“I do,” Dev said.
Chessie shook her head slightly. “It will not serve, Dev,” she said. “In the end you will hate her.”
“I’m sure you are right,” Dev said. “I already dislike her very much.”
“I meant Emma,” Chessie said, her eyes on the shifting patterns of the dance, “not her mother. Though if Emma becomes more like her mother as she grows older that will be hard to bear.”
Dev could not deny that it was not an appealing prospect.
“If Fitz becomes more like his mother you will have to squeeze money out of him like a lemon,” he said. The Duchess of Alton had a sour disposition and a mouth like the tightly drawn drawstring of a purse. It gave fair warning as to her character.
Chessie gave a spontaneous giggle. “Fitz will not become like his parents.” The laughter faded from her face and she fidgeted with the struts of her fan, her gloved fingers pulling at the lace. Lately, Dev thought, she seemed to have lost some of her sparkle. Now he could see her searching the crowded room for Fitz. She was wearing her heart on her sleeve. He felt a rush of protective concern. Chessie was pinning everything on the prospect of this betrothal and Fitz, genial enough, but arrogant and spoiled in equal measure, was aware of her regard and was toying with her reputation. Chessie deserved better than that. Dev clenched his fists at his sides. One step out of line and he would ram that silver spoon Fitz had been born with right down his throat.
“You look very fierce,” Chessie said, squeezing his arm.
“Sorry,” Dev said, smoothing out his expression again. He smiled at her. “We haven’t done badly,” he said, “for two penniless orphans from County Galway.”
Chessie did not reply and he saw that her gaze had returned to the waltz, which was now spinning to a triumphant climax. Fitz, tall, dark, distinguished, was at the far end of the room, almost lost in the shift and sway of the dancers. He was partnering a woman in a shimmering silver gauze gown, a woman who was also tall and dark. They looked magnificent together. Fitz had always had a weakness for a pretty face, just as his cousin Emma wanted a handsome trophy of a husband. But this woman was different from Fitz’s usual flirts and there was something about the way that she moved, the lilt and cadence of her steps that shot Dev through with recognition even though he could not see her face.
“Who is that?” he said, and his voice sounded a little hoarse. Something strange—premonition—was edging up his spine. He was the least superstitious of men yet he felt the cold air breathe gooseflesh along his skin even though the Duke and Duchess of Alton’s ballroom was stiflingly hot.
He could see that Chessie felt something, too. She was strung as tight as violin, her face pale now. He saw a shiver rack her body.
“Someone rich,” she said bitterly. “Someone beautiful and eligible whom Fitz’s parents will have introduced to him tonight in order to distract him from me.”
“Nonsense,” Dev said bracingly. “She will be yet another horse-faced, inbred poor relation—”
“Dev,” Chessie reproved, as a dowager rustled past them on a wave of disapproval.
The music finished on a resounding flourish. There was a ripple of applause about the room. The pattern of dancers broke up. Fitz was escorting his partner across the floor toward them. Evidently he intended to introduce her to Chessie. Dev was not sure whether that reassured him or worried him.
“Dev!” Emma had also arrived, breathless and flushed by his side, dragging Freddie Walters with her by the hand. “Come and dance with me!”
For the first time in as long as he could remember, Dev did not respond immediately to Emma’s imperious demand. Instead he was watching the woman at Fitz’s side. She was not in the first flush of youth, closer perhaps to his age than Chessie’s. Age, or experience, or both, gave her an unconscious confidence. She walked with the same elegance that Dev had seen in her in the waltz, a fluid grace that was accentuated by the sinuous swirl of the silver gauze gown. It caressed her breasts and hips, wrapping itself about her like a lover’s kiss. There was not a man in the room, Dev thought, who was not staring at her, his mouth drying with lust, his mind a rampage of images as to what it would be like to unwrap that gown from those curves.
Or perhaps those were just his fantasies.
