A Devil Named DeVere (The Devil DeVere)(18)

"There you are, darling." The voice of the duchess shattered the illusion with stark reality.

"Bloody hell! God damned bloody hell!" Diana heard DeVere growl through his teeth.

She looked up to find Caroline paused on the threshold between DeVere's bedchamber and the sitting room. She shot Diana a virulent look "Why Baroness! What on earth could you be doing all alone with Lord DeVere in his private apartments? One could come to so many wicked conclusions, you know. I wonder what your husband would say?"

"That's enough, Caro!" DeVere snapped. "The lady and I had some private business to discuss."

She chuckled. "Darling, there is only one kind of business I know of that requires you to put your hands on her body."

"You presume falsely, duchess. I was having trouble with the clasp." Diana knew her protest was as feeble as her alibi. "But our business is most certainly complete." Diana rose, anger at her own weakness fueling her words. "I see how mistaken I was to come here. I had even been forewarned what manner of man you are. Now I know there is only one kind of gallantry you understand. A good afternoon to you, my Lord DeVere." Diana crossed the room in a fury of swishing silk.

Caroline swiftly took the place she had abandoned by the viscount's side.

"Four o'clock," he said, just as Diana's hand touched the doorknob.

Diana spun around. "Excuse me?"

"I will see the mare run at four o'clock."

She almost forgot to breathe. "Then we have an agreement?"

"A conditional agreement," he responded. "I won't allow you to hazard what little remains in your possession unless I deem her a true prospect to win."

"It is hardly your decision what I do with my jewels or my horse, but you won't be disappointed," Diana said.

The corner of his lips twitched. "I hope not. Twice in one day would surely be more than I can bear."





Chapter Six


"Darling, when you return to town after entertaining these rustics, don't you think we should make it official? I am three months out of mourning, after all. Not that our...arrangement is any particular secret." Caroline chuckled as she traced circles around the flat disk of his nipple.

Her words sounded a deafening alarm in his head, pulling Ludovic abruptly from his sex-sated stupor. He regarded Caroline from under a deceptively hooded gaze. "Official?" he drawled.

"Of course. Now that Beauclerc no longer stands in our way, we are at last free to be together."

DeVere answered dryly, "By my count, we have already been together in as many ways as is humanly possible. Thus, it appears to me the good duke was never any true obstacle."

"You are entirely too wicked." She laughed and raised herself up to straddle his belly. She rubbed her mons against him with a purr, reaching a hand behind to guide him into her, but not finding what she expected. "Is there a problem, my lord? I've never known your cock to require any encouragement."

"Perhaps it's become bored with the menu?"

"Bored!" She threw her powdered head back with a derisive laugh. "You lying whoreson! I'm the best you've ever had! You just don't want to make an honest woman of me."

"All too true, my sweet. Did it never occur to you that it was precisely your unavailability that made up the greater part of your charm?"

Her face contorted with rage, she drew back to strike him, but he caught her by both wrists. "Tsk, tsk, Caro. I think not!" He flipped her onto her back, caging her with his body.

"I thought we would be good together, but I see now I'd only demean myself if attached to you."

He smirked. "But why would you even consider settling for a mere viscount after having a ducal coronet? As I recall, you once thought it a very poor bargain."

"Is that what this is truly about?" Her breathing was ragged, her gaze venomous. "Just some petty revenge because I once jilted you? How pathetic."

He thought she would make the effort now to push him off her, but she undulated beneath him instead, wrapping her legs around his waist, pressing her hot core against him. He found himself hardening against his will.

"Part of you still wants me," she said with smug satisfaction. "You can't deny it now."

No, he couldn't; but then again, his cock always had defiantly refused to be ruled by his brain. "Very well, Caroline, I won't deny it." He gave her a fulsome smile as he thrust into her. "So let us just consider this our farewell f*ck."

***

Diana left DeVere's chambers in a peculiar daze comprised of equal parts anger, confusion, and lust. She had never been so affected by a man. All he had to do was look at her to set her skin tingling and pulse racing. It had taken little more than a touch and a suggestive word from him for her emptiness to expand and a powerful yearning to take hold of her body. When his lips had seared her skin, she had almost melted away—certainly her fine upstanding resolution had.

Outwardly, she had reacted with the proper amount of righteous indignation, storming away as any virtuous woman would, yet now she wondered how virtuous she really was. The meaning of his parting comment was clear, and Diana wondered if a small part of her shared his disappointment.

Deny it as she tried, she actually envied the freedom of those like the duchess and DeVere, people who broke convention and flouted society to take what they wanted and do as they pleased. She knew that many unhappy wives hired strapping, young footmen to satisfy their unfulfilled needs, but she told herself she wasn't such a woman. If she was, wouldn't she have taken a lover long ago? But then again, she'd never experienced the acute physical awareness, the profound magnetic pull that she felt with DeVere. God knows what might have happened had the duchess not interrupted them.