The Devil Who Tamed Her (2 page)

“W
HAT WAS SHE TALKING ABOUT
?”

“Why do I feel insulted?”

“She must have overheard you talking about her. I
told
you not to talk so loud.”

“I don’t gossip,” said a female voice with a humph.

“You were doing just that. But don’t worry about it. A pretty gel like that will always inspire gossip.”

Raphael was chuckling softly to himself as he listened to the indignant huffing in the foyer. The ice queen, the name he had given to Ophelia Reid, his friend’s ex-fiancée, hadn’t just taken her annoyance out on him for his remarks that caused her to storm off. She’d also said to the large group in the foyer, “Don’t mind me, I’m just passing through. You can get back to gossiping about me in a moment,” before she disappeared back upstairs.

The tongues had returned to wagging, just louder this time, now that they were assured Ophelia wasn’t as close as the next room. What a fascinating creature she was, much more complex than he’d first thought, when all he’d known about her was her capacity for starting and spreading nasty rumors.

Raphael hadn’t expected to make new friends in this small corner of Yorkshire. Being the Duke of Norford’s firstborn and in line for the title, he’d never lacked for friends, real or otherwise, but had lost touch with most of his chums when he’d gone abroad several years ago. He was surprised at how quickly he’d taken to Duncan MacTavish though, possibly because the Scot was so testy when they’d first met and was so easy to rile up, which he’d found quite amusing.

They were of a similar age, Raphael in his midtwenties, Duncan a bit younger. Both were tall, strapping young men, athletically built, quite handsome, though they otherwise looked nothing alike. Duncan’s hair was an unfashionable dark red, his eyes dark blue, while Raphael was blessed with blond locks and blue eyes of a lighter shade. And their positions were identical in that they were both at the top of the list of the most sought-after bachelors to show up in the same Season, both in line to inherit esteemed titles.

Raphael wasn’t looking for a wife though and wouldn’t be doing so for a good number of years yet. But Duncan had two grandfathers who agreed that he couldn’t get started soon enough on producing their next heir, which was why so many young debutantes had been invited to Summers Glade, and why for once, Raphael wasn’t the object of their pursuit. The ton knew that Duncan wanted a wife, and that Raphael didn’t.

Oddly enough, the one female that Duncan had shown the most interest in hadn’t been invited to the gathering, Sabrina Lambert, his charming neighbor. Such an adorable chit, no beauty, but priceless nonetheless with her wonderful sense of humor that could cheer even the dourest disposition. Raphael had only been half-joking when he’d asked her to marry him himself! But he’d quickly become friends with Sabrina—how could anyone not—and had even dabbled at matchmaking, something he’d never done before, to get her and Duncan to realize they were made for each other.

“What’s all the jabbering aboot?” Duncan said when he joined Raphael in the entrance hall.

“Do you really need to ask?” Raphael replied with a grin, and motioned for them to move into the parlor where they wouldn’t be overheard. “Ophelia caught your guests gossiping about her and actually remarked on it.”

“She hasna left yet?”

“Just waiting for her coach I believe. But you’ll never guess what happened after the Newbolt chit was done reviling Ophelia. I’m still a bit dazed by it m’self.”

Raphael had listened to most of Mavis’s earlier allegations when she’d arrived to save the day, spilling a good deal of bile that pretty much explained why she was Ophelia’s enemy. Some of it he’d just heard repeated in the parlor between them, though Mavis hadn’t seemed nearly as vitriolic when she’d thought she and Ophelia were alone. She’d actually seemed a bit defensive, leading him to wonder if any of them had really heard the whole of it.

However earlier, he hadn’t felt that Ophelia was quite contrite enough for all the trouble she’d caused, and he’d intended to castigate her some himself. He certainly hadn’t expected what had occurred when he’d caught her alone upstairs.

He didn’t keep Duncan in suspense any longer. “Ophelia Reid was in my arms, crying her heart out. It was a most amazing experience!”

