Devil Takes A Bride (41 page)

When she came to it, she reached up and gripped two of the short wrought-iron stakes that lined the top of the shoulder-high brick wall, which was stuccoed and painted to match the house. Moving carefully amid the iron stakes, she heaved herself up to a crouched position atop the wall. From this higher vantage point, shielded by the trellis, she assessed the situation.

At once she heard the lilting fountain in the center of the garden. Nothing had changed except the displays in the meticulously tended flower beds. Twin benches faced the fountain. The trees in the garden's corners had grown bigger, but the same conical shrubs lined the cobblestone drive at intervals a few feet apart.

Her heart pounded with terrible excitement for what she had come to do. She had sailed here to England for justice, but now she was willing to settle for revenge.

Things might have been different if Devil Strathmore had proved a worthy ally, but that hope had come to naught. She had wavered in her view of him after seeing him break into Quint's carriage house, but when she discovered that he had seduced Sorscha's pretty young teacher, Mary had realized the viscount was as thoroughly lost to depravity as his fellow members of the Horse and Chariot Club.

Blood or no, she had no intention of handing Sorscha over to the likes of him. Still, even without Strathmore's help, Quint and Carstairs would not get away with what they had done to her. Before she and Sorscha fled back to Ireland, Mary meant to settle the score.

How to get into the house?
She scanned the triple bays of windows on each floor of Carstairs's home, but then the smell of smoke distracted her, floating to her on the warm night air. Was someone in the garden? Her alerted glance swept the tranquil green retreat; then a flicker of movement across from her caught her eye.

She had learned that Carstairs housed Johnny in a fine apartment above the carriage house. On the left-hand corner of the balcony there, she saw the earl's handsome young stud lounging against the railing with a rifle in his hands and a cheroot dangling from the corner of his mouth. Outlined against the indigo sky, he appeared to be keeping guard.

What on earth?
Only now did Mary abandon her interest in the earl's house, turning her attention to the carriage house. Her gaze traveled to the other end of the long balcony, and her blood ran cold as she spotted Torquil Staines similarly stationed at the other end, keeping watch, a deadly-looking rifle in his hands.

What's going on, boys?
she wondered. What dark business were they up to now? A shiver of belated doom ran through her as she realized she would probably be lying dead on the grass already if she hadn't stopped to look first, if she had not smelled the smoke from their cheroots. There was light in the cozy upper window of the carriage house and, thanks to her perch atop the wall, Mary could see straight into the main room of Johnny's apartment, some thirty feet across the garden. She drew in her breath, aghast, at what she beheld.

Quint and Carstairs were framed in the window. They appeared to be in the midst of a heated debate. Between them sat a girl tied up in a chair with her hands bound behind her and a gag across her mouth. Mary stared in shocked recognition.
Miss Carlisle.

She knew what these men were capable of; she knew she had to help the younger woman.

Mary took out another bullet so she could grab it quickly for a second shot, then she lifted her gun and rested the muzzle on the trellis. She could handle Quint later if it came down to it. Without their leader, they would be in disarray. Taking careful aim, Mary stared through the window and drew a bead on Carstairs's flaxen head.

She held on tight against the gun's expected kick and fired.

Lizzie screamed into her cloth gag when the window shattered and jolted away from it so hard that she toppled the wooden chair she was tied to and landed, wild eyed, on her side upon the floor.

Chaos erupted, a wild rash of shouts both inside and out.

Though barely a moment, it felt like a year as she lay there stranded, unable to right herself. Behind her back, she felt something painful jabbing into her hand. Broken glass from the window. She opened her fingers and clutched the long shard. Tears of pain filled her eyes, but she blinked them back fiercely. Ignoring the cuts and the trickle of blood across her palm, she used the glass knife to saw away at the rope binding her hands.

“Son of a bitch!” Carstairs screamed, wiping his hand across his temple where the bullet had grazed him, painting his light hair with the mark of a crimson lightning bolt.

