To Desire a Devil (Legend of the Four Soldiers #4)(30)

“Dear God,” Beatrice breathed, feeling sick to her stomach. How terrible for Lord Hope to lose his men thusly. How impotent he must’ve felt.

He was gazing out the window again and made no indication that he’d heard her. “After we made the camp, I was separated from the others by the Indian who had captured me. His name was Sastaretsi. He stripped me naked, took my clothes away, and gave me only a thin, flea-infested blanket to cover myself with. Then Sastaretsi marched me through the woods for six weeks. By the time we’d made his village, I was walking in bare feet through grass crusted with frost.”

He paused, remembering that awful time, and Beatrice was silent, waiting.

“All that time,” he whispered. “All that time, I schemed on how to kill Sastaretsi. But my hands were bound so tightly in front of me that the flesh had swollen into the leather thongs. He’d pulled my fingernails from my hands so I could not use even their feeble strength to scratch my bonds loose. And at night he tied my bound hands to a stake driven deep in the ground. I was weakened from the cold and lack of nourishment. I think I might’ve died in that endless wood if we hadn’t happened upon a French trapper and his son. The man spoke some Wyandot and seemed to take pity on me, for he gave me an old shirt and a pair of leggings. Those leggings and shirt saved me.”

He was silent again, and this time Beatrice knew he didn’t mean to go on.

“But why?” she finally blurted. “Why did Sastaretsi do all this to you?”

He looked at her then, and his eyes were blank—flat as if he were dead. “Because he meant to burn me at the stake when we reached his village.”

Chapter Six

Now, a giant hourglass sits in the throne room of the Goblin King, its sands endlessly flowing until time itself shall stop. By this means, the goblins mark time in their sunless land deep beneath the earth. It happened that one year when Longsword went to plea for his freedom, the Goblin King was in a particularly good mood, having just that day defeated a great prince in battle.

The Goblin King glanced at his hourglass and then said to Longsword, “You’ve served me well for seven years, my slave. Because of this, I shall make you a bargain.”

Longsword bowed his head, for he knew well that a bargain with the Goblin King suits only the Goblin King.

“You may walk the earth above for one year,” the Goblin King said. “Mark you, one year only. At the end of that time, if you have found one Christian soul to voluntarily take your place in the land of the goblins, then you shall be free and I shall trouble you no more.”

“And if I do not?” Longsword asked.

The Goblin King grinned. “Then you shall serve me for all eternity. . . .”

—from Longsword

Lottie Graham sipped her wine, peering at her husband over the edge of the glass. Nathan was absorbed in thought tonight, his broad brow slightly knit, his blue eyes vague and unfocused.

She set down the wineglass precisely and said, “We received an invitation to a ball hosted by Miss Molyneux today.”

There was a pause that stretched so long that for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer her at all.

Then Nate blinked. “Who?”

“Miss Cristelle Molyneux.” Lottie cut into the roast duck on her plate. “She’s Reynaud St. Aubyn’s aunt on his mother’s side. I think she plans to reintroduce him to society. In any case, the invitation was sent on scandalously short notice—she plans it for this Thursday.”

“Seems silly to plan it on so little notice,” Nate said. “Will anyone show, I wonder?”

“Oh, she’ll have no problem filling her ballroom.” Lottie speared a piece of duck, but then set it back on the plate. Her appetite seemed nonexistent tonight. “Everyone will be wanting to see the mysterious mad earl.”

Nate frowned. “He’s not an earl yet.”

“But surely it’s only a matter of time?” Lottie twirled her wineglass stem.

“Only a fool would think that.”

Lottie felt tears spring to her eyes. She looked down at her lap. “I’m sorry you think me a fool.”

“You know that’s not what I meant.” His voice was brisk, impatient.

There’d been a time back before they’d married when her slightest frown would cause him to offer profuse apologies. Once, he’d sent her an arrangement of flowers so big it’d taken two footmen to bring it into the house. All because he’d not been able to take her driving on a day it’d rained.

Now he thought her a fool.

“It’ll take a special parliamentary committee, I believe,” Nate was saying as she thought these gloomy things, “to decide if this man is indeed St. Aubyn, and if he is, who the proper Earl of Blanchard is. That, at least, is the opinion of many of the learned parliamentarians. There hasn’t been a case such as this one in living memory, and many are quite interested in the legal implications.”

“Are they?” Lottie murmured. She’d lost interest in the conversation while her husband had finally become engaged in it. Had her marriage always been thus? “In any case, I thought it would be nice to attend the ball. It’s bound to have all the best gossip of the year.”

She glanced up in time to catch the look of irritation that crossed his face.

“I know that keeping up with the latest scandal is vital to you, dearest,” he said. “But there are actually other things of import in the world, you know.”