Demon's Bride (8 page)
“There’s a parlor upstairs?”
She exhaled. At the least, Leo’s voice had lost its cold timbre. “This house has a saloon, two parlors, a promenade, study, drawing room, and three bedchambers. I can draw you a map. I’m very good with them.”
“No need. If I get lost, I’ll whistle for you.”
“Like a hound.” She affected a sigh, though glad that his aloof, cutting mood had not lasted long. “Has any woman received a more romantic proposition?”
A mercurial man, her husband, for now he was grave. “I know little of romance. If it’s pretty words and poesies you want, you’ll have to find them in the pages of a novel.”
“I don’t read novels. Besides,” she added, smiling, “I think we’re doing well enough on our own. We do not need a histrionic novelist to tell us how to behave.”
“Never did trust writers. A bunch of Grub Street scribblers paid to lie.” Affable, he offered her his arm. “Shall we go up to dine, my lady wife?”
She placed her hand on his sleeve, and felt anew the jolt that came from touching his solid, sinewy form. “Let’s. And I’ll provide direction, should we get lost en route.” At the least, she knew how to navigate the house. When it came to her husband, she found herself continually redrawing the map.
Leo never anticipated the pleasures of a meal at home. Until last night, his evenings had been spent in the company of his fellow Hellraisers. They had earned their name honestly—if such a thing could be done with honesty. Though he didn’t possess the privilege of birth, he had that other opener of doors: money. With it, in the company of gently born scoundrels, he had experienced all that London had to offer. Wine, carousing, music. Women.
His taxonomy of women separated them into discrete categories. The
demimondaine
was the sort he knew best, and as a man of business, he appreciated the clear directives by which they led their lives. Some men liked to pretend that courtesans truly held affection for them. Leo was not one of those men. For all his manipulations at Exchange Alley, he liked dealings honest and with clear intent. So he paid courtesans for their time, their company, and never flattered himself that they found him handsome or charming. Only wealthy.
demimondaine
was the sort he knew best, and as a man of business, he appreciated the clear directives by which they led their lives. Some men liked to pretend that courtesans truly held affection for them. Leo was not one of those men. For all his manipulations at Exchange Alley, he liked dealings honest and with clear intent. So he paid courtesans for their time, their company, and never flattered himself that they found him handsome or charming. Only wealthy.
There were the wives and daughters of rich merchants and men of trade, but he seldom interacted with them. His ambitions lay elsewhere, even if he could increase his fortune tenfold by making a strategic marriage. Money he could make entirely on his own. He didn’t need a wife to bring him that.
Also in his catalog were the women of the aristocracy. Staid matrons. Sly-eyed widows and bored, neglected wives—these were the sort who invited him into their beds, curious for a taste of the lower orders. He was happy to oblige. It gratified Leo to know that he vigorously pleasured women whose husbands sneered at him.
The delicate young ladies who played fortepiano and, by design, knew little of the world beyond the circumference of Mayfair—these he knew least of all. Wealth he possessed, but not reputation or bloodline, and genteel girls gave him wide berth. He did not mind overmuch, discovering in his limited conversations with them that they had been carefully instructed to have no opinions or use beyond silk-gowned broodmares. In his nights with the Hellraisers, the shortest portion of the evening was spent at aristocratic assemblies, for the company was dull and circumscribed, especially the young women.
Leo was young. And a man. When it came to female company, he wanted anything but dull and circumscribed.
To his surprise, this evening he learned that his young, aristocratic wife was neither of these things.
“Why not invest everything into a single trade?” she asked, pouring him another glass of Bordeaux. “Concentrate all your interests in the development of a single product—perhaps even fund its advancement.”
“Limiting one’s investment into only one commodity means disaster comes when that trade fails.”
“It might not fail, though, and the lion’s portion of its profits go to you.”
His smile was fashioned from witnessing many a disaster. Mr. Holliday’s gift showed him nothing else. “At one time or another, most everything fails.”
“How grim.”
