“Nine years,” Dev said. He saw that Susanna was blushing even harder now. He realized that she was nervous and felt a rush of protectiveness. Who would have thought that his brazen adventuress had an ounce of nervousness in her? The thought made him smile. He found he was staring at her like a callow youth transfixed by a beautiful woman and tried to pull himself together.
“Did you say that Lord and Lady Brooke had lost Emma?” he asked.
“Lost to Gretna Green,” Joanna said, trying not to smile, “and to that dangerous man Tom Bradshaw.” She shook her head. “Lady Brooke is not amused.”
“Emma’s eloped?” Dev said incredulously.
“Three days ago,” Joanna confirmed. “But Lord and Lady Brooke have only just noticed.” She shook her head. “They thought she had the headache.”
“Good God,” Dev said. The door of the library burst open at that moment and Lady Brooke appeared, followed closely by an extremely harassed-looking Alex Grant.
“Devlin!” The Countess of Brooke addressed him directly for the first time that Dev could remember, thereby proving that she had known his name all along. “I sent to you at Albany.” Her face crumpled. “The most shocking thing … Emma has eloped with a man who works for a living!”
“Might I suggest that we return to the library to talk?” Alex intervened. “It will be a deal more comfortable than out here in the hall.”
Joanna turned to Susanna. “Lady … Ah—” She saw the pitfall before she fell into it. “Susanna,” she said, “would you care for tea whilst the gentlemen sort this matter out?”
Dev caught Susanna’s hand. “Joanna will look after you,” he said in a low voice. “I will see you shortly.”
Susanna nodded. For a moment her fingers clung to his and he wanted to hold her and reassure her. “Everything will be all right,” he said, and she gave him a tiny smile and a nod.
Lady Brooke was frowning at the exchange. “Emma said that you knew that woman,” she said disagreeably. She turned to Alex. “Don’t trust her, Lord Grant. She is an adventuress.”
“The library,” Alex said hastily, catching Dev’s thunderous expression. “My commiserations on your broken engagement, Devlin,” he added, his face impassive. “Joanna has told you the news?” He glanced at the Countess. “Apparently Lady Emma and Mr. Bradshaw left for Gretna several days ago but Lord and Lady Brooke have only just noticed her absence.”
“I thought Emma was ill!” the Countess snapped. “Naturally I did not disturb her. Her maid was attending to her needs, or so I thought.”
“It sounds as though Bradshaw was attending to her needs,” Alex murmured, low enough that only Dev could hear him.
Lady Brooke rubbed her forehead, setting her turban askew. “Where could she have met such a person as this Bradshaw?” she demanded. “And why would she want to marry him? He is illegitimate and he has no money and he is even more ineligible than you are.” She looked accusingly at Dev. “I cannot imagine where she has developed this taste for low company.” She snapped open her reticule. “Anyway, there is little more to be said. I cannot pretend to be sorry to lose you as a future son-in-law, Devlin, although the alternative is infinitely worse.” She took a letter from the bag and held it out to Dev. “My butler informed me that you left this for Emma several days ago. I fear she never read it so I am returning it to you. Good day, Devlin.” She nodded to Alex. “Lord Grant.”
Dev took the letter and weighed it on his palm, smiling a little. “I wish Emma all the luck in the world,” he said as the door closed behind Lady Brooke. “She is going to need it.”
“Bradshaw’s a dangerous scoundrel,” Alex said. “Farne has been looking for him ever since he tried to kill Merryn and now he runs off with an heiress …” He shook his head. “I doubt we have all heard the last of him.” His gaze fell on the letter. “You have the luck of the devil, sometimes—”
“I know,” Dev said, “especially since I find I already have a wife. Brandy?” he suggested, seeing his cousin’s winded expression. “I know it is early but sometimes nothing else will suffice.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“I AM VERY SORRY,” Joanna Grant said, her blue eyes wide and apologetic, “but I fear there is nowhere else to put you. My sister Lady Darent has the blue room and Chessie is in Merryn’s old room and I am redecorating the rose chamber …” She made a vague gesture. “And this is only a small house, of course. I understand that you hope to persuade Devlin to agree to the annulment, but in the meantime you are still married, so—” She gave a charming little shrug.