She was very pale with the kind of translucent skin dusted with freckles that was a feature of the Celtic races. The contrast between her vivid green eyes and her black hair was shocking, exhilarating. It made her look fragile and fey, like a kelpie or dryad, too exotic to be human. Her black curls were piled up on her head in a tumble of ringlets held by a dazzling diamond comb. Matching jewels sparkled about her slender neck and adorned her wrists. Not a poor relation then. She looked magnificent.
She also looked familiar.
Dev’s heart missed a beat then started to race. For a moment it felt as though everything had stopped; the music, the chatter, the breath in his body. For one long moment he could neither think nor speak.
It was almost ten years since he had seen Susanna Burney. His last memory of her was not one he was likely ever to forget: Susanna gloriously naked and fast asleep in the bed that they had shared for their brief, passionate wedding night. As he had blown out the guttering candle he had had no notion that he would never see her again.
In the morning she was gone, and with her his marriage. She had left him a note—it had all been a terrible mistake, she had said. She had begged him not to come after her, had said that she would sue for an annulment. Young and full of pride, angry, hurt and betrayed, he had let her go.
It had been two years later when he had returned from his first full tour of duty with the Royal Navy that he had reconsidered his abandonment of his wayward wife and had traveled to Scotland to find her again. He had told himself that it had been for curiosity’s sake alone and to ensure that their annulment had indeed been granted. He had plans for the future, ambitious ideas, and they did not involve the girl he had seduced, married on impulse and let go. Sweat broke out over his body now as he recalled knocking on the door of the rectory and confronting Susanna’s uncle and aunt. They had told him that Susanna was dead. He could recall the fierce punch of shock that had made a mockery of his bravado. He had cared for Susanna a great deal more than he had pretended.
Susanna Burney looked very much alive to him.
Anger and shock warred within him. He met her indifferent, unrecognizing gaze and a second wave of fury beat through him. She was pretending that she did not know him.
“Dev!” Emma was tugging on his hand, reclaiming his attention. A frown marred the pretty regularity of her features.
Emma, his rich, beautiful, well-connected fiancée …
Emma, the woman who was bringing him everything that he had ever wanted …
He had never told Emma about his first hasty, ill-fated marriage. There were many things that he had not told Emma. He had pretended that it was because all his past indiscretions were long gone, unimportant and forgotten, but the truth was that Emma was jealous and possessive and he could not predict how she would react to any revelation, and he did not want to put that to the test and endanger the entire house of cards he had built for himself—and for Chessie.
A cold prickle of tension edged its way down Dev’s spine. The damage that Susanna might do was incalculable. If she revealed even a hint of his past, Emma might break their engagement and everything he had worked for would be lost.
He watched as Susanna drew closer. Her hand was resting on Fitz’s arm in the most confiding gesture, their dark heads bent close together. She was smiling at Fitz as though he was the most fascinating man in the universe. Fitz, Dev thought, looked completely dazzled, flushing like a youth in the grip of his first infatuation.
Susanna looked up again and her gaze met Dev’s for one long, long moment. He could not read her expression. There was still no flicker of recognition in her eyes and no trace of nervousness in her manner.
Dev felt cold, very cold. He straightene
d, squared his shoulders and prepared to be introduced to the wife he had thought was dead.
CHAPTER TWO
SHE DID NOT RECOGNIZE him until it was too late to run and equally impossible to hide. Not that hiding was her style.
The Duke and Duchess of Alton’s Midsummer Ball was the most terrible crush and the press of guests had obscured Susanna’s vision. The room was hot and airless, so noisy she could barely hear what Fitz was saying to her as he escorted her across the floor. Something about meeting some of his friends, she thought, which had been kind of him since she knew no one in London. And then the crowd had fallen back and she was looking at James Devlin and all the breath left her lungs in a rush and her head spun and she thought she might faint. It was only through sheer self-discipline that she did not.
Fitz had not noticed her discomfort. He was not, she thought, an observant man. Handsome, charming, spoiled, arrogant … She had ascertained all those facts about him within five minutes of their introduction. Within ten she had learned that he was devoted to his horses and his wine cellar. Within fifteen she had realized that he was susceptible to a beautiful woman, which would be useful since she was both beautiful and pledged to seduce him.
