Demon's Bride

“A compound of both.” The Devil’s gift remained a secret known only to him and the other Hellraisers. As far as A

No, she could not know. Her learning about his magic would jeopardize this tentative co

“So it was luck and wisdom that saw you from a saddler’s son to ...” She waved her hand at the parlor, its walls covered in ivory damask, gilded carvings adorning the mirrors, moldings, and sconces. In truth, he found the style of the room to be oppressively ornate, but had permitted the designer to decorate the whole house as he pleased. Naturally, the man had employed the most expensive designs and artisans.

Leo had been home too infrequently to be bothered. So long as his house had displayed his wealth, he did not care.

Now, however, seeing A

Abruptly, he got to his feet. A

“It has paths and a fountain, though it is a little barren so early in the year.” She rose, and he caught her scent of green meadow and young woman.

He had an urge to place his mouth at the juncture of her neck and her shoulder. But it was too soon. Instead, he strode to the door and said to the footman waiting outside, “Have Mrs. Bailey’s maid fetch a cloak for her mistress. And don’t light torches in the garden.” After the glare of indoors, he wanted the darkness.

He turned back to A

“I often walked in the garden at night. After the chaos of the day, it gave me some peace.”

He would scarce recognize peace if it shot him in the face.

In a moment, A

Claiming his glass of wine, he offered her his arm. Her fingers rested lightly on his sleeve. Had his other hand not been occupied with his glass, he would have clasped her fingers closer. A testing, to see whether she would retreat, or push forward. Yet without the slightest provocation on his part, her hold became more secure, fingers curving with purpose around his forearm.

Desire knifed through him. He mentally shook himself. I’m a sodding boy again. A time in his life when just the fan of a girl’s eyelash could rouse his cock. Now, years later, only the firmer press of A

“Comfortable?” He wasn’t.

At her nod, they walked downstairs and then out together. Brittle air scented with smoke and fog bit at exposed skin, but after the close heat of indoors, Leo welcomed the bite. He led her down pathways paved with crushed shells. Accustomed more to purposeful striding than a placid stroll, Leo forced himself into an even, steady pace, feeling the cold air abrade his lungs.

Bare-branched privet hedges squatted beside the path, and Leo could just make out in the darkness the skeletal arms of espaliered fruit trees reaching toward the sky. He tried to remember what might grow in the neat rectangular beds and found that he could not.

“In the spring, this will be a very pretty spot.” A

It was the first he knew of it, or even what fruit the trees might bear.

“We had no garden,” he said. “The saddlery shared a common yard with a potter and a chandler, and we lived behind the shop. The yard was just that, a square of dirt. It smelled of wax, clay, and leather.”

“That’s where you played?”

He snorted. “No play. From the time I could hold a pair of shears, I helped my da. Schooling first, then work. Da wanted to be sure I knew my letters. He didn’t, not until he reached four and forty.”

Leo had never spoken of this to anyone, not even Edmund or Whit. They knew many aspects of his low birth, but never such intimate details, and it surprised Leo that he talked so openly to A

As if sensing this, a cloud over the moon abruptly shifted and icy light spilled into the garden, washing away the intimate dark. In the light, he felt exposed, the distance between him and his wife all too evident. Moonlight drove them apart, for now he had nowhere to hide.

He cursed himself for being so unguarded. Surely she’d mock him for being the son of an illiterate. He readied for her cutting words, telling himself that he didn’t care what she thought of his humble blood.

“Your father must have taught himself,” she said instead.

Leo’s steps slowed a little, surprised by her response. “He did. Sat at the kitchen table with a hornbook, struggling to sound out the Lord’s Prayer.”

“With such a determined son, I expect no less from the father.” Esteem warmed her voice.

Leo felt as though he’d taken a punch to the chest. To steady himself, he took a drink of wine. He had expected bafflement from her, or outright disdain. But not this ... admiration. Especially not in the clarity of a barren, moonlight-blasted garden. Yet she saw him fully, and liked what she saw.

“No one more determined than Adam Bailey,” he said after a moment. “Was as determined.” Leo’s father had died as he lived: working. Always wanting more. A trait shared by his only living son.

Leo had advantages his father did not. More wealth, a greater understanding of the exigencies of business. And magic, given to him by the Devil.

Leo would use his every power to seize whatever he wanted.

As if frustrated by the growing bond between him and A

“Fifteen shillings a week. That’s what he made.” The same amount Leo carried in his pocket wherever he went. “Hardly more than subsistence.”

“Something altered your circumstances.”

“A rich man’s fancy.” The irony hardly escaped him.

“He gave my father a commission. A bloody big commission that meant pulling me from school so I could help complete it in time. The man wanted a dozen racing saddles. And he wanted them within a month. So we made the damned things, my father, my mother, and me. I was ten at the time. We had to hire the coffin-builder’s wagon to make the delivery.” Sometimes he woke from dreams to find his fingers holding a phantom awl.

“The man must have been quite fond of horseflesh,” A

“He owned two horses only, to pull his carriage. Said that he’d been thinking about taking up racing, and wanted to be prepared, should he ever indulge the whim.”

A

He stopped and faced her. “I never said that.”

“Those words specifically? No.” Some light escaped the house, tracing the line of her cheek and curve of her ear as she stared up at him. Her gaze was alert, unblinking. “Yet it’s there, just the same. Your opinion of the upper classes is ... low.”