Devil’s Angel

by Marlene Suson

  Lucian nodded.

  Unhappiness clouded her face. “Why did you not tell me what it was when I asked?” Her voice was heavy with reproach. “Why did you not take me with you? You always shut me out, Lucian.”

  Stung by the reproach in her voice, he said, “I was not certain that Kennicott was Mr. K. If he was not, I did not want you to be disappointed. Besides, such business is better handled between men.”

  Her expression turned stormy. “Why is that? Is it not my inheritance?”

  “That has nothing to do with it.”

  “Pardon me, but that has everything to do with it.” He was unused to being called to account like this. And it especially irked him that it was his wife, of all people— his wife whom he was trying to help and protect.

  “Angel,” he growled, “I promised you I would get Belle Haven back for you, and that is what I am trying to do.”

  “But I want to help you do it.”

  He gave her an incredulous look, then said sharply, “The only help you can give me is to remember where your father hid his will.”

  “I cannot remember what I was never told!”

  She turned and swept angrily out of the library.

  As Angel dressed for the Devonshire masked ball, she was still disturbed by Lucian’s refusal to tell her why he was searching for Maude. She did not believe the excuse he had given her. Yet what other reason could he have? It made no sense to his wife that he should be looking for the woman.

  She was just rising from her dressing table when Lucian came through the connecting door between their bedchambers carrying a stack of cards.

  He handed them to her. “These are the invitations we have received. When you have time, look them over, and tell me which ones you wish to attend.” He turned back to his bedchamber. “I will be ready to leave in five minutes.”

  Angel recognized this concession for the peace offering it was. It was not all that she wanted, but it was a start, her first small victory in her campaign to have him recognize her as a partner in their marriage and not a disobedient child. It was also the nearest thing to an apology from her proud, stubborn husband that she was likely to get. “Thank you, Lucian,” she called after him softly.

  After his gesture, Angel felt a little guilty when she took out his mother’s pearl necklace and put it on. Before she left her chamber, she donned her black satin mask and her velvet surtout, which hid the pearls.

  They went by Lucian’s private barge on the Thames, departing from the steps behind their house. As they glided along the wide, moonlit river, Lucian regaled his wife with amusing anecdotes about various mishaps at court. Her husband could be wickedly charming when he set his mind to it, and he had clearly set his mind to it tonight.

  When they reached their destination, Angel held her breath as the butler took her surtout from her, exposing the pearl necklace around her neck.

  If her husband noticed it, he did not comment. As they strode toward the doors of the long gallery, Lord Nottingham, another member of the Council of Nine, pulled Lucian aside and said to Angel. “Pardon me, Lady Vayle, but I must talk to your husband privately.”

  Angel nodded. As she walked on, she heard her husband ask, “How did you know it was me behind this mask?”

  “You and your wife are a distinctive pair, she being so petite and you, so large. Besides you are the only man in the room not wearing a wig. Wish I had the nerve to leave mine off. Itches like the very devil.”

  Angel was quickly joined by three masked admirers, who apparently had no more difficulty recognizing her than Nottingham had. She, however, had a more perplexing time identifying them. Only one of them was easily recognizable: Roger Peck, with his long, curly golden wig and classic profile that his black velvet mask could not conceal.

  Angel suppressed a groan. Everywhere she had gone recently, he had appeared at her side and stuck there like a fly in honey.

  When others were about, he was mostly silent, listening to her as she told amusing anecdotes or exchanged repartee with one or another wit. When he had her to himself, he plied her with flowery, insincere compliments that she hated. Lucian rarely complimented her, but when he did, she knew that he meant it.

  Angel wished that Roger would leave her alone, but the more she hinted this to him, the more tenacious he seemed to become. She could not understand why he bothered with her when every other young woman seemed bent on capturing him.

  Tonight followed the same pattern. When the other two men went off to greet arriving friends, Roger was quick to tell her, “You are looking especially enchanting tonight, you most beautiful of creatures. Your eyes are as brilliant as sapphires. Your smile outdazzles the sun.”

  He was not even original. He had expressed the same sentiments in identical words to her on at least four previous occasions.

  “Oh fie, Roger, you tell all females that,” she scoffed.

  He looked hurt. “I mean it sincerely.”

  “No, you don’t,” Angel retorted, “and I would like you better if you did not insist upon plying me with such egregiously untrue compliments.”

  His eyes behind the mask were baffled. “You are the only woman I have ever met who did not love compliments.”

  She grinned at him. “And one of the few who does not vie for your attention.”

  He had the grace to colour slightly. “But I like you better than any other woman I have ever met.”

  “More likely you like the novelty of a female who does not fall at your feet,” she said tartly.

  His flush deepened around the edges of his mask. “I admit I find you a challenge. But it is more than that. I love to listen to your stories, especially about your father and Belle Haven. I can tell how much you loved him.”

  “I did. I was devastated when he died.”

  “I would be the same were anything to happen to my father,” Roger said with a depth of feeling she had never suspected in him. “Thank God, he is in robust health and will live for many more years.”

  “I thought that my father would, too,” she recalled sadly. “Tell me about yours.”

