To Desire a Devil (14 page)

He paused, remembering that awful time, and Beatrice was silent, waiting.

“All that time,” he whispered. “All that time, I schemed on how to kill Sastaretsi. But my hands were bound so tightly in
front of me that the flesh had swollen into the leather thongs. He’d pulled my fingernails from my hands so I could not use
even their feeble strength to scratch my bonds loose. And at night he tied my bound hands to a stake driven deep in the ground.
I was weakened from the cold and lack of nourishment. I think I might’ve died in that endless wood if we hadn’t happened upon
a French trapper and his son. The man spoke some Wyandot and seemed to take pity on me, for he gave me an old shirt and a
pair of leggings. Those leggings and shirt saved me.”

He was silent again, and this time Beatrice knew he didn’t mean to go on.

“But why?” she finally blurted. “Why did Sastaretsi do all this to you?”

He looked at her then, and his eyes were blank—flat as if he were dead. “Because he meant to burn me at the stake when we
reached his village.”

Now, a giant hourglass sits in the throne room of the Goblin King, its sands endlessly flowing until time itself shall stop.
By this means, the goblins mark time in their sunless land deep beneath the earth. It happened that one year when Longsword
went to plea for his freedom, the Goblin King was in a particularly good mood, having just that day defeated a great prince
in battle.

The Goblin King glanced at his hourglass and then said to Longsword, “You’ve served me well for seven years, my slave. Because
of this, I shall make you a bargain.”

Longsword bowed his head, for he knew well that a bargain with the Goblin King suits only the Goblin King.

“You may walk the earth above for one year,” the Goblin King said. “Mark you, one year only. At the end of that time, if you
have found one Christian soul to voluntarily take your place in the land of the goblins, then you shall be free and I shall
trouble you no more.”

“And if I do not?” Longsword asked.

The Goblin King grinned. “Then you shall serve me for all eternity. . . .”

—from
Longsword

Lottie Graham sipped her wine, peering at her husband over the edge of the glass. Nathan was absorbed in thought tonight,
his broad brow slightly knit, his blue eyes vague and unfocused.

She set down the wineglass precisely and said, “We received an invitation to a ball hosted by Miss Molyneux today.”

There was a pause that stretched so long that for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer her at all.

Then Nate blinked. “Who?”

“Miss Cristelle Molyneux.” Lottie cut into the roast duck on her plate. “She’s Reynaud St. Aubyn’s aunt on his mother’s side.
I think she plans to reintroduce him to society. In any case, the invitation was sent on scandalously short notice—she plans
it for this Thursday.”

“Seems silly to plan it on so little notice,” Nate said. “Will anyone show, I wonder?”

“Oh, she’ll have no problem filling her ballroom.” Lottie speared a piece of duck, but then set it back on the plate. Her
appetite seemed nonexistent tonight. “Everyone will be wanting to see the mysterious mad earl.”

Nate frowned. “He’s not an earl yet.”

“But surely it’s only a matter of time?” Lottie twirled her wineglass stem.

“Only a fool would think that.”

Lottie felt tears spring to her eyes. She looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry you think me a fool.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” His voice was brisk, impatient.

There’d been a time back before they’d married when her slightest frown would cause him to offer profuse apologies. Once,
he’d sent her an arrangement of flowers so big it’d taken two footmen to bring it into the house. All because he’d not been
able to take her driving on a day it’d rained.

Now he thought her a fool.

“It’ll take a special parliamentary committee, I believe,” Nate was saying as she thought these gloomy things, “to decide
if this man is indeed St. Aubyn, and if he is, who the proper Earl of Blanchard is. That, at least, is the opinion of many
of the learned parliamentarians. There hasn’t been a case such as this one in living memory, and many are quite interested
in the legal implications.”

“Are they?” Lottie murmured. She’d lost interest in the conversation while her husband had finally become engaged in it. Had
her marriage always been thus? “In any case, I thought it would be nice to attend the ball. It’s bound to have all the best
gossip of the year.”

