Devil's Embrace

by Catherine Coulter

  Edward squinted while his eyes adjusted to the bright sunlit room. The long curtains were opened wide to the morning sun, which was enough to warm the room pleasantly.

  “Good morning, sir.” Edward saluted General Howe smartly. “I received your message.”

  General Howe rose from his chair and Edward saw that the man whose mercurial humors left many of his officers quaking in their boots appeared jovial today. Indeed, a deep smile promptly indented his heavily jowled cheeks.

  “I have a surprise for you, my boy.” Again that beaming smile.

  “You have changed your campaign plans, sir?”

  General Howe’s smile disappeared. “That discussion, Captain, is closed. Accustom yourself, sir, to remaining in New York. You and Major Andre will have the important assignment of keeping General Clinton within the ropes, so to speak, when we finally have a change in command. No,” he continued, his good humor restored, “I asked you here for a very different reason. Captain Crowley, allow me to introduce you to Captain Lord Delford, one of my finest officers.”

  Edward turned to see a man emerge from the far corner of the large sitting room. He was of the general’s age, and heavyset like him, but dressed in a naval officer’s ornate blue and white uniform.

  Somewhat surprised, Edward extended his hand. “My pleasure, Captain Crowley.” He turned again to General Howe, his brows raised in question.

  “Captain Crowley has just arrived from Boston, early this morning, on his majesty’s frigate, The York.”

  Edward sensed that he was being studied closely, and he stiffened.

  “You are Viscount Delford?”

  Captain Crowley’s deep voice was oddly assessing. Edward’s gaze was locked by the man’s cold gray eyes.

  “I have that honor, sir.”

  What the devil is this about, he wondered, shifting his weight to his sound leg.

  “I believe, my lord,” Captain Crowley said, his gaze flickering briefly toward General Howe, “that you will indeed be pleased at the surprise General Howe spoke about.”

  “Surprise, sir?”

  “Aye, my lord. And I have personally escorted her from Genoa.”

  Edward thought the world, or the captain, had taken a faulty turn.

  A door opened at the far end of the sitting room.

  “Your wife, my lord, returned to you safe and sound.”

  “My what?”

  Edward’s question hung unanswered. “No,” he whispered, his face draining of color. She was an apparition, some cruel jest played upon him by his mind. She stood very quietly, watching him. Edward took in her long thick golden hair, her exquisitely slender figure, and her deep blue eyes upon him, holding gentle affection.

  “Cassie?” He was shaking his head even as he uttered her name.

  “Yes, Edward, it is I.”

  “But you are dead; it cannot be.” He groped for the chair beside him. “My God—Cassie?”

  General Howe and Captain Crowley ceased to exist for him. Edward took a stumbling step toward her, his eyes locked upon her, as if to prevent her image from vanishing. Numbly, he stretched out his hand.

  Cassie gazed mutely at Edward. He looked striking and elegant in his scarlet and cream uniform, his brown hair powdered as white as the cravat around his throat. His deeply tanned face looked older than she remembered, and his bright hazel eyes were incredulous. When he reached out his hand to her, her throat closed on a mighty sob. She dashed toward him and flung herself into his arms.

  “Edward, my dear Edward.”

  “Cassie, oh my God, I thought I had lost you.” He whispered her name again and again, and clutched her tightly against his chest. He pushed her away from him and stroked her hair and her cheeks, still repeating her name.

  Vaguely, Cassie heard Captain Crowley’s deep, pinched voice. “Well, General, it would appear that I have executed my most pleasant mission in this wretched rebellion. As to the viscount’s taking good care of my cargo, my mind is now at ease.”

  Cassie gently freed herself from Edward’s arms.

  “I must leave you now, viscountess. Although our voyage had its interesting moments, I am pleased to have delivered you sound as a roast to your husband.”

  Edward showed no surprise at the captain speaking of him as Cassie’s husband. Indeed, it scarcely penetrated his mind. He clasped Captain Crowley’s large hand and pumped it.

  “My deepest thanks, Captain. There is no way I can repay you, except to assure you that we are both profoundly grateful.”