 

Mary reloaded and this time, coolly took aim at Torquil. But as she concentrated on trying to get a clear shot in the dark, she was unaware that Johnny had come down the steps and glided around the perimeter of the garden toward her.

Aiming for Torquil's chest, she was about to pull the trigger when the young man commanded: “Freeze!”

She whipped her aim down at him, and they stood in a motionless tableau, guns drawn.

“Don't you move!” Johnny warned her. “Over here, Torq!”

“Hold him!”

“It ain't a
him
,” Johnny yelled back, eyeing her with extreme suspicion.

Torquil was on his way, and Mary knew that when he reached her, she was as good as dead.

“Let me go, Johnny,” she ordered calmly.

“You know me?”

“I tried to help you once. Easy—” Slowly, she pulled back her veil.

His eyes widened. “Jesus Christ.” His rifle sank.

Mary whirled to fire her shot at Torquil, who was running toward them, but he dived behind the low wall of the fountain.

“Hold your fire!” Johnny yelled, lifting his hand toward Torquil just as Quint banged the apartment door open and came out. “Hold your fire, I say!”

“Strathmore!” Quint bellowed in fury.

“It isn't Strathmore! Hold your fire!” Johnny abandoned Mary to her escape, jogging toward the carriage house. “It's Miss Highgate!”

“W-what did you say?” Mary heard Quint utter as she leaped down from the garden wall.

She was already reloading when Quint's thunderous howl floated out across the night. It sent a ripple of fear down her spine.

“Ginny!”

 

Carstairs let out a disbelieving curse at the hated name, but Lizzie paid no mind, fighting against her bonds. Behind her back, she sawed at them for all she was worth, and she could feel them giving way, strand by strand.

“Get back here, Quint!” Carstairs yelled, but the baron had already gone barreling off into the night.

“God damn it. Johnny!”

“He went with Quint. They're chasing Ginny.” Torquil strode back into the apartment. Lizzie, still toppled onto her side on the floor, eyed his passing boots in fright as they crunched the nearby glass underfoot. “I can't believe that bitch is alive!”

“Not for long,” Carstairs growled.

“Quint's not gonna let you touch her.”

“He'll have no choice. You know what this means?”

Torquil nodded in cold reproach. “That she's working with Strathmore.”

“Under the circumstances, sending him away isn't going to be sufficient.”

“Say no more,” Torquil murmured, pausing to poke his gun into Lizzie's ribs. “Guess we won't be needin' this one anymore.”

She whimpered.

“Go kill Dev,” Carstairs ordered, unsheathing the big knife he had strapped at his side. “I have a few more questions for her. Perhaps now she'll be ready to tell me if Dev has been talking to anyone else.”

Torquil sent him a hard-eyed nod askance. “Bet you wish you would've listened to me now, you bloody sod.”

“Just do it,” he spat.

Torquil growled at him and left.

Lizzie felt another strand of her bonds break, but gave a small shriek into the cloth gag as Carstairs wrenched her chair upright.

He planted his legs wide and bent down to her eye level, giving her a menacing smile. “Now, then, Miss Carlisle, I regret to say there has been a slight change of plans. You have your lover to thank for your death—for you must die, I'm afraid. Whether it will be slow and messy, or swift and clean is up to you. Let me help you understand your situation. There is no help coming for you. Do you hear me? Your darling Dev will be a corpse within the hour. His adventuring days are over. So you might as well cooperate.”

Oh, I'll cooperate.

“Uff!” he said as she kicked him as hard as she could in the groin. “Bitch!” he gasped out in an odd, high-pitched wheeze, falling to the floor.

Lizzie burst up from her chair, pulling the last few threads of her bonds apart and ripping off the gag. She dashed out the door, leaving Carstairs balled up and writhing over his privates on the floor. On trembling legs, she rushed down the stairs and out into the night, her heart hammering. Glancing left and right, she was not sure which way to run. A high wall held her trapped in the garden. She saw no gate.

