A Wild Night's Bride (The Devil DeVere #1)(31)

“Where are you taking me?” she asked.

“Where we can speak privately,” he answered, adding ominously, “We have several matters to settle between us, you and I, and I want no audience.”

They rode for a never-ending quarter-hour in uncompromising silence before the carriage came to a jerking halt. Ned opened the window. “To the mews,” he instructed the driver, explaining to her, “So we won’t be remarked upon. I want no witnesses to your arrival here.”

His words gave her a chill of foreboding.

They pulled around to the back of the house where the footman let down the steps. When they descended, Ned dismissed the carriage. “I’ll send for it if needed,” he told her.

Her apprehension only increased.

They approached the servants’ entrance where he pulled a key from his pocket and opened the door.

“Is this your house?” she asked with a frown. “I thought you resided in the country?”

“It is mine for the season,” he said. “DeVere’s man of business wasted no time in acquiring it on my behalf. To be truthful, I had yet to see it until this moment.”

They passed through the kitchen, down a hallway, and into the main living areas, all fully and tastefully furnished, but Ned hardly gave any of it a glance. They ascended a grand staircase.

“There are no servants?” she remarked upon the obvious in her growing agitation.

“Not yet. They will be hired in the coming weeks. We are quite alone here.” He gave her a portentous look. His hand was on her arm again, steering her past several doors to a forbidding dark mahogany double portal at the corridor’s end. “This must be the one,” he said, retrieving another key.

“Why have you brought me here?” she whispered.

“I told you we have matters to settle. The house is uninhabited and seemed the perfect place...for what I have in mind.”

Her spine stiffened. “And what is that? You now think to use me whenever you wish?”

“Oh no, my dear.” He gave her a foreboding look. “Something far worse than that.”

She swallowed hard. The lock clicked, and the doors opened into a darkened chamber. Although it was barely noon, with no fire, no candles, and the heavy drapes drawn closed, it might have been night.

Her feet dragged as he ushered her inside. Her gaze darting about the large chamber, she struggled to adjust her vision while he turned the key in the lock and pocketed it. “There now. I shall answer your one question, and then you will answer all of mine. I want information,” he said. “I want the truth from you, and I intend to use any means fair or foul to get it.”

Her racing heart pounded against her breastbone, her palms were damp. “Fair or foul?” she repeated, real fear beginning to enshroud her.

“Indeed. It’s all very simple,” he explained. “I will ask. You will answer. Should you choose not to answer, I will torture you.”

“Wh—what?” She choked out the words.

“You heard me.” He grasped both her wrists and brought them behind her back. “Fair or foul. Reward and punishment, my love. And I intend to show no mercy.”





CHAPTER THIRTEEN




She thought she had known him, trusted him even, but Ned was showing a completely different side, as if he were another person altogether. A stranger. His manner was forceful and commanding as he backed her against the locked door. His hazel gaze was steady, but the warmth was gone. He regarded her with an emotionless mask.

He still held her wrists tightly and now raised her arms over her head and wedged his hard muscular thigh between hers, effectively pinning her in place.

“Now we begin,” he said, his breath hot on her cheek. “No more games. No more lies. No more playacting.”

She closed her eyes with a shudder of apprehension.

“What is your name? Your real full name.”

“Phoebe,” she whispered.

“That’s not what I asked.” He shifted his grip to hold both her wrists with one hand, and his free one came to her throat.

Fear gripped her. She closed her eyes.

He cupped her jaw, his warm lips slowly grazing the side of her face. He kissed her eyelid. “I said your full name.” He kissed the other.

“Phoebe Alice Scott.” She exhaled in a sudden gush of relief and understanding. She had played games with him from the very start. This was merely his clever method of much-deserved payback.

“A good beginning, Phoebe Alice Scott,” he murmured against her lips. She parted them in anticipation of his kiss, but he withdrew. “I don’t think you deserve it yet. Where are you from?” he asked.

“Kent.”

His mouth moved to her ear. “Kent is a very big place.” His teeth took hold of her lobe and gently bit down. The backs of his fingers stroked her neck.

She inhaled sharply and then exhaled her answer. “In the parish of Braborne, near Scottshall. My relict aunt owns the estate.”

His hot breath tickled her ear. “You are well-known by the prince, Phoebe.”

“Please,” she begged. “I don’t wish to discuss it.”

His teeth softly grazed her throat, his tongue tracing her racing pulse from ear to collarbone. “Sometimes we must face unpleasantness in order to get beyond it.”