Tempt the Devil Page 11

  “It has no future, my lord.” Her chill tone was more familiar than the husky, scared voice she’d used earlier.

  Ah, she recovered her spirit. Good. He felt like a fight, and berating a woman who pretended fear offered no satisfaction. Now she faced him with her chin up and her backbone straight. Few men of his acquaintance would be so bold. She might be faithless, but she was undoubtedly brave. He quashed a twinge of reluctant approbation.

  He grabbed her arm in its dark green, close-fitting sleeve. “We’ll talk about that on our way back to London, madam.”

  “Sir, unhand Miss Raines!” The stripling lurched forward and snatched at Erith’s hand, trying to tug it from Olivia. “You have no call to treat a lady in this fashion!”

  “For your own sake, I’d step away, boy,” Erith grated through clenched teeth.

  “I’m no boy!” the youth retorted.

  “Leo, stand back. This is between Lord Erith and myself,” Olivia said urgently.

  “No, Miss Raines. This man is no gentleman.”

  “No gentleman, hmm?” Without releasing Olivia, Erith turned his attention on the stripling. And found himself looking into a face that was a mirror image of Lord Peregrine Montjoy’s.

  Chapter 9

  All Erith’s certainties dissolved in a shocked instant. A taste bitter as aloes flooded his mouth while his mind screamed astounded denial.

  For an absurd moment he stood paralyzed, one hand on Olivia, one gripping the horse’s reins, and the boy clutching his arm. Then he snatched violently away. Breathing hurt, as though someone had punched him hard in the gut.

  The boy was still bristling. He stared down his nose at the much taller earl. The haughty expression was so familiar, it made Erith’s heart contract in his chest.

  “I demand satisfaction, sir. You’ve behaved as a complete boor. You will name your seconds.”

  “Leo, no!” Olivia pushed herself in front of him, confirming what Erith already knew in his bones to be true. Her voice shook with urgency. “He doesn’t mean it, Erith. He’s only a child. You can’t fight a child. I won’t believe it of you. However angry you are, you won’t do this. Not if you consider yourself a man of honor.”

  “I’m not a child, Miss Raines!” the stripling spluttered, his clear olive complexion turning a mottled red as his anger focused briefly on Olivia.

  “No, of course you’re not.” Erith remembered with a pang how sensitive a boy’s pride could be. And this boy with his courage and his bridling temper wasn’t much younger than Erith had been when he married and had children of his own. “I hope you’ll accept my unreserved apology.”

  “Erith…” Olivia’s mouth dropped open with amazement.

  He briefly resented that she was surprised when reason ruled him. But the crazy yen for violence had evaporated the moment he’d seen the lad’s face. What remained was a desperate craving for answers.

  The boy wasn’t mollified. “The apology should not be for me but for this lady, sir. She’s the one you offended.”

  “You’re right,” Erith said smoothly. He turned and bowed to Olivia. “Your pardon, Miss Raines. I spoke out of turn.”

  Gracious as a queen, she inclined her head. “I accept your apology, my lord.”

  “My lord?” The boy looked taken aback. He must have missed what Olivia said when she gasped Erith’s name.

  Displeasure tautened Olivia’s face, but Erith had placed her in a position where introductions were unavoidable. He refused to help her. His curiosity burned like a brand.

  She gave a sigh. “Lord Erith, may I present my godson, Leonidas Wentworth?”

  “Mr. Wentworth,” Erith said, even as his mind bounced the name around his acquaintance. He knew no Wentworths, but that hardly mattered. The boy’s heritage was written in his features. No wonder Olivia kept him hidden in this backwater.

  “Leo, this is a…a friend of mine, the Earl of Erith.”

  “My lord.” Leonidas Wentworth performed a creditable if rather frosty bow. He was a graceful youth, Erith had already noticed. Of course with his parentage, he would be. “I’ve never met any of Miss Raines’s London associates before. Apart from Lord Peregrine.”