“Many things are.” But not this conversation. For the past hour, as Anne had plied him with a cold supper, she had asked him many questions about his endeavors in Exchange Alley. She knew little of business, nor how one might buy and sell shares of things that only existed in theory, yet her mind had proved agile and eager for information.
Even the other Hellraisers had not shown as much interest or enthusiasm for his work.
Candlelight gilded her smooth face and the soft expanse of skin above the neckline of her peach silk gown, and her eyes were emerald one moment, topaz the next. He watched her hands as they floated over her wineglass, lively as birds.
Desire surged, low and tight in his belly. Pleasant in its demand and, surprisingly, pleasant in its deferral. He liked feeling it, the anticipation of what might be. For a long time, he had wanted certainties about the future, and thanks to the Devil, there were things about the future he knew with absolute authority. So he actually enjoyed not knowing entirely what the next few moments, or days, might bring. Including the pleasure of his wife’s body as he came to know her heart and mind.
“Thus the necessity for diversification.” He swirled the wine in his glass, fashioning a small vortex. “If a cotton mill burns down, or the canal bringing iron becomes impassable, I have other sources of income.”
“Yet any one of those ventures is also vulnerable to misfortune.”
“Never the ones in which I invest.” He could say this assuredly.
She tilted her head to one side, considering. “Never?”
“Not a one. So you’ve no fear of becoming destitute.”
Her laugh was unexpectedly low and husky, sensuous for all its innocence. “I’ve already been destitute. I have no fear of that condition. But,” she continued, “how is it that none of your investments suffer disappointment? If what you have said is true, that most everything meets with failure at some point, you must be either very sagacious or very lucky.”
“A compound of both.” The Devil’s gift remained a secret known only to him and the other Hellraisers. As far as Anne and the rest of the world understood, the Devil was an abstract, an idea preached about on Sundays and on street corners, but never truly believed as real. If he told Anne of what had transpired beneath a Roman ruin three months earlier, she would have him committed to Bedlam. There was nothing to be gained by telling her.
No, she could not know. Her learning about his magic would jeopardize this tentative connection growing between them, and he found—to his surprise—he valued that connection too much to place it at risk.
“So it was luck
and
wisdom that saw you from a saddler’s son to ...” She waved her hand at the parlor, its walls covered in ivory damask, gilded carvings adorning the mirrors, moldings, and sconces. In truth, he found the style of the room to be oppressively ornate, but had permitted the designer to decorate the whole house as he pleased. Naturally, the man had employed the most expensive designs and artisans.
and
wisdom that saw you from a saddler’s son to ...” She waved her hand at the parlor, its walls covered in ivory damask, gilded carvings adorning the mirrors, moldings, and sconces. In truth, he found the style of the room to be oppressively ornate, but had permitted the designer to decorate the whole house as he pleased. Naturally, the man had employed the most expensive designs and artisans.
Leo had been home too infrequently to be bothered. So long as his house had displayed his wealth, he did not care.
Now, however, seeing Anne like a bryony amongst rotten hothouse roses, he found that he did.
Abruptly, he got to his feet. Anne blinked up at him in confusion, until he came around to pull out her chair. “This room feels choked. There’s a garden out back. At least,” he amended, “I believe there is one.”
“It has paths and a fountain, though it is a little barren so early in the year.” She rose, and he caught her scent of green meadow and young woman.
He had an urge to place his mouth at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder. But it was too soon. Instead, he strode to the door and said to the footman waiting outside, “Have Mrs. Bailey’s maid fetch a cloak for her mistress. And don’t light torches in the garden.” After the glare of indoors, he wanted the darkness.
He turned back to Anne. “You don’t mind.” Leo realized he spoke this more as a directive than a question, but he wanted out of this room, out of the house. And he wanted her with him.
“I often walked in the garden at night. After the chaos of the day, it gave me some peace.”
He would scarce recognize peace if it shot him in the face.
In a moment, Anne’s maid appeared with a sapphire woolen cloak. Leo took the cloak from the maid, dismissing her with a nod. He stepped close to Anne and, with a flourish, draped the garment around her slim shoulders. A flush of awareness pinked her cheeks as he worked the fastening at her throat.
