Saint's Devils: Devil In My Arms Part 1

Devil in My Arms.

by Nancy Kattenfeld.

This book is for my husband and my children, as every book has been and will be.

Acknowledgments.

I can't forget the ones who really matter: Mom, Dad, Will, Jeri, Charlotte, Jo, Chris, John, Katie, Carson, and Brady. You all listened when I needed to talk throughout the writing of this book and your love and support mean the world to me. Hugs all around. I'd also like to include my critique partner, Julie Gupton, in that hug. She had to listen to a lot of plot angst and other complaints during the writing of this book, and I want her to know her patience and understanding are much appreciated. I'd also like to thank my editor, Sue Grimshaw and my agent, Eric Ruben, who were both supportive and encouraging. Thank you to Joanne Ross for the wonderful new website she created for me as I was working on this book. Many thanks to the Random House marketing team, including April Flores and Kim Cowser, who make it possible for writers to write. Thanks also go to the research staff of the High Point Regional Library in High Point, North Carolina, for your help with research materials. And to the many readers out there who write and tell me how much you enjoy my books: Thank you! Everything I do, I do it for you.

Chapter One.

London, September, 1819.

The sun was setting; dusk casting an ominous shadow over the quiet, residential square. There had been nurses and children in the central park earlier, but they had wandered back to various affluent houses some time ago, for supper she supposed. Eleanor's stomach rumbled at the thought. She'd run out of money yesterday, and so hadn't eaten since a greasy meat pasty purchased with her last coins from a disreputable inn along the coach line two days ago.

She kept to the shadows of the alley, tiptoeing along the wall, her side pressed to the brick. The small satchel in her left hand had grown heavy hours ago, but as it contained all her worldly possessions she didn't dare put it down for fear of losing it if she had to run suddenly. She'd walked around these particular two blocks of London for the better part of three hours. She could see nothing suspicious, but that didn't mean she was safe.

She bit her lip in indecision. She'd come so far. If she were to fail now, it would kill her. It really would this time. She couldn't bear being locked in her room again for days upon days, no food or water unless she did as Enderby demanded. She'd worked on this plan for years while she'd endured her husband's punishments. But no more. She had followed the plan meticulously, waiting the three months she deemed necessary for Enderby to call off his search. Three endless months of h.o.a.rding her money, trying to sleep in drafty waterfront inns whose other occupants were as suspicious as she. But the rooms there were always too close, with windows that often wouldn't open. The night terrors had struck more than once as she woke screaming, imagining being locked in her room back at Enderby's again. Three months of eating only meager fare, faint with hunger and fear and exhaustion every second.

After all that time, surely he thought her dead. She hadn't tried to contact Harry at all. She'd learned the hard way that to do so would be a mistake. She didn't make the same mistakes twice. She was too clever for that. She was. He hadn't broken her at all. She was still the same. Still smarter than he was, and at last he'd know it.

Finally, her courage bolstered by the very fear and hunger that had nearly laid her low so many times in the past few months, she ventured out of the alley. There was no hue and cry at her appearance. No one emerged from the shadows to accost her just as she tasted freedom. She kept to the sidewalk, sauntering along as if she hadn't a care in the world, the boy's clothes she wore making her almost belligerent shuffle believable. She'd studied the stable boys and grooms and dockworkers; this was their walk, the walk of a lad who owned the world, daring friend and foe alike to knock the chip from his shoulder. She wanted to laugh aloud at what a lie that walk was for her. Her cares were a burden weighing her down, the chip on her shoulder a simmering hatred for the man who had forced her to take such dire measures.

When she reached the walk in front of Harry's door she casually looked around, pausing to dust off the sleeves of her ratty coat. She was hardly dressed for a visit to one of the elegant mansions in Manchester Square, but she brazened it out. If she could get past the butler she'd find Harry.

She'd just turned up the walk, her eyes glued to the door as if salvation waited beyond it, when a voice spoke from behind her. "Mrs. Enderby, I presume?"

Eleanor spun around with a gasp, her satchel flying from her hand as she reached into her coat and grabbed the cudgel she'd stolen from a drunken sailor on the docks in Lyme Regis. She faced her attacker head-on, hoping a scuffle here would be noticed. She didn't care if she drew attention now. They'd found her. Her only hope was that Harry could prevent the miscreant from dragging her back to Enderby.