  Erith approved of the stiffness in his manner. It spoke to the boy’s principles being more important to him than the chance to toady to a rich nobleman.

  But youthful hauteur cracked as Leo glanced past the earl to the horse nosing without much interest at the thick grass. Erith had no trouble interpreting the longing that glowed in his thickly lashed dark eyes. The same thickly lashed dark eyes that had surveyed him with abhorrence in Lord Peregrine’s London town house.

  “Would you care to water Bey? The poor beast hasn’t had a drink since leaving London.”

  A smile lightened the boy’s face. He truly was a beautiful youth. “I’d like nothing better, sir. Spanish, is he?”

  Erith was impressed. The lad knew his horseflesh. “Yes. About ten years ago I imported a few Andalusians into my stud at Selden to strengthen the bloodlines. Bey’s one of my first successes.”

  Anger forgotten, Wentworth accepted the reins. With palpable delight, he led the horse to the pond.

  “You shouldn’t have followed me,” Olivia hissed under her breath as she stepped closer, although the boy was outside earshot of anything except the most vituperative shrieking. And Erith couldn’t imagine his mistress descending to hysterics, however angry she was.

  “No, I shouldn’t,” he admitted.

  “What were you thinking?” She vibrated like a struck tuning fork.

  He leveled a steely look on her. “You know what I was thinking. That you had a lover.”

  “I told you I was faithful.”

  “Women lie.”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do.”

  For an electric moment the memory of the last two nights, difficult, painful, compelling, rose between them. With vivid bitterness he remembered spending himself on the sheets in great gasping spurts while she stretched, trembling and distraught, at his side.

  Color flooded her cheeks much as it had flooded the boy’s not so long ago. “You granted me complete independence of movement when I agreed to be your lover.”

  He shrugged. “What can I say? I was jealous.”

  Hell, he’d been mad with jealousy. The admission gnawed at him. Bewildered him. How had she brought him to such a peak of emotion when he discovered her leaving London, and even more when he caught her with Wentworth? She was merely a passing diversion during a brief sojourn in London. But when he thought she’d betrayed him, he had become a wild animal, ready to rend and claw and bite to keep what was his.

  And he’d known her less than a week.

  Would her fascination pall as familiarity grew? He had an ominous feeling that as time passed, he’d only become more entwined in the chains of attraction.

  Just as quickly as Olivia’s color had risen, it receded again. Clearly she recognized the shattering importance of what he’d just confessed. “I don’t believe you.”

  “I have trouble believing it myself.”

  Her mouth flattened in an implacable line, and with an emphatic gesture, she brushed back a few loose strands of hair that came free around her cheeks. Even her hair was different here. Simpler. Looser. More becoming.

  Her voice was still low. “Our affair can’t continue, you realize? I will not be tracked or confined or spied upon.” She paused, and he realized she resented having to come down off her high horse to ask a favor. “My lord, I rely on your honor never to speak of what you’ve seen in this place.”

  He gave a short, genuinely amused laugh. She really was used to leading a lover around by the nose. Sometimes he liked to oppose her just for the sake of watching her prickle. In this case, though, more was at stake than the seesawing game of dominance they played. “Oho, my lady, you’re not getting out of things that easily.”

  “My lord—”

  “You can ‘my lord’ me into the ground, Olivia. The f
ormality changes nothing between us. It’s too late to pretend we’re little more than strangers.”

  “We are little more than strangers,” she said sullenly.

  “Intimate strangers, then.” He glanced over to where Wentworth fussed over the gray horse. “I’ll fetch Bey, if that boy gives him back. I have my doubts. It looked like love at first sight.”

  “What do you know of love?” she muttered, still simmering with hostility.

  He reached out and touched her cheek briefly. “More than you’d think.”

  Her lips parted with surprise.

  He laughed again. “I know you believe I was brought up by wolves and I’ve been living like a wolf ever since. Sorry to disappoint you. I’m as human as anyone else.” Before she could muster any argument, he stepped past. “I’ll go into the village. I assume there’s one near the church and that it boasts an inn.”

