by Gaelen Foley
Meanwhile, Aunt Augusta was still on about her idolized papa. “Made himself from nothing, he did, to die a very wealthy man.”
“And left it all to you, lucky lass.”
“And I am to leave it to you, in turn, knowing you are going to squander everything that great man worked for.”
“Nonsense. I shall marry an heiress and squander her dowry. Your father’s fortune I shall not touch.”
“Oh? And when will you do this thing?”
“Eventually,” he mumbled with a noncommittal shrug.
“You are a pretty liar, aren’t you?” Aunt Augusta regarded him shrewdly. “Why don’t you stay for a while? You need rest, darling. I can see it in your eyes.”
“That is what I love about you, old girl. You go straight at a thing, no beating about the bush for you,” he muttered, and took another drink.
“Devlin, I am losing patience. Practice your flatteries and evasions on your London coquettes. They shall never work on your old dragon aunt.”
“Who has been calling you a dragon? I shall issue a challenge at once to anyone who dares suggest such a thing.” He played with the candle in front of him, catching a bead of wax on the flat of his butter knife.
“Oh, I fear this is all my fault,” she said in a tone of quiet distress.
He glanced over, frowning. “What is?”
“You. I know why you’re like this. It is all my doing.” She laid her hand atop his, her lined face softening. “Darling, you cannot escape your pain over the past in mindless pleasure. I should have done better with you. My methods were all wrong. I had no children of my own. I hadn’t the foggiest idea what to do or say to you after the accident.”
His eyes flared with malice at that word—accident—but he said nothing. That was, after all, what the official report had stated.
“I was quite terrified, in truth. I tried to think of what Papa would have told you in my place, but of course he was very strict and practical and hardheaded. It seemed logical enough that school was the best place for you—that your life ought to go on in as close to a state of normalcy as possible. Do you remember what I told you?”
He lowered his gaze. “I truly don’t see the point in revisiting all this—”
“‘Chin up, lad. Keep a stiff upper lip,’ I said. ‘Life must go on. Get good marks in school. That would have made them proud.’ Good marks in school! As if that mattered when your whole world had fallen apart. What a fool I was,” she whispered mournfully. “How could any lad concentrate on Greek or calculus when his life had been shattered? I understand now that my thoughtless advice only made you hate yourself more—”
“Stop!” he cried abruptly, an anguished note in his voice which he quickly routed. His heart pounded. “Please, ma’am. All that is ancient history.”
“Is it? If I had been capable then of simply holding you and letting you mend in your own time, I feel sure you would have settled down long ago, taken a wife—”
“God, please, not that again.”
“And seen to the duties of your rank,” she insisted. “Unfortunately, loving-kindness was never my forte. It was not how I was raised, you understand.”
“Aunt Augusta, whatever you are blaming yourself for, do stop,” he said impatiently, withdrawing slightly in his chair. “Really, you gave me the best advice you could at the time, and I am grateful—”
“No, Devlin, it has to be said. I was as hard-nosed as my father, incapable of giving what you really needed. Just simple…love.”
He nearly threw down his napkin and bolted from the room at the mention of the hated term, but since it was Aunt Augusta, he forced himself to remain stiffly seated. “First of all, there is nothing simple about love.” He fairly snarled the word. “It’s the most bloody complicated, painful thing there is, and I want none of it. Second, you have always loved me, and I have bloody well always known it. Now, stop talking nonsense, and for God’s sake, send Miss Carlisle back to London, if she is to blame for this change in you. I want my scaly old fire-breather back. The chit is softening you up to a degree that is downright alarming.”
“I’m old, boy,” she said with a weary smile. “It takes too much strength to breathe fire. The best I can manage these days is a lukewarm snort.” She paused, then shook her head, suddenly turning peevish. “I am tired, Devlin. Go and fetch Lizzie for me. I wish to retire.”