Fitz was still speaking as he drew her closer to the group of people about James Devlin. She had no idea what he was talking about; fortunately it seemed to require no reply on her part. All she could see was Devlin. All she was aware of was his height, the breadth of him and the coldness in his blue eyes as they rested on her with absolute disdain. She supposed she could not blame him for that. She was the one who had walked away from him, left him before the ink was dry on the marriage lines and whilst the bed was still warm from their lovemaking.
Susanna raised her chin and straightened her spine. She had been playing a part for so long that surely it could not be too difficult to wipe all expression from her face and conceal the fact that she was shaking inside. Yet it seemed inordinately hard to do. She let her gaze travel over Devlin again in slow appraisal. The calculated coolness of her stare was in direct contradiction to the nervous bumping of her heart against her ribs.
There was such authority and innate confidence about Devlin now, a poignant contrast to the dazzling youth of eighteen that she remembered so well. He had had brilliance and dash even at that age but there had been something eager and untried about him as well, as though the world, with its sharp edges, had not yet hardened his soul.
He had certainly filled out in the intervening years. His shoulders were broad, his chest deep. He was taller, more muscular, most definitely a man rather than a boy, and so handsome that he would have been within a hairsbreadth of looking pretty had it not been for the square jaw and high cheekbones that robbed his face of any softness at all. Susanna felt a sudden and totally unexpected pang that the boy she had known had grown into so formidable a man. She would never have guessed it. But she had made her choices years ago. It was far too late for regrets now. Life had taught her that regrets were no more than self-indulgence.
She saw the little blonde girl hanging on Devlin’s arm. That was one thing that had not changed then. Not that she cared a jot after nine years. But there had always been women hanging around James Devlin like bees to the honeypot. He knew he was handsome and he knew very well the effect that had on women. The arrogant self-assurance in the tilt of his head said so.
He was watching her. He had not taken his gaze from her from the moment that she had crossed the floor on Fitz’s arm. She risked meeting his eyes again and was almost scalded by the look she saw there. Instead of the indifference that she had expected she saw angry challenge and a turbulent sensual heat that seemed to call a response from so deep within her that she visibly shivered. Her stomach tumbled. The polished wood of the ballroom floor seemed to shift beneath her silver slippers. She could feel her racing heart accelerate still further and saw Devlin’s gaze shift to the hollow of her throat where a beautiful borrowed diamond drop rested on her frantic pulse. Suddenly Susanna’s skin felt hot and damp; she knew the color had come into her face, knew, too, that Devlin had seen the betraying glitter of the diamond as it moved in response to the hammer of her pulse. She saw the corner of his mouth turn up in a smile of masculine satisfaction that he had been able to discompose her. That was something else that had not changed then: his conceit.
She raised her chin and gave him a look of profound dislike spiced with defiance. Too much was at stake here for her to draw back now, though every instinct she possessed prompted her to flee.
The girl to Devlin’s left, the one to whom Fitz wanted to introduce her, was clearly Dev’s sister. They shared the same coloring and bone structure, the same blue eyes and tawny gold hair. Susanna caught her bottom lip briefly between her teeth. This was the girl the Duke and Duchess of Alton were employing her to separate from Fitz. This was the girl whose life she was to ruin, whose future husband she was to steal, whose world she would leave in tatters. What an utter, confounded nuisance that the woman the Duchess had referred to, dismissively, as “Fitz’s little fancy,” should turn out to be Devlin’s sister.
“Lady Carew.” Fitz, smiling, was drawing Devlin’s sister forward. “May I present to you Miss Francesca Devlin? Chessie, this is Caroline, Lady Carew, a friend of my parents who has recently come to London from Edinburgh.”
