At that moment, the driver opened the hatch above their heads. “’Ere we are, guv. Number Thirty-two Lombard Street. That’s half a crown you owe me.”
“Lombard Street!” Viola exclaimed. “Mr Devize?”
“Not now, Mary,” Julian told her harshly. “We’ll discuss this when we are alone.”
Startled by his sudden change in manner, Viola could only fume at his abrupt command. She decided to give him the benefit of the doubt, for the moment, and wait for his explanation, but she glowered at him as he fished in his pocket for the fare.
“I seem to be short,” he muttered in dismay.
A loud click echoed in the cab.
“What was that?” Viola demanded, her nerves on edge.
“He’s locked us in,” Julian explained. “Look here, Mary, I hate to ask…but I saw you tip the porter at Portland Place. Could you lend us tuppence?”
“Certainly not,” she said coldly. “You gave the man the wrong address, not I. Tell him to take us to Gambol House at once!”
“I can’t do that, Mary,” he said tightly.
Viola paled. “You never meant to take me to Gambol House at all, did you?”
“Quiet,” Julian commanded, frowning at her. “My good fellow,” he called up to the driver, who was threatening to fetch the Watch if they didn’t pay the fare. “If you would just knock on the door of the house, my man will pay you.”
“Drive on!” Viola said at the same time. “To Gambol House, the Strand.”
“I’m not going anywhere until somebody pays me,” retorted the driver.
“I am not paying you until you take me home!” declared Viola.
Julian lowered the window and shouted, “HUDSON!”
Presently a tall, thin man in a bottle green coat came out of No. 32. Moments later, the fare was paid, and the doors were unlocked. Julian jumped out. Cork, who was nearest the door, would have followed him, but Viola prevented her. “I am not getting out,” she declared, even as the driver was throwing her trunk down in the street. “I don’t like the look of this place,” she added, bending her head to survey the long row of semidetached houses.
The driver appeared before her, blocking the view. “Never mind what you like, madam,” he said gruffly, hauling Cork out by the wrist. Viola’s hatbox flew and landed on the cobbles.
“How dare you!” said Viola, clutching Bijou.
“I’ve another fare waiting on me,” he protested angrily as Julian pushed him aside.
Viola looked at the young man mistrustfully as he held out his hand. “What are you doing, Mr Devize?” she asked desperately. “Why have you brought me here?”
His face was strained, but he spoke very gently. “Mary,” he said. “I know how nervous you must be, but you cannot stay in the hack. You must trust me. Everything will be all right, I promise. Now give me your hand.”
His plea for trust had the opposite effect. “Mr Devize, I insist that you take me to Gambol House at once! Have you gone mad? This is…this is abduction!” she accused.
Her lovely face and fine clothes lent credence to the assertion, Julian knew. The hackney driver was already firing up in the young lady’s defense.
“’Ere now, guv! What’s she on about? Abduction?”
“Nothing,” Julian hastily explained. “Nothing to see here! My wife is just a tiny bit nervous, that’s all. It’s our wedding night, you understand.”
He held out his hand to Viola. “Give me your hand, Mary,” he commanded.
Chapter Eight
Viola’s mouth worked helplessly. In vain she tried to think of some innocent explanation as to why he had taken her to his home, and not the dukes’s, and why he was now claiming to be her husband. There was none, of course. She had been hoodwinked again. She had never felt so foolish in her life.
“Madam, are you married?” cried Cork. “You never said a word!”
The hackney driver winked broadly at Julian. “Oh, so that’s how it is!” he said, chuckling. “Congratulations to the pair of you. She’s a fine-looking, healthy girl, if you don’t mind me saying so, guv. And you’ll find, you know, that two can live as cheaply as one.”
“I hope you’re right,” Julian said uneasily.
“Mr Devize!” Viola was so angry her voice shook. “I demand to know—!”
The driver wagged his finger at her. “Now, don’t be such a shrew,” he admonished her. “Go easy on the man. He seems like a nice young fellow.”
