A Devil Named DeVere (The Devil DeVere)(53)

"A tolerable, handsome figure," Lord Malden remarked to her departing back, "but a tongue like a shrew." He added sotto voce, "Perhaps you can teach her a better means of employing it, eh, DeVere?"

Oh, he had done that and more. He had taught her many things, and she had proven both eager and wonderfully sensuous, but her education remained incomplete. Unless... He wondered with an unfamiliar stab of something he didn't care to identify if Diana had taken other lovers in his absence. He paused to examine that question. Would it really matter if she had? In the end, he found it didn't diminish his desire for her in the least. His brother was now out of the picture, not that he would have allowed that courtship to have progressed any further.

With one hand on the door, she spun around to confront her detractors. He could almost see her livid gaze penetrating through her veil. "Better a shrew than a sheep, my lord. For hapless sheep are devoured by ruthless wolves."

So that is the way of it. He chuckled as the door clicked behind her. He had introduced her to passion and left her to her own devices, and for that, she resented him. He had felt her bitterness as a living, breathing force. Yet, there was no doubt in his mind that this sheep desired nothing more than to be devoured slowly and deliberately by a wolf's mouth, and he would be only too happy to oblige her.





Chapter Seventeen


Upper Grosvenor Street



At half-nine, Diana thought she would wear down the carpet from her pacing. She had rose an hour betimes in agitation at her impending confrontation with her erstwhile lover, and he had failed to show. Damn his eyes!

She had no doubt he was entirely to blame for Vesta's disappearance. She had written as much to Sir Edward, sending a dispatch by private courier late last night immediately upon her return from DeVere's house. But even with a regular change of horses and riding through most of the night, it would take almost three days for the messenger to reach Thornhill Park and then another three or four for Edward to arrive in London, but arrive he certainly would by the week's end. And there would, indeed, be a reckoning! A very large man with a slow burning fuse, Edward was a veritable cannon once lit.

Although he and DeVere were the best of friends, Edward treasured nothing above his daughter. He would be livid at DeVere, friendship be damned. At the moment, the vision of witnessing him pummeling DeVere brought a smile to her face, albeit a smile that was short-lived.

Having lost patience, Diana was prepared to carry out her own threat, even if it meant bribing two burly footmen to drag his lordship bodily from his bed. In a rising fever of vitriol, she called for the carriage and returned upstairs to retrieve her hat and gloves, but by the time she descended, there he was.

Garbed in silk and lace and all the sartorial splendor of his exalted rank, he stood in her foyer, staring up at her with his sardonic blue gaze. The footman relieved him of hat and sword stick, and DeVere made her a flourishing bow. "Your humble servant, madam," he declared.

"You are late," she answered his greeting.

His playful and mocking air vanished, replaced by disdain. He replied in a tone matching her own, "You are lucky I came at all, my dear. I am not in the habit of answering to anyone. But given your near fit of hysterics at my house last night, I was inclined to indulge you."

"Indulge me? You arrogant bas—" she hissed.

"Tsk. Tsk, my lady. Such a display of spleen is hardly conducive to civil discourse, especially when I am come at your express behest."

Diana was seething inside but recognized the truth of her faux pas. Any show of emotion was disadvantageous with a man like DeVere, who would perceive it as nothing but weakness. Hiding her temper under a frosty veneer, she showed him to the withdrawing room, deliberately seating herself in the middle of the settle, forcing him to maintain a more comfortable distance in a nearby chair.

"Shall we forgo the niceties, my lord?" she said without prelude. "You must know that extended conversation with you is the last thing I desire."

His lips twitched. "Conversation is last on my list of preferred activities."

She gave a disdainful sniff in response to his innuendo. "I feel I am owed the courtesy of an explanation. As Vesta's godmother, she was in my sole charge."

"Yet Ned wrote explicitly for me to look after you both while in London."

"And she is gone! How can you call this looking after her?" She rose and paced.

DeVere's mouth formed a harsh line as he tracked her movements. "I told you she is safe, Diana. My word should have sufficed."

"Your word!" Diana spun on him with a derisive laugh. "Pardon me if I have reason to doubt your integrity, as our history has proven you have a practice of secrecy and intrigue."

Lord DeVere flicked an imaginary speck from his sleeve. "Your emotions cloud your judgment, Diana. Our history as you call it has nothing to do with this."

"I have not given you leave to address me with such familiarity, Lord DeVere."

He inclined his head with a mocking stare. "As you wish, Baroness."

"And I have every reason to mistrust you."

"Do you, indeed? And precisely how have I abused your good faith?"

Diana realized she had backed herself into a corner. She had vowed not to give him a display of the bitterness and hurt she carried like so much unwanted baggage and then had done precisely that. "None of it matters anymore," she replied. "The issue is Vesta."