The Devil to Pay (29 page)

Aleric. Aleric.

And something about the sound of it on her lips made him want to cry. It was so near, yet so distant, like an echo from his past. A call. A pleading, to what he had once been. He needed her. Needed to spend the hurt and anger and frustration, and to feel again what he’d felt last night. Raw emotion swept over him, and with it came a bone-deep ache. For her. Always her. Whoever she was.

He could feel his own heartbeat throbbing through him. His eyes raked the room. The rickety bed had not a prayer, not for what he was about to do. Instead, he pushed her back two steps to the table, and unthinkingly shoved the pewter platter onto the floor. Metal clattered across the planked wood, but Devellyn didn’t stop.

He laid her back on the sturdy oak and dragged up her skirts with one hand. With the other, he released his own clothing, then pulled her to the edge. He must have torn away her drawers—he had no recollection of it—then sheathed himself deep on one smooth stroke.

She cried out and reached up from the table for him. Still standing, Devellyn bent over her body and kissed her. She kissed him back, long and deep, then tried to catch her breath and couldn’t. Need burned through him as if last night had never been. Apart, they were nothing. Wrong. Incomplete. Together, tonight, they were like the rush of a firestorm, fast and incendiary.

In the gloom, Sidonie sobbed out his name again, and it was sweeter still as she arched against him. He lost himself then, thrusting and thrusting, letting the white light flow over him until he lay over her body, tremulous and eviscerated.

Long moments later, he somehow found the strength to lift her from the table and carry her to the bed. He sat down gingerly and settled her across his lap. He set his lips to her forehead. “Did I hurt you?” His voice came out a rough whisper.

She made a sound, something between a sob and a laugh. “No.”

Suddenly, he tore his mouth away. “I am sorry,” he murmured. “I am so sorry, Sidonie. I did not mean to—you are not like—” He couldn’t form the right words to explain what he barely comprehended. “Ah, Sidonie. I can’t bear to be without you. May God help us both.”

She shook her head in astonishment. “Why, Devellyn?” she whispered. “Why me?”

“I don’t know,” he whispered, his mouth pressed to the turn of her throat. “I don’t know why, Sidonie. It’s insanity. But I’ve fallen in love.”

She captured his face in her hands, and brought his gaze to hers. “You know what I am, Devellyn.”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said, realizing how true the words were. “I want you.
Need
you. And I’m not at all sure you deserve such a fate.”

Her eyes filled with confusion. “You asked me if last night was a mistake,” she whispered. “Well, you see what has come of it. I took a foolish risk to have something I desperately wanted. And now, I am discovered. But how can it have been a mistake, any of it? I keep asking myself that, you see. How can something that was…so
beautiful
be wrong?”

“It wasn’t,” he said.

She turned her face into his shirtfront. “Oh, God,” she whispered against his disordered cravat. “Whatever happens, it was worth it.”

Devellyn set his lips to the top of her head and breathed in her warm scent. Her words let the fear close in again. “Good God, the Black Angel!” he said. “Why, Sidonie? Why? Oh, my love, don’t you know they could hang you? Why in God’s name are you doing these dangerous things and living this strange, secret life?”

Sidonie watched the uncharacteristic emotions play over Devellyn’s face. Fear and uncertainty. A measure of grief. He deserved an answer. Haltingly, she tried to give him one. But it made no more sense than when she’d told George. And Devellyn liked it even less.

His eyes darkened, but as if to temper his words, he lifted one hand to stroke her cheek. “Sidonie, there are better, safer ways to help the less fortunate,” he said. “What you are doing is so dangerous, it is madness.”

“You sound like George.”

His voice was firmer now. “This has to stop, Sidonie. No matter what happens between us.
Promise
me.”

She sighed. “How can I?” she finally answered. “I won’t, Devellyn. I can’t. Don’t you understand? I did not mean to fall in love with you. I tried so hard to stay away, but you wouldn’t—you wouldn’t…”

“Take no for an answer?” he supplied. “That’s right, and I shan’t take it now, either. Sidonie, the Black Angel is dead.”

“No,” she whispered. “Not to me.”

“Stop before you get caught,” he begged. “Can you swear to me that won’t happen?”

She was silent for a long moment. “I don’t think it will,” she whispered. “But Lady Kirton—oh, God!—I think she knows, or suspects, at the very least. Still, I think she won’t say anything.”

