Give All to Love Page 5

  Santana was a big black stallion with a Roman nose, a deep barrel, straight powerful legs, and an uncertain temperament that bedevilled the grooms. With Devenish, he was docility itself, but woe betide any stranger who attempted to ride him.

  On this sunny afternoon, the air carried a chill warning of approaching winter. The clouds were shredding across the pale skies, and the tops of the trees were tossing to a strong wind.

  Devenish gave Santana his head, and the big black thundered northwestward across the meadows, skirting the Home Wood, moving with his powerful, ground-covering stride that faltered not in the slightest when they came into the steeper slopes of the Cotswolds. Devenish slowed the horse, and Santana, rebelling, fought for his head again, but was subdued by the firm hand and voice that were unlike the hand and voice of any other man who had ever ridden—or had attempted to ride—him. This was the one human who must never be disobeyed or displeased. And so they came to the top of the steep rise in more sedate style. Devenish drew his mount to a halt and gazed out across the wide panorama while Santana snorted and pawed at the earth and rolled his fierce eyes, just to let the master know he had not yet begun to run.

  It was very clear this afternoon. Off to the left the River Severn made its way southwest toward the Bristol Channel. Far off, Devenish could see the dark mass of the Forest of Dean. Eastward, roll upon roll, rose the green might of the Cotswolds. He was at the edge of his preserves now, and he turned Santana about, looking back to where, far below, Devencourt nestled in its valley. Even from this distance the beauty of the Elizabethan mansion was marked, and he leaned forward, one hand on the pommel, surveying his birthright.

  Devencourt was built in the shape of a squared U. The central block and oldest part of the structure rose to three storeys, with half-timbered walls and latticed windows, all of which leaned a little, since the old building had settled during the long march of the years and was now markedly out of plumb. Both two-storey wings had been added at a later date, but faithfully adhered to the earlier architectural style. A great house it was, shielded by massive old oaks, set amid emerald lawns, its size and majesty softened by the graceful gardens that surrounded it. A sight to bring joy to the heart of any owner, one might suppose. Yet Devenish’s eyes were bleak, his handsome features brooding. As a little boy, Devencourt had seemed to him a monstrous, living thing, reaching out to hug him to itself and keep him captive and alone amidst the tragic memories of bygone years. Even today, he feared it, dogged by a shadow of some inescapable evil.

  He set his jaw, impatient with such gloomy forebodings. He’d been happy here, hadn’t he? He’d had seven years of busy, full days. Seven years of laughter and contentment. The laughter of a little girl, whose endless inventiveness had been a never-failing source of wonder and delight. It was Josie who had kept at him until the new flower beds were installed. It was at her urging that he had thrown the old place open for Public Days each August, and it was because of her cheerful spreading of the word that many people had essayed the long and potholed road that wound through the hills to serve both his property and that of Sir William Little. Next, she had badgered him into taking her to Town to choose new furnishings for the main block, which had been largely neglected and unused for the past century or so. He smiled faintly as he recalled the friends she had beguiled into visiting them as she grew older. His complaints that his house fairly shook to schoolgirl squeals and chatter had been cheerfully ignored, and in some mysterious fashion he had become a part of their games. Charades and spillikins and Fish; picnics, boat parties, musicales … and as the merry years slipped away, charity bazaars and fetes, fund-raising activities at the church, visitations of the sick, inspections of his tenants and their properties, judging at horse shows and fairs. Activities he would never have chosen to embrace, but into which he had been swept by the enthusiasm and manoeuvrings of his vivacious little ward.