“He is not my husband!” said Viola.
“Not yet, missus,” chuckled the driver. “You’ve got your work cut out for you!”
“Ugh!” said Viola.
“Come, Mary,” Julian said firmly, half-climbing into the cab. “We’ve kept this fellow from his livelihood long enough. You must get out. Get out, or I shall drag you out!”
“I want to go to Gambol House,” she shrieked as he dragged her out. As she emerged, Viola bumped her head on the door, and the bichon squirmed loose. “This is not my husband! I’m not married! Please! You must believe me!”
She screamed again as Julian put her over his shoulder and picked her up. “Put me down!” she cried, pummeling him with her fists.
“Why, if you were my wife, I’d beat you!” the driver said sternly, climbing back up to his perch. “Good luck to you, guv,” he called as he drove off.
“Hudson,” Julian said as calmly as he could while he continued to support Viola’s not-inconsiderable weight. “Bring Mrs Devize’s trunk. This is Cork, her maid, and Bijou, her dog. This,” he added, swinging around so that Viola faced his manservant, “is Mrs Devize. Oh, and fetch her hatbox, please.”
Viola lifted her head. Although plainly shocked, Julian’s manservant was trying hard not to show it. “Very good, sir,” he said. “Welcome home, madam. I hope you will be happy here.”
“I am not staying here!” Viola screamed at him. “Help me!”
Julian had not anticipated that the genteel young lady would make so much noise. Quickly, he opened the door to No. 32, and started up the stairs.
“Put me down, Mr Devize,” Viola commanded him.
“It’s traditional for the groom to carry the bride across the threshold,” Julian replied, panting from the exertion. “Hudson will think it very strange if I don’t.”
He set her down on the landing. Viola straightened her clothes angrily, as, in the hall below, Hudson closed the door. “I shall make you sorry you were ever born, Mr Devize!”
“A wife’s prerogative, I believe,” he said cheerfully.
Cork came up the narrow staircase carrying Bijou, and Julian went down to help his manservant with Viola’s trunk. “He’s so handsome, madam,” Cork whispered. “His eyes are like sapphires, they are. Not that I’ve ever seen a sapphire,” she added as Viola glared at her.
“You live over a shop?” Viola called down to Julian scornfully.
“Yes,” he replied, heaving her trunk up the stairs by main strength. “And, now, so do you, my dearest love.”
“Don’t you dare call me that!”
Hudson joined the women on the landing while his master struggled with Viola’s trunk. Taking out his handkerchief, Hudson mopped his forehead. Viola could see that Mr Devize’s servant was old, past fifty, and hardly strong enough to carry a loaf of bread up the stairs, let alone her trunk.
“Hudson, will you please show Miss Cork to her room?” said Julian as Viola’s trunk landed with a thud on the landing. Viola began to sputter angrily, but Julian quieted her by holding up a finger. The gesture was so infuriating it robbed her of speech.
“Room, sir?” Hudson looked at his master with reproach. “If I had known you were getting married, Captain, I would have made arrangements, but as it is…I hardly think…!”
“I’m sorry to spring it on you like this, old man, but it was rather sudden, you see.”
“It was immensely sudden,” Viola said darkly.
“I suppose Miss Cork could take my room,” Hudson said reluctantly.
“Just so,” Julian agreed pleasantly. “Well, off you go, then. I’ll look after Mrs Devize,” he added, pushing Viola into a tiny, dark room off the landing. He closed the door.
Viola pulled away from him, bumping successively into a wooden desk, a wooden chair, and the corner of the brick fireplace. There was no fire. The room was chilly, and the only light came from the street lamp outside, shining through a tiny curtainless window above the desk. Viola had been in privy closets bigger than this room.
“I demand to know what you think you’re doing!” she raged. “How dare you tell your man that I am your wife?”
“Hudson is very old-fashioned,” Julian explained. “He’d be shocked if I brought home a young lady who is not my wife. Frankly, I didn’t know what else to tell him. I can hardly tell him that I purchased you in a brothel. He’d have an apoplexy.”