  “Yes, Wood End is on the other side of the trees.” Her voice took on a trace of satisfaction. “It’s a sorry place. You won’t like it.”

  His smile was grim. “I’m not expecting to like it. I want somewhere to wait while you finish your visit. I take it you don’t want to introduce your mad, bad lover to the good vicar and his wife.”

  She became even paler. As before, he noticed that when her color fled, faint freckles formed a line across her cheekbones and nose. Like a ghost of the girl she’d once been. The girl he intended to discover, no matter how she tried to evade his questions.

  “No. No, I don’t want you to meet them.”

  “Bring the carriage by the village on your way and we’ll travel back to London together.”

  “Wouldn’t you rather ride?” she asked with a hint of desperation.

  “No. I’d rather talk to you. There are things we need to discuss.”

  “I don’t agree.”

  With another smile and a flourish of his blue coat, he sank down on the worn bench. He leaned back and folded his arms across his chest. “Well, we can talk now. I’m at leisure.”

  She cast him a killing look under her thick tawny lashes, but he knew that for once he had all the advantages. She’d want complete privacy for the coming interview, even if she intended to reveal nothing. His indiscreet questions could stir up trouble in this quiet retreat.

  “I curse the day I met you,” she said, with real feeling. Her mouth was tense with displeasure and the small mole on her cheek stood out on her white skin like a dark beacon.

  He let his smile widen. “Don’t think if you’re nice to me you’ll cajole me into letting you off the hook.”

  “I’m not a salmon, Erith,” she said icily. “I’ll see you in the village in an hour. If you’re not outside the inn, I’ll leave without you. And you and your threats can go to Hades.”

  With an irritated swish of her skirts, she stalked toward the rectory. Erith watched her go, as always admiring the subtle curves of her hips and the grace of her carriage. Annoyance added a swing to her gait. He liked it.

  It was closer to an hour and a half later when the black coach pulled up outside the village’s pathetic excuse for a hostelry. Olivia hadn’t exaggerated when she’d called it a poor place. Erith had endured an awkward hour in the filthy taproom drinking watery beer while lumpen yokels stared at him in vacant wonder.

  After the hour was up, he’d been pleased to go out and wait in the sunshine with Bey. Although the spectacular horse created even more stir among the locals than an earl had inside the dingy inn.

  His discomfort wasn’t purely a result of the unwelcome attention he received in the village. In this obscure corner of the kingdom, the smells and sights and sounds of rural England surrounded him. On the ride down he’d been too angry to notice the burgeoning green around him. He hadn’t been in the English countryside for years, probably since the days of his marriage. He’d forgotten the sweet, blossoming poignancy of spring. He’d forgotten how lush the fields were. He’d forgotten the rich smell of English crops growing in English soil.

  As a young man he’d wanted nothing more than to run his estates and grow old on the lands his father bequeathed to him. Then Joanna died and his life twisted away from its safe, comfortable shape.

  Strange, he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed the familiar countryside. And he had missed it, with a depth of painful longing he only now recognized.

  Olivia’s coachman climbed down and fought his way through the crowd of filthy urchins to take Bey’s reins. “Shall I tie him to the back of the carriage, my lord?”

  “Yes.” Erith strode toward the vehicle. He’d thought he might have to trample the little ruffians, but they recognized his authority and swerved out of his way.

  He swung the door open and climbed inside. As he’d expected, the conveyance was the latest word in luxury, from the ruby red Morocco leather seats to the tasseled silk cushions and gleaming wood fittings. He took his place with his back to the horses and looked speculatively across to where his mistress sat in mute elegance in the opposite corner.

  After the bright sunlight outside, she was a creature of shadows. He felt her eyes on him as he settled, stretching his legs out across the well between the seats and resting his broad shoulders against the upholstery.

  She was dressed for town again, in the fashionable bonnet and gloves. She seemed a subtly different woman from the virago who had confronted him beside the pond. But today he’d seen too much to believe that only the cold courtesan existed inside her.

