The Devil Takes a Bride

by Julia London

  Mr. Ainsley nodded, and his gaze swept over Jeffrey, as if he was assessing him, judging him by some unstated standard.

  When he had gone, Jeffrey collapsed into a chair. A child. He would kill John. With his bare hands wrapped around his throat, he would kill him.

  He had to get to London straightaway.

  He reviewed some correspondence that could not wait, then went in search of Grace. “She is riding around the lake, my lord.”

  “Alone?” Jeffrey asked as he fit his gloves on his hand.

  “Not alone, my lord. The dogs have accompanied her,” Cox said, clearly disapproving.

  “Dogs?” Jeffrey asked curiously.

  “It would seem there is yet another one saved from Mr. Drake. This one has a bad leg.”

  Jeffrey rode down to the lake in search of his wife. He spotted her easily enough; she was racing recklessly around the lake path, the hem of her blue riding habit flying behind her. Bother was racing after the horse, and behind Bother, another dog, lurching along on what looked like only three legs. Normally, the asymmetry of the dog’s legs would have been enough to disturb Jeffrey, but he was far too disturbed by Grace’s riding. He watched as she reined up hard and wheeled the horse about before trotting back to where Bother had paused to stick his snout into some bushes. That’s when she saw Jeffrey, and waved.

  “I’m so glad you’ve come!” she called out to him as he rode around to where she had paused. “Is it not a glorious day?”

  “I saw you riding,” he said. “You are far too reckless, madam.”

  She clucked her tongue at him. “You sound like most every man I’ve ever known. What is the point in riding if you mean to meander along?”

  “Perhaps keeping your neck in one piece?” he suggested.

  She laughed at him. “You are a man who likes to ride—would you care to race?” she asked, her impertinent smile challenging him.

  “That is an imprudent and scandalous thing for you to suggest,” he said. “But if you insist—” He suddenly charged past her, bent over the neck of his horse. With a squeal of delight, Grace was quickly after him.

  He was an excellent rider, and she couldn’t catch him. She at last slowed her mount, and laughed aloud as she tried to catch her breath. Jeffrey turned his horse about and trotted back to her.

  “You win!” she breathlessly proclaimed. “And I’ve lost my bonnet.”

  “We’ll fetch it on the way back. I see you’ve gained another dog,” he said, watching the second one happily hop forward with a mangled leg.

  “She was going to be a surprise,” Grace said with a wince. “Mr. Drake said she’s been made useless after she was caught in a trap.”

  The dog sat back on her haunches and stared up at Jeffrey, her tail swishing the dirt behind her as her injured paw twisted strangely before her. Jeffrey had to look away—the sight of the paw facing to one side was enough to make discord reverberate through him. “She can scarcely walk.”

  “Not perfectly, but she can walk,” Grace said quickly. “I mean to fix her.”

  “Some things can’t be fixed.”

  “Perhaps not, but everything deserves at least the attempt.”

  Jeffrey smiled. “You are determined, aren’t you?” He swung down off his horse and helped Grace off of hers. As she shook out her skirts and tucked strands of hair into her wind-ravaged braid, he led the horses to the edge of the river to drink their fill. The injured dog waded into the water and did a strange sort of swim in a circle. Without her front leg, she was incapable of swimming a straight line. But she seemed undaunted.

  When Jeffrey returned to the path, Grace had climbed up on a rock and had drawn her knees into her chest, her arms wrapped around them, her face turned up to the sun. Jeffrey removed his coat and draped it across the grass, stretching out on his back, his feet crossed at the ankles, his arms pillowing his head and his hat covering his face. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d done this—when he was a boy, he supposed.

  Bother came around, sniffed his neck and ears, then lay down beside him.

  “I’ll be happy for summer,” Grace said with a sigh. “My sisters and I used to swim in the lake at Longmeadow. We were forbidden to do it, but the summers could be so hot.” She leaned forward. “We removed our gowns and swam in our chemises,” she said low. “And then we’d lie in the grass as you are doing until they dried. But one day, the gamekeeper stumbled upon us.” She laughed and straightened up. “He was quite scandalized.”