He was tall, his dark-red hair poking out from beneath a beaver hat. He wasn't as burly as Enderby's other lackeys. She'd never seen this one before, the better to take her by surprise, d.a.m.n him. He was well dressed, which seemed discordant somehow with the danger of the situation. He didn't look belligerent at all, merely mildly amused and relieved, but she was still wary. There was an aura of power about him that made the hair on her nape stand up. He smiled at her then and her mind spun in confusion.

"You shan't need that, Mrs. Enderby," he said quietly, pointing at the cudgel with his oversized walking stick. "I am not who you believe me to be."

"And that's how you disarm someone who wants to knock your head off?" a voice sneered from behind her. Eleanor backed quickly to the side so she could see them both. The speaker was a young man observing them from several feet away. He had his arms crossed and his feet planted wide, blocking her exit to the street. His casual stance didn't fool her for a second. He looked like a sc.r.a.pper and had the height and weight to take her down, cudgel be d.a.m.ned.

"Wiley, be quiet," the redhead said, clearly annoyed. "Now you've startled her again."

"Why don't you ask her to dance?" the Wiley fellow said sarcastically. "Maybe she'll put down the stick and waltz." He looked at Eleanor then. "He probably isn't who you think he is, but keep the cudgel just in case."

The redhead closed his eyes as if in pain. "She could just give it to you, and you could knock my head off. Would that satisfy your need to protect the lady from my dastardly charms?"

"Maybe," Wiley said, looking thoughtful. "At least it would be a good time for me." He addressed Eleanor again. "We mean you no harm, he's not lying about that."

"Who are you then?" she demanded, refusing to drop her guard at their foolish banter. Neither made a move toward her but simply stood there, watching her carefully. The redhead leaned on his walking stick with both hands as if to rea.s.sure her. It was a wasted effort. She knew better than to trust someone like him. He was a man with the power to break her and enjoy doing it.

"My name is Sir Hilary St. John and this is Wiley. We have been looking for you."

"Of course you have," she sneered. "How much did Enderby promise you?"

He shook his head. "You misunderstand. We have been searching for you for your sister."

Her hands began to shake. "Harry?"

"We have been very worried about you, Mrs. Enderby," he said kindly. He looked her up and down. "You look as if you've had a rough time of it, my dear."

At that the fatigue a.s.sailing her finally took its toll. She dropped her arm and staggered back a step. "A rough time?" She started laughing and then she simply couldn't stop. Before she knew it she was crying, great gulping sobs. What a spectacle she was.

"Perhaps we should go in?" the red-haired stranger said. He still didn't move closer to her, just gestured to the door.

She warily watched them, wiping her nose inelegantly on her sleeve, still unsure if she could trust them. The door opened behind her and she quickly raised the cudgel again before she finally turned to see a handsome, dark-haired man standing there frowning at them. "Hil?" he asked, looking curiously at Eleanor. "What's going on?"

"Who is it, Roger?" A blonde, elegant, very pregnant woman came up behind him and peered over his shoulder.

"Harry," Eleanor whispered, awed by how beautiful her sister had become. She'd always had the potential, of course. My G.o.d, how she'd missed her little Harry.

Harry gasped. "Ellie," she cried, awkwardly shoving her way past the man in the doorway and out onto the walk. Eleanor met her halfway and fell into her arms, hugging her little sister for the first time in almost fifteen years.

Hil watched as Harriet Templeton ushered her exhausted sister into the drawing room after their emotional reunion on the front walkway. He'd left Wiley out front, watching to make sure no unwanted guests arrived looking for her. Now that she'd been found, he didn't plan to lose her again. And, of course, after his behavior Wiley deserved to be left out there. In so many ways, Wiley was still the foolish boy he'd taken in off the streets of St. Giles several years ago, despite an education and Hil's tutoring on the finer points of being a gentleman.

Mrs. Enderby hadn't been at all what he was expecting. He'd been told she was quiet and shy. Nondescript and thin, with plain features and long, light-brown hair she wore simply. At least, that was the description they'd been given by her husband's men when they'd come looking for her. They'd gone so far as to hint she'd recently gone a little off in the head, thus her mysterious disappearance. The woman who had confronted him and Wiley on the front walk with a cudgel was none of those things. Well, he couldn't determine her looks just yet because of the enormous hat she wore, but shy and retiring were not the first terms that came to mind. She was younger looking than he'd expected, as well. She was at least thirty-two according to Mrs. Templeton, though she didn't look a day over sixteen in her current clothing. He attributed her wan, thin appearance to a life lived on the run for the last three months.

