Devil's Embrace

by Catherine Coulter

  “It is quite satisfactory, Edward.”

  A young boy, hardly older than fourteen, appeared in the open doorway, Cassie’s portmanteau tucked under his arm.

  “The lady’s luggage, sir.”

  Edward seemed oblivious of the fact that the boy’s wide brown eyes, of the same shade as Mr. Beatty’s, were looking at him with open worship.

  “Thank you, Will. You may put it in my—the bedroom.”

  “My Ma’s bringing your tea, sir, and on her best silver.”

  Mrs. Beatty turned out to be as reed thin as her husband was rotund. She stared with unabashed curiosity at Cassie, and, at the natural patrician nod she received from the young lady, she quickly set the silver tray upon the small circular oak table and dropped into a low, quite awkward curtsy. That Cassie appeared to pay no particular attention to her served only to make her seem all the more the great lady.

  When they were finally alone, Edward unbuckled his saber and laid it upon the table beside the tea tray.

  For the first time, Cassie noticed his slightly limping gait and remembered General Howe’s mention of a saber thrust. “Is your leg badly injured, Edward?”

  She seated herself in a none too comfortable chair, sipping the despised tea.

  “No. My men and I were on Staten Island—it’s off the southern tip of Manhattan Island—and came across a pack of rebels. One of them managed to strike me in the thigh. It’s nearly healed now.”

  “You must be more careful, Edward.”

  Cassie received a wry smile. “I am a soldier, Cass.”

  He stood over her for some minutes, seemingly searching for something to say.

  “Eliott and I searched for you for over a week.”

  He told me that you would. “Thank you, Edward.”

  He began to pace up and down in front of her.

  “Tell me now, for God’s sake, what happened to you?”

  Cassie set her tea cup next to Edward’s saber and clasped her hands tightly in her lap. “I am sorry that I had to pose as your wife, but I did not believe that Captain Crowley would take me aboard otherwise.”

  “It matters not.”

  His voice was impatient, and she looked away from him. Of course it did not matter what she said, for as a gentleman, honor would dictate his actions, and she did not doubt that she would quite soon become his wife, at his insistence. Unless—

  “I am no longer a virgin, Edward.”

  She saw his lips tighten, but he quickly recovered. “It has been a long time, Cassie. That you are alive is all that is important.” But his hands remained clenched at his sides. She closed her eyes briefly, knowing that he would never tell her how important her baldly delivered fact was to him. His honor would forbid it, and his regard for her feelings.

  “Please sit down,” she said finally. “The story is a long one.”

  He obliged her.

  “The afternoon before our wedding, I went out fishing, with Becky’s approval and encouragement.”

  “What the devil does Becky Petersham have to say to anything?”

  “You will know, shortly. Do you recall the beautiful yacht you and I saw from the promontory the day before?” He nodded. “It appeared again. It drew quite close, and I saw it was named The Cassandra. In short, Edward, the sailors threw ropes about the mast of my sailboat. The owner and captain of The Cassandra was the Earl of Clare. He abducted me.”

  “Anthony Welles?” Edward pictured the earl, a virile and dashing nobleman, and felt a wrenching tightness in his belly. “But why?”

  “He told me he intended to make me his wife. He had planned on my spending a season in London and was going to court me there. Your return to England ruined his plans. Rather than let us marry, he abducted me and crashed my sailboat into the rocks, knowing that everyone would believe me drowned.”

  For a long moment, Edward was too stunned to speak. “I don’t understand, Cass. Anthony Welles has known you since you were a child. I am not aware that you ever offered him any encouragement.”

  “No, of course I did not. He loved my mother, Edward, before I was born. Perhaps he is still drawn to her, through me.” Even as she spoke the words, she did not believe them.

  “That filthy bastard.” Edward smote his thigh with his fisted hand and winced. “He—he forced you?”

