Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

CHAPTER SEVEN

  “FRAZER,” DEV SAID TO his valet as he sat before the shaving mirror, “did you ever do anything particularly stupid when you were young that came back to haunt you years later?”

  He was in his set of rooms in Albany, preparing for the night’s entertainments. Albany was the most exclusive bachelor residence in London where neither women nor musical instruments were tolerated. Dev had been allocated his chambers because he was the cousin of Lord Grant, the famous explorer, and because he was betrothed to an earl’s daughter. He could not afford them, of course. Like everything else in his life they were paid for by the future promise of Emma’s fortune.

  He felt the razor pause at his throat and immediately regretted asking the question when he was in so vulnerable a position. It was not that Frazer’s hand was unsteady despite his advancing age. It was more that he was never very comfortable with another man’s knife at his throat, an understandable reaction after a street brawl in a Mexican port a few years before.

  “What have ye done, Mr. Devlin?” Frazer asked, after a moment. He always forgot to call Devlin “Sir James” and Dev never bothered to remind him. He had inherited Frazer as valet from his cousin Alex Grant who had said that Dev needed the former Navy steward, with his dour Scots spirit, to keep him on the straight and narrow. Since Frazer had known Dev when he was in short coats there was no fooling the man.

  “Nothing,” Dev said. “Not for nine years, anyway.”

  Frazer ignored him. “Have ye gambled away another thousand or two, perhaps?” He persisted. “Seduced a lady—or someone who isnae a lady? Set up a lightskirt in keeping?” The razor touched Dev’s throat and he swallowed hard. The soap was running down his neck now. He was probably sweating it off.

  “Frazer,” he said, “you wound me.” It was an image that was likely to become literal as well as figurative if this carried on. Dev shifted in the chair. “You know that I have lived an irreproachably chaste life these past two years,” he said. No doubt that accounted for his severe sexual frustration, he thought. Boxing, fencing, various other legally sanctioned outbursts of violence had been the only outlet for his feelings. Until the previous morning … And now the memory of Susanna in his arms haunted him. He had wanted her before. Now he ached for her.

  “No,” Frazer said. He shook his head. Dev watched the deft scrape of the razor in the speckled mirror.

  “No what?” he said.

  “No, I didnae do anything stupid when I was young,” Frazer said. “I was in Edinburgh gaol when I was thirteen. Not much chance of doing anything stupid locked up in there. They only let me out to join the Navy.”

  “Of course,” Dev said, entranced by this vision of a youthfully criminal Frazer. “How foolish of me to imagine you would have done anything stupid in your younger days, Frazer.”

  “What did you do then, Mr. Devlin?” Frazer asked slyly.

  “I?” Dev said. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

  Frazer gave a snort of disbelief. “Ye always were a headstrong lad. Like as not you ran off with someone else’s wife.”

  No, Dev thought. Only with my own. Except that he had not run off with Susanna. She had run off without him.

  He could only be grateful that no one else knew about his youthful indiscretion. He had been staying in Scotland with his cousin Alex Grant when he had met Susanna. Neither Alex nor his first wife, Amelia, had suspected the affair. Dev was sure of it. Alex had never been the man to enquire too closely into his personal affairs and Amelia … Dev paused in his thoughts, remembering his cousin’s first wife, so soft and sweet on the outside, so hard on the inside, like a bonbon coated in sugar. Amelia had been so absorbed in herself that she had surely had no space to think about anything or anyone else. He pulled a face. Frazer muttered a word of warning as the razor hovered over his throat.

  “Keep still, Mr. Devlin, or you’ll lose more than your shirt at play tonight.”

  Dev froze as the razor resumed its work. He wondered if Susanna gambled. It was one of the vices of many rich widows. He had not seen her at the card tables since she had come to London but then she had been so busy pursuing Fitz that she had not had much time for other hobbies. Fitz was a gambler, too, though, and perhaps he had introduced Susanna to the pleasures of playing high. Dev felt his fingers itch for the cards. Throughout his life he had fought a fierce battle with himself to avoid his father’s obsession with gaming. Most of the time he could control the compulsion. Occasionally he could not. Now he acknowledged that he would like to fleece Susanna at faro—or at any other game of chance. That would be very satisfying. Except, of course, that she might win. Susanna might be as shallow as a puddle and as grasping as the greediest whore but she was damnably single-minded when she wanted something, clever, too. Engaging with her on any level was a risk. Being in debt to her would be intolerable.