Duncan wasn’t amazed, in fact his snort was quite loud. “So you dinna ken the difference ’tween fake tears and real ones?”

“On the contrary, they were quite real. Look here at my shoulder. My coat is still a little damp.”

“A little spit, nae doubt,” Duncan scoffed, barely glancing at Raphael’s coat.

Raphael laughed, but then Duncan hadn’t been present to see the tears running down Ophelia’s pretty face. “By God, they’re real, aren’t they?” he’d said to Ophelia when he set her back from him after she’d collided with him in the upstairs hall. He’d even touched her wet cheek with his finger before he’d added, “And you thought to not share them with anyone? I’m impressed.”

“Leave…me be,” she’d barely managed to choke out.

He didn’t. Awkwardly, and utterly amazed by his own impulse, he had drawn her back to him and let her make use of his shoulder. Appalling shortcoming of his, to be a sucker for tears, real ones, that is, but there it was, and he was bloody well likely to regret it in this instance.

He’d sighed inwardly, but there was no help for it. Ophelia’s narrow body was trembling with emotion, and it was incredible just how much emotion was pouring out on his shoulder. Not that he thought the ice inside her was melting. No indeed. Never would he think that. The Lockes did not raise fools.

But to Duncan he said now, “What a skeptic you are, old man, but I
do
happen to know the difference. Fake tears have no effect on me, none whatsoever, but real ones manage to wrench my gut every bloody time. It’s my gut that tells me what’s real or not. My sister’s tears, for instance, my gut tells me they’re
always
fake.”

“Tears from Ophelia would imply she was hurt by that verbal lashing Mavis gave her, but I’ve proof tae the contrary,” Duncan said.

“What proof?”

“When I was thinking I’d be stuck wi’ the lass, I feared it would be impossible for her tae change, that she was tae far gone in her self-absorption. I was sure it was a lost cause. So I confronted her. I told her that I dinna like her ways, dinna like the spite she was capable of, dinna like the way she treated people, as if nae one matters but herself. But I was desperate, so I told her we could live in peace only if she could change. D’you think she agreed tae try?”

“If you really did say all that to her, she probably got defensive,” Raphael guessed.

Duncan shook his head. “Nae, she merely stated what she truly believes. She said there is nothing wrong wi’ the way she behaves, and she even stressed the
nothing
. And there’s your proof. That shrewish beauty will ne’er change her ways. I’d be staking my life on it.”

“I wouldn’t want your life in the pot, but I’m always game for a friendly bet. Fifty pounds says you’re wrong. Anyone is capable of changing, even her.”

Duncan chuckled. “Make it a hundred pounds. I love a sure bet. But she’ll be returning tae London now tae cause trouble there, and I’m hoping I ne’er lay eyes on her again, so how will we be settling this bet?”

“I’ll be returning to London as well, or—hmmm…”

The thought that occurred to Raphael was so surprising, it shocked even him, so he certainly wasn’t going to voice it aloud. He needed to dissect it carefully and consider the ramifications.

“What?” Duncan asked impatiently.

Raphael shrugged nonchalantly to put his friend off. “Just a thought that needs further examination, old chap.”

“Well, now that I’ve been saved from a fate worse than death—having tae marry that shrew!—I’m just glad I’ll be seeing the last o’ her. I’ll be asking the right woman tae marry me now, the one I love.”

Raphael knew his friend was referring to Sabrina Lambert, and he took it for granted that her answer would be yes. From Duncan’s grin, he could see his friend did too. Sabrina might have professed they were only friends, but it was obvious that she was in love with Duncan. “I’m not sure yet where I’ll be staying, so send the wedding invitation to Norford Hall. They’ll know where to find me.”

Duncan nodded and went off to find his grandfathers to give them the good news. Alone in the parlor, Raphael considered the amazing idea that had occurred to him, but he only had a few minutes to decide whether to act on it or to discard it as ridiculous. Ophelia’s coach would be outside soon, which left him no time for a thorough deliberation. He either had to act immediately or not at all.