Susanna felt rather than saw Devlin stiffen as he heard her name but she forced herself not to look at him. Francesca Devlin curtsied very prettily. The candlelight picked out the strands of bronze and copper and gold in her hair. Her blue eyes were very warm, her greeting even warmer. Susanna admired her tactics. When a handsome, eligible marquis whom you have a fancy to marry introduces a beautiful woman to you, pretend to be delighted to make her acquaintance …
That one was straight out of the adventuress’s handbook. Under other circumstances, Susanna thought, she might have enjoyed befriending Miss Francesca Devlin, with whom she had more than a little in common. Unfortunately she was being paid a vast sum of money to inveigle herself into Fitz’s affections and get rid of Francesca for good, which was not a promising basis for a friendship.
James Devlin shifted at his sister’s side and Susanna met his eyes and saw naked antagonism there. Unlike Francesca he was not troubling to hide his hostility to her. Susanna felt the force of it ripple through her whole body. She supposed it was naive of her to imagine that Devlin would be indifferent to her sudden reappearance after an absence of nine long years. She had treated him badly; that was undeniable. He would want an explanation at the least, retribution at worst. Her mouth dried at the thought. Devlin was not a man one would want as an enemy—he was too forceful, too determined—and her position was very precarious indeed.
Devlin inclined his head to her as though he had read and understood her thoughts. There was an edge of cynical amusement to his antipathy, a curl to his lips that threw down a challenge to her. The dangerous light in his eyes warned her that whatever game she chose to play, he would match her. Match her and surpass her.
She saw Devlin cast his sister a glance and move a step closer to her as though offering silent moral support. Chessie shot him a smile that was for one unguarded moment full of affection and gratitude. So Devlin was a protective older brother, Susanna thought. That was exactly what she did not need when she was set on spoiling his sister’s life. Matters, complicated enough already, took a turn for the worse. Her heart sank lower toward her delicate embroidered satin slippers.
The other lady in the group, the little blonde, pushed forward in a flurry of blue silk and lace.
“You should have introduced me first, Fitz,” she said, pouting. “I am a lady!”
By name if not by nature, Susanna thought as Fitz, apologizing profusely, introduced the girl as his cousin Lady Emma Brooke and the other gentleman as the Honorable Frederick Walters. Susanna was sharply conscious of Devlin’s eyes upon her all the time, the narrow blue glitter of his gaze holding her captive. Emma dragged him forward like a trophy.
“This is my fiancé,” she said proudly, “Sir James Devlin.”
Fiancé.
Susanna’s heart jerked. She had known that Devlin had come into a title. But she had not known that he was betrothed.
Jealousy, sharp, dark and hot, stole her breath. She wondered why she had never imagined him wed before. The thought had never crossed her mind and yet in the nine years since they had parted he could have been married twice over, three times, six times like Henry VIII for all she knew.
Except for the small difficulty that he was still married to her.
She really should have told him that they were still wed. She should have told him long ago.
Susanna’s conscience, often troublesome, such a disadvantage to an adventuress, pricked her again. This, however, did not seem like the appropriate moment to break the news to Devlin, with his fiancée smiling at her with that possessive air and that warning glint in her eyes.
Susanna swallowed hard. She had intended to get an annulment within the first year of her marriage. She had written to Dev and promised him that she would. Then she had discovered that she was pregnant and her wedding ring and marriage lines had suddenly been the only thing standing between her and ruin. Alone and destitute, disowned by her family, she had clung to the very edge of respectability. And later, when she had remembered her pledge and had once again thought to end her marriage she had discovered that annulments, like many things in life, were both prodigiously expensive and a great deal more difficult to obtain than she had ever imagined. By then she had been spending every last penny she earned simply keeping body and soul together on the streets of Edinburgh. There was no cash to pay the lawyers. Sometimes she had barely managed to survive.
The memory of those dark days invaded Susanna’s mind and she felt the familiar panic and fear rise in her throat. Her palms felt slippery with sweat within the elegant lace of her evening gloves. The candles felt too hot, the ballroom stifling. Everyone was looking at her. With a great effort of will she pushed the memories away and smiled at Emma Brooke.
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