The Devil to Pay (11 page)

“God help us!” Julia shut her eyes. “Say no more, I beg you!”

Be amicable, polite, and exceedingly dull,
Sidonie reminded herself later that afternoon when she lifted the big brass door knocker at Number Seventeen. Miss Hannaday had been dealt with. Now it was the Devil’s turn.
Insipid. Humdrum. Tedious.
That was how she must appear to him. Like an actress preparing to sweep onto center stage, Sidonie recited the words again, sent up a little prayer, and dropped the knocker.

Her nervousness ratcheted up at once. Despite her dowdy attire and good intentions, it felt more than a little risqué to call upon a man like Devellyn alone. But it had seemed silly to ask Julia to accompany her on an errand across the street. And Sidonie was, after all, a widow. That gave her a measure of freedom. More determined, she knocked again.

At last, a man she vaguely recognized as the butler opened the door. “Ah, Madame Saint-Godard!” he said as if he knew her well. “I trust you are fully recovered from the accident?”

“Quite, thank you,” she managed, handing him the umbrella. “His lordship loaned this to me, and I should like to thank him. Is he in?”

The butler held open the door. “I shall inquire.”

Sidonie handed him her card. The butler dropped it onto a silver salver near the door and whisked both away. Moments later, she was being shown, not into the garish drawing room, but into a cluttered, wood-paneled study overlooking the back gardens. It was very definitely a man’s room, and the marquess filled it with his presence.

He sat sprawled in a massive leather chair by the hearth, wearing a dark jacquard dressing gown over his untidy attire. In one hand, he held a pipe; in the other, Sidonie’s card, deftly flipping it back and forth through his fingers like some indolent gamester. He appeared to be sporting three days’ worth of black stubble, and from the look of his hair, to have slept through all three whilst standing on his head. At his elbow sat a big earthenware mug which appeared to be brimming with cold coffee, and an ashtray which was brimming with twisted brown butts. Below, his slippers swam in a sea of newspapers he’d apparently tossed to the floor as he’d read them. Sidonie only prayed the twain never met, or the marquess would almost certainly go up in flames.

He rose languidly and laid aside the pipe. “Morning, Sid,” he said with his unabashed grin. “To what do I owe such an unhoped-for pleasure?”

Resisting the urge to point out that morning was long gone for most folk, Sidonie tried instead to look insipid. “I came, my lord, to return your umbrella,” she said. “Thank you so much. It did rain again, and but for your kindness, I’m quite sure I should be feverish now.” She paused to cough delicately into her gloved hand. “My lungs are not what they used to be.”

“No?” He let his eyes run over her. “They look dashed healthy from here.”

Sidonie pretended to miss the double entendre. “I also came, my lord, to offer an apology.” She folded her hands demurely. “I was rude last night. I hope you’ll forgive me. In my defense I can only say that…well, I had not slept well the night before.”

The marquess looked vaguely confused. “I’m sorry to hear it,” he answered. “Please, sit down.”

“Oh, thank you, my lord,” she murmured, folding her skirts very properly. “It’s a poor excuse, I know, but I do suffer terribly, you see, from the, er—” Suddenly, a vision of Mrs. Arbuckle stretched limply across her divan sprang to mind. “From the megrims,” she finished. “It is my nerves, you see. And my—my widowhood. Life’s many cruel disappointments. That sort of thing.”

“Good Lord!” said the marquess, sitting back down abruptly. “I really expected better of
you,
my dear.”

Sidonie batted her lashes. “I beg your pardon?”

Mischief glinted in his eye. “If you suffer from overset nerves, Sid, I’m the Queen of Sweden.” He took up his pipe again and whacked a shower of red sparks into the ashtray. “Now, I know it’s uncouth as hell, but do you mind if I relight this?”

Sidonie smiled tightly and waved her hand by way of permission.

“If it would help your nerves, Sid,” he said with mock solicitude, “Honeywell might find us an extra pipe?”

“No, thank you,” she retorted. “I prefer to swallow my poison.”

“Ah!” he said. “That’s more the sauce I expect from you.” He shook open a leather pouch and artfully thumbed the bowl full of tobacco. “Help yourself, by the way. Brandy’s on the side table.”

“How kind you are, my lord.” Sidonie resumed her prim expression. “But I never indulge in spirits before dusk.”

The marquess shrugged. “Suit yourself,” he said, then stretched back in his chair. “Now, admit it, Sid. You’re working dashed hard not to like me—and now, for reasons I’ve not yet fathomed, I suspect you’re trying to make
me
dislike
you.”

