"But Lord Reginald hardly struck one as a man with a choleric temperament," the duchess observed. "I wonder that he could have been capable of such violence."
"My dear duchess, many a gentleman has taken an uncharacteristic action when faced with the prospect of ruin. I can only surmise by the evidence that he assaulted the groom and then turned the pistol upon himself as the only honorable solution." Sir John looked exceedingly pleased with his hypothesis.
"But can one truly rule out the possibility of murder?" she asked.
Sir John laughed. "Respectfully, Your Grace, I would call that a fanciful speculation."
"But what if a motive could be discovered?" She slanted a sly look to Ludovic.
"Unless the groom recovers his senses sufficiently to speak, there is no evidence to suggest foul play," Sir John answered condescendingly. "I will, as a matter of course, need to question the Baroness, but I am confident these unfortunate proceedings will be hastily concluded. Is the lady prone to hysterics?"
"No, I would say not," Sir Edward answered. "Diana is my wife's cousin. I believe her of stout enough character to sit for necessary questioning once she has had sufficient time to compose her nerves, of course."
"I daresay, a good dose of laudanum in her tea won't go astray about now," said Dr. Stone.
"Pray allow me to take it to her," offered Caroline.
"You are all that is gracious, Duchess," said the doctor.
She's a conniving bitch! Ludovic stifled his retort. Instead, he politely interjected, "But I believe Lady Chambers is already attending the baroness. Is she not, Sir Edward?"
"But my Lord DeVere, you well know I am also recently bereaved. Only another who has suffered the same loss can truly understand a widow's grief," Caroline replied with convincing solicitude.
"Indeed so," muttered Dr. Stone. Opening his bag, he measured out a dose from a blue bottle into a medicine cup and handed it to the duchess. Caroline shot Ludovic a triumphant look over her shoulder as she departed.
***
The door to Diana's chamber opened without even a perfunctory knock, and the Duchess of Beauclerc entered in a swirl of silk. "You poor dear," she said with feigned sympathy. "What a terrible, terrible shock you have received." She seated herself by Diana's side without invitation. "I am come upon Dr. Stone's insistence that you take a small dose of laudanum to settle your nerves. I have also taken the liberty of calling for tea."
"Thank you, duchess, but it is entirely unnecessary. I am here to attend Diana's needs," Annalee answered.
"But you look so very fatigued, my lady. Your poor husband fears this is far too much strain for a woman in your condition. He insisted that you go and rest yourself. I shall attend your cousin."
Annalee looked from Diana to Caroline with uncertainty.
"You do look fagged, dearest. I daresay Edward is right to fret," Diana said. "I have been unforgivably selfish. Pray go and rest."
"Are you certain, Diana?"
"Yes." Diana forced a smile. "I will be fine."
"Just a short rest, then," Annalee conceded. "I will return in an hour or so to check on you."
Caroline said little more until Annalee departed and the tea arrived. She prepared a cup with a generous dose of laudanum and sugar before handing it to Diana.
"The medicinal is truly unwarranted," Diana protested.
"But my lady, of course you are overset! After all, what kind of wife would not be so in learning of the suspicious death of her husband?"
"Suspicious?" Diana repeated. "I hardly think so. My husband was a gambler who faced certain ruin. Although horrid and unexpected, I cannot be completely astonished that he chose to end his life under the circumstances."
"Indeed?" said the Duchess. "I, on the contrary, am remarkably astonished given that he had just acquired the instrument to shear the sheep with the golden fleece."
"What are you talking about?"
Caroline poured a second cup for herself, taking her time in answering. "I know all about Reggie's plans to end his pecuniary difficulties. He would surely have won a pretty penny too. DeVere's immense wealth and dissolute reputation would only have worked against him in the court of law." She took a sip.
"You conspired with Reggie?"
Caroline set her cup down with a derisive laugh. "It was the loosest of alliances, I assure you. He was a most despicable creature. But I was in position to provide the proof he needed and piqued enough to follow through. DeVere is a magnificent lover, is he not? I find his skills in bed far outweigh his myriad character defects."
