The Devil's Match (11 page)

“It is, indeed, my mother, Hermione, and her
husband Richard, Fifth Viscount DeVere.”

“And the child is you?”

“Yes, and judging by the gown, I suppose I must
have been about three years old.”

Diana turned to him with a puzzled expression.
“I don’t understand. This is a family portrait. If she is your
mother and he is the viscount, how can you not refer to him as your
father?”

Ludovic laughed a long and bitter sound. “Of
course, you know nothing of my family. Few people do, as I have
taken great care, and much greater expense, to keep it so.”

“I am puzzled,” she said, a frown wrinkling her
brow. “These portraits are your history, and some must be very
valuable. I wish to understand why you keep all this”—she made a
sweeping gesture—”hidden away.”

“Painters and poets have leave to lie, you know.
Perhaps the subjects were not worthy of the artists’ efforts.”

“And what would these artists have lied about?”
she continued to press.

“You wish me to air the dirty laundry?”

“I don’t seek diversion, but comprehension,” she
said.

Ludovic’s first impulse was to wave away the
subject and move on to his purpose, but something in her gaze
compelled him to say more, to voice the things he had paid dearly
to keep secret.

“Very well, Diana.” He sauntered across the room
to stand beneath a portrait of a haughty, young man in the
full-bottomed wig favored half a century earlier. The painting was
done in the classical Italianate style favored by those on their
Grand Tour. “Behold Lord Richard DeVere before his complete
corruption by dissolution and vice.”

Diana cocked her head and narrowed her eyes,
seeming to study the arrogant features of Lord Richard. “I daresay
you do favor your mother. But tell me of him.”

“Lord Richard was born into a great fortune,
traveled widely, and wed late in life, when fear of his own
mortality struck with a certain scurrilous disease that his
physician said no amount of mercury would cure. Desperate that his
seed should not die out, what does the poxy bastard do but take a
wife! Ironically, I later learned that his disease was already so
advanced by that time as to make it impossible for him to sire any
progeny.”

Ludovic advanced to a second portrait of the
same beautiful woman sitting alone and posed under a flowering
tree. “Behold my mother. She was twenty-five years his junior, and
the marriage was, as to be expected, an utter travesty. Lord DeVere
was the biggest whoremonger in all Christendom, and my mother
complemented him well as the greatest whore. Together, they were
the most notoriously faithless couple in England. I was raised with
all the privilege of my noble station to include a personal servant
to wipe my arse for as long as I can remember, yet to this day, I
cannot say with any certainty if that same servant might have been
my true father.”

Diana’s jaw dropped.

He laughed again. “I’m not sure Lady DeVere
would have known either, for she exercised no discretion. She may
have consorted with a footman, a gardener, or even my father’s
valet, but of a certainty, I am not the spawn of Lord DeVere. Nor
do I believe Hew and I are more than half siblings, though I would
never tell him so. Our mother showed only enough maternal feeling
to remain with us until Hew was out of leading strings and then
eloped with her lover.”

“You never heard from her again?”

“On the contrary,” he smirked, “I heard from her
immediately upon coming into my title. Her lover had long ago
abandoned her, and she claimed to be in dire need of funds.”

“Surely you refused her?”

“I did not. I have provided her a generous
allowance these past dozen years, though I learned in my recent
travels that she really had little need of it, for she has managed
to provide a lucrative living for herself.”

“With another lover?”

“With many, you might say. She is the keeper of
a high-end Parisian brothel.”

“Your mother?” She gaped again.

“Yes. It was a most unsettling revelation.”

“I suppose so! And your father...er...Lord
Richard...what of him?”

“The blighter
still
manages to live, despite the fact that his
mind and half his face have rotted away.”

“Good God,” Diana murmured.

“Sometimes I wonder how good,” Ludovic replied
cynically. “So you see? My very birth defies all that is right and
true. Perhaps you better understand now my aversion to wed? To
reproduce? For I carry in my blood an entire legacy of corruption
and sin. My entire existence is one great lie, Diana. My blood is
tainted and my life a fraud.”

