

  “With all my heart,” he said, meaning every blasted word.

  She dropped her hands to her sides, her light expression fading to one of exhaustion. “How very tiresome.”

  “I doubt that.”

  “I am not one for pity,” she pointed out, eyes narrowing. “Of any kind.”

  “Then I willna give it to ye.”

  “Good!” She pointed at him. “Because I don’t deserve it.”

  Now, he wasn’t certain he could believe that. Anyone with Annabelle’s empathy deserved compassion in return. Still, he understood she did not wish it. So, he nodded his head. “Tell me. Tell me about when ye could no’ see the stars.”

  She shook her head, her dark hair falling about her shoulders like a midnight cloud. “Oh, we must go further back than that.”

  Chapter 22

  “My father was not a gentleman,” she began, her voice as tight as her body.

  “My mother was the lady.” Annabelle pressed her lips together as she crossed further into the room. “She came from a powerful family. From what I understand, she had people who cared about her. She lived with vast wealth. The sort of wealth that most mortals can only imagine. But she wanted adventure as well.”

  Annabelle winced. “My father certainly provided that.”

  Tristan remained calm and silent as he watched her stroll with deliberate ease to the grog tray. Her hand barely shook as she slipped the crystal stopper free of the decanter.

  “When he wished to be, my father was the most charming man one could ever meet.”

  Lifting the decanter, she poured smoothly, the amber brandy translucent in the firelight.

  “He clawed himself up from the fetid gutters of East London. He’d been raised in some awful place like Bethnal Green, but his own mother had been quite intelligent and she’d educated him as well as she could.”

  Annabelle poured another snifter then turned to Tristan, a forced smile on her face. “One thing I will say for my father was that he had a great love of reading. It was the only thing that he gave me. He hoarded books like some men hoard gold. Somehow, he managed to wheedle his way into society, a perfect confidence man, convincing them all that he was to be trusted and my mother was no different.”

  She palmed the snifters, swirling the tawny liquor in the cut crystal with such ease it was almost hypnotic.

  The jewel tone of her eyes seemed to fade to obsidian as she slowly approached him, all the while regaling, “Apparently, he wore a velvet coat to perfection and he knew how to use a turn of phrase. He seduced her easily. He convinced her of his love and his devotion to her.”

  She shrugged, as though the story was so common, she was discussing the unfortunate loss of a glove.

  “She ran away with him.”

  At this, she stopped before him, stretching out an elegant, ivory arm, offering him the brandy.

  “There was only one problem,” she whispered conspiratorially. “My grandfather, apparently, did not approve the match and certainly he did not approve of being defied.”

  Tristan reminded himself to breathe. She told the story with such merciless distance that he felt as if he were watching a brilliant recitation.

  So, he took the offered snifter from her. This time, she was careful their fingers did not touch, as if she wouldn’t be able to bear the contact as she revealed her past.

  “So,” she said, her smile brittle as she palmed her own snifter in both hands. “He cut his daughter off without a sou.”

  Annabelle’s eyes widened and then she took a long swallow of the brandy. “To my father, this was inexplicable! After all, the old man had so much wealth that it seemed odd that he would not even share a little bit with
his daughter.”

  Tsking, Annabelle studied her drink. “But such men, such lords, must prove their power through such means. I don’t believe her father ever spoke to my mother again. And my father was forced to return to a way of life that I think he had always hoped to turn his back upon.”

  She bit her lower lip, her eyes suddenly fervent, almost feverish in memory.

  “Oh, he was good at that life.” She swallowed then blinked rapidly. “He was very good at it. He knew how to find fear and weakness in men’s souls. He was a vicious man, my father, and my poor mother had never seen that side of him. Worse still, while she had a pretty face and a good turn of phrase and a few good dresses she’d brought with her, she had little else to recommend her.”

  Annabelle laughed dryly, a sound with so little humor it was almost frightening. “At least not in East London. It was appalling. You see, she’d hold my father’s arm and try to recreate that love he had showed her once long ago. The truth was he despised her for she was utterly useless to him.”