Harry Templeton had been suspicious from the start. Both she and Roger, one of Hil's dearest friends, declared that the Eleanor Stanley they'd known prior to her marriage was none of those things. True, Harry hadn't seen or corresponded with her sister in almost fifteen years, and for Roger it had been longer, but Eleanor had been uncommonly bright when they were children according to Roger, vivacious and outspoken. She'd been a quiet beauty, the kind of woman who was pa.s.sably pretty until that inner fire lit her up like a firework. Harry had revealed that Eleanor had been unhappy about her marriage to Enderby, and was nervous about her future the last time she'd seen her, when Enderby had taken her back to Derbys.h.i.+re after their wedding. She had never returned to her parents' house, nor had she attended their funerals when they both succ.u.mbed to a fever several years later.

A man had arrived at the Templetons' three months ago looking for her, claiming to work for her husband. Roger hadn't cared for the fellow at all, saying he was cra.s.s and untrustworthy. The man had declared that if she was there they had best hand her over so she could be brought back to Mr. Enderby. Roger had told Hil the entire affair was suspicious. They had indignantly refused to allow the rude stranger to search the premises and they'd shown him the door. A week later a letter arrived from Mr. Enderby corroborating the fellow's story. Eleanor Enderby was missing and her husband very much wanted her returned. Roger and his wife had formulated a polite response which, if one read between the lines, had more or less told Enderby to sod off, and they'd called Hil for help. A logical choice, of course. He was well-known for his knack for solving mysteries and locating missing persons. There was very little he loved more than a good mystery, be it academic or of a more immediate nature.

"Oh, Ellie," Mrs. Templeton said with concern, "you look awful."

Mrs. Enderby was wiping her tears with Roger's handkerchief and sniffing loudly. Hil liked that she didn't seem embarra.s.sed by her tears and wasn't trying to pretend her nose wasn't running. Honesty always received high marks from him. She gave a tremulous laugh at the comment. "Don't sugarcoat it, dear," she said wryly, folding the handkerchief over into a little square and dabbing her eyes some more. "But truly, you haven't seen the worst of it." She sighed and pulled the oversized hat from her head, revealing light-brown, curly hair that had been cut ruthlessly short, and badly, too. It looked like a blind man had taken scissors to her head.

Mrs. Templeton gasped. "Your hair!" she cried out. "Your beautiful hair."

"Its just hair. It will grow back." Mrs. Enderby shrugged with supreme nonchalance.

"Of course it will," Roger said staunchly. He cleared his throat awkwardly. "I suppose you'd like something to eat."

Mrs. Enderby smiled at him and Hil was taken aback. Her mouth was a bit overlarge, and when she smiled her entire face was transformed. Despite her fatigue and general state of dishevelment, she was uncommonly pretty at that moment.

"I am starving," she declared. "I haven't eaten in two days, and it's been even longer since I've slept."

"I'm so sorry, Ellie." Mrs. Templeton was obviously horrified. "I wasn't thinking." She motioned at Roger. "Go. Go and tell Cook to prepare a meal, and then tell Mandrake to have Mrs. Dempsey prepare a room for Eleanor."

Roger smiled at both ladies. "I'm going," he said, pretending to be put out about taking orders from his wife. Hil knew, of course, that his friend would do anything his wife asked him to do, and he'd do it gladly. Now that she was expecting, Roger was even more the besotted fool, and Hil didn't blame him one bit. Mrs. Templeton was quite possibly the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, and a delightful person as well. Sometimes he envied Roger and his marital bliss.

Hil stepped away from the wall where he'd been observing the reunion. The sisters looked over at him, identical expressions of surprise on their faces, as if they'd forgotten he was there. "I shall take my leave, ladies," he said with a bow. "Welcome, Mrs. Enderby, and may I say that I am relieved to meet you at last."

She fidgeted and crushed her hat brim in her hands. "I have a favor to ask of you, Sir Hilary," she said hesitatingly.

