Devil Takes A Bride

by Gaelen Foley

  At the mention of her family, his words finally seemed to sink in.

  “They said you’re from Hertfordshire. Is this true?”

  She gave him a wary nod.

  “What is the name of your village?”

  “S-Stevenage.”

  “Excellent. With any luck, we’ll get you home to Stevenage before the rooster crows. But you are going to have to help me.”

  “H-How?”

  He pursed his mouth and glanced around at the chamber, racking his brains. His gaze homed in on the empty wineglass one of the whores had left in the room, judging by the imprint of rouged lips on the rim. “Groan,” he said abruptly. “And shake the bed.”

  “What?”

  “You heard me.” Wrapping the wineglass in his discarded velvet jacket to muffle the sound, he stepped on it, feeling it crush beneath his foot. This done, he bent down and unfolded the swaddling of his coat, then picked up a large glass shard, studying it for a second. He lifted his shirt off over his head, ignoring the girl’s alarmed gasp.

  “Lord Strathmore, what are you—?” Her words broke off.

  Dev grimaced against the sting as he used the shard of broken glass like a dagger, cutting a small gash in his left side. “They want blood, Susannah,” he said through gritted teeth. “I have no intention of giving them yours.”

  He only hoped the blackguards believed the ruse, for if they guessed the truth, Dev had a fair idea that Suzy and he might both find themselves buried at the bottom of the swamp.

  CHAPTER

  NINE

  Waiting for Strathmore to complete his initiation, Carstairs paid little mind as Johnny leaned his hip on the wide, scrolled arm of the couch and lounged beside him, stroking his hair and filling his ear with coaxing whispers about what they could do together in the Ancient Rome chamber. He no longer bothered to hide his boredom with his possessive young lover, though God knew he had groomed Johnny from a tender age for the express purpose of giving him pleasure. At the moment, he was more interested in waiting for Strathmore to emerge with the girl. They had gone in nearly an hour ago, and now he could hear them as their voices and the banging crescendoed.

  “Yes, yes!”

  “That’s right, Suzy. Take it all.”

  “Oh, Lord Strathmore, please!”

  “I say, are you sure the wench was a virgin?” Big Tom asked through a mouthful of food, with much more piled on his plate.

  Alastor nodded sagely. “Mother Iniquity guaranteed it.”

  “Never heard a virgin sound like that before,” the Holy Rotter remarked. “Mine never do, anyway.”

  “You’re not Devil Strathmore,” Quint interjected from behind the tangled limbs of the wood nymph on his lap.

  They laughed.

  “By Jove, I guess his reputation with the ladies must be true!” young Dudley declared with a vacant grin from ear to ear.

  “You rush them, Oakes. That’s your problem,” Quint instructed. “Take your time, and they’ll let you do whatever you please.”

  “Since when are you the expert?” Oakes retorted, but Carstairs remained silent, ignoring their banter with all his attention focused on that closed door. He was unbearably aroused.

  His errant imagination easily conjured up images of the seduction taking place within, images that excited him infinitely more than did Johnny’s subtle but insistent, all-too-familiar touch. His mind wandered back to the night years ago that he had almost seduced young Strathmore himself, though he was sure the man had no memory of it.

  A decade ago, Carstairs had done his best to leave the horror of the fire behind, but a year and a half after it had happened, young Strathmore had showed up in Society—nineteen, gorgeous, and utterly lost. His heartbreaking beauty would have been enough to catch the earl’s discerning eye, but knowing the terrible pain driving the youth’s wild dissipation—knowing that he in part had caused it—had captured Carstairs’s undivided attention.

  He had felt an immediate bond between himself and young Strathmore, though they had never met. From a cautious distance, he had watched the young rake’s every move in guilty fascination, longing to soothe the hurt he’d caused. But having so much to hide, Carstairs had dared not approach him.

  Then one night, after a mutual friend’s bachelor party, he had found young Dev alone, passed out drunk on the cool tile floor of their host’s conservatory, lying like the lovely Narcissus next to a trickling indoor fountain.