“I shall deal with Lady Kirton,” he said grimly. “But Sidonie, who else besides you and Julia might know? Who else might possibly figure this out?”

“That the Black Angel and I are one?” she whispered. “No one else knows enough to figure it out. Save you, Aleric. And yet…and yet, you did not.”

“Strangely enough, I think I did,” he countered. “But it was so incongruous, my mind could not make sense of it. I fear, however, someone else’s mind will be more astute. I fear that eventually, someone, somewhere will say or remember something, Sidonie. And what will we do then?”

“It shan’t happen,” she vowed. “I have been exceedingly careful.”

Devellyn wished he felt so confident. “The best protection, you know, would be to marry me,” he said. “My reputation won’t afford you much in the way of respectability, but at least no one would dare accuse you of a crime.”

Sidonie lifted his hand, and kissed his knuckles. “You are more chivalrous, Devellyn, than you like to admit,” she said. “It was one of the first things I noticed about you. You have no charm, it is true. And yet…you charm me as no man ever has.”

He held his breath a moment. “Is that a
yes?”

She shook her head. “It is a definite
no,”
she replied. “There are too many who need help. So many wrongs to right. Try to understand, Aleric. Besides, your family would be appalled.”

His body seemed to stiffen. “My father is appalled by every breath I draw,” he said. “But my mother would be so grateful, she’d likely fall at your feet.”

“Aleric, they would see me as just a poor relation,” Sidonie warned. “An
illegitimate
poor relation, whose mother was a—”

He touched a finger to her lips, cutting her off. “Don’t say it, Sidonie,” he whispered. “She was your mother. As to my mine, she would be grateful you’d have me.”

Sidonie looked askance at him. “You must be mad.”

“Probably,” he admitted. “Still, I could not bear you to be hurt, or get yourself hanged. Sidonie, it still stuns me when I think of it, but I want you to marry me, and bear my children. I have lived in hell these past few hours, just considering what might happen to you. Oh, Sidonie, don’t you care for me? Just a little?”

Sidonie closed her eyes. “Oh, I care,” she whispered. “It frightens me a little, the depth of what I feel for you. I—I love you, Devellyn. There, I have said it. Will you turn it on me now and use it as a weapon?”

Instead, he kissed her feverishly. “Thank God,” he rasped. “Marry me, Sidonie. Please.”

She opened her eyes, and stared at him. “Oh, how you tempt me.”

“Then just say
yes,
Sidonie!” he commanded. “Just say it. I will keep you safe.”

She hesitated, and it gave him hope. “Oh, Devellyn! What would people say?”

“They would say you made a dreadful match,” he said, taking both her hands in his and looking deep into her eyes. “Listen to me, Sidonie,” he said. “In a few days’ time, my mother will be giving a ball. A grand affair in honor of my father’s birthday. Sidonie, I want you to come. My mother is going to invite you, and introduce you into society. And—and your brother, too. Already, I have told her—”

“About
us?”
Sidonie interjected, her eyes widening. “Oh, Devellyn, surely you did not!”

He smiled awkwardly. “About you, yes,” he said. “And your brother. She was not displeased. Indeed, she went so far as to suggest that, given our unfortunate scene in Walrafen’s parlor, I
ought
to marry you.”

But she looked up at him with sorrow in her eyes. “Aleric, it would not work,” she said. “I have a past. A past I am not sure I can give up. And even if your mother accepts me, your father never will.”

“The devil!” he answered. “What does it matter?”

“Perhaps it does not,” she agreed. “But I suspect it matters to you more than you will admit.”

He started to protest again, and she set two fingertips against his lips. “Yes, all right, you overbearing bully,” she said. “I will go to this ball. Yes, I will drag my family history from the closet and even air it in public. And whilst there, I will do my best to make a good impression. But you are asking me to give up the Black Angel. And that is the most meaningful thing I have ever done in my insignificant little life.”

He held her hands tight. “Be my wife,” he said. “That alone will be a monumental task, Sidonie. But at least I am rich. There is much good the Marchioness of Devellyn could do with her husband’s money.”

She looked at him suspiciously. “And if I made such a sacrifice—not that I am promising to do so—what, in turn, would you do?”

“What would I do? What the devil does that mean?”

