HANDSOME DEVIL.

by MELANIE GEORGE.

SERIES: Devil Trilogy.

To my son Andrew ... you're the best. Don't ever change.

I'd like to thank three lovely women who patiently listened to me talk shop to the exclusion of all else.

My mother, Barbara, my good friend and fellow dog lover, Cara, and my sister-in-law, Dorothy. You all should be canonized for your unparalleled endurance.

*Chapter One*

Shantytown.

Boston, Massachusetts.

1880.

"Jesus, Mary, and holy Saint Joseph. Naked as the day she was bor-rn! Oh,me head. 'Tis reelin'. Catch me, hoosband. I fear I'm about to swoon."

"Ther-re, ther-re, M'ther," Joseph Delaney soothed in his heavy Irishbrogue, wrapping a chunky arm about his wife's sagging shoulders. " 'Tissurely not as bad as ye may be thinkin' ."As one, they turned their hopefulgazes to their daughter, expectancy crackling in the thick, oppressively hotafternoon air. "Is it, macushla?"

Sheridan Delaney, immigrant from County Kerry, Ireland, feckless and ficklesome would say, but never boring, gave her parents a weak smile. " 'Tis not asbad, Da. I had on me knickers."

Sheridan's mother swayed dramatically. "Faith, and may the Lord see fit totake me in his cradlin' arms as I'm surely about to die."

"There'll be no dyin' around here, Mary Margaret," Aunt Aggie countered,levering her hefty bosom on top of the table, giving it a perch on which torest. She then proceeded to extract a dirty handkerchief from between hercleavage and dry her moist brow. " 'Tis my time for the dyin', and I'll thankye to remember that." Turning to her nephew, she said in what Sheridan termedher gasping-for-her-last-breath voice, "Be a good lad and fetch Father Donovanfor me. I feel a weak spell comin' on. Me heart is thumpin' like a drum roll musterin' the Queen's dragoons."

Whenever Her Royal Hyney was mentioned, Aunt Aggie felt inclined to add,"May the black plague descend upon her withered brow."

Her aunt fanned herself with the handkerchief while her other meaty handclamped over the pocket of her apron where the little silver flask containingher medicine was concealed. " 'Tis the lifeblood of Ireland," she would sayreverently before taking a swig that would knock most men on their backside.

Sheridan's father guided his wife to a rickety chair at a small table."Now, M'ther, don't spell yerself over the lass. 'Tis not as if such behavioris new to her."

The reminder of a lifetime of antics made her mother collapse against thechair. The wood groaned under the pressure of her weight, which was by nomeans great. The chair had seen better days, as had the rest of their meagerpossessions.

Sheridan, her parents, her brother, Shane, her sisters, Shannon, Shawna,and little Sara, along with Aunt Aggie and Uncle Finny shared two rooms in anovercrowded boardinghouse, which Sheridan doubted had ever seen better days.The walls were thin enough to hear the Danihys bickering next door.

Mrs. Danihy cursed her husband for imbibing too much at the groggery. Mr.Danihy retorted that she was a two-headed harpy and both mouths contained aforked tongue. The inevitable slamming of the door followed, jangling the dulltin plates and bent forks on the scarred, rough-hewn table next to Sheridan'smother.

Out in the street, bawdy music blared from the Wubble Dhiskey saloon,followed by high-pitched drunken laughter. Sheridan had become used to theconstant din. At least the noise muted the sounds of the rodents scurryingbeneath the floorboards.

"Well, lass?" her father prompted. "What could have possessed ye to do sucha thing?"

Sheridan shrugged her shoulders, the material of her blouse clinging to herdamp flesh. "I just wanted to cool off. I didn't think anyone was about."

Sheridan knew exactly what her mother would say to her explanation.Mentally, she recited every word.

"May the savin' saints preserve me. I don't know what to do with thechild."

Sheridan sighed inwardly. Why did trouble seem to follow her? Wherever shewas, catastrophe trailed not far behind.

She tried to behave, but it just wasn't in her to be prim and proper likeher sisters. Her family might be those damned Irish, as people sneeringlyreferred to them, but they'd carried tradition with them across the ocean totheir new home.

Meaning a devout Catholic girl was to be covered up at all times and neverstripped down to her altogethers to cool off in an inviting inlet of theBoston Harbor.

Only her father understood her. He claimed her spirit was possessed of animpish pixie who couldn't keep out of mischief. "What's in the marrow is hardto take out of the bones," he would say.

Sheridan wondered if the same justification would spring from her father'slips if he knew she'd sneaked into the tattoo parlor near the Italian side oftown two weeks past and had Big John McGurk give her a wee wicked tattoo in aplace only God and her husband-- should she ever have one--see.

Did she want to find out?

Perhaps it was best not to rock the boat further.

Her father plunked down in a chair next to his wife and dug his fingersinto his thick mane of gray hair-- prematurely gray, Sheridan had oft beentold.

