Devil’s Angel

by Marlene Suson

  Not until silence reigned once again on the floor above them did Lucian roll off Angel.

  He did not attempt to relight the candle. Instead he motioned for her to follow him. They picked their way slowly across the dark room, taking care not to bump into any of the vague, blurred shapes in their path.

  When they finally reached the windows without mishap, Lucian heard Angel expel a long breath of relief.

  God’s oath, but she was a brave little thing. Most females finding themselves in such a dangerous situation would have dissolved into hysterics.

  But then most wives would have obeyed their husbands and not gotten themselves into such a perilous predicament. Lucian was torn between admiration for her courage and anger for placing herself in so much jeopardy.

  He swung wide the casement window through which he had entered and signalled Angel to go through the opening.

  When she had done so, he handed her the volume of her father’s journal that he had taken, removed the telescope from the desk, gave that to her as well, then turned back for a final scrutiny of the library.

  His eye fell on the gold-framed miniature of Angel on her father’s desk. He swept it up and dropped it in his pocket, then followed Angel through the window.

  At the bottom of the hill, Angel stopped and turned around to stare up at the mansion, white and ghostly in the light of the quarter-moon.

  Lucian saw the devastated look on her face and the shimmer of tears in her eyes, and he forgot how furious he was at her for disobeying him.

  “I love Belle Haven so much,” she whispered shakily. “There are no words that can tell you how much it means to me. And now I will never be allowed inside it again. I may never even see it again! I am sure you do not understand, but I feel so bereft.”

  But Lucian did understand. He remembered what it had been like that day his father had banished him forever from Sandford Park, the country estate where he had grown up. Lucian had stopped outside its ornate iron gates and looked back in abject misery at the only home he had ever known. He had been filled with black despair and loss that he would never be permitted to walk through those gates again and that more than likely, given the uncertain future he faced in the army, he would not even live long enough to see them again.

  Lucian gazed down at his wife’s stricken face and wished for some way to erase her pain. So much had happened to her in the past few months, most of it bad, and none of it her fault. Her father had been killed, her home and inheritance stolen from her. Now she had been forced to marry a stranger who did not love nor want her.

  Seeing how much she loved Belle Haven, Lucian was more determined than ever to get it back for her.

  They sneaked silently up the backstairs of the White Horse Inn and tiptoed along the hall to their room.

  As they entered it, Angel braced for the storm from her husband. She knew he was furious at her for disobeying him by going to Belle Haven. Although he had said nothing to her on the ride back, it was only because the need for quiet outweighed his desire to vent his wrath at her.

  Lucian closed the door behind them. Without a word, he carried her father’s diary and telescope to the scarred oak table between the beds. He laid them there and turned to face her.

  “Angel, I ordered you to remain here tonight,” he began in a low, stem tone. “When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.”

  “I know you do.”

  “Then why did you not do so?”

  “I knew I could help you.”

  “Help me? You call knocking that book to the floor and nearly getting us caught helping me?”

  “I am sorry about that, but it was an accident.”

  “An accident that would not have happened had you not disobeyed me! Your accident forced me to cut short my search for your father’s missing will. I might have found it.”

  Angel doubted that he would have, but she said nothing. It would only exacerbate his anger.

  “I will not tolerate a wife who disobeys me.” He began unbuttoning his shirt. “Do I make myself clear?”

  “Quite,” Angel retorted, her own temper rising at his arrogance. “However, I do not see why a wife, even yours, my lord, should be expected to obey her husband when he is wrong.”

  His expression turned to irate disbelief. “Are you saying that I was wrong to try to keep you safe?”

  “I am saying that you should have let me guide you to Belle Haven, my lord.”

  “Lucian,” he corrected. “I told you to call me Lucian.”

  He stripped off his shirt and tossed it aside. Angel’s breath shortened at the sight of his powerful bronze chest covered with swirling patterns of curly black hair. The sight of it made her want to call him several things besides Lucian.

  Splendid and exciting came most readily to her mind. A delicious warmth crept through her at the memory of waking up that morning to find herself being held tightly against his muscled body.

  She said, “Only see how much quicker you would have reached Belle Haven if you had taken me with you.” Their return from the estate had taken considerably less time than his trip to it because she had used shortcuts.

  His mouth tightened angrily. “May I remind you, Angel, that only a few hours ago, you vowed before God to obey me.”

  “And you vowed to love me, but you do not,” she shot back.

  “I also vowed to protect you, and that, damn it, is what I am trying to do.” He sank down on his bed and yanked off his left boot. “As I told you before, Angel, I cannot force myself to love you—that is beyond my control.”

  Aye, he had told her that before. And it hurt her just as much this time as it had then.

  “But it is within my control to protect you, and I intend to do so.” His right boot hit the floor. “In return I expect, nay demand, your obedience. Do you understand me?”

  “Aye, my lord.” She understood him only too well, but she had no intention of becoming his obedient little handmaid. Nothing would be gained, however, by telling him that now. He would discover it soon enough.

