This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
DEVIL'S EMBRACE
A SIGNET Book / published by arrangement with the author
All rights reserved.
Copyright © 1982, 2000 by Catherine Coulter
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Electronic edition: February 2002
To my husband, Anton
Chapter 1
Edward Forsythe Lyndhurst, fifth Viscount Delford, drew a deep breath of sea air and guided his bay mare closer to the rocky cliff. The day was unusually warm for the end of March, and the early afternoon sun reflected brightly from the blue water as it rippled gently toward the shoreline.
He tugged at his unfamiliar waistcoat and wished again he was still wearing his comfortable officer’s crimson and white uniform. He suspected that his batman and valet, Grumman, felt the loss as much as did he. The fiery little Irishman had been full of voluble complaints about the hoity-toity fashions newly affected by English gentlemen. “Just like the ladies you’ll look now, m’lord,” he’d said, smoothing Edward’s light blue coat over his shoulders, “all lace and bright colors, a strutting coxcomb.”
Grumman, Edward thought, had a point.
Edward shifted in his saddle, shaded his eyes, and looked into the distance up the coastline toward Hemphill Hall, an ancient stone structure that stood at the very edge of the cliffs. He felt a powerful sense of anticipation at seeing the home of the Broughams, Cassie’s home.
He drew a small miniature of Cassandra, painted on her fifteenth birthday, from his waistcoat pocket and gazed into the young girl’s smiling face. Even at fifteen, her face had begun to take on a young woman’s contours. Her high cheekbones, set above a well-formed stubborn chin, were delicate and finely etched, her large blue eyes vivid and questioning. He smiled at the thick wheat-colored hair braided about her head, and remembered how it rippled in deep, natural waves to her waist. He had thought her beautiful even when she was but eight years old and he a lad of fourteen, intolerant of other girls. He had painted outrageous adventures for her, with himself the brave military man, and she had listened to his every word, her eyes serious and intent.
Edward shook his head, bemused by memories that had not come to him in years. What an ass you were, he grunted to himself. But Cassie hadn’t thought that. He still pictured her looking at him solemnly, her hair in scraggly ringlets about her small face, saying in her soft child’s voice, “You must wait for me, Edward. I shall be a woman grown soon and then we shall wed. I shall follow the drum with you and share all your adventures.”
He gazed once again at the miniature and wondered if Cassie was still the same long-legged, skinny girl. He thought about a letter she had written him some six months before, hinting at some rather perplexing changes in her appearance, and grinned at her oblique way of informing him that she was becoming a woman.
A frown passed over his brow and he snapped the miniature shut, replacing it gently in his waistcoat pocket. He turned his mare from the path that led to Hemphill Hall, down the rutted trail to the beach below. Cassie had been much on his mind since his Uncle Edgar’s death some two months ago, when he had felt compelled to resign his commission and return to England to oversee his estates. But he had spent the months in London, with a simple note to Cassie that he would be delayed. Even now, he felt ambivalent. She was, after all, but eighteen years old, and undoubtedly looking forward to her first Season in London. He had felt he had no right to deprive her of an experience that every young lady of her station should enjoy. But he could not help feeling intensely jealous at the thought of her being courted by other gentlemen. What would he do if when he met her she gazed at him and felt nothing more for him than childhood friendship? He had cursed himself for a coward and ridden home to Essex. Now, but one day later, he was still dawdling, and not one mile from her home.
Edward dismounted when his mare gained the beach, and tethered her to a sturdy bush that had thrust itself up in a small crevice between the rocks at the base of the cliff. He strolled slowly up the beach, blankly watching his boots crunch into the coarse sand, deep in thought. He was caught unaware when a large wave broke and sent water lapping up over his boots. He took several irritated steps back and gazed out over the water. To his surprise, he saw someone swimming through the breakers, bare arms moving in sure, graceful strokes. Although he was some distance away, it would have taken a blind man not to see that the figure emerging from the water was a woman. He watched silently as she rose to her feet and walked through the shallow water to the beach.
He could not make out her face, for her head was bowed. But it was not her face that held his attention. She was wearing only a thin white shift that reached to mid-thigh, but she might as well as have been naked, for the wet shift was molded against her like a second skin. His practiced masculine eye took in every line and curve of her. Her breasts were full and high, straining against the thin material. His eyes followed the slender lines of her waist and flat belly, to the small triangle of hair outlined by the clinging wet material. She turned slightly, revealing the curve of full buttocks and long, long legs. He felt a jolt of desire and forced himself to look away from her. He tried to calm himself, reasoning that he had been too long without a woman. He recalled the very giving young woman with whom he had spent two delightful nights but the week before and decided with a grin that he must find another excuse.