  From the beginning, it had been so. Looking back over the years, he could see as if it were yesterday, their initial journey down from Scotland. A journey he had embarked upon with dark despair, for he had left behind his love, the lady to whom he had been betrothed most of his life, until she saw his Canadian cousin. All the way to London, Josie had chattered—a bright spirit beside him, combatting gloom and heartbreak. For her sake, he had been obliged to appear cheerful. And, how she had pestered him, the wretched brat. The questions! The interest! The delight over the many aspects of the great city that, having seen all his days, he had seen not at all. Despite his feeble protests, he had been inveigled into taking her to all the major sights, and had discovered that his old City was greater than he’d dreamed. He smiled, remembering how his feet had ached, and he had merely walked! Josie had danced and bounced and hopped through St. Paul’s and Westminster Abbey. Even the mighty Tower of London had not subdued her, and several Beefeaters had been willing captives to her enthusiasm. Their visit to the Exeter Exchange had been ghastly. She had raged because she felt the wild beasts were too closely confined. Agreeing, he had tackled one of the guides and become involved in a hideous controversy that had ended with their polite ejection from the premises. And how they had laughed together. Down through the years, her laughter rang, replacing sorrow with amusement, and amusement with delight, and delight with—

  ‘You’re not so young as you used to be…’ He scowled. He was only three and thirty, but three and thirty was too old for—some things. And he was a damaged three and thirty.

  He reined Santana around and headed northwards. There was no cause to rush home. Perhaps he’d ride up to Gloucester and overnight with Guy Sanguinet. He could send word back from Stroud. Santana started down the steep slope. Devenish leaned back in the saddle. The big black slipped and slithered. Devenish swayed easily and patted the smooth flank. Coming to more level ground, he lifted the reins and, with a snort of triumph, Santana gathered his mighty muscles and all but flew.

  The landscape became a green blur. The air beat at Devenish’s face, snatching his breath away. He gave a cry of exultation and bent lower, and horse and rider thundered past an isolated cottage, shot down a winding lane, across open turf, and around the base of a steep rise and came nose to nose with an oncoming rider.

  Santana emitted an equine scream and shied violently. Only Devenish’s superb horsemanship kept him in the saddle. The other rider fought desperately to keep from being thrown, and ended with a wild leap to the ground.

  “Blasted dimwit!” roared Devenish, with some difficulty since Santana was spinning like a top.

  “You damned stupid cawker!” howled the other man. “If ever I saw such idiotic, reckless—” He checked, then said with a groan, “Lord! I might have known!”

  “Lyon!” Grinning broadly, Devenish dismounted and ran to seize the younger man by both arms and beam into his dark face. “By all that’s holy! Be dashed if I wasn’t riding over to see you and Guy!”

  “Riding!” Grinning just as broadly, Lyon Cahill said with justifiable indignation, “Man, you do not ride—you fly! Lucky for me I’m still alive to tell of it!”

  They laughed at each other, gathered their reins, and walked over to sit on a rocky outcropping near the foot of the hill, and when they had exchanged greetings and preliminary enquiries, Devenish asked, “Now whither are you bound, as if I needed to ask? To Devencourt. But not to see me, I’ll warrant.”

  Lyon’s dark eyes glinted. Colouring faintly, he said that he had, of course, hoped to see Devenish. “Especially,” he added with a sharpening glance, “to discover how you go on.”

  “Oh, I’m perfectly fit, thank you. Once a doctor, always a doctor, eh?”

  “Doctor, perhaps. Surgeon?” Cahill shrugged broad shoulders. “Sometimes I wonder, Dev.”

  “Fustian! Old lad, don’t you know how proud of you we all are? What you’ve accomplished in these few years, considering—”

  “Considering I was gallows-bred?”

  Scanning the suddenly truculent expression of this powerfully built youn
g fellow, Devenish said, “And as hot-at-hand as you can stare.”

  Lyon met his amused gaze; his flush deepened, and he looked away. “You may turn it off, but I fancy you’d not give us your blessing. If she’d have me, that is.” He flicked his riding whip idly at a leaf that fluttered past, but, waiting, he was so tense he could scarcely breathe.

  Devenish hesitated. Despite the decade and more that separated them, there was a deep affection between the two. One of the thousands of starving, unwanted children struggling to survive in London’s slums, Cahill’s earliest memories were of the nightmare of being a climbing boy. From that hideous slow death, he had escaped only to fall victim to a Flash House, where, between beatings, he had been trained for a pickpocket and burglar. He had improved his lot when a young aristocrat caught him stealing, broke his arm, and then, becoming aware that his assailant was a child, took him to an apothecary and thence into his service. He had been known as Lion in those days, a name bestowed on him by his mentor, an unsavoury Corinthian named James Garvey. Lion had learned more of evil from his aristocrat than any simple thief or cutthroat had taught him, but when the boy had discovered Garvey was in league with the fanatical Monsieur Claude Sanguinet in a plot to murder the Regent, he had thrown in his lot with the courageous but hopelessly outnumbered gentlemen who opposed the Frenchman.

