Tempt the Devil

by Anna Campbell

  “Come home, my love.” He needed every shred of eloquence at his command. But with his heart overflowing, he couldn’t dredge up anything more than a simple plea.

  She stiffened at the endearment. Her grasp on the banister tightened until her knuckles were bloodless. She shook her head, her mane of hair drifting around her like a cloud. “No.”

  “Please.” He stretched his hand toward her.

  She flinched as if he offered a vial of poison. Dear God, she wasn’t afraid of him, was she? He couldn’t bear to think so.

  She forced her chin up with a shaky gesture of defiance that broke his heart. “Erith, it’s over.”

  “Never.” He let his hand drop, so hurt that he hardly cared two strangers witnessed his humiliation. The only person who mattered to him was the woman in front of him. And she couldn’t bring herself to touch him, it seemed.

  “Come through to the library,” the duchess said softly. “This isn’t a discussion for the front hallway.”

  Olivia sent her a desperate look. “There’s nothing to say.”

  “Oh, yes, there is,” Erith said with grim determination. Demons from hell couldn’t rip him from her side now he’d finally found her. “We say it here or somewhere else. Your choice, Olivia.”

  “No woman departs my house without her consent,” Kylemore said sharply.

  “Thank you, your grace,” Olivia said quietly.

  “Verity, go to bed.” The duke still sounded impatient as he glanced at the duchess. “I’ll make sure nothing happens.”

  His wife threw him a disbelieving look. “Don’t be ridiculous, Justin. This is the most excitement I’ve had in weeks.”

  Kylemore thrust a hand through his hair. “You don’t want excitement. You’re about to have a baby.”

  “And I’m as strong as a horse. Don’t fuss.”

  Erith waited for the autocratic duke to reprimand his wife, but the fellow merely flattened his mouth and gestured in the direction from which he’d come.

  Olivia hesitated before descending the last steps. Erith wondered if she meant to flee back upstairs. If she thought he had too much pride to pursue her through the house, she was sadly mistaken. He was within seconds of seizing her, and her powerful friends be damned, when she came down and followed the Kylemores. She deliberately didn’t look at Erith and she steered a wide course around him.

  She treated him like a mongrel cur. No woman had ever made him feel so low. He loathed feeling like this, blast her to Hades. He stalked after her almost blindly, seething and desperate and yearning.

  Like the rest of the cavernous house, the library was dimly lit. Kylemore wandered across to a side table. “Brandy, Erith?”

  “Lord Erith isn’t staying,” Olivia said, her tone fraying.

  “Well, you throw the blackguard out, Miss Raines. If I brawl with him in here, it will upset my wife.” Kylemore raised the half-full decanter toward Erith. “My lord?”

  Erith had been on the move all day. The prospect of a drink was enormously appealing. He also appreciated that Kylemore seemed determined to dispel the heightened atmosphere. “Yes, thank you.”

  “Good.”

  “Sit by me, Olivia,” the duchess said as she subsided onto the sofa near the desk.

  Olivia let the duchess draw her down beside her. Light from one of the lamps slanted across her tawny hair, making it shine with mysterious bronze and gold. Perhaps because he wasn’t sure he’d ever see her again, her beauty made the breath catch anew in Erith’s throat. Just as it had the first time he’d seen her, when she so coolly chose a lover from the throng at Montjoy’s.

  “My lord.” Kylemore’s deep voice was almost gentle as the duke stood before him with a glass in his hand. Difficult heat seeped under Erith’s cheeks as he realized that he mooned after his mistress like a stripling ogling the dairymaids.

  “Thank you.” He accepted the brandy and took a quick mouthful to control his rioting emotions. The liquor hit his empty stomach like an explosion.

  He sat down on a leather chair that faced the sofa. He’d reached a pitch of exhaustion where each detail of the room was crystal clear. The soft light. The tall duke. The beautiful duchess. His dear, gorgeous, damaged Olivia, who regarded him as though he were a frightening stranger.

  “I shouldn’t have come here,” Olivia said softly, bending her head and studying the trembling hands she folded in her lap.

