The Devil She Knows - By Diane Whiteside Page 0,16

jaw and Townsend’s eyes rolled back into his head. He crumpled onto the carpet into a disheveled heap, like the shattered ruins of a false god.

Satisfaction spilled into William’s belly, touching the few edges left unoccupied by his terror for Portia. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, her skin couldn’t have been any tighter over her jaw when she left for her wedding night than if she’d sat next to a cougar.

“Good blow,” Hal commented from beside William’s shoulder. “I wouldn’t have been as polite.”

The ambitious easterner stirred. He clambered onto his knees and glared at them, his tiny eyes malevolent in the fireplace’s baleful glow. “You had no right to do that. Girls were meant to be obedient, not to be heard!”

“This is for sending my granddaughter away to the other side of the ocean and separating her from her brothers.” Richard lashed out with his foot in a blow to make any veteran saloon fighter proud. The kick sent Townsend onto his back with a loud “oof!”

William watched grimly, wishing it had been that bastard, St. Arles. Blessed Mother Mary, how he prayed Lowell would find a way to help Portia.

“Come on, let’s get him up,” he ordered, hating the necessity to be civilized. “We need to find out if there’s any way we can ease Portia out of that brute’s clutches.”

Hal helped him haul Townsend’s flabby, elephantine weight upright. William brusquely cuffed him across the face, unwilling to waste time with extra words. The fool swayed in their iron grip, his eyes bleary.

“Lazy asshole.” William slapped him again. “Listen to me.”

Townsend blinked and tried to jerk away. Richard shoved him back into place.

“You’re a pitiful excuse for a father but you’re the only one Portia has,” William snapped, more harshly than he’d ever spoken to a mule. “So we’ll make the most of you, do you understand?”

Their ostensible host curled his lip and declined to answer—until Hal pricked his chin with needle sharp, cold steel. Townsend shrieked at the dirk and almost pulled out of William’s grip, spilling a foul stench into the elegant room.

William cursed violently in Gaelic and yanked the fool forward by his vest. “Townsend.”

The New Yorker trembled violently but didn’t try to run this time. Hal’s knife stroking his cheek undoubtedly aided his concentration.

“Will you be a good father to Portia?” Richard asked sternly.

“Yes,” Townsend whispered hoarsely, his gray eyes flapping sideways toward Hal’s blade. Sniveling easterner had definitely never seen a true threat before.

“A fine one, to be proud of?” William demanded.

“I swear it!” Blood trickled down his unhappy relative’s throat and stained his collar.

“How much did St. Arles wring out of you for Portia?” Hal inquired, deadly as a coroner hurling questions over a corpse.

“A lump sum sufficient to pay off his father’s and brother’s debts.” He tolled the words like an accountant recounting the loss of hard-won pennies to a bitter enemy.

“Good Lord!” Richard ejaculated. “Surely there were other peers on the Marriage Mart you could have bought for that much?”

“Not of the same rank.” Townsend shrugged pettishly, braver now that he could look away from the knife. “St. Arles was willing to take a far smaller annual income after the ceremony, if he received the bulk at the beginning. It was a better bargain all around.”

“A half million?” Richard’s tone indicated he named a larger than usual sum.

Townsend shook his head and jerked his thumb upward to indicate a far higher sum.

William’s vision began to darken. He’d grown up on a seaport’s streets and knew far too much about buying and selling flesh. But back there, the seller was always motivated by matters of life and death. Here, it was only to increase the feather bed comfort of a greedy fool’s life—and risk destroying his own flesh and blood.

William’s fingers tightened on the bastard’s shoulder, grinding muscle and sinew against bone.

“Ahh!” The weakling’s knees started to buckle and Hal ruthlessly yanked him completely upright.

“Did you tell St. Arles about Juliet’s money?” Hal demanded in tones which would have cut steel.

William froze, a faint spark of hope warming his veins. Viola and Juliet, as the only granddaughters, had split Richard’s mother’s investments. Portia, Juliet’s only daughter, had inherited all of her mother’s share.

Surely Townsend would have told St. Arles about that family trust. But if he hadn’t…

“Not yet. It’s not a very sizable amount—is it?” He glanced around at the other men and read the answer in their implacable countenances. “A fortune? Good Lord, I must tell St. Arles immediately. He might