She glanced up in time to catch the look of irritation that crossed his face.

“I know that keeping up with the latest scandal is vital to you, dearest,” he said. “But there are actually other things of
import in the world, you know.”

There was a short, awful silence.

“First I’m a fool and now I’m interested only in gossip,” Lottie said very clearly, because she was holding back the tears
with all her will. “I begin to wonder, sir, why you married me at all.”

“Now, Lottie, you know I didn’t mean it that way,” he replied, and didn’t even bother trying to hide the edge of exasperation
in his voice.

“In what way did you mean it, Nathan?”

He shook his head, a reasonable man beset by a mad wife. “You’re overwrought.”

“I am not,” Lottie said, the tears beginning to overflow, “overwrought.”

He sighed, pushed his chair back from the table, and stood. “This conversation is pointless. I’ll leave you to yourself until
you’ve once again regained your senses. Good night, madam.”

And he left. She sat there in the dining room, gasping and trembling and thoroughly humiliated.

It was the last straw.

“H
E’S VERY HURT
, Jeremy,” Beatrice said as she paced from Jeremy’s heavily draped window to his bed. “You have no idea. He told me just a
fraction of what he’d experienced in the Colonies, and it was all I could do not to scream aloud. How could he survive such
horrors? And yet he’s incredibly strong, incredibly determined. It’s as if he’s driven out of his soul whatever softness he
may’ve once felt. He’s been fire-hardened.”

“He sounds very interesting,” Jeremy said.

Beatrice looked at him. “I’ve never met a gentleman like him in all my life.”

“What does Lord Hope look like now that he’s transformed himself?”

“He’s tall with very wide shoulders and wears a sort of aloof glare most of the time. He’s quite intimidating and rather savage-looking,
actually.”

“But you said he’d cut his hair and donned a wig and other civilized accoutrements. He sounds quite normal to me,” Jeremy
said from the bed. That was the best part about Jeremy—he always took an interest in one’s thoughts and troubles, no matter
how trivial.

“He may wear the same sort of clothes as other gentlemen, but they fit him differently somehow.” Beatrice picked up a tall
green bottle from Jeremy’s cache of medicines and peered at the dark liquid inside before returning it to its brethren. “And
he’s still wearing that earring I told you about. The tattoos he can’t remove, but why do you think he hasn’t taken off the
earring?”

“I haven’t the faintest,” Jeremy replied with evident delight. “I do wish I were able to meet him, though.”

Beatrice turned and glanced at him. Jeremy was sitting up in bed today. She’d plumped the pillows for him and helped him sit
higher. His cheeks were still flushed, his eyes too bright, but she fancied he was a little better than the last time she’d
seen him.

At least she hoped so.

“Perhaps I can bring him around someday,” she said.

He glanced away. “Don’t, Bea.”

She blinked. “Why ever not?”

His eyes met hers, and for a moment all amusement left his face. His extraordinary blue eyes were stern, almost cold, and
she wondered in a flash of insight if this was what he’d looked like on the battlefield when he’d led his men.

Then his expression softened a little. “You know why.”

She grimaced because she did know why. “You’re too sensitive to your injury. Many men come home without an arm or a leg or
even an eye, and one continues to see them at balls and events. No one singles them out except to say how brave they were.”

“That’s not what Frances said.” Jeremy’s eyes were old and sad.

She bit her lip. “Frances was a complete and utter ninny, and frankly I think you were saved years of insipid conversation
over your morning tea when she called off your engagement.”

He laughed, thankfully, but it turned to a cough, and she had to hurry over and pour him a cup of water.

“In any case,” he gasped when he could draw breath again, “I’ll not be going out in public again. You know that.”

