The Demon's Mistress (6 page)

She'd been married a few years by then, a matron and mistress of her own home. She'd also been a veteran of awareness that she'd been duped by an imaginary love, and suspicion that she was barren. She had faced a difficult, dutiful life, whereas he had been practically bouncing with anticipation of a limitless future. She'd felt old then, and she felt old now.

Listening to the angelic voices of the choir—she'd probably been dancing at a ball when Dare's voice broke, when Vandeimen's voice broke—she reminded herself that this engagement was completely imaginary.

She glanced sideways at her youthful responsibility, at the strong, clear lines of his profile, and the vibrant health of his skin. In only days, the marks of dissipation had disappeared, but it would take longer for the inner wounds to heal.

She'd begun to let him choose where they went, and he seemed to prefer the more cultural events. He'd chosen this one and was enjoying it. He'd been at war for so long that much of society's routine pleasures must be fresh to him.

Her personal reaction to him was her problem—hers to control and hers to conceal.

As the days turned to weeks, control never became easy, but she managed it, helped by the fact that he kept his word. He never again tried to kiss her, or to touch her in any way other than courteously.

The worst times were those spent quietly together—lingering over breakfast, or sitting in the Chinese room, or strolling in the summer garden. Sometimes they talked, but often they were each involved in reading or even thought.

It was too much like husband and wife, and she liked it very much. She told herself that he was on best behavior for the six weeks, and she knew it was true, but she still thought that they rubbed together surprisingly well.

Vandeimen could listen as well as talk. Maurice's breakfast table conversations had mostly been monologues on whatever issue of the day interested him. She had been his attentive audience.

He could endure a silence. Maurice had seemed to feel obliged to throw words at any lingering silence as if it were a rabid dog.

He liked to read. They did not have a great deal of time for reading, but he appeared to enjoy it. He picked seemingly at random from her excellent library—again chosen by Maurice for effect.

Oh yes, he had become a pleasant part of her life.

Thank heavens Harriette was their buffer. She went nearly everywhere with them, treating Vandeimen like another son, and gave off relaxing warmth like a good fire. The healing was all Harriette's work.

But then, one day, Maria realized that her aunt's healing powers were not working.

They were chatting before dinner when Harriette said something about Vandeimen's home. He snapped at her and left the room.

As the door clicked shut, Harriette pulled a face. “I shouldn't have pressed him for his plans, but—”

“But why not?” Maria asked. “We have spent four of our six weeks. It's time he made plans to restore Steynings.”

“My dear, have you not noticed that he never speaks of the future?”

Maria sat there, hands in lap, searching back over four weeks. “Never of the future, and rarely of the past. He talks easily of the present.”

“Because the present offers no threat.”

“Threat? I thought it was going well.”

“Oh, he seems whole,” said Harriette with a sigh. “He is healthy, polite, even charming. But it's like a lovely shell around . . . around nothing.”

Nothing? Maria suddenly felt as if she were trying to inhale nothing, as if there was no air. “But I can't hold him beyond the six weeks.”

“No, you probably can't. So you must find a way to get beneath that shell.”

“If there's nothing there?” It was a protest of sorts. She'd fought so hard to keep apart.

“Something must be
put
there. What about those friends of his?”

“Con and Hawk? He seems willing to talk of their boyhood pranks.”

“Precisely. Where are they? He needs old friends, friends who will make him face the difficult past and plan the difficult future.”

“You think he's avoiding them? Oh, heavens. He never goes to manly places such as Tattersall's, or Cribb's, does he? Or to clubs or coffeehouses. I've been pleased, thinking it safer. But it keeps him from his friends.”

“Or his friends are avoiding him,” said Harriette. “Find out. Find them.”

A footman announced dinner and Maria rose, flinching under those instructions. She didn't want to get involved like that. She feared getting too close.

As she left the drawing room she wondered what to do about the theater party she had planned for the evening. She had invited guests to her box at Drury Lane to see Mrs. Blanche Hardcastle play Titania. There was no reason not to go, except that she and Vandeimen had never been apart in an evening, and she worried what he might do.