O
PHELIA STARED OUT THE WINDOW
of the coach at the harsh winter countryside as she and Sadie traveled south through Yorkshire on the way home to London. The grass was all brown, the trees mostly barren, though a few still held on to their brown leaves. It was a scene as bleak as her own thoughts.

Had she really thought it would be different, her actual come-out? That the men she met wouldn’t be dazzled by her mere glance? That there wouldn’t be another hundred proposals to add to the countless ones she’d received before she had even reached a marriageable age. And why did they do it? Did even one of them love her? Of course they didn’t. They didn’t even know her!

Her so-called friends were no different, liars the lot of them. God, how she despised such leeches. Not one of them was a real friend and never had been. They only flocked to her because of her popularity, which was merely because of her beauty. The fools! Did they really think she didn’t know why they called themselves her dearest friends? She knew why. She’d always known it. If she didn’t look the way she did, they wouldn’t keep coming back to receive the brunt of her bitterness.

She despised the way she looked, and yet she took it for granted that no other woman could compare to her, and that pleased her. But two such opposite feelings had never sat well with her, had always pulled her one way or the other, causing her discomfort.

Mirrors were her enemies. She loved them and hated them because they showed her what everyone else saw when they looked at her. Light blond hair with no dark streaks to mar its perfection, ivory skin without a blemish, arched brows that were ideal with a little plucking, blue eyes that weren’t remarkable except that they were set in a face with exquisite features. Everything about her face, the narrow, straight nose, the high cheekbones, lips that weren’t too lush, but not too thin, the firm, little chin that only jutted stubbornly when she was being stubborn—very well, that was most of the time, but it still completed the package that had dazzled every person she’d ever met, with the exception of two, but she wasn’t going to think about
them
anymore.

Ophelia glanced at her maid sitting across from her in the coach. It was her personal coach, not a large one such as her father’s, which had the crest of the Earl of Durwich emblazoned on its doors, but big enough to carry her two large trunks of clothes and Sadie’s portmanteau on top of it, and seat four comfortably. It suited her well enough, with its velvet, cushioned seats, which she’d cajoled her father into having added, and a brazier to provide warmth. Sadie kept a lap robe over her short legs, but then she didn’t wear as many petticoats as Ophelia did, and it was quite chilly outside, deep into winter as it was.

“Are you ready to tell me what happened back there?” Sadie asked.

“No,” Ophelia replied adamantly.

Sadie tsked and said knowingly, “Of course you will, dear, you always do.”

Such impertinence! But Ophelia didn’t say this aloud. Even her maids had fallen under the spell of her beauty, afraid to touch her exquisite blond hair, afraid to run her bath in case it was not to her liking, afraid to lay out her clothes in case they wrinkled them, afraid even to speak! She had dismissed them, one after the other. The count had risen to a dozen when this one applied for the job.

Sadie O’Donald wasn’t the least bit in awe of or intimidated by Ophelia. She scoffed at a sharp tone, she laughed at a severe look. She’d raised six daughters of her own, so there wasn’t much that could disturb her in the way of theatrics, as she called most of Ophelia’s displays of temper. Middle-aged and plump, with black hair and dark brown eyes, Sadie was frank, brutally so sometimes. She wasn’t actually Irish as her name implied. She’d once confessed that her grandfather had merely borrowed the name when he’d wanted to change his own.

For once, Ophelia didn’t react to Sadie’s silence as she usually did, by telling all. Most people who knew her knew she’d get right to the point if they stopped asking questions. She detested this appalling flaw of hers, but then, she detested all her flaws.

But without the answer forthcoming, Sadie’s curiosity got the better of her. After all, there was supposed to have been a wedding this morning, Ophelia’s, yet Ophelia had found Sadie and told her to have them both packed and ready to leave Summers Glade in no less than five minutes, because they were going home to London immediately. It had taken twenty minutes to pack, but that was still probably the fastest Sadie had ever thrown clothes into a trunk.

“Leaving him at the altar then, are we?” Sadie pressed.

“No,” Ophelia said stiffly. “And I really don’t want to talk about it.”

