Devil at the Gates

by Lauren Smith

  Devil at the Gates

  A Gothic Romance

  Lauren Smith

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Lauren Smith

  A Gentleman Never Surrenders excerpt Copyright © 2015 by Lauren Smith

  *This story was previously published in the limited run boxed set A Lady’s Christmas Rake.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitutes unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at lauren@laurensmithbooks.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

  * * *

  The publisher is not responsible for websites (or their content) that are not owned by the publisher.

  ISBN: 978-0-9974237-0-9 (e-book edition)

  ISBN: 978-1-947206-35-9 (print edition)

  Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  A Gentleman Never Surrenders

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Other Titles By Lauren Smith

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Dover, England - 1793

  The Duke of Frostmore stirred fitfully in his bed. The sheets that clung to his skin were damp and fresh with terrible dreams that had jolted him awake. He’d never slept well when it rained, even as a boy when he’d simply been known as Redmond Barrington. There was something about the sound, the way it plinked against the windows as the wind whined through the cracks in the stones of the large old medieval manor house.

  He rubbed his eyes and squinted at the darkened bedchamber. Something had awoken him, something outside his door. A soft cry came, echoing through the gloom. Redmond turned in his bed to see if his wife had been disturbed. But the bed was cold, empty.

  The duchess was gone.

  He shoved back the covers and pulled on his dressing gown.

  “Millicent?” He wondered if she’d perhaps gone to her bedroom, which was next door. He’d agreed to the tradition of allowing his wife to have a separate room, but he’d told her from the start that he longed to share his bed each night with her. She’d been hesitant, like many a new bride, but he’d cajoled her into agreeing at last to share in the intimacy of remaining in his bed after they’d made love. Whatever had drawn her from his bed tonight? Had she fallen somewhere, gotten hurt while walking in the dark?

  The stones beneath his feet were ice cold, but he didn’t mind. He liked the cold, liked the way it stirred his senses and kept him alert. He cracked open his bedchamber door and peered out into the corridor. The sound came again, but he saw nothing to indicate where it was coming from. He eased farther into the hall, still listening. Finally, he traced the sound to a bedchamber down the hall, the one belonging to his younger brother, Thomas.

  “Thomas?” Redmond rapped at the door and pressed his ear to listen. There was a rush of hushed voices, followed by silence. Redmond’s heart fluttered as his mind made the terrible connection as to his missing wife and the voices coming from his brother’s room.

  “Red?” Thomas finally asked as he opened the bedroom door. His hair was mussed, and he was only half-dressed. “What are you doing up? It’s late…”

  “Are you alone? I heard a crying sound. I’m worried Millicent is hurt. She wasn’t in bed when I awoke. Will you help me find her?”

  Thomas swallowed hard, and his gaze darted to the left as he began to craft a lie. Redmond had practically raised his younger brother and knew right away when Thomas wasn’t being truthful. Which meant…he knew where Millicent was.

  Redmond’s heart hardened as he faced the betrayal by his own blood.

  “She’s with you, isn’t she?” Redmond’s veins filled with ice as he spoke what he hadn’t wanted to admit had been true for months.

  It hadn’t been a cry of pain he’d heard but one of passion. A sound he’d never been able to coax from his wife since they’d married six months ago. She’d remained gentle and still beneath him in bed, and each time he’d tried and failed to excite her. Most of the time, he’d given up and rolled away from her, his heart pained by his failure.

  Thomas’s eyes refused to meet his. “She is.”

  Redmond kept his rage reined in, but barely. He loved his brother, but Thomas was a fool who would follow his heart right into the bed of a married woman, even the wife of his own brother.

  “Redmond, please…let me explain,” Thomas began again, but unable to find the words, he sighed and stepped back, letting Redmond enter the room.

  Millicent peered around the edge of the changing screen in the corner of the room, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Millicent.” Redmond spoke her name softly, and even that gave a stab of pain to his chest.

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered. He saw the truth glimmering in her pretty blue eyes as they filled with tears. “I love him, Red. I think I’ve always loved him.”

  “Yet you accepted my proposal?” Redmond rubbed at his temples as a headache began to pound the backs of his eyelids. How had he been so bloody blind to let this slip of a young woman fool him into thinking she cared about him? Because he’d wanted to be loved, to be cherished for himself and not his title.

  “My father said I had to accept you…to have a duchess in the family. He…he was so proud of me.” The words trembled on her lips.

  Thomas stepped between them. His stance was casual, but Redmond knew his brother was ready to protect Millicent should he fly into a rage. But the rage that brewed inside him was not directed at her. The pretty young woman was only nineteen, married to him less than six months and clearly too young to make a decision that would affect the rest of her life. No, Redmond was furious with himself. He was twenty-five, old enough to know he should have sensed Millicent’s attraction to his title and not to him.

