Devil's Embrace (Devil 1)

She ran her tongue over dry lips. “I—I don’t understand.”

“You don’t understand why you are looking well? I have wondered the same thing myself.” A mocking smile mirrored his tone. “I fear that the blues of our respective dress do not quite match. Still, we make a striking couple.”

He offered her his arm. “The music has begun, my dear.”

She looked numbly down at the fine lace that spilled over his dark hands. He wore the ring she had given him for Christmas on his third finger. She laid her hand tentatively upon his proffered arm.

They took their places in the long line of ladies and gentlemen. It was fortunate that Cassie knew the steps so well, for her mind seemed frozen, her thoughts suspended. He had come after her, halfway across the world. The thou

ght that he still wanted her careened through her mind, over and over. She was scarce aware when he grasped her arm and deftly removed her from the row of dancers.

“I would not wish you to faint, my lady. Only think of the scene it would create and the eyebrows that would be raised.”

“I would not faint,” she said.

Within a few moments, he had led her to the outer entrance hall. She looked up at him in question.

“It is my opinion that you need a breath of fresh evening air.” She nodded, for she could think of nothing else to do. They walked past brightly uniformed soldiers to the front veranda.

They were alone on the wide portico. The earl turned to face her, and grasped her shoulders. His voice was meditative. “When I left, Cassandra, I vowed to myself that if I found you safe and well I would forgo my anger. To my chagrin, however, I have discovered that I want nothing more than to thrash you soundly.”

Conciliating words, words of love, died on her lips. “Since I am no longer your captive, my lord, I need not fear your threats. Since we are talking about anger, perhaps you can tell me why you lied to me. Damn you, you lied to me.”

He leaned back against a white-painted pillar, his arms crossed negligently across his chest. “Lied to you, Cassandra? I have done many things, but lying to you was not one of them.”

“Then, my lord, how do you explain your so interesting relation, Becky Petersham, a woman who has lived with the Broughams for more than ten years?”

“Ah yes, Becky Petersham. I assume that you read all her letters, cara. If you did, then you will know she is a distant cousin. I placed you in her care because she herself wished a post as a governess in England, and your father did not concern himself with you. You could quite easily have grown up to be a little savage, if I had not intervened. As to my lying to you—” He shrugged. “I suppose that I did deceive you by what I did not say. I would have told you, eventually, after we had wed.” He paused a moment and brushed a fleck of dust from his coat sleeve. “I regret that I had to use Becky to secure your presence that afternoon, but it was unavoidable.”

Cassie sucked in her breath, furious at his calm dismissal of what he had done. “Your charade was despicable, my lord. And as to Becky Petersham, I shall strangle her if it is ever my misfortune to lay eyes upon her again.” Even as she spoke, she realized that she would see Becky as soon as she returned to Hemphill Hall. She shook that thought from her mind. “I am relieved, my lord, to learn that you can so easily excuse your own perfidy. You are beyond ruthless, and I won’t have it.” She paused, seeing that he was looking down at her, a smile upon his lips.

“It seems when it comes to you, Cassandra, that I have more than once behaved strangely.”

“How did you find me?”

“Your anger at finding the letters dulled your thinking, love. I have decided that you must have wished me to come after you, for you were not at all careful in how you replaced the evidence. I suppose, when all is said and done, that I must be grateful to Captain Crowley for being in port. I trust that he took good care of you on the crossing.”

She felt suddenly like a mouse being toyed with by an omniscient cat. “How did you know of Captain Crowley?” The instant she asked the question, she knew she could have answered it herself.

As if he guessed her thoughts, he chuckled. “Really, cara, would you not expect me to be aware of every important ship docked in the harbor? I assume the story you concocted for the poor captain wrung his withers.”

He was speaking to her as if to a stupid twit, and in retaliation, she pulled her damaged pride about her like a cloak. “I told Captain Crowley that I was Lady Delford and that I had been captured by an Italian nobleman. I begged him to take me to New York, to my husband.”

His amused expression fled at the word, and anger filled his dark eyes. Cassie had the distinct feeling that he would like very much to shake her until her teeth rattled. Strangely, she found herself not at all frightened or distressed by the prospect.

The earl, with no little effort, regained the tight control he had on himself. The lazy animal grace reappeared in his stance, and he said, “For the past two days, Scargill has kept watch over you, Cassandra. He has watched you chat gaily with Edward Lyndhurst, even stroll through this wretched city on Major Andre’s uniformed arm. Scargill was filled with remorse, you know. You see, it never occurred to him that you would bolt. He, like I, assumed that you no longer wished to leave. You succeeded in making fools out of both of us. As for the bull, Andrea, I failed even there. Daniele was wounded and Andrea long gone by the time I arrived in Riva Trigoso.”

“Damn you, my lord, you want me to writhe in guilt for escaping from a man who abducted me in the first place? I find your wounded pride about it ridiculous.” She lowered her head, away from the pained tenderness in his eyes. “I am sorry that you did not catch Andrea.”

“Why did you do it, Cassandra?”

She looked up at him tentatively, trembling now at the hollow sadness in his voice. “I felt that you had betrayed me, that you had lied to me, and I was naught but what you had wished to create. I felt I had to leave, and fate in the person of Captain Crowley made it possible.”

“That is not what I meant.”

She faltered, her eyes narrowed in confusion.

“I believed, fool that I am, that you had come to care for me. Yet you rushed into Edward Lyndhurst’s arms and wed him the moment you arrived in this miserable city.” His voice became harsh. “Are you pleased with your choice, Lady Delford? Do you moan with passion in his arms? Have you rendered the poor fellow ecstatic, or is he beginning to see that you are not the gentle, malleable girl he had believed you to be?”