The Devil She Knows (5 page)

“And, you, young man, are an intruder.” The master of the house looked Gareth over as if a servant had unaccountably left behind dead flowers. “Society's leaders are waiting at the church and I will not allow you to ruin our family's triumph.”

Portia hesitated, uncertainty running like a spring storm through her veins. But staying near Gareth would only heat her father's ire higher.

She left the fireplace far too slowly.

“As a man of the world, sir, you must have heard the rumors about St. Arles.” Gareth's demand for attention blazed like a knife fighter's blade in a dark alley.

Portia swung around, one step short of the doorway and her stepmother. The three Townsends faced the interloper in a single, united, hostile front.

“What of them? Idle chatter means little to me, except unnecessary delay to my wife's and daughter's dreams.”

“St. Arles is no proper husband for any woman, let alone a beloved, innocent daughter.” Gareth hurled the accusation at the household's senior members.

“So? My wife and child both desire an English title in the family, you fool, while I enjoy giving my friends a grand wedding—from which you will be excluded.”

“He will harm her.” Gareth's countenance carried the hardness of complete and utter certainty.

“Don't be absurd. He'd never cause a scandal or risk losing her dowry.”

Father hadn't denied he knew St. Arles was capable of Gareth's accusations?
Her stomach roiled, as if she'd returned to a swaying, pitching stagecoach, bound for a hellish, stifling journey through Apache country.

The leader of her family kept talking, sharp and disquieting as blasts from a guard's shotgun. “That's unlikely to become important. I have done my best for my daughter and you have no right to interfere.”

Where could she go? What could she do? Surely she'd made her decision weeks ago, when she'd accepted St. Arles' offer.

“Except an old friend's worry.” Gareth's tanned features were so saturnine as to be unreadable. “In that case, I will say farewell and simply ask Miss Townsend to remember my last words.” The fear underlying his voice pulled her a half step forward but her dress's chenille fringe brushed her legs like silent sentries.

He was requesting her to leave her fiancé at the altar and run off to her aunt and uncle? How could she break her word of honor and do that?

She rocked back into immobility. Surely her engagement ring had never felt this heavy before.

He stared at her, his silver eyes as adamant as his silence—and as desperate—about what he wanted her to do.

She glared back at him, equally stubborn.

“Of all the abominable pieces of impertinence,” her stepmother burst out. “To break into my house and try to stop my party! You—”

Gareth's hand shot out, palm up, and silenced her in midtirade. He walked out, brushing past Portia without a backward glance.

His clean scent made her treacherous heart give a last, erratic thump. It had to be nothing more than silly, sentimental claptrap over childhood memories.

“Coming, daughter?” Her father glanced at her from the head of the stairs.

“Of course, sir.” She locked her knees back into something steady enough to move, and did her best to glide forward, rather than stumble.

St. Arles wanted her and Gareth didn't. She'd given her pledge to one man, but not another. What more did she need to know?

P
ortia bowed her head one last time, grateful the interminable prayer had finally ended. The archbishop had seen fit to add additional prophets and evangelists' pleas for children to the standard wedding blessing. Now her head swam from the overpowering scent of massed roses, lilies, and freesias which swarmed up to the high altar and covered everything else they could reach.

They offered the only warmth in the enormous, gray church, since even all the swaying, wrought iron candelabras couldn't banish the cold chill seeping into every crevice from the heavy rainstorm.

She hadn't seen or smelled anything like these blooms, since she'd stood in the very small chapel when Mother was buried. The bitter winter that year had closed down travel, leaving only flowers to represent hundreds of friends and thousands of memories. Portia's head had spun until she wanted to sink into the stone vault with Mother's coffin.

Today, she gripped Mother's Bible until her fingers stamped her mark on the soft leather, then clambered onto her feet. Her heavy train tugged at her shoulders and she shook it impatiently back, to be caught and fussed over by her two stepsisters.

St. Arles observed her, too secure in his six feet of lionized British aristocracy and smug naval uniform to break society's conventions and offer assistance. A half smile toyed with his thin lips under his fashionable mustache.

Their audience leaned forward in a rustling slither of controlled anticipation. Her stepmother's crisp underskirts echoed like buckshot beside the aisle, while Portia could see from the corner of her eye Father smirking at an old social rival.

Uncle William, Aunt Viola, and their two young sons, Neil and Brian, sat in the following pew. Aunt Viola sniffled hard and briefly leaned her cheek against Uncle William's shoulder. He tilted his head toward hers, offering comfort and understanding so simply that Portia's heart twisted.

Uncle Hal and Aunt Rosalind, with their bevy of daughters and single son, her golden Lindsay cousins, Uncle Morgan and Aunt Jessamyn, and everyone else were a blur too distant to be distinguished as individuals.

