Something Wicked This Way Comes

by Claire Delacroix

  Something Wicked This Way Comes

  A Regency Romance

  Claire Delacroix

  Deborah A. Cooke

  Something Wicked This Way Comes

  By Claire Delacroix

  * * *

  Cover by Covers by Lily

  Copyright © 2016 by Deborah A. Cooke

  All rights reserved.

  * * *

  Without limiting the rights under copyright preserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means, (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright holder and the publisher of this book.

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

  The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

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  Contents

  The Brides of North Barrows

  Something Wicked This Way Comes

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  A Duke by Any Other Name

  About the Author

  More Books by the Author

  The Brides of North Barrows

  Regency Romance

  1. Something Wicked This Way Comes

  * * *

  2. A Duke by Any Other Name

  Something Wicked This Way Comes

  The Brides of North Barrows #1

  Seven years ago, Sophia Brisbane lost everything—her father, her brother, her family fortune—but worse, was rejected by the man she loved. She’s determined not to yearn for the past and its pleasures—until she encounters Lucien de Roye again. Although he knew Sophia could never be his own, Lucien vowed to retrieve her squandered inheritance—even wagering his very soul to a demon. When Sophia learns what he has done, no force on heaven or earth will convince her to let him pay the demon’s due, no matter what the cost to herself.

  * * *

  Something Wicked This Way Comes was originally published in the anthology Spellbound, part of The Haunting of Castle Keyvnor series of Regency romance novellas. Those anthologies remain available.

  Prologue

  A solitary park in London—October 1811

  It was the kind of wager Lucien had come to like best.

  A dangerous one.

  With very long odds against him.

  Which was precisely why he had proposed it.

  On this misty morning, he stood not a dozen paces away from Eugene Tremblay, Marquess of Lyndenhurst, the man he despised most in all the world. It was just dawn, and the first touch of the red sun could be seen on the horizon. Lyndenhurst lifted his dueling pistol, one of a fine pair brought by Lucien, and took his aim. Lucien let his weapon hang at his side and waited. Lyndenhurst squinted down the barrel. Lucien took a breath, and his opponent fired.

  A flock of ducks quacked with indignation at the sound and noisily took flight from the river.

  The blow struck Lucien so hard that he thought his luck had turned, at the worst possible moment.

  He was thrown back onto the turf from the force of impact, and the breath was hammered out of him. His chest burned long enough for him to fear terror, then he felt the ball shift and slide through his body. It emerged from his back like a bubble piercing the surface of a pond, and as a warm glow replaced the pain.

  His luck hadn’t turned. Lucien fought his smile of satisfaction.

  He’d won.

  Lyndenhurst swore and his footsteps could be heard trudging closer.

  Lucien couldn’t resist the temptation. He waited, lying utterly still, until he felt Lyndenhurst leaning over him. The older man was breathing heavily, though whether it was fear that he had killed a man or the exertion of haste was unclear. Lucien enjoyed the notion that his enemy might be having second thoughts—or fears of retribution. Lucien felt a shadow as Lyndenhurst reached over him to touch the front of his dark tailcoat. He smelled the brandy on Lyndenhurst’s breath. He held his breath and waited.

  “Fool!” the older man declared with disgust. “His life sacrificed in exchange for a piece of property so worthless that no one in London will purchase.” Lucien felt the cloth of his tailcoat reweaving itself to close the hole, a soft whisper of threads pulling against each other. Lyndenhurst’s tone turned scornful. “I pray I do not die as foolish as you did, Lucien de Roye. The dogs will find you here.”

  Lucien chose that moment to open his eyes. “I think that unlikely,” he said. “Although I am glad to learn that you would not have summoned any to my aid.”

  Lyndenhurst turned as white as a ghost and stepped back in astonishment. Lucien had never seen his opponent reveal his emotions so clearly, and he was sufficiently wicked to savor the view.

  “Upon my word!” Lyndenhurst declared. He was quick to recover from his surprise, though, and his eyes narrowed in speculation. He looked left and right, but there were no witnesses of their endeavor, by Lucien’s design.

  Then Lyndenhurst bent closer, peering through his quizzing glass, seeking a flaw or a trick. “The hole is gone,” he whispered. His eyes glinted as he watched the blood disappear from Lucien’s tailcoat, vanishing as if it had never been. That familiar cool smile, the one that made Lucien think of hungry wolves, curved Lyndenhurst’s lips, his usual assurance restored. “By all rights, you should be dead.”

  “Yet I am not, exactly as I foretold.” Lucien sat up and brushed off his sleeves before rising to his feet.

  “How did you do it?” The interest in Lyndenhurst’s tone could not be mistaken. “How did you cheat death?” He walked around Lucien, shaking his head. “It must be a trick, an illusion...”

  Lucien bent leisurely and plucked the ball from the ground where he had fallen. It had passed directly through him and now rested in the turf. He held it between gloved finger and thumb to display it to Lyndenhurst. “Yours, I believe?”

