A Wild Night's Bride (The Devil DeVere #1)

A Wild Night's Bride (The Devil DeVere #1)

Victoria Vane




PROLOGUE




St. James, Westminster – 1783




“Ned, you must wake up.” The frantic whisper and tickle of silky hair pleasantly penetrated the periphery of Sir Edward Chambers’ drink-induced, sexually sated, and fog-enshrouded consciousness. “Come, Neddie,” the soft voice implored. “You must wake, or there will be the devil to pay.”

He groaned, rolling onto his side to the simultaneous awareness of a pounding head and the soft, warm presence beside him. He groped blindly, defining a shapely feminine backside that tauntingly wriggled against his groin, stirring quite another part of him to a wakeful and throbbing state. He nuzzled her neck while his burgeoning erection sought the warmth betwixt her thighs. “Annalee, my sweet Annalee,” he murmured into her hair.

The warm, welcoming body became cold stone. “Phoebe,” a voice intoned.

Ned’s bleary eyes popped open, his attention immediately riveted to the massive bed, the heavy velvet curtains of rich crimson and gold, and the towering hand-carved posts of mahogany. He jerked upright as if doused with ice water, his gaze settling on the voluptuous, blue-eyed blonde lying amidst the tangle of luxurious linens. “Kitty?”

“No. Phoebe,” she answered. “My name. It’s Phoe-be.”

“Phoebe?” He frowned in puzzlement. His gaze darted from his thoroughly tumbled bedfellow to the opulent room. He frantically scrubbed his face and looked wildly about the room, eager to light upon something, anything, to assure himself he wasn’t going mad. The vision of his surroundings sent him scrambling to his knees, entangling him in the bed sheets, and tumbling him to the floor. Lying stunned on the thick Turkish carpet, his confused conscience absorbed the soaring twenty-foot, shadow-boxed ceiling depicting classical heroes.

“Kitty, Phoebe, or whoever-the-devil-you-are,” he spoke through clenched teeth. “This isn’t Carlton House, is it?”

“No.”

His heart beating apace, Ned willed himself first to breathe and then to modulate a tone verging on panic. “I was with DeVere last night. Where is DeVere?”

“DeVere is locked safely in the linen closet.” She hugged her breasts, her expression suddenly wary. “Don’t you remember anything?”

He vigorously shook his pounding head only to bring forth a chaotic kaleidoscope of last night’s events, and the impossible truth persisted to push its way to the surface.

His gaze glued to the bed, Ned made a mechanical backward retreat to the center of the room where he had a clearer prospect of its crowning glory. His vision rose to the top of the headboard, to the heraldic shield seated betwixt the carved figures of a lion and a unicorn. His gaze slid with dread to the engraved scroll beneath. Dieu Et Mon Droit. God and my right, the motto of the king. His chest seized. The room began to spin. He looked to Phoebe, aware that the blood was draining from his face, and that his voice emerged as a strangled sound. “May the same God save me...for I’m going to be hung, drawn, and quartered for spending last night rutting in the King of England’s bed!”





Chapter One


Covent Garden Theatre, Westminster Although the normal flurry of activity persisted, with bodies coming and going and articles of clothing flying hither and yon, the communal dressing room of Covent Garden Theatre was a somber twin to its normally gleeful self, the chatter and bonhomie of the players subdued and even forced. What the company all knew but refused to voice aloud was that most of those performers not already taken on by Mr. Sheridan would be unemployed once tonight’s curtain dropped. It was the last performance of the season and the one that would officially close the venue for renovations needed to keep up with its chief competitor, the Theatre Royal at Drury Lane.

It was Phoebe Scott’s third season. She had joined the troupe with dreams of gracing the stage as Ophelia or Lady MacBeth, but, to her growing frustration, she’d yet to advance beyond ladies’ maids and other bit comedic parts. The rest of the time, when she had no speaking parts, she earned her keep by the generosity of the deputy stage manager, Mr. Hull, who paid her five shillings per night to act as a tire woman to the lead actresses. Such was the case tonight, but with the doors closing tomorrow, even this meager income would soon be lost.

Although she eked out the most parsimonious existence, Phoebe wondered how long her savings would keep her, and more dismally, if she would even have a chance of rejoining the theater troupe next season when it reopened its doors in all of its shining, new glory. With so little true acting credit to her name, her chances were slim. Tonight, however, she refused to allow the uncertainty of her future to dim her enjoyment of the show. It was her favorite play, Mrs. Cowley’s Belle’s Stratagem. In her three years at Covent Garden, Phoebe had never missed a performance of it and had even committed every bit of dialogue to heart.

Donning her chambermaid’s costume, she forced a cheerful smile upon her painted lips and took herself off briskly to the leading actress’s private dressing room, where she would help to outfit the not so young Miss Younge for her starring role as Leticia. Knowing any number of surprises might lurk behind closed dressing room doors, Phoebe rapped thrice before entering, only to find the room devoid of the star player.

“She ain’t ‘ere, luv,” said Mistress Andrews, an aged bit-part actress, now full-time wardrobe mistress.