The Devil Takes a Bride

by Julia London

  Grace. He called her Grace. Jeffrey looked at her, and she smiled. “I’m so happy you’re here,” she said, and glided over to him, rising up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

  His fist curled at his side and he tried to offer a smile for her. He looked at John, who was looking on with some conceit. “Where have you been?” he asked.

  John laughed as if Jeffrey amused him. “I see we are to dispense with the customary greetings. I’ve come to congratulate you, Jeffrey. This is cause for celebration!” he said, gesturing to Grace.

  Grace touched Jeffrey’s hand; he felt that touch reverberate through him. “Thank you,” he said stiffly. “I think there is much we need to discuss. Shall we talk in my study?”

  Grace looked stricken by his rudeness. If Jeffrey could trust himself to speak amicably, he would have done so. But at present, all he could see was his brother on his wife, their bodies pressed together.

  “Will you not even share a whiskey with me, Jeffrey? Will you not allow me to at least pay my respects to your new wife?” John asked, and stretched his arms out entreatingly.

  Grace’s gaze slid down, to where Jeffrey had clasped his hands at his back, then up again, to his face. Jeffrey said to her, “If you would be so good as to excuse Lord Amherst, there are a few matters we must discuss straightaway.”

  “Oh, dear, that sounds rather ominous, doesn’t it?” John said amicably. “Very well, my Lord Merryton, if you insist on it, I shall keep my toasts to your conjugal happiness until supper. I am invited to dine, I should hope.”

  “Of course you are,” Grace said. “I insist on it.”

  “Thank you,” John said with a slight bow of his head. He walked to where Jeffrey stood and clapped his hand on his shoulder. “It is good to see you, Jeffrey. Did you say your study?” he asked, and strolled out.

  “Jeffrey,” Grace said.

  Jeffrey took her hand and brought it to his lips. “I’ll see you at supper,” he murmured, and dropped her hand. He wanted desperately to touch her, to hold her in his arms. It was churning in him, pressing against his insides. But he had more immediate matters, and left her in the parlor, following his brother to the study.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  “WHY HAVE YOU taken all the paintings from the walls?” John asked when Jeffrey entered the study. “Another one of your peculiarities, I suppose.”

  How Jeffrey hated that word! His father had used it when referring to him—my peculiar son. The memory struck Jeffrey hard—he tapped against his leg, trying to push it down. “I should think that your concern would be the debt you have left on Sir Edmund, and not the decor of this study.”

  He could see that he had surprised John. “What do you know of it?” he demanded.

  “Only that he has sent a solicitor to collect the debt from our family coffers. Once again, the Donovan family fortune is expected to pay your gambling debts.”

  “There is money enough,” John said indifferently.

  “And I suppose you believe there is money enough to support the by-blow you’ve sired.”

  For once, John looked stricken. “I don’t—”

  “Don’t deny it,” Jeffrey warned him.

  John drew himself up. “I won’t deny it, Jeffrey. Why would I? It is often the unexpected but natural consequence of taking a woman to your bed.”

  “A tailor’s daughter?” Jeffrey said. He could imagine the poor girl, charmed by a handsome viscount, and now forever ruined.

  But John laughed. “A woman is a woman.”

  “Not for you, John,” Jeffrey said, his hand fisting against the rising tide of thoughts about this innocent young woman. “You are a viscount. Your name is a prestigious one. Even if we might somehow excuse the fact that your actions take money from the legitimate children of this family, we cannot excuse the fact that you have a duty to live an exemplary life. That is the price of the privilege you have enjoyed all your life.”

  “What hypocrisy,” John spat. “You will lecture me about my behavior, when I know very well what likely you are doing to that poor woman. What you’ve done to others.”

  “What I’m doing?” Jeffrey repeated, not understanding him immediately. “I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean.”

  “The hell you say,” John said angrily, his face going red. “It is common knowledge around Ashton Down of the sorts of things you seek in a bedmate, Jeffrey. You will debase her with your lust and think nothing of it, and all while you are passing judgment on me.”

