Devil Takes A Bride

by Gaelen Foley

  She shuddered with desire, but shook her head stubbornly, refusing him with all her strength.

  “Yes,” he breathed. “You can’t fight it. You want it. I want it…and you should know by now that I always get what I want. Don’t I?” He bent his head and kissed the crook of her neck, resuming in a low, wicked whisper. “Do you know what I want right now, Miss Carlisle?”

  She was trembling with passion now, and trying very hard to hide the fact, willing herself to hold perfectly still.

  “I want to make you come,” he whispered slowly.

  She moaned through the gag as he cupped her breasts.

  Her skin was fevered, her head reeling as though she had drunk too much wine. She was overwhelmed by the sweet torment of her yearning, ashamed to the core for her wanton response, but glad, ever so glad of the bindings that made her his prisoner, and the length of silk that stopped her from demanding what she did not really want—for him to stop.

  “You are going to be my wife, sweet. It’s right that you should accustom yourself to my touch. Yes, that’s good,” he whispered hoarsely, watching her beginning to take pleasure in his caresses, for she could no longer fight it.

  She tilted her head back, clay in his hands as he raked his fingers through her hair.

  “My God, you are the rarest pearl, all pure and white…with skin like virgin snow.” His shaky whisper trailed off. He slipped the silk gag down from her mouth, moving smoothly to the front of her, but his hand trembled as he grasped her face, and she did not fight him at all when he took her mouth.

  He kissed her with drugging depth and held her ardently, running his hand up the curve of her spine, as if he could not gather her close enough to satisfy him. She was not satisfied either, pulling against her restraints with her need to wrap her arms around him.

  “Free my hands,” she whispered, panting, when he let her come up for air.

  “Why? So you can fight me?” he taunted.

  “So I can touch you.”

  “No,” he breathed, and gave her a darkly sensual smile. He bent his head by degrees, deliberately teasing her. He pulled off his shirt and ran a grazing touch down his chest, inviting her to look at him. Dying to get her hands on him, she pulled against the leather strap, which succeeded only in tightening the knot.

  He laughed at her panting frustration, then relented at last, kissing her again with tantalizing slowness.

  She whimpered for more when he stopped; as he slipped behind her again, she glanced hungrily at his body and saw what appeared to be a healing gash two or three inches long on his side.

  “What happened to you?” she murmured, nodding at it.

  “All in a night’s work, love. Never you mind.”

  “You are an infuriating man.”

  “So I’m told.” The hem of her night rail skimmed her thighs as he lifted it, sinking onto his knees behind her on the carriage floor. She was unable to stop him as he lifted the muslin high, exposing her to the cool caress of the night air, while his warm breath tickled against her skin.

  Then all thought fled as he trailed sensuous kisses down the small of her back and bent his head lower, nibbling each round cheek of her backside.

  Ah, the man was driving her insane. His fingertips explored the cleft of her derriere, bringing the most curious little bursts of delight at the strangeness of his gentle probing. Then she gasped when he slipped his fingers inside her sex; she heard his low growl of pleasure to find her already sopping wet. She dropped her head back, blissfully acquiescent; she was utterly at his mercy as he began pleasuring her with a ruthless determination.

  Her breathing came shallow and fast. God, she had needed him for so many weeks, had dreamed of his hands on her body, and now it was real, exceeding her fantasies. She shivered, closed her eyes, and allowed herself to absorb the sensations that began spiraling through her. She rocked her hips in time with his expert stroking, beginning to drown in a flood of blissful sensation. Harder.

  He responded as though he had read her mind, giving exactly what she craved. God.

  His hoarse whisper filled her world, urging her toward the cataclysm. “Give in, sweeting. Let go for me, love.” He bit her hip, and she groaned wildly. Her chemise was tangled about her; her skin slick with a fine mist of sweat. She felt marked by him, smeared with his scent.