"I would have no knowledge of such things," Diana said. "And I marvel at your own want of discretion in sharing such intimacies with a stranger."
"On the contrary, my dear. I saw his hands on your person, his lips on your neck, and the all-too-familiar lascivious gleam in his eye. It is a look I know very well."
"I explained once before. I had trouble with the clasp on my pearls. Regardless of what you think you saw, there is nothing between us!"
"Yet your husband also had grounds to believe otherwise. I received a missive from him this very morning stating that you did not sleep in your bed last night. It was a very enlightening bit of information that shall remain in my safekeeping...for now. So you see, your husband had within his grasp lawful means to recover his losses, so I wonder why would he have taken his own life? Indeed, I see no reason at all for him to have done so."
"What are you suggesting?" Diana demanded.
"That matters have taken an unanticipated and highly suspicious turn," Caroline said. "One need only examine the facts. Your husband's horse failed to run when there was no sign of injury, and the poor groom appears to have been beaten near to death. Although Sir John would most readily attribute that to your husband's wrath, do you really suppose Lord Reggie would have done his lover such a violence?"
Diana gasped and felt the blood leeching from her face. "You know nothing of what you speak!"
"How salacious!" The duchess laughed, a shrill and grating sound. "It was pure speculation on my part, but your priceless reaction tells me everything I need to know. Poor darling, I understand what a humiliating secret it is to bear, as my own Duke of Beauclerc had unusually diverse sexual proclivities. He enjoyed both men and women, you see, but his preference was for the former. He and my brother were once lovers."
Diana felt herself soften infinitesimally toward the duchess. "Is that what drove you to DeVere's bed?"
"Perhaps," Caroline answered. "But I would have desired him regardless. And I desire him still. You shall not take him from me."
"I already told you I have no designs on Lord DeVere."
"I don't believe you. He has a voracious sexual appetite and never would have dismissed me unless he had already acquired a replacement mistress. DeVere would never lower himself to tupping chambermaids. Even if I hadn't seen the way he devours you with his eyes, I would feel it safe to assume he would not cuckold his best friend. Moreover, Annalee's present condition makes her a less than suitable candidate. So that leaves only you."
Diana's hackles rose. "Be good enough to leave now, Duchess. You have said quite enough."
Caroline displayed her small, white teeth in a mockery of a smile. "I am going nowhere, my dear, for I have only just begun. Whether you choose to believe it or not, your liaison with DeVere has a most significant bearing on your husband's death."
"If you will not leave on your own, I will have you removed." Diana crossed the room to the bell pull to summon a footman. "I refuse to listen to another word of your poison."
"Are you aware that DeVere holds the title to your estate? He so dislikes to lose anything unless by his own choice. And then the threat of suit? That would surely have enraged him.
Diana's hand froze. She had known, but she had given so little thought to the matter with everything else, but now with Reggie's death, her thoughts reeled. Could DeVere have killed Reggie?
"DeVere is an utterly unpredictable and dangerous ma
n who lets nothing stands in his way when he wants something. Poor dear," the duchess said smugly. "I see the pieces are finally falling into place. There are a number of things your lover has kept from you. Although unparalleled in bed, he is not to be trusted at all."
Chapter Twelve
Finally alone with her thoughts, Diana considered what Caroline had revealed. Although she knew the duchess to be jealous and vindictive, Caroline seemed to know far too much about the circumstances surrounding Reggie's death. Diana tried to dismiss her words, but the facts remained. Reggie had gambled everything away. DeVere held the deed to Palmerston Hall, yet had failed to tell her when she came to him for help. Why had he kept this knowledge from her? It was both galling and disconcerting.
Diana had looked to the race to solve her problems but now found them only compounded. With Reggie's death, she no longer had any claim to the estate. It would either remain in DeVere's hands or devolve onto Reggie's nearest male relative if he was able to redeem it, or it would end up in the Court of Chancery. In either case, Diana would be homeless, and without the race winnings, near penniless with only her meager jointure to subsist by.