A small hand gripped Sheridan's fingers, offering a reassuring squeeze. Shelooked down to find her youngest sister, Sara, staring up at her, agap-toothed smile on her freckled face, her emerald eyes alight with thewinsome charm of the fairies.

As always, Sara lent support to her big sister in her time of woe--whichseemed to be every other day.

"What ar-re we goin' to do about the lass, hoosband?" her mother lamentedagain.

"Ye should give her a whippin', Da," Shannon piped in, casting a glare inSheridan's direction.

At twenty-three, Shannon was the eldest, and still unmarried, placing theblame squarely on Sheridan's shoulders for that. Shannon wanted a husband andclaimed no man would look at her because they were afraid she would be asuntamable as Sheridan.

When Sheridan glanced at her other sister, Shawna, she found no quarterthere. Shawna, too, wanted a husband, asserting that at twenty-one she wasvery nearly decrepit.

Her sisters bemoaned their fate at every opportunity, wearing their fatherdown to a wisp-thin frazzle. It didn't make the situation any better thattheir irrepressible brother taunted them mercilessly about their unmarriedstate.

Sheridan's gaze returned to her father, who scratched his stubbled jaw inbewilderment, wishing, she suspected, he could take a slug from the batteredflask burning a hole inside his coat pocket. Yet his flask wasn't filled withthe lifeblood of Ireland as was Aunt Aggie's, but with straight, undilutedpoteen.

Irish Whiskey.

Sheridan had taken a sip once. Her eyes had bulged and she had gagged as ifthe fires of hell scorched a path down her throat. Never again.

Staring around at the numerous eyes focused expectantly on her face,Sheridan prayed for either the floor to open up and suck her in or for theArchangel Gabriel to ride down from heaven on a bolt of white lightning, aflourish of angels trumpeting his arrival, and sweep her away.

Closing her eyes, she pleaded her case with the Almighty. Opening one eyeand seeing the scowling faces of her family still centered squarely on her,Sheridan figured the Lord must have turned a deaf ear. Well, what did sheexpect?

Shawna said, "Aye, Da. Maybe if ye give her a beatin' she'll learn alesson. She'll surely ruin us all if she doesn't mend her wild ways."

How Sheridan ached to make a stinging retort. She refrained only becauseshe was in enough trouble already. The taunting gleam in her sister's eyestold her Shawna would take full advantage of that fact.

Her father turned his gaze to Shawna. "And when, may I ask ye, have I everbeatin' any of ye? Well, except for yer brother, that is. But he needs a weecuff in the head every now and again 'cause he's a lad. Tis necessary to keephim from becomin' a spring flower, if ye ken my meanin'. But females, ye see,must be treated like tender buds if they ar-re to grow into the roses they'remeant to be."

Shannon sniggered. "Danny's no rose, Da. She's the thorns."

Sheridan clenched her hands into fists. "Aye, and me sting is fierce, makeno mistake about it."

"I'll have no such talk from ye girls. Ye hear?" He waited for each of themto nod. "Now, I'm sure the good Lord will bless us with a solution to thisproblem. If we have faith."

Her father had been saying the same thing for as long as Sheridan couldremember and the Lord had yet to see fit to bring deliverance.

Deliverance ...

She smiled as she lit upon an idea.

"There's always Jules, Da."

Jules Sinclair had befriended Sheridan when her family was struggling inthe first few months after their escape from British tyranny only to findAmerica just as inhospitable. Signs everywhere read, No Irish Need Apply.

Boston swarmed with immigrants just like Sheridan and her family. Work wasscarce. They would have starved in their new home as surely as they would have starved in their homeland had it not been for Jules.

She had helped Sheridan's mother and sisters find work in a friend's houseas scullery maids, and she had secured Sheridan a position in the kitchen atthe Bainbridge Academy for Females, which Jules had attended for two glorious,fun-filled years.

What times they had together, what antics they had pulled. To this day, theheadmistress jumped if she heard a frog croak, reminding her of the hundredslimy creatures Sheridan and Jules had let loose in the dining hall.

Sheridan missed her friend now that she was gone. Jules's time atBainbridge had come to an end and she had returned home to England.

For Sheridan's family, the fact that Jules was English was a permanentstrike against her. Worse, Jules was a member of the titled elite, just likethe landlords who had owned so much property in Ireland and had worked theirtenants to bone--and to bitterness.

The landlords were the reason Sheridan's family had fled Ireland. Herfather, brother, and uncle were considered outlaws, having tried to raise aprotest against cruel treatment and unfair practices, looking for satisfactionagainst British hierarchy as thousands had before them. And like thosethousands, they had failed. If they had remained in Ireland, they would havebeen hanged.

"Begorra!" Her mother straightened in her chair. "Ther-re the child goesagain, wantin' to sail off to the country of our enemy."

Sheridan frowned. "But Jules is not our enemy, Mum. And I'm not a child.I'm nearly eighteen."

"Nearly eighteen she is, hoosband. Do ye hear that now? The lass is too bigfor her britches."

"Well, she is growin' up, wife."