  Grimacing at the memory, Annabelle’s hands shook slightly before she gestured to her snifter.

  “I watched my mother drink gin then. She drank gin as if it was water. No fine crystal for her.

  Annabelle shrugged, apparently trying to lessen the horror of her childhood. “Everyone did. My father, too. I think the only person who didn’t drink gin in the whole rotten place I grew up in was me, and that was remarkable, for other children did. I can still recall the odor of it and of everyone drinking until they were completely without consciousness.”

  She was quiet then. Her gaze turned glassy as if she were recalling something too terrible for words.

  “Annabelle?” he whispered, wishing he could reach out to her, but knowing it wasn’t what she would want.

  She gave herself a little shake.

  “My father took to manipulation and cruelty,” she said flatly. “He knew how to frighten people, and I can still remember the violence of it. The blood. The broken bones. People who disobeyed him were brought before my father and he punished them.”

  She shook her head. “My mother was horrified,” Annabelle bit out. “And she hid further and further in her gin. I watched. I don’t even recall how old I was, but it was younger than six, for at about six years old it was then my father was taken up and led to dance his final dance at Tyburn. People say children don’t remember. But I do. I remember the way he kicked as the rope tightened about his neck.”

  Annabelle twisted away and faced the fire. Her long skirts twisted about her legs but she paid them no heed. “My mother fell on particularly difficult times. For she had no funds and she took up that profession which is apparently the oldest and most reliable for the female.”

  Annabelle’s spine straightened as she looked into the flames. “Except I will tell you this; that profession is a horrific one. My mother’s pretty face quickly faded.”

  Tristan’s heart ached for her. She’d known so much suffering and had been exposed to things he’d not even known existed until he’d been a man.

  “It is inevitable that women on the street come by particularly vicious customers,” she whispered, her voice beginning to fail. “And truthfully, it is a hard, wearing life upon any woman. Also, inevitable, she was taken into Bridewell Jail. And I. . .”

  Tristan sucked in a breath. He knew about Bridewell. In his meanderings into the darker parts of London, he had heard what transpired there.

  Annabelle stopped and she drained her glass. “I cannot speak of that place, of the things that happened there, or the things that I saw.”

  She glanced back him, her eyes twin storms of fear. “I do not know how my mother protected me, because I was never abused the way that she was. And, truthfully, many men do not care about the age of a young girl. For many men, the younger the better, frankly. But my mother did protect me.”

  The tone she spoke of her mother now was one of reverence. “She must’ve had a deal with the guards. That was the only way she could have done it. And so I pounded oakum all day long, every day, until my back nearly broke. I can still remember my bleeding fingers as I worked. . . and my poor mother. . .

  Tristan had heard about what the jailers did and how they sold the prisoners to any comer who could pay. Suddenly, all he wished was to take Annabelle into his arms and assure her that she would never be hurt again. But it wasn’t time for that yet.

  “When we left there,” Annabelle whispered, her eyes at last shining with tears, “she was never the same. She was broken then, and it wasn’t long after that she died in the street with a bottle of gin in her hand and I was taken into the workhouse.”

  Closing her eyes, she grimaced. “And I will tell you that there’s little difference between the horrors of Bridewell Jail and a workhouse.”

  She opened her eyes and locked gazes with him. “Tristan, it was then that I stopped seeing the stars. For how can one see the stars from a prison? Because that’s exactly what a workhouse is. It is a prison where one is forced to labor all day long and live in terror when one sleeps. You see, there is no protection in a workhouse, not even in the women’s quarters, because a child never knows when a woman will come, even an old woman or woman who seems like she could be kind, to rifle your pockets or to terrify you in the night.”

  “Oh, Annabelle,” he said, his own voice rough with emotion.

  She shook her head wildly and placed her snifter upon the mantel. “I don’t really know how I survived that place except for I did everything I could to please the guards so that they would not pound me into the dirt or the earth. I ate every scrap of porridge that I possibly could, but I saw other children sicken. They weakened with lack of food and lack of sunlight and hard labor. There were whispers of children being sent to even worse places or being sold to brothels.”

