The Devil's Bargain

by Karen Harbaugh

  She smiled, and Lescaux bowed. He had been taking down a book when she entered, and he placed it on a table when she entered the room. Then his face brightened in a smile.

  “Ah, milady! It is a fortunate thing you ’ave come. I ’ave letters for you.”

  Eveline raised her brows. “I thought it Tilton’s duty to bring the mail.” She did not really mind, but her impression of Richard’s valet was that the little man was very precise and strict about the servants’ hierarchy.

  Lescaux smiled gently. “The so honorable butler is very old, no? He has heavy duties. It is but a little thing for me to bring up the letters.” He snapped his heels together and with great precision and elegance held out a silver salver to her.

  Eveline chuckled. “And very well you do it, too, Lescaux.” There were two letters, and she took both. She looked at the first one. It was written in a hand unknown to her, black letters on stark white paper. She put it back down on the salver. The second one was from her father’s solicitors, and she hastily opened it. She scanned it, her heart pounding with excitement.

  “Good news, madame?” Lescaux inquired. It would have been an impertinent question from a servant, but Eveline in her joy did not mind it. Then, too, Lescaux’s respectful manner was such that she felt somehow she could not take offense at his query.

  “Yes, yes, it is! It seems I have come into funds—funds that were not tied up. I must tell Richard!” She moved toward the door and stopped, realizing she did not know where he was. “Oh, dear. Lescaux, Miss Clairmond told me his lordship would be here, but he is not. Do you know where I may reach him?”

  “I saw Milord but a quarter hour ago with the bailiff. Me, I believe he will come soon.”

  “Oh, very good. I shall await him then.” Eveline sat upon a chair for a few moments, but then stood up again, pacing restlessly.

  Lescaux watched her for a moment, then said, “He is a proud man, Milord le Capitaine is.”

  “Yes, he is, but what is that to say to anything? Especially when I am sure I have the answer to the problems he has been having with the estate.” She went to the window, her steps impatient, and looked out of it, as if she could perhaps see her husband and make him come into the library by the sheer force of her will.

  “He is also a man of a stubbornness extreme. It is possible you will not convince him.”

  Eveline looked at the valet in astonishment. “Whyever not? Surely, he cannot wish to have his lands remain as they are, and his tenants so very poor.”

  Lescaux smiled. “Of course not. However …” He paused, his ears seeming to perk up. “Ah, I believe Milord is here.”

  Footsteps neared the library door; it opened, and Richard entered. He looked tired, but his face brightened with a smile when he saw Eveline. He came to her, then noted Lescaux waiting patiently behind her. He took Eveline’s hands in his own, but looked at his valet.

  “Yes, Lescaux?”

  The little man came forward with the salver. “Merely a letter, Milord.”

  Richard smiled and took the letter. “Taking over Tilton’s duties, are you?”

  Lescaux smiled politely. “Not at all, Milord. I make myself useful, and the poor Tilton, he weeps on my shoulder when I offer my service.”

  His master laughed, and the thought of the staid and wooden-faced butler expressing such emotion made Eveline smile. Lescaux’s eyes twinkled at them, he nodded, and excused himself from the room.

  The door closed, and Eveline turned eagerly to Richard, only to find him perusing the letter he had received. He had grown quite pale, and his lips were pressed together tightly, as if he were suppressing an oath.

  “What is it, Richard?”

  He looked up at her, a bewildered look in his eyes, as if he had suddenly grown aware she was before him.

  “Is … is it bad news?”

  He seemed to shake himself, then said, “No. It is nothing, really, a … debt I had overlooked.” He smiled at her slightly, but it did not reach his eyes.

  “Oh, but you need not worry about such a thing now. I have wonderful news, Richard! I know you had agreed with Papa that he should tie up whatever I would inherit from him, but I knew there was something else—not as much as I would ever inherit, but enough to help.”

  Richard’s smile faded, and he looked at her steadily. “Eveline, I am sure you are mistaken. My solicitors are very careful; they would have made sure that it would all be yours—or at least our heirs’.”

  Eveline blushed at the thought of children, for they had not talked of this before, and she was momentarily distracted. She recollected herself, however, and waved the letter she had received in front of him. “Only look here!” she said triumphantly. “I remembered something that my father once said about a great-aunt of mine on my mother’s side, and I remembered a letter she sent me long ago when I was too young to understand such things. But she had set aside a fund, to be given me when I married, and Papa’s solicitors confirmed it.”

  His face stiffened, but he said quietly: “How much is it?”

  “Ten thousand pounds, Richard!” she said, clasping his arm eagerly. “Ten thousand! Only think of what can be done with it! The west field can be drained, new irrigation put in the south, more seed, more cattle! And the tenants’ cottages, why, at the very least we could repair them so that they are livable, and no doubt more.”

  “Ten thousand!” Richard’s face grew tight with anger. “Ten thousand! Why did you not tell me this before?”

  Eveline stared at him, then let go of his arm. “I … I had forgotten. No doubt Papa had forgotten, too. You need not be angry! I did not want to tell you until I knew for certain. It is but a small part of the inheritance I was to receive.”