Interesting, Hil thought. "Of course. Whatever I can do to be of a.s.sistance." Roger had stopped at the door and turned back to listen.

"I would ask that you keep my arrival in confidence," she asked, her gaze flitting from Hil to Harry to Roger. "I am not ready yet to have it known that I am here."

Meaning she didn't want her husband to know, Hil surmised. It was as he'd suspected. "I shall keep the knowledge to myself," he a.s.sured her. "As a matter of fact, I may be out of London for a time, and so I shall take the secret with me."

"What?" Roger exclaimed. "Why?"

"Another favor I am doing for a friend," Hil answered obliquely. "I expect to be gone for several months at the very least. I can call before I leave if you wish me to do so." He could tell from Mrs. Enderby's expression she understood exactly what he was saying. He'd take her with him if she needed to run even farther. He had no qualms about helping an innocent lady escape an undesirable marriage. Based on his investigation into Enderby's background when he was looking for her and the gossip surrounding their marriage, he had no doubt that was exactly what she was.

She regarded him seriously for a long, drawn-out minute before answering. "No, thank you, Sir Hilary. I do not wish to delay your departure. I bid you farewell and a pleasant journey. Thank you for your help."

"Madam," he said respectfully, with a bow. "Please feel free to send a note to my secretary should you need me. He will have my direction. Shall I see you upon my return?"

"If all goes well, I hope we may renew our acquaintance in the future," she responded, her answer almost as oblique as Hil's had been. His respect for her grew. With another bow he departed the room, quite sure he would never see the mysterious Mrs. Enderby again.

Eleanor watched Sir Hilary leave with Harry's husband, Roger. "Who is he?" she demanded as soon as the door closed. "Why was he looking for me?"

"That's Sir Hilary St. John," Harry told her. "Finding people and things is what he does. He's quite mysterious, and one of Roger's dearest friends in the world. As soon as those horrible men showed up looking for you I sent for Sir Hilary. When even he couldn't find you-" She stopped abruptly and her eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Ellie, I was sure you were dead."

Eleanor tried to a.s.sess all that Harry had said. "What horrible men?" she asked quietly, dealing with most pressing issue first. "When were they here?"

Harry pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and blew her nose. "They first came about three months ago, looking for you. Enderby sent them. They said you'd gone mad and run away from home or some such nonsense. I knew they were lying, and so I asked Sir Hilary to find you."

"First came?" Eleanor asked sharply. "You mean they've been back? How recently?"

Harry nodded. "Yes, a couple of times. They became belligerent, sure we were lying when we said we didn't know where you were. Sir Hilary said they were watching the house for some time. He had men watching them. Oh, it was all so confusing. But they left a few weeks ago. I suppose because they a.s.sumed the same thing we did, that you were dead."

"Good," Eleanor said with satisfaction. "That's exactly what I thought would happen. That's why I stayed hidden so long. Although I'd hoped the misleading clues I left as to where I was going would keep them away from you."

"Eleanor," Harry said with an exasperated huff. "Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"Of course, dear," she said, reaching for Harry's hand. "I've run away, just as they said, but I am not mad. I am free at last." She bit her lip. "Your new husband, he won't make me go back, will he?" She hoped not. The Roger she'd known when they were all so much younger hadn't been that sort. He'd been a good boy, a friend and often a confidante. Truthfully, she'd always rather hoped he'd grow up and marry Harry.

Harry looked utterly astonished. "Roger? Of course not! He hasn't changed a bit, Ellie, from when we were children. He'd never do such a thing. He wouldn't dream of it, not if you don't want to go back. Why don't you want to go back?"

"It's a very long story," she said. "So I shall condense it for you. Enderby is a pig. I loathe him, and he feels the same way about me. The difference is, he can do something about it and I can't. I have been a virtual prisoner at his house in Derbys.h.i.+re for a decade. Which felt even longer than it sounds." She sniffed, refusing to cry anymore over that loathsome fiend and what he'd done. "I can't have children, you know," she said calmly. "The fever, when I was five or six. The doctor said it did something to make me barren."

"I didn't know," Harry said, her cheeks burning as she covered her obvious pregnancy with her hands, as if embarra.s.sed. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry," she said, and she meant it. "Bringing a child into that house would have been a disservice. He doesn't deserve to be a father." She smiled. "And I've accepted it. I heard that you had a baby with Lord Mercer. Is he here?"