What did he do when alone in his room?

He wasn't drowning his sorrows. Though she hated to, she'd questioned the butler, and the decanters in his room were being used sparingly. She knew, however, that he wouldn't need to be drunk to kill himself, and he probably still had his pistol.

She'd have to stay home tonight, though if he lurked in his room and shot himself, she couldn't see how to stop him.

He appeared however as they crossed the hall, ready to escort both of them into dinner. Of course, she thought as she placed her hand upon his arm. He would always punctiliously give the service for which he had been paid.

She ate a dinner for which she had no appetite, wondering if she could use his powerful sense of duty and honor to save him.

Harriette, bless her, picked up conversation as if nothing had happened, and talked about plans for the garden.

The play was doubtless excellent, and ethereal Mrs. Hardcastle with her long silver hair was perfect as the fairy queen, but Maria paid little attention. She sat in her box seeking ways to put Vandeimen in contact with his past, his future, and his friends.

As Sarah had said, they had been born neighbors in Sussex and all called George. A patriotic gesture, he'd explained, in response to the actions of the French sansculottes against their own monarch.

“We were lucky, I suppose,” he'd said. “We could have all been called Louis. That would have been too much for our staunchly English fathers to stomach, thank God.”

They'd been christened on the same day, in the same church, and been playmates in the nursery years. As lads they'd been inseparable, and in the end, they had all joined the army at the same time. Their talents and inclinations had differed, however, and their military careers had swept them apart. Con had chosen the infantry, Van and Hawk cavalry. But then Hawk had been seconded to the Quartermaster's Division.

They hadn't seen a great deal of each other during their army years, but he didn't talk about them as if they were estranged. So why weren't they in touch, at least by letter?

Lord Wyvern was probably busily involved with his new estate in Devon, but he could still write.

Hawk was Major George Hawkinville, heir to a manor that went back to the Domeday Book. His father, Squire John Hawkinville, was still alive, living at Hawkinville Manor. Her gazetteer had described it as “an ancient, though not notable house in the village of Hawk in the Vale, Sussex.”

The same gazetteer had described Vandeimen's home as “a handsome house in the Palladian manner,” and Somerford Court as “Jacobean, adapted and adorned, not entirely felicitously, in the following centuries.”

The main word used to describe Crag Wyvern in Sussex was “peculiar.”

Wyvern had been a second son, but Vandeimen and the major were both only sons. Strange that they had joined the army.

Major Hawkinville was still at his duties abroad, apparently, but Wyvern must know of the heavy losses Vandeimen had suffered—mother, two sisters, then father—so why was he doing nothing to help? If only one of these friends was here to help hold Vandeimen together. . . .

The curtain fell, signaling an intermission, and she must leave her thoughts to smile and talk as her footman served refreshments. Everyone was enchanted by the play and delighted with the Titania.

“Mrs. Hardcastle's hair is naturally white, they say,” said Cissy Embleborough, “though she's still under thirty. And she always dresses in white.” Cissy leaned closer and whispered, “They say she was mistress to the Marquess of Arden until he married last year. So not quite as pure as the white suggests.”

Maria had never imagined it.

Her guests were the Embleboroughs, including Cissy's son and daughter. Natalie was here, too, and Harriette, of course. Maria was mostly able to let talk flow around her. She noted Vandeimen doing the same thing. Did he generally do so, or was this part of his dark mood? She suspected she had been very unperceptive these past weeks.

There was a knock on the door. Her footman opened it and turned to announce, “Major Hawkinville, ma'am.”

Maria stared at the tall man in uniform, feeling as if she'd performed a conjuring trick. Then she thought to look at Vandeimen. He was already on his feet. “Hawk!”

There was joy there, but a great many other things too.

Chapter Six

He was smiling, and it was a heartaching flash of boyishness she'd never seen before.

