Fallen Angel (25 page)

For a long, uncomprehending moment, Forsythe stared at him. By degrees, the frown faded from his brow and he visibly relaxed. "Your wife," he reiterated blankly.

"My wife," affirmed Deveryn. He leaned forward in his chair and laid both hands flat on the desktop in a faintly menacing posture. "With or without her guardian's consent."

The challenge hung on the air as the eyes of the two men locked. A frisson of alarm danced along the solicitor's straightening spine. For one uneasy moment, it seemed to him that he'd just been challenged to a duel. Unexpectedly, he grinned.

"So ye mean to marry the lass?" he asked on a low, throaty chuckle.

Without knowing why, Deveryn found himself grinning back.

"If I can discover how it may be done," he confided, and resumed his former indolent posture.

Forsythe's shrewd eyes studied the viscount from beneath dark bushy eyebrows. He had made good use of his time since Deveryn had first stunned him with intelligence that Sinclair had lost Drumoak in a game of cards. A few words over a pint with the stewards of Lords Dalkeith, Roseberry, and of His Grace, Baccleough himself, had left him in no doubt of the integrity of the man who sat before him like a drowsy lion lazily observing the antics of an unwary antelope. By any yardstick, the man was wealthy. And he wanted to marry Maddie. Incredible! A question hovered on his lips. On second thoughts, he swallowed it.

"Ye don't need her guardian's consent," he said, breaking the silence.

"What?"

"Not if ye wed her in Scotland."

"Gretna Green? That's out of the question."

Those careless words raised Deveryn's credit even higher in the other man's eyes. Still, Forsythe was not forgetting that the viscount had put him through a most uncomfortable twenty- four hours before taking him into his confidence. Let him squirm a little, he thought.

"And what have ye got against Gretna Green?" he asked slyly. "It's a bonny wee place."

"Also notorious."

"And romantic," purred Forsythe, smiling broadly.

"Yes, but only for fortune hunters.
I'm
not of that ilk, as I've no doubt you've gathered from your sources by now."

Forsythe gave an appreciative chortle. "A wee dram is called for," he said, and extricated a bottle and two tot glasses from the bottom drawer of his desk. Deveryn dutifully accepted the proffered drink and nursed it idly as he considered the unholy gleam of amusement in the older man's eye.

"You know something I don't know," he offered. "Aye."

"So." He sipped slowly. His patience was soon rewarded.

"How much do ye know about Scots Law, Lord Deveryn?"

"Next to nothing."

"Och, for an educated man, ye're terribly ignorant."

"So my mother tells me. Get to the point." He drained his glass and set it on the desk.

Forsythe decided that his lordship's patience was showing signs of wear and tear. "In Scotland, any lad or lass over the age of sixteen years is free to wed without a guardian's consent by simple declaration before witnesses."

The viscount looked doubtful at this bald statement, and Forsythe went on to clarify. "Gretna Green is merely a convenience—the first haven across our mutual border for fleeing lovers. Of course," he went on, his Scottish burr becoming more pronounced by the minute, "the main obstacle is finding someone willing to witness the ceremony. Respectable folk, as ye may well imagine, look askance at such dubious goings on."

"A minister, a priest?"

"Highly unlikely, but not impossible. Then again, the banns would have to be read. That requires time."

"How much time?"

"Two months or more, an unnecessary delay if ye're pressed for time."

"Aren't there stipulations about domicile and such like?"

"Only in the case of an annulment or divorce. Not for marriage by declaration."

Deveryn casually leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers together. "Not a church wedding then. But I won't have her married over the anvil." He rolled his head on the back of the chair and gazed absently toward the light of the window. "A solicitor then, such as yourself, Mr. Forsythe?" he suggested quietly.

"Aye. Under certain stipulations."

A long pause ensued.

"Which are?" asked Deveryn softly.

Forsythe took his time in emulating his lordship's example. He settled himself more comfortably in his commodious
leather chair. He brought his hands together in an attitude of prayer. "That the wee lass be amply provided for."

"I presume we are talking about marriage settlements and such like."

"You might say so."

"Done," said Deveryn coming upright in one easy movement. "Then let's get down to business."

He left the solicitor's office with a spring in his step and whistling the bawdy refrain of some long forgotten drinking song he had picked up in his carefree undergraduate days in Oxford. He threw back his head and laughed, feeling the first genuine easing of the remorse that had laid him by the heels since the night he had taken Maddie's innocence. The word
rape
flashed into his mind. He vigorously suppressed it, substituting the far more tolerable
seduction.
The thought that Maddie appeared to be untouched by that first brush with a man's baser, darker passions buoyed his hopes. Never, he promised himself, never would he ever again subject her to a side of his nature that made him a stranger to himself. He had never touched a woman in anger before. And that he should do so with the only woman he had ever felt any genuine feeling for, seemed totally incomprehensible.

A blast of cold air came whipping along Hanover Street and for the next few minutes he was engaged in a tussle with an invisible enemy who wrestled him for possession of his curly brimmed beaver. Deveryn bent into the wind, as if shouldering his way through a throng of people. God but he would never get used to these wild, North Sea winds! The air in Oxfordshire was balmy, the breezes gentle. Maddie would love it, given time.

But Maddie was not about to fall in with his plans without a struggle. She would fight him every inch of the way. His grunt of annoyance was swallowed by the wind. In other circumstances, he would have allowed her as much time as was necessary to overcome her objections. But time was of the essence. Moreover, a gentleman did not take his pleasure with a gently bred girl and leave her in the lurch. She might have at least given him credit for trying to do the honourable thing.

