The Devil She Knows (6 page)

S
ilence assaulted Portia from all sides, dangerous as trackless sand dunes. Her finger rotated around and around her coffee cup's rim, every loop as meaningless as a politician's platitudes. If she set the china down, she might have to look at her wedding bed, here at their hotel.

She could barely see it in the shadows beyond her dressing table. The gaslight had been dimmed, except for two wall sconces. Not that there was much to see, despite the room's luxury. It could have been any small bedroom in a good hotel, meant to be occupied for a night and forgotten in the morning. She'd even seen its furniture a hundred times before, albeit in cheaper copies of century-old French originals.

Tomorrow she'd leave for London aboard one of Britain's fanciest liners. She wouldn't even have the comfort of honest American accents for a few extra days, no more than what she'd heard Gareth say in the church. Let alone actually speaking those very unsettling phrases in the note the hotel maid had slipped to her.

As if she would overturn her sworn oath to her husband now, no matter what the provocation! No, she would never run away from her husband tonight.

She shuddered slightly and swirled her cup to kick its dregs back into motion. Not much there, truly, but maybe enough to bring a little life into her cheeks. She'd always thought her wedding night would be different: an encouraging grin from Uncle William and a quick hug from Aunt Viola, then a wild rush into Gareth's arms.

Don't think about him now. Don't think about him ever again.

Her heart thumped disconsolately against her ribs, probably because she'd been alone for too long. Or maybe because she was so pale in this light. Blond hair and white skin didn't always display to their best advantage under spluttering gaslight.

Perhaps she should change. She wore a silver white satin peignoir with bands of embroidery and lace along the cuffs and lapels, over a matching nightgown cut high to her throat. Aunt Viola had argued against the shade, saying it faded Portia's coloring. But her stepmother had insisted, calling it virginal and irresistible to a man who'd been married before.

Now the cold threads skimmed over her bones like parchment wrapped around a trout, all decoration and no protection.

Surely everything would go well tonight. Surely her husband would approve of his new bride.

Portia wrapped both hands around her coffee cup and found another meaningless smile for the pale female facing her in the mirror.

A shadow blocked out the wall sconce behind her.

“My dear,” St. Arles intoned with obvious anticipation, “be certain to keep your eyes on me while I instruct you. I married you for your reaction when you learned my true plans.” Anticipation curved his mouth into a hyena's approximation of happiness.

Her cup rattled into the saucer.

“Clumsy child.” St. Arles yanked her robe down her shoulders and over her arms, then ruthlessly, brutally tightened it around her elbows. Her peignoir's lapels bit into her nightgown. Lace, meant to be enticing, instead became a burning brand searing her breasts.

She yelped and tried to squirm away. But she couldn't get out of it, could barely even shrug her shoulders. She stared at him through the mirror, appalled and frightened, her heart beating faster than when she'd watched for Apaches.

“That's it, my lady, that's it. That's exactly how I want you to always behave when we're alone in bed.” Bright satisfaction marched through his eyes.

“What do you mean?” She tried to pull away from him but his grip tightened. Could she even move her arms?

He dangled his white silk scarf beside her cheek and she shrank away from its dreadful softness. “Let me go!”

He chuckled, the sound glittering with evil. An instant later, he whipped it around her neck like a cravat and tightened his fist in it.

She shook, darkness clawing at her vision, and fought to stand up. She couldn't scream.

“No,” she croaked, the sound harsher than duty.

“This is your first lesson in how to please me, my dear.” Evil smiled at her through the glass.

“I enjoy my pleasure mixed with pain,” he informed her, his words echoing with far too much prior experience. “After all, orgasm is called the Little Death. I merely prefer my partners gasping on the edge of death. I find it provides both of us a far larger jolt into climax.”

“You're joking.” The dreadful silk eased just enough to let her speak. Aunt Viola had never mentioned anyone could do something like this.

She pushed against the vanity to stand up but he shoved her back into place, the casual blow slamming her face against the unyielding wood. Tears started in her eyes, burning harsher than her throat.

How would she survive tonight? Or all the nights and years to come? If he consummated the marriage, she could never have an annulment and she'd be tied to this living hell forever.

“Not at all.” He licked his lips, his eyes crawling over her like tarantulas. “My first wife was a widow and she'd been poorly trained by her previous husband. But you're a virgin so you've nothing to unlearn. You're absolutely perfect.”

