Captive Scoundrel Read online

  Note to Reader

  Surprisingly, there seems to be several schools of thought as to the length of the Regency Period. Purists say it lasted from 1811 to 1820, at the time George IV ruled as Regent during the well known “madness” of his father. Others say that the Prince Regent’s influence lasted beyond 1820, and not until William IV came to the throne, in 1830, did the Regency period finally come to an end.

  And still others place the Regency at 1811 to 1837, when Queen Victoria succeeded William IV. For this series, I have chosen the broadest Regency timeframe.

  Dedication

  With love to my muse, Ruth Cardello,

  And a big thanks to fate,

  Because she sat next to me at her first meeting,

  And inspired me to kick my career into overdrive

  By kicking me into action.

  Here’s to humour, laughter, zest, and adventure.

  Ruthie!

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  PROPER SCOUNDREL

  Prologue

  England, The Bognor Coast, April 1826

  The staccato of horse’s hooves shattered dawn’s silence. Fear clawed at Justin Devereux’s soul, rage engulfed him. He wanted to roar his fury to the heaven…but no one would hear him. Not even God.

  “Damn you to hell and back Catherine Devereux!” Slowing his mount as the carriage trail disappeared, Justin took stock of his surroundings. Though he couldn’t see it beyond the thicket, he approached the sea, for he could smell the brine and hear the burgeoning murmur of waves in the distance.

  Despite his impatience, he urged his horse slowly on, through field madder and budding gorse. Tender-leafed oaks, ironically, augured new beginnings. Would to God it could be so.

  Then he saw an old winding trail, its grasses recently trod by carriage and horses. A family of rabbits scattered as he quickened his pace. For the love of God, he thought, let those tracks be left by the coach carrying Beth.

  Three years before, kicking and bawling, his daughter, Beth, had taken his heart in her wee hands the moment he gazed upon her. Before her birth, he’d thought his life a living hell. Now, without her, he truly knew what hell was. He would find her, he vowed, or perish in the doing.

  Upon clearing the thicket, he froze.

  A coach and four stood perilously close to the edge of the cliff, its horses snuffling, ribbons of early-morning fog swirling about them. The chanting, “see, see, see,” of rock-pipits along the ledge stepping to the sea imparted a false sense of serenity.

  Heart pounding, Justin dismounted to make his way toward the unfamiliar conveyance. Sensing movement, he whipped about and came face to face with Catherine, his wife. More’s the pity. His brother stood beside her. “I should have known you would be involved in this, Vincent,” Justin said.

  Vincent bowed from the waist, his wide smile nearly grotesque on his dissipated features.

  Catherine nodded. “We have what you want, do we not, my dear?”

  “I have come for my daughter, as was your plan.”

  “Our daughter.”

  Justin laughed and knew by Catherine’s look that she felt the insult he intended. “Since before her birth, Beth has been mine alone, and you’ve been more than content with the arrangement,” he said. “Never even held her, damn your selfish hide.” Fighting an overwhelming urge to wrap his hands around his wife’s perfect white throat, Justin flexed his fingers to prove his control.

  “Come now, dear brother,” Vincent drawled, mocking the endearment. “You cannot remove a child from her mother.”

  “I can, if she would have it so. When she found she carried, she said bearing a child would ruin her, said she would—”

  “Justin!” Catherine blanched and Vincent threw her a startled look.

  For a moment Justin was relieved. Beth’s conception must have predated intimate relations between them, else Vincent would have known Catherine’s feelings. Then it occurred to him that Vincent’s shock might stem from the fact that…“Beth is mine,” Justin affirmed. “Where is she?”

  “Safe,” Catherine said.

  The word reassured Justin, likely because he wanted it so, but he didn’t trust her and trusted Vincent even less. “She’s a babe, Catherine. Do not use her as your pawn. Besides, I’m wise to you. You left a trail a fool could follow. Keeping Beth is not your plan; we both know that. What you want is freedom without the disgrace of divorce. Fine. Give her to me and you shall have the protection of my name. With my title and wealth at your disposal, the ton will forget my defection soon enough. I will take Beth and go away. Forever.”

  Catherine raised her chin, a gleam of satisfaction in her eyes.

  “And you, Vincent, will have your heart’s desire,” Justin said.

  At Catherine’s smile, Justin shook his head. “I hate to break this to you, my dear, but you are not Vincent’s desire.” Studying his brother, Justin continued to address his wife. “His singular goal in life is to remain my heir. And he has as much as attained that by separating us forever. Divorce would do the same, of course, but it would ruin you both.”

  Vincent nodded his acknowledgment, making Justin want to plant the bastard a facer. Instead he stepped close to Catherine.

  “Now we will never produce a male heir.” He lowered his voice. “Not that I’ve been inclined in recent years, as you well know.”