  After the drunken revelries of that night, the youth had removed his cravat and unbuttoned his shirt, and had splashed water all over his face and smooth, muscled chest in a halfhearted attempt to sober up. Carstairs saw him and could have wept at the havoc he had wreaked on the beautiful boy, so vulnerable, so alone. He remembered how he had sat down on the stone brim of the fountain, the lad sleeping at his feet.

  “Devlin,” he had said softly. “Do you want me to take you home?”

  His amazing blue-green eyes had opened to slits. His voice had been slurred. “No, thanks, I’ll sleep ’ere.”

  Carstairs had smiled faintly, longing to touch him. “Do you know who I am?”

  “Should I? No. Sorry. I’m so fuckin’ drunk.”

  “I know. It’s all right. I’m Lord Carstairs,” he had told him in a soothing tone. “You probably won’t remember this tomorrow, but I want you to know that if you ever need…help, you can come to me.”

  “What?” he had mumbled, then had turned over on the hard tiles and had gone back to sleep.

  Carstairs had stayed there for nearly a quarter hour, staring at him, fighting the trembling impulse to reach down and caress that silky-smooth chest. Instead, he had restrained himself to merely grazing the backs of his fingers against the lad’s tousle of thick, black hair, for he could not resist.

  Then, in an agony of lust, he had stood up and walked away. He had always been a little too fond of taking risks, but back then, he had been so scared of Society learning of his proclivities and banishing him that he had hidden his true nature. Indeed, he had been scared enough to bring down hell on earth to hide it.

  Eventually, as the years passed, he had realized everyone had sensed it anyway and didn’t care. As it turned out, his title and his wealth had been enough all along to protect him from those fearsome ancient laws that ordered death for men like him. Jaded as he was, not even Carstairs could stomach the irony of it. After the hellish thing he had done, it seemed to him that now his only hope for redemption was Dev. The boy he had wronged so bitterly alone had the power to free him. Now Strathmore was back, and Carstairs hungered for him.

  Nor did his desire seem beyond the realm of possibility. Dev’s suave smiles seemed to suggest he enjoyed Carstairs’s subtle flirtations. His hand trembled slightly as Carstairs lifted his drink to his lips. Johnny muttered some sulky barb all of a sudden and gave up trying to gain his attention. His pretty boy went prowling off in a huff, shooting him a dirty look from across the room as he went and hung on a few of the costumed wood nymphs in a pitiful attempt to make Carstairs jealous.

  Handsome as his strapping Johnny was, the harlots were dazzled, but Carstairs merely smirked. At least now the lad had sought his own kind. In disgusted amusement, Carstairs watched his young lover making a fool of himself, when Staines stalked over to him, looking as tense and cagey as ever.

  By God, the infamous duelist was a cocked pistol that could go off at any time, he thought wearily, but over the years, Carstairs had learned how to manage him. Indeed, he had learned how to manage them all.

  “Good evening, Staines,” he drawled, but Staines did not even notice Carstairs’s debonair smile. The man glanced back and forth in paranoia. “What’s the matter, Torq?”

  “I don’t like it,” he growled.

  “Like what?”

  “This place,” he snarled. “It don’t smell right.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “It’s a trap. I can feel it.”

  “Oh, Staines, don’t start that agai
n. We’ve already discussed it—”

  “You’re blind, you and Quint both! Strathmore knows, I tell you! He’s toying with us. Let me get rid of him before he starts anything. I can do it easily—”

  “He doesn’t know anything,” Carstairs soothed.

  “Yes, he does, Carstairs, and I can prove it. Come on, there’s something you need to see. Quint, too.”

  “What is it?” Carstairs asked dubiously, loath to walk away with Staines for fear of missing the delicious moment when Dev came out of the room after forcing himself on the girl.

  He yearned to see the look on Dev’s face—and on the lass’s. Himself, he could only wonder what it would be like to be ravished by Devil Strathmore.

  “There’s a picture in the ballroom of Ginny Highgate,” Staines informed him in a low tone.

  This took Carstairs entirely off guard.

  He turned to Staines in surprise, then smoothly masked his astonishment. Someone around here had to keep a cool head, after all. “Really?” he asked in a bored tone.

  “Come and see it. I’ll get Quint. He’ll want to see this, too.”