“Your father is prideful, I’m sure,” she said. “But if he extends the hand of reconciliation, no matter how tenuously, will you reach for it? For the sake of your mother?”

“I just want to marry you,” he muttered. “And Father would sooner die than extend a hand.”

“You might be surprised.” She touched him lightly on the arm. “Or you might be quite right. All I am saying, Aleric, is this: Do not leave anything unsaid between you. I did it, and the wasted words have left a bitter taste in my mouth.”

He cut her a skeptical glance. “What do you mean?”

Sidonie fell silent for a moment. “George says my ruse as the Black Angel is all mixed up in my feelings about Mother,” she finally said. “And I…well, I fear he might be right. When I was young, I did not understand how wretched her life was and how much shame my father forced her to bear. I was hurt, you know, when she sent me away. I felt unloved. So I ran away.”

“Poor girl,” he murmured, setting his lips to her forehead.

Sidonie pushed him back so that she might hold his gaze. “And I stayed away, Aleric,” she went on. “Even in those later years, when Father was dead, and she began to plead with me to visit, I ignored her every overture. Indeed, I took a perverse sort of pleasure in doing so. I have thought about it a great deal these last few weeks, and I think that in the back of my mind, I always felt there would be time later to reconcile. I never dreamt she would die so young. And now, I don’t even know, really, what kind of person she was. I know only that she was human, and filled with faults, as we all are. And I know that whatever it was she wished to say to me—if anything—cannot ever be said now.”

Devellyn knew she was right. There was a terrible permanence to death. “But my father resides just a few miles away in Kent,” he countered. “If he wished to reconcile, he could have long since done so. Our anger, Sidonie, is of a colder, more lethal, sort.”

“Fine!” she said on a sigh. “But just remember, Aleric, that should I agree to what you ask, I shan’t hesitate to express my opinions and concerns.”

Devellyn cut her a dark glance. “By God, Alasdair warned me this would happen.”

“That
what
would happen?”

“Meddling. Poking. Prodding.” His lip twitched with humor, but somehow, he held the scowl. “All those things females commence doing as soon as a fellow thinks about settling down.”

Sidonie drew back and looked at him. “You wish to withdraw your offer of marriage, then?” she said, suppressing a small smile. “Pray feel free. My brother will doubtless be thrilled.”

Devellyn did not wish to withdraw his offer. Instead, he sat, fascinated, as Sidonie peeled little bits of rubber from behind her ears, washed off her makeup, then took down her real hair. A few simple twists, and the hair was once again restrained and elegant. She turned the cloak inside out, to a drab shade of gray and buttoned it snugly. It was time, thank God, to go home.

She kept her hand on his arm as they walked, and the warmth of it comforted him. He was still awash in a sense of relief. She was safe. She did love him. Perhaps he had not yet convinced her he was worthy of that love, and worthy of the sacrifice which must be made. But for the second time in his misbegotten, misspent life, Devellyn allowed hope to kindle in his heart.

The hope soon dimmed. He had avoided the inn’s busy front entrance by leading Sidonie out the back and into an alley that cut across Gutter Lane. He wondered now if that had been a mistake. The lane was in some ways aptly named. Despite its proximity to the City’s business district, several brothels dotted the area, becoming more apparent when the coffee shops and counting-houses closed.

Suddenly, at a house just ahead of them, a girl burst backward through the front door, cursing like a sailor as she tumbled down the steps. She landed on her arse in the street. A plump, gaudily dressed woman came out as far as the doorstep, and spat after her.

“And that’s what you can do w’ your fine, pretty ways, me dear,” she said. “I’ve no work for the likes of you.”

The girl was on her feet now, but her yellow hair was tumbling down, and her bright purple dress was streaked with filth. “Ow, buggar off, you wicked old witch,” she shouted up the steps. “I ain’t swiving no crusty goat wiv not a real tooth in his head. Give ’im ter Maryanne, and let ’er do ’im. Fuck anything, she will.”

At that, the bawd came down the steps and soundly backhanded the girl. Sidonie, of course, had broken away from Devellyn and was rushing forward. “See here!” she cried, pulling the bawd away. “Leave her alone! What right have you to hit her?”

“What right?” asked the bawd incredulously. “Owes me rent, she does. What’s it to you, anyways?” Then she eyed Devellyn suspiciously. “Get back up them steps and shut yer gob, Bess. We’ll let these fine folk be on their way.”