Devil's Embrace (Devil 1)

“There never seems to be a simple solution to anything, does there?”

“No, there does not.” Like Cassie, Edward was thinking about his own life. No, there was never a simple solution to anything.

“There is a young lady who appears to know you, Edward.”

Edward pulled himself from his thoughts and looked up. Jenny stood not fifteen feet from them, holding herself so rigidly that she seemed carved in stone.

“Jenny,” he called, trying to instill calm into his voice. “Miss Lacy. Come, Cass, I would like you to meet a friend of mine.”

Jenny wanted nothing but to turn on her heels and walk away. But she could not. She stood in miserable silence as Edward, and the undeniably beautiful girl at his side, walked toward her. The young woman could not be one of Madam Harper’s delectable girls, solely for the use of the officers. She was undeniably a lady. She felt a sickening lurch in the pit of her stomach. Suddenly, Jenny knew. The elegant girl with her glossy golden hair was Cassandra. A hopeless no sounded in her mind, for she knew she was Edward’s lost fiancée, supposedly drowned, here, in New York, returned to him.

Jenny drew herself up, calling upon her deep steely pride. To her amazement, her tongue moved in her mouth and she heard herself say quite calmly, “Good morning, Captain Lord Delford.”

“Jenny—Miss Lacy, I would like you to meet Cassandra Brougham. Cass, Miss Lacy.”

Cassie nodded pleasantly toward the young woman, wondering silently at the sudden tension in Edward’s voice. “A pleasure, Miss Lacy.”

Even her voice is beautiful, Jenny thought, and she forced herself to say something acceptable. “You have just arrived?”

“Yes, yesterday. Edward is showing me your city.”

Jenny suddenly felt that she would retch. The cobblestone pavement seemed to rise, and she weaved where she stood.

“Jenny, are you all right?”

Again, there was a strain in Edward’s voice. Cassie looked more closely at the young woman. She was magnificently tall, and carried herself gracefully, her figure full and deep-bosomed. Thick masses of auburn hair were piled atop her head, and soft ringlets framed a face of classic features. Her wide green eyes were fastened upon Edward’s face.

“Yes, I am fine. It is the death smell; with the breeze from the south, it makes me faint.”

Edward reached his hand toward her, then dropped it helplessly again to his side. He held himself rigid. “Can we see you home, Jenny?”

Cassie felt as though she had just stepped into a scene in a play fraught with unspoken passion, a scene in which she was an unwitting player.

“No, thank you, Edward. I assure you that I am quite all right now. Miss Brougham.” She nodded briskly, picked up her green velvet skirt, and hurried across the street, her head held high.

“Who is Miss Lacy, Edward?” Cassie inquired, careful to keep her voice indifferent.

Edward replied with taut lightness, “As I told you, Jenny and her father, Benjamin Lacy, are good friends of mine. Her father is a writer and partner of Ambrose Searle who publishes the New York Mercury, a staunch Tory newspaper. Jenny did not look well,” he added, almost as an afterthought.

“Perhaps you should insist upon seeing her home, Edward. Perhaps you should speak with her.”

He was silent for many moments. “No, she will be fine,” he said firmly.

Cassie was not blind or deaf. Jennifer Lacy was clearly in love with Edward. She saw the rigid set of his shoulders, and forebore to question him further. Since she had not told him everything, it would be unfair of her to demand more of him.

She asked easily, to relieve him of any embarrassment, “What is the smell she spoke about?”

“It is the stench from the prisons. All over New York, prisoners of war are kept in appalling conditions—in churches and windowless sugarhouses that are stifling in summer and frigid in winter. I have been told that many of them lie dead for days with their comrades before they are removed.”

“But that is horrible!”

“The rebel prisoners kept aboard the British prison ship, Jersey, docked in Wallabout Bay, are no better off. They are locked below-deck in conditions that would kill rats, much less men.” He sighed.

“Is there nothing you can do, Edward?”

“No. Since the fire, there are not sufficient buildings to hold all the prisoners of war. They must be confined someplace; were they released, they would only return to the rebel army to fight us again one day. It is only their plight that angers me. Men, regardless of which side they fight on, are still men and not animals. General Howe will not discuss the matter.”

Cassie sniffed the air as they continued their walk. If there was a smell, her nose did not, today, detect it. Her thoughts kept returning to Miss Lacy. There had been such pain in the girl’s vivid green eyes.