  For all Olivia’s outward calm, he could smell the tension under her sweet floral scent. She braced for his attack like a trapped antelope waiting for the lion to spring. The savage lurking inside him wanted nothing more than to seize her in his arms and kiss that stern mouth into softness. The enforced intimacy of the coach reminded him he was yet to lose himself in her spare, glorious body.

  He tried to ignore the animal side of his nature. But it was difficult when she was so close.

  “You’re late,” he said, as much to pierce the silence as to chastise her.

  “Yes.” Her voice was clipped. She was still angry. Perhaps even angrier than before, now that she didn’t fear for Leonidas and there were no witnesses to their confrontation.

  She didn’t need to tell Erith that she’d deliberately delayed picking him up. Had she imagined if she was late, he’d go without her? What did the wench think? That his noble dignity wouldn’t extend to waiting half an hour? She underestimated both his patience and his curiosity.

  The carriage lurched into motion, and he watched her lift one slender arm to grip the leather strap for balance.

  Aha, my lady, I’m going to put you off balance and keep you that way.

  He spread his arms along the back of the seat, settling himself into the coach’s rocking motion. His appearance of relaxation would rile her. His eyes had adjusted to the gloom, and he read the cool rejection in her striking features.

  The air was thick with everything unspoken between them. He had no difficulty divining Olivia’s strategy. She meant to freeze him into silence and keep him that way until they reached London and the announcement she would remove herself to Lord Peregrine’s town house forthwith. With perhaps one final plea to keep what he’d discovered today to himself.

  Unfortunately for her, his plans were different. And his plans would prevail. He drew a deep breath and launched his attack.

  “Leonidas Wentworth is your son.”

  Chapter 10

  As Erith flung the uncompromising words at her, Olivia flinched and her face turned pale as moonlight. She snatched her hand from the strap to press it trembling against her breast. Her shock and fear were unmistakable.

  In the charged silence that followed his statement, he wondered if she meant to lie and deny what he’d said.

  He should have known better.

  He heard her draw in a shuddering breath. She raised her chin and spoke defiantly. “Yes.”

  Her expression was cold and closed. Her full lips took on a tense line and the gloved ha
nd she held to her chest formed a fist. She bristled with hostility so powerful, it was almost tangible in the close confines of the carriage.

  He sharply regretted that when he pried into her secrets, he hurt her. But while he waited in the village, he’d had time to ponder today’s revelations. If he was to help her, he needed to know what had happened in her past and what he could do to gain long-delayed justice.

  Ever since that jagged moment when he’d realized Leo was her son, a roiling mess of conflicting emotions had churned in Erith’s gut. Amazement. Appalled outrage. Protectiveness. Sorrow. A voracious hunger for vengeance.

  Curiosity that burned like acid.

  “You must have been little more than a child when you bore him.” His tone remained austere although he could hardly bear to imagine what she’d endured. He was afraid that if he loosened the ruthlessly tight rein on his rage and grief, he’d lash out and terrify her indeed. Even though none of his anger was directed at her. Good God, how could it be? “How old are you now? Thirty?”

  “Thirty-one,” she snapped.

  Older than he’d thought. But in any just world, far too young to have a son of nearly adult age.

  “And he’s what? Sixteen? Seventeen?”

  The boy’s lanky height had originally fooled Erith into thinking him a few years older. Not surprising first impressions led him astray. Erith had observed the youth from yards away and through the distorting mirror of a virulent jealousy he still cringed to admit.

  Leo didn’t resemble his mother in much except for a slight lordliness to his manner. And that intense pride. The same pride he saw in Olivia now as she sat opposite him, spine ruler straight, eyes blazing, chin up.

  “This is none of your concern, my lord.” Her voice was as icy and cutting as sleet on a windy winter moor.

  The frail intimacy they’d established in the last few days might never have existed. She built a high wall around herself, invisible but real as the leather-covered seat beneath him. Unluckily for her, he intended to lay siege to her defenses. Batter them down if need be.