Devil in My Arms: A Loveswept Historical Romance (The Saint's Devils)

by Samantha Kane

  Devil in My Arms is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  A Loveswept eBook Original

  Copyright © 2013 by Nancy Kattenfeld

  Excerpt from The Devil’s Thief by Samantha Kane copyright © 2012 by Nancy Kattenfeld

  Excerpt from Tempting a Devil by Samantha Kane copyright © 2013 by Nancy Kattenfeld

  Excerpt from Loving the Earl by Sharon Cullen copyright © 2013 by Sharon Cullen

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Loveswept, an imprint of The Random House

  Publishing Group, a division of Random House LLC, a Penguin Random House Company, New York.

  LOVESWEPT is a registered trademark and the Loveswept colophon is a trademark of Random House LLC.

  eBook ISBN 978-0-345-54982-2

  Cover illustration: Franco Accornero

  www.readloveswept.com

  v3.1

  This book is for my husband and my

  children, as every book has been and will be.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  About the Author

  Editor’s Corner

  Excerpt from The Devil’s Thief

  Excerpt from Tempting a Devil

  Excerpt from Loving the Earl

  Acknowledgments

  I can’t forget the ones who really matter: Mom, Dad, Will, Jeri, Charlotte, Jo, Chris, John, Katie, Carson, and Brady. You all listened when I needed to talk throughout the writing of this book and your love and support mean the world to me. Hugs all around. I’d also like to include my critique partner, Julie Gupton, in that hug. She had to listen to a lot of plot angst and other complaints during the writing of this book, and I want her to know her patience and understanding are much appreciated. I’d also like to thank my editor, Sue Grimshaw and my agent, Eric Ruben, who were both supportive and encouraging. Thank you to Joanne Ross for the wonderful new website she created for me as I was working on this book. Many thanks to the Random House marketing team, including April Flores and Kim Cowser, who make it possible for writers to write. Thanks also go to the research staff of the High Point Regional Library in High Point, North Carolina, for your help with research materials. And to the many readers out there who write and tell me how much you enjoy my books: Thank you! Everything I do, I do it for you.

  Chapter One

  London, September, 1819

  The sun was setting; dusk casting an ominous shadow over the quiet, residential square. There had been nurses and children in the central park earlier, but they had wandered back to various affluent houses some time ago, for supper she supposed. Eleanor’s stomach rumbled at the thought. She’d run out of money yesterday, and so hadn’t eaten since a greasy meat pasty purchased with her last coins from a disreputable inn along the coach line two days ago.

  She kept to the shadows of the alley, tiptoeing along the wall, her side pressed to the brick. The small satchel in her left hand had grown heavy hours ago, but as it contained all her worldly possessions she didn’t dare put it down for fear of losing it if she had to run suddenly. She’d walked around these particular two blocks of London for the better part of three hours. She could see nothing suspicious, but that didn’t mean she was safe.

  She bit her lip in indecision. She’d come so far. If she were to fail now, it would kill her. It really would this time. She couldn’t bear being locked in her room again for days upon days, no food or water unless she did as Enderby demanded. She’d worked on this plan for years while she’d endured her husband’s punishments. But no more. She had followed the plan meticulously, waiting the three months she deemed necessary for Enderby to call off his search. Three endless months of hoarding her money, trying to sleep in drafty waterfront inns whose other occupants were as suspicious as she. But the rooms there were always too close, with windows that often wouldn’t open. The night terrors had struck more than once as she woke screaming, imagining being locked in her room back at Enderby’s again. Three months of eating only meager fare, faint with hunger and fear and exhaustion every second.

  After all that time, surely he thought her dead. She hadn’t tried to contact Harry at all. She’d learned the hard way that to do so would be a mistake. She didn’t make the same mistakes twice. She was too clever for that. She was. He hadn’t broken her at all. She was still the same. Still smarter than he was, and at last he’d know it.

  Finally, her courage bolstered by the very fear and hunger that had nearly laid her low so many times in the past few months, she ventured out of the alley. There was no hue and cry at her appearance. No one emerged from the shadows to accost her just as she tasted freedom. She kept to the sidewalk, sauntering along as if she hadn’t a care in the world, the boy’s clothes she wore making her almost belligerent shuffle believable. She’d studied the stable boys and grooms and dockworkers; this was their walk, the walk of a lad who owned the world, daring friend and foe alike to knock the chip from his shoulder. She wanted to laugh aloud at what a lie that walk was for her. Her cares were a burden weighing her down, the chip on her shoulder a simmering hatred for the man who had forced her to take such dire measures.

  When she reached the walk in front of Harry’s door she casually looked around, pausing to dust off the sleeves of her ratty coat. She was hardly dressed for a visit to one of the elegant mansions in Manchester Square, but she brazened it out. If she could get past the butler she’d find Harry.

  She’d just turned up the walk, her eyes glued to the door as if salvation waited beyond it, when a voice spoke from behind her. “Mrs. Enderby, I presume?”