"Oh, yes," Harry said, glowing with maternal pride. "Mercy is upstairs, asleep. You shall meet him tomorrow."

Eleanor looked away, and she was confronted with her own image reflected back in the window, the night pitch black outside now. She wished she could open one of the windows. It suddenly seemed so terribly hot and airless in the room. "I tried to meet him when he was born," she said. "I heard that you'd had him, and I escaped and ran to Merveille House, to you and Mercer, hoping to find sanctuary."

Harry grasped her hand in both of hers. "And you never made it?" she said sadly.

"Oh, I made it all right," Eleanor said indignantly, turning back to look at Harry. "Mercer promptly locked me up and sent for Enderby. The next day I was dragged home."

"What?" Harry asked incredulously. "But Mercer never told me. If I had known, Eleanor, I swear I wouldn't have let them take you."

Eleanor shook her head. "There was nothing you could do," she said pragmatically. "It didn't take but a minute in Mercer's company to realize you were in the same situation I was. We were both sold, right and proper, to despicable men."

Harry hugged her tightly. "We were." She held Eleanor's shoulders, facing her. "But I am free by the grace of G.o.d, and you are not. What are we going to do, Eleanor?"

She patted Harry's hand. "Tonight? Nothing. I'm so dreadfully tired, Harry, dear, and my mind is in a bit of a muddle."

Harry hugged her again and this time Eleanor found herself holding her little sister tightly in return, overwhelmed that she had made it. She was here. With Harry. "Of course, darling," Harry said sympathetically. "Come on. I'll show you upstairs."

Eleanor awoke in a cold sweat, her throat aching and her scream echoing off the walls around her. It took a moment to realize she was at Harry's, not back in her locked room at Enderby's. The wick still burned low in the lamp, and she could see the pale-green oriental wallpaper and delicate furnis.h.i.+ngs of the room she'd been given. It was much finer than anything at Enderby's house. Rising from the bed on shaky legs, she stumbled to the window, opening it wide. She took a deep breath of the rather fetid London air. It smelled like heaven, like freedom at last. Closing her eyes she took inventory of her self and her surroundings. Her belly was full, her clothes clean and sweet smelling, and the window was wide open. No thundering voice yelling invectives as Enderby charged from his room at the interruption of his sleep. She smiled, and she knew it wasn't pretty. It was an angry, determined smile. Just then there was a knock at the door.

"Eleanor," Harry called out sounding rather frantic. "Are you all right?" She knocked again. "Eleanor?"

"Eleanor, open the door." It was Roger.

She hadn't realized the door was closed. Of course. That's what woke her up. She'd opened it before she'd gone to sleep. The maid must have closed it. G.o.d, she hated closed doors. "Come in," she called out, dragging her borrowed wrapper from the chair by the bed with shaking hands and pulling it on.

The door flew open and Roger charged in, Harry right behind him. Both were barefoot and obviously wearing hastily donned wraps. Suddenly Eleanor heard the cries of her young nephew from the floor above. "I've woken Mercy," she said apologetically. "I'm sorry."

"You're sorry?" Roger said disbelievingly. "My heart is still palpitating from your scream. What happened?"

"Just a silly nightmare, I suppose," she said, avoiding the truth. She wrapped her arms around her middle so they wouldn't see her shaking. She didn't want them to know how foolish she was about it all. This was Harry's, not Enderby's. They weren't going to lock her in. She could leave whenever she wanted.

"Ellie, you must tell us," Harry pleaded. "How can we help?"

That caught Eleanor's attention. She brushed aside the last remnants of the dream and focused on Harry and Roger. She'd need their help if she was to escape Enderby for good. No time like the present to discuss that. She certainly wasn't going back to sleep right away. "I have a plan," she declared. "One that will disgrace Enderby and gain me my freedom. But I have to remain lost for some time more. I need Enderby to be so convinced I'm dead that he remarries."

Harry looked stupefied. "But that could take years!"

"That's what woke you up, screaming?" Roger asked, clearly bewildered. He still looked half-asleep.

"No, Roger," Eleanor said patiently. "But Harry asked how you could help. And the greatest thing you can do for me is to help me gain my freedom from Enderby, once and for all."