He moved away from the door.
“Don’t you dare come near me!” she cried.
“I have to come near you,” he said reasonably. “It’s a very small room.”
“I have a toasting fork!” she said, fumbling for her leather reticule. “I will use it!”
With shaking hands, she brought it out.
Julian tried not to laugh. “I have nothing to say to you, madam, that your toasting fork cannot hear,” he assured her, wrapping her up in his arms.
“What do you think you are doing?” she squeaked.
He didn’t bother to answer. Instead, he kissed her on the mouth, leaning her so far back over the desk that she was afraid of falling. Startled, Viola grasped the desk to keep her balance, and the fork clattered to the desktop as his mouth moved freely over hers. His lips felt strange and warm as he tasted her. The sensation sent a shock of awareness through her entire body.
“Brute!” she gasped in absolute disbelief.
“I have been wanting to do that since the first moment I saw you,” he murmured. “And, just so you know, it was everything I imagined it would be.”
Viola caught her breath. While she was free of his hands and mouth, he still had her more or less pinned against the desk. “And I have been wanting to do this,” she panted, leaning back to strike him across the face. “You, sir, have just made the worst mistake of your life!”
“You’re right,” he said, laughing. “I must try to do better.”
He pulled her back into his arms and kissed her again. Viola was at a loss to explain her own acquiescence. He used only the gentlest force to pull her to him, and yet she felt quite helpless to resist. The feel of his mouth on hers again startled her, and she grasped the corners of the desk with white fingers. The strange sensation of his kiss fascinated more than it pleased, but as he continued to warm her lips, she began to like it. Dimly, she was aware that he was pushing her lips apart with his tongue. He brought his hands up to her face, skimming his fingers along her skin. Nerves jumped randomly throughout her body, and she could not bear it.
“There now,” he said softly, his mouth brushing against her cheek. “Was it everything you thought it would be?”
Viola drew back from him, staring and trembling. Suddenly, she felt weak and helpless and confused; she had never felt any of those things before. It was as if she were suddenly a stranger to herself. It frightened her.
He stared back at her with his unfairly blue eyes. “Damn me,” he said, his voice shaking. “I didn’t think your eyes could get any bigger.”
“You, sir, are not a gentleman,” she complained, mortified by her own response.
“You were hysterical,” he protested. “You needed a shock to return you to your senses.”
“I am not hysterical,” she argued. “I am justifiably perturbed.”
“You do seem calmer now,” he said smugly. “Were you never kissed before, Mary?”
“Certainly not!” she said, shivering.
With his finger he traced the line of her jaw. It was mortifying how, even now, she wanted to rest her cheek against his hand. She just managed to turn her face away. “Are there no red-blooded men in Yorkshire?” he chuckled.
“I don’t know,” she retorted. “I never had to stab a Yorkshireman.”
“You’d never get away with it in Sussex, I can tell you that.”
“Get away with what?” she asked crossly, slapping his hand away.
“Being so bloody beautiful.”
Lips that no longer felt like her own parted in anticipation of a third kiss, and that strange feeling of passionate attachment, quite out of keeping with who he was and who she was, overwhelmed her senses again.
But he did not claim her lips a third time.
Instead, he picked up her toasting fork and restored it to her. “It’s a very good thing you had your fork with you,” he said cheekily. “Poor thing looks hungry. I’ll try to find it a little bread and cheese before I leave.”
“Leave!” cried Viola, forgetting everything else. “Where are you going?”
Julian calmly struck a match and lit the candle on the desk. The desk was shoved under the tiny window, leaving just room enough for a chair, a small bookshelf, and a few boxes. The desk itself was covered with ledgers and newspapers. Putting her in the chair, Julian sat on the corner of the desk.
“I won’t be gone long,” he assured her. “I want to talk to you before I go. I want to explain. Will you let me do that? Will you listen?”
Viola pressed her lips together, ashamed that she had sounded so forlorn at the prospect of his leaving her and determined to show him that she was made of sterner stuff.