“Yes, ma’am.” Now that she mentioned it, his aunt did look terribly drained. He got up, grateful, in any case, for the reprieve.
“By the way,” she added as he started to walk away, “Miss Carlisle didn’t happen to write to you, did she?”
He froze, then turned slowly, unsure how to answer. He did not wish to lie to his aunt, but he certainly did not want to get the girl into trouble. “No, ma’am,” he said cautiously. “Why ever would she write to me?”
“Hmm, never mind,” the old woman answered with a crafty glint in her eyes. “I noticed you mentioned your parents to her at dinner. You realize you have not spoken of them in years?”
Dev did not answer.
She gazed at him for a long moment, then quickly waved him off. “Run along, then. Off you go.”
Dev frowned with uncertainty, hoping she had not seen through his well-intentioned lie, but as he turned to go, something made him hesitate. “I say, is the girl really interested in the good doctor?”
Aunt Augusta chuckled. “Not in the slightest.”
“Ah.” Dev nodded, absorbing this, then sketched a bow to his aunt and went to do her bidding. When he came across Mrs. Rowland near the kitchens and inquired after his aunt’s companion, the housekeeper pointed him in the direction of the laundry. “Shall I fetch her for you, Master Dev?”
“It’s all right, Mrs. Rowland. I don’t mind. By the way, the floating island was—” He kissed his fingertips and said with gusto. “—magnifique!”
She beamed at him and then bustled on cheerfully about her business. In a more lighthearted mood at the prospect of encountering Miss Carlisle again, Dev continued to the laundry room, which connected through the large, busy kitchens. Approaching the dim space, he heard low-toned voices from within; when he stepped up to the threshold of the dim, flagstone-floored workroom, he observed the fair creature deeply engrossed in conversation with Ben over the large laundry sink.
The nerve of this girl, he thought in idle amusement. Having procured his forgiveness for her ruse, she did not quit while she was ahead. Oh, no. Now it seemed the intrepid E. Carlisle was busy cultivating his valet for information about Dev’s past. The fact that she was here, though, asking questions about him, frankly interested, was flattering enough in itself to make his pulse quicken.
Dev folded his arms across his chest with a sardonic smile and leaned in the shadowed doorway, eavesdropping, unnoticed. Clad once more in the drab muslin dress—though the silly house cap was mercifully absent—the girl had rested her elbows on the edge of the tub. With her lovely face propped in her hands, she listened in rapt attention as Ben regaled her with tales of their adventures while treating the injured satin of her gown. Dev was taken aback, however, when Ben mentioned his years of bondage in America, for it was not a tale the man often shared. The expert valet preferred to be known for the excellence of his cravats, not for the color of his skin. Dev supposed Ben sensed, as he did, the air of trustworthiness the girl radiated and thus found it possible to open up to her.
“Mama was the midwife on the plantation,” Ben was saying, “and since that’s a position of respect, I was set from an early age to attend the master’s son as valet. I was treated fairly well, but then, I never was one to make trouble. The mistress even trusted me enough to let me learn how to read and write. Most black folks are kept in ignorance, you see. Most of the time, you have to hide what you know.”
She shook her head sympathetically. “For what it’s worth, girls are advised to do the same.”
“I know that’s true,” he agreed, his long-buried Southern accent emerging
slightly as he spoke about the past. “Mama was the one who taught me the use of the medicinal herbs for healin’ and treatin’ wounds—and it’s a good thing she did, too, the way His Lordship’s always gettin’ into scrapes.”
Dev raised an eyebrow as they shared a fond chuckle on this point, but then Ben’s tone turned ominous.
“That summer, lightnin’ set the crops on fire, and the plantation burned. Master was ruined, said he had to sell us all. Those were bad days, Miss Lizzie. Bad days.” He shook his head. Even now, years later, the pain and anger of his ordeal were evident in his kind, scholarly face. “Families were broken up, all of us to be uprooted, and the final humiliation—we were delivered to the slave mart in Charleston to be put on the auction block in the mornin’.”