“Miss Carlisle!” a hushed voice whispered. “Over here!”

She squinted toward the trellis and saw the outline of a veiled woman.
Good gracious—Mrs. Harris?
Her conversation from the carriage that night with Dev came pouring back in her mind. Then her eyes widened as she realized. Dear God, her Mrs. Harris
was
the same Mary Harris he had been searching for. The actress, Ginny Highgate!

She was alive!

Lizzie was already running toward the widow. Mrs. Harris reached down her hand, helping Lizzie climb.

“Careful of the spikes! Quint and Johnny are just around the corner,” she whispered quickly. “I managed to elude them for the moment.”

“Mrs. Harris, Carstairs is still inside,” Lizzie warned.

“We'd better get out of here fast—and Mary will do. Come. My carriage is nearby.” The widow whisked her cape around her in a graceful arc as she pivoted and started running.

Lizzie was right behind her, both of them racing up the mews as silently as they could.

“Ginny!” Another half-mad bellow from Quint boomed up the alley.

Mary grabbed Lizzie, and both women flattened themselves against the wall.

“What does he want with you?”

“We used to be lovers.”

“Everyone thought you were dead.”

“I know.”

“We have to warn Devlin. They've sent Staines to kill him!”

“Kill him?” she answered bitterly. “You are mistaken. He is one of them.”

“No, he's not! It's been a facade all this time! His every effort has been aimed at trying to find out what happened to his family the night of that fire. You have the answers to that, don't you? You must tell him what you know. Come, we have to help him—”

“
Ginny!
Ginny, it's Quint! Let me see you!”

“I don't think you want to see me now, my love,” she murmured bitterly under her breath, staring into the shadows. “Come, Miss Carlisle. Devil Strathmore is going to have to take care of himself. You're welcome to come with me, but Sorscha is my first priority. She's in more danger than you know.”

“You brought the girl into this?” she cried in a whisper.

“I would appreciate your help,” Mary said briskly, ignoring her protest. “Carstairs won't quit until I'm dead. Now they know that I am alive, but they still don't know about Sorscha. The girl has no memory of the fire, but they don't know that, nor will they care. All of Carstairs's witnesses die. If anything should happen to me, you must take Sorscha away on the Irish packet from Bristol. I have the tickets in this satchel. Once she's safe, you can contact her brother from Ireland.”

“Her brother?” Lizzie breathed, turning to her in amazement. “Good God, you mean—little Sarah?”

“
Ginny!
I just want to talk to you!” They could hear Quint's heavy footfalls clumping down the alleyway along with Johnny's lighter, swifter ones.

“Come, there's no time. This way to my carriage!”

They ran.

Lizzie saw the waiting vehicle ahead, black and shiny, crouched in the moonlight. A coachman in a long carrick-coat stood on the driver's box with a rifle in his hands.

“Doyle will hold them off,” Mary said. “Let's go!”

 

As soon as Carstairs could stand, he picked up his shotgun from his selection of weapons and hobbled outside, limping slightly and bent on blood. He heard Quint's lovesick moaning in the alleyway for his goddamned Ginny, so he went in that direction.

He came out of the garden just in time to see both women fleeing together toward the square, Quint and Johnny running after them.

“Move!” he thundered at his friends, cocking the gun. He brought it up as the two bitches plunged into shadow.

He saw the carriage, the driver with a gun.

Boom!

The coachman fell from the driver's box and slammed to earth, and Ginny Highgate screamed. He knew her voice. He'd heard her screams before.

He could hear the hysterical women shouting and began reloading, limping onward down the mews, while Quint and Johnny rushed toward the scene.

“They're coming!” A clearer feminine voice, stronger, sounded over Ginny's sobbing for her manservant. “Leave him, he's dead! Get in the coach,
now
!”

Carstairs narrowed his eyes as Dev's cream-pot love leaped up into the driver's box and picked up the reins, slapping them over the horses' rumps. The coach pulled away just as Quint grabbed for it with both hands.