  The truth in that accusation stung Jeffrey quite deeply. He was well aware of his own hypocrisy, but that didn’t absolve him of his responsibility to lead this family. He whirled about to his desk, crashing his fist down on it eight times in rapid succession. “You will not turn this conversation away from your reprehensible behavior, John! Say of me what you will, but I honor my word! What sort of man are you that you do not honor your bloody word?”

  “A bad man,” John readily agreed. “A poor excuse for a Donovan!” he shouted, casting his arms wide. “But at least I don’t need to watch two women pleasuring each other with my cock in hand. At least I haven’t married as a result of a tryst in a tea shop to a woman whose mother is mad.”

  “Mad,” Jeffrey scoffed.

  John’s scowl suddenly lightened. “You don’t know. How rich,” he sneered. “You think yourself so far above me, and you are the one who has brought madness into this family. I may have sired an illegitimate child, but I didn’t bring the blood of the deranged into this family. That was all you, my lord.”

  Jeffrey’s pulse had begun to pound. “You’re lying—”

  “Am I? Ask your lovely wife, brother.”

  Jeffrey’s thoughts raced wildly as he tried to make sense of John’s accusations. “That’s enough,” he said low. He rubbed his fingers against his forehead. His head felt as if it were splitting open with pain, and he needed to pace, to think. To count. “I have arranged a commission for you in the royal navy and we will meet with Admiral Hale on Friday at two o’clock.” He looked John directly in the eye. “You will accept it. We will give this woman enough to go and raise her child comfortably on the condition she makes no more claims against you. You will go about setting your debt to Sir Edmund to rights. There is no argument in this, John. If you do not do as I ask, I will disown you. I will not allow you to taint the family name or drain the family coffers and the future of all our children for your own amusement.”

  “You’re a heartless beast of a man,” John said, his voice quavering with rage. “You’ve never said a kind word to me, do you know? I thought Father’s death would change you, but you grow more and more like him every day.”

  John’s insults were difficult to hear, but then again Jeffrey had heard them many times before. Every time he and John had one of these conversations—Jeffery demanding to know why John thought it all right to lose a substantial amount of money from coffers that supported the entire family, and John excusing his behavior by saying that he was distraught at the way Jeffrey had treated him—John would eventually come around to insulting him.

  But today, John’s words sank Jeffrey into a toxic mix of angry self-loathing and doubts about Grace.

  “Our meeting is tomorrow at two o’clock,” Jeffrey said, ignoring him. He wrote down the location and handed it to John. “You will be there.”

  “Of course,” John said, snatching the paper from his hand. “It’s a splendid idea. As far from you and Blackwood Hall as I can be is certainly my preference, as well.” He brushed past Jeffrey, his shoulder knocking against him as he swept out of the study.

  “You’ll stay to dine,” Jeffrey said tersely.

  John paused at the door. Jeffrey could see his shoulders tense, could see the intake of breath. John looked back and smiled strangely. “I’d not miss the opportunity to dine with you and your lovely wife.” He went out, slamming the door behind him.

  “Four seasons,” Jeffrey muttered. “Four windows, sixteen steps across the study...”
<
br />   Counting wouldn’t soothe him. Nothing would. He felt ravaged. His fear of what was said around Ashton Down about him was torment enough—a man could not seek the sort of diversions Jeffrey had sought and not expect for there to be talk. But to add to that the idea that Grace’s mother was mad was more than he could bear. He didn’t understand why she hadn’t told him. He worried how the mix of blood from two mad people would ruin his children. What hope could there possibly be for them? But more than that, the weight of Grace’s secret was pressing on him, making him a bit short of breath.

  He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and withdrew a piece of vellum. He picked up a pen, dipped it in ink eight times and began to write figures, in rows and columns of eight. Sums. Sums divided and multiplied all by a factor of eight. It was a tedious, painstaking task that had, at times, taken an hour or more. But it was the tedium of it, the mind-numbing repetition that calmed him and allowed him to think.