Sidonie dropped her eyes demurely. “I’m sure, my lord, that in your own backhanded way, you are trying to comfort me,” she murmured. “But I can’t think what you mean.”

He laughed around his pipe stem. “Oh, you can’t, eh?” he answered, his eyes warming as they swept over her. “I think you can. And if I were trying to comfort you, my dear, conversation likely wouldn’t enter into the process.”

Sidonie drew herself up stiffly. “Really, Lord Devellyn!”

But Devellyn, apparently, was incapable of being chastised. “By the way, my dear, I liked that snug amethyst-colored silk a lot better than this baggy mouse-colored thing you’re wearing today. It does not show your—ah, your feminine assets to nearly so fine an effect.”

Sidonie’s palm itched to slap him, but somehow, she restrained it.
Be exceedingly dull,
she reminded herself. “Thank you, my lord,” she managed. “But that was one of Julia’s old gowns which I’d altered. I rarely wear bright colors.”

The marquess lifted one of his satanic-looking eyebrows. “A hand-me-down?” he said doubtfully. “From a companion? And one who, even I have noticed, is a full foot shorter than you?”

Sidonie widened her eyes ingenuously. “I let the hem out,” she said, hoping he knew nothing of hems. “I’m quite clever with a needle, my lord. Indeed, I love nothing so much as to spend my spare time sewing.”

“Sewing—?”

“Yes. For the poor.”

“Ah, the poor!” he echoed. “And what, pray, do you sew for them?”

Sidonie struggled to think of something. “Well, for the poor, actually, I mostly knit,” she amended. “Mittens. Mufflers. That sort of thing. Sometimes Julia and I spend days at a time, just sewing and knitting. It is so deeply gratifying, you know, to help those less fortunate than ourselves.”

“Hmm, I daresay,” murmured the marquess, his gaze hooded.

“But I can see, my lord, that I’ve begun to bore you,” she went on, “when my intentions were quite the opposite. I’ve come, actually, to issue a social invitation by way of apology. I do hope you won’t think it forward—”

“No, not at all!” His expression brightened.

“You greatly relieve my mind, sir,” said Sidonie. “You see, tomorrow, Mrs. Crosby and I are having the vicar for tea. We attend St. George’s Bloomsbury, of course, and—”

“St. George’s?” he interposed. “You are French, but not Catholic?”

Sidonie was surprised he cared. “My mother converted,” she murmured, giving no further explanation. “As I was saying, since the vicar is coming, we should like another gentleman to even our number. And if you don’t mind a little excitement, we thought we’d perhaps play a few hands of whist.”

He clamped his smoldering pipe in one jaw and grinned. “A tad chilly in hell today, is it, my dear?”

Sidonie stiffened. “I do beg your pardon.” But suddenly, she remembered what she’d said the previous evening. “Dear me, I am going to have to eat my words, aren’t I?” she murmured. “Please, my lord, let me make amends for my snide remark. Do join us tomorrow.”

The marquess shifted his weight in the armchair. “Just tea and cards with the vicar, eh?” he said, still without removing the pipe. “No blue ruin? No dicing? No naked dancing girls?”

Sidonie tried to look disapproving.

The marquess grunted dismissively. “No opium-eating, either, I suppose!” he muttered. “Well, sorry to crush your hopes, Sid, but I reckon I’ll come anyway. Now, let that be a lesson to you.”

Sidonie barely suppressed her gasp.
He was going to come?
“Well, what can I say, my lord?” she managed. “I am honored.”

“No you aren’t,” he answered. “You’re appalled. Never try to bluff a hardened gamester. I may not know your game, Sid, but I know you are out of your league.”

Just then, Honeywell burst into the room, leaving the door swinging wide. “My lord! My lord!” he said frantically. “Oh, sir! I’m afraid it is Miss Leder—”

But it was too late. An agitated woman with flame-colored hair had burst into the room behind him. Sidonie recognized her at once.

“Awright, what’s this?” she squawked, pointing squarely at Sidonie without really looking at her.

The butler fled. The marquess sat up straighter in his chair. “Hello, Camelia,” he said. “What an unexpected pleasure.”

“Oh, I’ll just bet it is,” she said, stalking closer.
“Two weeks,
you said, you lying pig!
Ooh, dear Cammie, take as long as you want,
you said!”

Devellyn’s eyes flicked toward Sidonie. “Camelia, what’s this about?”

Sidonie jerked to her feet. “Perhaps I should go?”