And he'd be damned if he'd allow Maddie to put him in the wrong over the business with her father. Such things were regrettable but scarcely of sufficient consequence to have him turned away like some misbegotten miscreant. And she was determined to misinterpret his motives with respect to Drumoak.
Why
couldn't she understand that he was doing everything in his power to make restitution? Hadn't he just instructed the solicitor to tie up the property in such a way that both Donald Sinclair's dependents
Would
benefit? And wasn't he about to invest a considerable sum of capital to restore the place to its former prosperity? The girl was too proud for her own good. What she needed was . . .

He was past the shopwindow at the corner of Princes Street before the picture of shimmering satin penetrated his consciousness. He retraced his steps. The gown was elegant, a day dress and grey, but so pale as to be almost white. He knew enough about ladies' fashions to know that it was of French design and up to the mark on all suits. Perfect. He'd be damned if he'd let his bride marry him in black.

He returned to the inn with a large elaborately trimmed box under his arm. Maddie was in the private parlour he had reserved for the day, in the act of removing her pelisse. He noted with approval the glow in her cheeks and the sparkle in her eye.

"Where did you get to?" he asked and laid his burden carefully on the table which gave no evidence now of the feast Maddie had enjoyed an hour or two before.

She glanced at the box curiously. "I walked to my old school in Charlotte Square."

More to make conversation and to prolong the harmony between them than to elicit information, he observed, "I take it that your memories of school days are fond ones?"

"Extremely," she answered without elaboration.

His fingers seemed to be all thumbs as he attacked the knots of string around the box. "I suppose you picked up a smattering of this and that," he said, not really attending his own words, aware only that the knots were at last undone, the lid of the box removed, and the tissue paper thrust aside to reveal the skene of silk, looking like pale moonlight on a wintry night. He girded himself for battle.

"What's that?" she asked, her voice oddly wavering between awe and suspicion.

"Your wedding dress."

"My . . ."

"I've prevailed upon Forsythe to witness our vows this afternoon."

"Our vows?"

"We're to be married in his office at four o'clock."

"Oh." Her legs felt like water. Before they could buckle under her, she sank into the nearest chair. "Is that supposed to atone for all you've done to me?"

She was thinking of her father and the loss of Drumoak. Especially Drumoak. He was thinking of the night he had taken her innocence.

"If you like," he answered.

The words came out clipped and careless, as if he were indifferent to the mayhem he had caused in her life.

"And if I refuse?"

"I can't let you. In spite of that faradiddle you told me this morning, even now you might be pregnant with my child."

"Then we'll wait."

"It won't answer." He crossed the distance between them and cupped her shoulders with his hands. His voice gentled. "Once you go to your grandfather, you come under English law, Maddie. You cannot marry without the consent of your guardian. That might take months in coming."

Her mind sifted the puzzle with typical thoroughness. It became an impersonal exercise in dialectics. "If it becomes necessary, I suppose we could always come back to Scotland," she ventured at length.

"Stop arguing!" he roared. "The matter has already been decided. Anything might happen to me between now and then. D'you imagine that I'd let my heir be born a bastard?"

His anger shocked her. Also, his want of logic, not to mention his coarse language. If the child were born
out of
wedlock, she carefully substituted, Deveryn would
have
no heir. Wisely, she refrained from telling him so.

"I was only trying to help," she protested. It was obvious that Deveryn's first concern was for some hypothetical child whose future existence was highly improbable.

She watched in gathering resentment as he paced before her. Involuntarily, she jumped when he rounded on her.

"I've bespoken a chamber where you can change. There's a girl there now. She'll help you with your things. I took the liberty of buying you stockings and slippers and so on." He spoke in a tone that brooked no argument.

"I won't marry you and that's final," she argued.

She was still repeating those words as a granite-faced Deveryn threw her on top of the bed in front of the horrified eyes of the young chambermaid and threatened to tear the dress from her back.

She said them again, with less conviction, as he dragged her up the dark staircase to the solicitor's rooms. At the entrance, he spun her to face him. In tight-lipped silence, he adjusted the long elaborate puff sleeves of the highnecked spencer which matched the gossamer silk of the underdress.

"Fits like a glove," he grunted, and propelled her, without ceremony, into the outer office. Without hesitation, he moved to Forsythe's booklined inner sanctum.

The solicitor rose to his feet as they entered, a smile of welcome creasing his cheeks. In one stride, he was before Maddie and had grasped her gloved hand in his.

"Maddie," he exclaimed, "all grown-up and a beautiful bride. Your gown is magnificent."

"Oh," she said, her thoughts chasing each other in frantic confusion. She glanced down at her wedding finery. For the first time it registered that the frock which Deveryn had provided was uncommonly elegant and finer than anything she had ever possessed in her life. She touched her hands to the delicate fabric as if it were more fragile than snowflakes. The turned down collar of the spencer was decorated with a row of faced slits, the -bodice heavily embroidered with white satin- stitched petals. The sleeves, in a series of diminishing puffs, reached from shoulder to wrist. A white satin ribbon to match the ribbons in her hair, was tied snuggly under her bosom, and on the padded hem of her gown was a deep scalloped border with appliquéd petals. Mr. Forsythe had not exaggerated. The gown was magnificent. Her eyes lifted to Deveryn's. "It's beautiful," she said softly. But she thought that he was more beautiful still in his dark, cut-away coat and beige pantaloons with matching waistcoat. Her eyes travelled to the spun gold locks which licked around the edge of his white starched collar.