Etiquette With The Devil Read online

  ETIQUETTE WITH THE DEVIL

  by Rebecca Paula

  ETIQUETTE WITH THE DEVIL

  Copyright © 2015 by Rebecca Paula. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce, distribute, or transmit in any form or by any means.

  For information regarding subsidiary rights, please contact the Publisher, Rebecca Paula.

  Cover design by Maggie Hall.

  ISBN: 9780990739548

  EPUB Edition

  ETIQUETTE WITH THE DEVIL is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  For information about the author, visit www.rebeccapaula.com.

  For Jamie. Without you cheering me on, the world never would meet Bly and Clara, or any of my other heroes and heroines for that matter. I am forever thankful that you gave me the strength to share their stories with the world. Thank you.

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Part I

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Part II

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Epilogue

  Note to my Readers

  Excerpt from A Proper Scandal

  Acknowledgements

  PROLOGUE

  Calcutta, India

  March 1882

  The devil is in the details, or so it’s said. For Bly Ravensdale, as he crept into a darkened palace on a cool March night, he’d argue the devil was in fact everywhere, that he had no mind for the particulars.

  Bly chased shadows, keeping his body low to the ground as he signaled to his partner, Graham, to follow as the pair traveled deeper into the palace, searching for their kidnapped counterpart, Barnes. It was damn foolish of their superiors to believe that a young duke better suited for the ballrooms of London could ever hold his own in the political frenzy of the Indian courts. Assassin or no, the duke was still far too naïve. He played well in the light, was better with a gun, but was too kind to navigate the dark underbelly of India.

  There was a certain intoxicating glamor to the balls thrown by the Indian princes. It had a lot to do with the gold accenting their palaces, the jewels, the beautiful women hidden behind gossamer veils in their harems and ballrooms. There was the champagne as well, the heady scent of love and jasmine. It was easy to slip into the cracks of fantasy and lose sight of one’s mission.

  Bly had no such luxury. He was the man called in for such jobs, the one sent deep into the jungle, the one sent to retrieve priceless items desired by the crown in the harshest of environments. He was invincible, or so the stories went. He was the devil himself, or so everyone called him. It was difficult for a man like Bly Ravensdale to care much when he was constantly running for his life.

  “Ravensdale,” Graham whispered behind him. He rested against the half-height stone wall of the courtyard, peering around a column to study the darkened hallway in front of them.

  The smell of cheap cigars and cheaper women clung to the older man. Bly peeked over his shoulder, holding his hand up for silence. Graham might be his partner in the field and possess a brilliant mind for intrigue, but he never excelled at stealth, especially after a day of drinking. In the room’s plum glow reflected from the glass tiles of the ceiling, his rosy nose appeared rather scarlet.

  Footsteps echoed across the marble hallway, heavy footsteps signaling pursuit. Through the moonlight filtering in from the intricately carved windows, the figure of a man could be made out twenty paces away, as well as the man’s rifle. They must be getting close.

  This whole rescue might have gone more smoothly if Bly had went by himself, as he had wanted. If only Graham hadn’t caught him as he was leaving the small room he rented by the Chandpal ghat. If only Graham hadn’t spent the day celebrating with his fellow officers about nothing in particular, only that they had air in their lungs and had all survived another week without contracting malaria. It took little for Graham to celebrate these days.

  “We should return with a few others,” his mentor said, ignoring Bly’s earlier request.

  The damn fact was, Bly knew he was right. He didn’t know what Barnes had done to clue in someone within the prince’s royal court, but Bly wasn’t about to abandon Barnes to their questioning.

  In India, a man kept his friends and enemies close. Oftentimes, they were one and the same. That much hadn’t changed in the Raj after the uprising. The India of his boyhood was certainly more violent, but that sharp cruelness never vanished over the years. It had only faded into the background. The country was a tiger, stalking is prey in the jungle, lying in wait.

  Waiting, waiting.

  Bly turned his torso, resting on the balls of his feet in case he needed to make a quick move. He had one guard accounted for, but there were others. Many. If there had been time, he could have scouted properly. Instead, he had heard of Barnes’s capture, grabbed his pistols, and stormed for the palace.

  “What are you going to achieve by marching in there, except exposing you and Barnes?” Graham fiddled with a cigar tucked into the pocket of his shirt, stained with layers of dirt and rings of sweat. Like the sweat glistening across his wide forehead now. “Why are you going to rush in and ruin our hard work? We have spent months trying to untangle the corruption here.”

  Bly didn’t like the challenge buried in that question. He heard more ‘go ahead if you dare,’ than ‘use your judgment.’ After nearly fifteen years in service, Bly had excellent judgement when it revolved around work. He wouldn’t be alive otherwise. His personal life was a different matter.

  “You should—” Bly bolted to his feet, blocking Graham as a figure emerged from the shadows. The man spoke harshly in Hindi, and Bly returned in kind. And then good intentions broke into chaos.