  “And I too, Captain,” General Howe said. “I am certain, my boy, that we can rub along without your presence for say a week.”

  Edward nodded, so clearly befuddled that General Howe guffawed.

  Captain Crowley’s cold gray eyes rested upon Cassie for some moments, and softened.

  “Good-bye, Captain, and thank you.”

  “Take care, viscountess, and strive not to get yourself lost again from your husband. I am not always to be found in odd parts of the world, you know.”

  “I shall, Captain.” Cassie stood on her tiptoes and kissed the Captain’s cheek. “Do give my thanks again to Mr. Thompson. Both of you were exceedingly kind to me.”

  Captain Crowley, as if embarrassed by her show of affection, merely nodded, saluted smartly to General Howe, and took his leave. There was suddenly silence, broken only by the sound of his retreating footsteps, amazingly crisp and controlled despite his great weight. Edward was gripping Cassie’s hand tightly, so tightly that she winced.

  “I trust your lodgings are suitable for your lady wife, my boy?”

  “Indeed they are, sir.”

  “Then off with you both. I trust you will find sufficient to occupy your time.” He paused a moment, and when he spoke again, his voice was strangely sad, for he knew that Edward would now not long remain in New York. “At least you have gained from this wretched rebellion, Edward. When all is said and done, the rebels may have their way. I will look forward to seeing both you and your lovely wife in England some day, I hope not too long distant.”

  “Yes, sir,” Edward said only. Unlike General Howe, he had not yet realized that the strife in these colonies would soon be an ocean away from him.

  “Off with you now, my boy, I have much to do. Goodbye, my lady. Keep that husband of yours away from Staten Island. I don’t want him stuck again with a rebel sword.”

  Cassie bent her knee in a slight curtsy and allowed Edward to lead her from the room. She could feel the tension in his hand as he escorted her through the outer rooms to the entrance hall.

  “So this is your wife, Edward.”

  “It seems that I was the last to know, damn you, John. Cassie, this is Major Andre, aide to General Clinton.”

  “A great honor, my lady.” Major Andre lifted Cassie’s hand and lightly kissed her wrist. She regarded the slightly built officer, and knew him immediately to be a charmer with the ladies. His pale blue eyes held warmth and interest, and his genuine smile was a pleasure to behold.

  “Thank you, Major Andre.”

  “Now, Edward, don’t get on your high-ropes. Old Howe himself said you weren’t to be told.” He added in a pensive tone, “I hope this doesn’t mean I won’t be seeing much of you anymore, old man.”

  “Of course you will.” A faint smile turned up the corners of Edward’s mouth. “Well, perhaps not in the next few days.”

  “Aye, that’s as it should be. Perhaps I will let the captain find me a wife on his next voyage. I’d say that he did a superb job for you.” He gazed at Cassie with undisguised approval. What a lovely girl she was, her ample woman’s charms ill-disguised by the light yellow muslin gown. And that glorious hair. It had amazed him to learn that Edward had been married, but then, Edward wasn’t much of a lover of society. Perhaps believing such a woman to be dead was reason enough for his aloofness. He wondered if Edward’s beautiful viscountess would change her husband’s hermetic habits.

  Edward, who knew Major Andre’s thinking well
, since he usually spoke his assessments of women aloud, pulled Cassie gently to him. “I am certain you have much to do, John.”

  “Yes, I believe that I do.” Major Andre turned to Cassie. “Welcome to New York, my lady. I do not believe that society will allow Edward to keep you to himself. Adieu, Edward, for a couple of days!” Major Andre gave Edward a jaunty salute and turned away.

  “My portmanteau, Edward.”

  He looked at her blankly.

  “It contains all that I own and I cannot leave it.”

  “Oh, of course,” he said, and picked it up.

  Cassie shaded her eyes with her hand when they emerged into the bright sunlight. “How very changeable the weather is here, Edward.”

  “Is it not in Genoa?”

  She stared up at him, an unpleasant knot growing in her throat.

  “Captain Crowley said he had brought you from Genoa,” he said gently. He touched his fingertips to her cheek. “I do not wish to cause you discomfort, Cass. We can talk when we reach my lodgings.”

  She nodded, without speaking.