She must be a local village girl, he thought, and began to walk toward her without precisely deciding to. She leaned negligently over to wring the water from the lower part of her shift, and her hair, bounded in braids atop her head, was suddenly illuminated by bright shafts of sunlight. It was a light wheat color, glistening with golden streaks.
Edward pulled up short in his tracks and simply stared at her. As if aware that she was not alone, she grew still and raised her head toward him, shading her eyes with her hand. A name formed in Edward’s throat, and he called it aloud.
Cassie froze for an instant when she heard his voice and gazed at the tall, slender gentleman who was loping quickly toward her.
“Edward!”
Cassie ran toward him and flung herself against his chest. Her voice was a jumble of sobs and laughter. “Edward, it’s really you. I can’t believe it. You have finally come back.” She hugged him fiercely, then pushed him away to look into his face.
“Cass,” he said, and gently cupped her face between his hands. How differently he had envisioned their first meeting, with the pained and awkward silences that he had thought inevitable. For the first time in their lives, he kissed her.
Cassie had often wondered how she would feel at her first kiss. She had even, upon occasion, pressed her palm against her lips to see if it would make her feel somehow different. She had felt
nothing but foolish, and was totally unprepared for the sensations that coursed through her body. His mouth grew demanding, and his tongue moved over her lips. Tentatively, she parted her lips and let him possess her mouth.
Edward felt a shudder pass the length of her, and reveled in it. His hands moved urgently over her, kneading her hips and pressing her belly hard against him. It was the gentle moan of budding passion escaping her lips that brought forth the honorable English gentleman. Almost violently, he clasped her arms in his hands and pushed her away from him.
Cassie gazed up at him, her eyes full of wonder. She felt strangely breathless, somehow urgent.
Edward gave a low laugh that ended in a groan. “God, Cass.”
She tried to wrap her arms about his neck again, and he forced himself to step back from her, holding her hands tightly in his.
“It’s good to see you again, Cassie,” he said, trying to force lightness into his voice.
She frowned at him, confused by his sudden formality. Her frown lightened as she looked closely at him for the first time, and took in every contour of his face. “You are much a man, Edward,” she said finally. “But you have not much changed.”
A smile touched his lips, and he was unable to prevent his eyes from sweeping over her. “And you, my love, have changed much.”
She dimpled up at him innocently. “I trust you approve the changes, my lord.” She gazed at the white ruffles at his throat and added shyly, “It was so very warm today. I was swimming.”
“Yes, I know. I was watching you. I did not think that young ladies indulged in such manly pursuits.”
“You, Edward, are far too used to the company of foreign ladies, who are, I daresay, quite indolent.”
“Just because foreign ladies do not swim in the sea, Cassie, I would not say that they are precisely lazy.”
“I hope, Captain Lord Delford, that your neck has not grown stiff in your collar.” She shivered as the sun dipped behind a cloud.
Edward pulled off his riding coat and draped it over her shoulders. “You must dress, Cass, before you take a chill.”
“Now that you are returned, my lord, that would never do. Oh, Edward, it’s been such a long three years. I have missed you so.” She slipped her hand through the crook of his arm and squeezed him to her. “You have much abused me, my lord. I have been waiting and waiting ever since I got your letter two months ago. I did not even know where you were staying in London. Your mother just sighed helplessly in that way of hers when I asked her where you were.”
Edward paused a moment, and said only, “One never picks fruit from the tree until it is ripe.”
She waved away his words. “I will thank you, my lord, not to liken me to an apple or a pear. And if you are not careful, you might find that I will fall into someone else’s basket.”
Though he felt a moment of uncertainty, he said lightly, “I found that I wished to conduct my business in London; it was better done there in any case.” He paused a moment and gazed about at the calm sea and up at the ageless cliffs. “Life is different here. It’s as if time touches life here only insofar as the fashions in clothes change. It is not so elsewhere, you know.”
“You so dislike the blissful existence in this Garden of Eden?”
He smiled crookedly. “You have always had the knack of boiling things down until there was no water left in the pot.” He looked a moment at the soft tendrils of her hair that the sea breeze pressed across her cheek. “Where is your chaperone, Cass? Surely you would not come to a deserted beach alone.”
“It would seem to me, my lord, that you would have been much embarrassed if Miss Petersham had been witness to your exuberant welcome.”
“What? Becky is still with you?” The plump, brisk little woman had been with Cassie as far back as he could remember. Although she had always been polite to him, he had had the inescapable feeling that she somehow did not approve of him. “The mother lion is still guarding her cub,” he said aloud.
Cassie laughed, and Edward watched her soft tongue dart over her even white teeth. “Becky the lioness. What a marvelous metaphor. She has become quite like a mother to me, you know, Edward, and a watchful one at that. She is quite fond of a nap after lunch and thus I was able to come here alone. I refuse to believe, my lord, that you would have preferred meeting me for the first time after three years across the expanse of the drawing room.”