  “Small!” Richard seized her shoulders in a painful grip. “What do you mean—small?”

  She looked up at him, frightened at the dread shadowing his eyes. “Why … why, did you not know?”

  He searched her face and said hoarsely, “I left myself out of the negotiations between your father and my solicitors. I wished the advantage to be yours, not mine!” He shook her a little. “How much?”

  “Sixty thousand pounds.”

  “Sixty thousand!” He released her, almost pushing her away. “Do you mean to say you had a dowry of sixty thousand pounds?”

  “No. Not exactly.”

  He sighed and seemed to relax a little. Eveline could not look at him, but honesty compelled her to speak over the lump in her throat. “It is sixty thousand a year. In income. In my name.”

  There was silence, and Eveline dared look up. Richard’s mouth was a straight white line, his eyes dark with anger and frustration. He looked at her as if she were some strange, dreadful creature, and the pain of seeing it sliced into her heart She moved a step away from him, confused. What had she done? After an initial reluctance and resistance on his part, she thought he would understand and welcome a chance to repair his fortunes. Frustration, she could understand; anger, perhaps. But dread? She held out a tentative hand toward him.

  “Richard, please … what … Is it something I have done? Said?”

  “No.”

  She ran the short distance to him, and it was her turn to shake him, to grow angry at his stony silence. “Tell me! Why do you look at me like this? I deserve that you tell me—now!”

  His expression changed. It seemed to soften as he looked at her, and indecision warred with something else … Almost she would have said it was fear, except she had never known him by report, or in her short experience of him, to have feared anything. Then his countenance became smooth and cool, and she felt somehow that she had lost a gamble, had played a game of chance and lost. He smiled at her, and touched her face in a gentle caress. His fingers were cold, and she shivered.

  “Foolishness, my dear. An upsurge of foolish pride—no, vanity—that is and has been useless, which I had thought I had largely excised from my character. It seems I had not.”

  Eveline stared at him, searching his face,
trying to discern the truth or meaning behind his words. But his countenance was still and composed, even pleasant.

  “Pride, is it?” she said. She did not know what else to say, how to bring her Richard back, the one who laughed and whose touch was warm and drew an answering warmth from her.

  “I dislike being seen as a fortune-hunter, which is what anyone would think, you see. Your father, for instance.” He looked away from her briefly, his expression still coolly pleasant.

  “My father must know by now that you are nothing of the kind. His solicitors have told me that you would accept nothing from him—or from me.”

  “Well, let us just say I do not like the idea of battening on my wife.”

  Eveline let out an impatient breath. “If that is all, then you may pay me back when the estate starts showing a profit. No one can say you were battening on me then. It would be a purely financial exchange. Or, you could use it for collateral. You may even deal with it through your solicitors and my father’s if you wish.”

  “I would prefer not to do so,” he replied.

  “Pride, in other words.”

  Richard looked her in the eyes. “Pride,” he said.

  “I do not believe it.”

  “You may believe what you wish. It is what I say.” His voice and face turned cold. He sketched a bow, then strode from the room.

  Hot anger closed her hands into fists, and Eveline sank down upon a chair. How dare he! How dare he lie to her and treat her as if she were nothing but a stupid ninny, who knew nothing of financial arrangements or, indeed, of a person’s character? And he had intentionally lied, she could tell. All the reasons he had put forward were not true, or at least he must know it would not matter to her, or to those who cared for him. Pride! How could he say that, when not a few days ago he had donned the clothes of a peasant and labored side by side with his tenants?

  She put her hand upon the table beside her as she rose from her chair and touched a book instead of the table surface. Lescaux had left it there. She suddenly remembered the valet’s words about his master, that Richard was prideful—and stubborn. What was there to be stubborn about? She had offered a loan; it was not charity. Why, even her father told her he had borrowed against her mother’s expectations long ago, when they had little money for investments. It had prospered, and Eveline’s family had become wealthy. What she proposed was nothing compared with that, for she had the money already. She remembered then, that Lady Brookland had told her that a man did not borrow money from a woman—it was not done. Eveline bit her lip. Well, there. She had hurt his pride then, perhaps. It was a silly thing, but it was the way of those born to title, she supposed. She grimaced. Heaven only knew the number of impractical rules there were in any society, those of the titled, or those of the merchant class.

  But if Richard did not want to borrow her money, he could put it up as collateral. She had told him so, and surely he could see it. Yet, he did not even want to do that.

  Why? It made no sense. It made no sense! And she was sure she could ask, beg, nag at Richard every day, and he would not tell her. There had to be another way to find out what it was he would not say, indeed, why he had looked upon her for a moment as if there were something repugnant about her, when there had been none of that since the day of their wedding.

  Marianne. Perhaps she would know. Eveline looked at the clock above the mantelpiece. It was still morning; Marianne would be at Wyvern’s house, teaching his daughters. It would be four hours before she returned. Eveline frowned impatiently. She would not wait. She would go to her sister-in-law now and talk with her during the midday meal.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Eveline went over her encounter with Richard in the library again as she walked to Wyvern’s estate. It would take an hour to get there, and she could have taken the carriage, but she needed to think, needed to let the exercise wear away her anger and her confusion.

