Devil’s Angel

by Marlene Suson

No one would ever hurt him as his father had done.

  Lucian would never again allow anyone to wield that weapon called love against him.

  Chapter 15

  Angel pictured the young Lucian as he must have been when his father had rejected him: a baffled, bewildered halfling, still grieving for his mother, who had suddenly had the foundation of his world knocked from beneath him for no reason that he could discern.

  She knew that terrible feeling all too well, for she had experienced it herself when her papa had been killed and the Crowes had seized her inheritance.

  Her husband had turned his head and was staring out the window at the rugged countryside. She studied his dark, handsome profile with the hard-set jaw. He was as strong a man as she had ever met.

  Yet she had seen for an instant, before he could hide it, the naked pain in Lucian’s silver eyes as he had talked about his father’s renunciation of him.

  Angel decided that both he and Lady Bloomfield were wrong. He did have a heart. And not even after fourteen years had the wound that his father had inflicted on it truly healed.

  She longed to put her arms around this enigmatic man who was her husband and comfort him, but she was afraid that he would rebuff her for presuming to think she could do so.

  Men seemed to feel it imperative to present a strong facade to the world. Foolish creatures, they had to hide their feelings for fear they would be thought weak.

  Besides, what consolation could she offer him when she was not the wife that he had wanted. He had not even been able to bring himself to bed her since their marriage. It gnawed painfully at her that he found her so repugnant.

  He had wanted Kitty, not her, as his bride, even though he had not loved her friend either. That puzzled Angel, and she asked, “Why did you offer for Kitty when you did not love her?”

  Lucian’s mouth twisted in a cynical smile. “Oh, I wanted her, although not for the usual reason.”

  Angel wondered what “the usual reason” was. Apparently sensing her puzzlement, he said, “There can be more than one reason for wanting a woman, little one, and none of them may have anything to do with loving her.”

  “What was your reason for wanting Kitty?”

  “Two reasons,” Lucian said bluntly. “I wanted to marry a daughter of Bloomfield’s—-any daughter of his would do—”

  “Any daughter?” Angel echoed in shock. “Why?”

  “Bloomfield rejected my brother Fritz’s suit for his eldest daughter, Anne, because he did not believe a Sandford good enough to marry her.”

  Comprehension dawned on Angel. “And you were going to show your father that there was one Sandford who was good enough.”

  “Something like that,” he admitted.

  “What was your other reason for wanting to marry Kitty?”

  “I wanted the Sommerstone estate, which the marriage settlement would have brought me.”

  “What significance does Sommerstone have to your father?”

  Lucian chuckled. “You are remarkably quick, little one. It was the Sandford family estate until my grandfather lost it at the gaining tables. It was my father’s fondest dream to return it to the family.”

  “And you wanted to succeed where your father had failed.”

  “I would have, too, had it not been for those damned Crowes.” Suppressed fury vibrated in his deep, rich voice.

  “And for me.” Angel’s voice caught. “Oh, Lucian, I am so sorry for what I have cost you.”

  He stroked her cheek gently. “It was not your fault, little one. You were as much the Crowes’ victim as I was.”

  “You should have married Kitty anyhow.”

  He smiled wryly. “Abandoning you after apparently seducing and ruining you in that very public scene hardly seemed the way to convince my father he had misjudged me.”

  Angel’s heart ached for her husband at the realization of how desperately he wanted to prove to his father that he had been terribly wrong in his cruel judgment of his younger son.

  “Have you seen your father since he rejected you?”

  “Twice.”

  “Did he cut you?”

  “I did not give him the chance,” Lucian snapped. “I cut him.”

  Angel swallowed hard. Lucian might profess to hate his father, but he still unconsciously craved his approval— something that he was not likely to admit even to himself.

  Angel remembered her own father once describing Lord Wrexham as a man of honour and pride, but sometimes infuriatingly stubborn and wrongheaded.

  What obstinate, unjust idea had caused him to spurn his own son? Angel vowed to herself that she would learn Wrexham’s reason for treating Lucian as he had.

