The Devil Claims a Wife. Helen Dickson

he looked back into her eyes. Reaching out, he touched her cheek with the backs of his fingers. When he spoke, his voice was solemn and he held her gaze with an intensity of his own.

      ‘You’re very beautiful,’ he murmured, both entranced and repelled by what he wanted. ‘I remember your father and your mother,’ he said equably. ‘I have known them since I was a boy, in good times and bad. So know this, and never doubt it, sweet Jane.’ He seemed to measure his words carefully. ‘My word is my bond and I pledge it to you. You can rest assured we shall meet—and at my instigation. I promise you.’

      Jane stared at him aghast, realising he meant every word he said. For a moment the blue eyes looked savage. That this mighty lord should want her both fascinated and terrified her. He was confusing on every level. Unknown and intriguing, he was a new threat that could not be second-guessed. She knew beyond doubt that she was his prey, that he intended to seduce her, to dishonour her, and nothing was going to deter him from trying—not even the fact that she was about to be betrothed to another.

      Guy St Edmond would have no pity on her and he would damn anyone who stood in his way.

      She could not let that happen. Time that had stopped for a moment went on again. Unable to bear his taunting gaze, she dropped her eyes and made a curtsy. With a deep laugh and a touch of spurs to his horse’s flesh, Guy turned and rode off in pursuit of his companions.

      Not until he was out of sight did Jane turn to Kate, who suddenly found her tongue.

      ‘Well, I never! The Earl of Sinnington! He has a way about him, doesn’t he?’

      ‘Oh, yes. He certainly has a way. Come, let us play a game of hoodman blind. I shall wear the blindfold.’

      Determined not to let the encounter with Guy St Edmond spoil their game, Jane took the cloth from Alfred’s pocket and tied it around her eyes. Having no wish to go home just yet, the frightening interlude forgotten as they became caught up in the new game, the children giggled and erupted into gales of laughter as they darted this way and that to avoid their sister’s groping hands. Jane laughed delightedly as she pretended she couldn’t locate the giggling children.

      Taking a moment to pause and look back, Guy was enchanted by what he saw. Mistress Lovet’s laughter rang out like tinkling chimes. It was a delightful scene—a scene of innocence and perfection that would become etched in memory and emblazoned on his heart.

      From her seat on a stout trunk of a fallen tree, Kate watched the innocent play of her charges. Kate had watched Jane grow. As a child she’d been headstrong, pugnacious and daring. Surrounded by family all her life, especially her doting mother, she was an imp of a girl, always courting laughter with her japes.

      Kate’s gaze took in the condition of Alfred and Blanche, which brought a frown to her brow. They had set off from home in their best and she was dismayed to see that Alfred had scuffed his shoes and ripped his hose, and that Blanche had leaves and twigs in her hair. They were in for a scolding from their father when they got back to the house, unless she could smuggle them upstairs and clean them up first. Knowing it was time to go home, she rose.

      ‘Jane, come. It’s time we were getting back. Enough play for today. Your mother stressed that you mustn’t be late.’

      Removing her blindfold, Jane laughed at her maid, her beloved Kate, who knew her like no other, who saw to all their needs with affection and devotion. ‘Must we go now, Kate?’

      ‘Do you forget that soon you are to be betrothed? There is much to be done before the event. Even now your mother is sewing her fingers raw in her effort to complete your gown in time.’

      Kate’s words were a harsh reminder to Jane that soon she would have the mundane affairs of the wife of a cloth merchant’s son to fill her days and occupy her mind—soon, but not yet. As hard as she resisted, she could not help wondering what it would be like to be married to a man like Guy St Edmond instead.

      Not that she could now seriously entertain the idea of marriage to one other than Richard. She’d committed herself to doing right by her family and was not one to go back on her word, no matter how distasteful she found the consequences. She had been raised to know her place and knew better than to defy the rules of men and make her own destiny. It had come as no surprise to her and with much bitterness that, as a girl, her worth to her family was her marriageability.

      Believing in the inherent wisdom of her parents, Jane was optimistic about her future and had not questioned their judgement—until now, when her betrothal was just days away and she had gazed upon the handsome face of Guy St Edmond.

      Guy was staring straight ahead into the distance, a faint smile playing about his lips as his eyes embraced his home. He tipped his head in the direction he was staring and in a quiet voice, said, ‘Look, Cedric—the castle.’

      ‘It’s a fine demesne. You’ve been looking at it as if you’ve not set eyes on it before.’

      ‘Not in a long time, Cedric. Eight years, at least—and not since my father passed on and my brother was killed at St Albans. I kept meaning to come back, but the king always had urgent need of me elsewhere, which may have been for the best. The battles have made me wealthy, which will ensure my sons will not have to earn their living with muscle and blood as I have done.’

      ‘So you have done with fighting.’

      ‘I’d like to think I’ve breached my last castle wall and fought on my last battlefield,’ Guy said, his voice harsh with resolve. ‘Dear God, it will be good to be home at last, to have a soft bed to sleep in every night and good food in my belly.’

      Guy drank in the incredible beauty of the wide vale of Cherriot. Twenty miles north of London, it was a fertile valley. The hills on either side were covered with forest and fertile fields, the lower slopes clothed with pear and apple orchards and fruit gardens. His vast demesne contained four villages, two visible to the eye. A lazy river meandered its way passed the picturesque town of Cherriot, with its main street, the stone bridge which spanned the river, and industrial premises along the waterfront: leather tanners, sawmills, manufacturers and the abattoirs. Smoke rose from a thousand chimneys and miniature people meandered through the streets going about their business. On a raised plateau overlooking this pastoral scene stood Sinnington Castle, with its soaring turrets and high, thick walls punctuated with six gracefully rounded towers.

      Guy could hardly contain his excitement the closer they got to the castle. He was expected. There were sentries at the gate. They clattered over the bridge that spanned the moat.

      ‘I can see this is the ideal place for you to settle down and raise those sons you intend to have one day,’ Cedric remarked, appreciating all he saw.

      ‘I must first find a wife who will give me children, Cedric,’ Guy said with a fierceness that left Cedric in no doubt about his seriousness. ‘It’s no matter whether she is pretty or not, so long as she can give me fine sons.’

      ‘Then all you have to do is find the lady.’

      Guy stared straight ahead. For months he had been plagued by a deepening awareness of a large hole in his life, an emptiness. He had sensed it vaguely and ignored it because for a very long time it evoked painful memories of Isabel Leigh, a callous, brown-eyed witch driven by ambition and greed. For a time her beauty had bewitched him and, when she had betrayed him with another, he had been shocked to discover how close he had come to losing control. He had vowed that his emotions would never again be engaged by a woman. He wanted none of their treachery and deceit. But his need for sons had sharpened since he had fought his last battle into a nameless hunger, a gnawing urgency.

      He had a fortune to rival many of his aristocratic friends, but he had no heir to leave it to. If he died unexpectedly—and there was always a chance of that, the way he lived—everything he’d worked and fought for would die with him. But getting heirs meant putting up with the inconvenience of a wife, a prospect he so little relished that he had been putting it off for years. Where could a man find a woman who would bear his children and otherwise leave him alone?

      Unbidden, an image of Jane Lovet