His burly arms came away empty. “After them!” he yowled.

Carstairs smiled coldly as the women's carriage rounded the garden square and took off heading west.
Oh, you want to race against the Horse and Chariot Club, little wench?

“You're on,” he whispered with a sneer at her fleeing coach, then spun around and marched to his curricle, barking at Quint and Johnny to hurry up.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-
ONE

Dev was striding back and forth between his bedchamber and his dressing room, throwing his belongings into several traveling trunks with hands that could not stop shaking, his stomach tied in knots. He was grimly furious and as tense as a blade vibrating after a vicious blow, but behind his tight-lipped silence, he had regrouped and had a plan.

But that didn't make this any easier.

Ben was trying to go about the task of packing his things more calmly, but as for Dev, he had not known what fear was till now. He had never suffered such agonizing worry for another human being in his life. Wherever she was, he knew Lizzie was scared. All he wanted was to hold her in his arms and promise he'd make everything better. And he would.

Carstairs had taken him off guard at White's, but Dev knew that cooperating completely and accepting whatever terms the foe named had been the right thing to do. But pulling back from the moment's horror, he saw that he simply could not live without her for the rest of his life. Nor could he allow them to haunt and control her for the rest of hers. He would end this war at dawn on the docks. Because what Carstairs didn't know was that his once-surly, often drunken, ill-kempt crew from the
Katie Rose
would have fought the armies of hell for Dev.

They looked the part of simple sailors, but tomorrow dawn, when Carstairs brought Lizzie into view, on a cue from Dev, their captain, they would attack; he would rescue her and let his lawless mates of the
Katie Rose
have at the coddled gents of the Horse and Chariot Club.

If it went well, he would explain to Bow Street as soon as he could. If it went badly, he would take Lizzie away on his ship and become an exile from British law, which was why he was collecting his most significant personal effects from the satinwood box on his dressing table—his signet ring, a miniature portrait of his father, the gold band he still meant to give his bride. She was all that mattered.

It was then that his wilderness-honed senses bristled, sending him their warning, a nameless prickle of danger down his nape. His gaze flicked to the mirror as he felt someone watching him. His eyes flared as he made out the shadowy figure of Torquil Staines on the balcony of his bedchamber, half hidden by the draperies.

He had a gun.

“Get down!” Dev roared, throwing Ben to the floor as the shot cracked into the room.

His valet fell, clattering back against the dressing table; Dev's shaking kit and half a dozen small toilette bottles rained on Ben in a hail as he toppled to the floor, his chocolate-brown face a mask of pain.

Dev charged at Staines, dimly registering the fact that Ben had been hit. Staines swung into the room, drawing his knife from its scabbard. The baronet swung it at him in a bloodthirsty arc.

Dev jumped back, glancing anxiously at his friend. “Ben!”

“I'm shot, Dev,” Ben answered weakly.

“Hang on, Ben!” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Ben crawl to a seated position and lean his back weakly against the wall. A crimson stain was spreading across the region of Ben's left front shoulder and chest.

Dev's heart pounded madly while he fended off Staines's attack, his head reeling. Ben couldn't die. He couldn't bear it.

Staines stabbed at him again.

“What the hell are you doing, Staines?” Dev thundered. “I said I would leave! You can see I'm preparing to go! Stay with me, Ben!” he called to his servant in a shaken tone.

“You're a two-faced double-dealing snake, Dev. That's why.” Staines's blade whizzed through the air and stuck in the carved bedpost when Dev ducked. “Don't try to play innocent. We know now that you've been working with Ginny Highgate all this time.”

“What are you talking about? Ginny Highgate is long dead!” He saw his jungle machete tucked into the valise that Ben had been packing and dived for it.

“I saw her with my own eyes, Dev. Bitch tried to put a bullet in me.”

“Ginny Highgate is alive? In London?” He parried a savage blow, the memory of the mysterious veiled woman he'd seen spying on him flooding back into his mind.