  He pulled up suddenly and frowned. “I have only my mare, Delila. If you are tired, Cass, you may ride.”

  “No, Edward, I am not the least tired. Are your lodgings far from here?”

  “Not very far. I live in an inn, The King George, on William Street. ’Tis not more than half a mile.”

  She watched him silently as he fastened her portmanteau to his mare’s saddle. He led them onto Broadway, which seemed to her to be teeming with scarlet-coated soldiers, many of them fully equipped with gear and weapons. And ladies. So many ladies, most of them elegantly dressed. Yet they seemed overly open with the soldiers.

  “For the most part they are prostitutes, Cassie,” Edward said, reading her thoughts. “Where there are soldiers and sailors, there are always women gladly willing to part them from their guineas.” Edward paused a moment, running his hand along his jaw. It was ridiculous to chatter like this. She has returned from the dead to me and here I am prosing about prostitutes and soldiers.

  “Cass.”

  He spoke her name so softly that she was uncertain whether she had imagined it. She turned and looked up at him.

  “I cannot believe that you are here.” He suddenly dropped Delila’s reins. He gave a shout of joy, closed his hands about her waist and lifted her high off the ground.

  As Edward set her back down upon her feet, the feel of his mouth against hers was still vivid in her mind, and her color was high. She tried to relieve her embarrassment and her uncertainty with inconsequential chatter. Edward smiled down at her, his once painful memories of her rapid-fire way of asking questions, of saying whatever popped into her mind, becoming again, quite naturally, amused tolerance.

  He answered her questions in a normal tone of voice, as if they had never been apart. “They are Scots, to the man, of the 42nd Highlanders. They are known as the Black Watch and mightily feared by the rebels.”

  Cassie stared at their checkered bonnets and their bare, knobby knees. “This is very exciting, Edward. I have never before actually seen their battle dress.”

  “That group to the right are Hessian grenadiers. You can always recognize them by their blue coats and the high brass-fronted caps. It is said that their mustaches are as black as they are because they use the same colored wax paste as on their boots. Like the 42nd Highlanders, they are effective, disciplined fighters, but they are barbarians.”

  “Barbarians, Edward?”

  “Yes. The stories of their atrocities, recent in fact, from New Jersey, make my blood curdle. Unfortunately, even here in New York, they are many times like unleashed dogs. One of the bastards even tried to force himself on Jen—” He immediately broke off, cursing himself for his loose tongue.

  Cassie quirked an eyebrow at him. “Jen, Edward? Who is she?”

  He shrugged. “Jennifer Lacy. She and her father are loyalists and friends of mine.”

  “You must tell me about her sometime,” Cassie said.

  Edward gazed down at Cassie’s proud, classical profile. He could not converse with her even about the most mundane, trivial matters as if nothing had ever occurred. Important things, painful things, kept cropping up, willy nilly. Dear God, he thought, I don’t even know what happened to her.

  It was as if Cassie had become as uncomfortable as he. “There is much to tell you, Edward.”

  “Yes, I know.” He drew in his breath and kept walking.

  But she did not intend to tell him that this vast, uncivilized land made her feel she had been transported to the very ends of the earth. She glanced up at him and smiled. She had known Edward all her life, trusted him implicitly and loved him. Yet she felt afraid and terribly uncertain, at a moment when her happiness should have been complete. It would have been complete, she told herself angrily, if it had not been for him.

  “We will soon be at my lodgings.”

  She marveled at his dispassionate tone, as if she were a soldier in his command about to provide him with a report. Yet she knew that it was just his way. She had expected him to try to protect her from his own sense of shock and confusion.

  She felt nervous, and said aloud her first inconsequential thought. “Everything looks so new, so unfinished.”

  “Yes. Shortly after we took New York from the rebels and their General Washington, there was a huge fire. It is likely that the rebels started it. Unfortunately, the rabble had stolen all the church bells so there was no way to raise the alarm. The fire began in a sailors’ brothel, down near the Battery, at Whitehall Slip. It spread rapidly, for there was little water and practically no equipment to fight it with.”

  “You were here in the fire?”