  When Catherine paled, Justin hated himself. Though he was stuck in the mire with them, he would lower himself no further. He sighed. “I want my daughter. Where is she?”

  “Safe away from here,” Catherine said.

  God, how he wanted to believe her. “Where?”

  “In the—”

  Vincent backhanded Catherine across the face with a growl, and felled her.

  “Bastard!” Justin shouted, packing every bit of his frustration into the punch he dispensed. Justin gazed at Vincent lying in the dirt, before he lifted Catherine and touched her swelling cheek. “A lover who beats you. Fine choice, Cat.” He sighed, examining her face. “Tell me where Beth is.”

  Vincent stood, rage contorting his features. “I’ll make you sorry until the day you die.”

  “I am all atremble,” Justin responded dryly, unable to look away from his wife’s cut and swollen lip. He once thought he loved this woman. What a fool he’d been. “Where is she, Cat?

  “In the bloody coach,” Vincent spat.

  Justin jerked with shock and tasted the bitterness of bile in his throat as he raced toward the coach.

  “No!” Catherine screamed.

  A shot rang out.

  The horses reared and bolted.

  Gulls shrieked and took flight.

  A demonic cry escaped Justin. He lunged and grabbed the coach’s bracings, praying for strength, but could not stop the forward surge. The horses’ legs scrambled for ground where there was none. Justin dug his heels into the dirt. The cords in his arms knotted and tore.

  All was lost. Yet he could not give up.

  “BETH!” he screamed as he was dragged over the edge and toward the sea-washed rocks below.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Killashandra Hall, Lancashire, June 1826

  For Faith Wickham, sleep would not co
me. The strange bed was hard, the waves in the distance disturbing.

  God help her. What had she gotten herself into?

  God help Justin Devereux. He’d had less choice than she. He needed her care and her family needed her wages, so Faith broke her vow never to hold another life in her hands. Sometimes this healing skill seemed more curse than blessing. But she would not fail a second time. Perhaps if she saved a life, she could atone for losing one. Justin Devereux might be more dead than alive now, but she would do all in her power to save him.

  A sound opened her eyes. A cry. Then another, louder, longer, brought her to her feet. A seabird in the distance?

  It came again. Human. Distressed.

  Faith chafed her gown’s soft-worn sleeves and stepped into her slippers. She tried the door connecting her room to her patient’s and found it locked. She’d meet him tomorrow she’d been told upon her arrival earlier, except he needed her now.

  Another cry, one of undeniable pain, sharpened her wits.

  Seeing nothing save blackness in the hall, Faith felt her way along the wall, his door further from hers than she thought. Her trembling fingers encountered torn paper and cracked plaster. Skittering and scratching broke the silence. Were her room less fine, she’d think they occupied the attic.

  She turned his knob slowly, opened his door, heard the rasp and shush of her slippers as she stepped into the black pitch. Her hiss and cough, as sickroom mustiness assaulted her, caused her to clamp her hand over nose and mouth, to muffle the sound and sever herself from the unpleasant odour.

  For a moment she hesitated, then she chided herself for her foolishness, just before the animal-like whimper began— and grew to an ear-splitting demon’s lament.

  Faith thought her heart could beat no faster nor echo any louder in her brain than a moment before, but now it did exactly that. For his cry had grown as piercing as a knife, as mournful as a clod of dirt breaking against a lowered casket.

  Her patient endured more than physical pain; he suffered from an agony of spirit. And in that instant Faith experienced the deepest connection she imagined one person might with another, as if she had seen into his soul. With startling clarity, she knew that her life would be entwined with Justin Devereux’s, perhaps until the day he died, and despite the raw fear the knowledge evoked, Faith accepted this as her destiny.

  She knew not how long his cry rent the air, but remorse for her idle reflection assailed her. Here she stood, his nurse, and utterly useless to him. She needed the candle in her room. Moving with speed, as the situation warranted, she ran, smack, into an object coming with force from the opposite direction.

  “What the bloody hell?” The words added to her surprise as she hit the floor. Catching her breath, she couldn’t speak. Not so the owner of the raspy voice muttering a string of curses as he searched on all fours, her patient’s lament filling the air.

  “Sir, your candle has rolled toward my room,” she said rising. “I’ll fetch it for you.”

  “Who the hell…Ah, here’s the holder.”

  Faith pushed her door open, retrieved his still-burning candle and lit hers with it. She could see him now, picking himself up. An older man, short, barrel-chested and muscular.

  “Give it to me, woman, my master needs me.” The man grabbed his candle, slammed it into its holder, and ran to Justin Devereux’s room. Faith followed, stopping at the foot of the great four-poster to watch the man straddle the figure in the bed and wrestle him into submission. The lament ended on a whimper and the sturdy fellow stood. “He’ll do for now. He don’t do that often, but he’s hurt himself a time or two.”