Dear Cynthia stood behind her, both hands full with hers and Portia's bouquets. Cynthia's happy marriage to her gallant British army officer had helped persuade Portia she too could have a successful union to a foreign aristocrat.

Out of all that great assembly, only one man stood on his feet.

Gareth Lowell watched her from the side aisle, his silver eyes like beacons set deep in his hardened face.

Something deep down inside her leaned toward him yet again. She'd wanted him from the day they'd met, when she'd arrived in San Francisco after Mother's long, dreadful descent into death. He'd just come in from the storm, windblown and clean-smelling like the promise of a new beginning. He'd never reminded her of New York's gilded, cloying rituals.

Her two stepsisters finished their work and stepped back, leaving Portia isolated in front of the high altar.

“My wife.” St. Arles's voice was clipped, British, and triumphant as brazen cymbals despite its quiet.

Her eyes widened to meet his. She blushed, thanking a merciful heaven she'd sighted Gareth over St. Arles's shoulder. No suspicion dwelt in his eyes when his forefinger brought her chin up.

Her husband. She'd sworn to forsake all others and cleave only unto him.

He was what she wanted, wasn't he?

She stilled, her skin drifting somewhere beyond the ability of her frantic pulse to warm.

He slowly lowered his head to hers, his black eyes glinting like a shotgun's muzzle.

What was he planning to do? He wasn't behaving like the groom at any wedding she'd ever attended.

She managed a welcoming smile, gentler than her clumsy fingers' frantic grip on her mother's Bible.

He very deliberately licked her lips, flicking his tongue across them like a rattlesnake tasting the air for prey. Again and again, never seeking to penetrate or seduce like those fumbling boys, but only taunt and brand her.

She wrenched herself away from him and staggered back, flinging her free hand up.

“No,” she whispered. How could she yield her body to a man who treated her like that?

St. Arles chuckled too softly to be heard by anyone except the archbishop. Satisfaction flickered through her bridegroom's eyes, not some ridiculous prank.

Good God, he'd meant to frighten her.

Her blood ran colder than at her mother's funeral.

The audience surged onto its feet, filling the great church with a storm of dissonant questions and clashing fabrics.

She had to leave. But where could she go? She was married to St. Arles.

Her lungs fought to draw breath fast enough to fuel her irregular pulse.

To have and to hold, for better or worse…from this day forward.

Forever. She would be his wife for all of the days to come.

She lowered her hand as jerkily as a railroad engine stuttering to a halt. But she finished the motion and even added a half smile at the congregation, although she didn't dare look anyone in the eye.

Her father and stepmother erupted from their front pew and charged toward her.

St. Arles took her arm—and she permitted it. Her brain seemed to be somewhere distant from his touch, as if sheer terror had rescued all that was good and pure in her from him.

She glanced around the church, anywhere but at him, the man who'd kiss her again that night. Although she mustn't let anybody know what she thought of that.

She immediately and far too easily saw Gareth again. He jerked his head toward Uncle William and Aunt Viola, implacably demanding that she scandalously cast her husband aside and run off.

But he never gave any sign she should come to him.

Her husband drew her arm against his side.

Silence spread through the audience like the first flame in dry prairie grass.

“My dear daughter, let me be the first to congratulate you,” her father gushed. “I will introduce you two to President Grant immediately.”

The message in his eyes was as unmistakable as Gareth's:
You must pretend matters are proceeding well. You are married now, like it or not.

A thousand people watched her, eager to see her next move. No matter what she did, there would be gossip. That'd be a minor penalty, though, for choosing the proper road.

Divorce? Impossible; she'd given her word to marry him—for better or for worse. After all, there had to be a future ahead for a woman who did her best to be a good wife.

She'd created more than one ruckus in her life but never the commotion that walking out on St. Arles now would cause.

What did any of that matter? Like it or not, she'd married him and she'd keep her vows.

Portia Townsend—no,
Vanneck
—wrapped herself in her best, well-bred smile and leaned very slightly on her new husband's arm. Her finishing school's deportment teacher would have been proud.

She deliberately did not look anywhere near Gareth Lowell.

But too much of her heart shattered when the side door slammed behind him.

T
he fire sparked and sizzled in the library's flamboyant, tiled fireplace. A flame leaped high toward the chimney and freedom until the log underneath cracked loudly then collapsed onto the hearth. Ashes billowed toward the room beyond like a small, deadly storm, dotted with ravenous sparks. They almost seemed angry they couldn't devour the wedding reception for a British earl and a New York debutante.

If William Donovan had any sense, he'd let those fiery devils seize the woolen carpet and burn down Walter Townsend's New York mansion. They would need far less than an hour and he'd easily have his family out of here long before they were done.