  Jeffrey sat up, propping one arm on a knee. “Creating mischief even then, were you?”

  “Well, not intentionally,” Grace said. “We always wanted to do the right things. It’s just that sometimes the right thing is very hard to do.” She winked at him.

  “That is something the guilty would say,” he suggested with a smile of amusement.

  “My mother was determined to keep us well occupied so that we’d not be tempted. Prudence was particularly good at music, so she was given music lessons. She is a pleasure to hear, really. Mercy, the youngest, well—she’s got a very bright imagination,” she said with a roll of her eyes. “But it runs to the macabre. Ghosts and ghouls and the like.”

  “Ah.”

  “My mother put her into art lessons, for we discovered she has a very fine eye. And then, of course, there is Honor. She is older than me by one year. Mamma said the first Cabot girl into society makes the strongest impression and she enrolled her in Mrs. Abbot’s School for Etiquette. I would never tell her, for my sister is awfully proud of her accomplishments, but Honor is very good at whatever she likes. It was rather maddening to be her younger sister.”

  “And what is your talent?” Jeffrey asked.

  “Mine?” Grace said with a shrug. “I don’t quite know. I suppose I’m pleasant enough. I enjoy math and geography and French, but doesn’t everyone? I have saved a pair of dogs,” she said, looking at Bother.

  The dog thumped his tail.

  She suddenly hopped off the rock. Bother was instantly on his feet, his tail wagging with happy anticipation. “My mother wanted us to be fine dancers,” she said, and stepped over Jeffrey into the middle of the grassy bank. She picked up her skirts and dipped to one side, then the other. “She said that girls who danced well married well, for gentlemen did not care to be saddled to poor dancers.”

  She went up on her toes and twirled about; Bother leaped around her, thinking she meant to play. The lame dog lay down, her head between her paws, watching.

  “I’ve never heard such a thing,” Jeffrey said. “I can assure you that no one has ever advised me to choose a proper dancer.”

  Grace dipped again. “Then what did they advise you, Lord Merryton? To study the size of a debutante’s dowry? To closely examine her father’s connections?” She held her arms up overhead and twirled.

  Jeffrey came up on one elbow to watch her. “They must have,” he said. He came to his feet and took her hand, put his other hand behind his back and began to perform the figures of a familiar country dance.

  “Then I suppose it’s possible that we might have been married the proper way.”

  Jeffrey smiled. “I rather doubt it,” he said, and Grace laughed.

  “Oh, but you’re a fine dancer!” she said as she moved alongside him, rising up on her toes, and down, back two steps, forward four.

  “I’m not. You’re attempting to flatter me.”

  “Perhaps a bit,” she said with a winsome smile. “A bit of practice, and you’d be as light on your feet as Lord Grey, who I think must fancy himself something of a premier danseur noble,” she said, referring to the ballet.

  Jeffrey laughed. It was impossible to believe that he, of all people, was dancing on the grassy bank of the lake. He was also aware that he hadn’t tapped his finger once since he’d found Grace this afternoon. He felt perfectly at ease, his mind free of the images for the time being. When he ended their dance with a kiss, it was a gentle one. Long and lazy, playful and tender, just like that a
fternoon.

  He hated that he had to go to London. “I’ve something to tell you,” he said as they stood, their arms around each other, swaying to a rhythm only they could hear. “There has been some trouble with John, and I must go to London on the morrow.”

  Grace’s smile faded. “What trouble? Is he all right?”

  Her question rudely reminded him that she had come to him by mistake. He had not wondered until now how she felt about his brother. “He’s all right.”

  “What’s happened?”

  “Nothing to concern you,” he said, perhaps a bit more briskly than he intended. He didn’t want her to be concerned about John. Not in any way.

  “I’ll come with you—”

  “No,” he said. “I must go quickly. I’ll ride.”

  She grabbed his arm tightly. “Don’t go, Jeffrey. Not yet.”