“As if you don't know! If you haven't noticed, the deal is off.”

“Off? Wait a minute—What about Lizzie?”

He let out a contemptuous laugh. “Carstairs cut her throat.”

“What?”
Dev whispered, going perfectly still as horror spiraled through him. He could barely breathe. His voice came out thinly. “You're lying.”

“Did you think we were going to let you and your bitch send us to the gallows?”

“No…,” he whispered, as the horror turned faster, spiraling out of control. “No.” A thousand demons howled in his head, his greatest fears come to fruition.

They had killed Lizzie. Cut her sweet throat.
His family was dead. Ben was bleeding his life out on the floor.

All because of him.

Blackness swallowed him; the light went out.
“Noooo!”
The scream that broke from him was a bloodcurdling war cry. He attacked, holding nothing back.

He tore the room apart and set about slashing Staines to ribbons, barely feeling the cuts that he, in turn, sustained. The baronet's expertise was no match for Dev's bloodlust. The murder of Lizzie had unleashed a beast that could never be put back into the cage.

They crashed against one wall, battled across the balcony, nearly flinging each other off it; then Staines threw Dev back inside. Dev picked up a broken chair leg and wielded it in his left hand like a club. It made a useful blocker for Staines's blows.

When Dev saw his opening, he struck with a lightning-fast thrust, and sank his blade into Staines's soft belly, watching without expression as life ebbed from the man.

“Mercy,” Staines croaked out.

Dev snarled and twisted the knife.

Then he dropped the feared duelist to the floor.

He turned away from his bloody work, panting slightly and a little nauseated, but everything in him was cold. There was still more killing to be done.

First, however, he stalked over to his servant and knelt down beside him. “Ben.”

The man's dark eyes opened slowly.

Thank God for that. Dev swallowed hard. “Let's have a look.” He moved Ben's waistcoat aside and tore his shirt to see the wound.

“This is a switch,” the black man remarked, attempting a wan smile, but Dev could not respond in kind. All joy and any possibility of happiness had left his life with Staines's incomprehensible words.

Ben gripped his sleeve. “Dev. Listen to me. Just because he said it doesn't mean it's true. You must
believe
.”

Dev gave him a hard glance and looked away. “The bullet's in your shoulder. You're going to be all right. I have to go.”

As Dev rose, Ben struggled to his feet.

“What are you doing?”

“Coming with you.”

“The hell you are. Go next door and have the neighbors call the surgeon, Ben. You can't sit a horse with that wound.”

“You've done it. Why can't I?”

Dev shook his head at him and left without further argument, running out to the stable. He threw a bridle on the one horse in his barn that had already proved both its extraordinary speed and endurance—the tall dark gelding he had ridden to Bath months ago when he had thought Aunt Augusta was at death's door, thanks to a certain meddling bluestocking.

She couldn't be dead. So much life, warmth, love. He could not wrap his mind around it. A few minutes later, he charged out of the stable astride the horse she had named Star.
Why didn't I marry her then and take her away from all this?
How could he ever have thought that revenge was more important than love?

He rode full speed to Carstairs's house, but as he galloped into the square, he saw a tight knot of people standing about, looking at something on the ground.
Oh, God.
His dread increased tenfold as he saw that it was a person lying motionless on the ground.
Lizzie!
He flung off the horse and ran into the midst, but when he shoved the murmuring onlookers aside, he saw in relief that the victim was a middle-aged man in a carrick-coat.

“What happened here?” he demanded, for with Carstairs's house a stone's throw away, he knew that it had to be connected.

Five people started babbling, all answering his question at once. All of them had heard a commotion and several shots, but none of them seemed to know much.

“We found this!” one helpful woman offered, holding up a leather satchel.

Dev grabbed it and immediately upended it, spilling the contents onto the pavement. Sundry female accouterments informed him in a glance that the bag had belonged to a woman, but what caught his eye was a pair of papers that fluttered to the ground.