  Eleanor spun around with a gasp, her satchel flying from her hand as she reached into her coat and grabbed the cudgel she’d stolen from a drunken sailor on the docks in Lyme Regis. She faced her attacker head-on, hoping a scuffle here would be noticed. She didn’t care if she drew attention now. They’d found her. Her only hope was that Harry could prevent the miscreant from dragging her back to Enderby.

  He was tall, his dark-red hair poking out from beneath a beaver hat. He wasn’t as burly as Enderby’s other lackeys. She’d never seen this one before, the better to take her by surprise, damn him. He was well dressed, which seemed discordant somehow with the danger of the situation. He didn’t look belligerent at all, merely mildly amused and relieved, but she was still wary. There was an aura of power about him that made the hair on her nape stand up. He smiled at her then and her mind spun in confusion.

  “You shan’t need that, Mrs. Enderby,” he said quietly, pointing
at the cudgel with his oversized walking stick. “I am not who you believe me to be.”

  “And that’s how you disarm someone who wants to knock your head off?” a voice sneered from behind her. Eleanor backed quickly to the side so she could see them both. The speaker was a young man observing them from several feet away. He had his arms crossed and his feet planted wide, blocking her exit to the street. His casual stance didn’t fool her for a second. He looked like a scrapper and had the height and weight to take her down, cudgel be damned.

  “Wiley, be quiet,” the redhead said, clearly annoyed. “Now you’ve startled her again.”

  “Why don’t you ask her to dance?” the Wiley fellow said sarcastically. “Maybe she’ll put down the stick and waltz.” He looked at Eleanor then. “He probably isn’t who you think he is, but keep the cudgel just in case.”

  The redhead closed his eyes as if in pain. “She could just give it to you, and you could knock my head off. Would that satisfy your need to protect the lady from my dastardly charms?”

  “Maybe,” Wiley said, looking thoughtful. “At least it would be a good time for me.” He addressed Eleanor again. “We mean you no harm, he’s not lying about that.”

  “Who are you then?” she demanded, refusing to drop her guard at their foolish banter. Neither made a move toward her but simply stood there, watching her carefully. The redhead leaned on his walking stick with both hands as if to reassure her. It was a wasted effort. She knew better than to trust someone like him. He was a man with the power to break her and enjoy doing it.

  “My name is Sir Hilary St. John and this is Wiley. We have been looking for you.”

  “Of course you have,” she sneered. “How much did Enderby promise you?”

  He shook his head. “You misunderstand. We have been searching for you for your sister.”

  Her hands began to shake. “Harry?”

  “We have been very worried about you, Mrs. Enderby,” he said kindly. He looked her up and down. “You look as if you’ve had a rough time of it, my dear.”

  At that the fatigue assailing her finally took its toll. She dropped her arm and staggered back a step. “A rough time?” She started laughing and then she simply couldn’t stop. Before she knew it she was crying, great gulping sobs. What a spectacle she was.

  “Perhaps we should go in?” the red-haired stranger said. He still didn’t move closer to her, just gestured to the door.

  She warily watched them, wiping her nose inelegantly on her sleeve, still unsure if she could trust them. The door opened behind her and she quickly raised the cudgel again before she finally turned to see a handsome, dark-haired man standing there frowning at them. “Hil?” he asked, looking curiously at Eleanor. “What’s going on?”

  “Who is it, Roger?” A blonde, elegant, very pregnant woman came up behind him and peered over his shoulder.

  “Harry,” Eleanor whispered, awed by how beautiful her sister had become. She’d always had the potential, of course. My God, how she’d missed her little Harry.

  Harry gasped. “Ellie,” she cried, awkwardly shoving her way past the man in the doorway and out onto the walk. Eleanor met her halfway and fell into her arms, hugging her little sister for the first time in almost fifteen years.

  * * *

  Hil watched as Harriet Templeton ushered her exhausted sister into the drawing room after their emotional reunion on the front walkway. He’d left Wiley out front, watching to make sure no unwanted guests arrived looking for her. Now that she’d been found, he didn’t plan to lose her again. And, of course, after his behavior Wiley deserved to be left out there. In so many ways, Wiley was still the foolish boy he’d taken in off the streets of St. Giles several years ago, despite an education and Hil’s tutoring on the finer points of being a gentleman.

  Mrs. Enderby hadn’t been at all what he was expecting. He’d been told she was quiet and shy. Nondescript and thin, with plain features and long, light-brown hair she wore simply. At least, that was the description they’d been given by her husband’s men when they’d come looking for her. They’d gone so far as to hint she’d recently gone a little off in the head, thus her mysterious disappearance. The woman who had confronted him and Wiley on the front walk with a cudgel was none of those things. Well, he couldn’t determine her looks just yet because of the enormous hat she wore, but shy and retiring were not the first terms that came to mind. She was younger looking than he’d expected, as well. She was at least thirty-two according to Mrs. Templeton, though she didn’t look a day over sixteen in her current clothing. He attributed her wan, thin appearance to a life lived on the run for the last three months.