  He didn’t know what she meant by yet, but he quickly sought to reassure her. “Grace, I’m coming back. But there is a matter that requires my immediate attention.”

  She looked as if she wanted to say something, but Bother began to bark and she turned to see what had his attention. A reed, moving in the afternoon breeze, was the culprit, but whatever Grace intended to say was lost.

  She said nothing more about it that day. It wasn’t until the night, after Jeffrey had come to her, after she had suggested he tie her to the bedposts and have his way with her, that she mentioned it again.

  She was lying on her stomach, her legs bent at the knees and crossed at the ankles, toying with his discarded collar. Jeffrey was entirely sated, his body heavy from the release of passion. He was making a deliberate and intricate path of kisses down her spine and to her hips, his hand sliding between her legs, dipping into the wet of their lovemaking.

  “Must you go?” She lifted her head and closed her eyes, sighing with pleasure as he moved his fingers into her.

  “I must,” he muttered, far more interested her body than in his trip to London.

  “Why can’t I come?”

  “I shan’t be there long. By the time you’ve gathered what you will need, I will have returned. Why do you have such a strong desire to go on such a quick trip?” he asked. He waited to hear if his brother’s name fell from her lips.

  Grace glanced over her shoulder at him. “Isn’t it apparent? I miss my sisters terribly. I won’t need much. But I need my family.”

  His belly seized a little at the prospect of meeting her sisters. He had found a way to be comfortable in Grace’s presence, but he worried what he might be in front of her family. He brushed her hair from her back and kissed her neck, but Grace shifted up, pushing away from the bed. She turned around and sat before him on her knees. Her breasts looked heavy and ripe, and he couldn’t resist palming one.

  “I need to see them,” she said. “You could go on the morrow as you planned. I could come the following day, in the coach.”

  “Grace...a coach will require a day and a half. It’s a long journey for a very short visit.”

  “They are the most important people in my life and I’ve gone weeks without them. I won’t go out into society. I just want to see them. Will it really be so difficult?”

  “It’s quite a long way—”

  “I mean, will it be difficult for you,” she said, and touched his hand.

  It was amazing that she had come to understand his illness so quickly. He looked at her hand, covered it with his. “Yes,” he said. “But I understand. You may come for a few days—”

  Grace squealed with delight and flung her arms around his neck.

  “Only a few days,” he said, catching her. “I can’t... It’s difficult to be in London longer than that.” He didn’t tell her that the chaos of that town would wreak havoc on his counting, particularly coupled with John’s problems. He dreaded the prospect of it.

  “Yes, yes, only a few days,” she said, covering his face with kisses.

  Jeffrey twisted her about, onto her back. She sighed as he sank down to her breast, playfully biting her. He could feel her fingers in his hair, twisting a curl around.

  “And besides, you would miss me far too much if you left me here.”

  He squeezed her breast in his hand, kneading the flesh. The remarkable thing was that he would miss her. “Yes,” he said, and slid his hand down between her legs again, slipping his fingers inside her. “Yes,” he said again. “I would.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  GRACE SAW JEFFREY off the next morning wrapped in his dressing gown with her hair spilling about her. They’d made love well into the morning hours, and she could scarcely keep her eyes open. He cupped the back of her head in his hand and kissed her eight times before finally walking out of her rooms.

  She fell back against the pillows with a smile curving on her lips as she burrowed under the covers once more and drifted back to half slumber, her mind playing through the hours now spent in his company.

  She was discovering the meaning of conjugal bliss. Jeffrey was teaching her things about her body she had never imagined. And he was teaching her about his body, too. He had taken her into his secret world, always apologetic for it.

  But Grace took no offense. She wanted only to experience more of what he could teach her.

  A light rap on her door was followed by the opening of it. “Good morning, my lady,” Hattie said. “A letter has come for you.”

  Her eyes flew open; she sat up and reached for the letter Hattie had put on the bed table. She recognized the handwriting as Honor’s.