“But you said you’d have to marry the Scotsman, that there was no getting out of it after Mavis caught the two of you in your bedroom alone. I know that pleased you well enough when it happened since you wanted him back, if only to end the gossip that occurred when he ended your first engagement. Then you changed your mind and wanted no part of him—”

“You know why!” Ophelia cut in sharply. “He and his grandfather were going to turn me into a country bumpkin. The very idea! No entertaining, no time for socializing. Just work, work, work! Me!”

“You were resigned to it, dear. What—?”

Ophelia interrupted again, snapping, “Did I have a choice, when Mavis was going to ruin me if I didn’t marry that rude barbarian?”

“I thought you agreed that he wasn’t really a barbarian? You were the one who started the rumor before you had even met him, just so your parents would hear of it and break off the engagement for you.”

Ophelia glared at her maid. “What has that to do with anything? That was before, not now. And it didn’t even work! They still dragged me to Summers Glade to meet him. And look how that turned out. One little thoughtless remark on my part and he’s so insulted
he
breaks off the engagement. But I didn’t intend to insult him, you know. It wasn’t my fault that he shocked me when he came into the room wearing a kilt. As if I’d ever seen a man wearing a kilt before,” Ophelia ended with a huff.

“As if you wouldn’t have said exactly what you did if you
had
thought about it,” Sadie countered, knowing her too well.

Ophelia almost grinned. “Well, probably. But only because I was desperate by then. They said he’d lived his whole life in the Highlands. You know I feared he really would be a barbarian, or I never would have gotten the idea to brand him one in the gossip mills.”

“But you finally agreed he’d do very well as a husband.”

“Honestly, Sadie, you aren’t usually this obtuse,” Ophelia said with a sigh. “Yes, he suited me just fine until his grandfather outlined the long list of duties they expected of me. All I ever wanted was to be a social matriarch, to give the grandest parties London has ever seen. My balls would be the only balls worth attending. That’s what I want out of my marriage, not to rusticate out in the country, which is what Neville Thackeray had planned for me.”

“So you’re running away?” Sadie finally guessed.

Ophelia rolled her eyes. She would have thrown up her hands in disgust too if they weren’t so toasty warm in her white fur muff.

To shut Sadie up, she said, “If you
must
know, Mavis arrived to save me from that horrid marriage, so we’re merely going home.”

She said no more, didn’t even want to think about it anymore, but unfortunately, Sadie knew very well that Mavis wouldn’t do her any favors, that Ophelia’s onetime best friend despised her now. The maid knew all of Ophelia’s friends quite well from the countless times they’d all gathered at Ophelia’s house. She didn’t judge. If anything, she was probably the only person who really understood Ophelia and accepted her, faults and all.

But Ophelia really didn’t want to talk about it and so she tried to change the subject. “I’ll be so glad to be back in London, but I suppose my father isn’t going to be pleased when he finds out, for the second time, that he isn’t going to have a marquis for a son-in-law.”

“That’s putting it mildly, dear. He was the happiest man in England when Lord Thackeray contacted him about the match. They probably heard him crowing about it down the block.”

Ophelia wasn’t surprised by the derision she heard in that remark. Sadie didn’t like the earl very much. But then neither did Ophelia. Yet she winced, remembering how furious he’d been when they had all been kicked out of Summers Glade, the precious engagement he’d been so delighted with quite broken. He’d actually slapped her, blaming it all on her.

“If he’d just listened to me from the start, or even paid attention to the rumors I started and pulled me out of that match himself, then all of that unpleasantness could have been avoided. He didn’t need to snatch up the first offer that suited him. I would have done just fine finding a prominent son-in-law for him, one that was
my
choice, but he never gave me a chance to.”

“I hate to say it, dear, but you know why he was so sure you’d never make a choice in the matter of husbands.”

“Yes,” Ophelia said bitterly. “Because for three years he’s been trotting men, young and old, before me, showing me off like the bauble he thinks I am. Good God, I was still in the schoolroom, much too young to think about marriage yet, but he wanted me to show a preference in men I wasn’t the least bit interested in.”