  “Of course you should.” Soraya—for that was how Erith thought of the duchess—raised her head and glared at Erith like an enemy. “I’m not ashamed of what I was.”

  “But I’ve made trouble for you.”

  “Have you? I don’t think so. Lord Erith just wants to talk, then he’ll go.” The duchess’s remarkable gray eyes sharpened on him. “Isn’t that right, my lord?”

  He bowed briefly. “Your grace.” It wasn’t agreement but it acknowledged her right to make the demand. “I’d like to speak to Olivia alone.”

  Soraya turned to Olivia. Seeing the two women together, it was easy to understand how they’d brought London to its knees. Even tired and pregnant and dressed for bed, not visitors, Soraya’s pale, perfect beauty was like a pearl. Whereas Olivia sparkled with life and vitality. She was tense and upset, but Erith still felt he could hold out his hands and warm them in her life force. He wanted that vivid heat with him always. The prospect of returning to his cold isolation felt like encroaching death.

  “What do you want, Olivia?” Soraya asked. “You’re our guest. Your wishes are paramount.”

  Olivia stared across the room at Erith. Her tawny eyes were guarded. For two weeks they had shared such intimacy, yet tonight he had no idea of her thoughts.

  Eventually she gave a quick nod. “I’ll speak to him. I’ve imposed upon your kindness enough. I can handle this myself.”

  Kylemore held his hand out to his wife. Sourly, Erith watched the naturalness with which Soraya accepted her husband’s touch. It inevitably made him remember how Olivia spurned his hand in the hallway.

  “I stand as your protector, Miss Raines,” Kylemore said gravely.

  “She needs no protector,” Erith snapped. He was bitterly aware of the word’s double meaning.

  Kylemore sent him a stern look. “Nevertheless, I consider any insult to Miss Raines an insult to me.”

  Soraya laughed softly and tugged at her husband’s hand. “Come, my love. This isn’t getting us anywhere.” She turned to Olivia. “We’re only going to the morning room.”

  “Thank you, your grace.” She managed a shaky smile.

  Erith resented her air of a Christian martyr about to face the lions. Good God, she’d been a willing, even enthusiastic occupant of his bed for several weeks. She’d shared things with him she hadn’t shared with anyone else.

  She might deny she loved him, but now he saw her, doubts fled. She loved him, all right. It terrified the life out of her.

  He was so busy studying his darling that he hardly noticed the spectacular duchess and her overbearing lout of a husband leave. His attention focused on the woman who remained alone on the sofa, chin up, eyes defiant, and cheeks shiny with drying tears.

  Thoughtfully, he rubbed his hand over his jaw, feeling the scrape of his beard. Good God, he must look like the worst ruffian. It made him feel even more at a disadvantage.

  How the Devil was he to proceed? The rest of his life hung upon this moment.

  “You’ve been crying,” he said softly when they were alone.

  She flushed with chagrin and looked away. “It means nothing.”

  He rose with a sudden restless movement and shifted across to sit next to her. He reached to take her hand then remembered what had happened in the hallway and halted the gesture halfway.

  Hell, what was wrong with him? He never felt uncertain, particularly with women.

  But it had been such a long time since any one woman had mattered more than another.

  And this one woman mattered more than his life.

  He kept his vo
ice low, unthreatening. “It means you’re unhappy. I hate to think I’ve made you so, my love.”

  She recoiled against the rich gold upholstery. “Don’t call me that.”

  “Whether I call you my love or not doesn’t alter the truth, Olivia.”

  Her hand formed a fist and she punched her thigh through her filmy blue skirts. “I don’t want to be your love.”

  Oh, yes, he believed that. Just as he believed she didn’t want to love him. Although she did. With every second, he was more certain.

  Desperately he sought for words to convince her to return to him. Even more important, to stay. “Don’t make me live without you. I want you to be my lover. I want you to come to Vienna.”

  Her lips pursed as though she tasted something sour. “And live as your mistress.”

  It surprised him that she needed to spell out the arrangement.

