Devil's Lady

by Patricia Rice

  On a highwayman’s ill-gotten coins, with the threat of his death ever present. It was not a future she placed any reliance on, and Faith shook off his hands and rose to clear the table. “You may live as a king if you wish, but I don’t feel like a queen. I don’t need satins and lace. I am willing to work for my wages. I just need a roof over my head and food in my stomach.”

  And you by my side—but she couldn’t say that. Her heart longed to say it, to talk of babies and homes and her need for his love, but it would be madness even to think it.

  “You deserve better than that, Faith.” Morgan caught her by the waist and pressed a kiss against her hair, but she shook him off irritably. “I mean to see you have it, little one, as my wife or not, as you will.”

  His wife. He still offered marriage. She ought seriously to consider it. But he would always be a highwayman and she could not be a highwayman’s wife. She simply could not. Someday she would have to leave. Someday, when she was strong enough.

  Faith slammed the kettle on the hook and kept her back to him. “I’ll not marry a thief,” she declared firmly.

  Refusing to acknowledge the rightness of her words, Morgan stalked toward the door. “Fine, then. Be a thief’s doxy. I’ll find some fine lady to walk the aisle when the time comes. Money always talks.”

  He slammed out of the house, and Faith bent over, holding her stomach against the crippling pain. She hadn’t wanted to fight. She hadn’t wanted to make him angry. But she could not bear the thought of him hanging from a gallows or lying in the dust of the road with a bullet through his heart. The pain of it wouldn’t go away. Why had no one warned her that love hurt so bad?

  ***

  Faith was already in bed when Morgan finally came in out of the dark and undressed. It had taken time to work through her rejection, to understand he might never call her his, but he was a practical man. He could live without her as he had lived without everyone else these long years. But he wasn’t quite willing to give it all up just yet.

  He slid into bed beside her, curving his hand around Faith’s breast and kissing the nape of her neck. He could tell by her breathing that she was awake, and he pressed his advantage further, pulling her back against him until he lay wrapped around her. “I’d not have you go to bed angry, lass. How can I make it up to you?”

  By getting rid of the highwayman, he knew, but she did not say it aloud for it would anger them both. She caressed his hand where it lay over her bell.

  Understanding her gesture, Morgan gladly obliged. In this, they were together. Their needs were mutual, not just for the demands of passion, but in the craving for affection that came of it. He could take her as he wanted, but when all was said and done, she owned a piece of him as surely as he did her.

  And when they had sought their release and Faith was sleeping peacefully in his arms, Morgan ran his hand possessively down her swelling breasts and rounded abdomen and prayed as he had never prayed in these last ten years. He wanted more than revenge for the lives torn from him. He wanted a family again.

  Closing his eyes, Morgan tried to see the future, but only flashes of the past came back to knot his fists and increase the tension he had just released in Faith’s sweet, unknowing body.

  He should have ridden with Bonnie Prince Charlie when he took Scotland. Then his bones could be bleaching on Culloden Moor with all the others, and there would not be this hatred burning in his soul, condemning him to hell.

  But he had been scarce a lad of twenty and fiercely eager to free his own lands from the German fist of the Hanovers. He had offered—and been accepted—to organize a battalion of Irish to join the prince when the prince came to free Ireland. So Morgan had gone home for the first time in years.

  And the last. Morgan clenched his eyes shut and tried to drive out the pictures of the crumbling ruin of his home and the three unmarked graves, but the ghosts of his father and his father before him rose up to demand justice, and he could not deny them. The de Lacys had owned that land since the invasion of the Normans. There had always been a Lord de Lacy to walk those emerald fields. And he was the last of them. If he could not win the lands back, he must die trying.

  He tried to say a Hail Mary for the inhabitants of those cold graves, but he could only remember his little sister’s dark curls. He imagined the emaciated face the curls must have framed when she died, a face like those of the starving children he had found when he returned to the village that day.