“That’s perfectly all right,” Susanna said, knowing it was not and wondering why she was not making more of a fuss about Devlin having the adjoining bedchamber to hers. The reason was not far to seek—Joanna Grant was lovely, and simply too kind to upset. She had welcomed Susanna into her home with an unquestioning friendship that had made her both grateful and humble.
“You have been more than generous in offering me a roof over my head at all,” Susanna said, “and it does not matter for soon I shall be gone.” She felt her spirits drop at the thought.
Joanna looked relieved and distressed at the same time. “Well, I am grateful that you see it like that,” she said, “but does Devlin know that you plan to leave so soon? I beg your pardon,” she added, catching sight of Susanna’s expression. “That is none of my business.”
“I’m sorry, too,” Susanna said. She had had a long and difficult day and tears of exhaustion and emotion were not far away. “Forgive me,” she added. “It is for the best.”
Joanna gave her a spontaneous hug. “I know that Devlin can be frightfully dense at times,” she said, “but alas, all men can. They cannot seem to help it. And I do believe—I really do believe—that he cares for you.”
Susanna’s sore heart contracted a little. She knew that Devlin wanted her. She even knew that he wanted to protect her and offer a better future to her and the twins and she loved him all the more for that. But it was not enough. Sooner or later he would hurt her. She would come to love him utterly, she would let down her defenses and allow that love to permeate every part of her soul, and then she would lose him again and it would be intolerable. Everyone left. It was the way of the world. First her father when she had been no more than five years old, going to war never to return. Then she had lost her family when her mother could not afford to keep her and her brothers and sisters together. Then Devlin and Maura …
So she had to leave first, be strong and forge a new life again. She had already planned it. At dinner she had heard Alex telling Devlin that the Lords of the Admiralty wanted to see him tomorrow. They had made a decision on his commission, Alex had said, and wished to discuss it with him. Susanna had felt cold and bereft to hear the words and had felt even lonelier as she saw the joy with which Devlin had greeted the news. The vivid excitement was back in his eyes. The challenge was what he wanted. She had encouraged him to seek the life that he needed and now he had to go. He was an adventurer, an explorer who was only alive when he had the world at his feet. She understood that but she could not live with it, could not live with the anticipation of loss.
So tomorrow, when Devlin was at the Admiralty, she had decided she would leave. She would tell Alex Grant that when Devlin had the annulment papers he should send them via Mr. Churchward the lawyer. She would leave Mr. Churchward her direction. He would be the only person who would know where to find her. And she would leave her wedding ring with Alex, too, to pay for the annulment. She would leave it to set Devlin free.
At least they had separate bedchambers, she thought as she looked around the room and noted the paucity of her few belongings that Margery had set out for her. There was no key in the connecting door, at least not on her side. It was inconvenient but she would manage. To think of Devlin on the other side of the door would probably torment her all night long, but if she were to lose him she did not want to make love with him again. She could not bear to feel so close to him yet know it would be t
he last time.
Margery came to her to help her get ready for bed. She heard Dev come up, heard him talking to his valet, Frazer, a dour old Scot who was more than a little intimidating. Frazer had seemed unsurprised to discover that Dev had a wife, commenting only on being introduced to her that it was exactly what he would have expected. Susanna was not sure whether that was a good or a bad thing, nor what the man would say on discovering the next day that Dev’s wife had run away. Perhaps he would have expected that, too.
Susanna gave a sigh as she eased herself between the cool sheets. It would not do to get too fond of these people, of Chessie, so happy now that her future with Fitz was settled, and Joanna Grant with her loving generosity, or Alex, incisive but kind, or Shuna, their adorable three-year-old daughter whom Susanna had fallen in love with on sight. Shuna had taken Susanna’s hand in her tiny, warm one and it had felt as though the pain would slice her in half even as the love wrapped about her. She had seen Dev watching her and had had to turn away because she knew her emotions were far too naked. These people would not be her future life. She had to let them all go.