  “I was, but there was little to be done. A good third of the city burned. Even the beautiful Trinity Church was gutted.” He paused a moment and waved his hand. “This is a fortunate section of New York. All is finally rebuilt here, thank God. The New Yorkers are sturdy folk, and the rebuilding continues. I fancy that the Great Fire of London in the last century was no more devastating than was this one.”

  “I did not worry much for your safety, Edward. And yet you were here, during the fire and during all the fighting.”

  To her surprise, Edward laughed grimly. “That I was. It has been a winning display of military strategy on both sides. Had General Howe but given the order during the battle for New York, we could have cut the main body of General Washington’s army to shreds. But he did not act. He is always one to ponder, to mull over every alternative, pertinent or not, to stroke his fat chin and do nothing. This rebellion is being conducted by amateurs, Cass, but I begin to believe there are a greater number of fools in the English command than in the American ranks.” Edward drew to a stop, thankful that he could at last stop blabbering at her.

  “This is where I live, Cassie. Not Delford Manor or Hemphill Hall, I’m afraid, but still sufficiently comfortable.”

  The King George Inn on William Street had no graceful elm trees to gentle its gaunt lines. Like many of the buildings they had passed, the King George was spanking new, yet it looked as raw and as unfinished as the bare ground on which it stood. Winter had prevented even the grass from growing back. There was no foliage to soften its stark façade, no flowers. Flowers. For God’s sake, Cassie, that is another world, only a bad memory. I never wanted it, never wanted him.

  “Are you all right, Cass?”

  Cassie raised dazed eyes to his face. “Yes, Edward, quite all right. I am tired, that is all.” I must forget him, else I’ll never know peace. But she knew, had known for some time, that she would never be able to push him from her thoughts.

  Cassie gingerly picked up the skirts of her muslin gown and walked up the unpainted steps of the inn. Edward gave over Delila’s reins to the stableboy and joined her, bearing her portmanteau.

  “Ah, Captain Lord Delford. I had not expected you until this evening.”

  Cassie attended to a short, monstrously fat man with a face like a full
moon and small eyes of sparkling light brown. He wore a huge white apron around his considerable waist, an apron that looked well used. His strange, twangy accent brought a smile to her lips. Did all the colonials talk like this?

  “I would like you to meet my wife, Mr. Beatty. She arrived just this morning to join me.”

  The light brown eyes narrowed upon her face for a moment. A dimpled smile appeared.

  Mr. Beatty had not known the captain to have a wife, but then again, he thought it just like a very proper English gentleman to speak little of his personal life.

  “I regret, sir, that I have no other accommodations to offer you and your lady wife.”

  “I know there is not an inch of extra space in the city, Mr. Beatty. Please bring her ladyship’s portmanteau upstairs. And tea, Mr. Beatty.”

  I do not like tea. Why does Edward not remember?

  “Yes, sir. Right away.”

  Cassie had been in an inn but once or twice in her life. She climbed the solid oak staircase, uncarpeted and unadorned. The odor of raw wood, ale, and sweat reached her nose. Like New York itself, it was both intriguing and discomfiting. Everything seems so unfinished, even the people.

  “I have a small sitting room and bedroom. It is a corner room with a pleasant view of the river.”

  “Your valet? Grumman?”

  “Batman,” Edward corrected her absently. My God, he thought, as he opened the door, I am taking her to my room as my wife. He felt his loins tighten and drew back at the intense shock of desire he felt.

  “Yes, your batman.”

  “Grumman occupies a small room on the third floor. Do you wish a maid, Cassie?”

  Cassie remembered the two and some odd months she had spent aboard The York, fending for herself, and smiled. “No, it is not necessary. If there is someone to care for my gowns, ’twill be sufficient.”

  She stepped into the sitting room and smiled again. No, it was not like Delford Manor or Hemphill Hall—or like the Villa Parese. Clean dimity curtains covered the windows, and several small rugs were scattered about on the wooden floor. The furniture, what there was of it, was plain to the point of starkness, constructed, she thought, with utility in mind. Still, it was a bright, well kept, airy room, fitting for a soldier. After so many days cooped up on The York, she was pleased with its spaciousness.