ë Archer - Demon’s Bride

John’s mouth curled. “God is not part of the process.”

“Not with your hands in everyone’s dealings.”

Anne asked, “What lies on the horizon? Peace, I hope.” The war with France had been costly, both in terms of money and human lives. As she spoke, she saw Bram absently rub at the scar along his throat, and she recalled that he had been a soldier in the Colonies, fighting in that very war. He had paid a price, as well.

“There’s to be a treaty, and an exchange of territories in the coming months. Some secretly oppose the treaty, but they shan’t provide an obstacle, for all their cabals to prevent it.”

“Secretly? You must be kept in confidence, to know this.”

“In a manner,” he drawled.

Bram gave an amused snort but, at her questioning look, merely drank his wine.

She felt as though two conversations occurred simultaneously, yet she could understand only one of them, the other spoken in a language too subtle to be grasped.

More courses followed, more talk. The cook had been eager to display his talents, and Anne felt some comfort that her guests would not leave her table hungry. There were French ragoos, and beef collops, cakes, and fruits out of season, and Anne could only pick at her food. A fine tension tangled in her belly. Something hung over the table, something billowing and shadowed, that drew its strength from the four men who ate and laughed with hard animal gleams in their eyes. Was it only fancy? Or was it more?

Surely Lord Whitney had written his letter with a branding iron rather than a quill, for his words seared her, even now. Bargains with the Devil. Sinister magic. Phenomena reserved for sermons and lurid tales.

When, at last, it came time for the women to adjourn to the parlor, Anne did so with an inward sigh of relief. The men got to their feet as she stood. Rosalind watched with that same overbright smile, yet she did not rise.

“Beloved,” murmured Edmund. “Go with Mrs. Bailey.”

“Of course, my dearest.” Rosalind stood and glided after Anne.

As Anne crossed to the door, Leo never took his gaze from her. She felt it like a trail of fire between her shoulders as she left the room. A new sensation, and an uncanny one.

Tea and ratafia awaited them in the parlor. The room felt hot and small, confining where the dining room had been a chill cavern. Rosalind sat placidly on a settee and stared off at nothing.

“May I offer you something to drink?” Anne desperately wanted some of Leo’s potent brandy, but it must wait until later. When Rosalind did not answer, only continued to gaze into the air, Anne asked louder, “Tea? Spirits?”

“Oh ... tea, I suppose. Do you think that’s what Edmund would want me to have?”

“I’m sure he wants you to have whatever it is you want.” Yet Rosalind stared at her, blank as snow. So Anne poured her a dish of tea. For herself, she took the ratafia.

Moments went by as she and Rosalind sat together silently. The other woman took sips at regular intervals, like a wound-up automaton that mirrored human movement, yet without thought.

“How are your writing endeavors?”

Rosalind blinked. “Writing?”

“Some time ago, you hosted a levee. You were gracious enough to invite me. I remember you read an original composition, some verses about the war between the sexes. It was much admired amongst the company for its acuity and imagination.”

“I do not remember.”

“This was ... before. During your ... other marriage.”

Yet Rosalind merely shook her head. “I do not remember anything, really, before Edmund.” She smiled.

Anne attempted to return the smile, but her efforts did not succeed. Fortunately, Rosalind did not notice. She merely returned to drinking her congou, placid.

This, from a woman renowned for her wit? Again, Lord Whitney’s letter reverberated through her, its many assertions that she had been so quick to dismiss as the work of a faulty or devious mind. How could Anne possibly believe him? How could she trust him?

Nearby candles guttered, the flames turning to smoke.

Valeria Livia Corva. The name wove into her thoughts. A Roman woman’s name.

Anne had burned Lord Whitney’s letter, but rather than destroying it, the contents of the missive became stronger, more potent. Like an offering to a dark god.

How could Lord Whitney possibly know about Anne’s dream of the Roman woman?

The parlor tilted as her head spun, the air thick and close. She needed fresh, cool wind. Outside, in the garden. Yes—to go outside, that would clear her head and help make sense of the morass in which she’d sunk.

“Will you excuse me for a moment?”

Rosalind merely smiled, and so Anne quickly left the chamber on unsteady legs. She tottered down the stairs, then moved through the darkened corridor that led to the garden. As she walked, she passed the closed door of the dining room, hearing the rumble of male voices. The Hellraisers in private discussion.

She hesitated. No footmen stood in attendance in the hallway. Rosalind remained upstairs. Anne was alone.

She pressed her ear to the door. Thick wood muted sound, and she had more a general sense of different men speaking than their actual words. The low rumble of Bram. Edmund’s measured pace. And Leo—his voice she knew now almost as well as her own. In the depths of night, she had heard him speak words both tender and demanding, had heard him hoarse with passion, and drowsy with satiation. In a room crowded with a hundred men’s voices, she would find his, unerring.

He spoke now, and Anne pressed even closer, trying to divine his words.

“... asked around ... no one ... as if Whit ... vanished.”

Oh, God. They spoke of Lord Whitney. She wrapped her arms around herself, but did not move away from the door.

“... certain?” That was John, cutting and precise.

“... only Mr. Holliday ... yet he has been mute ...”

It seemed as though Edmund spoke next. “... safe, then?”

“Never safe,” said Bram.

“... remain alert ... notify the others if ...”

“Madam?”

Anne whirled to face one of the footmen, a decanter in each of his hands. Bringing more wine for the gentlemen.