  Every nerve ending tingled with readiness; her body quivered and strained against her bonds, lifting, arching in needy longing, until suddenly, the shattering climax crashed through her. She flung her head back with a wanton cry, her flesh pulsating with release. Her heart pounded wildly as the fiery bursts racked her body and then faded slowly.

  Caught up in sensation, she was barely aware of him gently untying her bonds. He scooped her limp body into his arms and cradled her against his chest, kissing her fevered brow. She could feel his heart pounding, however, and realized the effort he was making to hold his own need in check.

  It was beyond her power to help him at the moment, in any case. She rested, spent, in his embrace. “How are such things possible?” she panted after a long moment.

  She felt him smile against her brow. “I trust that is a rhetorical question.”

  She laughed weakly.

  “You see?” he murmured. “Being married to me won’t be all bad.”

  She considered protesting, but did not have the strength. He reached across the coach for his discarded jacket and covered her with it.

  “There, sweeting, I don’t want you catching cold.” He tucked the ends around her sides with a tenderness that rather amazed her.

  She watched him with a bemused expression. “I’m impressed,” she said after a moment.

  “By?”

  “Your restraint.”

  He smiled and languidly rested his cheek on his knuckles. “No wife of mine gets deflowered in the back of a carriage. My viscountess deserves better than that.”

  She looked away with a small sigh of mingled yearning and distress. What a rogue he was. Perhaps they were well matched in some respects, she admitted to herself. Perhaps she did find him unbearably attractive. Perhaps he challenged her as no man ever had.

  But that still did not mean she had agreed to marry him. That still did not mean that a marriage based on money was a good idea, or that she deemed it wise to shackle herself to a gazetted rake.

  Really, a man should not be allowed to simply invade a lady’s chamber and haul her off like a sack of grain. He had tranquilized her with this delicious haze of sensuality, but his words had pierced her trance with the jarring recollection of the real reason he wanted this “marriage.”

  Five hundred thousand reasons sterling, to be exact.

  The coach barreled on toward Scotland. She moved the canvas shade aside, glancing worriedly out the window. Heavens, when had they merged onto the Great North Road? There was a hayrick, an occasional barn. The fields were outlined by thick hedgerows, but the countryside looked unfamiliar.

  “What’s the matter, sweet?”

  She looked over and saw him studying her. She was weakened infinitesimally by the tender look on his chiseled face, sculpted by shadows.

  Husband, she thought dazedly. Husband?

  She turned away from him and forced her gaze out the window again. “I need to stop.”

  He scanned her profile until she glanced impatiently at him, blushing.

  “Pardon, but I need the loo. If it’s not too much to ask?” she insisted with what she hoped was a guileless expression.

  “Very well.” He lowered the window, called his instructions to Ben, and then pulled his shirt back on.

  If she had expected him to take her to a roadside inn, she was sadly mistaken. His indulgence for her claim of bodily needs ran upon decidedly more primitive lines.

  She stared at him in dismay when he pointed her toward a stand of trees shrouded by tall bushes off by the roadside. “Surely you jest.”

  “No. What did you think I meant?” he asked in surprise as he held the carriage
door for her and waited for her to step down.

  “A coaching inn!”

  “You’re not dressed.”

  “Thanks to you! Is this the accommodations you provide for your ‘viscountess’?” she berated him. “At least a proper outhouse—”

  “Do you want to stop or not? I am not taking you to a public inn, because I know you’ll try to escape.”

  “Fine!” Yanking his black coat more securely around her scantily clad body, she jumped down from the carriage, letting out an expletive as sharp gravel on the road pricked her bare feet. “I will never forgive you if you look,” she warned as she hobbled across the highway toward the tall grasses waving along the roadside.

  His elegant frown was full of reproach. “Really, what do you take me for?”

  “A kidnapper, to start,” she muttered, then ventured cautiously into the nearby field while Ben checked on the horses.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll wait right here,” he called as she climbed over the hedgerow stile.

  You do that, Dev dear, she thought, gloating slightly as she embarked on her escape. She stole one look back at him as she climbed down the other side.