Now he was grasping his friend's hand, and she had the feeling that he'd like to embrace him. They weren't estranged, and whatever magic had brought the major here, it was good magic.

Everyone was watching them, doubtless sensing an important moment, then Vandeimen turned to her. “Maria, I've spoken of Major Hawkinville, an old friend and neighbor. Hawk, my lovely bride to be, Mrs. Celestin.”

She held out her hand. “I'm very pleased to meet you, Major.”

He was hawkish, though a second later she wasn't sure why. No hooked nose, no yellow eyes. His face was lean, his hair a soft brown, and worn a little long with a wave in it. He was, above all, elegant, making even Van look a little rough around the edges.

He took her hand and actually raised it to his lips. She felt their pressure through her glove. “How unfair of Van to steal you before I had a chance, Mrs. Celestin.”

She started to smile, amused by his flirtation, but then she caught a hard glint in his deeply blue eyes. Hawkish indeed. But why was he turning a predatory eye on her?

“You are still in the army, Major?” she asked, to fill the silence, though it was inane, given his scarlet and braid.

“Easing my way out, Mrs. Celestin.”

“They'll be reluctant to let him go.” Vandeimen's smile said that if there'd been any ambivalence, it had gone. “We chargers and marchers are two-a-penny, but organizers like Hawk are treasured more than gold. Quartermaster Division,” he added in explanation to everyone. “Got the armies to the field, with weapons and supplies intact. To the right field at the right time, even, if they were really good.”

The teasing look between the two men suggested it was an old joke.

“And tidied up afterward,” said the major, “which is why I get home a year late and find all the loveliest ladies taken.”

He flashed Maria another look, but then turned to Natalie and to Cissy's blushing, seventeen-year-old daughter to express relief that some lovely ladies were still available.

Maria picked up conversation, but she was puzzling over the man's animosity. Was it Maurice? He'd made a great deal of money supplying the army with clothes and equipment. Perhaps he'd clashed with Major Hawkinville at some point.

Was it the age difference? She wouldn't have expected another young man to be outraged.

Or perhaps she was misreading a dark mood that had nothing to do with her.

The bell rang to warn of the end of the intermission, so Maria invited the major to stay. He accepted, and she settled to the next act plotting how to keep him by Vandeimen's side as long as possible. She could bear his antagonism if she must.

At the next intermission, they all strolled in the corridor. Maria wasn't sure how, but she ended up partnered with the major, while Vandeimen escorted Louisa Embleborough, a young miss suitable for either of these handsome heroes.

“Jealousy? Already?”

She looked up into those very blue, very chilly eyes. There was no doubt. He was antagonistic toward her. She'd like to confront him directly about it, but that might drive him away. She made herself answer lightly. “Not at all, Major. I know how devoted Lord Vandeimen is to me, and
I
trust his sense of honor.”

His eyes narrowed, but then changed, so that she couldn't be sure what she'd seen. “Perhaps it is I who am jealous, Mrs. Celestin. You are exceptionally beautiful.”

Ah. Blatant fortune hunters she could deal with. Smiling, she said, “No, I'm not.”

“You must allow me to know my own mind, ma'am. Beauty is not the same in every eye.”

“Strange, then, that some people become acknowledged beauties.”

He looked around and discreetly indicated a young brunette surrounded by men. “I don't know who she is, but I assume she is a toast.”

“Miss Regis? Yes, she is much admired.”

“I'm sure she is perfect to many, but I cannot admire a turned-up nose, and her smile is far too wide.” He looked back at her. “Your mouth, however, is perfect.”

Her not-too-wide smile was making her cheeks ache. Did he know she didn't want to send him off with a flea in his ear?

“Perfect,” she echoed. “How lovely. What else about me is perfect, Major? I'm thirty-three years old and must hoard any compliments that still come my way.”

“You're barren,” he said. “And that is not a compliment.”

Her breath caught. “And you are an uncouth swine, but you probably can't help that, either.”

They were both smiling, hiding their battle from those around.

“Van's marrying you for your money. If he needs money, I'll find a way to get it for him.”