  My damnable pride, he thought darkly.

  Redmond walked over to the crackling fire in the hearth and braced one hand on the marble mantel. His thoughts raced wildly until they jerked to a halt. He turned around to face the exposed couple. Thomas had his arm around the girl’s shoulders, and tears streamed down her face.

  “You want Thomas?” he finally asked. Each word cost him much to even speak. A world-weary sorrow began to leach into his anger, eating away at him until he felt nothing at all. He was as hollow as the old dead trees in the woods beyond his estate.

  Millicent nodded, the girlish hope in her gaze only deepening the emptiness inside him. She’d never looked at him that way, with hope.

  “Then I give you my blessing. I will contact my solicitor tomorrow. We will have to demand an annulment which won’t be easy. But know this—once this is settled, neither of you must return here ever again.” He couldn’t bear to see them, even his beloved brother. The pain would be too great. To annul a marriage meant he’d never consummated his love for his wife, but he had. Everything was built upon more lies now.

  Thomas’s lips parted as though he wished to speak, but then he seemed to reconsider and answered with a nod.

  “Thank you, Redmond… I…,” Millicent started, but her wo
rds died as Redmond stared at her.

  “Don’t,” he warned before she could say another word. Redmond stalked from the room. He could not stand to listen to her thank him for letting her break his heart.

  He didn’t go back to bed. There would be no sleeping now. He headed to his study and sat in the moonlit room as he retrieved a bottle of scotch from his liquor tray by his desk. He didn’t bother with the glasses. He simply drank from the bottle until his stomach revolted and he choked on the liquid. Then he leaned back in his chair and stared out the tall bay window overlooking the road that led to the cliffs. The sea would be harsh this time of year, the fall winds giving way to icy winter. He could simply go, walk out into the night and head to the cliffs. No one would see. No one would stop him. No one would care.

  Thomas would become the Duke of Frostmore, and all would be well. Thomas had always been the favorite, the more handsome, more charming, more likable brother. He’d heard the whispers all his life: Why couldn’t Thomas have been born the first son? Even his own parents had preferred Thomas. Redmond was quiet, intense, gruff at times, and not everyone understood him. Now it had cost him what little happiness he had carved out for himself.

  Why had he ever thought Millicent would choose him when Thomas was at his side? From the moment he’d met the girl, her laughs had been for Thomas, her smiles, even her cries of passion. Redmond had never stood a chance.

  Because I wanted to be loved, fool that I am.

  He stared out at the cliffs a long time before he made a decision. A divorced man would have few options—no decent woman would ever be enticed by his title to become a second duchess after such a scandal broke. There was only one way to end this. He rose from his chair and grasped the bottle of scotch, taking another long, burning swallow.

  “I never wished to be a bloody duke anyway,” he muttered as he walked unsteadily out the door of Frostmore, his ancestral home. “Good riddance.”

  He stumbled a little but kept walking toward the cliffs until he could hear the crashing sound of the waves. There was nothing more beautiful or haunting than the sea when she was angry. Rain lashed his face and blinded his eyes to all but the lightning splitting the skies overhead. He moved numbly across the cold grass until he felt the rocky ledge was beneath his feet, and he wavered at the edge, his breath coming fast and his head spinning from grief and alcohol. All he wanted in that moment was for it to be over, to lose himself in the dark violence of the sea below. Then he took that final step toward the craggy abyss…

  1

  Faversham, England - Seven Years Later

  The bedchamber in Thursley Manor was dark except for a few lit oil lamps. The wind whistled clearly through the cracks in the mortar in between the stones. Harriet Russell tried to ignore the storm outside as she clutched her mother’s hand. This old house, with its creaks and groans in the night, had never been a home to either of them, yet Harriet feared it would be her mother’s last resting place.

  “Harriet.” Her mother moaned her name. Pain soaked each syllable as her mother coughed. The raspy sound tore at Harriet’s heart.

  Harriet brushed her other hand over her mother’s forehead. “Rest, Mama.” Beneath the oil lamp’s glow, her mother’s face was pale, and sweat dewed upon her skin as fever raged throughout her body.

  “So little time,” her mother said with a sigh. “I must tell you…” Harriet watched her mother struggle for words and the breath to speak. “Soon… You will be twenty. Your father…”

  Harriet didn’t correct her, but George Halifax had never been her father. No, the man who held that title had died when she was fourteen. Edward Russell had been a famous fencing master, both in England and on the continent. He’d also been a loving man with laughing eyes and a quick wit whom she missed with her whole heart.

  “Yes, Mama?” She desperately needed to hear what her mother had to say.

  “George is your guardian, but on your birthday, you will be free to live your life as you choose.”

