Demon's Bride (23 page)

Read Demon's Bride Online

Authors: Zoe Archer

Tags: #Romance

BOOK: Demon's Bride
7.83Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
 
 
They had just finished dinner. The servants had cleared away the dishes, and the candles burned low as a distant clock struck the hour. It had been a meal marked by silence, the sounds limited to the clink of knives against china, wine poured in goblets. She had tried to speak, to draw Leo out, yet every thrown lure was met with distracted responses. A word or two was all he had managed, his gaze withdrawn and preoccupied.
Anne rose from the table. Leo did the same. They went up together. In the hallway, he guided her toward the parlor.
“I’m for bed.” Weariness oppressed her.
“You should have rested when I went out.”
“Rest was impossible.”
“The bedchamber door was closed, else I would’ve come in.”
She could only manage a shrug, unwilling to tell him that she needed distance to make sense of the uncertainty twisting within her. Gazing up at his hard, handsome face now, gentled slightly with concern for her, she wondered how the plays she used to watch from the theater gallery could have been so very misguided. They ended when the two lovers pledged their devotion to each other, and with that, all obstacles fell away. As though love were the answer, demolishing every impediment.
What lies those sentimental dramas were. For her heart cracked and bled.
Leo frowned—he was an astute man. He had to feel it, too.
“Sir,” said an approaching footman. “Lord Wansford has returned. He would speak with you.”
“Bring him up to the parlor.” He turned to Anne. “I’ll see you in our chamber.”
“I’ll join you in the parlor.” She had not forgotten the strange scene from that morning.
His gaze turned opaque. Yet he offered her his arm, and together they went to await her father.
He came into the chamber, bearing the cold air of evening and an angry expression. “The deuce, Bailey?” Her father’s gaze shot to her, as if too late remembering he was not to use such language in the presence of a lady.
“Wansford.” Leo did not get up from where he was draped against a settee. Nor did he offer her father a glass of brandy.
“You said you would invest in that iron mine. And yet you did not.”
“No.”
Anne stared at her husband. He kept his gaze on the brandy in his glass, contemplating it. His face was a mask.
“Why the Devil not?” demanded her father.
She could not stop her small flinch at those words, and saw Leo’s mouth tighten, as well. Still staring at his drink, he seemed about to speak, but whatever he meant to say appeared to lodge in his throat. He took a drink, swallowing hard, then set the glass down on a low table.
“I made a better investment.”
“We agreed—”
“I said I would investigate the Gloucestershire mine. I did not consent to invest in it.”
Her father reddened. “The opportunity is lost.”
“If Leo did not make the investment,” Anne said, “he must have a good reason for doing so.” That was one reliable truth about her husband: in matters of business, he always acted in the best self-interest.
“You will still earn a profit, Wansford,” said Leo. “I made a counterinvestment in another iron mine.”
“Why not the Gloucestershire mine?”
“I don’t need to explain my decision.” Leo’s voice was sharp, his gaze likewise cutting. Her father recoiled at the tone. “But mark me, you
will
make a profit. That is a certainty.”
A look of confusion crossed her father’s face. He seemed uncertain how to respond. Leo continued to stare at him, his gaze unblinking and cold.
Ultimately, her father said, “I will respect your judgment.”
Leo’s mouth twisted. “How gratifying.”
“These past hours have been very taxing.” Anne rose up from her seat and urged her father toward the door. “It’s time for you to go.”
His head jerked like a puppet. “Yes. Yes, I should ... I ought to ...” But he did not know what he should or ought to do. He peered around her, and produced a smile for Leo. “My thanks.”
The response was merely a flick of Leo’s wrist. Though he continued to lounge on the settee, tension coiled through him, as though he were a hairbreadth away from tearing the chamber apart.
“Good night, Father.” Anne gave him a dutiful kiss on the cheek, catching a thread of his scent of reboiled tea and adulterated tobacco.
He muttered a farewell, then followed a footman down the corridor. As his footsteps retreated, Anne shut the door to the parlor, then pressed her back against it, facing her husband. He stared into empty air.
“That was kind of you to make a better investment.”
Once more, that bitter twist of his mouth. “Nothing kind about it. It was
my
capital.”
“Against
his
estate. If the venture had not succeeded, you nonetheless would have emerged the richer.”
“As I said, a more advantageous opportunity presented itself.”
She studied the long lines of his body, her gaze moving up to trace the clean delineation of his profile, the curve of his lower lip. A sweet agony to look upon him.
“I wish you would let me into your confidence.”
His gaze snapped up to hers. “You know everything.”
“Who can we be honest with,” she said quietly, “if not each other?”
He stared at his hands, the rows of healing wounds on his knuckles. “I’ve told you everything I can.”
Which was not an answer, and they both knew it.
Chapter 12
 