“It would have been better for both of us had I seen you fully dressed and not soaking wet like some half-naked sea nymph.”
Cassie drew to a halt beside him and said softly, “But then I probably would not have been certain that you still cared for me. You would have been all stiff and full of trite, formal phrases.”
“I would have been far more the discreet gentleman.”
Cassie felt a stab of apprehension. “Edward, you have not found another lady, have you? Is that why you stayed away from me in London?”
“Dammit, Cass, you’re but eighteen years old.”
“Yes,” she said quietly, “and a woman grown.”
“If you’ll recall, you told me in great seriousness that you were nearly a woman grown when you were eight years old.”
“Good heavens, I had forgotten all about that. It was, as I recall, the first time I ever proposed marriage to you, my lord. But you, if I do not disremember, were a stiff and starchy lad, full of ambition, and would not take me seriously.”
Edward gave her a light shove toward a large rock where her clothing lay in a neat pile. “Get dressed,” he said roughly. “I trust you have a dry shift.”
“Yes, of course I do. Would you care to help me dress, Edward?” she asked, hoping to coax him out of a mood she did not understand.
“No. But I shall ensure that no other man comes along to see you naked.”
“But, Edward,” she said demurely, “we are on Brougham land. You are the only man who has ever come to the beach and seen me swimming. Which makes me wonder, my lord, do you often make it a habit to spy on young ladies? I will not believe you if you tell me that you recognized me immediately.”
Edward flushed, despite himself. Had she been a village girl, and willing, he was not at all certain what he would have done.
“Ah, Edward, you have become a rake, I see. Is that why you seem to care so much for indolent foreign ladies?”
“Cassie, you are a baggage. How do you know about such things as rakes? Surely Eliott would not discuss such matters with you.”
“You know that Eliott is twenty-two now, and no longer a boy. I have asked him again and again, but he will not tell me what he does when he goes to Colchester or to London. He always mumbles something about business, which I know is a lie.”
Cassie stripped off his riding coat and Edward turned away. “It would appear to me that you have been allowed to run wild since your father died.”
“Alas, it is true, but all I had to warm me at night were your rather infrequent letters. And from the beatific grin on Eliott’s face each time he returns from one of his jaunts, I would say that mere letters are hardly a fulfilling substitute.”
He smiled, but refused to be drawn. “I was sorry, Cass, to hear of your father’s death.”
“It was probably for the best,” she said matter-of-factly. “He had grown quite odd, you know, particularly during the past two years. I had the inescapable feeling that he tried to avoid me. It is Eliott’s opinion that I am too much like mother and that looking at me brought him pain. I think he always disliked me, because I killed mother.”
“Don’t be a fool, Cassie,” he said sharply, turning to face her.
“But she died birthing me, Edward, and she was but twenty-three. I become depressed every time I think about it.”
Edward did not immediately reply as he stared at her. She was seated on a rock, dressed in a light blue muslin gown, sashed tightly at her waist, fastening the strap of her sandal. He glimpsed a long white-stockinged leg before she whisked her dress down over her ankle.
She rose and gave him her hand. “Are you now more approving of my appearance, Lord Edward?”
“You are almost as beautiful as the fifteen-year-old girl I left three years ago.”
She gave him a dazzling smile. “And you, my lord, are still the most handsome gentleman of my acquaintance.” She appeared to inspect him closely, from head to toe. “I cannot decide which I admire more about you, your size or—” She cocked her head to one side.
“My height or?”
“Or your beautiful eyes,” she said promptly. She touched her fingertips gently to his cheek. “They are such a deep brown with golden flecks, just like your hair. I suppose that many ladies have told you that.”
“Perhaps one or two, but it meant very little to me.” His eyes softened on her face. “What did mean a great deal to me was receiving your letters. Your spelling is atrocious, Cass. Many a time I felt as though I were deciphering a military code.”
“Well, your letters, my lord, read for the most part like a campaign log. I have become quite adept at making salt and flour maps, so I knew where you were. Poor Becky could never figure out why I became such an avid student of geography.” She paused a moment and dug the toe of her sandal into the sand. “I many times had the feeling that you were not being altogether honest with me, Edward. I could never grasp what your life was like.”
Edward said with deliberate coolness, “Suffice it to say, Cass, that warfare and military life did not bear much resemblance to the exploits I dreamed of as a boy. There is never much satisfaction in dispatching another fellow human to his Maker. Now, Cass, what of you? Have you been a sad trial to Miss Petersham?”
She accepted his rebuff, though it hurt her to think that he would likely never tell her much of his military years. She replied easily, “Not really. For the most part, I have been as circumspect as even you would wish, Edward, though I still sail and swim as often as possible. I daresay that our parties and dinners hardly made fascinating reading for you.”