  A tear slid down his cheek, and Morgan curled protectively around Faith to rest his hand on her abdomen. It had all happened too quickly, he had been told. There hadn’t been time to write. In truth, they had not known how to write or where to send such a missive. His family had died bearing the secret of his whereabouts, protecting lands they no longer owned.

  It had taken no more than a quick visit to find the meaning for the gaping holes in the de Lacy castle and the origins of the sparkling new Palladian residence rising on the meadows where his horses used to romp. The lands were no longer his. The new owner meant to dismantle the “dismal” castle to build his own very British idea of a home.

  The men of the village whispered the tale late at night over their beers, how the de Lacy that was had been struck down in the night and left to freeze in the road. Morgan could well imagine the whiskey that must have been consumed before his father would lie senseless in the road. There could have been foul play, but none knew of it. Yet the very next night, when the lord’s younger son, Sean, recklessly agreed to a secret Mass for his father’s soul, the redcoats knew of it and were waiting for him. They hanged him from the rafters over his father’s coffin.

  Morgan had flinched and smothered his sobs of anguish and hatred, but the final story hadn’t been told. When they spoke of his fair young sister thrown from her home, left to starve and die among the villagers, the then-twenty-year-old Morgan had broken down and cried.

  As he would now if he did not control his thoughts. Caressing Faith’s warm skin, Morgan forced his mind to the future represented by the swelling covered by his hand. He had tried to time his absences for those times of the month when she could not take him, but he was not fool enough to think he was so deadly accurate as to always miss them. How long had it been? How soon would she guess?

  And then, would she marry him?

  ***

  Edward, Lord Stepney, removed his bulky body from the hackney with a curse. He would crown the deuced thief-taker for forcing him out like this. Why couldn’t anyone do a job as told? Bigad, he was beginning to sound like his father now. But the fact that he had to come to these unenlightened corners of the city to meet a bloody runner did not ease his choler.

  Watson hurried forward to lead his noble visitor into the privacy of the darkened tavern. The place stank of smoking lanterns and stale ale, and Edward turned up his nose in disgust.

  “You had best have good reason for this, Watson. My patience is wearing thin.”

  The runner settled him in a booth with a glass of port and hastened onto the bench across from him. Edward realized the Runner was not a man of letters, and written reports would do only when there was no news to report. This time, he apparently had news.

  “Remember I told you your cousin hocked those jewels you got him and took the proceeds to a bank?”

  Edward nodded irritably.

  “Well, I told the judge I was on the trail of Black Jack, and he gave me a piece of paper to the bank so I could post a bloke there to keep an eye on whoever came to claim that money.”

  “Very clever.” Edward sat back, relaxing. He’d known the thief-taker’s ambitions. He hadn’t realized they would go so far as to actually lie to the only honest judge in the kingdom. Well, perhaps it wasn’t quite a lie, but close enough.

  Encouraged, Watson continued. “A legal fellow came to check on it, but the blunderer let him get away. So I took over the watch myself. The next day, a boy shows up with this bundle or papers, and the clerk signals me right quick. They gabble awhile,
and the boy goes away empty-handed, but I follow him. He takes me straight back to the moneylenders’ quarter, but he don’t report to nobody. He just idles away the rest of the day as if he ain’t got a care in the world.”

  Edward frowned, but he folded his hands placidly over his walking stick. “And the papers?”

  The runner took a deep breath. “The clerk says them papers prove that their owner is the missing heiress.”

  Edward stared at a space somewhere over the thief-taker’s head as he worked this piece of information through several elaborate thought processes. The papers did not necessarily mean Faith Montague was alive. She had apparently not appeared to collect the funds, in any account.

  The existence of the documents did not even mean she had been found. They could mean Thomas was double-crossing him, but Edward already knew about that. The game was to stay one step ahead of his cousin. It was growing to be a deuced boring game, but it occasionally had its moments.