  He was unbuttoning his breeches as casually as though he did so before a woman every day of his life.

  Her cheeks flaming, Angel snatched up her night rail from the bed and disappeared behind the screen in the corner to change into it.

  She was removing her own breeches when she heard his bed creak beneath his weight as he settled on it.

  Angel bit her lip at the sound. When she had arrived at the inn, she had been so apprehensive about sleeping with him for the first time that when he had told her he would not touch her tonight, she had been relieved enough to regain her appetite.

  She had not known until dinner what an amusing man she had married. He had seemed intent on making her laugh with his funny anecdotes about incidents at court and life in Holland. He had served in that country for several years in command of an English regiment stationed there. That was how he had become so close to the new Dutch king who now sat on England’s throne.

  Lucian had patiently answered her questions about King William. It was true his majesty was short and unimpressive in stature, but her husband assured her that the king was a brilliant man and a good and just ruler.

  As dinner progressed, Angel found herself increasingly fascinated by the man she had married. The odd excitement his presence always seemed to kindle in her blazed stronger than ever, accompanied by the strangest ache deep in her abdomen.

  After the meal, when he helped her from the table, the most delicious shiver rippled through her at his touch.

  And perversely, she found herself regretting his pledge that he would not touch her that night.

  Why had he promised her that? Did he find her that unattractive? she wondered forlornly.

  Now, changing into her night rail behind the screen, Lady Bloomfield’s words came back to haunt her. “Every man wants his wedding night. I doubt there has ever been a groom in the history of mankind who despised his wife so much that he failed to claim his rights to her
on it.”

  Well, there was one now.

  The pain of this realization blindsided Angel, and she felt the sting of tears. It hurt her that her husband should despise her that much. Yet she could hardly blame him. He had wanted Kitty, not her. Lovely, charming Kitty, a beautiful rose in full bloom, while Angel was a plain, nondescript twig. He had been tricked into having to marry her, and he had done so only to save his honour.

  So why should she be surprised that he despised her so much he did not even want her on their wedding night. She fought to keep tears from trickling down her cheeks.

  “Angel, who is Orin?” her husband asked.

  She swiped at her tears and tried to compose her voice so that it would not betray her unhappiness.

  “The son of Papa’s former master of the horse, who died several years ago.”

  “Orin seems very well educated for a groom.”

  “Papa was so impressed by what an intelligent child he was that he had him educated. When Papa died, he was training Orin to become his agent-in-chief.”

  If Lord Vayle—Lucian—noticed the choked timbre of Angel’s voice, he made no mention of it. “Then why is he working as a groom now?”

  “He clashed immediately with my stepfather. Orin refused to oust elderly retainers from the homes Papa had given them for their lifetime or to raise the rents on the tenants to the levels Crowe wanted. Orin said the land would not support such increases, and he is right. But my stepfather’s response was to reduce Orin to a groom and replace him with that odious, grovelling Oliver Seiler.”

  Angel stepped from behind the screen. Lucian was in his bed, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling. He did not so much as glance in her direction as she made her way to her bed and got in it.

  His disinterest in her wounded her more than a tongue- lashing would have. Her gaze fell on her father’s telescope, lying on the scarred oak surface.

  It had been very kind of Lucian to go to such effort to get it for her, but why had he bothered in light of the way he felt about her?

  She reached out and touched the instrument lovingly. It had been Papa’s most cherished possession. That was why she had wanted it more than anything else.

  “Angel, why does Orin not leave Belle Haven? Surely, he could find better employment elsewhere.”

  She looked over at her husband. He was still staring fixedly at the ceiling. She wished he would at least glance her way. “I told Orin the same thing, but he said he owed it to my father to remain and help me.”

  “What do you think of him?”

  “He is the best friend I have had since Papa died.” Angel slid down in her bed and rolled over on her side, presenting her back to her husband. If he could not bear to look at her, she would not look at him. Suppressing a sob, she said, “I don’t know what I would have done without Orin.”

  A puzzling rush of emotion hit Lucian at Angel’s words and the quaver in her voice. He should have been grateful to Orin for helping her. Instead he had the irrational desire to hit the man.

  Lucian turned his head and looked at the back of Angel’s head. She was angry at him, he thought. Her unhappy face when he had told her that he could not love her haunted him. He had been rather hard on her, too, but she had to learn that he intended to be master in his own house. Angel would not be able to twist him to her will as she could some besotted rustic like Orin.

  It was laughable that this slip of a girl could think she knew better than he. He had age and experience on his side.

  Lucian tried to ignore the ache in his groin. He had not dared steal even a sidelong glance at Angel when she had emerged from behind the screen. The sight of her lovely body swaying beneath that damned sheer night rail would have forced him out into the night for an immersion in the cold creek that ran behind the inn.

  Now his mind taunted him with memories of her as she had duelled with him, her breeches revealing her tantalizing curves. He remembered, too, how soft and exciting those same curves had been when they were pressed against him as they had lain hidden behind the settee in her father’s library.