  “Of course. My precious mistress.” He had a sudden insight into what must worry her. “Are you concerned I’ll stray? Surely you see those women were just an attempt to fill my empty life after Joanna died. It sounds coldhearted. It was coldhearted. But they didn’t suffer for knowing me, and we always parted friends. I was faithful to Joanna. I’ll be faithful to you. You have nothing to fear from other women.”

  “I’m a harlot.”

  His brows drew together. He couldn’t see the point of this. He once believed that she suffered no guilt over what she’d done. Now he knew her well enough to realize her feelings about her profession were tangled and ambiguous.

  “You were forced into this life.” His sincerity came from the depths of his soul. “Do you expect me to berate you for what you are? How can I? My own behavior hasn’t been admirable.”

  The hands twined in her lap tightened. She looked down at them from under her thick fringe of gold-tipped lashes. “Yet you believe without question that I’m not fit to associate with your daughter.” Her voice was very low and very sad.

  He should have been prepared for the attack. The idea that a few sweet words and a promise of lifelong devotion on the Continent would win his case now seemed fatuous. A sinking feeling in the region of his gut told him that unless he was very careful, this was an argument he’d lose.

  With disastrous consequences.

  He fought to keep his voice quiet, reasonable, when what he wanted to do was snatch her up and kiss her senseless. But she was strong and clever, and unless he had her willing, he couldn’t have her. He knew that in his bones.

  “Olivia, you know as well as I how the world works. Probably better because you’ve suffered more from society’s censure. I must put my daughter’s welfare first. Perhaps because I’ve been such a selfish blackguard. Surely you can’t expect anything else.”

  The eyes she focused on him were dull with misery. He’d wished her anger gone, but this was worse.

  “No, of course I don’t expect anything else.”

  He was seriously worried now. “What does that mean?”

  She didn’t answer immediately. Instead she stared into a shadowy corner. Her lush mouth was taut with distress.

  He watched her so closely, he noticed her slender throat move as she swallowed. Her body vibrated tension. “My father was Sir Gerald Raines, a baronet with an estate outside Newbury.”

  Her quiet words took a moment to sink in.

  Shock at what she told him, lacerating pity at what she’d endured, jolted him. “My God. I knew you came from a good family. I had no idea you came from…”

  “Your own class?” Her lips twisted in an acerbic smile that held no humor. “If my brother hadn’t sold me, I’d indeed be a fit companion for your daughter.”

  He frowned. “In my eyes, you are a fit companion for my daughter. Never confuse what I think with how society regards you.”

  “You looked utterly sick when you saw me with Roma.”

  “You know why.”

  “Yes, sadly, I do.”

  He raked his fingers through his hair in frustration. Why did he feel he tried to conduct a conversation in a language he couldn’t speak?

  “Olivia, what are you trying to say? You know your background—even if more elevated than I suspected—has nothing to do with how I feel about you.”

  “If my brother hadn’t sold me to Lord Farnsworth after he’d offloaded every other scrap of his inheritance to feed his gambling, you and I would have known each other in a completely different context.”

  He couldn’t help it, whatever the risk. He reached out and untangled her twisting hands, taking one and holding it tight between both of his.

  “It’s too late for regrets, Olivia,” he said urgently. “You can’t turn back the clock. By God, I’d call your brother out if he was still alive and put a bullet in his worthless carcass. But even if I did that, you couldn’t reclaim the life you should have led. It’s gone forever. Look toward a new life. With me.”

  He thought she’d pull away, but she let her trembling hand rest in his. He felt the fine tremors run through her. A frantic pulse fluttered at the base of her pale throat.

  “I know,” she said with such grief, his heart clenched. “But when I was a girl, I was the victim of a great injustice.”

  “Yes, you were.” He curled his fingers around hers. He tried to infuse his warmth into her chilled flesh.

  “Once, I could have looked as high as the Earl of Erith for a marriage partner.”

  “But your life didn’t…” All his words disintegrated to dust. He suddenly realized where this odd, difficult discussion led and a shard of ice pierced him. “Ah.”