  A smile playing about the corners of his mouth, Edward returned his gaze to his informant. “Well, then, it seems to me our next step is to catch Black Jack.”

  The runner’s eyes widened but gleamed with approval. “We have no connection between the highwayman and the bank account or Thomas,” he reminded his lordship. “Just that reporting of the girl at the inn that Black Jack defended”

  Edward shrugged. “It’s worth a chance. If nothing else, you will remove one more criminal from the road.”

  ***

  The pain in the small of her back had kept her awake most of the night, that and Morgan’s absence. Faith looked with distaste at the breakfast she had fixed and rose from the table to see to the horses. She had come a long way since that starving child of last November who longed for just a bite of egg.

  She didn’t like it when Morgan was gone for days like this. He could be in some filthy cell awaiting trial and she might never know it until too late. He could be dead, and she would have no way of knowing, except that she thought she ought to feel it. A world without Morgan would suddenly seem hollow.

  She needed his security right now, while everything else was in turmoil.

  She was going to have to talk to Molly about babies. Faith didn’t relish the thought, but she desperately needed information. It was mid-July and her monthly flow still hadn’t started, just occasional spots that never came to anything. And she felt terrible, more terrible than that dizzying day at the end of June. How could Molly keep working if she ached as badly as this?

  Faith made an involuntary gesture toward her stomach as another pain cramped her middle. She’d never had cramps before. Perhaps there was something deathly wrong with her. Where would she find a physician with Morgan gone? Would she dare tell a physician what she had done?

  She could scarcely lift the pails to water the horses. Morgan had warned her not to let them out of their stalls while he was gone, but the temptation was great to let them into the paddock to forage for themselves. Surely by evening she would feel better.

  But by noon she was lying in bed groaning with a pain that had no beginning and no end, and as she arched her back in agony, terror erased all thought of anything else.

  Having stopped in London to exchange his ill-gotten goods for cash and to leave the proceeds with Miles, Morgan cantered along the dusty road to home with a whistle on his lips. Miles had verified that the trust fund was established and ready to be transferred at his word, and Morgan’s investments in the funds were doing exceedingly well. The future seemed promising, if only he could get one Faith Henrietta Montague to agree.

  She still hadn’t mentioned the baby to him. He couldn’t be positive himself without questioning her, and Faith’s shyness made questioning difficult. Still and all, it was time they faced a few facts. He couldn’t have her slaving at Whitehead’s inn if she was carrying his child. That situation would need to be rectified immediately.

  He still needed a few more large hauls before he would have enough to think about that house in town. London property came high. The new terrace houses seemed the best investment, but perhaps he could rent for just a while. He needed to take Faith back to civilization. He had been selfish in keeping her here this long.

  But he needed Faith’s cooperation. He couldn’t take her anywhere until she bore his name. He didn’t know how dangerous her family was, and he needed to find out before London knew of her existence. He could protect her much easier once they were married.

  Deciding there was no reason to delay the inevitable, Morgan turned the stallion toward Whitehead’s inn. Faith would be there at this time of day. Whitehead would just have to do without her for a while.

  When Morgan arrived at the Raging Bull, it was on a scene of utter chaos. Molly’s curses carried in a shrill stream from above. Whitehead’s angry replies thundered down the stairs with his heavy steps. His wife’s voice rose in wails of despair as smoke curled from the back kitchen, and the excited chatter of the cook wove in between the cacophony in some form of syncopated rhythm.

  The innkeeper glared at Morgan as if he were somehow the instigator of this confusion. Cursing, he threw down his filthy towel. “Where the hell is she? I pay that wench good wages to keep this place in order. And the day I need her most, she doesn’t show.”

  Morgan tried not to make too much of this declaration, but his instinct for danger made his flesh crawl, and he edged toward the door he had just entered. “Faith’s not here?”

  Whitehead stared at him in incredulity. “Does it look like she’s here? Her and her fancy ways... Now nobody can do nothing...” His eyes narrowed as Morgan started for the door. “She up and leave you too?”