“Are you Midas, then? He lost ten thousand in one night.” She watched in satisfaction as his smile disappeared. “Now, escort me back to my box.”

At the door he halted, smile absent, hostility unmasked. “He deserves better than to marry for money, Mrs. Celestin. And he needs a family.”

She agreed with him, but she couldn't let that show. “I want his happiness, Major Hawkinville. For that reason, you are welcome to call at my house. You will understand, I'm sure, if I try to avoid you.”

She went into the box alone.

Van was finding shy Miss Embleborough hard work, but he kept an eye on Maria and Hawk at the same time. He might not have seen a great deal of his friend over the past ten years, but he could still read him. He was in a hawkish mood.

Doubtless he thought Maria a heartless harpy and was riding to the rescue. As the bell sounded and people flowed back into their boxes, he managed to pass Miss Embleborough on to her brother, and paused with Hawk outside the box.

He closed the door, leaving them alone in the corridor. “You can't fight with Mrs. Celestin without picking a fight with me, you know. And I always win.”

He said it lightly, but Hawk would understand that he was serious.

“Only because you've always been a madman.” The tense look eased, however. “I probably did go a bit beyond the line.”

“Why?”

“She said you lost ten thousand in one night. What the devil have you been up to?”

Van hadn't wanted any of his friends burdened with his problems. “My father left debts.”

“And you decided to add to them?”

“I was trying to recoup them. You know I've always been lucky. Hawk, why were you picking a fight with Maria?”

After a moment, Hawk said, “I suppose it's mostly because of her husband.”

“Celestin? You knew him?”

“Only as a name. He was one of the worst suppliers of shoddy goods and short measure, but we could never pin anything on him. Very clever use of middlemen. It galls me to think of all that money on a woman's back.”

“Will it help to think of me benefiting from his ill-gotten gains?”

Hawk laughed. “Zeus, yes! Can't think of a better use at this point.” After a moment, he added, “Look, don't throw a punch, but is it worth the money to marry a woman so much older?”

Van thought of explaining. He didn't mind revealing his follies to Hawk, but he didn't want to put Maria in a worse light. Then he recalled an amber light, and a ravishing kiss that hadn't been repeated. . . .

“So,” Hawk said, smoothing over the silence, “at least you'll be able to restore Steynings to all its former glory.”

If Hawk thought this was a love affair, all the better. “That's the idea. Look, I'd better go back in. Come round tomorrow and we'll have more time to catch up. Have you seen Con yet?”

“I'm fresh off the boat. Heard about your engagement and set off—”

“—to save me, like George and the dragon? I don't think poor Maria should be seen as a dragon.”

Hawk grinned. “And you're no trembling maiden. As for tomorrow, perhaps you'd better come to me. I'm staying at Beadle's Hotel in Prince's Street.”

Clearly the disagreement between Hawk and Maria had been unpleasantly sharp. “Very well. Have you heard from Con at all?”

“No. Haven't you?”

“No.”

“Have you tried?”

Van shrugged. “I didn't want to clutter his life with my problems. Since Waterloo, since Lord Darius died, he has enough.”

“Perhaps your clutter would have been a distraction.”

It was a reproof, and perhaps warranted, but Van said, “He'd have felt obliged to lend me money, and his family's never been wealthy.”

“What about the earldom?”

“I still wouldn't want to dun off him. Forget it. Perhaps you should have come home sooner instead of playing around Europe.”

“Playing around—?” Hawk sucked in a breath.

Van knew he should apologize. Hawk had been cleaning up the bloody mess left by the battle, by mounds of corpses, by destroyed property, by allies turned to arguing among themselves over responsibility and reparation and even what to call the battle.

The apology stuck, though, and after a moment Hawk said, “Come over and we'll talk tomorrow.” He strode off, never looking back.

Van leaned against the wall and closed his eyes, the sweet image of a pistol floating in front of him. He'd trained himself into a demon of destruction. Perhaps there came a point of no return.