  Roger did, painting a word picture of a loving father who had cared as much about his son as Angel’s own father had about his children. She liked Roger, the son, much better than Roger, the rake, and she told him so.

  As Lucian floated home with Angel on his barge that night, it was clear to him that Roger Peck with his rake’s tongue and irresistible looks had singled Angel out as his next conquest. He had hovered by her all night.

  And Angel was so naive that she probably had no idea that he was attempting to seduce her. Lucian must warn her away from Peck, and he said bluntly, “Angel, from now on, I must insist you avoid Roger Peck.”

  “Why?” she challenged, a defiant note in her voice. Too late, Lucian remembered how unwise it was to order Angel not to do something.

  “He means to seduce you.”

  Lucian felt Angel stiffen angrily on the seat beside him. The last thing he wanted now was another quarrel with her.

  “I only want to protect you, little one,” he said gently. “It is my responsibility as your husband to do so.”

  When they reached home, Lucian escorted her up the stairs to her bedchamber.

  “You looked lovely tonight, little one,” Lucian said. She was also, to his annoyance, wearing his mother’s pearls in defiance of his wishes, but he refrained from commenting on them.

  Her sudden smile made him forget his irritation about the pearls and all else except his swelling desire to make love to her.

  It had become a ritual when they returned home from whatever entertainment the night had offered for him to take her up to her bedchamber and for her to ask him whether he would join her there. Lucian was worried that tonight would be different, that her anger at him might stop her from asking him.

  When they reached her room, she turned to him with a provocative smile, “Will you join me, my lord?”

  Relief surged through him at her invitation.
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  He smiled at her. “With pleasure.”

  As soon as he closed the door behind them, his mouth came down on hers in a long, passionate kiss.

  She returned it without reservation. He delighted in her hot response, and it dissipated a tiny current of apprehension that had been plaguing him. He knew that Angel had been distressed and angry with him. But, thank God, she was not one of those spoiled women who sulked endlessly when they did not get their own way and withheld their favours in bed. No, he thought happily, Angel was not manipulative.

  And he intended to show his appreciation for that by making this a night she would never forget.

  He knelt before her, removing first one, then the other rose satin slipper. His hands slid provocatively up her legs to remove her garters, then her silk hose. Tossing them aside, he rose and took her face between his hands.

  As his tongue explored her mouth, his hands stole down to undo the laces of her overgown.

  He slipped if off, then removed her undergown and chemise. She was standing naked before him now except for his mother’s pearls. His breath caught at the sight of her lovely body, slender and graceful. The pearls against her skin brought out its creamy lustre and theirs.

  “The pearls become you,” he conceded.

  “You will allow me to keep them?”

  “Aye, if you want them,” he murmured as his hands cupped her breasts. He bent his head and his mouth traced her smooth white neck.

  “I do,” she said on a soft sigh as his lips reached her breast. His hands roamed over her tenderly—teasing, stroking, seducing.

  After awhile, he lifted his head and eased her gently down on the bed. “It is time, little one, for an advanced lesson in kissing.”

  He did not start with her lips, but with her shoulder. He rained kisses on her as his mouth moved down her body until he reached the core of her. He had never kissed her there before. Her hands buried in his thick jet hair, and she gasped and writhed beneath him. Then he felt her body spasm in pleasure.

  “I want you,” she moaned. “Please, I want you with me.”

  He gave her her wish, lifting himself up and taking her in one swift, smooth stroke. Then he took his time, delighting in bringing her again and again to the brink of rapture.

  At last the storm broke once more, and wave after wave of ecstasy convulsed her. Lucian shuddered with the force of his own release.

  They lay quietly, still united, in the aftermath.

  “Oh, Lucian,” Angel murmured, her voice still husky with passion, “I love you. I love you so much.”

  He went very still. He did not believe in such nonsense. Yet the effect her words had on him was stunning. The surge of glorious happiness that washed over him at hearing her profess her love for him caught him unawares, like a giant breaker thundering unexpectedly in from the sea and knocking him from his feet.

  He hugged Angel close to him, wishing that he could tell her that he loved her, but he had promised her honesty, .and he would not reciprocate her gift of love by telling her a lie. Instead he kissed her deeply. “Good night, little one.”

  He continued to hold her tightly to him, delighting in her warmth, the provocative curves of her body against his, and the memory of her words.

  Angel lay quietly in Lucian’s arms, listening to his breathing as it deepened into sleep. She had hoped so much that he would respond to her declaration of love with one of his own.

  But he had not. She had felt his body stiffen at her words, and for a moment she feared he would throw them back at her, ridiculing her.

  At least he had not done that, but she began to despair that she would ever be able to free his heart from the prison in which it was encased.

  Trust was the key to doing so. Of that, she was certain. After his father had inexplicably rejected him, Lucian had never again dared trust anyone with his heart. Somehow she had to win his trust, but she was beginning to wonder if even that was possible. Only today, she had seen that he did not trust her enough to confide in her, to share his plans and schemes with her, to make her part of his life. He shut her out as he had shut everyone out since his father had rejected him.