  Bly charged the guard, knocking him unconscious with the man’s rifle, but only after the man had cried out to the other guards. Another six swarmed in, half-cloaked in moonlight, half-hidden in darkness, but deadly all the same. They tried to tackle Bly, tried wrestle him to the ground, but he was too strong. He wrenched out of their hold, ducking and weaving through gunfire.

  “That didn’t take long,” Graham said, pulling a revolver form his waistband.

  Bly grabbed hold Graham’s meaty arm and rushed them both further down the hall, dodging fire as bullets ricocheted off the plaster pillars and stone walls.

  “This was your grand idea?” Graham asked, out of breath. He hid behind a pillar to reload. “You don’t even know where they’re keeping him. He’s probably charmed his way out by now, knowing Barnes.”

  Not that Graham could see him well enough, but Bly shrugged. Being shot at, being chased—it all meant nothing now that it had become routine. His work as a spy, his adventures privateering, wore him down until danger was only another aspect of living, just as the air he dragged into his
lungs was merely habit.

  Except there was a burning certainty pressing against his chest. They must be close to Barnes. He squinted his eyes, gazed down the sight of his pistol, and fired off another warning shot three inches above the approaching guard’s head. He pushed Graham in front of him, spun, and faced the onslaught of guards, deftly running backward. “Open the door, Graham.”

  Graham stumbled uncharacteristically, awkward on his feet, terrible with his aim.

  “The door. Behind us, Graham.” Bly repeated. “Now. Open it!”

  Bly backed into Graham, who stood with his gun pointed at the ceiling, frozen. Sweat beaded at his lips. Another shot barreled through the humid air, brandishing a sharp hiss of a breeze as a bullet narrowly missed Bly’s neck.

  He shot back, this time not caring about his aim.

  He pushed Graham aside from the large wooden doors, then shoved his shoulders into the wooden barricades until they gave to a smaller room. Another shot echoed, landing close by. He tugged Graham inside, slamming the doors, then found a chair. He raised it above his head and pummeled it to the ground, splintering it into pieces.

  “That was a perfectly good chair, Ravensdale,” Barnes spoke from the center of the room. Not a hair had been harmed on the handsome mug’s head. His dinner coat hadn’t even a wrinkle.

  “I’m busy,” Bly countered, stuffing the broken legs through the handles to barricade them inside. It would buy them a few minutes at least. “Graham, are you hurt?” He turned and faced Barnes. “What did you do to get into trouble now?”

  “I’ll live,” Graham mumbled, clutching his chest. Blood dripped from his hand, his pistol dangling from his fingers.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary except I got caught this time,” Barnes returned. “They took my favorite gun, the bastards.” He scooted over the floor, grating the chair legs over the terracotta tile in an irritating screech. “Untying my hands would be much appreciated.”

  Bly ignored his friend, motioning for Graham to help, while he searched for a way to escape. Judging by the sound of the guards on the opposite side of the door, they had a minute at most to make a run for it before another there was another gun fight. A gun fight where Bly would be left without ammunition.

  “Unless you’ve grown wings, there isn’t a way out,” Barnes said, as if reading his mind. “That window there overlooks the palace’s walled garden. The drop alone will break our legs.”

  “Graham, untie him, will you?” Bly snapped. The door bulged from the weight of the guards on the other side, their shouts filling Bly’s ears. His heart raced, his mind traced out the exits, exploring the shadowed corners of the dark room. “Graham?”

  One piece of splintered wood flew from the rattling door.

  “We should have waited,” Graham answered Bly. He removed his hand, revealing a wound high near his shoulder. Blood seeped in a dark circle, spreading outward. “You never were patient though, were you Ravensdale?”

  Waiting is what caused everything to go wrong in India. It’s what caused everything to go wrong in Bly’s life, as well.

  The door gave, and in two large strides, Bly raced forward to Barnes and ripped the ropes from his hands. “You better learn to fly.”

  Another gunshot echoed across the room, tearing Bly’s attention away in time to see Graham struck by his hip. His mentor fell back to the floor and pointed at Bly, his voice drowned out by the commotion. Barnes dragged him forward, launching the pair through the shuttered window, out into the darkness, lost to a free fall and the heady scent of jasmine from the garden below.

  Part I

  Hell is empty. All the devils are here.

  –William Shakespeare

  CHAPTER ONE

  Yorkshire, England

  Five months later

  Life was defined by two sets of people—those who followed the rules, and those who did not. Clara Dawson, having been born outside the realm of polite society, never had the luxury of belonging to the former, but she didn’t wish to belong to the latter, either.

  It was an impossible place to be stuck, teetering on the edge of less and more, without providence to move one way or another.