He'd thought some things endured, particularly his lifelong friendships with Hawk and Con. But if Con needed his friends, he'd not found one in him, and now he'd lashed out at Hawk.

Perhaps there was no going back. He could reroof Steynings and bring the land into good heart again, but he doubted he could re-create past happiness in a house empty except for ghosts.

He might be able to do it with Maria's help.

He couldn't tell if this feeling was love, frustrated lust, or an insane kind of dependency, but he realized that his bleak mood, his bitterness, his attack on Hawk all grew out of the rapidly approaching end of his service to Maria.

And she insisted that he not touch her in any intimate way.

He knew what he ought to do. He ought to prepare to bid her a courteous farewell, leave to restore his home, then pick a young lady like Miss Embleborough to marry and have children with.

He'd rather shoot himself.

Maria entered her house on Vandeimen's arm as usual, and as usual they all took a light supper and chatted. She thought he looked strained, and hoped desperately that he hadn't fought with his friend over her. She silently berated herself for letting Major Hawkinville goad her, though how else she could have reacted, she didn't know.

Perhaps she should write an apology, though she'd done nothing wrong. It galled her that he, too, saw her as an aging harpy prepared to suck the blood from a younger man. Did everyone? Sarah Yeovil hadn't spoken more than the briefest word to her since that medieval affair.

And in a couple of weeks it would all be over.

If she were a weaker woman, she'd sink into tears.

Persistent Harriette was using Major Hawkinville's appearance as a lever to open up discussion of Vandeimen's friends and his home. He looked strained, but he was still in the room and talking, though saying little to the point.

She found herself watching him through a prism of his friend's eyes. Major Hawkinville hadn't seen Vandeimen for nearly a year, she assumed, and he had been disturbed. That was why he had attacked her.

She remembered the incident before dinner, and Harriette's words. A glossy shell with nothing inside.

That was not true. There was a lot inside, all of it tangled, dark, and dangerous. And now, for some reason, he was pushed to a brink.

When they separated to go to their bedrooms she tried to persuade herself that her concerns were only tiredness—hers or his. As her maid undressed her, however, and combed out her long hair then wove it in a plait, she worried.

When she climbed into bed, she knew that tomorrow she must insist that they travel to Steynings.

It was duty that drove her. She must correct the terrible wrong that Maurice had done to his family. By now, however, it was more than duty. She had to rescue him. She could bear to let him go, but she could not bear to let him fall back into the pit.

It was as if she saw a wonderful person through crazed glass. His honor showed in the damnable fact that he'd never again tried to kiss her. His cleverness showed in the way he managed to exhibit devotion and passion in public without ever doing anything improper.

His natural kindness showed in many ways. He never made fun of anyone. He would dance with clumsy shyness as if with a beauty, talk with a bore as if with a wit, smooth over rudeness so it was almost unrecognized.

He even spent time with Tante Louise and Oncle Charles, and no one would deny that they were a sour old couple who constantly carped at each other and the world.

She began to see, however, lying there in the dark, that all his kindnesses came from dogged duty, the same sense of duty that had driven him into the next battle, and the next, and the next.

Dogged? He had been a madman, an enthusiast, hadn't he?

Now she wondered, wondered if it had been more a case of never doing things by half measures, and whether that was what he was doing now, bleakness still in his heart.

And what exactly was he doing now, this very minute?

She tried to tell herself that he too had gone to bed, but something was screaming that he hadn't. That he might have his pistol in hand again. After a struggle, she climbed out of bed and reached for her wrap.

Oh no. Definitely not. She was not going to look for him in her nightgown!

Feeling more foolish by the moment, she put on a shift, dug through her drawers for one of her light corsets that hooked up the front, then for her simplest round gown. She wound her plait around her head and pinned it in place.

When she looked at herself in the mirror, she saw a woman blatantly well past the blush of youth in a plain gown, with plain hair and no ornament. She turned toward her jewel box, but then stopped herself. To decorate herself would put a wicked twist on this errand.