Even more alarming was the fact that after threatening DeVere, Reggie was dead. The duchess was right. Reggie would never have assaulted Johnson under any circumstances. Someone didn't want the horse to run. Did Reggie perchance come upon the groom and his assailant? Is that why he was murdered? Or was the race just meant to deflect attention from the murderer's true motive, which was not related to the race at all? Who but DeVere would have reason to do such a thing?
She recalled what Edward had revealed about his best friend, namely that he followed his own code and suffered neither fools nor blackguards. Reggie was surely a composite of both. And then the duchess had pointed to the alarming enigma surrounding the conditions of DeVere's inheritance, that he had ruthlessly usurped the title by locking his own father away.
Diana feared all paths pointed to DeVere. How could she have indiscriminately placed her trust in such a man? Her mind tried reason, yet her emotions would have no part of it. She still wanted him. He had made her feel alive and beautiful and desired for the first time in her life, and now she craved him like a drug. Diana looked to the laudanum-laced tea to numb that same craving.
After having initially balked, she drank a few sips, knowing her racing thoughts would never otherwise allow her any peace. Still, she anticipated a restless night invaded by the kind of dreams she feared would send her sleepwalking and fevered with lust to DeVere's bedchamber. With that unsettling thought, she drank the rest of the cup just for good measure.
***
He appeared to her in the darkest hours, his warm lips murmuring against her skin. "You did not come to me."
"I couldn't. It would not have been decent," she whispered.
His wicked mouth trailed over her neck, her breasts. "Then will you turn me away?" His gaze was hypnotic, a flickering blue flame.
"You know I cannot," she answered, opening her arms to him, welcoming the only cure for the ceaseless ache.
He peeled back her night rail, giving his hot tongue access to the valley between her breasts. "It was torture thinking of you in bed alone and wanting, no, needing the feel of your body beneath mine, engulfing myself in you as your sweet passage sheaths my cock. I thought I would go mad."
Diana thought she would also if he didn't take her into his mouth. Now. With her fingers clenched in his silky hair, she urged him to a swollen nipple. Yet the sultry heat of his mouth only stoked the flames and made her burn all the hotter. She arched into him, craving the abrasive feel of his flesh against her own. His hands found her gown. One fierce jerk rent the offending garment, freeing her bounty for his full ministration. He feasted on her lush mounds as if he were ravenous, kissing, biting, laving until she writhed beneath him in desperate need. "Kiss me, Ludovic," she cried.
He took her mouth with slow deliberation, their hot breaths mingling, and tongues tangling, stroking, and sucking in mimicry of sex. The pungent scent of her own desire permeated her senses, feeding the hunger. She explored his body with her hands, clutching his head, his shoulders, his taut buttocks, reveling in the masculine texture, the solid feel of him. The throbbing in her belly intensified. Her passage clenched, and her damp thighs trembled as he parted her nether lips and stroked a finger through her wetness.
She reached for his erection, craving the paradoxical velvety hard feel of it. "Please, Ludovic. I want you," she moaned.
"How?" he asked. "Tell me how you want me."
She answered in a voice that was strangely thick. "I want you in my hands. In my mouth. In my sex."
***
His heart slammed against his chest. She had answered his most decadent wishes aloud, and the words flooded him with a dark and delicious desire that caused his lustful fever to spike another hundred degrees. He emitted a husky laugh. "You are a greedy one. But how could I ever deny you that which I also yearn for?"
He wanted to fill her in every possible way and be overwhelmed by the sights, scents, and sounds of simultaneous pleasure. He withdrew his hand from between her thighs and stroked the same damp finger over her mouth, watching in fascination as her tongue darted out to taste her own salty essence. He licked away the rest and kissed her again, slow and deep. "The taste of your arousal is the sweetest nectar to me. It fills me with the urge to pound my cock into you and never stop."
He skated down over her breasts, capturing a nipple, hard and pink, pulling it between his lips and then suckling. He guided her onto her side, exploring her hips and belly with his hands and mouth. He repositioned himself, as well, to face the foot of the bed feet, and moved in a worshipful caress down her body until reaching her mons. Shifting also to his side, he wrapped her thighs over his shoulders and directed her head to his straining cock. "Now," he said, his tongue thick with excitement and expectancy. "I'm going to love you with my mouth and drink in the proof of your passion even as you swallow my own."