“But why?” She knelt by his bed on a little cushioned stool so that her face was closer to his on the pillow. “I know you
fear the stares of others, Jeremy dear, but you must get out of this room. You live as if you’re already deep beneath the
ground in a coffin. You’re not. You live and breathe and laugh, and I want you to be happy.”

He caught her hand in his, and it was like being gripped by flames. “It takes two footmen just to lift me into that chair
so I can sit by the fire. The last time they tried to carry me down the stairs, one of the footmen tripped and nearly dropped
me.” He closed his bright blue eyes, wincing as if in pain. “I know you think me a coward, but I can’t face that again.”

She closed her eyes as well, because she felt as if she were losing him, her oldest and dearest friend. For the last five
years, ever since his return from the war on the Continent, she’d known that he was slowly slipping away from her. Every time
she saw him, he was a little more distant, a little more beyond her reach. Soon she wouldn’t be able to touch him at all.

“Let us be married.” Beatrice tightened her hands around his, pushing aside her own desires in her desperate fear for him.
“Jeremy dear, why don’t we? Then we could buy a little house and live together, you and I. We wouldn’t need that many servants—just
a cook and some maids and footmen, and no haughty butler to bother with. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

“Oh, it would indeed, darling Bea.” Jeremy’s eyes were very gentle now. “But I’m afraid it wouldn’t work. You’d want children
one day, and I’ve set my heart on marrying a black-haired lass, perhaps with green eyes.”

“You’d break my heart for a green-eyed lady you don’t even know?” Beatrice half laughed, choking back tears. “I never knew
I ranked so low in your estimation, sir.”

“You rank above the angels themselves, my darling Bea.” Jeremy laughed back. “But we all must have dreams. And my dream is
that one day you’ll be surrounded by a family of your own.”

She bowed her head at that, for what could she reply? In her mind’s eye, Beatrice, too, saw herself sitting among a crowd
of children. But when she imagined their father, it wasn’t Jeremy’s face she saw but Viscount Hope’s.

“W
ILL YOU TELL
me what happened when you reached Sastaretsi’s camp?” Beatrice asked late the next morning.

She’d accompanied Lord Hope on a shopping expedition to Bond Street, hoping for an opportunity to ask about his past again.
His aunt was planning a grand ball on the morrow to reintroduce him to society, and there were many last-minute items to purchase,
including dancing slippers for him. But more importantly—at least to her—she wanted to hear the rest of his story.

“I’d’ve thought you’d forget the matter by now,” he replied.

It had been almost a week since he’d told her the story of the march to the Indian camp. During that time, she’d hardly seen
him, he’d been so busy conferring with his aunt and doing other more mysterious things. He’d disappear before she rose for
breakfast and sometimes didn’t reappear back at Blanchard House until after dinner or later. This meant that his and Uncle
Reggie’s paths rarely crossed—which was good—but it also meant that she’d rather missed his sarcastic company over the last
week.

“No,” she murmured softly. “I doubt I’ll ever forget what you’ve told me.”

“Then why make me continue?” he asked almost angrily. “Is it not enough that I have to bear those images in my mind? Why should
you share them, too?”

“Because I want to,” she said simply. She couldn’t explain it better than that. She wanted to know what he’d gone through;
the need was more than simple curiosity.

He looked at her quizzically. “I don’t understand you.”

“Good,” she said with satisfaction.

He grunted on what might’ve been a laugh. She turned to stare at him suspiciously, but his face became grave as he inhaled.

“When we came to the Indian camp, Sastaretsi blacked my face with charcoal to signify that I was to die. He tied a rope about
my neck and led me into the village in triumph. He whooped as we came to let the others know that he’d brought home a captive.”

“How terrifying.” Beatrice shivered.

“Yes. It’s intended to be terrifying to the captive. I was made to run the gauntlet,” Lord Hope said as they came to a rather
foul-looking puddle in the street. It was quite wide, and Beatrice was eyeing it uncertainly when he grasped her by the waist
and simply lifted her over it.