  Frazer finished, washed the soap away and handed Dev a towel.

  “Ye still have all your vital parts,” he said sourly. “I’ve told you before to keep still when I shave ye.”

  “Sorry,” Dev said. “I have matters on my mind.”

  “Women matters,” Frazer said, even more sourly. “I know that look of yours. Be careful, Mr. Devlin.”

  “I will,” Dev said. He grinned. “Thank you for your concern, Frazer. It’s good to know you care.”

  Frazer pulled a face that looked like milk in the act of curdling.

  Thirty minutes later, with his cravat tied in the Irish, a style he had made his own in neat homage to his antecedents, his jacket eased over his shoulders by Frazer, puffing like a bellows, and a particularly dashing waistcoat of gold and green, Dev was ready.

  “The playhouse tonight, is it?” Frazer asked with a long face. “Bunch of jessies.” Frazer hated the theater and condemned anything to do with it as soft. Dev suspected that this went back to a voyage Frazer had made to the Arctic with Alex when the ship’s company had become stuck in the ice and had been obliged to entertain themselves with theatricals through the long, dark winter, dressing up as women, playing the female parts as well as the male. That, Dev thought, would have been enough to drive any self-respecting Scotsman mad. Not that he was much fonder of the theater himself. In his case his aversion sprang from a visit some two years previously when he had had the ill luck to bump into a former mistress whilst in company with Emma and her family. It had been exceedingly awkward. Emma had quizzed him endlessly about it; who was the woman, when had he known her, how intimately had he known her, were there other mistresses of his she was likely to meet—to which the answer, unfortunately, was yes, there were plenty, but Dev had been wise enough to deny it—on and on until Emma had given herself the vapors and Dev had wanted to leap on the first ship that was leaving the docks.

  “Tonight it is The Plain Dealer by Wycherley,” he said, and saw Frazer’s mouth turn down even more. “Emma likes the theater.”

  Frazer made the sort of noncommittal grunt that nevertheless managed to convey perfectly his disapproval of a man obliged to attend social engagements at the bidding of his fiancée. Dev sighed. He knew exactly what Frazer thought of his fortune hunting. He knew that Alex and Joanna disapproved, too, if it came to that. None of them understood the demons that haunted him, though; the memories of a boy who, before Alex had rescued him from the Dublin streets, had scratched a living from any errand he could run simply to help feed his mother and sister. Chessie was the only one who had shared the bewildering experience of their father’s profligacy. Marrying Emma was a guarantee against such poverty and as such Dev thought it had to be worth the price.

  The evening, starting with so little promise, was quick to degenerate even further. Chessie had not been invited since Lady Brooke had said pointedly that it was a family occasion. Dev found dinner extremely tedious. Emma was in a scratchy sort of mood and ignored him, flirting instead with Freddie Walters but watching Dev to make sure that he noticed. Meanwhile his future mother-in-law followed her daughter’s lead by ignoring him and Dev was r
educed to toying with his overcooked beef and making polite conversation with Lady Brooke’s elderly companion. His future, he knew, would be filled with endless nights like this. It was a thought Dev preferred not to dwell upon.

  At the theater the Duke and Duchess of Alton, Fitz and Susanna joined their party. This was something that Dev had not anticipated. He masked his initial astonishment to see Susanna at what had been described as a family gathering but he was astounded at how quickly she had insinuated herself into the Altons’ inner circle. He wondered if Fitz had petitioned his parents to allow Susanna to join them. It was not odd, Dev thought grimly, that Fitz would fall for Susanna’s artfully presented charms but it was strange that his parents seemed similarly enchanted. The Duchess was a high stickler when it came to rank and breeding, the Duke, unlike his son, surely too hard headed to fall for no more than a pretty face and captivating figure, even if they were accompanied by a fortune.

  “Good evening, Lady Carew,” Dev said, as greetings were exchanged. “What a surprise to have you join our family party this evening.”

  Susanna smiled. “It is no surprise to me, Sir James, that the Duke and Duchess have been generous enough to include me in their family circle.”