  She lifted her chin, determined.

  “I did not know how I would survive, but I did. And I did things, cruel things. Somehow, deep in my heart, I remembered the stories that my father and mother had told me of ladies fair and knights, but I also remembered the stories of demons and dragons, and I knew that I was in a land of demons and dragons and there were no ladies fair or knights or people who would come to rescue me.”

  A strange smile crossed her face then. “Until one day, an old man came and he said he was my uncle and that he was taking me away.”

  Tristan’s heart twisted with dread at this turn of the tale. He had wondered how she had come to be all but owned by her uncle. Now he knew.

  “He looked like my mother, just a bit,” she rushed, “I couldn’t believe my luck. For suddenly, it seemed I had been rescued. And he took me away in his fine coach with his fine cloak. And I’ll never forget his shoes. How they gleamed! One could have eaten their dinner off his shoes. He smelled of citrus. I’ve never smelled anything like it in my whole life.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “I was used to the dirty, rank odor of the street and then the lye smell of the workhouse. But most of all, I can still recall when he saw my hands. He tsked at their redness and he told me, ‘We must improve those if you are to be a proper lady.’”

  She paused at the recollection. “‘Am I?’ I asked. ‘Am I to be a proper lady?’ ‘Oh, yes, Annabelle,’ he’d said. ‘You are to be a proper lady and you will help me with my work.’”

  Annabelle laughed, an almost frightening sound. “How excited I was. I was going to help my uncle with his work in some grand house with servants and beautiful rooms and as much food as I could like. And he promised me chocolate. And he promised that I would be able to play outside and I would be able to look at the stars as often as I pleased.”

  Tristan’s heart sank for this brave, wonderful woman. She had survived so much. She’d even survived the crushing of her hopes.

  Annabelle smoothed her hands down the front of her gown, emotionless now. “He kept those promises. I was allowed to have chocolate. I did play outside. I did look at the stars, and my hands did turn a shade of p
ure white. But my uncle had not taken me into his care to love me. Oh, no. He had taken me into his care to corrupt me.”

  “Annabelle—”

  She lifted her hand to stop him. “No. I must finish. The truth was, I had already been corrupted. If I had been allowed out onto the street, I no doubt would have eventually slipped into either the role of murderess or prostitute. I suppose I did almost become a murderess for my uncle. I can’t deny that I did help several gentlemen to lose their funds and, not being able to face the consequences, they killed themselves.”

  She paled, her hand falling back to her side. “I’m not sure what that makes me, but it doesn’t make me good. I can tell you that.”

  “Annabelle,” Tristan said roughly, longing to make her hear reason. “Ye were so young. Ye were but a child.”

  Annabelle paused and then she protested, “Yes, but is that truly an argument? Does that truly relieve me of all the things that I did for a bit of comfort, for a glance at the stars?”

  “Yes,” he all but growled. It was too much to bear now, her suffering. Determined to make her see what he saw, he pulled her to him. “I think it does. And I think it shows how strong ye are that ye were able to survive so much and that ye have no’ become purely evil or purely broken.”

  He gazed down in her eyes, then gently stroked her hair. “Look at the men around ye,” he said. “Look at what they were willing to do. Ye did what ye did because ye had few choices. They did what they did out of a desire for power, for money. All ye wished for was what every person should wish.”

  “And what is th-that?” she asked, a tear slipping from the corner of her eye.

  “The right to be alive,” he insisted, gently stroking that tear away with his thumb. “To live without being persecuted. To be free. And yet, ye were no’ free. Yer uncle kept ye as a veritable prisoner, did he no’?”

  “Yes,” she confessed. “He did that. I did not think I would ever escape him.”

  “But ye have,” Tristan reminded her, wrapping his arms about her. He was never going to let her go. Not now. Not ever. She was the strongest, most beautiful person he knew. “Ye escaped him, and ye’re here now.”