After several hours tossing and turning, thumping the pillow, turning it over to press her face against the cool linen, she knew she was not going to sleep and reached out to light the candle. The room leaped into a warm glow.
A moment later the connecting door opened a crack and she heard Dev’s voice.
“Can you not sleep?”
“No.” Susanna turned to look at him. “You?”
“No.” He came forward into the room. The candle light gilded his tawny hair. He was wearing a dressing gown of gold and sapphire in a stunningly flamboyant design. Below it his legs and feet were strong and bare. Susanna blinked. She imagined that the rest of him was naked, too—and wished she did not remember quite so vividly how that felt, his body against hers, his scent, his touch.
He sat down beside her on the edge of the bed. “What troubles you?” he asked.
“Everything,” Susanna said honestly. “Maura.” She hesitated, watching his face. “I am sorry, Devlin,” she said. “She was your child, too.” She saw the shadow in his blue eyes and this time she dared to raise a hand and very gently touched his cheek. After a moment he caught her hand in his. She thought he was going to move it aside and braced herself for the rejection but instead he held her softly then turned his lips against her fingers. She felt his breath on her skin like a caress.
“Does it ever pass?” he whispered. “The grief?”
Susanna felt her heart crack a little. “I learned to live with it,” she said. “Somehow. Slowly.”
He nodded. A moment passed. Then another. Susanna felt as though she were hanging on the edge of a precipice. The warmth of Dev’s hand against hers was so sweet, so comforting. In time such warmth might even go some way toward healing that cold break in her heart, except that time was what they did not have.
Dev slid an arm about her, slipped into the bed beside her and then he was cradling her against him and it felt so soothing that she felt her body relax automatically as she burrowed closer to his side, feeling the slide of the silken dressing gown and through that Dev’s warmth.
He turned his head slightly. “Tell me about Rory and Rose,” he said, and Susanna felt a rush of gratitude and pleasure that he had remembered their names. “I look forward very much to meeting them.”
“They are fourteen now,” Susanna started. “They both have auburn hair and freckles and the most beautiful dark eyes.” She smiled, conjuring the twins’ faces there in the darkness. “Rose is a tomboy … she loves to ride and to play games as well as to read and study. She is an interesting mixture. Rory—” She sighed. “Rory has grown tall and gangly in the past year,” she said. “He is truculent—everything seems to enrage him. He will like it that you are not English,” she said, turning her head to look at Devlin. “You’re not Scots, but Irish is almost as good.”
The candle flame quivered and then she remembered. Her spirits sank. Devlin would not be meeting Rory or Rose. When she left on the morrow she would go to visit the children and try to explain why the promise she had made them could not be honored, that for a little they would have to stay at the schools they hated whilst she started all over again to try to carve out the life she wanted for them all. Rory, she thought, would be monstrous angry. She felt helpless and distressed to think of it. Rose’s misery would be quieter and more self-contained but no less sharp for that.
But Devlin was speaking again. “Both children will be better when they have a settled home,” he said. “I am sure of it. That was all Chessie and I ever wanted after our father died.” He was stroking Susanna’s hair gently, talking of his childhood, telling her things that they had never spoken of before, not even in those heady first days when they had originally met and had spent every moment that they could snatch together. Susanna tried to resist the seduction of his words. It was a different temptation this, the desire to belong, the need to be part of a loving family. She had never known that for herself. She had wanted to build it for Rose and Rory and in the end build it she would, but she could not take the route that Devlin offered.
Dev’s words washed over her, conjuring images of Ireland in his childhood and the Navy when he first joined as a young midshipman. Susanna held him tightly, feeling herself slipping and sliding toward sleep at last. When she woke, some hours later, both the dressing gown and her night rail had somehow been lost and Devlin’s long, hard body was entangled with hers in an intimate, erotic bundle, his hand on her breast, his leg pressed between hers, his erect length against her thigh. Susanna came awake to the demands of her body in the same moment that she opened her eyes to find Dev watching her, a spark of wickedness in the blue depths of his. She could see the stubble dark against his cheek and the shadow cast by his lashes. Sensual awareness crashed over her, making her heart race.