“Noo…” She looked around desperately for an escape.

A door or the window, from which she could summon Gareth? She'd been such a fool when she sent him away. Could she reach it with her arms bound?

An iron bar locked around her throat and linen rasped her jaw. Her husband—heaven help her, her husband—dragged his teeth along her ear like a saw testing a log.

Blood dripped onto her cheek, hot and wet as the tears she fought back.

“I'll mount you the instant you start to lose consciousness,” he whispered like Satan's wind against her hair.

His grip loosened slightly on the robe. She twisted sideways and slammed her elbow into his groin, barely missing his privates.

“You wretch!” he shouted and jerked away from her.

But she had no time to savor her triumph, let alone use it.

An instant later, the silk rope closed abruptly around her neck and the world went black around her.

“By God, I'll show you who's master here,” were the last words Portia heard on her wedding night.

 

Dawn slunk into the rain-soaked alley behind the hotel, its fitful glow useless as a broken sword on a battlefield. Cobblestones gleamed clean and fresh for once, thanks to the night's deluge. A cat prowled past, secure in the knowledge he could either outfight or outrun any attacker in the long, narrow space.

Gareth flipped his knife, the blade Portia had given him, end over end, as he'd done since before midnight. His throat was drier than if he'd walked across the Mojave.

Inside, the rooms were warm and dry, glowing with crimson velvet and oak. Here, the walls were chipped brick and plain iron fixtures, good enough for working folks. Fancy brocade curtains in the windows overhead screened the paying customers from any uncomfortable glimpses.

A beat cop yawned and warmed himself with more coffee from the hotel's stock. Two doormen leaned against the hotel wall, their uniforms brighter than any intelligence in their eyes.

Gareth tossed his knife again. Ten inches of California-made steel whirled like a galaxy through the mist.

Portia was a grown woman. How could he forget that, the way she looked in her wedding dress?

Don't think about that; don't imagine what that beast was enjoying.

He had to let her make her own choices, no matter how much he knew they'd cost her.

His bowie went higher on the next toss.

He'd promised her he'd wait for her all night, in case she changed her mind. He kept watch here, where he could see both her window and the rear door. Plus, he'd bribed the doormen to tell him if anything happened at the front.

The sun blazed across the steel, as deadly to his hopes for the future as any desert sunrise. Bright as the flames rising above that Kentucky sky fourteen years ago and leaving the ground below just as barren of life.

Hope twisted through his gut like a hangman's knot and vanished.

Gareth threw his blade into the hotel's doorframe, where it hung like a shattered bird.

The cop jumped up, startled into lucidity. “Now, now, young fellow,” he began.

Gareth strode past him without a glance and retrieved Portia's gift, which he'd need at his next job for Donovan & Sons.

William hadn't been able to find anybody who'd work in Southeast Asia. But halfway around the world should take Gareth far enough from his memories of Portia.

God willing.

Hanoi, August 1882

G
areth jolted awake, nightmare pillars of smoke pursuing him like jackals back to consciousness. His heart beat against his ribs hard enough to break them open, the same way he'd fought to get one more shot off in his dream.

Dead men's ghosts still sank into his flesh as if their souls sought to take root in his own. Their eyes were picket fences he couldn't escape, while crimson rivers of blood streamed faster and faster from their death wounds.

Sweat broke out across Gareth's skin, bitterly cold despite the humidity hunting every crevice like magma. Rain pounded on the roof and dived through the gutters into the sewers, almost loud enough to drown his gasps for air.

He was an adult now. He hadn't wept since he'd dug his mother's grave and The Nightmare hadn't roared through his dreams for months, until tonight.

So why the hell could he remember those satisfied pigs, snorting around his family's corpses? His stomach jolted into another knot.

Maybe it was the omnipresent scent of charcoal from all the local cooking fires that reminded him of racing toward the smoke rising through the Kentucky woods. Running until he puked, but never reaching his destination.

Where the hell was the damn light
?

He flung his arm out and sent papers flying onto the floor. China shattered with a loud crash when his knife smashed into it. He barely managed to grab the hurricane lantern an instant before it toppled onto its side.

