Devil Takes A Bride (38 page)

She paled.

In the next instant, she was on her feet, rushing out of the room with barely a murmured, “Excuse me.” She knew he had gone down to Mulberry Cottage to confront the past.

She did not intend to let him face it alone.

C
HAPTER
N
INETEEN

The path into the thicket where Mulberry Cottage stood was overgrown with wild daisies and Queen Anne's lace, and brambles that caught at Lizzie's skirts as she ran by. The entrance of the cottage came into view with its gingerbread trim and a tangle of climbing roses.

At once, she saw Ben, who came toward her with a desperate look. “Miss Carlisle, I was just coming to get you! He's inside.”

“Is he all right?”

“I don't know. He won't let me in.”

Lizzie gave him a grim nod and moved past him to the wood-planked door, opening it cautiously. It squeaked, betraying their incursion.

“Leave me alone, Ben!” came her beloved's wounded-lion roar from within.

Lizzie glanced at the valet in trepidation. Ben shrugged and shook his head.

Taking a deep breath to ward off her rising sense of dread, she opened the door wider and slowly poked her head inside. “It's me, sweeting. Where are you?” She slipped inside and closed the door behind her. “Devlin?”

No answer.

Venturing deeper into the cottage, she had a vague impression of cheerfully painted walls and simple wooden furniture. Some bookshelves, a pianoforte, homey decorations. An empty birdcage. A table with some porcelain figurines. Pressed flowers hung in small oval frames. The place smelled musty, everything coated in a thick layer of gray dust.

When she stepped around the corner, she saw him in the parlor. He was kneeling on the carpet, immobile, staring down blindly at a child's half-completed puzzle on the floor.

“Oh, Devlin.”

He looked over at her slowly with tears in his eyes.

She crossed the room to him in a hurried rustle of muslin skirts, holding back tears herself. “Sweetheart.” She laid her hand on his shoulder then petted his head, longing with all her heart to ease the pain in his eyes.

He did not respond at first, not rising from his knees, but then he looked so lost that he wrapped his arms around her hips and buried his face against her waist.

She held him for a long moment, pouring all the tenderness on him that she had to give, soothing him with her touch, whispering the gentlest love words that came to mind to help her comfort him, though she knew no words would ever suffice. Not for this. She could only cradle him against her body and pray that this time, her love would be enough.

He pulled away abruptly and would not meet her gaze. His voice sounded odd and tight when he spoke. “I have to tell you something. Something so horrible, I don't know if I can even find the words. But before we wed, I want you to know the final secret, Lizzie. The worst one.”

She bent and kissed his head. “Nothing you could tell me could ever make me stop loving you.”

He rose to his feet, looked at her for a long moment, his angular face taut and pale, his mouth a grim line. Then he looked away, staring toward the stone-cold hearth. He closed his eyes and visibly braced himself. “Oh, Lizzie,” he breathed. “It's my fault they're dead.”

She managed to absorb his irrational confession with a show of calm. “But how can that be, Devlin? You explained to me last night about the men who set the fire.”

He dragged his eyes open and looked at her through a sea of quiet suffering. “I pulled a prank at school. They were en route to pick me up.” He shook his head bitterly, his brooding stare a million miles away. “Foolishness. Some other boys and I skipped school to go play billiards at a tavern. I was seventeen. We all were getting drunk, toasting Nelson's final hour of glory—the news had just come about Trafalgar.”

Her heart bled. His tone was ineffably heavy. He drifted toward the hearth several paces away.

“Then the proctor's three bulldogs came along—security officers. They made the rounds each day looking for truant boys. Well, they found me and my friends. Tried to haul us back to school. I was just showing off.” He paused for a long moment and dropped his head. “Several mugs of ale in my belly. I punched one of the officers in the nose. Thought he made a ‘dishonorable remark' about Lord Nelson.”

“Oh, my darling,” she whispered, tears welling in her eyes as she comprehended at last how he had been torturing himself these twelve years. Now his obsession with revenge made even more sense. Easier to blame those men than to go on carrying all that terrible guilt by himself.

“The next thing I knew, I was in the dean's office under threat of expulsion. They sent for my father to come and fetch me. My parents sent no servant to collect me. Not them. I can imagine the conversation that must have happened here when they received the dean's missive. Mother would have been the first into the carriage, bent on tanning my hide. Father would have been right behind her, trying to soothe her, talk her down out of the boughs, telling her, no doubt, it was naught but boyish mischief, while little Sarah made this puzzle on the floor. If only they hadn't brought her. At least my sister might be alive, but instead, I am responsible for her death, too.”

“Devlin, you are not responsible,” she said fiercely as a pair of tears plunged down her cheeks.

He didn't seem to hear. Pain molded the lines of his face. His wide shoulders sagged in despair.

“Listen to me—” She started toward him, but he put his hand up to ward her off.

“The Golden Bull lies at the halfway point between here and Oxford. They stopped there to dine and rest the horses. Oh, Lizzie, if I had only gone to class that day, they would still be alive.”

“No, Devlin, no,” she whispered as a small sob escaped her. “It's not your fault, sweetheart.”

“Yes, it is. Don't cry.” His eyes were dry, but their expression was one of emptiness when he gave her his handkerchief.

“How can you be so calm?” she wrenched out.

“It will all be over soon.”

She stopped drying her eyes, her earlier sense of dread returning in a rush. “What do you mean?”

He ran his knuckles gently along the curve of her cheek. “Those bastards killed my family,” he whispered, “but I'll send my soul to hell before I'll let them take you, too.”

The crystallized rage that she read in his eyes sent chills down her spine. “I—I don't understand.”