  “Yes. I told him that he was insane and that I would never wed him. But he would not listen.” She saw the pulse in Edward’s temple pounding furiously. “I am sorry, Edward, to distress you, but you must know the truth.”

  “Of course I must, Cass. He took you to Genoa?”

  “I tried to escape him once, near Gibraltar, but I could not.” There was no point in telling him of the pirate, Khar El-Din, and her shooting of the earl. “As you know, Lord Welles’s mother was Italian. He took me to his villa, just west of Genoa. That is where I have been until two months ago.” Nor would she ever tell him of her miscarriage. What a miserably brief tale it was, like a person stripped down to a skeleton.

  “How did you escape him?”

  I escaped him because he did not believe that I wanted to. “He left the city and I was able to slip away. If The York and Captain Crowley had not been in the harbor, it is likely I would have been caught.”

  Edward was suddenly struck by a coincidence. “You speak Italian, Cass.”

  “Aye, Edward. And that is due, as you know, to Becky Petersham. I had always wondered at her disapproval of you. She is related to him, Edward. In her eyes, I was intended for the earl and none other.”

  Edward’s thoughts returned to that afternoon on the beach two days before they were to be married. Cassie would have given her virginity to him then, had it not been for Becky Petersham’s interference. “She appeared distraught at your supposed death. It was a sham, all a sham.”

  “She corresponded with the earl. Quite by chance I found her letters. That is how I knew where you were.”

  “Eliott still believes you dead?”

  “Yes. I have written to him, but the letter will not arrive in England for two months.”

  “Did you tell him what had happened to you?”

  Cassie thought of the phrases she had penned to her brother, reassuring phrases that expressed little of her feelings, of her uncertainty with herself. She had written less to him than she had told Edward. “A little. I told him I was coming here, to you, and that I was well. I did not mention Becky’s part in all of it. That must wait until I return.”

  Edward nodded, but Cassie sensed he was not really attending her words. He turned suddenly, his voice harsh with anger.

  “How could that bastard have forced you to live with him all this time?”

  “Because he always believed that I would change.” At least he hadn’t asked her if the earl had forced himself upon her all those months. She did not know if she could lie to him.

  Edward’s hand foolishly went to his side, but his saber was on the table and the earl was in Genoa. He looked again at Cassie’s face and saw a lone tear streaking down her cheek.

  He felt stricken with remorse at his own fury. She needed him as she never had before in their lives. He clasped her arms and drew her to her feet. “Oh, God, Cass, please do not cry.” He nuzzled his cheek against hers and stroked his hands down her back. “It is all right now, my love. I will help you to forget, I promise you. All of it will pass like a bad dream, you will see.”

  She sobbed quietly, her tension easing at his gentleness. But she knew it would not pass like a dream.

  He spoke quietly, sensing her pain. “I will make it up to you, Cass. We will wed and return together to England. Believe me, I have no wish to remain here now.” He thought of Jenny and felt a shock of guilt that made him go numb. “Oh, God,” he whispered. He gazed down at the beautiful girl he had cherished most of his life. She had miraculously been returned to him. “All can be as it was, Cass,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said slowly, sniffing back the tears, “all must be as it was.” Cassie pull
ed away from him, fighting to get hold of herself. She gave him a tentative, watery smile. “And now, Edward, you must tell me of yourself. I have thought about you much, you know, and what you were doing and feeling.”

  His eyes darkened in remembered grief. “I could not stay after I believed you dead. I received a letter from the ministry in London, asking me if I would consider resuming my command. It did not matter to me that I was to join General Howe here in the colonies.” He paused, remembering bloody battles against men ill-trained and poorly armed, but desperate to win. He had been a formidable enemy, for he had not cared whether he was felled by a rebel bullet. His men had followed him without question, not knowing that he gave not a damn for his own life. He was lucky to be alive. But he would not tell Cassie of that, just as he would not tell her about Jennifer Lacy.

  “I have received letters from Eliott, not with any regularity, of course, but enough to know he is well.”