  “No. Trust me—it will only set him off.” Carstairs knew that, obviously, Ginny Highgate had been on Quint’s mind since they had walked into this place.

  Years ago, most of male London had flocked here to see her, and poor, thick-headed Quint, as far as Carstairs knew, had never missed a show. Fortunately, the baron had been able to distract himself from the memories tonight in the same way he always did—with women and drink.

  Across the gaudy red salon, Quint sat with a lithe young wood nymph straddling his lap, her arms twined around him. Naturally, she was a redhead. Quint and his goddamned redheads.

  Carstairs sighed and shook his head. “Leave the poor clod alone for now,” he murmured.

  Staines gave him a wary nod; then they went to see the portrait.

  Irish bitch, Carstairs thought as he stared at Ginny Highgate’s smug smile in the small painting a few minutes later. But he refused to be convinced that beautiful Dev was leading them into treachery. “This means nothing,” he declared, rising again.

  Staines scoffed. “Don’t you find it a bit coincidental?”

  “There are pictures here of all the women who used to star in the shows. So what?”

  “So what?” Staines hissed, his intense black eyes flashing. “You’re blind! He’s taunting us! Can’t you see that?”

  “Strathmore doesn’t even know who Ginny Highgate is, trust me.”

  “Why are you protecting him?” Staines demanded. “Oh, but of course I know why, you bloody goddamn sod. You’re infatuated.”

  “How’s your daughter?” Carstairs countered softly, staring at him in icy calm.

  Staines’s eyes flickered dangerously at the question.

  “Oh, sorry, I mean your niece,” he corrected himself. “I forgot she doesn’t know who her real papa is. People who live in glass houses, dear Staines. Tsk, tsk. How is your child’s sweet mother doing, by the way? Your mistress…your pretty sister?”

  “You leave them out of this,” Staines warned him in a vehement whisper.

  “Then you do as you’re told,” Carstairs snarled back at him, his tone turning ruthless. “Nobody touches Strathmore unless and until I say.”

  “Something wrong, boys?”

  They looked over as Quint swaggered toward them. He looked quite drunk, and for a moment, Carstairs worried. Now that he was growing older, Quint had two modes when in his cups: sloppy sentimentality or rage.

  Carstairs preferred sentimentality.

  With his size and pugnacity, Quint was transformed by wrath into a raging bull that trampled everything in his path—just as he had trampled Ginny Highgate. Carstairs had never really meant for it to happen. After Ginny had walked in on him with the boy all those years ago, Carstairs had put the lie in Quint’s ear merely to make sure the great brute kept his mistress in line. It was not such an outlandish lie, after all; it might have happened easily enough. Ginny was, after all, just a glorified whore, and Carstairs had far more money, better looks, more brains, and a higher rank than Quint.

  He had not foreseen the baron’s overreaction to his fiction; but it was certainly not he who had told Quint to beat the poor woman and rape her. To wit, he’d had no reason to suspect that Ginny would run, taking Johnny with her. How close they’d all come to disaster. Not wishing to stir Quint’s hot temper with the past, he tried to move discreetly in front of the redhead’s portrait on the wall, but was too late.

  “What the devil?” Quint murmured, his hazel eyes narrowing. Slowly, he bent down and stared at it. With a look of pain, he ran his fingertips alongside the small painting of his dead love.

  “See, Quinty?” Staines urged him. “Carstairs refuses to believe it, but here’s proof that I was right all along. Strathmore is setting us up. He knows.”

  The baron did not seem to hear, but Staines shot Carstairs a gloating look, for the bruiser Quint had never shrunk from a fight in all his days.

  Carstairs saw that if Quint agreed with Staines, it would not be easy for him to block them. Of course, he was smarter than both of them put together and had managed to control them for twelve years as a result, but he never allowed himself to grow complacent. He had gotten roughed up by bigger lads too many times as a boy not to realize that brains, alas, did not always trump brawn.

  “Come on, Quint, what do you think?” Staines prodded him.

  Quint glanced up uncertainly, his questioning gaze a million miles away. “Huh?”

  “He’s on to us, I tell you! He brought us here deliberately to toy with our heads!”

  Quint frowned and slowly straightened up to his full height, but Staines was not finished.