“How horrible,” she said softly.
“That night, we shared a cell with some poor, wild souls who had just been brought over from Africa. You see, there was a deadline in 1806. After that, no more slaves could be brought into the country. Well, you can bet that terrible business was boomin’ right up to the end. Those poor tribesmen—men, women, children, too—they were terrified, just off the ship. Some of them were hurt, sick. Mama and I helped the ones we could, but we couldn’t understand a word they said, nor they us.”
“They were to be sold in the morning, too?”
He nodded. “But it didn’t work out like that. No, ma’am.” Ben sent her a charming smile. “What we didn’t know was that Lord Strathmore was sailin’ into the Charleston harbor aboard the Katie Rose. You see, he’d been following that slaver all the way up from the West Indies. Just a young captain, barely twenty-two, but ain’t nothin’ scares him, especially when he’s worked up in a temper over somethin’. Fact is, he had seen a terrible thing while crossin’ the Caribbean.”
“What was it?” she murmured, visibly engrossed in the tale.
Ben hesitated, uncertain, Dev guessed, about how much to say to a young lady, and then lowered his voice. “When that slaver passed off the bow of the Katie Rose, he saw them throw a man overboard—still alive. Shackled in chains. Probably caught a fever and the crew didn’t want it to spread. Master Dev and his men tried to reach the poor fellow to save him, but they were too late. It affected him somethin’ fierce.” Ben paused, musing. “That’s when he made up his mind to follow that slave ship and find a way to rescue those poor wild Africans.”
“Ohh,” she murmured in a dreamy tone, her eyes wide.
“That night,” Ben continued, “in the wee hours, he took his twelve-man crew and stormed the slave mart in Charleston, breakin’ the lot of us out of there—forty in all! We didn’t know what was happenin’ at first. We thought they were pirates.”
“With the earring, I can understand your error,” she agreed earnestly.
Dev smirked.
“He and his sailors rushed us into the jolly boats, then rowed us out to the ship, but, lo and behold, he sailed us way on up north to New York, where no bounty hunters could ever find us. Instead of stealin’ us and sellin’ us off for his own profit, as Mama and I both expected, he took us by canal to Philadelphia, where we were taken in by the free black community there. You see, the slave laws in Pennsylvania are a good deal less cruel than the rest, on account of the Quakers in the state congress. Lord Strathmore gave us money to start a new life. He made us free.”
“What a beautiful gesture,” she whispered. “It’s more than that—heroic.”
“Yes, ma’am, it was.” Ben nodded solemnly, but Lizzie’s admiring words had sent a frisson of pleasure through Dev’s veins—and embarrassed him a little, truth be told. He was sure any feeling man would have done the same. Besides, after his family had been broken up by the cruelty of fate, helping Ben keep his mother, brothers, and sisters together had been reward enough in itself.
“He saved our lives,” Ben continued. “Not just mine, but my whole family, as well. That’s why Mama said, ‘Bennett, my boy, that plantation was always too small a place for you. You done gave yourself the name Freeman, so go on, be free. Go with that crazy Englishman and see the world.’ So, I went.”
She smiled at him.
“Clear on through the wide state of Pennsylvania, to the high forests where it’s still wild,” Ben went on, his tone brightening. “Into the mountains of the Iroquois tribes, who rule the northern lakes, and south to the realm of the Cherokees. Why, once, goin’ over the Appalachians, Master Dev even fought a mountain lion! It was stalkin’ us for days before it sprang. You should have seen that battle—”
“But the savages, Mr. Freeman?” she asked in amazement. “Did you actually get to see these primitive peoples?”
“See any?” Ben exclaimed. “Why, we wintered with the Cherokees when we came to the Cumberland Pass and found it snowed over. We would have frozen to death, but they saved our lives, taught us their customs. They’re kind folk, hardly savages at all once you get to know ’em—unless, of course, you join them on a raiding party—but I should think young ladies don’t want to hear about that.”