  He stood tall and proud in the moonlight, but true to his word, he turned around and faced the coach, giving her her privacy.

  Heart pounding, she stole off into the field. The knee-high grasses were cool and dry; twigs crackled, but she ignored the small jabs here and there as they broke beneath her running feet. Thankful for his black coat that helped conceal her in the dark, she slipped behind the cover of the tall bushes and kept running, dashing through the grove of trees, past a tranquil farm that slumbered under the silvery moon.

  “Everything all right?” he called.

  She glanced back over her shoulder but kept running. He was still standing on the road, his back politely turned. She knew her lack of a response would alert his suspicion, but she dared not answer for fear of revealing her whereabouts. She just kept going, scanning the landscape for a hiding place. Her pulse pounded as she realized that in moments he would be after her.

  “Lizzie?”

  Though the distance she had already put between them muffled his deep voice, she could hear the note of worry in it.

  “Lizzie!”

  She dropped into a crouching position beside one of the farm’s outbuildings. A flurry of low, worried cooing from within told her that the little shed was a dovecote.

  “Lizzie!”

  He’s coming.

  His voice grew louder. “Ben, look sharp! She’s run off!”

  Nervous fear darted through her. She swallowed hard, wrinkling her nose at the smell of the dovecote. She knew if he caught her, he would not fall for a similar trick again. This was her only opportunity to escape.

  “Lizzie, stop this foolishness!” he yelled into the darkness. “Use your head! You’re marrying me, and that’s final!”

  A flicker of motion caught her eye, drawing her gaze to the white of his shirt. He was stalking toward the bushes that he had actually expected a lady like her to use for an outhouse! Oh, that man. She crept around from the dovecote to survey her exit route. As she edged up to the side of the little shed and peeked around the corner, her eyes flared with sudden hope. A plump sorrel pony stood lazily resting its jowls on the top rail of its paddock. Its tapered ears flicked forward as it listened to Dev’s stormy calls with a look of pleasant curiosity.

  A bridle hung from the nearby post. She bit her lip, glancing back at Devlin in thrumming indecision. Horse-stealing was a hanging offense, but this was different. She was an abducted young lady of good name and connections on the run from a wicked viscount. Right?

  “Damn it, girl, I will turn you over my knee when I’ve got you! Where are you?”

  The devil you will—Devil!

  She glided out from the shadows of the dovecote and tiptoed toward the pony, greeting it softly so that she would not spook the animal. “Hullo, darling. There’s a sweet little pony. I wonder if I might…borrow you….”

  She lifted the bridle off the post. The pony picked its head up off the rail and ambled toward her, ears twitching.

  She made friends with it at once, feeding it a handful of grass. Her hand trembled as the pony lipped the grass off her palm; then she silently climbed the fence. “There’s a good boy.” She stepped down into the earthen paddock, half in dread of getting her bare feet stepped on under the creature’s hoofs, but the pony must have been a large child’s mount, for it was as gentle as a lamb. It took the bit agreeably into its mouth.

  Murmuring gently to the animal all the while, Lizzie led the pony over to the gate and opened it. She stood on the bottom rail to boost her up onto the stout pony’s barrel back. Without a saddle, she had no choice but to ride astride, her night rail tucked about her legs, her bare feet hanging down. She gathered the reins and squeezed the pony’s satiny sides with her calves, guiding it out of the paddock.

  “Lizzie!”

  Devlin burst out of the shadows by the dovecote just as the pony lurched into a bouncy trot. He rushed them. “Get back here!”

  “Go!” She kicked the pony’s sides and clung to the animal in alarm, urging her little mount into a brisk canter.

  Devlin tried to grab her right off the pony’s back as she swept past him, but he missed, his hands clutching only air. “Damn it, come back here!”

  She glanced back and saw him running after them, but even an athletic man like him was no match for her equine ally.

  Trailing defiant laughter, Lizzie rode off on the cantering pony, victorious. She had won! She was free—and it felt glorious.