Leo waited until shadows swathed the house. He left Anne upstairs, deeply asleep. They had not spoken much after her father had quit the house. What words had been said aloud were terse, strained. Yet the whole of the evening, he wanted to clutch her close, to bury his face in her hair and draw her scent deep into his lungs. To whisper the things that weighed heavy within him.
Instead, they had sat far apart, mute, and even in the bedchamber, they had moved around the room like strangers encased in glass. They had lain beside each other with intimate formality. Smothering darkness pressed down, leaving words and touches stillborn.
Now Anne slept. He hated having to leave her, limbs soft, skin warm and fragrant. But his business could not wait.
Slipping on his banyan, Leo padded through the dark corridors of his house, and down the stairs. A lone footman drowsed by the front door. The servant did not stir as Leo passed through the foyer. The place was still as a tomb.
In cold and darkness, he entered his study. He did not bother lighting a fire, but he lit a candle and set it on the end of his desk.
“
Veni, geminus
,” he said.
The scent of burnt paper stained the air. And then there stood the
geminus
, dressed for an evening out, like any man of means. Leo tried to stare hard at the thing’s face, yet his gaze continually slid away.
“Such a pleasure,” the
geminus
said, bowing, a smile in its voice.
Leo folded his arms across his chest. “Time for answers.”
“I am in all things obliging. Whatever you desire shall be yours.”
“The truth,” said Leo tightly. “Neither you nor your Mr. Holliday ever told me about the flaw in my gift.”
“Flaw?” The
geminus
chuckled. “Not a flaw, but merely a limitation.”
“The name you give it doesn’t matter. What
does
matter is that I couldn’t tell Wansford about the mining disaster. I couldn’t even warn the damned mine owners when I went down to the Exchange.” Leo had approached the men at the coffee house, determined to tell them that there would be loss of life if they did not take precautions. And he had stood there like a dullard, spouting nonsense about the best kind of fish to eat, whilst the mine owners stared at him, baffled.
He had tried to write, just as he’d done with Wansford. Again, only nonsense came from his pen. There had been nothing he could do. No way to prevent the disaster.
“Such events cannot be averted,” answered the
geminus.
“Even my master cannot stop it.”
Leo stalked toward the creature. “None of this was told to me.”
“Why should it?” The
geminus
spread its hands. “Until now, it has served you exactly as you desired. Have you not profited, and profited well, from this gift?”
Leo dragged in a breath. Only one answer: he had.
“It matters naught,” continued the
geminus
, its tone appeasing, “this tiny aspect of what is a most generous gift. So you cannot prevent what is foreseen. What of it? You can still reap profits the likes of which are unknown to all mortal men. Your wealth and power continue to grow. Those men you consider your enemies continue to fall. There is nothing you cannot have. Nothing,” it added, “you cannot give to your wife.”
Damn it, but the
geminus
was a sly bastard. Leo knew the thing manipulated him, said precisely what he needed to hear. He was aware of the creature’s machinations, yet they played upon him, just the same.
He fought against the subtle trap the
geminus
wove. “That doesn’t change the fact that, even if I didn’t want to stop the mine from collapsing, I couldn’t warn Wansford not to invest in it.”
The
geminus
shrugged. “Again, ’tis trifling. The man is no friend of yours. Further, with your knowledge of the imminent misfortune, you made a counterinvestment that shall yield very agreeably, to both you
and
to him. I see no difficulty.”
Surely the Devil and his underlings must practice their art at the Exchange, for this creature spoke honeyed words intended to beguile. Had Leo not trained himself well in the art of deception, he might have ceded to the
geminus
’s blandishments.