“Impatience runs in your family, I think.”

Ophelia stared at Sadie blankly for a moment, then laughed. “Do you really think I get that from him?”

“Well, it certainly didn’t come from your mum. Lady Mary, bless her, would take a year to make up her mind about something if someone wasn’t prodding her along.”

Ophelia sighed. She loved her mother, even though Mary had never been able to stand up to the earl about
anything
, least of all anything to do with their only daughter. But she should have known it wouldn’t do any good, talking to either of her parents, but her father especially. She was merely an ornament to him, a useful tool to advance his social position. Her feelings didn’t matter to him one bit.

“He probably doesn’t even know yet that I was reengaged to Duncan,” Ophelia remarked in speculation. “That cowardly driver of his only went home to tell him that I was back in Yorkshire visiting the Lamberts, which was the case before I was invited back to Summers Glade.”

“You didn’t send him word about it, but surely Lord Thackeray did.”

“Yes, but I doubt he would even open a letter from the marquis, as angry as he was over being kicked out of Summers Glade.”

“You’re thinking our homecoming will be quiet, without all the yelling this time?”

“At least until my father hears about it—actually, I think I’ll tell him myself if he doesn’t know.”

“Why?”

“Because if he’d just listened to me in the first place, none of this would have happened.”

“I don’t think I’d be risking another slap just to tell him, ‘I told you so.’ ”

“But I would.”

Sadie shook her head and glanced out the window at the late-afternoon sun peeking through a bank of dark clouds. Ophelia was sure she’d successfully avoided the subject she
didn’t
want to discuss and settled back in the seat determined to put every part of the disastrous experience at Summers Glade behind her. But she should have known better. Sadie could be quite tenacious.

As if they hadn’t even just been discussing something else, Sadie remarked, “Mavis wouldn’t be that generous, to help you. I warned you long ago to stop letting her come around. She’s too bitter these days and especially after you finally let it be known that she’s a liar.”

“She provoked that,” Ophelia said quietly. “I never would have mentioned it if her snide cattiness didn’t snap my temper that day.”

“You don’t need to explain, dear. I know very well how she is. I’m the one who told you that the bad feelings she harbored for you would spill out and burn you eventually. You suffered her bile far too long just for the sake of the friendship you once had with her.”

Ophelia’s voice got even softer with emotion choking her again when she said, “She was the only real, honest friend I ever had. I’d so hoped she’d forgive me eventually for the wrong she thought I did her, when all I tried to do was protect her.”

“I know,” Sadie said, and leaned forward to pat the fur muff covering Ophelia’s slim hands. “That man she fancied was a philandering fool, the worst sort of blackguard, just to use her to get close to you. You tried to warn her repeatedly. She wouldn’t listen. I probably would have done exactly as you did under the circumstances. She needed the proof set before her eyes. You gave it to her.”

“And lost her friendship for it.”

“But she came to her senses today? Is that why she saved you?”

“Oh, no,” Ophelia replied, her tone turning bitter now. “She only did it for Duncan’s sake, but not before she reviled me in front of him and Sabrina and Raphael Locke. She said there’s nothing but blackened, bone-chilling ice beneath my pretty surface.”

Sadie gasped just as Ophelia had done when she’d heard it. “And that wasn’t even the worst of it,” Ophelia added, and repeated most of that horrible encounter for her maid, the painful memory still so fresh in her mind.

After Mavis had finished lambasting Ophelia the first time and assuring her that she didn’t have a friend in the world, as if she didn’t already know that, Ophelia had slipped away unnoticed, unable to contain her emotions any longer. And having just repeated most of that to Sadie, she felt that self-pity welling in her chest again and trounced it soundly. She’d cried. How appalling to let
those
emotions get out of control like that. It had never happened before—well, not since she was a child, but she would
not
think about that. She’d strived her whole life to make sure she’d never be hurt again and she’d succeeded—until today.