The Devil She Knows - By Diane Whiteside Page 0,15
Impossible; she’d given her word to marry him—for better or for worse. After all, there had to be a future ahead for a woman who did her best to be a good wife.
She’d created more than one ruckus in her life but never the commotion that walking out on St. Arles now would cause.
What did any of that matter? Like it or not, she’d married him and she’d keep her vows.
Portia Townsend—no, Vanneck—wrapped herself in her best, well-bred smile and leaned very slightly on her new husband’s arm. Her finishing school’s deportment teacher would have been proud.
She deliberately did not look anywhere near Gareth Lowell.
But too much of her heart shattered when the side door slammed behind him.
Chapter Seven
The fire sparked and sizzled in the library’s flamboyant, tiled fireplace. A flame leaped high toward the chimney and freedom until the log underneath cracked loudly then collapsed onto the hearth. Ashes billowed toward the room beyond like a small, deadly storm, dotted with ravenous sparks. They almost seemed angry they couldn’t devour the wedding reception for a British earl and a New York debutante.
If William Donovan had any sense, he’d let those fiery devils seize the woolen carpet and burn down Walter Townsend’s New York mansion. They would need far less than an hour and he’d easily have his family out of here long before they were done.
Richard Lindsay, Viola’s father and Portia’s doting grandfather, watched silently, brocade curtains spilling behind him like memories of the Barbary pirates he’d defeated as a naval officer decades ago. They’d drawn straws for who’d have the privilege of leading this conversation and William had won, illegally of course. Townsend was probably better off dealing with an Irish street rat than somebody who’d learned mercy in Tunisian slave pens.
Portia’s father puffed another set of smoke rings at the paneled ceiling. He filled his leather easy chair like a toad on a lily pad, all corpulent self-satisfaction and disinterest in anyone else’s condition.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, had the bastard no interest in his daughter’s fate? Had he taken a single glance into Portia’s eyes when she staggered away from her husband at the altar?
“Splendid ceremony, wasn’t it, gentlemen? I fancy you won’t see its like out west for many years to come,” the poltroon commented and aimed a superior smile at his three companions. “People will be congratulating me for years on the bride’s looks.”
Hal Lindsay snapped his jaw shut with an almost audible click, his blue eyes hotter than the fire. Every blessed saint in heaven would be needed to protect somebody who spoke that callously of Hal’s little girls.
Yet he locked down his anger, as if he tamped down his steamboat’s boilers against an explosion, and took up station by the library door. A single fulminating glare warned his brother-in-law to hasten before he forgot their bargain and took action first.
“D’you think so, Townsend, my lad?” William inquired, sliding into a dark croon better suited for Dublin’s back alleys than Manhattan’s fancy mansions. “Or will people be talking for days about how your daughter cowered from her husband?”
“In God’s holy church, too, no less,” Richard contributed.
“Aye, a terrible thing that. Sure to increase the gossip,” William mourned, eyeing his enemy’s distorted appearance in the wineglass’s facets. The grotesque countenance was probably an accurate rendition of the selfishness inside.
“Ridiculous!” The New Yorker slapped his hand down onto the table. “Did you see how many people came? She was simply overwhelmed by the occasion and started to feel faint.” His voice rose, shedding its usual warm patina like a snake discarding its skin to escape predators. His eyes darted around the room and, for the first time, hunted for escape routes.
“I saw a girl jerk herself away from a man, like a filly fleeing a cruel spur.” Even Hal’s shortest syllable contained a deadly warning.
“Nonsense.” Townsend stormed onto his feet, his watch chain rattling across his over-fed gut. “Today was a great moment for the entire family. Portia will tell you the same, once I speak to her.”
“As soon as you tell her exactly what to say?” William asked, rage ripping hot and wild through his blood. Did the bastard consider his daughter an obedient doll, useful only for his ambitions?
“Of course! No matter what befalls her, Portia will do what I command. She knows better than to argue with me.” His jaw jutted out, belligerent as the fire irons warding the hearth from the room.
“You son of a bitch.” William punched his brother-in-law on the