  “Tell Carstairs we need to solve this problem now, before it starts.”

  “No,” Quint said softly, shaking his head. “I won’t do it. I like Strathmore.”

  Staines’s jaw dropped. “Not you, too, Quint!”

  “He’s a good sort. Leave him alone, Torq. He doesn’t know anything. How could he? He was only a boy at the time.”

  Carstairs folded his arms across his chest and smirked at Staines, who threw up his hands.

  “We took a blood oath!” Staines thundered. “We created this club, got others to hide behind—now you’re acting blind! Strathmore’s not a boy any longer.”

  “I said drop it, Torquil,” Quint repeated.

  “I will not! This is absurd! I can’t believe you two! Carstairs wants to bend over for him, and you’re trying to relive your youth through the man! Am I the only one who can see this bastard’s got the whole club in his crosshairs? I am not going to the gibbet for you two sons of a bitch. I didn’t do it.”

  “You helped,” Carstairs coolly reminded him.

  Staines turned to the baron. “Quint—”

  Without warning, Quint slammed Staines against the wall with all its myriad smiling portraits and jammed his thick, hairy forearm across the man’s throat. “I said drop it,” he ordered. “Understand? It’s in the past, Torq. As far as I’m concerned, it never happened.”

  “You haven’t got the stomach for it! Both of you have gone soft!”

  “Don’t push me, Staines,” Quint growled.

  “Boys, boys.” Carstairs leaned against the wall beside the spot where Quint dangled Staines up on his toes. He looked from one to the other with another suave smile. It was ever so pleasant having a tame giant of one’s own. “I propose that we agree to leave Strathmore alone for another month or two, continue to watch him, just as we have been doing, then reconsider at that time as to whether or not we have cause to suspect him. If he makes one wrong move, why, then, Torquil, you may have him. Until then, let him be presumed innocent until proven guilty. I daresay he’s suffered enough. Agreed?”

  “Agreed,” Quint murmured, nodding.

  “Innocent? By the time he’s proved guilty, we could be on the gallows!” Staines choked out.

  Quint smashed
his arm harder against the man’s throat.

  “I’m not worried,” Carstairs said.

  “Neither am I,” Quint agreed.

  “Fine,” Staines growled at last.

  Quint released him. As Staines stalked away from them with a surly look, Quint loosened up his big prizefighter’s shoulders with a restless shrug.

  “Well done,” Carstairs said, giving the brute a friendly slap on his bulging arm.

  Quint immediately pulled away, bristling. “Don’t touch me.” He shot Carstairs a look of wary contempt, then strutted back to his latest redheaded whore.

  Carstairs absorbed the unearned insult in silent chagrin.

  How droll it was to think that he could once have wanted an ogre like Quint, years ago, when he had first seen him—a towering, tanned, young barbarian with a body of steel. That was ages ago, when he had been less discriminating in his tastes, well before Quint had developed that saggy paunch around his middle, too. When the baron had first come to London from the wilds of Yorkshire, Carstairs had helped him acquire a bit of polish—Town Bronze—lust, his ulterior motive. But he had never actually attempted to entice the man, realizing all it would get him was a fist in his face, and it would have been a great shame to mar the perfection of Carstairs’s handsome nose.

  He would have been perfectly happy if he never laid eyes on Quint again, or on Staines, for that matter, but they were bound together by their blood oath of secrecy, tied to each other in guilt and hatred and pain. How Carstairs longed for a new start.

  As he ambled back toward the flamboyant tented salon, hands in his impeccable trouser pockets, he heard rude cheering down the hallway and glanced over just as Devil Strathmore emerged from the private chamber with his blushing virgin.

  Carstairs smiled. Ex-virgin.

  Then he shuddered a little, staring at the conquering hero. Strathmore was flushed and sweaty, his shirt hanging open down his muscled chest. His black hair was tousled; holding up his black trousers with one hand, he asked in a scratchy voice if anyone had a cheroot.

  The lads laughed at his satyric smile.

  Someone handed him a lit cigar and he took a puff, sighing smoke from it as though it was the best thing he had ever tasted in his life. He slung his other arm around the young girl’s shoulders and blew the smoke over her head.