The Devil to Pay (17 page)

Her words called to him, impelled him, in a voice so different now, and yet so familiar. Like some erotic dream he’d had again and again. He kept working her, driving so deep and so hard he could feel them inching up the carpet with his every stroke. His knees burnt as if raw. His lungs ached like bellows. And then he felt her explode, and fall inward, taking her down with him. He drove hard and furious for those last, mindless strokes. Felt her inching up the carpet from their efforts. Then the white, explosive light took him, too. Again and again, he pumped his seed deep inside Ruby. Her legs and arms were wrapped tight round him as he finished on one last, glorious thrust.

And then something slammed into the top of his head. A blinding pain that seemed to cleave through his skull. It was his last coherent thought.

Sidonie heard the ghastly crack of bone, and snapped back to the real world. Atop her, Devellyn gave one last groan, then collapsed like a deadweight. Sidonie panicked. “Devellyn?”

Frantically, she shoved at him.
“Devellyn?”
she cried. “Good God! Are you all right?”

He didn’t so much as twitch.

Urgently, Sidonie felt above their heads.
The footboard.
Its lower edge felt like a two-inch slab of oak. She had scooted almost beneath the bloody thing. But Devellyn was a very large, very tall man. Even lying prone. Oh, God! Had they worked that far up the carpet? Then suddenly, and very absurdly, it struck her that Lord Devellyn was going to die of a skull fracture, and she did not even know his Christian name. Indeed, he did not even know who she was. Sidonie’s tears burst into a torrent.

Somehow, she managed to squirm her way from beneath him, still whispering his name. Devellyn weighed half a ton, all of it solid rock. She tried not to cry, tried to think straight. Once free, she stood on tremulous legs, hiked up her trousers, and dashed to the front windows. Light. She needed light. She threw open the heavy draperies, then hastened back to his side.

A hint of gaslight trickled up from Bedford Place. Enough, perhaps. Sidonie fell to her knees beside him. It was obvious now. Devellyn had struck his head on the massive wooden footboard, a victim of his own unflagging enthusiasm. Urgently, she felt for blood.
None.
Thank God. A pulse? Yes, strong and steady. Sidonie sagged with relief.

“Oh, Devellyn, you big ox!” she cried, stroking her hand down the back of his head. “You could have
killed
yourself!”

Just then, the marquess emitted a deep, inhuman groan. Sidonie leapt to her feet and looked about desperately. What now? Wait? Confess? Flee? Certainly, she could not leave him lying injured. Where on earth were his servants? Surely they’d heard
something?

But his servants, she’d already noticed, were a tad craven. They were likely two floors down, cowering—if they’d heard anything at all.

The marquess groaned again. He would live, she thought. But he needed ice for his head. Perhaps even a doctor. Urgency cleared her brain. Swiftly, she jerked his nightshirt down. Then she fastened what was left of her trouser buttons, grabbed her hat, stuffed in her shirttails, and felt about for her hammer. Gone. As she should be.

Giving up on finding her bag and hammer in the gloom, Sidonie felt across the wall near the bed until she touched a bellpull. Then she yanked it hard—three times—and headed for the window. Once outside and balanced on her rope, she drew the window shut, shinnied down two feet, and waited until lamplight spilt over the windowsill. She breathed a sigh of relief. Someone had come. Devellyn would be cared for.

And in the morning, when he awoke to daylight, he would see the miniature lying on his dressing table. And perhaps he would remember their strange interlude with…what? Fondness? Frustration? Sidonie did not even know what
she
felt.

But she knew that something in her life had suddenly, inexorably shifted. Something unnerving was stealing over her. Lord, it was time to make her escape. Slowly, and with the utmost care and silence, she eased back down the rope. She wanted to go home. Wanted to be alone with her thoughts. And wanted to remember, just for a little while, what it had felt like to lie with the wicked Marquess of Devellyn.

By eleven the next morning, Lord Devellyn was drunk. Not, mind you, totally tangle-footed or thoroughly tosticated. Just a trifle concerned. He was slouched in his leather armchair by the study hearth, sipping slowly at a tumbler of Scotch whisky—always his choice for medicinal purposes—and waiting for his teeth to float away when Sir Alasdair MacLachlan came into the room in something of a flurry, without waiting to be announced.

“What the devil’s happened?” his friend demanded. “Honeywell says you’ve had an accident.”

