The Devil You Know (The Devil DeVere #3)(14)

It’s just not done—not by a gentleman,” Ned rebuked.

“Have it your way, then,” DeVere said with a blithe shrug.

“But know this, Ned, if by some lucky turn of fortune, I should be offered the bounty of a certain Baroness, you may be certain I will not demur.”

Suppressing a smile, DeVere considered what the papers secreted in his breast pocket might truly be worth.

Dressed

***

scantily as she was, Diana hesitated at the door when she heard the low rumble of male voices within. Not in the habit of listening at keyholes, she would have returned to her chamber had not Reggie’s name been clearly distinguishable.

“Ruined?” She stifled a gasp and almost dropped the candle that trembled in her hand. Three thousand guineas? Good God! She leaned against the wall to keep from slithering to the floor.

She considered making her presence known and openly confronting Edward and DeVere but knew that they would feel it necessary to hide or obscure the truth from her under the pre-posterous pretext of protecting her delicate, feminine sensibilities. Instead, she snuffed the candle and pressed as closely as she dared to the door. Still, she only caught frustrating snippets of the exchange.

“… amazed such a fine specimen of womanhood…such a buffoon…”

37

The Devil You Know

She found it strange that she took Edward’s high regard for her in stride, yet DeVere’s words of admiration stirred something deep within. She couldn’t comprehend why—when he’d already shown himself a rake of the first order and a man with no respect for women—yet his interest almost made her forget the issue of Reggie’s debt. She heard the clink of glass, and then the conversation was frustratingly muffled, as if they had turned their backs or moved further away.

They were now speaking of DeVere’s odious mistress, a topic she had not the slightest interest in. She turned to leave, but her breathing arrested as her own name assailed her ears. It was Ned, and he was laughing.

“Diana come to your bed... whoremonger... wouldn’t touch you with gloves...”

Diana’s hand flew to her mouth at DeVere’s unmitigated pre-sumption. While she was certainly guilty of encouraging a harmless flirtation with him, the notion of joining ranks with such as Caroline Capheaton was beyond the pale. With her blood near the boiling point, she spun on her heel and returned to her room. It would be a cold day in hell before she ever allowed herself to be used by such a libertine.

But then again, it was precisely this illicit thought that took root in her subconscious as she returned to her chamber—what it would be like to know such a man as a lover, to give herself up to selfish, lascivious lust, to finally let loose the deep and relentless yearning after a lifetime of suppressed passion?

She recalled the hungry way his blue gaze had devoured her at their very first meeting, and the suggestion that had hung heavily in the air between them. She had thought herself dismissed as a potential lover until overhearing his profession of interest to Edward, a confession that inspired within her equal parts loath-ing and lust.

Feeling stifled, Diana flung open the French doors and stepped onto the balcony into the moonlight. She stood there in the deep silence of the night, lost in her reflections and the illicit visions that kept returning to DeVere. When the damp chill forced her back inside, Diana explored her room, still restless and seeking escape from her disquieting ruminations. She discovered a leather-bound volume of John Donne and opened it at random to The Dream, an unfamiliar work, but one whose theme she hoped 38

Victoria Vane

might induce sleep. By the end of the first stanza, however, Diana realized her error. The erotic message of the poem was clear.

Unbidden, her mind conjured Donne’s lovers. The man asleep and dreaming of his love only to be awakened by the object of his passion took the form of DeVere. She cast the book aside with a listless sigh before her mind’s eye could invoke what she knew would be the intimately familiar features of his lover.

Her footfalls w

***

ere lost in the plush Turkish carpet of DeVere’s bedchamber. Behind the shield of her hand, the flame of the lone candle flickered as she padded across the room to the massive tester bed. The curtains were drawn back, but the bed was cast in the obscurity of shadow.

She wondered briefly if one body or two would be revealed in the faint light of her fluttering flame, yet she moved closer still with bated breath that expelled from her lungs in a soft rush to find him alone. She snuffed the candle, waiting for her vision to adjust. She stood there, pulse racing and heart hammering a rapid tattoo against her breastbone at the thought of him waking to find her there.

He was sprawled on his back, arms outstretched in the confident repose of a king or some other invincible being. A sheet draped over a thigh and a portion of torso left the other half of him bare to her ravenous gaze.

She devoured the vision of lean, sculpted muscles that closely resembled a god manifested in all his masculine splendor.

“Enter these arms, for since thou thought’st it best not to dream all my dream, let’s act the rest. You are called forth from my dream,” he whispered. “I knew you would come.”

She stepped back with a gasp. “But how could you know that?”

“Because this is ineludible, you and I. You can’t escape it.” He reached out a hand, his voice husky with desire. “Come to me now, my magnificent huntress.”