  Free. What an amazing notion. How desperately she longed for that day to come. George was a vile man who made her skin crawl whenever she was in the same room as him, and she wished every day that her mother hadn’t been desperate enough to accept his offer of marriage. But fencing masters, even the greatest ones, did not make a living that could sustain a widow and a small daughter.

  “Mama, you will get better.” Harriet dipped a fresh cloth in clean water and placed it over her mother’s brow.

  “No, child. I won’t.” The weary certainty in her mother’s voice tore at her heart. But they both knew that consumption left few survivors. It had claimed her father’s laugh six years before, and now it would take her mother from her as well.

  The bedchamber door opened, and Harriet turned, expecting to see one of the maids who had been checking on them every few hours to see if they needed anything. But her stepfather stood there. George Halifax was a tall man, with bulk and muscle in equal measures. The very sight of him chilled her blood. She’d spent the last six years trying to avoid his attentions, even locking her door every night just to be sure. She may be only nineteen, but she had grown up quickly under this man’s roof and learned to fear what men desired of her.

  “Ah…my dearest wife and daughter.” George’s tone sounded outwardly sincere, but there was the barest hint of mocking beneath it. He moved into the room, boots thudding hard on the stone. He was so different from her father. Edward had been tall and lithe, moving soundlessly with the grace of his profession in every step.

  “Mother needs to rest.” Harriet looked at her mother, not George, as she spoke. Whenever she met his gaze, it made her entire body seize with panic, and her instincts urged her to run.

  “Then perhaps you want to leave her to rest?” George challenged softly.

  Harriet raised hateful eyes to his. “I won’t leave. She needs someone to look after her.”

  “Yes, you will leave, daughter.” He stepped deeper into the room, fists clenched.

  “I’m not your daughter,” Harriet said defiantly. His lecherous gaze swept over her body.

  “You’re right. You could be so…much…more.” He paused between the last three words, emphasizing what she knew he had wanted for years.

  “George…,” her mother, Emmeline, gasped. “No, please…”

  “Hush, my dear. You need your rest. Harriet and I shall have a little talk outside. About her future.” He came toward her, but Harriet moved fast, despite the hampering nature of her simple gown. She’d been trained by the best to never be caught flat-footed.

  “Stop!” George snarled and grabbed her by the skirts as she ducked under his arm. With a sudden jerk, she hit the ground, her left shoulder and hip hitting the pine floorboards hard. A whimper escaped her as he dragged her to her feet and slapped her across the face.

  Her mother made a soft sound of distress from the bed, and she heard the whisper as though from a vast distance away.

  “Harriet…go…run!”

  Harriet kicked George in the groin as hard as she could. He released her to clutch himself.

  “Get her!” George shouted in rage.

  Two hulking men she didn’t recognize from among the household staff of Thursley Manor rushed into the room. She tried to dodge them, but they trapped her in the corner and dragged her from the room by her arms.

  “Lock her up!” George’s shout followed them down the corridor.

  Her mother called out weakly for her, but no matter how Harriet screeched and fought, they wouldn’t let go. She was taken to an empty bedroom and shoved inside. The door was locked with a clack of cold iron. Shivering hard, her shoulder and hip still sore from her fall, Harriet threw herself at the door, but she was too small to break the sturdy oak.

  Her mother’s warning had come too late. She wouldn’t turn twenty for another month, and George was already taking control of her, just as she feared he would. There was nothing he couldn’t do to her, stranded as she was at Thursley. They were too f
ar from the town of Faversham for anyone to come this way except on purpose. She had no friends, no one who would worry about her, which she now suspected with dread was what George had wanted all along.

  The dark bedchamber was bracing in its chill. No fire had been lit in the small hearth, and she knew no one would come to see to the task. There was only one small oil lamp on the side table next to the bed. She dug around in the drawers of the side table until she found a pair of steel strikers. She used the strikers to light the lamp. The light blossomed into a healthy glow, but it offered no warmth. Outside the storm seemed to build as rain joined the howling winds.

  She had to escape. Harriet attempted to pry the windows open, but nails were driven deep into the wooden frames. She even studied the lock of the door, trying to use a hairpin to see if she could twist the tumblers in a way that would set her free, but nothing worked.

  A few hours later, footsteps echoed in the corridor. A key jangled in the lock, and a latch lifted. She tensed, her muscles tightening as she expected to see her stepfather or one of his men. But she saw only the cook, Mrs. Reed.

  “Thank God you’re all right, lass.” The tall Scottish woman placed one hand on her bosom. “I was worried to death when I found out he had locked you up.” Mrs. Reed spoke in a whisper and glanced down the darkened hall behind her, as though fearful of being overheard.

  “Mrs. Reed… My mother… Is she…?” Harriet choked on the words.

  “No, not yet, lass, but there’s no time. You must go. Now.” The cook came into the room and cupped her face the way Harriet’s mother used to. “I know you dinna want to go, but you must.”