  Even in that moment of great danger, he had wanted her with an intensity that had shocked him.

  It had been torment to lie there, his body sprawled protectively over hers, breathing deeply of her fresh, clean scent that reminded him of a field of wildflowers on a dewy morning.

  She was young, but she possessed great vitality and courage. And passion, too—of that he was certain. He yearned to initiate her immediately to the joys of lovemaking.

  He had the right to do so. It was his wedding night after all.

  A damned strange one! As strange as the whole day had been.

  He had awakened betrothed to one woman, then wed another. He had been forced to duel his bride to get her to marry him, and then he had spent much of his wedding night burgling her former home. Now, he was about to spend what was left of it alone in a separate bed.

  But tomorrow night, he consoled himself, he would be at Ardmore in the privacy of his own home. He could wait until then to claim his bride.

  Angel’s breathing told Lucian she had fallen asleep. He quietly reached out for the breeches that he had dropped on the chair beside his bed. From the pocket, he extracted the crumpled ball of paper that he had found at Belle Haven.

  Sitting up in bed, he carefully smoothed it out. The paper was cheap and thin and no bigger than four inches by four inches.

  He picked up the pewter candlestick from the table between the beds and held it so that its light better illuminated the unusual slanting writing with curling flourishes to the letters.

  LORD ASHCOTT:

  We have your precious Angel. If you want to see her alive again, you will come immediately to the “Haunted Cottage” with a bag containing one hundred pounds. Leave the bag on the table there, and your daughter will be home by nightfall.

  Come alone. Tell no one of this note. Do not bring anyone with you or your daughter will die.

  Come at once.

  The note was unsigned. Lucian turned the sheet over. Ashcott’s name had been written across the back.

  Clearly this was the missing note that had sent Angel’s father from his house in a frenzy. And no wonder.

  Lucian could picture Ashcott, already worried because his daughter was late in returning home, reading it, then in his fear for Angel’s safety, mindlessly crumpling it up and dropping it on the floor.

  Most likely he had accidentally pushed it beneath his desk with his toe as he worked to open the secret compartment.

  “When Lord Ashcott left here, he was carrying a leather pouch that looked to contain coin.”

  Lucian suspected from the size of the bag that he had found in the secret compartment of the desk that it once had held considerably more money—perhaps another hundred pounds.

  Yet Angel had not been abducted. She had merely been detained by a fallen tree, but whoever had written the note must have known that. Before Lucian left the area on the morrow he intended to have a look at the stump.

  He studied the message again. Its diction, spelling, even the handwriting, betrayed that no roving member of the criminal underclass was responsible. A well-educated man had composed it.

  Lucian was convinced now that the riding mishap that killed Angel’s father had not been an accident, but murder, as Orin had suspected.

  And he was equally certain that the Crowes were responsible for it.

  But how could he prove it?

  Again, Maude was the key. From the description given Orin, he was willing to wager that she was the woman who had delivered the note.

  Lucian would have to find her after all and extract the truth from her.

  But even if he tracked her down and she confessed, Angel would not be assured of recovering Belle Haven and the rest of her inheritance unless the missing will could be found.

  He had little hope of locating it during another surreptitious, nocturnal visit like tonight’s to Belle Haven. Lucian would need days, n
ot hours, to go through all the books in Ashcott’s library. Besides, the most likely place to look for the document now was in the late earl’s bedroom, but Sir Rupert’s presence there made that impossible.

  Lucian had no intention of telling Angel the truth about her father’s death yet. Given her impulsive nature, God only knew what she might do.

  Most likely challenge Rupert Crowe to a duel.

  Chapter 14

  The day had dawned cold, gray, and stormy. It matched Lucian’s mood as he stalked across the drenched courtyard of the Wild Boar Jim toward his coach. The rain had stopped only minutes before, and he was anxious to be on his way to Ardmore.

  “We’ll make it there today,” Tom, one of the outriders, assured him cheerfully.

  “That’s what you said yesterday,” Lucian grumbled.

  The journey to Ardmore that he had expected to take one day after leaving the White Horse Inn in Lower Hocking had already consumed two, and they still were not there.

  “Should be there afore noon. Made it last night weren’t for the rain turning the road to mud.”

  The trip was taking so much longer than Lucian had anticipated that he ought to abandon the idea of going to Ardmore and turn back toward London. The queen had very reluctantly given him permission to leave the capital, but only for a few days, and he dared not exceed the time she had allotted him.

  Yet they were so close to Ardmore now. He could not force himself to forgo seeing the only estate he had ever owned, even though he would have time only for a quick inspection.

  More than rain was to blame for their delay in reaching Ardmore. Lucian had wanted to see the remains of the tree that had blocked the road the day Angel’s father had been killed. That isolated spot had been considerably out of their way and had cost them several hours.

  His examination of the stump had shown him that no lightning bolt had brought that beech down. It had been partially chopped through, then left to snap from the wind and its own weight.