Devellyn studied the shimmering gold splinters in his glass. “So I have,” he finally replied, enunciating every word. “An
accident.
Named
Ruby Black.”

“Ruby Black—?” Alasdair was standing over him now and peering at his head. “Lord, Dev, what a goose-egg!” he said. “And it’s red, too.”

“Yes, well, you ought to see my knees,” muttered Devellyn.

Alasdair poked gingerly at the knot. “Does it hurt?”

“Not”—Devellyn paused to rip off a hearty belch—“anymore.”

Alasdair narrowed one eye at the tumbler. “What’s in the glass, old boy?”

Devellyn started to laugh, but it hurt too much. “What is that old Scots saying of your granny’s, Alasdair?” he muttered. “Whisky won’t cure a cold—?”

“Aye, but it fails more agreeably than most things,” finished Alasdair.

“Yes, that one.” Devellyn nodded, noting with vague indifference that the collection of hunting scenes on his walls were beginning to go in and out of focus. He wasn’t sure if it was the alcohol or a concussion.

Alasdair drew up a chair, and sat down near his friend. “Honeywell says you tripped and hit your head,” he said quietly. “Is it true?”

Devellyn laughed. “Not precisely,” he answered. “I was paid a visit last night, Alasdair. From the Black Angel. And that lump, I reckon, could be a little love tap.”

Alasdair drew back. “Dev, you really are concussed,” he answered. “You’re saying the Angel rang your bell and just waltzed in, pretty as you please? Then conked you over the sconce and bolted? What did she steal this time?”

My soul,
he thought. But he said, “Nothing, Alasdair. And it was my bedchamber. I awoke to find the woman standing by my dressing table.”

“She broke in?” said Alasdair. “Lord, she’s a bold piece!”

“That’s an understatement.” Devellyn was beginning to feel a tad sober, a miracle he resisted.

“God, Dev! What did you do when you caught her?”

The marquess stared at the floor. “Ah, Alasdair, you don’t want to know,” he murmured, thrusting out his glass. “Here, refresh this for me, will you? And have one if you think it not too early.”

“It is too early, by God,” he said, going to the decanter on the table. “Even for me.”

“Then your head does not ache like you’ve got a shiv in your skull,” said the marquess. “Else you’d be grateful for anything that killed the pain.”

“Just tell me what happened,” ordered Alasdair, pouring.

With great care, Devellyn let his head fall back against the chair. “I am not perfectly sure,” he said waiting for the room to stop spinning. “I think…I
think,
honestly, that I slammed my skull into the footboard of the bed.”

Alasdair pressed the drink into his hand, and looked at him incredulously. “The footboard?” he echoed. “Good Lord, Dev! Doing what?”

Devellyn looked up at him sourly. “Remember those French girls in the rue Richer?”

His friend’s eyes rounded. “Oh, God!” he groaned, the last syllable dropping like a stone. “Dev, you didn’t! And she…she
let
you?”

He tore his gaze from Alasdair’s. “There wasn’t a vast deal of negotiation.”

“Christ Jesus.”

The marquess shrugged, picked up the silk bag beside his ashtray, and extracted a small silver hammer. “The other possibility,” he said, turning it about as he studied its oddly pointed head, “is that she bashed me with this. That’s Fenton’s theory.”

Alasdair took the hammer. “You told him it was the Black Angel?”

Devellyn shook his head. “I saw no need to enlighten anyone,” he said. “I just told him it was a thief. He found the bag and the hammer—some sort of burglar’s tool, I’m told—lying on my carpet. But no, I don’t believe she hit me. Not with this, at any rate.” The marquess was swinging the hammer back and forth rather daringly by the tip of its handle.

Alasdair snatched it in midswing, and slipped it back into the silk bag. “Dev,” he said pensively, “perhaps I ought to go find Sisk?”

The marquess sipped at his whisky. “Don’t trouble yourself,” he answered. “No need of him now. Ruby brought everything back.”

“You’re hallucinating,” said Alasdair. “And her name isn’t even
Ruby.
I think we’d best call a physician to see to that lump.”

“As I live and breathe, Alasdair,” said the marquess, fumbling in the pocket of his dressing gown. “I woke up this morning to see the lot of it piled on my dressing table.” Deftly, he snapped open Greg’s miniature.

Alasdair gaped. “Well, damn me!” he said, already half out of his chair. “Tenby’s got to hear this.”