  Which, Dev thought with grim amusement, rather neatly emphasized the warmth with which Susanna had been welcomed compared with the frosty treatment he still received after two years as Emma’s fiancé.

  Susanna stepped past him to take a seat at the back of the box. Fitz immediately objected and drew her forward to sit beside him on the front row. Dev admired her strategy. Such unassuming modesty and such pretty thanks. Fitz was as soft as butter in her hands. All the progress that Chessie had made the previous day on the trip to Gunters now counted for nothing. Susanna had regained the upper hand.

  “Nicely done,” he murmured under his breath and caught the edge of the smile she cast him. It was laced with triumph.

  “I practice a great deal,” she said lightly.

  “Clearly,” Dev said. The sarcasm felt bitter on his tongue. He felt angry, on edge. Someone had refined a particular form of torture for him, he thought, to sit here and watch his former wife work her wiles on the man his sister wanted.

  He thought of the way he had kissed Susanna in the carriage the day before, with heat and passion and driving need. His anger tightened another notch. She had beaten him at his own game and left him aching for more. Fitz, he knew, was her real quarry. She was an accomplished schemer.

  He could warn Fitz, of course, tell him that Susanna was not all she seemed, that she was a fortune hunter. The idea was intensely appealing. The thought of what Susanna might do for revenge, however, was not. And Susanna was so skilful, she played Fitz so well, that she might already have told him, sorrowfully, that there were those who would like to see her fall and who would spread malicious tales about her. Dev could well imagine the protective fury that would arouse in a stupid man like Fitz who already saw Susanna as his property. Facing the Marquis across the dueling ground was not in his plans at all. It would achieve nothing.

  Dev watched as Susanna disposed herself elegantly in the chair. She was in a gown of gold net over cream tonight. It was cut modestly over her breasts—she would surely have no desire to offend the Duke and Duchess by dressing as the wanton she was—and yet by some trick of design the gown’s very demureness seemed to emphasize every glorious curve of her figure. The flimsy gauze shimmered in the shifting light. Her thick black hair was plaited and set within a delicate gold coronet. She looked elegant, expensive, tempting. Fitz certainly looked tempted and even Freddie Walters had abandoned Emma in an unseemly rush to help Susanna divest herself of her diaphanous golden wrap.

  “I would offer my assistance, too, Lady Carew,” Dev said when Fitz moved away to exchange a few brief words with his aunt, “but as Fitz escorts you and Freddie has already undone you there is so little for me to do.”

  Susanna’s green gaze snapped at his implication that she was intimate with Walters. “I have no wish for you to exert yourself, Sir James,” she said sweetly. “I hear that doing very little is your speciality these days.” She glanced up at him from under her lashes. Her gaze rested on Emma for a brief moment. “You are an explorer who travels only between St. James’s and Mayfair, I believe. How singular of you.”

  Dev smiled grimly. “Once again you demonstrate that you have been following my every step,” he said. “I must fascinate you.”

  He saw a flicker of irritation in her eyes. “Oh,” she said, “scarcely that. But even in Edinburgh we heard that the famous adventurer Sir James Devlin had been bought by a society heiress for seventy thousand pounds and now he languishes at home, at her beck and call.”

  Dev’s breath hissed between his teeth. He could feel the tension tight across his shoulders, straining the material of his jacket. God forbid that he should split the seams. He could not afford a new coat. He already owed his tailor some extortionate sum of money. But trust Susanna to get under his skin within five minutes of their meeting. She had a talent for it and Dev knew he should not rise to her provocation, yet he could so seldom resist.

  “Whereas you,” he said, “have traveled a long way, Lady Carew. Or, more precisely, you have climbed high already. From schoolmaster’s niece to baronet’s widow, and onward toward the dizzy heights of a marquisate …” He looked her up and down in the golden gown. “A nice conceit to match your gown to your ambitions.”

  Susanna laughed. “You are very bad tempered tonight, Sir James, to reproach me for fortune hunting when you are the professional. Was dinner with your little heiress such a trial?”

  “I’ll wager it was not so exciting as your assignation with Fitz,” Dev said grimly.