  “I read in one of Becky Petersham’s letters to the earl that Eliott is planning to marry Eliza Pennworthy.”

  Edward smiled faintly. “Eliott has written nothing about that.” He was silent for a moment. Suddenly, anguished memories wrenched words from his lips. “God, Cassie, you cannot imagine what it was like, the days searching for you, the nights, alone, cursing the wretched sea. And there was nothing, simply nothing I could do.” He caught himself, and turned away from her, to stride angrily about the room. “I swear that I will kill him for you, Cass. He does not deserve to live, after all that he has done.”

  “It is likely, Edward, that we will never again see the Earl of Clare. If he does, sometime in the future, return to England, you must promise me that you’ll not do anything rash.” She lowered her eyes from his face, unwilling to let him see her despair at the thought that she might never again see the earl. She remembered the Contessa Giusti and her hands curled into fists in her lap.

  “I can well take care of myself, Cass,” Edward said. “And you as well, now.”

  Edward, her protector, her knight throughout her growing up years. She smiled, reminded of the many little things that bound them together.

  “How did you spend your time when you were not getting yourself wounded on this Staten Island?”

  He shrugged and she saw a cynical light enter his eyes. “I did naught of anything, really. Insignificant encounters with the rebels. And there were, of course, balls and dinners held by the New York Tories.” He paused a moment, the image of Jenny stark in his mind. He looked away from her. “Time passed, Cass, as it always does.”

  Edward’s recital of his long months without her seemed as brief and stark to her as her own recital. She wondered, staring at his straight, lean figure, if he had omitted as much as had she.

  Chapter 24

  Cassie took a last bite of Mrs. Beatty’s apple pie and sat back in her chair with a satisfied sigh. The landlady had appeared at their door an hour before, napkin-covered dishes weighing down her thin arms. It was thoughtful of her to have guessed that they preferred to be alone in their room their first evening together, and not come downstairs to the inn parlor. Actually, Cassie thought, if Mrs. Beatty had not obligingly brought them their dinner, they likely would have forgotten it.

  She gazed at Edward over her coffee cup. He had grown ill at ease during their dinner, and she easily guessed the reason. Night had fallen and they were alone but a few feet away from his darkened bedchamber, as man and wife.

  It was fortunate that their lives had been so closely intertwined, for it had allowed them to fall easily into pleasant reminiscing. During the afternoon, they had allowed themselves to blot out the months they had been apart. Edward had reminded her of the time he had knocked down Edmond Danvers for calling Cassie naught but a bothersome little girl who had more tangles in her hair than a sparrow’s nest. Her unrestrained laughter still sounded in her ears. But now it was evening, and they could no longer pretend to be carefree children.

  During the last few weeks aboard The York, Cassie had argued with herself for hours at a time about how she would approach this moment with Edward. She knew that consideration for her feelings was as natural to him as was his sense of honor. And given what she had told him about the past months, she did not doubt that he was in a quandary about the prospect of lovemaking with her. It was her belief that he loved her deeply that eased her mind. And because he loved her, she wanted to give him all of her that she could. He was her lifelong friend, the man she was to have married, the man she now would marry. “I should very much like a bath, Edward.”

  He blinked at her. “A bath? Certainly, Cass. I shall see to it now.” There was relief in his voice as he rose stiffly from his chair and strode with alacrity toward the door.

  He returned some fifteen minutes later, followed by the boy, Will, each of them carrying steaming buckets of hot water.

  “There is a hipbath in the bedroom,” he said, not meeting her eyes.

  She would have smiled at his obvious discomfiture were she not herself so nervous about their first night together. She rose and trailed after him. The bedchamber was a small, square room, its furnishings, like those in the sitting room, built for utility. She saw Edward looking toward the bed.

  She walked to the hipbath. “I would imagine that you are far too large to fit in it, Edward.”

  “It is quite adequate,” he said, stiffly. “I will leave you now, Cass. If you have need of anything, please call.”