  But he got no answer. Morgan was already racing for his stallion. Faith would never leave her employer without notice. Something was wrong.

  He could feel it stronger all the way home. He never feared for himself, but this fear emanated from outside of him. He raced the tired stallion as he never would have done had not hell been at his heels.

  Flinging the reins over a fencepost, Morgan dived for the ground and hit it running, practically flying through the door as he heard the panicked groans inside.

  The light from the window and the open door was sufficient to give Morgan the scare of his life, in a life that was riddled with horrors.

  Faith lay twisted on the bedcovers, her face pale and drawn with pain as whimpers escaped her compressed lips. Beneath her, the bright splash of red grew, soaking her silver gown and the sheets and growing before Morgan’s horrified eyes.

  He had spent half a score of years living on his own, learning the atrocity of war, watching men die in rivers of blood, binding the wounds of those who lived. He knew how to kill. He knew how to survive. He didn’t know how to save Faith and his child. His ignorance brought a moan to his lips and a prayer to God as he fell on his knees beside her.

  She was scarcely conscious of his presence when he knelt beside her. He had to do something, but he was afraid to move her and afraid not to. He couldn’t leave her, but he didn’t know how to handle this alone.

  Sweat breaking out on his brow, Morgan discarded his coat and murmured soothing noises as he tested her forehead for fever. He couldn’t find one, but he was burning all over himself, and chilled cold as ice inside, so he was a poor judge.

  Faith’s eyelashes flickered at his touch, and her hand pushed at her ruined skirts. Morgan took this as a sign and began unfastening the intricacies of her clothing that would free her from the heat and blood.

  His fingers fumbled and knotted laces and he finally pulled out his knife and began cutting her free. The fine fabric shredded beneath his strength, giving him some satisfaction, some sense of accomplishment. Faith shivered and cried, and he drew on the resources that made him cold and calm on the battlefield. Action, not emotion, was required. His faerie needed him, and he wouldn’t let her down.

  By the time Morgan stripped Faith and the bed and removed the bloody remains to the yard, he knew the worst was over. He rummaged unt
il he found the strips of cloth she had used to bind herself during the winter and packed them as neatly as he could to stem the slight but steady flow. Then he found her a clean chemise and awkwardly managed to slide it over her head and arms so she could rest decently.

  Faith seemed in some state between consciousness and unconsciousness as Morgan worked. She lifted her arm when ordered, but closed her eyes again when he had the garment adjusted. Her hands roved restlessly, catching at his, picking at the sheets, straying to her belly. Pain occasionally puckered her brow, but the terror had subsided, and she no longer made those sounds that had Morgan shaking in his boots.

  He pulled the covers around her, and a frail hand reached to hold his. He knelt beside her, stroking her brow, wishing he could find the words that usually came so easily to his tongue.

  “Was it...?” She licked her dry lips. “...a baby?”

  This last was said so soft that Morgan could barely hear her. His broad hand crushed her fingers, and he suddenly realized his face was wet. He hadn’t cried in years. It had to be sweat. It was bloody damn hot in here. He wiped the salty beads from his cheeks and tried to speak.

  “There’ll be others someday, my cailin alainn. We’ll have beautiful babies together.” He choked on the words, holding back the lump in his throat. “This one just wasn’t ready to be born. He’s better off in heaven, lass. We’ll see him by and by,” he whispered in anguish, praying for the truth of the words.

  Morgan could see the tears roll in great drops from beneath the dark fringe of Faith’s lashes, and he finally sobbed and turned his head away.

  Now that there was no further action he could take, guilt welled up in him. She had given herself freely. The outcome would have been the same had they married or not. But the last thing in the world he wanted to do was hurt his generous little faerie-woman. But he had hurt her far beyond his ability to repair. He had not been there when she needed him, as he had not been there for the others. The ugly truth of that invaded his soul, blackening and shriveling what remained of it.