The Devil You Know (The Devil DeVere #3)(25)

He hadn’t seen the Baroness since that morning and had no doubt that she was avoiding him. He wondered if he’d overplayed his hand in making his desire for her so clear. He’d ensured she had no doubt of his interest, several times even. He’d never known a woman to refuse his bed once his interest was made known . She was more than ripe for an amorous interlude. The air between them virtually crackled with sexual tension at every encounter. Yet still, she had demurred. Damn her. The thought of inciting her to embrace her darkest desires, to unleash her passion was the incarnation of his most erotic dreams.

Bloody hell! It was enough to drive him mad. He couldn’t remember the last time any woman had invoked such a carnal hunger. Damn, his cock throbbed at the thought of those magnificent white mounds. He wanted to pillow his face in them and suckle the dusky peaks while burying himself cock to balls inside her.

It was then that he saw movement. “Damn it, Caroline! I thought you had departed this afternoon for The Oaks. I’ve already made my sentiments perfectly clear. Why must you make this so bloody difficult?” Ludovic was incensed. He rose, setting his glass down with a decisive clink, but three paces revealed his error.

If he’d wanted Diana before, his desire was magnified tenfold by the vision of her in his bedchamber. Garbed in diaphanous silk that clung to every luscious curve, her russet waves fell in a wanton cascade over her shoulders. Eyes of moss green regarded him with luminous trepidation. She had come to him at last. His cock twitched in eager anticipation for the answer to his most selfish prayers.

It was with a feeling

***

of déjà vu that Diana entered the viscount’s bedchamber. The rooms were much as she had envisaged in her dream, her footsteps muffled by the deep plush carpeting, the massive tester bed with its curtains drawn back, the flickering candle in her hand, except that when she drew near, she found the bed empty.

Her heart dropped like a stone.

Her first thought was that he had not yet retired, but the house was deadly quiet, and Ned and Annalee had turned in hours ago.

Then it dawned on her— Caroline, and Diana cursed herself for ten kinds of fool. She knew they were lovers. Why would she ever have imagined he would have gone to his bed alone, that he would be waiting for her? Especially after she had repulsed him, not once, but thrice.

Diana tried to convince herself that it was all for the best, that she was not the kind of woman to carry on an illicit intrigue and would only live to regret it if she had carried out her plan. But the truth was heart-sundering disappointment. She had wanted—no, needed this.

Desperately. She turned to depart, but froze at the angry assault to her ears.

“Damn it, Caroline! I thought you had departed this afternoon for The Oaks. I’ve already made my sentiments perfectly clear. Why must you make this so bloody difficult?”

She could find no voice to reply when he rose from the chair by the hearth and moved toward her with a purposeful stride. But he saw her and stopped dead in his tracks.

“You?”

“Yes. Me,” she croaked from a throat made of sandpaper.

They stared at one another in interminable silence before his sensuous mouth formed a slow, wolfish smile. “Well, isn’t this a surprise.”

Her pulse raced. Her tongue darted nervously over her lips. “It was urgent that I see you.”

“Urgent? Then why did you not sup with us? Surely we could have spoken then or shortly thereafter.”

Her mind scrambled for an answer. “I wasn’t well earlier.”

His mouth curved a wicked turn. “You look exceedingly well to me.” He took another step forward with a gaze that burned through the thin layer of silk to heat her skin beneath. He looked like he would devour her whole.

Diana retreated two steps back, but it was not far enough to ease her sudden sense of vulnerability, nor the startling physical awareness of him.

“There is something you must know before the race tomorrow,”

she said.

He glanced at the mantel clock and regarded her with a sardonic lift of his brow. “By my account, tomorrow is already come.”

“My apologies again for disturbing you at this late hour, but I had to speak in private. No one else must know of this.”

“Disturbing me would be a vast understatement,” he replied. “I find myself unusually agitated at your change of heart.”

“You misunderstand,” she said, the same heart now sounding a frantic beat for retreat. “This is about the race. Reggie has fixed it. He has bribed your jockey.”

DeVere took possession of her hand, caressing her knuckles with his thumb. “I thank you for the warning, my dear.” He drew her fingers to his mouth, kissing them with deliberate languor, his hot breath against her cool skin sending tremors racing up her arm. “But you worry needlessly. For I already know.”

Her gaze fixed on his mouth. She tried in vain to ignore the warmth of it, the soft sensuous lips. “B-but how? How could you know? There was no one else about.”

“I treat my people very well, and they are devoutly loyal to me for it.”

Diana worried her lower lip. “What will you do now?”

“Whatever your heart desires.”

She shook her head sharply, unsettled by his continued attempts to unbalance her with his persistent innuendoes. “I’m speaking of the race.”