  “We went to Rules restaurant,” Susanna said. She gave him a luscious smile. “We ate oysters, and as you know they are the food of love.”

  “How very nasty and slimy,” Dev said.

  Fitz reclaimed Susanna then, taking the chair beside her and pointing out to Dev, an edge to his tone, that Emma was waiting to be seated. Dev saw the shadow of a smile touch Susanna’s lips as she took in Emma’s cross little face and stiff figure.

  The curtain was going up.

  “Is that woman another of your mistresses?” Emma hissed at Dev, ignoring the fact that the play had started. Like many of her contemporaries Emma did not go to the theater to watch, but to see and be seen. In fact, she was quite capable of talking all the way through a play. Even so on this occasion her sibilant whisper caused several heads to turn.

  “No,” Dev said shortly. “Lady Carew is not my mistress and never has been.”

  It was true and yet he knew every inch of Susanna’s lovely lissome body intimately. Dev swallowed hard. He had never had a particularly good memory, at least not for mathematics, navigation, geography, or any other useful subject. Ironic then that here, now, in the most unsuitable circumstances imaginable, he was remembering every silken slide of his hands over Susanna’s pale skin, the way that she had arched to the mastery of his touch, even the way in which the green of her eyes had intensified with desire, drenched in sensual pleasure. He shifted in his theater seat. It felt rock-hard. He felt rock-hard. He hoped to God that Emma would not glance sideways and see his entirely inappropriate reaction. She was quite capable of screaming with outrage and causing a scene.

  His senses seemed to be aware of nothing but Susanna. Her seat was placed in front of his, a little to the right, and he could see her out of the corner of his eye. She seemed enraptured by the play, her silken skirts rustling as she sat forward, the light playing over the gossamer gold gown and the slope of her shoulders beneath. Her perfume enwrapped him, verbena and honey, sweet with an edge of sharpness like Susanna herself. He could see the tiny hairs that escaped the coronet to curl at her nape. He wanted to reach out and touch them and run his fingers down the line of her spine. He wanted to feel the crisp silk of the gown under his hand and the warmth of Susanna’s body beneath that …

  E
mma dug her fan sharply into his ribs causing him to catch his breath in a painful gasp. She was glaring at him for watching Susanna rather than the play and Dev could not fault her on the principle, only her methods. He tried to concentrate on the performance but all he seemed capable of doing was remembering the exquisite bliss of making love to Susanna. He could recall the sweet and salty scent of her skin as she lay curled against him in exhausted satiation; he could feel the tickle of her hair against his naked chest and the brush of her leg entangled with his under the tumbled covers. He could taste her kiss. He remembered that he had lain awake for hours listening to her breathing, tracing the pure line of Susanna’s cheek and throat, his hand falling lower, over the curve of her shoulder, his lips following, drinking in the taste of her, down to her breast, until he had woken her with urgency and she had laughed in his arms as they had made love again. It had been so fragile but had seemed so sweet and honest, a small foundation on which he had thought to build a life together. He remembered the way her lips had parted beneath his and the small sound of surrender and acquiescence she had made in her throat when he had kissed her for the first time. He had felt magnificent then, such a man, ready to take on the whole world …

  Grief and regret pierced him, shocking in their intensity. It had all been built on a lie. All his tender feelings, all his hopes for the future had been founded on no more than his imagination and Susanna’s deceit. She had used him. He had been no more than a means to an end, her first step on the path that would take her eventually to a Dukedom.

  Dev turned his head slightly and saw that Fitz had possessed himself of Susanna’s gloved hand and was peeling the material down to press a kiss on the pulse at her wrist in much the same way that Dev himself had done in the hackney carriage. He felt a kick of white-hot possessiveness that startled as much as displeased him. It was not edifying to lust after his former wife. It had to stop. Their relationship, such as it was, had been over a very long time.

  He watched as Susanna withdrew her hand far too slowly for her action to be any kind of discouragement. She was laughing, scolding Fitz softly for distracting her from the play. It was clever of her, Dev thought, to combine such sophistication with such a natural enthusiasm for the performance. Amongst this jaded crowd of theatergoers, who attended only because it was fashionable to do so, Susanna’s pleasure in the evening seemed charming and fresh. And in Dev’s opinion it was as false as her regard for Fitz.