  Dev chased her for only a few more strides into the field before he gave up, his pumping legs slowing to a halt. Chest heaving with exertion, he bent forward slightly, planting his hands on his thighs as he caught his breath. He let out a curse, but as he heard her nymphlike laughter and glanced in her direction, he caught one last glimpse of her beaming face before she went racing away astride the plump pony, wrapped in his oversize coat, her long hair flying out behind her.

  He just stared, his anger melting.

  She looked so happy, so blasted proud of herself. How could he be angry when she was so damned adorable? He felt an ache of inexplicable joy swelling in his heart, and as he watched her gallop off, he began laughing wearily. He stood up straight again, laughing harder, raking both his hands through his hair.

  “Look at her, Ben,” he said as his servant rushed up beside him, looking frantic. “Have you ever seen anything more beautiful in your entire life? Look at her go. By God, what a fool I’ve been.”

  “Sir?” Ben panted.

  “She deserves it. The title. The money. And she shall have it. With God as my witness, I’m going to marry that girl. What spirit. What heart,” he whispered.

  Ben did not quite seem to absorb his words. “I’ll unhitch the lead horse. If you can ride after her, you can catch her in minutes—”

  “No.” Dev shook his head slowly, still smiling. “Let her have her victory.” He could not take his eyes off her, and they shone even after she had disappeared over the moonlit rise. “She bested me fair and square. There’s no way I could take that away from her.”

  “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Never better. Come on.” He gave his trusty valet a manly slap on the back. “Let’s get the carriage turned around. She’ll keep to the fields to avoid us, but we’ll give her an escort back to the school. These roads are not the safest place at night.”

  “The Gretna plan is off, then?” Ben asked in confusion as they strode back to the waiting carriage.

  “Afraid so,” Dev sighed.

  “Well, what now?”

  Dev smiled in the direction she had gone. “Now I do it her way.”

  Moving happily through the moonlight, Lizzie followed the Great North Road as her guide home, but stayed off it, keeping to the fields and woods as the pony swung along at a comfortable walk. As it became clear that she had successfully evaded her
handsome captor, exhilaration crested through her, an almost giddy triumph after her brash escape.

  At last, an adventure of her very own! She felt gloriously alive, free.

  The pony swiveled its tapered ears, listening to her as she hummed to pass the time and to allay her nervousness as she ventured onward through the dark. There was plenty of time to reflect on what they had shared inside the coach. Her wonder at it all made the whole moonlit world seem to shimmer as the pony trotted down a small gully, crossed a shallow rivulet, and scrambled up the other side.

  She rode on.

  Before long, an arrowed road sign pointed her toward Islington. She guided the pony across the road, kicking him into a canter. They hurried into the field across the way, and in another quarter hour, she recognized the sweep of the countryside and knew exactly where she was.

  She would have to hurry, she realized. The staff and teachers rose at six.

  Sunrise had just begun to tinge the eastern horizon with a pink blush when Lizzie reined the pony to a halt in the same stand of trees where Dev had hidden the coach several hours ago. The ladder still lay there, vaguely outlined in the tall grasses.

  Across the green, all the school windows were still dark. Her heart hammered, for she knew it would cost her her position if Mrs. Hall found out what had happened. She slid down off the trusty pony’s back, then hugged the gentle creature, slipped off its bridle, and freed it. She threw the bridle atop the ladder, then shrugged off Dev’s coat and left it there, as well.

  The gray dawn air glided coolly against her bare arms as she stole away from the grove, running silently toward the school. Glancing up, she saw her bedroom window still hanging wide open, just as Dev had left it when he had carried her off. She vaulted the fence, her chemise flying up about her knees, and darted around the back of the building, her heart pounding madly.

  Oh, Jacinda was going to die of laughter when she told her about this. If she managed to get through this alive, she would write to her at once and suggest they have tea. She was eager to tell her best friend everything about Devlin and the madcap conditions surrounding Lady Strathmore’s will.