Of a certain, news would spread amongst the servants that the lady of the house was caught listening at doors like a housemaid. The question remained whether Leo would hear this news, passed from the servants’ table to the valet, and from the valet to the master. Little help for it. Either Leo would know, or he would not. And then ... she did not know what then.

Secrets. They kept building, widening a chasm between her and Leo.

Anne stepped back from the door, and moved deeper into the shadows of the corridor. “Go on. Bring the gentlemen their wine.”

She turned and walked out into the garden, out into the cold. She had no shawl, and shivered in her silk gown, yet she did not want to return inside. Not yet.

Shells crunched beneath her delicate slippers, digging through the flimsy sole to stab into her feet. She could go nowhere on such fragile shoes. Within minutes, they would be torn to pieces on London’s rough streets. Yet she wanted to run, and run far. To a place where the sun shone and revealed everything. Where she could laugh at shadows, dismiss them, destroy them.

Anne wrapped her arms around herself. She felt the burden of secrets along her shoulders, the heavy press of concealment and uncertainty. She longed for the comfort of maps and their defined borders—but even this solace was illusory. Maps could be drawn only when men took to the seas, facing uncertainty. How often did those sailors stand upon the deck of a ship and see the stain of an approaching storm? And how often did they have no choice but to sail into the teeth of that storm?

Anne suddenly felt a kinship with those nameless sailors, for now she stood at the railing and saw the portentous black clouds of a storm nearing. She could not outpace its fury or circumnavigate around it. It must strike. She hoped she would not drown.

“I received a letter from Lord Whitney.”

Leo paused in the act of pulling off his coat. He stood in the middle of the bedchamber, the candles extinguished, only the fire in the grate illuminating the room. Anne hovered near the foot of the bed, still in her gown of heavy green silk, her hair up, her eyes wide.

“What?” He could not have heard correctly.

Anne wrapped her hands around a bedpost, like a woman clinging to a treetop as floodwaters rose around her. “Lord Whitney. He put a letter for me in the carriage.”

“When?”

“Several days ago.”

Leo went very still. “Why have you said nothing until now?”

Her hands tightened around the bedpost. “I wanted to forget.”

“Show it to me.”

“I burned it.”

He strode to her, and though she did not shrink away, he saw the smallest wince in her face. “Tell me what it said.”

At this, her wide gaze slid away. “I cannot remember.”

Leo knew a lie when it was spoken. He witnessed many of them on the Exchange. Never did he expect to see the same prevarication from his own wife. Something in his chest hurt, and he spoke around its cutting edges. “Anne.”

She was no hardened man of commerce, no gamester. Of everyone he knew, including himself, she was the most truthful. And falsehood could not last long within her. Firelight gleamed in her eyes as she returned her gaze to him.

“Mad allegations,” she finally admitted. “Too outlandish to be believed.”

“Tell me.”

“He said ... that you and the other Hellraisers had made a bargain with the Devil. That you each gained powers in exchange for your souls, and ... you’ve unleashed a terrible evil upon the world. A growing danger. But that is all ludicrous. A Bedlamite’s ravings.” She forced out a laugh, hollow as a husk.

Fire coursed through Leo. His heart slammed inside his chest, and every inch of him tensed, ready for battle. A momentary paralysis. It did not last, for he had to act.

He strode to the bedchamber door and threw it open. “Munslow,” he bellowed, calling for the head footman. The hour was late, the remains of the dinner already cleared away, the house put to rights. Leo shouted again for the footman.

The servant appeared a moment later, buttoning his waistcoat and smoothing his wig. “Sir?”

“Have you seen Lord Whitney?”

“No, sir. Not recently, sir.”

“Or a Gypsy woman?”

“Not her neither.”

Leo could not feel any sense of relief. Simply because Whit had not been seen did not mean his threat was any less present. He’d put a damned letter in Leo’s carriage. For Leo’s wife to find. Fury tore through him, his body shaking with it. Leo’s fears were coming to pass. No. No. Whit would take nothing from him, especially Anne.

“He isn’t welcome in my home,” Leo said. “If any servant sees Lord Whitney, even a glimpse, they must tell me immediately. I want at least three footmen to accompany Mrs. Bailey whenever she goes out. The biggest and strongest we have. Hire more, if necessary. I can apply to my boxing salon. I want bruisers, brutes. If I am not present, they must be with her at all times when she leaves the house.”

From behind him, Anne spoke. “Leo, I—”

“And if Lord Whitney should attempt to approach her, he must be stopped. You understand. There is to be no communication between him and Mrs. Bailey. None. Do whatever is necessary to keep him from talking with her.”

The head footman nodded. Like most footmen, Munslow was young, tall, and strong, and the ready shine in his gaze showed that he welcomed the chance to brawl.

“Tell the rest of the servants to keep a watchful eye. Housemaids, coachmen. All of them. And if anyone sees anything, I am to be notified at once.”

“Yes, sir.”

Leo sent Munslow off with a jerk of his head. It did not matter to Leo what the head footman told the rest of the servants. If they thought him mad, or wondered at his reasoning. All that mattered was keeping Whit away. From Anne, above all.

Turning back to her, Leo shut the door behind him. Locked it. The protection offered by the lock was minimal, but he would seize any means of warding off the man Leo once considered one of his closest friends.

Leo advanced on Anne. She continued to hold fast to the bedpost, her features drawn tight.

“Should Whit attempt to contact you again,” he said, “tell me. If I am not here, send a running footman to Exchange Alley. Swear that you will do it.”