Richard Lindsay, Viola's father and Portia's doting grandfather, watched silently, brocade curtains spilling behind him like memories of the Barbary pirates he'd defeated as a naval officer decades ago. They'd drawn straws for who'd have the privilege of leading this conversation and William had won, illegally of course. Townsend was probably better off dealing with an Irish street rat than somebody who'd learned mercy in Tunisian slave pens.

Portia's father puffed another set of smoke rings at the paneled ceiling. He filled his leather easy chair like a toad on a lily pad, all corpulent self-satisfaction and disinterest in anyone else's condition.

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, had the bastard no interest in his daughter's fate? Had he taken a single glance into Portia's eyes when she staggered away from her husband at the altar?

“Splendid ceremony, wasn't it, gentlemen? I fancy you won't see its like out west for many years to come,” the poltroon commented and aimed a superior smile at his three companions. “People will be congratulating me for years on the bride's looks.”

Hal Lindsay snapped his jaw shut with an almost audible click, his blue eyes hotter than the fire. Every blessed saint in heaven would be needed to protect somebody who spoke that callously of Hal's little girls.

Yet he locked down his anger, as if he tamped down his steamboat's boilers against an explosion, and took up station by the library door. A single fulminating glare warned his brother-in-law to hasten before he forgot their bargain and took action first.

“D'you think so, Townsend, my lad?” William inquired, sliding into a dark croon better suited for Dublin's back alleys than Manhattan's fancy mansions. “Or will people be talking for days about how your daughter cowered from her husband?”

“In God's holy church, too, no less,” Richard contributed.

“Aye, a terrible thing that. Sure to increase the gossip,” William mourned, eyeing his enemy's distorted appearance in the wineglass's facets. The grotesque countenance was probably an accurate rendition of the selfishness inside.

“Ridiculous!” The New Yorker slapped his hand down onto the table. “Did you see how many people came? She was simply overwhelmed by the occasion and started to feel faint.” His voice rose, shedding its usual warm patina like a snake discarding its skin to escape predators. His eyes darted around the room and, for the first time, hunted for escape routes.

“I saw a girl jerk herself away from a man, like a filly fleeing a cruel spur.” Even Hal's shortest syllable contained a deadly warning.

“Nonsense.” Townsend stormed onto his feet, his watch chain rattling across his over-fed gut. “Today was a great moment for the entire family. Portia will tell you the same, once I speak to her.”

“As soon as you tell her exactly what to say?” William asked, rage ripping hot and wild through his blood. Did the bastard consider his daughter an obedient doll, useful only for his ambitions?

“Of course! No matter what befalls her, Portia will do what I command. She knows better than to argue with me.” His jaw jutted out, belligerent as the fire irons warding the hearth from the room.

“You son of a bitch.” William punched his brother-in-law on the jaw and Townsend's eyes rolled back into his head. He crumpled onto the carpet into a disheveled heap, like the shattered ruins of a false god.

Satisfaction spilled into William's belly, touching the few edges left unoccupied by his terror for Portia. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, her skin couldn't have been any tighter over her jaw when she left for her wedding night than if she'd sat next to a cougar.

“Good blow,” Hal commented from beside William's shoulder. “I wouldn't have been as polite.”

The ambitious easterner stirred. He clambered onto his knees and glared at them, his tiny eyes malevolent in the fireplace's baleful glow. “You had no right to do that. Girls were meant to be obedient, not to be heard!”

“This is for sending
my granddaughter
away to the other side of the ocean and separating her from her brothers.” Richard lashed out with his foot in a blow to make any veteran saloon fighter proud. The kick sent Townsend onto his back with a loud “oof!”

William watched grimly, wishing it had been that bastard, St. Arles. Blessed Mother Mary, how he prayed Lowell would find a way to help Portia.

“Come on, let's get him up,” he ordered, hating the necessity to be civilized. “We need to find out if there's any way we can ease Portia out of that brute's clutches.”

Hal helped him haul Townsend's flabby, elephantine weight upright. William brusquely cuffed him across the face, unwilling to waste time with extra words. The fool swayed in their iron grip, his eyes bleary.

“Lazy asshole.” William slapped him again. “Listen to me.”

Townsend blinked and tried to jerk away. Richard shoved him back into place.

“You're a pitiful excuse for a father but you're the only one Portia has,” William snapped, more harshly than he'd ever spoken to a mule. “So we'll make the most of you, do you understand?”

Their ostensible host curled his lip and declined to answer—until Hal pricked his chin with needle sharp, cold steel. Townsend shrieked at the dirk and almost pulled out of William's grip, spilling a foul stench into the elegant room.