“That’s ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “You only
use your history as a convenient excuse to do as you please.”

“That’s right, my dear. I live for pleasure
because it’s my legacy to do so for I am damned either way. ‘Yet he
does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and
their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth
generation.’”

“If you wish to elicit sympathy from me, I am
sorry to disappoint you.”

Ludovic shrugged and dropped his mask
comfortably back into place. “The only thing I wish to elicit
from
you
, my dear, are
screams of rapture.”

“Back to that again, are we? You waste your
breath. Now why did you bring me here?” Diana demanded.

“You challenged me last night, Diana, taunted
even, when you know damn well I never take such a thing lightly. So
I wish to know what you propose by way of a wager.”

“Perhaps I haven’t had sufficient time to think
on it,” she hedged.

“Don’t dissemble when we both know you had
already something in mind before you even spoke.”

“All right, my lord. I will tell you. I would
very much like to rebuild my former racing stables, but I have not
the means to do so without a quality breeding stallion.”

“A woman has no business with a racing
stud.”

“Perhaps that is
my
concern and not for you to judge, my
lord.”

DeVere quirked a brow. “Very well. Then what are
you asking? You wish me to wager one of my stallions?”

“Not just
any
stallion. I wish to you wager
Centurion.”

“The sire of my best prospect for the
Derby?”

“I thought it would be more than you would be
willing to chance.” She turned for the door.

“I have not yet decided,” he retorted. “I would
first know what I might stand to gain from this wager.”

“You once expressed interest in Cartimandua,”
she suggested.

“An unequal bargain,” he replied. “A brood mare
may produce a single foal per year at best, while a proven stallion
can sire a hundred offspring at a considerable profit. No, my dear,
you must offer a much greater incentive than that.”

“But I am not a wealthy woman, and you
know as well as I that you acquired that stallion through dubious
circumstances. You
owe me
the
opportunity to win him back!”

“I owe you? I seem to recall only recently your
great affront at just how much I have already paid you.”

“That is not what I mean! You owe me the
opportunity to redeem my honor, my lord. Were I a man, we would
have settled this long ago on a dueling field.”

“You still have a taste for my blood, madam? On
second thought, you need not answer.” He touched his lip with a
bemused smile. “So it is now your honor that’s at stake?”

“Yes.” Diana faced him with her hands braced on
her hips.

He laughed, a low rumble. “Ironic indeed, when
your person is the only thing that remotely interests me.”

Her gaze narrowed. “You wish me to wager
myself?”

He shot one brow up. “How badly do you want the
stallion?”

“What are your terms?” she asked.

“If I win, you will be mine for a week...to take
whenever and however I please. No conditions. No constraints.”
Ludovic was prepared for a reaction of shock, outrage, or at least
righteous indignation. Instead, to his amazement, she appeared
calm, pensive, even calculating.

“A very tall order,” she remarked. “If I were to
agree, do I have your assurance that afterward you will never
harass me again?”

He inclined his head with a half smile. “If that
is your wish.”

“I know my own mind.”

“Then let it be my object to change it.”

“So be it then,” Diana said. “It’s
inconsequential anyway, for I don’t intend to lose. Let us meet,
just you and I, on the down at dawn tomorrow.”

Chapter Eleven

They met early in the morning, while the dewy
swirls of mist of still danced over the down, the mounted riders
facing one another with a duelist’s salute.

“Where is your jockey?” DeVere asked with a
puzzled frown.

“Did I not say? I intend to ride.”

“You? A woman in a sidesaddle?” He scoffed.

She met his mocking gaze with defiance. “It is
how I am accustomed to going. Perhaps you’re not up to the
challenge, my lord?”

“Oh, I’m always
up,
my lady...for any challenge. I only exercise
care for your neck.”

His condescension and innuendo made Diana’s
hackles rise. “You would do better to look after your own. If I can
take a four-foot stone wall while chasing a fox, I daresay I can
gallop over a gently sloping down.