Good.
He wanted her affected by him, for he found himself growing more and more responsive to her.
Good.
He wanted her affected by him, for he found himself growing more and more responsive to her.
Claiming his glass of wine, he offered her his arm. Her fingers rested lightly on his sleeve. Had his other hand not been occupied with his glass, he would have clasped her fingers closer. A testing, to see whether she would retreat, or push forward. Yet without the slightest provocation on his part, her hold became more secure, fingers curving with purpose around his forearm.
Desire knifed through him. He mentally shook himself.
I’m a sodding boy again
. A time in his life when just the fan of a girl’s eyelash could rouse his cock. Now, years later, only the firmer press of Anne’s fingers on his arm caused him to respond.
I’m a sodding boy again
. A time in his life when just the fan of a girl’s eyelash could rouse his cock. Now, years later, only the firmer press of Anne’s fingers on his arm caused him to respond.
“Comfortable?” He wasn’t.
At her nod, they walked downstairs and then out together. Brittle air scented with smoke and fog bit at exposed skin, but after the close heat of indoors, Leo welcomed the bite. He led her down pathways paved with crushed shells. Accustomed more to purposeful striding than a placid stroll, Leo forced himself into an even, steady pace, feeling the cold air abrade his lungs.
Bare-branched privet hedges squatted beside the path, and Leo could just make out in the darkness the skeletal arms of espaliered fruit trees reaching toward the sky. He tried to remember what might grow in the neat rectangular beds and found that he could not.
“In the spring, this will be a very pretty spot.” Anne spoke softly, a deference to night and its muted expectation. “Broom, and Sweet William, and candytuft. The pear trees will have lovely white flowers.”
It was the first he knew of it, or even what fruit the trees might bear.
“We had no garden,” he said. “The saddlery shared a common yard with a potter and a chandler, and we lived behind the shop. The yard was just that, a square of dirt. It smelled of wax, clay, and leather.”
“That’s where you played?”
He snorted. “No play. From the time I could hold a pair of shears, I helped my da. Schooling first, then work. Da wanted to be sure I knew my letters. He didn’t, not until he reached four and forty.”
Leo had never spoken of this to anyone, not even Edmund or Whit. They knew many aspects of his low birth, but never such intimate details, and it surprised Leo that he talked so openly to Anne now. The false affinity created by darkness.
As if sensing this, a cloud over the moon abruptly shifted and icy light spilled into the garden, washing away the intimate dark. In the light, he felt exposed, the distance between him and his wife all too evident. Moonlight drove them apart, for now he had nowhere to hide.
He cursed himself for being so unguarded. Surely she’d mock him for being the son of an illiterate. He readied for her cutting words, telling himself that he didn’t care what she thought of his humble blood.
“Your father must have taught himself,” she said instead.
Leo’s steps slowed a little, surprised by her response. “He did. Sat at the kitchen table with a hornbook, struggling to sound out the Lord’s Prayer.”
“With such a determined son, I expect no less from the father.” Esteem warmed her voice.
Leo felt as though he’d taken a punch to the chest. To steady himself, he took a drink of wine. He had expected bafflement from her, or outright disdain. But not this ... admiration. Especially not in the clarity of a barren, moonlight-blasted garden. Yet she saw him fully, and liked what she saw.
“No one more determined than Adam Bailey,” he said after a moment. “
Was
as determined.” Leo’s father had died as he lived: working. Always wanting more. A trait shared by his only living son.
Was
as determined.” Leo’s father had died as he lived: working. Always wanting more. A trait shared by his only living son.
Leo had advantages his father did not. More wealth, a greater understanding of the exigencies of business. And magic, given to him by the Devil.
Leo would use his every power to seize whatever he wanted.
As if frustrated by the growing bond between him and Anne, clouds slid across the face of the moon, blotting out its light. The garden sank back into darkness.
“Fifteen shillings a week. That’s what he made.” The same amount Leo carried in his pocket wherever he went. “Hardly more than subsistence.”
“Something altered your circumstances.”
“A rich man’s fancy.” The irony hardly escaped him.
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