  Perhaps there was another member of the family who could help her discover the secret. “Do you have other brothers or sisters besides Fritz?”

  “I had two sisters, neither of whom survived childhood.”

  So there would be no help there, but Angel would ferret out what had caused Wrexham’s animosity if she had to beard him herself.

  Lucian had promised her that he would recover for her what she most wanted, Belle Haven, and now she swore to herself that she would find a way to attain for him what he most wanted, his father’s esteem.

  And somehow she would effect a reconciliation between the father and son.

  The wind was rising, a thin, eerie wail, and the temperature was falling. Angel drew her red wool tippet more tightly around her, grateful now that Lucian had stopped her from giving it away.

  She looked up at the sky. Wave after wave of thick gray clouds scuttled across it, blotting out the sun.

  The coach was climbing a chalk hill devoid of trees. Ahead on its crest to the right of the road, a dark gibbet rose starkly against the bleak sky.

  Angel shuddered involuntarily. “Why is that there?”

  “Unless I miss my guess, it is the gibbet on which Lord Ackleton was hanged. I was told that it was raised on the highest hill in the area at the boundary of his estate. It would appear that we have at last reached Ardmore.”

  As the coach descended the hill, Angel saw spread out below a wide valley with a stream flowing through it.

  “How pretty it looks,” she observed.

  “Aye,” her husband agreed, a pleased smile on his lips. As he studied the rich cultivated fields that were now his, Angel was touched by his expression of pride and satisfaction.

  They passed two cottages with sagging thatched roofs that stood in sorry contrast to the fertile green fields surrounding them. The daub on the walls had fallen away in large chunks, exposing the wattle beneath. Lucian’s smile faded into dismay.

  In front of one of these hovels stood a woman and two young children, all as thin as sticks.

  Angel waved, but they did not respond to her greeting, only watched the coach’s passing with suspicious, hostile faces.

  A little while later, the coach stopped at a fork in the road. No signpost indicated the way to Ardmore’s house. Tom consulted with Lucian as to which path they should take, but he did not know either.

  “Methinks I spotted a village ahead on the left fork.” Tom said. “We can seek directions there.”

  There was indeed a village. Its houses were strung out along the road and as dilapidated as the earlier cottages the Vayles had seen. They had once been whitewashed, but now all that remained of it was an occasional patch. The only grass Angel saw was on a bowling green next to an inn, the sole building in town in excellent repair.

  Its sign boasted an amateurishly painted lion and the words, “Golden Lion Inn.”

  A small group of villagers was gathered in front of it, apparently waiting for something. They were shabbily garbed in well-worn garments, most of which had been patched at least two or three times.

  When Lucian’s coach stopped at the inn, the throng turned to stare at the expensive equipage. Their faces mirrored the same suspicion and hostility that the woman and her children in front of the cottage had exhibited.

  The c
oach had the opposite effect on the fat innkeeper, who was all smiles as he bustled out of his establishment to greet Lucian effusively in the hope of obtaining his business.

  “What can I do for you?” He caught sight of the crest on the carriage door. Instantly, his manner became even more obsequious, and he bowed deeply. “Such an honour, my lord, to have you stop at my humble abode. Mr. Ratliff at your service. Only tell me how I can assist you?”

  “You can tell me the way to Ardmore.”

  The innkeeper gestured toward the chalk scarp that rose steeply behind the village. “‘Tis atop that hill.”

  Angel craned her neck in an attempt to see her new home, but the roof of the coach prevented her from doing so.

  Mr. Ratliff said, “Dare I ask, are you Lord Vayle?”

  “You dare and I am,” Lucian retorted sardonically. An apprehensive murmur ran through the gathering of villagers at Lucian’s acknowledgment of his identity. Their expressions turned sullen, and they fell back a little, as though eager to put a little more distance between him and them. Angel heard someone hiss, “Lord Lucifer.”

  She wondered why her husband was the object of such animosity when he had only owned Ardmore for a fortnight.