William cursed violently in Gaelic and yanked the fool forward by his vest. “Townsend.”

The New Yorker trembled violently but didn't try to run this time. Hal's knife stroking his cheek undoubtedly aided his concentration.

“Will you be a good father to Portia?” Richard asked sternly.

“Yes,” Townsend whispered hoarsely, his gray eyes flapping sideways toward Hal's blade. Sniveling easterner had definitely never seen a true threat before.

“A fine one, to be proud of?” William demanded.

“I swear it!” Blood trickled down his unhappy relative's throat and stained his collar.

“How much did St. Arles wring out of you for Portia?” Hal inquired, deadly as a coroner hurling questions over a corpse.

“A lump sum sufficient to pay off his father's and brother's debts.” He tolled the words like an accountant recounting the loss of hard-won pennies to a bitter enemy.

“Good Lord!” Richard ejaculated. “Surely there were other peers on the Marriage Mart you could have bought for that much?”

“Not of the same rank.” Townsend shrugged pettishly, braver now that he could look away from the knife. “St. Arles was willing to take a far smaller annual income after the ceremony, if he received the bulk at the beginning. It was a better bargain all around.”

“A half million?” Richard's tone indicated he named a larger than usual sum.

Townsend shook his head and jerked his thumb upward to indicate a far higher sum.

William's vision began to darken. He'd grown up on a seaport's streets and knew far too much about buying and selling flesh. But back there, the seller was always motivated by matters of life and death. Here, it was only to increase the feather bed comfort of a greedy fool's life—and risk destroying his own flesh and blood.

William's fingers tightened on the bastard's shoulder, grinding muscle and sinew against bone.

“Ahh!” The weakling's knees started to buckle and Hal ruthlessly yanked him completely upright.

“Did you tell St. Arles about Juliet's money?” Hal demanded in tones which would have cut steel.

William froze, a faint spark of hope warming his veins. Viola and Juliet, as the only granddaughters, had split Richard's mother's investments. Portia, Juliet's only daughter, had inherited all of her mother's share.

Surely Townsend would have told St. Arles about that family trust. But if he hadn't…

“Not yet. It's not a very sizable amount—is it?” He glanced around at the other men and read the answer in their implacable countenances. “A fortune? Good Lord, I must tell St. Arles immediately. He might refund me some of Portia's dowry!”

Hal kicked his greedy brother-in-law's feet out from him and sent him straight onto his knees with his face only inches from the fire.

“One more word like that,” he warned, his immense seaman's paw wrapped in his enemy's graying locks, “and your nose will start roasting. Do you understand me?”

Townsend's face and eyes turned the same pasty shade of gray. “You'd never do that to your brother—would you?”

“I'd gladly destroy anyone who threatened my niece.” Hal's voice held the flat certainty of a butcher announcing the daily special. “Today you helped terrorize her. Why shouldn't I kill you?”

Townsend gulped for air, his lips fluttering like a dying fish's gills. He glanced wildly at William and Richard but found only cold silence, comfortless as the North Pole's icy reaches.

“Of course I'll keep the family secrets,” he finally stuttered and climbed cautiously onto his feet. He swung his head back and forth, weighing the paths to the doors. Hal stepped in front of one, knife in hand, eyes joyous for any excuse for a fight.

Townsend recoiled and spun around.

William glared at him from the other side. If the easterner had an ounce of manhood, he'd draw a weapon—any weapon!—freeing William from his promise to Viola not to kill him. His darling thought their foster daughter needed to keep as much family as possible, given the hard times she sailed into.

Even so, William brought his dirk into the open fast and smooth so the arrogant beast opposite him would know the penalties.

Townsend squeaked, stammered, and flung up his hands.

“Good to know we're finally starting to understand each other.” William bowed slightly, never taking his eyes off the other. “Let me reiterate our bargain one last time. You will never tell St. Arles of Portia's inheritance from her mother.”

Because a trust's arcane rules just might keep the money away from her husband and thus give her a little independence.

Townsend nodded, a single bright spot of crimson burning on each cheek.

“You will be an excellent father to Portia, a veritable example to the world, no matter how great the effort.”

“No,” Townsend gasped. Horror blanched his cheeks even paler. “Surely, you cannot mean I'd have to approve all of her mad starts—”

“Or else her mother's family, the golden Lindsays, will enjoy increasing your punishment,” purred the old commodore and twirled a hot poker like a sabre.

“Yes, yes, of course. My daughter's welfare will ever be—
is
always—my greatest concern,” Townsend assured them, his eyes totally fixated on the iron's red-hot tip.

“And Portia will never know any of this,” William reminded him.

“Certainly not!”

That at least held the ring of truth.

If only they could protect Portia herself as easily.