“The underhandedness of this whole business makes me wonder: what else are you not telling me? What hidden traps does the Devil have in store?”
The
geminus
made a shocked sound. “Sir, you wound me and my master. He has been most generous, and here you cast aspersions.”
“He’s been called worse, and by far more than me.”
The
geminus
strolled away toward the fireplace. With a wave of its hand, the kindling blazed. Firelight limned the outline of the
geminus
, the rest of it naught but shadow. It studied the flames for a moment.
“It is time,” the
geminus
said, “for a reward.”
Leo frowned. Of all the responses he’d anticipated, this was not one he’d considered. “Why?” he demanded.
“Because you have served my master well.”
His frown deepening to a scowl, Leo said, “I serve no one. I act in my own best interest.”
“Of course,” the
geminus
answered quickly. “You are your own man. A quality my master admires greatly. What I meant to say is that you have made my master exceedingly proud. The ruthlessness you display at the Exchange, the men whose lives you destroy ... all of this pleases my master. Thus, he desires to give you a reward, in recognition of your good works.”
“Tell me about this reward.”
“Greater power. Should you so desire it. You will be able to see farther into the future, decades, and to trigger this ability, you will no longer require coins, but simply
any
object belonging to your intended prey.” Laughing, the creature said, “Is this not a wondrous gift? And most generous of my master to offer it?”
Leo turned the idea over and over in his mind. Tempting, indeed. Obtaining items owned by his quarry would be an easy matter. The cuff of a coat during a handshake. Inspecting a gentleman’s ornate walking stick. The rewards would be even greater than before, his power immense. Anything he desired—his. Anything Anne could ever possibly wish for—hers.
The old order, based on ancestry and blood, would crumble. He could fashion a new world, where a man’s value was based on his deeds, not birth. Any who opposed him and this new world would see themselves utterly crushed, smashed to powder beneath the relentless grindstone of progress, with his shoulder pushing the stone forward.
“Yes, you see my master offers you a most marvelous power.” The
geminus
moved from the fire, its footsteps muffled by the carpet. “Speak but a word, and it is yours.”
“Tell me the price.”
“It has no cost, sir.”
“There is always a cost.”
The
geminus
tutted. “Time on the Exchange has made you chary. What I ask is merely a trifle.”
Leo narrowed his eyes. “I gave you one, months ago. At the temple.” In order for him and all the other Hellraisers to receive their gifts, they had been required to present tokens. Leo had given the
geminus
a snuffbox, which had been a minor loss indeed, as he never took snuff, only kept the thing as part of a gentleman’s effects.
“One more. Anything shall suffice.”
Glancing around the room, Leo espied a tortoiseshell-and-silver quill stand on his desk. He removed the sharpened, waiting quill, and held the stand.
“Yes,” said the
geminus
.
Leo had no remembrance of buying the thing. A memory did come to him, though: the battered pewter quill stand and matching ink pot his father used. The pride in his father’s face when he would take up his pen and write, and how happy it made Adam Bailey to see his son make use of it as though the act of writing was itself a commonplace skill, not something painfully acquired later in life.
It had cost his father a week’s earnings to buy that pewter quill stand, and it had already been well used by the time he’d purchased it from the chandler.
The ornate object Leo now held likely cost ten times the quill stand his father had bought. And yet, he didn’t care about this thing at all. It meant nothing. As for the dented pewter writing accessories once belonging to his father, those were kept securely in a strongbox in a locked drawer of Leo’s desk. Only Anne knew of their whereabouts, their significance, for he had shown them to her, and she had handled them with the respect one saved for sacred relics.