Ignoring her, the woman leaned over the marquess, and jabbed the pointing finger in his face. “This is about you treating me square, Devellyn! Why,
I am in no hurry,
says you! And now I come home to this? You liar!” Her glower turned to Sidonie. “And ’oo the hell’s this dish o’boiled custard anyways?”

Devellyn looked amazingly unperturbed. “Madame Saint-Godard, may I present Miss Camelia Lederly, the almost-famous actress?” he said. “Camelia, Madame Saint-Godard.”

Sidonie tried to nod at the woman.

“And by the by, Camelia, you quite mistake the situation,” the marquess went on. “Madame Saint-Godard is just a kindhearted, Christian-minded neighbor who has come to invite me to tea with her vicar, no doubt in some misguided attempt to save my stained and mortal soul.”

“Oh, she is, eh?” The redhead eyed Sidonie nastily. “Well, in all the months
I
lived ’ere I never seen ’er at
my
door worrying about
my
soul!”

“That, my dear,” he said around his pipe stem, “is probably because she heard you hadn’t got one.”

The redhead flew at him then, a screeching, clawing, flailing ball of fire. “Pig!” she screamed. “You selfish bastard pig!” She seized the overflowing ashtray, and knocked him over the head with it, sending ash and butts flying.

Sidonie sat back down, fascinated. Wedged awkwardly into the chair, the marquess was trying to get his arms round Camelia’s waist and her hands behind her back. The redhead got one hand loose and cracked him soundly across the face with it. The marquess kept wrestling.

“Camelia, don’t do this,” he was saying. “Calm down. Just calm down. You need the house? Is that it? Is it?”

“Ooh, you lied to me!” she wailed, fists swinging.

“Then take—
ouch!
—” Camelia caught him in the temple with an elbow. “Just take the house,” he went on. “I’ll just go elsewh—
aaggggk!”

She was trying to throttle him with his own cravat.
“A fortnight,
you said!” she gritted.
“Take your time, Camelia,
you said!”

Having shown a remarkable amount of restraint thus far, the marquess finally just wrapped his arms around her waist and stood. She clung to him like some sort of lunatic, alternately pulling his hair and pounding on him with her free hand, but Devellyn just kept walking.

“Camelia, I’m taking you to the chaise now,” he said calmly. “And I want you to sit there and be quiet until we can work this—”

“Go bugger yourself, Devellyn!” Camelia grabbed a passing candlestick and began whacking him with it.
“Work it out! Work it out!
God, I hate when you say that!”

The candle tumbled out, and he trod upon it, snapping it in two. The marquess just kept going, then dropped her unceremoniously onto a brocade chaise. Camelia bounced once, showing a pair of fine ankles, and kept a firm grip on her candlestick.

“Camelia, my dear,” said Devellyn, slightly winded. “Aren’t you being a bit of a dog in the manger?”

“A
dog?
How dare you!”

Devellyn urged her down again. “Listen, Camelia,
you left me,”
he said, his voice finally cold. “As in you cast me off. Threw me over. Tossed me out of your life. Sound familiar?”

“Aye, and now I wants to move back!” she interjected, her accent getting worse. “I want me bleedin’ fortnight! But you and Madame Custard here have already gone and set up—”

Suddenly, Sidonie became aware of a sharp, acrid scent in the air. She cut her eyes toward the empty armchair and gasped. “Fire!” she screamed, bolting for the smoldering newspapers. “Fire!”

“Let it burn!” hissed Camelia, seizing Devellyn’s cravat again. “When it catches good, I’ll throw him in!”

With Devellyn ensnared, Sidonie panicked. She snatched up his coffee and hastily dumped it. The smoking newspaper became a stewing, sodden mess. Somehow, the marquess extracted himself and bellowed for the butler, but a pale-faced Honeywell was already coming through the door. He saw the steaming debris, screamed, and seized a vase of lilies. He upended it, dousing the last of it with water and flowers.

“Oh, I say!” murmured a voice from the door.

Still shaking, Sidonie turned around to see the handsome man from the Anchor standing in the doorway, his golden hair gleaming in a shaft of sun.

Camelia let go of the cravat. “Hello, Al,” she said. “Come to sober Dev up again, have you?”

Devellyn had crossed the room to stare down at his ruined rug. “Good afternoon, Alasdair,” he said calmly. “You’ve caught us at an awkward moment.”

“Oh, I say!” said the man again, stepping into the fray. “Cammie—? I thought you were—or had decided to—to—”