Gervase yanked open the other door and scrambled in. Tony followed on his heels, slamming the door shut behind him as the carriage dipped heavily-Kumulay climbing up again.
Cobby didn’t wait for anyone to settle. He sprang the horses, spooked by the rising scent of blood and more than ready to race on.
In a blink, they were away from the trees and thundering out into the open.
For long minutes, they all just sat there, breathing heavily, regaining their sanity.
Eventually, Tony stirred. “How many did we get?”
Deliah swallowed, looked at Del. “Fourteen. All told, there were fourteen.”
When he met her gaze, she raised her brows. “Satisfied?”
His eyes were still hard, his jaw still set. “It’s a start.”
What could he say?
They’d made a respectable dent in the Black Cobra’s forces,
She’d been far too involved, too exposed to real danger and death. So much for his careful planning. When he’d glanced across and seen her standing on the carriage step, one of their long knives in her hand with a cultist skewered on the end of it, his blood had run cold.
Not at all helpful in the middle of a fraught clash.
He’d wanted to roar at her for disobeying his strict orders, but if she hadn’t…he’d have been in much worse strife-possibly not able to roar at her at all.
Certainly not able to ease her back into the carriage and, under cover of her skirts, hold her hand-probably too tightly-all the way to Somersham Place.
He’d contented himself with that-with the simple contact-while the horses had raced on through the increasingly dark afternoon.
A winter storm was massing, roiling and boiling, ready to sweep in from the North Sea. One glance at the horizon, at the color and density of the clouds building there, confirmed snow by nightfall was a certainty.
It was early evening, already full dark, by the time they reached the massive pillars that marked the drive of the Place. Cobby had never been there before, but Del had described the pillars; the carriage slowed, turned into the drive, then continued bowling steadily along.
A welcoming light shone through the bare branches of massive oaks. Then the carriage rounded a corner and the house lay before them, as massive as he remembered, and as welcoming. Lamps on the porch were burning, casting a warm glow down the porch steps, illuminating the couple who walked out, alerted by the rattle of wheels on the gravel.
The gentleman halted at the top of the steps. Del felt his lips curve; Devil looked the same as ever, but the lady who came to stand by his shoulder, linking her arm with his, was new.
The carriage slowed, then rocked to a stop. A footman hurried to open the door and let down the carriage steps. Gervase and Tony waved them on. Del descended first, then turned to give Deliah his hand. She descended, twitched her plum-colored skirts straight, then, head rising, spine straight, allowed him to lead her up the porch steps to where Devil waited with his duchess.
As they neared, Devil’s lips curved and his pale green eyes lit. “Del! Welcome, once again, to Somersham.”
A spontaneous smile wreathing his face, Del clasped Devil’s proferred hand. “It’s beyond good to be here again.”
Devil hauled him into a brief embrace, clapped his back. “I confess I’m amazed you’re still hale and whole-I would have sworn someone would have skewered you by now.”
Del made a rude, if muted, noise in reply as they both turned to their respective ladies.
Who hadn’t waited for them.
“I’m Honoria-this reprobate’s duchess.” With an engaging smile for Deliah, Devil’s duchess held out her hand.
“Deliah Duncannon.” Deliah rose from a curtsy and touched fingers, adding, “I unwittingly became embroiled in Delborough’s mission, and so have had to tag along. I hope my unexpected presence, and that of my household- they’re following-won’t discompose yours.”
“Not at all! I’m delighted-and so will all the other ladies be-to welcome you.” Honoria’s gray eyes testified to her sincerity. “You’ll be able to give us a female view on all that’s going on.”
The duke smiled and smoothly introduced himself-as Devil-to Deliah.
She gave him her hand, and curtsied as he bowed. He was much like Del-tall, starkly handsome, dark-haired and broad-shouldered, with the long, powerful frame of a natural horseman-but in place of Del’s military bearing, Devil exuded aristocratic command.
Then Tony and Gervase joined them. Del made the introductions, and discovered Devil had met the other two before.
“At Wolverstone’s wedding,” Gervase explained. “There was a spot of bother we all helped him tidy up.”
“Indeed?” Honoria’s finely arched brows rose. She shot a look at her husband. “I must ask Minerva for the story. Now, however”-she took Deliah’s arm-“do come in out of the cold. It’s positively frigid out here, and much warmer inside.”
Warmer because of the huge fire blazing in the massive hearth at the far end of the long halfpaneled hall, and warmer because of the almost joyous welcome accorded them by the others gathered about the tables and comfortable chairs. Although it was too early for the customary yuletide decorations, here the emotional ambiance of the approaching season seemed already to have taken hold. Deliah felt herself literally thawing, both her flesh and her reservations.
She, Del, Tony and Gervase were taken on a circuit of introductions. The men all either knew each other, or knew of each other. She was the only true newcomer to the group; she’d expected to hang back, to find herself left on the fringe. Instead, as Honoria had foretold, the ladies, one and all, were not just delighted to meet her but keen and eager to hear all she could tell them.
For all their warmth, the couples littering the big hall were an imposing and impressive lot. The males were especially notable. Scandal Cynster, who his wife Catriona called Richard, was clearly Devil’s brother, with similar features and build, but cornflower blue eyes. The duke’s cousins included Demon Cynster, with wavy blond hair and blue eyes, and his diminuitive wife, Felicity-whom he referred to as Flick-and his older brother, Vane, a harder, quieter man, yet very much in the Cynster physical mold but with brown hair and gray eyes, and his wife, Patience. Then came a Lucifer Cynster, all dark-haired, blue-eyed elegance, and his wife, Phyllida, and a Gabriel Cynster, the epitome of sophistication, brown-haired and hazel-eyed, and his wife, Alathea.
All the Cynster men had fought alongside Del and his three friends-the other three couriers-at Waterloo. In addition, the Earl of Chillingworth-who, from his interaction with Del and Devil, Deliah placed as Gyles Rawlings, the third of the schoolboy trio-was there, with his countess, Francesca; brown-haired and gray-eyed, he, too, possessed a commanding presence.
Deliah made a mental note to inquire at some point as to how the men had come by their odd names, but even more than the men, she was curious about the women.
Physically they varied dramatically, from Catriona’s serene, red-haired beauty, through Phyllida’s dark-haired vitality, and Alathea’s, Patience’s and Honoria’s perfectly groomed shades of calm and collected brown, to Flick’s blond vivacity and Francesca’s black-haired, gypsylike vibrance. In appearance they were widely dissimilar, yet in presence and character, in their attitude to their world, they seemed of one mind. They were confident, assured and assertive, not afraid to state their opinions and make their wishes known.
Not one was the meek, mild or retiring sort. Not one was prim and proper, any more than Deliah was.
Which was something of a social shock.
Other than Alathea, who, Deliah suspected, was a few years older than she, most of the ladies were younger, ranging in age down to Flick, who must have been in her early twenties. These ladies, with their positions, connections and wealth, would be part of the core of the current society-defining generation, the arbiters of social acceptance for the upper class, for the ton.
All her life, Deliah had been lectured on how she needed to behave to be socially accepted, yet these ladies, one and all, were of a vastly different stripe from those she’d always been instructed she should emulate. These ladies were…