  “Thank you. I shall be fine.”

  Edward saw Will out the door and sat himself down in his favorite chair, a high-backed mahogany affair with solid unfinished arms. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes. Each time he tried to think about what the incredible events of the day meant to him in a controlled, reasoned light, he was stopped by a quickening in his loins. Cassie was in his bedchamber, now likely naked, and in his bathtub.

  He frowned down at his enthusiastic member straining tightly against his cream breeches, then eyed the blunt-edged, thinly cushioned settee in front of him. He supposed it would be his bed until they were married. It would have to be a very private ceremony, since Cassie was already known as his wife. He reviewed the request he would make to the only Anglican parson he knew, and shook his head. The florid-faced Mr. Danvers would never keep a still tongue in his mouth.

  Fury, pure and undiluted, took control of him at the thought of the Earl of Clare, dampening his passion. “You bloody bastard,” he said aloud. He would have killed the man without a qualm for having ravished any English gentlewoman. But it was Cassie he had forced himself upon, had repeatedly taken against her will during the long months Edward had thought her dead.

  Edward rose and slowly removed his coat and boots. He and Cassie had talked throughout the day of everything that did not touch the months they had been apart. He smiled, remembering her unaffected ready laughter. But he realized he still knew very little of what her life had actually been like during the past months. She had spoken not at all of the earl, and Edward, not wishing to cause her pain, had not pressed her.

  “Edward.”

  He turned at the sound of his softly spoken name. Cassie stood in the open doorway of the bedchamber, dressed in a light muslin wrapper. He caught his breath at the sight of her. She was as exquisitely beautiful as the near-perfect vision of her he had nourished in his mind during the lonely nights of autumn and winter. He restrained his impulse to crush her in his arms.

  “You enjoyed your bath, Cass?”

  She smiled at the painful calm in his voice. To his discomfiture, his body leaped in response.

  “The water is still warm, Edward. Would you like me to scrub your back?”

  “Cassie, for God’s sake.”

  Under his horrified gaze, she lowered her face and began to sob into her hands.

  His stocking feet made no sound on the oak floor. He gently pulled her against him, though her hands still covered her face. “Please don’t cry, my love.” He nuzzled his cheek against her silky hair, savoring its sw
eet sandalwood scent. He felt her stiff and unyielding against him and set about to soothe her, and himself, with low, soft words of reassurance.

  “No one will ever hurt you again, Cass. I swear it to you. You are safe now, and this time I shall protect you.”

  Cassie lowered her hands and mutely raised her face. There was no one to protect her from now. You cannot protect me from myself, Edward.

  “You even cry beautifully,” he said as he touched a fingertip to her cheek and gently brushed away her tears.

  “I am sorry, Edward. It is not my habit to be a weeping woman.” Her hands stole up his arms and her fingers locked about his neck. “Please stay with me tonight.”

  He looked down into her clear blue eyes and knew himself to be lost. “If you are certain it is what you want, Cassie.”

  It must be what I want.

  “Yes.”

  “Then we shall be ahead of the parson by a few days.” He scooped her up into his arms and laid her gently in the center of his bed. Cassie sank deep down into the trough she created in the soft featherdown mattress.

  She laughed. “Oh dear, I fear that we shall be sleeping like two cards in a deck.”

  Edward gave her only a slight answering grin. He was pulling off his clothes with a speed that would have surprised his batman, Grumman.

  Cassie watched him. He was of slighter build than the earl, his body wiry and taut from his years of campaigning. She turned her eyes away from his erect organ. Instead of desire, she felt a surge of panic. For an instant, he was a stranger to her, frightening and unknown. She drew a deep steadying breath. Don’t be a fool, Cassie. Your life is as it was supposed to have been. You are with Edward. It is he who will be your husband. She fastened her eyes upon his face and held out her arms to him.

  “Let me help you off with that wrapper, Cass.”