  “You keep telling me I’m magnificent and I’m wonderful and that you don’t care what I’ve done. You say how you spoke to me yesterday means nothing and you respect and honor me as a woman.” The topaz eyes she leveled on him burned like fire. “Show me.”

  “By marrying you.” The three stark words emerged as a death knell to his dearest hopes.

  She didn’t blink at the shocking suggestion, proving right his horrified guess about her completely unrealistic plan. “Yes.”

  He sprang to his feet and looked at her with incredulous horror. “You’re testing me. Just as you tested me when you tied me to your bed.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “You know this is impossible.” An inexorable chill crept over him.

  “Is it?” With her free hand, she gestured around the library. “The Duke of Kylemore married Soraya.”

  Kylemore was a damned fool.

  Erith didn’t say it aloud. She was tragically serious about this crackpot idea. He couldn’t chance driving her away by dismissing it with the derision it deserved.

  “Olivia, my darling, choose some other way for me to demonstrate my faith.”

  She shook her head with a regretful moue of her lips. “There is no other way.”

  In a burst of irritation, he swung away to face the book-lined wall. “You know I can’t marry you. You’ve finally gone too far.”

  His sudden emotion left her unmoved. Instead she spoke very evenly and with a conviction he couldn’t doubt. “Then there can be nothing further between us.”

  Chapter 28

  “You’re not being reasonable.” Julian whirled to face Olivia. His eyes blazed with rage and determination. And heaven help her, hurt bewilderment. It was the bewilderment that pierced her to the quick. “You ask too much.”

  “I know.” She raised her chin and stared him down while misery howled inside her.

  Of course he couldn’t marry her.

  He was the Earl of Erith and she was a notorious whore. The only future their world allowed them was the one he offered. Good Lord, Soraya was a duchess and society didn’t accept her.

  “If you know, why pursue this nonsensical course?” Julian still glared at her as if she’d gone mad. Perhaps she had.

  She sucked in a shaky breath and sought words to explain. Knowing nothing would make him understand. “In every way except one, I’m an appropriate spouse for you. Even my barrenness isn’t a pro
blem, as you already have two healthy children.”

  “I have two healthy children who don’t need their father to create an almighty scandal by marrying his mistress.”

  He was right, but that didn’t stop his response scraping across nerves raw with grief. She blinked back bitter tears. During the long unhappy watches of the night, when she’d lain awake in the huge bedroom upstairs, she’d realized what she wanted. And she’d known what she wanted couldn’t come to fruition. What she wanted never did, not since that black day when her contemptible brother had sold her.

  She was unjust to demand such extravagant concessions from Julian. Her intelligence hadn’t completely deserted her. But her torn, keening heart didn’t heed logic or the demands of propriety. Her torn, keening heart would accept nothing less than marriage as unequivocal proof of what she meant to him. Yesterday, in her stung reaction to his cruel words, she’d thought he didn’t love her. But calmer reflection today had brought the realization that of course he did. The question was whether he loved her enough.

  Erith killed the dragons that ravaged her life and gave her a fairy-tale ending. Or else his love was as cheap and brittle as a china trinket won at a traveling fair.

  “Fuck, Olivia,” he said under his breath, running his hand through his hair again. The profanity signaled how close he was to losing control. “Don’t do this to me.”

  “I have to.” As a girl, she’d been worthy to marry him. In her soul, she still was. Unless he recognized that fact without shame or demurral, they had nothing. “What my brother and Lord Farnsworth did to me was heinously wrong. In my way, I’ve sought revenge on men ever since. Then I met you. The first man I respected. The first man who matched me. You’re as strong as I. Stronger.”

  “No. Not stronger.” He stared at the floor and a muscle in his cheek flickered. His voice was muffled and his fists opened and closed at his sides as if he fought the urge to shake sense into her.

  “You’re the first lover I don’t despise.”

  “I am the first lover who made you feel anything.” He looked up, and she couldn’t mistake the bone-deep wretchedness in his face. Nauseating remorse made her stomach churn. She wounded him and she hated it.