“You don't need to,” he said gently, but despite his soft touch, she saw something deadly behind his distracted stare. “What I've told you,” he murmured. “Does it change how you feel about me? Will you still marry me?”

She winced that he could doubt her. “Of course, I'll still marry you, darling. It doesn't change anything.”

At last, he managed a faint smile. “That's a relief. Right, then. Let's go.” He slipped a folded paper out of his vest pocket and showed it to her. It was a marriage license. “Are you ready?”

Her eyes widened. Her head was still spinning from his revelations. “What, go now?”

He shrugged. “Why not? I have the ring.” He reached into another pocket, took out a shining gold band, and showed it to her. “Efficient, aren't I?”

“Devlin!” She looked from the ring to his handsome face, not knowing whether to laugh or to strangle him.
Men.
“Darling, I cannot get married without Jacinda present. She'll never forgive me. Nor will Bel, Alice, Miranda—I want Robert to give me away!”

He stiffened. “Ah. All of Alec's people.”

“They're my people, too. I'm confused, Devlin. Why the rush?”

He did not answer, slowly folding the special license back up.

Eyeing him with deepening suspicion, Lizzie rested her hands on her waist. “Tell me what is going on in that head of yours.”

“I just want to get it over with.”

“
Over
with?” she cried.

“Not the wedding, Lizzie. The other part.” He walked away, restless and scowling.

She turned to watch him. “
What…
other part, Devlin?”

“You heard what I said. I am not going to let them hurt you.”

She froze, gripped by a sudden uncertainty. “Oh, Devlin, tell me you don't mean what I think you mean….”

When he looked askance at her, she remembered Lady Strathmore's tales of his many battles—deserts, canyons, seas. And in his fierce stare, she saw the half-savage white man who had gone out on Indian raids. God only knew what he was capable of when the rage and the hatred burned in his wild blood.

She sat down abruptly, fearing she might be ill. “Oh, Devlin, no.”

“Yes, Lizzie,” he answered softly. “I'm afraid so.”

“Talk to me,” she ordered in a shaky tone. “Right now.”

He seemed to debate how much to tell her. “You are safe for the moment,” he conceded. “I managed to convince them you were naught but a plaything to me. But once we are wed and they realize you are my love, you'll be fair game.”

“You are being paranoid.”

“They killed my family. I can't risk them coming after you, and they will, if they realize all I know. They'll do anything to cover their tracks, as they've already proved. I tried to let you go to Alec to keep you from all this danger,” he added in a faraway tone. “But I failed. I couldn't give you up.”

“I don't love Alec. I love
you
. And I don't want you to do this.”

“I love you, too, and that's why I must.” He came over to her and sought to soothe her with a touch. “We'll marry, and then I shall go and end it. I'll be back in a few days—if all goes well.”

“And if it doesn't?” she wailed, the blood draining from her face.

“If it doesn't…you'll have this house, the money, my title and name, and God willing, my babe in your belly.”

“No!” Her pulse was frantic. She shot to her feet.

“No, Devlin! I will not permit you to do this! There are too many of them—”

“I've already worked that out. I own a building. When they are in it—drunk and stumbling—I and my crew from the
Katie Rose
will seal the windows and lock the doors and do to those bastards what they did to my family.”

“All of them?” she breathed. “The innocent alongside the guilty?”

“To protect you, my love? Without a qualm,” he said.

“No.” She shook her head. “You will not do this thing in my name.”

He nodded, but behind his gentle gaze, his will was iron. “Lizzie, I
am
going to do it.”

“Go to the authorities! Tell them what you know!”

“Why should they believe me?”

“You are a lord!”

“So is Carstairs. So is Randall. So is Staines. So are the rest of them, Lizzie. Whatever evidence I can provide is circumstantial only. Besides, this is personal.”

She stared at him in awe. “You
want
to do it. Sweet Christ.” Covering her lips with her hand, she got up and walked away from him. Her heart pounded with fright.

Devlin said nothing. Folding his arms across his chest, he just watched her with the beast in his eyes biding its time.

Lizzie felt sick as she realized at last the full depth of the darkness in him.

She tried to calm the staccato of her pulse and turned to stare at him. “Killing those men isn't going to take your pain away, Devlin. All it's going to do is to make you just as bad as them. I can't let you do this.”

His wide shoulders lifted in a shrug. “No way you can stop me.”

“There's one way.” She swallowed hard. “I shan't marry you.”

His pale eyes narrowed as he considered her words. “Don't make that threat,” he chided gently. “We have been lovers. You will be ruined.”

“So I will. And you'll have to think about that, won't you? You won't let that happen to me, will you, Devlin?”

“
Don't
manipulate me,” he whispered. “This is not the time or place for one of your schoolgirl ruses.”

“Better that I should be ruined than you should play roulette with your life!”

“To hell with my life!” he roared without warning.

She gasped, taking a step back.

He threw up his hands. “What right do I have to live happily ever after with you, when my parents' blood, my sister's blood is on my hands? I've got only one possible excuse for the blight of my existence on this earth, and that's revenge.”

“What of love?” she asked softly when the room had finally stopped shaking after his reverberating, jungle roar. “You said you loved me.”

“I do. That is why I must protect you.”

I must protect you, too, darling,
she thought.
From yourself.
“If we do not marry, I am in no danger, correct? And then you don't need to become a murderer.”

“I already am a murderer,” he said in a hollow tone.

“You were a
boy
!” she wrenched out angrily. Quickly leashing her temper again, she shook her head at him with a resolute glare. “I'll be in London when you come to your senses.” She walked out.