  She still thought Richard’s reaction to her announcement of her wealth more than it should have been. Of course, she had expected some opposition, but not the reaction of anger and horror she had read in his face. Indeed, he had never bent a look of anger upon her but once, when she had talked of the war and inadvertently touched a soreness there. There was, must be, something else. And then it was as if two puzzle pieces slid together: She had seen the same dread, the same anger darken his eyes before they were married, and the morning after their lovemaking in the cottage. There was much she did not know of his life before she met him. She had been foolish not to have found out more before she had fallen in love with him; Papa had been right about that. The course of events would not have changed, and she would have been just as much in love with him, but she was certain she would have seen her way more clearly now if she had known more of his past. Regretting the past was also foolish, however; bending her mind and efforts to the present and future was more important.

  Her eyes gazed at the path to Wyvern’s estate before her, but her mind’s eye focused on the library where she and Richard had been just a few minutes ago. She went over the clues to his behavior again. She had seen his expression of dread before their marriage and then today. What had changed? She thought of the events just past, remembered when the first hint of change had occurred.

  The letter. Eveline stumbled upon a root she had not seen and gained her balance with an out-thrust hand upon the topmost beam of a stile. Not her letter, but the one he had received. His face had paled, and that was when the dread and, yes, the despair had first flickered in his eyes. And then she had told him of her news, and the despair had overcome him. She stared, unseeing, clutching the hard wood in front of her. What was in the letter? He said it was an old debt he had overlooked, but she had seen him find his father’s old debts—quite large ones, at that—and his expression had changed to nothing more than a disgusted grimace. If it was a debt, she was sure she would have seen at least a little relief in his face when she had told him of her news. There had been no relief at all, not for even a moment, but the despair and dread had grown.

  Anger flared up within her. He had not told her the truth about the letter, either! She supposed it was because he thought she, a woman, should not know of such financial matters. But he knew she was used to such things, dealt with them, in fact. And had she not told him she was his wife, that she would bear what he must also? Her anger faded, and uneasiness took its place. There must be something else about that letter. Something that would prohibit him from telling her. A debt of honor? She searched her inner sense of him, what she knew of gentlemen’s honor and loyalties. Eveline shook her head. No. There must be something else.

  She must see that letter. Eveline turned around sharply and went back the way she came. Yet again she went over the events in the library. Did he take it away with him when he left? Mentally, she viewed him taking the letter, looking at it, then turning to her when she told him her news. He had seized her shoulders and … she had not felt the paper in his hands. She would have felt it against her shoulder if he had still held it. He had not put it on the table or his pocket, or anywhere else for that matter. It must, therefore, be in the library still.

  Eveline ran the last few feet into the house and up the stairs to the library. She thrust open the door, and her eyes searched the tables, the chairs, the floor. A slip of white caught her gaze. There, behind a chair leg! She bent and picked up the crumpled bit of paper, smoothed it out, and read.

  My dear Clairmond,

  I felicitate you: you will soon be able to redeem your estates and keep your sister from ruin. I would not be surprised if you received the good news directly after this letter.

  Oh, and one thing: Our bargain is not yet finished. Or at least, not on your part. You must admit that, yes? We did not agree that you would marry the chit, after all. But I am generous. I will let you do a few other tasks for me instead, and then we will call it even, shall we? The next time you are in London, do look for me. Soon. I have been frequenting Vauxhall lately—an amusing p
lace.

  Your servant, Teufel.

  P.S. Your nights have been a bit too occupied for me to do anything but contact you by letter rather than in my usual manner. My, my.

  The room took a quick spin around Eveline, and she sat down abruptly on a chair, staring at the words in front of her. Bile rose in her throat. Richard had intended to seduce her that day at the cottage. Not because he was enamored of her, not even because of her fortune, but because someone had told him to do it. Someone who knew what she and Richard did each night, perhaps even spied on them. She pressed her hand to her mouth, painfully, to stop the sick feeling she had inside her, but a low moan escaped her.

  Desperately, she read the letter again, looking for something in it that would bring her world, her mind, back in balance again. The words blurred in front of her, and she angrily wiped away her tears with the back of her hand.

  Think! Think! she told herself fiercely, and once again made herself read.

  The estates. Ruin. Marianne. A bargain. Eveline took in a deep breath and let it out again, focused her mind on the problem, and forced herself into objectivity. She would make no excuses for him, nor for herself. That was useless. She scanned the letter again. The seduction was part of the bargain; it was a task Richard was required to do to save what he had loved most, and all that he had left to him at the time. Richard’s father had chosen a way out of his predicament by committing suicide—a thing that benefited no one, and caused more hardship than ever for his son and daughter. But Richard had chosen a dishonorable path as well. Eveline closed her eyes as a momentary pain struck her heart, then shook her head to clear it. She would not give in to it, not now.

  But why did Richard choose it? Eveline stared out of the library window as if to take the clarity of the sky into her own mind. Marianne. Ruin. She remembered when she had first seen Marianne at the luncheon, much thinner than she was now. It was for Marianne, and to save her from some ruin this Teufel had threatened, and the tenants on the estate. It had not been for Richard, himself, at all.