  Mr. Ratliff said, “Your house is not far now, my lord, less than a third of a league. You have but to follow this road and turn off at the gate to your left.”

  “This must be the village of Lower Ardmore,” Lucian said, “which is part of my estate.”

  “Aye, that it is. Could I offer your lordship—?”

  The remainder of the landlord’s sentence was lost in a cacophonous din that seemed to be moving toward them.

  Angel picked out a woman’s screams, a man’s shouts, another man’s furious cursing, and a child’s terrified wailing.

  Lucian flung open the coach door and jumped down. Angel scrambled after him.

  The clamour was coming from a carrier wagon lumbering up the street toward them with eight occupants. The driver, his face frantic, was crackling his whip over his horses, trying desperately to speed them up to little avail.

  All along the street, doors flew open and people, drawn by the racket, poured out.

  At last, the wagon reached the inn and stopped. The little group that had been waiting there surged forward, and Angel realized they had been waiting to meet the wagon.

  A woman with bright, coppery hair lay half-across one of its plank seats, moaning. Despite the cool wind, sweat was pouring down her face. Two other women passengers were trying to comfort her.

  A boy of about eight, his hair the colour of carrots, was staring at the stricken woman with terrified eyes. Huddled in the corner of the wagon, unheeded by anyone, a little girl of no more than three, with the same bright hair as the suffering woman, sobbed in fright and woe.

  Two adult male passengers looked as though they were trapped in the anteroom to hell. The instant the wagon stopped, they leapt over the side in their haste to escape.

  “What is it?” Angel asked.

  One of the women on the wagon shifted, and Angel saw that the half-prostrate female she was helping was huge with child.

  “Oh, Christ,” Lucian muttered.

  “‘Ave to get ‘er to bed,” the sweating driver said.

  All trace of obsequiousness and eagerness to please had vanished from the landlord’s mien. “Not in my inn,” he snapped at the driver. “Take her elsewhere.”

  “There’s no time,” the man protested. “Would ye ‘ave ‘er babe born on the street?”

  Angel turned to the staring crowd, which seemed to have been turned to stone by the scene, and cried, “Is there a midwife in the village?”

  “Aye,” someone cried.

  “Fetch her at once,” Angel ordered in the voice of authority that she used when she was running Belle Haven.

  From the corner of her eye, she saw Lucian cast a startled glance at her.

  “Aye,” a young girl called in response to Angel’s directive and ran off down the street.

  “Don’t bring her to my inn,” Mr. Ratliff called after the girl.

  Angel heard Lucian mutter, “Damned animal, to turn away a woman in childbirth.”

  Her husband was not as heartless as he would have her believe.

  A long, agonizing, ear-piercing shriek rang out from the woman in the wagon.

  The little red-haired boy, desperation and fear for his mother having washed all colour from his face, planted himself in front of the fat innkeeper. “Me mum needs help,” he said fiercely. “Her’s hurting. Ye must help her.”

  Angel’s heart went out to the terrified boy desperately trying to assume a man’s role to help the mother he loved.

  “Out of my sight, brat,” Mr. Ratliff growled and raised his arm, clearly intending to shove the child away. “I won’t have her here.”

  Lucian caught the innkeeper’s arm before it could touch the boy and yanked it down so viciously the man gave a squeal of pain.

  “You will have her,” Lucian announced in a voice all the more ominous for its quietness.

  Mr. Ratliff’s face was a study in consternation. “But, my lord, she cannot pay,” he protested.

  “Damn your greed, I will pay.”

  “But, my lord, the blood, the mess, the noise. I cannot…” His voice faded into silence at the look in Lucian’s eyes.

  “I believe,” Lucian said quietly, “that you lease this fine property from me, Mr. Ratliff?”

  The innkeeper looked confused. “Aye, my lord.”

  “And that lease is about to fall in.”

  “Not for another…”

  Lucian silenced him with a withering look. “As I said, the lease is about to fall in. Perhaps, however, I might be induced to continue it if you give this woman a comfortable room and make certain the midwife has everything she needs. Do you understand me?”