Devellyn reached across the distance, grabbed Alasdair by the coat collar, and pushed him down again. “Not a bloody word,” he said, his voice lethal. “Not a hint. Not a peep, cheep, chirp, or chortle, Alasdair! Not if you value your life.”

Alasdair shoved his hand away. “Good try, Dev,” he said. “But I know you always shoot to wound.”

“This time, I’ll make an exception.”

“Why? What does Tenby matter?”

Devellyn relaxed gingerly into his chair. “It’s personal.”

“As our dinner last night was
personal?”
Alasdair challenged. “Lord, Dev! I can’t tell who you’re more obsessed with, Madame Saint-Godard or Ruby Black.”

Even drunk, something about that statement struck him strangely. Devellyn almost could not bear to hear them spoken of in the same breath. Ruby was darkness. But Sidonie, oh, she was light. She was cool elegance and refined beauty. Ruby was none of that. Ruby saw the blackness that lay inside a man. Like a wild animal scented fear, she could scent the hunger and desperation in him. And Devellyn only prayed that now he’d finally had the woman, he could forget about her once and for all.

But he would not, would he? Devellyn knew it—
feared
it—already. It was not a physical pain he sought to numb with alcohol. It was a gnawing hunger. Already he burned for her again. And somehow he knew that he might take Ruby Black a thousand times, but the darkness in her would still call to him.

Alasdair cleared his throat. Devellyn’s head jerked up from his empty glass. It was then that he realized Alasdair had brought an envelope with him into the study. A perfect diversion. He was finished discussing women with Alasdair.

“What have you there, old man?” he said to his guest.

It was Alasdair’s turn to look chagrined. “Well, this, actually, was my reason for calling on you at such an abysmally early hour,” he said. “I found it lying on my desk last night.”

Devellyn suffered one of life’s more apprehensive moments. “What is it?”

Alasdair hesitated, then unfolded it. “A letter,” he admitted. “From your mother.”

“My
mother?”

Alasdair looked suddenly guilty. “Do you remember, Dev, that Roman denarius her father had? The silver one, with the head of Vespasian on it?”

Devellyn was confused. “What? In that old coin collection of Grandfather’s? That’s all junk, isn’t it?”

There was a fervency kindling in Alasdair’s eyes now. “Dev, I swear, you never listen,” he answered. “It might have been thought junk eighty years ago when he traveled the Continent collecting it. But by accident or design, he had some fine pieces. And the Vespasian denarius is, unfortunately, the finest.”

Devellyn was suddenly suspicious. “How
unfortunately?”

Alasdair winced. “Only three are known to exist.”

The marquess studied him for a moment. “Alasdair, why do I feel as though I’m about to be kissed by Judas?” he asked. “After all, it is but one piece of silver we’re talking about here.”

“Comparing yourself to Jesus, Dev, is a remarkable stretch.”

“A stretch!” Devellyn pushed his glass away in disgust. “I ought to stretch you, Alasdair—on a bloody rack! Go on, then. What has Mother promised you?”

Alasdair hung his head. “Dev, she’s planning to open up the house on Grosvenor Square,” he said. “And she is giving a gala ball.”

“Yes? What of it?”

“And…well, it is in honor of the duke’s seventieth birthday.”

“Oh, good Lord, Alasdair. I know that!”

“And it comes at a time when the duchess is feeling inclined, she says, toward disposing of the coin collection.”

“And?”

“And if I will come to the ball, she promises to give me first nod.”

“And—?”
The kept word growing louder.

“And if I can convince you to come along as well, her Grace wishes me to have the Vespasian,” said Alasdair. “As a token of her esteem for—”

“—for your mercenary little heart,” Devellyn finished.

“Dev, you don’t understand!” Alasdair complained. “I’d sell my soul for that coin!”

“Yes, and mine, too, I gather.”

“Dev, it’s not like that! Besides, what will it hurt us to go over and do the pretty to your mother’s friends for one evening? What is your father going to do, toss us out on our ears?”

At that, Devellyn hurled his whisky glass at the fireplace. He hit it, too. Shattering glass and golden droplets rained down upon the hearth.

Alasdair was already on his feet. “Well!” he said, hastily stuffing the letter into his pocket. “I collect I’d best be off then.”

“Yes,” said Lord Devellyn. “I collect you’d best.”