Her fists on her hips, Mary Margaret's expression said someone would besleeping on the cold floor if he disagreed with her. "Oh, is she now? Andar-re ye sayin', Joseph Fitzpatrick Erasmus"--muffled snickers flew about theroom--"Delaney that I'm a meddlin' mother who doesn't know what's best for herown flesh and blood, the product of her loins, pushed from me tortured womb ona rain-drenched night with nary a midwife in sight?" She liked to forget itwas the middle of the afternoon with at least ten female relatives in attendance. "Is that what ye are implyin', hoosband?"

Her father swallowed, knowing when his wife called him by his full name, itdidn't bode well. "Now, now, my sweet dumplin'. Yer gettin' yerself into afine fettle over nothin'."

Slowly, her mother rose from her chair, her brows yanked so close togetherit looked as if she only had one. "Nothin'? Oh, I see." She folded her armsacross her chest. "I'm goin' to my unhappy place."

Oh, now her father was really in trouble. Mary Margaret Delaney's unhappyplace was so frightening angels feared to tread its dire grounds, let aloneone paunchy husband.

"Mum," Sheridan interjected. Her father slumped in relief at having hiswife's eyes off him. "Why are ye so opposed to my seein' Jules? Ye yerselfknow the kind of person she is. Good-hearted and the like."

Her mother harumphed. "For a sassenach," she begrudgingly admitted.

Sheridan notched her chin up. "She's my friend. And she's been very good tous."

"That she has," her father ventured, earning him a quick glare from hiswife.

Her mother began tidying the small room, as she often did when she didn'twant anyone to read the expression on her face. "I won't deny the English girlhas been kind to us, but that doesn't mean I want ye consortin' with a wholepassel of the heathens."

Shannon chimed in, "Oh, but, Mum, 'tis just what the English deserve. If yesend Danny into their midst, they'll be sorry they ever set foot on Irishsoil."

Shawna's amber eyes lit up at the prospect. "Just imagine the havoc!"

"And just imagine the sanity for the rest of us, God bless," her brother,Shane, added with a devilish smile, winking at Sheridan.

Unlike her older sisters, Sheridan knew her brother was, in his own way,trying to help. He knew she wanted to go to England and see Jules, knew theangry tears she had shed when her parents flatly refused.

Her father had lost five brothers to British tyranny and three to thefamine. One had been killed in the freedom fight in Ballengarry, and oneenlisted into the sixty-ninth Irish Brigade as soon as he stepped off theboat, forced to defend a country that didn't care about his plight.

Only Uncle Finny remained, and he had never been quite right after a mulekicked him in the head. However, her uncle chose that moment to add histhoughts--which, of course, had nothing to do with the current conversation.

"Sorra, 'twas a bright and cloudless morn when the Battle of the Boyne tookplace," he began to orate, a patch over one eye, its position changing on adaily basis. "Me and my Jacobites took up position on the south bank of theriver. Bloody William's troops wer-re on the nor-rth bank. Come on, gentlemen,sez I, ther-re ar-re yer persecutors! Och!" He clutched his foot. "I took aball to me jackboot." He waved a fist in the air. "Ye scurvy knick-knockers!"

Sheridan and her family had ceased reminding their beloved, slightly askewrelative that he would be nearly two hundred years old if he'd served in theBattle of the Boyne. It was too wearisome a chore to keep up with all the warshe claimed to have served in--occasionally fighting for the other side. Once,he'd sworn he was the Pope and stood in the river Shannon baptizing people.

The only trait her uncle showed on a regular basis was his tendency topinch many an unsuspecting female bottom, making Sheridan wonder if he wasmore sane than insane.

When her uncle retook his seat and promptly dozed off, a collective sigh ofrelief rose into the air.

Her father cleared his throat and shifted his gaze from his last remainingbrother to Sheridan. "Now, where we? Oh, aye! Yer mother was havin' a fit ofthe vapors, and Aggie was dyin'--again. Yer sisters were callin' for abeheadin' and yer poor father's noggin' was throbbin' as if struck clean overme tender skull with a mallet." Then he pointed a crooked finger at Sheridan."And ye, macushla, were paradin' about in yer thinly draped nakedness."

I'm sorry was surely beginning to wear thin, so Sheridan gave her father aweak smile instead.

He stood up and paced the length of the room, which was basically foursteps and an about-face. He stopped and peered at her. "England, eh?"

Sheridan raised her hopeful gaze to her father's. "Aye, Da."

Her mother stopped her fussing and stared down her nose at her husband, arather amazing feat as he stood a good foot taller than she. "Get such foolishnotions out of yer head, hoosband."

"Now, Mother."

"Don't ye 'now, Mother' me. I'll not have me wee lass corrupted by thosebullies!"

"But I'll be with Jules, Mum," Sheridan pointed out, her mind racing withthe possibility of seeing her friend again.

"Just think about it, Mum." Shannon took her mother's hands in hers. "MaybeI can find m'self a man of me own without Danny around to be embarrassin' me."

Shawna's face lit up. "Aye, and me, too, Mum."