Shuddering at the sublime sensation of her lips enfolding him, he dipped his head into her mound, giving a long, lascivious stroke, parting her dewy folds with his tongue, licking and lapping her juices while she teased and suckled the head of his cock. He blazed a trail with his tongue to the tight slit of her sheath, following with his fingers. He plunged them into her, and she bucked wildly against his mouth while he worked the sensitive bud of her clit.
He wished he could immerse himself in her like this forever, but their time was too bloody short. There was only one answer to what faced them on the morrow, but he forced it from his mind, refusing to think of anything beyond the mindless ecstasy of mutual gratification and the explosive release already tightening his bollocks. Her wetness, her taste, her sounds of pleasure muffled by his cock in her mouth combined with the slick friction and sultry, sucking sounds was insanely erotic and sublime. With her first racking shudders came a powerful, vibrating moan from her mouth through his shaft…and he was lost.
***
Diana heard Polly enter her bedchamber with a clatter of metal—her customary pot of chocolate on a silver tray, and Diana's stomach roiled. She opened her eyes, momentarily disoriented to time and place. They felt bleary and heavy-lidded and her body unusually lethargic.
Laudanum. She never should have taken it.
The dreams. The things she had envisaged—so vivid. So wicked.
Polly pulled back the bed curtains and regarded her, mouth agape. "Your night rail, my lady! What happened?" She retrieved the shredded cotton gown from the floor, and Diana felt heat steal into her cheeks. It couldn't have been real. It was only a dream. She must have torn it herself. "It must have been the laudanum," she said. "It causes such terrifying dreams. I thought I was being strangled!" She latched onto the nearest thing to the truth.
"My poor lady," the maid cried. "Anyone would be afeared after all what's passed with Johnson and Lord Reggie. But mayhap it was the pearls what made you feel strangled?"
; "My pearls?" Diana's hand flew to her throat and felt the warm, smooth strands. Dear God! It wasn't a dream! He had come to her in the night, and she had welcomed him into her bed like some wanton whore.
"You found them at last, my lady? Peculiar you should have worn them to bed."
"I found them last night," she lied once more. "I feared losing them again. After all, they are the only jewels I have left. Forgive me, Polly, I am much distracted and have not been myself since before yesterday."
"'Tis no wonder! It has, indeed, been a nightmare. I only wish 'twere over milady, but Sir John Gooding has need to speak wi' ye. He asked if you was settled right enough to answer some questions."
"Yes, Polly. Pray convey that I will speak with him."
"Aye, my lady."
"Now if you will only help me to dress, we can hope to bring this all to a swift conclusion. My only wish is to return ho—" The words froze in her throat when she realized she no longer knew where home was.
***
"You have my heartfelt condolences, Baroness. Such a damnable end." Sir John shook his head and then flushed in embarrassed realization of his double entendre. He cleared his throat and continued. "Pray accept my pardon in advance for the indelicacy of this inquest, but there are a number of unanswered questions before we can confidently lay the matter to rest." He helped himself to a glass of port. "I shall try to make this entire ordeal as easy on you as possible."
Diana clutched her handkerchief, but her eyes were remarkably dry. Her entire being felt arid and devoid of emotion. She had expected to feel something once the initial shock wore off, but the only feeling she could summon was relief, a sentiment entirely inappropriate to the occasion. She cast her gaze about the gilded library, noting Edward and Dr. Stone. DeVere was present as well and the Duchess of Beauclerc, but she carefully avoided any eye contact with either.
Diana still didn't know what to think or feel about DeVere after the duchess had sown her poisonous seeds last night. Deciding it her best course, Diana kept her eyes downcast and her handkerchief at the ready, a convincing prop, although the trembling hands that held it were no act at all. She was thankful for the glass of fortified wine and sympathetic hand squeeze from Annalee.
A Devil Named DeVere (The Devil DeVere) Page 12