Dev saw the reflection of her desire in her eyes. He exerted the tiniest pressure between her thighs at the same moment as smoothing the pad of his thumb over her nipple. Susanna groaned and he captured her lips with his in a kiss deep and drugging and sweet. His head fell to her breast, his cheek deliciously rough against the softness of her skin. Languorously he nudged her thighs apart and entered her, his mouth at her breast, his shaft deep within her, the pleasure exploding through her in a shimmering tide. Susanna ran her hands down his back and over his buttocks, pulling him into her, reveling in the damp, hot touch of his skin, hearing him groan as he emptied himself within her.
She did not wake again until it was full daylight and Frazer was knocking on the door to tell Devlin that he would be late for his appointment at the Admiralty. Dev kissed her and for a moment she clung to him, knowing that this would be the last time. She lay in the warm nest of the bed until she heard Dev leave, heard his brisk step on the pavement outside, and then finally she got up and, with slow movements, started to pack her bag.
IT WAS LATE THAT EVENING when Dev ran up the steps of the Bedford Street house and threw open the door. He had spent the entire day at the Admiralty thrashing out the details of his commission. Now he ached to share that news. He had barely been able to reach home fast enough.
“Where is Lady Devlin?” he demanded of the startled footman before the door was barely closed behind him.
“She is out, Sir James,” the man stammered. “Lord Grant is in the library and wishes to speak with you immediately—”
With a slight frown Dev hurried across the diamond-tiled floor of the hall and knocked on the door of the library. It was just possible, he thought, that Joanna might have persuaded Susanna to accompany her and Tess to an evening engagement but it seemed unlikely given the uproar that currently engulfed the family. Emma’s elopement was now common knowledge, as was Chessie’s betrothal to Fitz. Fitz had also seen fit to announce that Dev and Susanna were married. The gossip occasioned by such a rich scandal would keep the ton talking for months.
Alex was sitting in an armchair by the library
window, reading the Gazette. Dev tossed his commission down on the table before his cousin.
“They want me to teach,” he said. “You could have warned me!”
“God help us,” Alex said, “if the Admiralty think that you are a fit person to train the next generation of the Navy. They’ll turn out a bunch of pirates.” But he was smiling and he got up to shake Dev by the hand. “You are an admirable choice,” he said. “You have the skill and the judgment and the flair that they need.”
“I am to be based in Scotland,” Dev said, “and work with the Scots and Irish Squadron. I thought Susanna would be pleased to be going back home—” He stopped dead, looking at Alex, as the curious atmosphere in the room communicated itself to him. Something chill wreathed about his heart. “Where is Susanna?” he demanded. “I assumed she was out with Joanna and Tess …” But even as he spoke he felt the hollowness of loss.
“Susanna has gone, hasn’t she?” he said slowly.
Alex nodded. “She left this morning, Devlin,” he said. “I did try to persuade her to wait and speak with you but she refused.” His mouth tightened. “I’m very sorry.”
Dev felt the ground shift beneath his feet. Last night, he thought numbly, he had held Susanna and they had drawn comfort from one another and he had felt so close to her, bound in an intimacy as sweet and profound as he had ever experienced. And tonight he had been full of the promise of the future, aching to tell her the good news of his commission and how they could settle in Scotland and build a home there for Rory and Rose, too … But Susanna had not waited to hear it. Susanna had run from him again as she had done once before.
“Why,” he said slowly. “Why would she do that?”
“I suspect,” Alex said dryly, “it was because you did not give her a good enough reason to stay, Devlin.”
“But I …” Dev looked down at the commission. “Susanna knew that I wanted to be married to her,” he said. “She knew that I wanted to provide a home for her and for the twins!”
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