  “He seems strong for a sick man.”

  “Always was strong as a prize bull at market fair. Can’t understand why he’s no better.” The stranger raised his candle for a too-bold scrutiny of her person. “You the new nurse?”

  She nodded. “Faith Wickham.”

  “Harris.” He grinned. “B’God, the master would like you. Always did like ‘em dark-haired and winsome.”

  Faith felt an all-too-familiar warmth steal up her neck. “And why should I care what Vincent Devereux likes?”

  Harris scowled. “Justin Devereux’s master here.” He pointed to the bed. “Been with ‘im since ‘e was no more’n a lad of seventeen, near eighteen years now. I’m all he’s got.”

  “Well, Harris, now he has the both of us.”

  His lowered brows spoke of suspicion and doubt.

  “But isn’t Vincent Devereux master here?”

  “Vincent’s the younger brother, and…Well, it ain’t up to the likes of me to judge. But my master is the Duke of Ainsley, will be in my mind till the day he dies. But accordin’ to the House ‘a Lords, Vincent’s the present duke. Gave him the title.”

  “He’ll have to give it back.”

  “If you say so, Miss.”

  She saw that he thought her daft. “You’ll see.” She raised her candle and gazed at a room from a child’s nightmare. Thick tapestried windows and blood-red velvet bed hangings dominated —as if Justin Devereux was already confined to his coffin.

  Two portraits hung above the bed. One, of a handsome devil holding a babe in a long, white gown. The other of a blond goddess. Both would be better placed in the drawing room. Faith doubted the goddess lived here, else she would never let such a likeness go to waste so far from sight. “Who is she?”

  “Catherine Devereux. Justin’s wife.”

  “I didn’t know he had a wife.”

  “A witch, that one. Never figured how she snared him. Not in his style. And he hasn’t got a wife. Not now. She’s dead.”

  Shocked, saddened, Faith rubbed her arms at the chill…and realized she faced this stranger in her nightrail. She should leave or…“Mr. Harris, I’ll sit with him if you wish.”

  “Just Harris. Go back to bed. Ye’ll not start till Vincent sets you to it. Go on with you now.”

  Back in her room, Faith fell asleep wondering if she had the strength to withstand the darkness of spirit that permeated Killashandra Hall.

  She approached a huge castle encircled by thick gray mists.

  A shrouded figure wove aimlessly among gnarled bracken bearing neither leaves nor flowers, but large menacing thorns.

  With foreboding, Faith turned away, casually at first, then with a more determined step. But the robed being steadily followed, an emaciated hand clawing its face and hood, as if trying to clear its vision…until one skeletal hand stretched toward her in mute, agonized appeal.

  That silent plea frightened Faith more than the slow, steady steps plodding in her direction. She began to run.

  Gasping, she stopped at the edge of a deep precipice overlooking a jagged cliff, a black whirlpool at its base. Heart hammering, she turned to face her pursuer.

  He came close, bearing fear. Neither alive nor dead.

  Faith screamed, stepped away from his seeking hand…and went too far. She was falling. Falling.

  Just when she could smell the whirlpool, and feel it filling her nostrils, gentle arms caught her and held her close, saving her from certain death.

  Heart calming, Faith warmed, content, safe. Then she looked into the eyes of her saviour and the skeletal face of the cloaked figure stared back with black, unseeing orbs. Her fleeting safety in his arms forgotten, she wrestled free and tumbled toward the dark turbulence below.

  Panic seized her, hands grabbed her.

  Faith fought frantically. She began to scream.

  “Wake up, miss. There, there. Are you all right now?”

  Faith recognized the abigail who’d accompanied her here to Killashandra. Was it only yesterday? “Oh, Jenny.”

  “You were dreaming, Miss.” Jenny opened the curtains. “The master says ‘e’ll see you in ‘is study soon as you’ve eaten.”

  “Good, then I can get on with my duties.” After the girl fixed her hair, Faith smoothed her faded, gray percale. A few minutes later, she stood before the duke’s door fighting an urge to beg transport ho
me. But remembering Justin Devereux’s anguish, her desire to flee vanished. A footman opened the door and bowed for her to enter. “Miss Faith Wickham,” he announced.

  Vincent Devereux gaped. The nurse bore the beauty of a goddess. Huge, green eyes gazed straight at him, bold as you please. Black curls framed a porcelain face, tumbling to rest against full breasts. He coughed and stood. “Ah, Miss Wickham, from Arundel is it? Come to care for my unfortunate brother and little Beth.” He took her hand and brought it to his lips. A pretty piece, he thought, for Justin’s final days. “Welcome. You are gravely needed. Please sit down.”

  “Thank you, your Grace.” She took the straight chair facing his desk. Vincent sat behind it.