  Lyndenhurst blinked, surprised again for the barest of moments. “And yours,” he said, offering the pistol. He then seized the ball and pinched it tightly. “Is this genuine? Or is it a substitution?”

  “You loaded the pistol with your own shot.”

  “But still, it defies belief.” Lyndenhurst lifted his glass to examine the ball, shaking his head as he marveled. “I must have this ability. What price?”

  “My winnings first, if you please.”

  Lyndenhurst reached into his pocket and removed a document, then impatiently thrust it at Lucien. Lucien unfolded the deed and read it with care, ensuring that all of the properties were included that they had wagered upon.

  “Well?” Lyndenhurst demanded. “What price?”

  Lucien smiled. “Another game, of course, with stakes we agree upon.”

  “What stakes?”

  “You have only one thing I desire enough to wager such a secret.”

  “St. Maurice!” Lyndenhurst exhaled and surveyed the river. It was clear that he was calculating. He nodded quickly when his decision was made. “Done. When and where?”

  Lucien disguised his delight. The bait was taken. Seven years of vengeance would come to its culmination very soon, and Sophia—an
d Charles, and Mr. Brisbane—would be avenged.

  “It will have to be in Bocka Morrow in Cornwall, on the night of the 31st.”

  “So far away?”

  “I have business in the region.”

  Lyndenhurst’s eyes darkened with suspicion. “How many players?”

  “You and I. No others.”

  Lyndenhurst’s expression turned shrewd. “I shall be there.”

  “At the Mermaid’s Kiss. I will secure a private room.”

  Lyndenhurst folded his arms across his chest. “Vingt-et-un, winner take all?”

  “A long journey for a short game,” Lucien replied easily. “Why not best of three games?”

  “Why not?” Lyndenhurst shrugged, but his anticipation was palpable. “Why not sooner? Why not here in town?”

  “I find appeal in the notion of playing for immortality on the night of Samhain in a village believed to be haunted.” That wasn’t half of the truth. Lucien met the man’s cold gaze. “Let alone one where there can be no witnesses of what passes between us.”

  Lyndenhurst nodded agreement. “It does seem fitting. Ten?”

  “Ten for dinner, and then the game,” Lucien agreed and offered his hand. “We shall be done by midnight.”

  He would win easily.

  Lyndenhurst shook Lucien’s hand and gripped it hard. His gaze lingered on the spot on Lucien’s tailcoat where the bullet hole had been. “How can it be so?” he mused, but Lucien didn’t want him to follow the course of his thoughts.

  “Does it matter, if you can cheat death forever?”

  Lyndenhurst’s lips set in a hard line. “No. It doesn’t matter.” There was satisfaction in his stride as he marched back to his horse, and Lucien surveyed the park once more to confirm that it was still empty. Victory was finally within reach.

  He’d gambled and won, and this time, it would be worth it.

  Taking vengeance from Lyndenhurst would be his last living deed.

  The only disappointment was that Sophia would never know that he’d kept his word to her. Lucien would die on November 1, his soul forfeit in exchange for seven years of service from the demon who had ensured he could never lose.

  He wouldn’t even see his beloved in the afterlife, for he was surely bound for Hell and Sophia had to be in Heaven.

  Lucien knew theirs had always been a star-crossed match, but he didn’t have to take pleasure in yet one more reminder of that.

  Justice done and a promise kept would have to suffice.

  Meanwhile, at North Barrows Dower House, Cumbria

  A distinct rap upon the polished floor of the foyer alerted the disguised Sophia Brisbane to the fact that her employer would likely soon join the lesson in the drawing room.

  Seven years before, at the insistence of her beloved governess, Sophia had taken Amelia Findlay’s place. Amelia had been ill with pneumonia, and when she died, she was buried under the name Sophia Brisbane. Sophia had exchanged her clothes for those of Amelia, and had begun to powder her hair to make it appear more silver, like that of an older woman. She had donned the spectacles of her former governess—although she had mystified the maker by having the lenses exchanged for plain glass—then taken a post as far away from London and any chance of recognition as possible.

  Seven years later, she still feared discovery.

  Eugene Tremblay, Marquess of Lyndenhurst had taken everything from her, everything except her life, and Sophia didn’t trust him to have abandoned the hunt for that.

  Who interrupted their lessons and why? She couldn’t dismiss her sense of doom. Her heart in her throat, Sophia stood up.

  The girls were too engrossed in their lessons for once to notice the tap on the door. They were competing again, Eurydice writing fluidly, while Daphne frowned at her younger sister’s rapid progress. The envy would be reversed when it was time for a dance lesson.

  Daphne was the taller of the two, as well as the older. She was exquisitely lovely and even at sixteen, possessed of the kind of rare beauty that made people turn to stare. Her hair was as golden as sunlight and her skin was as fair as ivory. She was as slender and supple as a willow, and the joy of every dressmaker who had ever fitted her.