  A low murmur of approval ran through the crowd.

  For a moment Mr. Ratliff gaped at Lucian, then he seemed to shrivel before him. “Aye, my lord.”

  Angel, silently applauding her husband, was very proud of him.

  He reached over the side of the wagon and scooped the moaning woman up into his arms. As he did so, Angel heard her murmur hoarsely, “My babe, ‘tis early. Another month yet.”

  “They come when they want to,” Lucian told her gently. “There’s naught you can do about it.”

  Mr. Ratliff ran into his establishment, bellowing orders to his maids.

  Lucian carried the woman inside. The boy with the carrot hair followed hard on his heels.

  The crowd stared after them in collective amazement.

  “Did ye see the look ‘e gave old Ratliff?” Angel heard one man mutter to another. “Me can see why they call ‘im Lord Lucifer. Me’d as soon tangle with the devil ‘imself.”

  None of the spectators paid any heed to the terrified, sobbing little girl huddled in the corner of the wagon.

  Angel climbed into it. Taking the child in her arms, Angel hugged her tightly to her and whispered reassuringly, “Don’t cry, your mama is going to be fine now.”

  The child wore only a thin cotton dress. Her teeth were chattering, and she was trembling from shock and cold. Hastily, Angel removed her red wool tippet and wrapped the girl in it, trying to warm her.

  “Can I help, ma’am?” the wagon driver asked. “Would you lift her down for me, and I’ll take her into the inn, where it will be warmer.”

  He did as she asked. She took the little girl from him and carried her past the crowd, which had broken up into small groups that were whispering among themselves.

  As Angel went into the inn, an elderly woman with iron gray hair, accompanied by a plump young female of about twenty-two, rushed up.

  “Do ye know where they took Nellie?” the older woman asked. “Me’s the midwife.”

  Angel caught sight of her husband disappearing with his burden into a room down the hall. The red-haired boy was still dogging his heels.

  She nodded her head toward
the boy. “There, into that room where her son is going.”

  The midwife and her companion hurried off in that direction.

  Angel, still hugging the little girl to her, started to follow, then thought better of it. Kinder to keep the child at a distance so that she could not hear her mother’s screams.

  She hugged the little girl to her, stroking her bright coppery hair and whispering consolingly.

  The midwife and the young woman vanished into the room that Lucian had entered.

  No more than three minutes later Lucian emerged from the room. This time he was carrying the red-haired boy, who was fighting valiantly but vainly to free himself from the earl’s powerful grip.

  Lucian walked with long strides toward Angel. As he reached her, she heard him tell the child sternly, “Stop fighting me.”

  “But me mum…”

  “We must leave your mum to the women now. She is in good hands. You have done all you can for her. Now it is women’s work, and we men would only get in the way.”

  Pride touched the boy’s face when Lucian referred to “we men.” He stopped struggling.

  Lucian lowered him to the floor, warily watching to make certain that he did not try to bolt back to the room they had just left.

  When he did not, Lucian turned to Angel. He touched her red tippet that she had wrapped the little girl in, and his lips twitched. “I see that you are determined to give this away. Come, we must be on our way.”

  Angel knew how eager he was to get to Ardmore, but she looked down at the sobbing girl in her arms and said firmly, “No, my lord, we cannot desert these poor children now.”

  She nodded toward the boy who was stating down the hall toward the room where his mother was. He was flying hard to be manful about it, but he could not hide the terror in his eyes.

  Angel saw her husband’s hard silver eyes soften, and she knew that he, too, was touched by the boy’s pluck.

  She smiled up at Lucian and whispered, “Perhaps you could distract him from the situation. I saw a bowling green beside the inn.”

  He looked at her as though she were mad.

  She gave him her most brilliant smile. “Please, Lucian.”

  For a moment, he only stared at her, an odd light in his eyes. Then he muttered, “That damned bewitching smile of yours.”