This was why she meant so much to Leo, why he had to keep her with him at all costs. Only she understood what he valued. Only she accepted every part of him.
Staring at the expensive trinket in his hand, Leo wondered: what would his father do in this situation? He might refuse the Devil’s offer of power. Or he might seize any advantage given to him, for his father had been at all times ambitious. This was the greatest bequest he left for his son—the need to rise ever higher.
His back heated as greed surged through him. He wanted to take, to claim. Everything he could. For himself, for Anne. For the memory of Adam Bailey.
He glanced up. The
geminus
stood before him, though Leo had not heard it move. It held out its hand.
“That thing has no value,” the
geminus
said. “But what my master offers is inestimable.”
Leo’s fingers tightened around the quill stand. Then released. He placed the object in the
geminus
’s hand. The creature immediately put the quill stand in its coat pocket.
“A wise choice.”
“When will this gift take effect?”
“Immediately.”
To test this, Leo considered taking something from the footman dozing in the entryway, but he had little care for the fortunes of a servant. It must wait until the morrow, when the Exchange opened and Leo could prey upon any number of men.
“If our business for the evening is concluded, I shall away.” The
geminus
practically sang with good spirits. It strolled toward the door and opened it.
“You have no need of doors,” said Leo.
“Ah, but sometimes I find them amusing, sir, and my humor is too pleasant to waste on tedious appearing and disappearing. I believe I shall take a stroll in your garden. Such a place at night will suit my fancy.”
Leo shrugged. His thoughts were too occupied with whom he should meet tomorrow at the Exchange, what fortunes he would make for himself, and whose he would demolish. “As you wish.”
“Good night, sir. And may I say again how very gratified my master is made by your continued efforts on his behalf.”
“I act on my own behalf.”
The
geminus
smiled, or so Leo sensed. “That you do, sir.” With that, it quit the study, closing the door behind it. A moment later, Leo heard its footsteps outside on the garden path.
Leo stood alone in the chamber, searching within himself for a sense of his new power. He could not perceive it, not yet, but he felt its potential. Damn, but he wished the sun would rise so the day’s work could begin. If only
that
were one of his abilities. He felt sorely tempted to run up to the bedchamber and wake Anne, tell her of his greater power. Yet he could not. At the least, he wanted to see her, hold her. His greed for more encompassed them both.
After dousing the fire and candle, he returned upstairs. He threw off his banyan and walked toward the bed.
“Leo?” Anne’s whisper floated through the darkness.
He settled between the covers and pulled her close, fighting the urge to reveal what new gift had been given to him. They would both reap the benefits. “You sound surprised.”
“I thought you were in the garden.”
He stilled. “I was in my study. Some work needed attending.”
“But ... I just saw you out there.” She edged back, away from him. “I heard footsteps outside, and you weren’t in bed, so I looked out and there you were, walking up and down the garden.”
The
geminus
. He hoped she did not mistake the creature for a would-be burglar, and want to summon the constabulary. “The gardener, perhaps.”
“No. The moon came out, and I saw your face. It was
you
. I know my own husband. But you weren’t wearing your nightclothes, you were fully dressed.”
Leo was out of bed in an instant. He threw back the curtains and peered into the garden. No one was there. Not the
geminus
, and not the gardener Leo had invented. He glanced back at Anne, moonlight turning her to silver and shadow, caution in her gaze.

Other books

1945 - Blonde's Requiem by James Hadley Chase
Blood Cell by Shaun Tennant
Out of India by Ruth Prawer Jhabvala
Bittersweet Revenge by J. L. Beck
Western Ties: Compass Brothers, Book 4 by Mari Carr & Jayne Rylon
The Silent Country by Di Morrissey
Other Worlds by KATHY
Rabbit Redux by John Updike