Scanning them by moonlight, he saw that they were travelers' waybills. The tickets secured two places on the Irish packet departing tomorrow morning. They were signed by a Mrs. Mary Harris. His eyes widened.

Ginny Highgate!

“Bristol,” he murmured.

Carstairs would be right behind her.

“What do you make of it, sir? Sir? What about Bristol?” the woman called, but Dev was already leaping back up onto his horse, gathering the reins.

Reeling the animal around, he squeezed its sides with his calves. Star sprang forth at his urging; then they galloped hell-for-leather to the Great West Road.

 

Lizzie was finding it a tad difficult to concentrate on her driving under the circumstances as she whipped the horses on, barreling down the Great West Road. For one thing, three maniacs in a racing drag were behind them, shooting at them; for another, she had just seen the poor coachman killed before her very eyes. She did not know whether the love of her life was alive or dead; she was driving unfamiliar horses and a vehicle whose dimensions she was not terribly sure of; it was dark; she was scared out of her wits; and they were about to enter a stretch of road known as a favorite haunt of highwaymen.

The cuts all over her hands from using the shard of glass as a knife seemed the least of her worries, though they made the chafing give and take of the leather reins in her left hand hurt worse. She hated to use the whip on the horses, but feared to think what might happen if she allowed their pace to slow.

And yet somehow she was holding her own—for now, anyway. In a few hours' time, who could say? The road was long; Bristol was even farther than Bath.

With any luck, the highwaymen might get them!

She risked another glance behind and noted how the gentle rise of the road now shielded them from Carstairs's guns, then looked forward again, driving the horses relentlessly. It helped to imagine Devlin sitting beside her like that night on the road to Oakley Park, urging her on, helping her. Steadying her. Telling her she could do it. Sharing his great courage and resourcefulness with her.

She had to believe he was safe.

As the coach barreled onward, the one imperative that rang through her brain was to protect and preserve the life of his little sister. When Lizzie recalled the half-finished puzzle on the floor at Mulberry Cottage, it gave her the chills. Sorscha did not yet know her real name and her true birth, but first they had to survive this night. Lizzie clung to her certainty that reuniting Devlin with his long-lost baby sister would have miraculous healing effects on his wounded soul.

“Blazes,” she whispered, spotting a tight, one-lane bridge ahead. It curved on a slight hump over a small river. She was not sure of the angle at which to hit it; she was not entirely sure of her vehicle's width. She knew that she ought to slow down and take it carefully, but if she lost speed, it would be difficult to regain it. The maniacs would be breathing down their necks in a trice, and this time, she might not succeed in outrunning them.

The horses seemed to know what to do. With the reins in one hand, Lizzie reached down and braced herself with the other, gripping the seat-iron. “Hold on!” she yelled to her passengers as the galloping horses clattered onto the stone bridge, leaving the softer surface of the packed-earth-and-gravel road.

The impact of the front wheels slamming up onto the bridge nearly jarred her teeth out of her head, and the springs groaned in protest, but the coach whooshed through the narrow passage without a scratch on either side.

Lizzie let out a whoop of victory as they crashed back down onto the road, but in a heartbeat, her relief turned to horror. As soon as they left the bridge, she saw a mail coach thundering straight at them, coming dead-on from the opposite direction.

The guard blared the horn, warning her to turn at once, for it could not—the mail coach was larger, had six horses, and was weighted down with all its cargo. Lizzie panicked. The road was too narrow, feeding into the bridge. She was going too fast.

The coaches rushed at each other, reminding her in an aghast, slow-moving second of two knights charging at each other in a joust, the traces of each vehicle ready to collide like lances. With all her strength, she hauled her team to the left. The leader screamed but took her cue. The mail coach thundered by so close she could feel the wind from its passing, but in the terrified blink of an eye, the sudden shift in the horses' direction yanked the coach off balance; it teetered on two wheels.