  He hadn’t felt this anxious in days, if not weeks, he realized. He’d grown comfortable with the presence of a woman in his house, and the obsessions, the compulsions he’d felt about Grace, had eased. He was still plagued with images—but now the images were only of Grace. Only her. Even his unnatural fear of harming her had subsided. There was always that moment of uncertainty when he was with her, but even his tortured brain could reason that as he had yet to harm her, his fear of doing just that was nonsensical.

  It was strange how it all came roaring back to him with one angry comment from John. The sad truth of his depravity was that even in times he felt quite normal, it was always lurking just below the surface, always in him. Even on those occasions Jeffrey believed he was improving.

  And now, he began to imagine the number of secrets Grace was keeping from him. Too many, all of them salacious. The recording of sums helped ease him somewhat, and Jeffrey was eventually able to leave his study and go to his rooms to prepare for what he assumed would be an excruciating supper. The whiskey he drank only made his belly churn. There was a charge running through him, his thoughts alternating between lurid images of his brother with his wife, and the endless process of counting. “Get hold of yourself,” he hissed at his reflection. What sort of man was he that he could not control it?

  A peculiar one. He tapped his fist against his leg and forced himself to go down for supper.

  Grace and John were already in the parlor. John seemed relaxed, as if he’d somehow managed to suppress his rage with Jeffrey. Jeffrey wished he could do the same.

  Grace looked lovely in a gray gown and pearls. “Good evening,” she said, reaching her hand for Jeffrey’s. “I was just saying to John how glad I am that he stayed for supper. I know you miss him.”

  Jeffrey leaned down and kissed her cheek. “Of course I miss him,” he said. It was true. In spite of the adversarial relationship between them, Jeffrey missed the boy who once followed him around, chattering incessantly about swords and knights and battles on castle walls. There had been a period in Jeffrey’s life when John had been the only bright spot.

  Grace’s grateful smile was brilliant, and Jeffrey could feel it slip through him like a whisper of silk. She was beautiful, surely the subject of any healthy man’s thoughts. He couldn’t be alone in that, and glanced at his brother. John was at the sideboard, pouring a glass of whiskey.

  Cox appeared, carrying flutes of champagne. Grace took one. Jeffrey declined. She seemed nervous, he thought as she smiled at him and looked at his brother. “Your brother is incorrigible,” she said.

  “Pardon?”

  She turned a sparkling smile to John. “He does a wonderful imitation of a mutual acquaintance, Lord Grimbley. Do you know him?”

  Jeffrey shook his head.

  “I am surprised you recall it, it’s been so long ago,” John said. “Let me think...he’s a rather rotund fellow who has a tendency to sway side to side when he chats up the ladies,” he said, mimicking the sway. He pinched his face, tossed his head back and peered down his nose with a squint. “You’ve twenty thousand a year, Miss Cabot? Why, you’d be the perfect match for me,” John said in a gravelly voice, his hips swaying from one side to the next.

  “It’s uncanny,” Grace proclaimed with delight. “You even look a bit like him. I think even Grimbley would be amused by your imitation of him.”

  “I wouldn’t be sure of that,” John said laughingly.

  “He is at all the fashionable events,” Grace said. “You must show him the next time you meet.”

  “It looks as if I won’t be at any fashionable event,” John said congenially. But Jeffrey could hear the thread of bitterness in his voice. “Perhaps my brother hasn’t mentioned it, but he’s been kind enough to seek an occupation for me. Very kind indeed,” John said, and lifted his whiskey. “To my brother, a man who selfishly seeks occupations for his family, lest they be idle.” John didn’t wait for a response, but drained his whiskey.

  Grace smiled uncertainly, as if she thought John was teasing her. “And what is your occupation to be?”

  “Oh, I am to be an officer in the royal navy,” John said grandly. “One must pay one’s debts, you know. I never cared much for the sea. I had rather hoped for the clergy.”