The next day, Sidonie slept late, dawdled in her room for an hour, then busied herself with lessons and chores well into the afternoon, all while trying to avoid Julia. She was stiff and sore, and half-afraid that last night’s misbehavior might show in her eyes. At eleven, she had Miss Leslie for deportment, and, immediately following, Miss Brewster arrived to prepare for her first formal dinner. By the end of it, Sidonie was drained. She did not see her friend at all until the afternoon, when she entered the parlor just as Julia was having tea.

“Sidonie!” Julia seemed grateful for the distraction. “Join me.” She was already pouring another cup.

Sidonie had little choice. Besides, she could not go on avoiding the world, could she? And apparently the word
idiot
was not etched on her forehead, since Julia was behaving as if nothing was amiss.

“Thank you. A cup of tea would be welcome.” Sidonie took her usual seat at the table by the window and dumped three heaps of sugar into her cup without a qualm. Today, she needed it.

“I’m sorry I slept so late.”

Julia looked at her appraisingly. “A remarkable evening, was it not?”

You don’t know the half,
thought Sidonie, extracting her spoon from the sludge. She’d had to spend an extra half hour soaking in hot bathwater just to soothe all the sore spots.

“Lord Devellyn was rather more of a gentleman than I’d been led to believe,” Julia went on. “And he obviously hadn’t a clue who you were.”

“No,” said Sidonie. “And I mean to keep it that way.”

“A most excellent notion.” Julia set aside her teacup and snapped open the newspaper. “Oh, look!
Hamlet
opens tomorrow at the Haymarket!”

“Ugh,” said Sidonie. “What a depressing play.”

“I shall ask Henrietta Wheeler to go,” she said with a sniff. “Her brother Edward has a box, you know.”

“I hope you will enjoy it.”

But to her regret, Julia returned to their original conversation. “Now, honestly, Sidonie, I had my doubts you’d fool anyone when you started this Angel business,” she went on. “But you’ve taken Devellyn in quite thoroughly.”

Yes, but how much longer could she get away with it? Sidonie was afraid—and the fear of being found out was but half of it now.
That
fear she was accustomed to. Indeed, she almost relished the rush of it. But her confused emotions were a stark, new torment.

How much longer?
Oh, not long. Even she understood there were certain things the best mimic on earth couldn’t hide. Height. Scent. The sound of a sigh. Instinct was a powerful thing. Already Sidonie knew enough, she thought, to pick Devellyn from a crowd in a pitch-dark room. Her skin knew the heat of his touch, her ears, the rough, rumbling gravel of his voice. And she’d long ago memorized his harsh, handsome face.

Sidonie set away the teacup and shut her eyes. Dear God, what had she done? What had she started? Why couldn’t she get him out of her mind?

She was saved by another spate of self-flagellation by a rapid knock at the door.
Devellyn?
Oh, God! Her heart in her throat, she flew to the window, only to see Miss Hannaday and her maid on the doorstep.

“Goodness, Sidonie,” said Julia, calmly rising. “You’re jumpy as poor Thomas.”

Soon Miss Hannaday was having tea urged upon her. The girl wore a bonnet of sunny yellow and a blue-and-yellow-striped walking dress which was youthfully becoming. Her eyes were round and shining.

“I really cannot stay,” she said on a breathless rush. “I’m so sorry to call when I’ve no lesson scheduled, but I just wanted to say—well, to tell you that—oh, dear, I sound such a gudgeon!”

“But you look to be a happy gudgeon,” Julia soothed, passing a plate of biscuits. “Dear Miss Hannaday, do tell us your news.”

She looked back and forth between Sidonie and Julia for a moment. “Tomorrow is the day,” she finally blurted. “Can you believe it? Charles has arranged everything. But I have you to thank, Madame Saint-Godard.” Miss Hannaday’s youthful face was flushed with color and excitement.

“Tomorrow is the day?” echoed Julia.

“We elope at midnight,” the girl whispered. “Mr. Giroux has loaned us his carriage, and we are going straight to Gretna Green. Oh, does it not sound exciting?”

Sidonie felt an instant of anxiety. “Charles has accepted Mr. Giroux’s position then? You will have enough to live on?”

“Oh, Mr. Giroux has been the kindest soul imaginable,” said Miss Hannaday. “Charles tried to do it all properly, you know. He asked for my hand, and braved Papa’s temper. Of course, Papa refused him. Then Charles begged for time to prove himself worthy, and begged Papa not to marry me off to a degenerate like Bodley, and Papa promptly sacked him for his impudence.”