  Despite the odds against them, they had won their struggle. Claude had died a victim of his own murderous scheme, but during a desperate affray had shot down his younger brother, Guy, leaving him partially paralyzed. The convalescent Frenchman had taken Lion for his personal servant. In a very short time, however, amazed by the boy’s quick mind and eagerness to learn, he had engaged a tutor. That learned gentleman had lasted a year and a half, then told Guy that Lion’s brilliance approached genius and required more guidance than he could provide. Intrigued, Guy had changed the boy’s name to Lyon Cahill, and with the aid of several powerful friends had been able to get him into Rugby. The first months had been a nightmare for Lyon, who was shunned for his coarse way of speech and mocked for his lack of family background. Enraged, he had resorted to his fists, and within a year had become the middleweight boxing champion. Another year, and he was widely admired, the close personal friend of young men of the highest rank, and the despair of his teachers who were unable to keep pace with his voracious thirst for knowledge.

  Guy, eager to provide his adopted son with every opportunity, had been blocked at every turn by the boy’s lack of acceptable birth. Again, his friends had come to the rescue. Lord Belmont had taken the aspiring doctor under his wing, and in some magical fashion, Lyon had been admitted to the Royal College of Surgeons. The proudest day of Guy’s life had dawned when Lyon was awarded his Licence to Practice an incredible three years later. Long years of resident study remained, however, if his lifelong dream of becoming a surgeon was to be realized, and he was overjoyed to win an appointment to the famous Guy’s Hospital (which he blithely referred to as “my father’s place”) augmented by study with the great Lord Belmont.

  Despite his brilliance, however, he had fallen victim to an ailment that had claimed many intense and impatient young men before him—the inability to recognize the limitations of the human body. Driven by ambition, Lyon had ignored warnings that he was working too hard. Early in the autumn, having for many months worked a twenty-hour day, he collapsed from exhaustion and was subsequently stricken with influenza. Lord Belmont, incensed, had read him a furious lecture and sent him back to Gloucester with strict instructions that he was to rest, regain his strength, and not so much as think of medicine for at least a month.

  Now, watching the taut features covertly, Devenish thought that Guy’s faith in the youth had been well founded. Cahill was a splendid young fellow. His countenance was pleasant, and he had a fine pair of dark eyes, set well apart, that met a man’s gaze squarely with no sliding off or evading. His hair was thick, dark, and straight; his nose a strong swoop; his chin square and determined. The mouth concerned Devenish a little, for it was too tight-lipped for such a young man and had a tendency to sneer; but considering Lyon’s early years, that was scarce to be wondered at. The right girl could—Devenish frowned inwardly. Did Josie really care for this ambitious, driven young chap?

  Lyon glanced at him, anxiety in the dark eyes, and realizing he had not answered the so vital question, Devenish said ruefully, “I personally think Josie too young to be thinking of marriage for another year or two. But—perhaps I—that is, she’ll have whomsoever she chooses, I fancy. Has she—er, I mean, have you offered?”

  “Of course I have not! As if I would do so rag-mannered a thing! I’ve not asked your permission to address her!”

  “Are you doing so now? Forgive me, but I cannot be sure. And it was, for some odd reason, my impression that you’d asked her many times.”

  Lyon grinned and said shyly, “In a way, perhaps. I—I have asked her if she loves me. Not if she will marry me. She says she loves me. And I believe she does, but—Oh, devil take it, you know how she can be.”

  It was very familiar. Devenish thought, ‘Lightning strikes twice…’ and said with ready sympathy, “You do not know if she is in love with you, is that it? Poor fellow. When I was just about your age, I was in the same miserable predicament. It’s the devil.”