  After her greeting and well wishes, Honor wrote:

  I’m aching for news of you! I fear you’ve been locked away in a dark room and forced to dine on something as revolting as eels, which I know you loathe. I should think everyone would loathe eels, but Easton prefers them. Lady Chatham called Wednesday evening for tea. She has not called at all since my marriage to Easton, and I have heard from a kind friend that she’s had much to say on the matter all about town. But here she came, her countenance quite cheerful, and I knew at once that she was desperate to speak of you, for of course word has come back to London. Lady Chatham did at last own to her curiosity and confided that Merryton is rigid and fastidious, and thinks of little else than propriety. He has nearly disowned Amherst, and he is said to be a disagreeable and aloof dining companion. Lady Chatham vows that he is so convinced of his own perfection that he looks askance at all else.

  “No, that’s not true,” Grace muttered to herself.

  I have thought of little else since her call, and I think that perhaps you should tell him the truth of Mamma. He will no doubt cast you out and end the marriage, and there will surely be a horrible calumny to follow you, but at least you will not be married to that wretched man.

  Grace wanted to tell Jeffrey about her mother. She’d been thinking of how precisely to do that, when to do that. Why didn’t she tell him last night? She’d had the opportunity, but they had been so good together, and she’d felt the affection building between them, and she’d not wanted to ruin it.

  Now she worried that he would be angry when he discovered she’d kept this secret from him. She didn’t want him to be angry before he left for London. She only knew that he could not be in London without her. It had occurred to Grace that if he saw her mother, and how helpless she was without her daughters, he might perhaps think more kindly of the situation.

  Of course you may come to Easton and me. We’ve not much at present, but we will not force you to eat eels.

  “You have it all wrong, Honor,” Grace said aloud. She got out of bed and padded over to the writing desk to pen a note, telling Honor she was coming to London with her husband:

  You must behave yourself, Honor! Promise that you will! I know how you can be when you have in mind you don’t care for someone, but at least allow Merryton the benefit of doubt. I shall call on you as soon as I am situated.

  Grace wanted to be confident of what she was doing. As she and Hattie prepared to leave the following morning, she reminded h
erself that the ugly circumstances of her marriage were slowly peeling away, falling off, discarded. She earnestly believed that she could be happy with Jeffrey, even with his dark ailment. She wasn’t so naive to think it would be perfect, or that his predilections or fears of madness would magically disappear, but she had faith that if she was on the path with him, and they understood each other, that in spite of his peculiarities there was nothing but optimism for her future.

  Now all she had to do was persuade him to believe it.

  * * *

  THERE WAS A different sort of vitality to London than anywhere else in England, and after an absence of many weeks, Grace felt it more than ever. It reverberated in her blood and her bones, swirled about in her chest. She missed London and the whirl of the Season, the endless procession of balls and soirees and teas. She missed all the lovely gowns and hats and shoes. She missed society and her friends and the bustle of the Mayfair district in the heart of London.

  But as the coach crept along a crowded thoroughfare, Grace was astonished to realize she’d also come to appreciate the stark beauty and serene calm of the country.

  Blackwood Hall wasn’t the same as Longmeadow. At Longmeadow, there were so many families of Quality nearby that society seemed to follow the Beckington household to the country. Grace had spent summers in a whirl of country dances and picnics and horse races. She never rode alone as she’d done at Blackwood, feeling the wind on her face, the freedom of being one in the vastness of the world. She had not visited the kennels and rescued dogs that had not met the gamekeeper’s standards. She shuddered to think how many of them she might have saved for being less than perfect had she been aware of anything other than her own need for diversion and attention. She’d been so mired in the whirl of society that she had forgotten to look around her.

  Blackwood Hall was its own society and Grace had come to appreciate the beauty in that. Having only herself to rely on these past few weeks had made her recognize the different rhythms in life, of her own feelings. She couldn’t suppress a small smile—for the more than two years she’d been out, she had thought of nothing but what she would wear and where she might dine. She’d wanted nothing more than to be admired by gentlemen and befriended by women. What a long way from that debutante she had come in a very short time!