  Angel had suffered her mother’s rejection, but that had been different. Even before her mother had run away, she had been no more than a vague shadow in her children’s lives. One does not love a shadow, but Lucian’s father had not been a shadow, and the boy had loved his father every bit as much as Angel had hers.

  If her father had acted as Wrexham had, she did not think she could have borne it. Perhaps she, too, would have built barriers around her heart as Lucian had around his.

  His mother had said it was not the boy’s fault, and Angel believed that. She also suspected that Wrexham himself had come to realize it and longed for a reconciliation with his son. That was why he had sent her the pearls.

  Even if Angel had somehow misread Wrexham’s intent—and she was certain she had not—it was crucial that Lucian learn the reason why his father had rejected him.

  Her husband would be livid if she disobeyed him and went to see Wrexham.

  Yet she had to do so. She had to discover the secret of why Wrexham had hated his son so. Until Lucian could understand the reason, he would never escape the shackles of the past, would never be able to trust enough to love again.

  Chapter 25

  Angel, her spine stiff with determination, marched up the steps to Lord Wrexham’s house and banged the knocker loudly.

  Lucian would be furious when he learned she had deliberately disobeyed him, but he was wrong to forbid her to see his father. Papa had insisted that a person of honour always did what he believed was right, no matter how much trouble it caused him.

  And this visit to her father-in-law was certain to cause Angel enormous trouble with her husband.

  But it was also the right thing to do. Of that, she was certain. She only hoped that she could eventually convince Lucian of that.

  Angel prayed that this visit of hers would help bring about a reconciliation between the two men. She was convinced that was what Wrexham wanted when he sent her the pearls. She was equally convinced that it was what Lucian, deep in his heart, also wanted. But unfortunately, he seemed to have frozen his heart in such a thick layer of ice that he was numb to what it wanted.

  An elderly butler opened the door.

  “Please tell Lord Wrexham that his daughter-in-law, Lady Vayle, wishes to see him.”

  A joyous smile spread across the old man’s wrinkled face. “At once, my lady, at once. Come with me, if you please.”

  He ushered her into the drawing room.

  “My lord will be with you directly,” the butler said eagerly, then added apologetically, “although it might be a few minutes because he has only just arisen.” He sounded worried, as though he feared that Angel would refuse to wait.

  “I am in no hurry,” Angel assured the servant. “His lordship may take his time.”

  After the butler hurried off, she looked around the room. It was dominated by three large-as-life portraits. One was of a beautiful, fragile woman with a milk-and-roses complexion, soft blue-green eyes, and golden blond hair.

  The second delineated a slender youth whose face was a little too round to be handsome. He had fair skin, pale blue eyes, and hair the same shade as the woman’s.

  The third portrait depicted a sturdy, handsome boy of perhaps ten with a devilish glint in his arresting silver eyes. His jet black hair and bronzed skin was in sharp contrast to the fairness of the other two images.

  Lucian as a child, Angel thought.

  She was still studying his portrait a few minutes later, when a short, thin man with a head that seemed oversized for his body rushed into the room. His deeply lined face was round, like that of the blond boy’s in the portrait, and his eyes were the same pale blue. He had not taken the time to don his wig, and his closely clipped hair was white.

  “I am so happy you waited, Lady Vayle. I am Wrexham.” Angel was so taken aback that she blurted
, “You are Lucian’s father?”

  The friendly smile left his face, and he said coldly, “Most emphatically I am.”

  She felt herself blushing. “I am sorry. That was very rude of me, but you took me by surprise.” Indeed, he had. She had noticed Wrexham watching her at more than one party since she had been in London, but she had not had he slightest suspicion that he was her husband’s father. You do not look at all like Lucian.”

  “No, he favours his mother’s side of the family.”

  Angel involuntarily glanced at the portrait of the woman. She had thought it must be of Lucian’s mother.

  As if reading her thoughts, Wrexham said, “Aye, that is my late wife. Although Lucian does not favour her either, he is the image of her brother.”

  Wrexham’s eyes, filled with love and loss, remained fixed on her portrait. “I think I miss her more every year.”

  “You must have loved her very much,” Angel observed quietly.

  “I adored her. She was a wonderful woman. Much better than I deserved. How sad that we rarely appreciate what we have until we lose it.” Wrexham, his chin trembling, was staring with misty eyes at the portrait of Lucian as a boy. After a moment, he gestured toward the picture. “And that is Lucian when he was nine.”

  The pride and love on the old man’s face as he looked at his younger son were so intense that it took Angel’s breath away.

  He did not hate Lucian!

  Wrexham gave her a penetrating look. “Do you love my son?”

  “Very much.”

  His face brightened. Not only had Wrexham not taken the time to put on his wig, but Angel noticed that his cravat was untied, and his shirt beneath his wine vest and coat was only half-buttoned, attesting to the haste with which he must have come to greet her.

  “I fear that I have called on you too early,” Angel said.

  “No, no, not at all. It is I who have been abed too late. There seems little reason to get up these days.” His voice had taken on a morose note, but it brightened as he said, “I assure you that I am delighted to receive you any time you wish to call.”