  Jeffrey couldn’t help the small laugh of surprise that escaped him. He was alone in it, however; Grace was looking curiously at John. Perhaps she was trying to imagine him in the robes of a vicar.

  Cox announced supper was served. They made their way to the dining room, and John settled into a role Jeffrey had often seen him assume, that of entertainer. He launched into an amusing story about a race he’d seen in Hyde Park. Jeffrey had heard the tale before; John always told it affably, in that practiced way oft-told stories were related, almost acting it out for them. Jeffrey couldn’t help but notice that Grace seemed to be on the edge of her seat, hanging on his every word leading up to the outcome of the race.

  Jeffrey wished he had the ability to tell an amusing tale and have Grace look at him as she was looking at his brother. She was positively sparkling with pleasure. She glanced at Jeffrey from time to time, looking for a sign that he was enjoying his brother’s story, and satisfied that he was at least listening, she would turn her sparkling smile to John again.

  Jeffrey couldn’t help but watch her and feel the weight of his depravity in a new way. Grace had not smiled at him quite like that, had she? Why would she? He wasn’t engaging like his brother. When he attended evenings such as this, he remained quiet, for fear one of his unnatural thoughts would slip from his mouth. He began to wonder if there was more to this evening than he knew. His thoughts were so plaguing him, and he was ready for the interminable evening to end, to retreat to his rooms and his rituals, and yet the main course hadn’t even been served.

  There was no end to the tales John had to share, much to Grace’s delight. By the time they had finished the last course, he had told so many that Jeffrey couldn’t keep track.

  At the end of the meal, as Jeffrey and John sipped port, John began to boast of his prowess at the card table and it was all Jeffrey could do to keep from exploding into a foul discourse, particularly given the untenable situation he’d put Jeffrey in with his latest debts.

  Jeffrey suddenly stood. “I beg your pardon, but I have a headache. Grace?”

  She glanced at John as she stood from her seat. “So glad you could come, my lord,” she said.

  “What, the evening is ended so soon?” John said jovially. “Come, Lady Merryton, won’t you entertain me with your lovely singing voice?”

  She laughed. “I haven’t a lovely singing voice.”

  “Then will you play for me?” John asked. “It’s early yet, and as I’ve been banned from the gaming hells, I am in desperate need of a diversion.”

  “It is late,” Jeffrey said.

  “Just one song,” John insisted, his smile quite cool.

  “Perhaps only one,” Grace suggested to Jeffrey.

  “Then it’s settled,” John said, and stood up, his port in hand.r />
  Jeffrey silently offered his arm to Grace. He couldn’t help the tapping against his leg as he led her to the parlor. His discomfort was growing, filling up his limbs and his chest. But Jeffrey wasn’t certain from where the discomfort was emanating. It wasn’t just in the obsessive thoughts, or the need to count.

  No, he realized as he watched Grace take her place at the pianoforte, what agitated him was a feeling so raw, so unnatural to him, that he didn’t know how to tamp it down, how to push it out of sight or bury it. He could not count his way from this.

  What agitated him, what had turned him every which way, was that he cared.

  He cared for Grace. Against all odds, he cared for her a great deal, and that made him feel more uncertain than he ever had in his life.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  GRACE WAS AGGRAVATED. Oh, she smiled, she laughed, she declared Amherst a connoisseur of poor musical talent. She was the perfect hostess, but she saw him for what he was—a glib rakehell.

  As she banged the keys—deliberately, for she would not allow him to use music as an excuse to prolong this wretched evening, and she could not very well box his ears—Grace could feel her heart sinking with disappointment. She’d been so hopeful, even happy, these past few days! She had truly believed that this marriage would flourish in spite of its less than commendable beginnings.

  But then Amherst had arrived and tried to ruin it. Oh, she knew what he was about. She’d been in far too many salons and ballrooms not to recognize when a gentleman was playing a wretched game. What she didn’t know was why. He had denigrated his own brother to her, telling her those awful things about him. Even if they were true, there was no reason he would have to tell her—other than to hurt her and make her afraid of Jeffrey.