Cursing like the mule packer he'd once been, he sat up on the edge of the delicately carved bed. His pulse still drummed stupidly fast. It was an insane beat since he'd finished delivering all those critical railroad supplies, despite the every hazard corrupt politicians, foul roads, and filthy weather could hurl at him. Donovan & Sons would be very well rewarded.

His hands shook, as if he'd drunk himself to sleep. Not that he'd chosen that escape, of course. He'd realized within a month of Portia's wedding that whiskey wouldn't ease this pain.

He ground his teeth and looked for matches.

Chau peeked around the corner, her enormous brown eyes alight with concern above her thin silk robe. Despite the few months they'd been acquainted, she was confident around a disturbed male as only a previously well-pleasured woman could be.

At least he could do some things well.

Even so, words only trembled on her lips and never escaped into the air to disturb him further.

He finally managed to light the lantern and saw the newspapers scattered across the floral silk carpet. Ice ran down his spine, chilling him faster than his nightmare.

A single photo stared up at him. Portia and her husband—rather, the Earl and Countess of St. Arles—stood aboard their yacht at Cowes Week. Every inch was emblematic of Britain's finest society, from their haughty pose to the layers of furbelows which hid any reminders of the soft womanhood which had enticed him from underneath her wedding dress. Even her high collar seemed to bristle with superiority, like a woman's version of an imperial uniform.

Gareth closed his eyes and tried not to look at how carefully he'd folded the newsprint so it would highlight that single photo. He didn't need a reminder of his old playmate, somehow transformed into a magnet for his wayward eyes. If he had a nickel for every time his heart twisted at a thought of her, he'd be a millionaire.

“Would you like some tea?” Chau's cousin Quyen crept inside the room, her robe concealing few of her well-sampled charms. A professional courtesan, she could make tumbling out of bed seem an erotic invitation. She was an enticing morsel like her cousin but, like all his play partners since leaving the States, she was dark haired and dark eyed. Her hair would never gleam in the firelight like Portia's.

He shook his head violently. Then he remembered how well they could read him after a few months of sharing his bed. He opened his eyes and tried a more charming tack. “Not at this hour, thank you.”

“Perhaps you heard the cable arrive at the office next door.” Chau offered him the folded bit of yellow paper.

Discern anything in this storm? Gareth added a smooth smile to his noncommittal murmur and read the message quickly.

He dropped it onto the newspaper, covering Portia's face. “My boss wants me to take over the company's freight routes in the Mediterranean.”

“Paris?” Convent-inspired dreams flashed through Quyen's eyes.

“Algeria,” Gareth regretfully corrected her. Another barren, blood soaked hellhole where Donovan & Sons could turn a profit as one of the few companies willing to do business.

“There's fighting there! War and rebellion. You could be killed,” Quyen objected and bit her lip, tears swimming into her eyes.

Gareth gritted his teeth against easy agreement and the need to comfort her—or distract himself. Algeria was unfortunately far too close by ship and train to Paris, where Portia could surely be found primping herself for St. Arles' hellish appetites.

He would not, could not dally on that Mediterranean shore, no matter how often rebels stormed across its plains.

“And Turkey,” he added. “Constantinople, and maybe some of the smaller ports.” He did his best to look certain. Surely Donovan would agree to opening up a new business route into the Ottoman capital.

“The Turkish sultan is a bloodthirsty monster, who'll kill anyone.” Chau caught his arm, surprising him yet again with her mastery of gossip. “He destroys missionaries and his own people, plus honest men who simply carry odd packages. You could die any minute.”

But he'd be too damn busy looking over his shoulder and dodging government spies to worry about Portia or dream about his lost family.

“The Sultan attacks only fools who give him the chance,” he demurred. “No, I must obey my master's bidding and leave this fair”—and wet—“land.”

He lifted first Chau's, then Quyen's hand and kissed their delicate fingers. “While you, dear ladies, will stay here to prosper and be adored.”

They hesitated for a moment like herons poised over a fishing pond. Then they relaxed and giggled happily at his emphasis on the word prosper. After all, somebody needed to truly enjoy all of their life and his bon voyage gift would ensure they'd have the opportunity to do so. As ever, the money he made from gambling when he wasn't at work went back to William to be invested.

He, on the other hand, would have a very difficult job to keep his hands busy and his mind from worrying about Portia.