  Eurydice was smaller and more stocky, although that might yet change as she was just fourteen. Her hair was closer to the hue of wildflower honey and nowhere near as fastidiously arranged for she was impatient with such fussing. There was a solemnity about her that her sister did not share, and no one was ever surprised to learn that she was an avid reader who wished to become a writer herself. Sophia hoped the girl married a man who was tolerant of her aspirations, for Eurydice had talent. She had a mole upon her cheek, which Amelia thought quite attractive but which Eurydice called the bane of her existence.

  “I hate German!” Daphne declared, pushing her page of exercises to the floor just as her grandmother entered the room.

  Octavia Goodenham, Viscountess of North Barrows, halted in her steps and arched a silver brow. “And how do you imagine that you will secure a husband of merit if you have no education?” that lady demanded crisply. “Only peasants prefer stupid women, no matter how pretty they are.”

  The girls leaped to their feet and curtsied. “Good afternoon, Grandmaman,” said Eurydice and Daphne in unison.

  “Your ladyship, how delightful,” Sophia said, offering a much deeper curtsy.

  Lady North Barrows ignored these greetings. She was an older lady of considerable poise and some eccentricity. The stark black she favored made her look more slender than she was, although she was as lean as a whip. She carried a black umbrella by habit, one with an ebony handle shaped like a bird’s head, and used it both as a cane and a weapon. Her lady’s maid, Nelson, had shared her mistress’s conviction that only elderly women required canes, while an umbrella, they both agreed, was always a prudent accessory in the north of England. The viscountess’ features were angular, her gaze sufficiently sharp to draw blood. She fixed a look upon her oldest granddaughter that might have struck terror into one less accustomed to her manner.

  Or one unfamiliar with the softness of her heart, particularly with regard to these two orphaned girls. Sophia had come to recognize that Lady North Barrows would fight lions for her granddaughters. Fortunately, the need for such heroics was unlikely at the dower house in North Barrows.

  Daphne lifted her chin proudly. “I will captivate a duke with my beauty, Grandmaman,” she said, with no small measure of confidence. “You need not fear for my future. It is Eurydice who will be a spinster.”

  Sophia noticed the poisonous glance the younger sister spared the elder.

  Lady North Barrows looked Daphne up and down. “It is true that you are more than pretty, Daphne, but that is a fleeting virtue. You have an increment of charm, but are utterly lacking in decorum. This is a serious liability.”

  “I shall have to steal the duke’s heart then, and persuade him to propose quickly.”

  Lady North Barrows looked skeptical. “And when you have had four children, your blossom has faded and he has no interest in your charms? What then?”

  “Then I will be rich, for I will have married a duke and provided him with at least one heir. I will have hats and gowns and gloves and parasols, at least one fine carriage and a pair of footmen to carry my parcels. I will have parties at his country manor, or at his London townhouse, and I will drink champagne whenever I desire.” She shrugged. “He might be bald and fat by then, and of no interest to me. Let him have a mistress and leave me to amuse myself.”

  Lady North Barrows removed her spectacles and gave them a determined polish before donning them once again. Apparently, the view of her defiant granddaughter was not much improved, for her grim expression didn’t change. “The question of decorum remains.” She rapped her umbrella tip on the floor and turned her attention to Sophia. “Miss Findlay, I come to inform you that we will depart on the morrow, immediately after breakfast.”

  Sophia bowed her head, assuming this departure did not inc
lude her.

  But she was mistaken.

  “You will ensure that sufficient material is taken with us for the girls’ lessons to continue in Cornwall, where we shall linger for about a week.”

  “Cornwall?” Daphne declared with some horror.

  “Cornwall?” Eurydice echoed with delight of equal magnitude.

  I will have you and your inheritance, at any price.

  Sophia’s head snapped up, Lyndenhurst’s long-ago threat echoing in her thoughts. “It will be an arduous journey for a week’s stay, my lady.”

  “And so it must be.” Lady North Barrows braced her hands upon her umbrella and surveyed her granddaughters. “We must consider that Daphne will need a season soon.”

  “A season!” Daphne squealed in delight and seized her sister’s hands. Eurydice permitted herself to be spun around but she was trying desperately to attend her grandmother’s words.

  “And it is most clear that she has learned nothing at all of how to conduct herself in society. I propose this journey that she might have some practice before we descend upon London and she makes a mockery of all of us.”

  “London!” Daphne flung herself at her grandmother. “Balls and parties every night. Dressmakers and milliners and darling little kid gloves.”

  “Museums,” Eurydice said with awe. “Galleries and concerts.”

  “Decorum,” Lady North Barrows concluded. “And with any luck, the son of a man with a respectable title.”

  “A duke!”

  “We shall see. Miss Findlay, I shall need every possible measure of your assistance.”