DeVere threw his head back with a laugh. “You
are in earnest?”

She gave him a tight smile. “Yes.” Diana had to
suppress the urge to grind her teeth until his fit of mirth
subsided.

“Fair enough, then,” he replied with a lingering
smirk. “I have brought Pratt to be our lone official, if that is
agreeable to you?”

The grizzled jockey who had followed his master
tugged a forelock in her direction.

“I trust Pratt’s impartiality,” she said.

DeVere inclined his head to the starting post.
“Shall we?”

“For the signal, I’ll drop me handkerchief.”
Pratt turned to Diana.

“That is also acceptable,” she replied, her
fingers nervously clenching the reins.

Preceding DeVere, Diana tried to quiet a heart
that already seemed to be galloping across the down. They would run
a single lap around the racecourse, a distance of one mile that
would be completed in two potentially life-altering minutes. It was
as if this moment were a culmination of fate, for Diana knew with a
certainty that she would be forever changed if she lost.

She swallowed the lump in her throat, forcing
her gaze ahead, avoiding all eye contact with her nemesis, yet
couldn’t help slanting a reluctant glance of admiration to the
rider at her side, to the strong, handsome profile, his proud and
solid seat on the horse. He was in every way formidable and would
give no quarter.

The hour they had spent together in the gallery
had been profoundly revealing, not just in the family skeletons but
in the glimpse into his soul. He had shown a paradoxical
protectiveness of his family and of his good name. He had protected
his brother from the worst of the dirty secrets, and although he
outwardly despised both of his parents, he had ensured their care
and security. Although DeVere emulated much of their bad behavior
in his own life, he refused to wed for his lack of faith in marital
fidelity, whereas most other noblemen would just wed for the heir
and then take a mistress for pleasure. She also knew he exercised
sufficient responsibility and self-control not to sire bastards
upon his mistresses. DeVere continued to be a conundrum that both
fascinated and repulsed her.

Diana wondered now what devil had possessed her
to undertake this wager. The loss of the horses to DeVere had
surely been a point of contention, and her pride had played no
small part. She desperately desired to take back a portion of what
had been lost, surely a just and legitimate cause, but it reached
much deeper than that. She wanted to take something from him, just
as he had taken from her, but that something she couldn’t even
define, and wouldn’t confess it even if she could. Perhaps it was
sheer caprice on her part? For surely her experience had already
taught her that any involvement with DeVere was playing with fire,
but like a helpless moth, she was mortally attracted to his
flame.

The little mare shifted impatiently beneath her.
Diana reached down to stroke the sleek neck. “Soon, my girl,” she
murmured.

Pratt retrieved his handkerchief. He raised his
arm, and the nervous tension roiled within her. With bated breath
she watched as the handkerchief descended. Plying whip and spur,
horses and riders bolted from the starting post like a violent
clash of thunder and lightning.

***

Refusing to cast a sidelong glance, Diana was
still ever aware of DeVere’s presence. She crouched low over her
mare, that sleek and supple snorting mass of muscle and sinew.
Boadicea was well matched against her foe, ironically the son of
Centurion. Diana was confident in the mare’s ability. Boadicea was
bred of the finest racing blood; Diana knew the fiery, little horse
would run until she burst.

The horse’s ears flickered forward and back in
response to her rider’s cues. Diana crooned words of encouragement
as her fingers played on the reins. It was no magnanimous gesture
that DeVere had given her the lead, for she knew he intended to
play a cat and mouse game with her. He was visible out of the
corner of her eye now, gaining, but only by fractions. She held
back, refusing to push the horse too soon. He would surely try to
taunt her into burning her up early. She wouldn’t make that
mistake.

They had covered half a mile when he
appeared at her side, flashing that dazzling smile meant to unnerve
her. It wasn’t completely without effect
.
The underhanded bastard.
Yet, refusing to be daunted,
Diana and the mare held their own against the larger, stronger
pair...until the three-quarter mile marker came into
view.