“Oh, Mr. Freeman, did you go on an Indian raid?” she whispered, wide eyed.
“Not me, ma’am, certainly! But one time His Lordship went—”
“Ahem,” Dev interrupted before his servant related anything too incriminating.
“Well, uh, ahem, good evenin’, sir,” Ben coughed, turning sheepish. “I was just, er, helpin’ Miss Lizzie get the wine marks out of this fine gown. That cat is quite a devil, I hear.”
“Indeed,” he said dryly. “Miss Carlisle?”
“Yes, my lord?” She tucked her chin in demure mortification, knowing she was caught at her prying, but when she peeked bashfully at him from beneath her lashes, Dev noticed at once that she looked at him differently. A newfound respect glimmered in the morning-gray depths of her eyes.
He was pleased.
He clasped his hands politely behind his back. “My aunt requests your presence, Miss Carlisle. She wishes to retire.”
“Oh—yes, of course.” She lowered her gaze, then sent Ben a nervous glance. “Thank you very much for your help, Mr. Freeman. If you have everything you need, then?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Ben said quickly, giving her a polite bow.
“Very well. Good evening, Mr. Freeman.” As she hurried past him on her way out, Dev cocked his eyebrow dubiously at his servant.
Ben shrugged. “Well, it’s all true, ain’t it? You’re welcome,” he called after him with a mirthful grin as Dev pivoted and followed his quarry.
CHAPTER
FIVE
Her skirts swishing in her haste to flee him, Lizzie whisked through the adjoining kitchens, red-faced at having been caught snooping into Devil Strathmore’s past with an all-too-avid interest. Coming out the other side, she sped down the corridor while his footfalls echoed a few paces behind hers.
“Oh, Miss Carlisle…”
She ignored his beguiling call with its hint of amusement in the vain hope that if she pretended not to hear him, maybe he would go away. Ugh, she felt like such a cake! If only she had heard him come into the laundry room! But the man moved with the stealth of a hunter—a fact he proved yet again by suddenly capturing her wrist, stopping her forward momentum.
“Elizabeth, wait.”
She turned to him reluctantly, fighting the feverish thrill that traveled all the way up her arm from his light grasp.
“Don’t be embarrassed, chérie,” he murmured so gently that she quivered.
Her cheeks turned redder at his silken endearment and at the way his crystalline blue-green eyes glowed with pleasure at his discovery of her interest.
She looked away, struggling to lay hold of any remaining shred of her dignity. “Er, Lord Strathmore—”
“Devlin,” he corrected in a tone like a caress. He made no move to release her hand.
She cleared her throat a bit. “Please do not be angry at Mr. Freeman for telling me about your travels, my lord. It was my fault. I was curious. Y-you’ve had an exciting life.
Unlike mine.”
“Well, you needn’t go to Ben if there’s aught you want to know,” he offered in an intimate tone. “I’d be happy to answer all of your questions…personally. Why don’t you meet me in the library after you attend my aunt, and I’ll tell you all about it?”
She looked up quickly, wide-eyed.
He smiled. “We’ll open a bottle of champagne. Say, ten o’clock?”
Her heart quaked. “I don’t know….”
“Yes, you do,” he whispered.
She stared at him, tongue-tied and taken off guard. Lord, he was bold! Lady Strathmore had been right—there was probably nothing he would not dare. The fact was a trifle worrisome now that his single-minded gaze was fixed on her, full of amorous intent. Utterly confounded, she just yanked her hand from his velvety hold and sped away again on legs that shook beneath her. Good gracious, she was out of her depth!
He was right behind her, striding fast. “I didn’t catch your answer, sweet.”
“No! No, no, no.”
“Why not?” he asked in amusement, no doubt thinking her a typical nervous virgin. “My aunt told me of your interest in languages. I could teach you some words in Arabic or Algonquian—a few useful curses, at least.”