  Lyon sighed and nodded. “I knew you’d understand. Though, Lord knows why any girl would have rejected you.” He eyed Devenish glumly, wondering, as had so many, why the beauteous Yolande Drummond, with this dashing fellow at her feet, had chosen instead his quiet Canadian cousin, who possessed only average looks, little of Devenish’s engaging charm and personality, and who had, at that time, been under the cloud of a disgraced name.

  Having a fair idea of what was going on in his friend’s mind, Devenish’s lips quirked. He said with a sigh, “Incomprehensible, ain’t it?”

  “Poor old Dev,” said Lyon kindly. “You never did get over it, did you? Well, what I mean is—you have not married.”

  His eyes alight with laughter, Devenish exclaimed, “Good God! Do you fancy me to have lived a life of endless yearning for my unrequited love? To the contrary, my lad. Yolande was far wiser than I. Oh, damme! That don’t sound very polite! What I’m trying to say is—” He checked, with the sensitive man’s reluctance to put his inmost feelings into words. “I care for her deeply, and always will. Only—when a fellow wants very much to—er, to have a loving wife, a home, and—God willing—children…” And he had to stop again, because he did want children so very badly, and now it appeared he would never have any of his own.

  Lyon said earnestly, “But—what’s wrong with that? It is what every man dreams of, isn’t it? To find a lady he can care for? To have a family?”

  “Yes. But—sometimes people want it so much they—sort of, mistake love of the dream for—for … Well, there are different types of—of loving, I think. Sometimes—not often, I grant you, but, sometimes people share a devotion so equal, so intense, that from the very beginning they are like … the two parts of one—whole.” His eyes had become sad, his voice remote. “Yolande and Craig have that. Truly, a gift from…” He broke off, his face very red. “Jupiter, how dashed sober we are! You have made me talk a lot of nonsense. Now, you shall tell me—do you mean to—offer for Josie when she comes home?”

  Lyon groaned. “I know how I feel, Dev. But—I’ve still some years of work before I can start my own practice. Guy has settled a generous sum on me, as you know. We’d not starve. But—I cannot tell whether she feels— She’s so admired. So lovely and bright and—and altogether adorable. And—my fear is that … she may choose Fontaine.”

  “Fontaine?”

  Startled, Lyon saw Devenish’s face transformed. The eyes were slits of rage, the fine features flushed. A voice he scarcely recognized snarled, “Has Elliot Fontaine been slithering around Josie?”

  “Why—yes. How could you not know? They met at the Bolsters’ Spring ball.”

  “I know that! And—since?”r />
  “Here and there, I suppose. He’s been away of late, but he is come back, and you may see him everywhere. He’s very popular.”

  “And very cunning, damn him! I have never once seen him hanging about her. By Gad, I’d better not!” Devenish stood and stared southward. “Is he friendly with the Drummonds, do you know?”

  Standing also, watching the savage wrath of the man beside him, Lyon said uneasily, “I cannot say. But I heard that he and Josie met again when you were in Town a few weeks back, and—”

  “And she said nothing! The baggage! She knew damned well I’d have his liver out, if—”

  “Dev!” Lyon put one hand on the other man’s sleeve, then recoiled before the murderous anger he faced. “Lord, man! What is it? What have you against him?”

  Devenish glared at him in silence, then said in a more normal tone, “I know him, is all. I never dreamed he’d dare cast his filthy eyes at Josie, for she’s quite beneath his touch.”

  “I do not see that!”

  “You may not, but he does. If he wants her, it’s not as his wife, of that I do assure you!”

  “Why the hell not? She’s been gently bred up! Her birth may not be—”

  “Definitely not. He’s from an ancient and proud house. He’s not the kind to marry a girl with no background.”

  Stung, and defensive of this apparent impugning of his adored lady, Lyon snapped, “Then you should not object to my offer! I’ll marry her tomorrow, if she’ll have me, and be proud to do so. We should suit—we’re both gutter-bred.”

  The words were no sooner out of his mouth than he was gasping as his neckcloth was seized in a grip of steel. An enraged glare scorched at his startled face; a deadly voice hissed, “Damn your eyes! Do not dare so name her!”

  Lyon’s powerful hand closed around the fine-boned wrist, but even his youthful might could not loosen that grip. The neckcloth was strangling him. “Dev!” he gasped out. “For the love—of heaven!”