  Harry Templeton had been suspicious from the start. Both she and Roger, one of Hil’s dearest friends, declared that the Eleanor Stanley they’d known prior to her marriage was none of those things. True, Harry hadn’t seen or corresponded with her sister in almost fifteen years, and for Roger it had been longer, but Eleanor had been uncommonly bright when they were children according to Roger, vivacious and outspoken. She’d been a quiet beauty, the kind of woman who was passably pretty until that inner fire lit her up like a firework. Harry had revealed that Eleanor had been unhappy about her marriage to Enderby, and was nervous about her future the last time she’d seen her, when Enderby had taken her back to Derbyshire after their wedding. She had never returned to her parents’ house, nor had she attended their funerals when they both succumbed to a fever several years later.

  A man had arrived at the Templetons’ three months ago looking for her, claiming to work for her husband. Roger hadn’t cared for the fellow at all, saying he was crass and untrustworthy. The man had declared that if she was there they had best hand her over so she could be brought back to Mr. Enderby. Roger had told Hil the entire affair was suspicious. They had indignantly refused to allow the rude stranger to search the premises and they’d shown him the door. A week later a letter arrived from Mr. Enderby corroborating the fellow’s story. Eleanor Enderby was missing and her husband very much wanted her returned. Roger and his wife had formulated a polite response which, if one read between the lines, had more or less told Enderby to sod off, and they’d called Hil for help. A logical choice, of course. He was well-known for his knack for solving mysteries and locating missing persons. There was very little he loved more than a good mystery, be it academic or of a more immediate nature.

  “Oh, Ellie,” Mrs. Templeton said with concern, “you look awful.”

  Mrs. Enderby was wiping her tears with Roger’s handkerchief and sniffing loudly. Hil liked that she didn’t seem embarrassed by her tears and wasn’t trying to pretend her nose wasn’t running. Honesty always received high marks from him. She gave a tremulous laugh at the comment. “Don’t sugarcoat it, dear,” she said wryly, folding the handkerchief over into a little square and dabbing her eyes some more. “But truly, you haven’t seen the worst of it.” She sighed and pulled the oversized hat from her head, revealing light-brown, curly hair that had been cut ruthlessly short, and badly, too. It looked like a blind man had taken scissors to her head.

  Mrs. Templeton gasped. “Your hair!” she cried out. “Your beautiful hair.”

  “Its just hair. It will grow back.” Mrs. Enderby shrugged with supreme nonchalance.

  “Of course it will,” Roger said staunchly. He cleared his throat awkwardly. “I suppose you’d like something to eat.”

  Mrs. Enderby smiled at him and Hil was taken aback. Her mouth was a bit overlarge, and when she smiled her entire face was transformed. Despite her fatigue and general state of dishevelment, she was uncommonly pretty at that moment.

  “I am starving,” she declared. “I haven’t eaten in two days, and it’s been even longer since I’ve slept.”

  “I’m so sorry, Ellie.” Mrs. Templeton was obviously horrified. “I wasn’t thinking.” She motioned at Roger. “Go. Go and tell Cook to prepare a meal, and then tell Mandrake to have Mrs. Dempsey prepare a room for Eleanor.”

  Roger smiled at both
ladies. “I’m going,” he said, pretending to be put out about taking orders from his wife. Hil knew, of course, that his friend would do anything his wife asked him to do, and he’d do it gladly. Now that she was expecting, Roger was even more the besotted fool, and Hil didn’t blame him one bit. Mrs. Templeton was quite possibly the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen, and a delightful person as well. Sometimes he envied Roger and his marital bliss.

  Hil stepped away from the wall where he’d been observing the reunion. The sisters looked over at him, identical expressions of surprise on their faces, as if they’d forgotten he was there. “I shall take my leave, ladies,” he said with a bow. “Welcome, Mrs. Enderby, and may I say that I am relieved to meet you at last.”

  She fidgeted and crushed her hat brim in her hands. “I have a favor to ask of you, Sir Hilary,” she said hesitatingly.

  Interesting, Hil thought. “Of course. Whatever I can do to be of assistance.” Roger had stopped at the door and turned back to listen.

  “I would ask that you keep my arrival in confidence,” she asked, her gaze flitting from Hil to Harry to Roger. “I am not ready yet to have it known that I am here.”

  Meaning she didn’t want her husband to know, Hil surmised. It was as he’d suspected. “I shall keep the knowledge to myself,” he assured her. “As a matter of fact, I may be out of London for a time, and so I shall take the secret with me.”

  “What?” Roger exclaimed. “Why?”

  “Another favor I am doing for a friend,” Hil answered obliquely. “I expect to be gone for several months at the very least. I can call before I leave if you wish me to do so.” He could tell from Mrs. Enderby’s expression she understood exactly what he was saying. He’d take her with him if she needed to run even farther. He had no qualms about helping an innocent lady escape an undesirable marriage. Based on his investigation into Enderby’s background when he was looking for her and the gossip surrounding their marriage, he had no doubt that was exactly what she was.