“That,” he began, “was quite a tantrum you threw out there on the street.”
Viola stuck out her chin. “I’m so sorry I embarrassed you, Mr Devize! But, really, what did you expect me to do? Let you kidnap me?”
“I thought perhaps you might give me the benefit of the doubt,” he said, shrugging. “I’ve earned that much, I think. You might trust me a little, after all I’ve done for you. You might allow me to explain before you begin hurling accusations at me.”
“You should have explained quicker,” she said remorselessly.
“I will explain now. I wasn’t bidding on the duke’s behalf.”
“I beg your pardon?” said Viola.
“I only said that to be assured of a place at the auction. I was bidding for you on my own behalf, Mary. I can’t take you to Gambol House, because the duke doesn’t know anything about it. I brought you here because I have nowhere else to take you. I’ve no money for a hotel.”
Viola stared at him. “I d-don’t understand,” she stammered. “What do you mean?”
“Which part don’t you understand?” he asked her gently.
His gentle tone was beginning to rankle. He seemed to think she was some overwrought child that needed soothing. “I understand that you are a liar!” she said. “Of course you were bidding on the duke’s behalf! Where would you get seventeen thousand pounds, after all?”
“Guineas,” he corrected her. “I…I borrowed the money from the duke.”
“You borrowed it?” she repeated, frowning. “How? You said the duke isn’t even in London. Perhaps you’ve told so many lies, Mr Pope, that you cannot keep them all in order!”
“I borrowed it,” he repeated, “without his knowledge or consent. Very well! I stole it!” he confessed, bringing up his hands and letting them fall onto his knees. “I’ve stolen seventeen thousand guineas from the Duke of Fanshawe.”
He laughed weakly.
Viola was still incredulous. “Impossible! How? The duke keeps his money in his bank, does he not? Do you mean to tell me you robbed the Bank of England?”
“I have power of attorney,” he explained. “I can draw from his grace’s accounts—with the understanding that I will act for his benefit, of course, and not my own.”
“And do you often steal from the duke?” she asked politely.
“No, of course not. But what’s the good of having access to an enormous fortune if one doesn’t occasionally use it to re
scue beautiful girls?” He smiled crookedly.
“I don’t believe you,” she snapped. “Why, if this were true, you could hang for it!”
“I know perfectly well I could hang!” he snapped back. “I don’t need you to tell me that I could hang. Believe me, that little possibility has been large in my mind all day.”
“But why would a sensible man like yourself risk his neck for a total stranger?”
“Obviously, I couldn’t let you be sold.”
“But I have been sold,” she pointed out. “I have been sold to you, Mr Devize.”
“You look a tiny bit hyster—perturbed. Would you like another kiss?” he offered.
Viola snapped open her toasting fork. “May I ask what you intend to do with me?” she said coldly. “Has that little possibility been large in your mind all day? It seems to me, I’ve gone from the frying pan into the fire!”
“No,” he protested. “It isn’t like that at all.”
“Isn’t it? Tell me, Mr Devize. How exactly am I better off with you than I would have been with, say, Lord Simon? It seems to me that with him, I would be in a much nicer room with a fire and servants and, possibly, a cup of chocolate. But that is the only difference!”
“You would be his mistress,” said Julian. “That is the difference.”
Viola jumped to her feet, bumping into his knee. “I would never consent to any such thing,” she said hotly. “Such an arrangement would be disgusting to me.”
“I doubt he’d think it necessary to obtain your consent,” Julian answered plainly. “When a man pays for a woman, Miss Andrews, he doesn’t tend to take no for an answer!”
“Indeed? Is this the voice of experience, Mr Devize?” she said, glaring at him. “What shall I call you now that you have bought me? Master?”
“Julian will suffice.”
Viola held her toasting fork to his nose. “You will take me to Gambol House at once, Mr Devize. If, as you claim, the duke is not at home, his servants will look after me.”
The Heiress In His Bed Page 12