  She forced on a grudging smile at the woman who openly gawked at her from the opposite end of the train platform, then shifted on the uncomfortable bench. Her backside was growing numb from several hours of waiting. Clara’s new employer could not have forgotten her, even if the cry of the day’s last train signaled just that.

  Her heart raced with the painful truth of abandonment. It was not a new feeling, but it was galling nonetheless. As a bastard, Clara had been prosecuted her entire life for the passionate mistake her parents made. It was a mark against her that would never fade, much like the healing wound across her midsection now. She was truly alone. Completely unwanted. And also on the run.

  Clara shook her head, knocking away the haunting image of her bloodstained hands. The phantom weight of the makeshift blade that had filled her palm. Panic solved nothing. She would begin anew, free of the threats and ever-present fear that consumed her life.

  If only her employer had arrived as promised. Now, storm clouds ate away at the remaining daylight, transforming a cloudy England afternoon to landscape of stretching green and a sky of obsidian. Of course it would storm, of course the sky would finally tumble down upon her, condemning her for her crimes.

  Earlier, she had attempted to track down her employer’s whereabouts—this mysterious Mr. Ravensdale. Realizing he and his family might have been delayed during their journey from India, she thought perhaps a message had been left for her. Clara inquired with the stout man at the ticket counter. He stared down at her through his filthy spectacles, shook his head, then hurried her off with a gruff refute.

  With little left to her name, but willing to pay for assistance, she had asked fellow passengers, even those who worked at the station, if they had means to convey her to Burton Hall—the Ravensdale ancestral seat. But each person recoiled at the mention of the place as if it housed the devil himself. One elderly couple advised her to purchase a ticket and return home, claiming it would be best if she never set foot on the cursed property.

  Cursed? How silly.

  Another gentleman had exited the recently arrived train, the engine’s steam filling up the summer air with even more humidity. He focused on the station’s exit as Clara approached him, her hands folded in front of her. She wished to tuck them behind her. Her gloves were worn, much too tattered to give the appearance of her being a well-born lady traveler instead of a homeless waif, which indeed she was.

  “Excuse me, sir?”

  He had paused his steps and adjusted his bowler hat. “Yes?” His word was full of the north, of the heavy and desolate, of that clipping sound the other girls had made fun of the maid for while she was away at boarding school in London.

  “It’s growing late and I haven’t been able to find someone to assist me.”

  The gentleman cocked his head, shifting his weight between polished shoes.

  “That is,” she rushed to say, “I am willing to pay. I’m looking to be brought to Burton Hall. I’m the new governess…”

  What little friendly light that had hid behind his eyes quickly vanished. He turned his head and spat on the ground.

  Since, she had sat on the worn bench, her eyes cast out to the field beyond the small station, waiting.

  Clara peered down at the worn letter in her gloved hands, skimming the lines of false promises once more. Hoping or wishing would not get her out of this muddle, and it certainly wouldn’t help bring an end to the rapid decline of her already dismal circumstances.

  Only a few others remained mingling on the train platform, their attention still glued to her, the strange woman left waiting all day, traveling alone, dressed in nothing short of rags.

  The tattered pull of her trunk would just need to hold a while longer.

  Her legs tingled and ached as she stood and brushed her hands over the wrinkled gray cotton
of her day dress. She stuffed the letter into her nearly empty purse, then dragged the trunk down the platform to make her exit, the blush of embarrassment heavy on her cheeks, even as she averted her eyes from the uncomfortable stares of the others.

  With each tug of the heavy trunk, the whispers quieted. The busy village streets soon receded behind her, reducing the train station to a small spot on the dark horizon over her shoulder. Two hours later, as the darkness above opened up and rain poured down, Clara still had not spotted Burton Hall. Finally, with numbed fingers and chattering teeth, she paused at last, spotting no real promise of shelter. A disheartened release of her hand landed the trunk into the mud with a loud splash, spraying her best—least threadbare—dress.

  Lovely.

  She glared down at the trunk and gave it a sound kick. The jarring impact resonated up her cold bones. Her shoulders slumped forward as she stared at the swollen puddles surrounding her ratty boots. Her hand grasped at her neck until she felt the thin chain that had once belonged to her mother, then with one long and steady note, she bellowed into the lone fields of Yorkshire until the air squeezed out of her lungs and she thought she might collapse.

  Her frustrated howl fell dead between the drops of rain as if they drew down the noise and buried her anguish deep into the ground with each strike, kept secret, forgotten.

  The sting of tears pricked her eyes as she reached once more for the trunk pull. Clara brushed them away with the back of her glove and forced herself to stand taller, even as the rain seeped through her dress. Forward was the only direction she would allow herself to move. She would not fall backward, not even a step. Not after what she had survived. She swallowed past the lump that settled in her throat at the memory of Mr. Shaw’s fingers wrapped around her neck, the struggle to suck in one last breath before the world fell to black around her.

  She must move forward.