The Trouble With Sin (Devilish Vignettes (the Devil DeVere) #2)(4)

"I-I had no idea," Simon stammered. "I thought you were some musty papers."

Her frown deepened to a scowl.

"Bugger it! Th-that's not what I meant! It's just that he never told me it was you I was to look after." When given the key, Simon hadn't taken into account DeVere's devilish sense of mischief.

She pouted and plucked at the counterpane. "I don't see why he couldn't have taken me with him." She gazed back up at Simon with misty eyes and quivering lips. "He's cast me off, hasn't he?"

Not tears. He could bear anything but a female in tears!

"Please, Freddie. You must understand how he is. I have never known DeVere to form any lingering romantic attachment. It just isn't his way. Did he not explain the arrangement to you?"

"The only arrangement was that I warmed his bed in exchange for this." She gestured to the rooms. "Now he's hied off to foreign parts." Her expression transformed from woeful to sullen in the blink of an eye. "Does he expect me to just pine away until his return?"

"I doubt that very much," Simon replied. "DeVere is not one for pining of any sort. He would expect you to enjoy yourself in his absence."

"Enjoy myself? How am I supposed to do that stuck alone in this place?" She gave an indignant sniff.

Simon turned up his hands with a sigh. "I don't know, Freddie. How were you used to entertaining yourself before?"

"Entertainment is all we ever did when I lived amongst the Romanis. We traveled the country from north to south, performing at all the fairs, but now they have long moved on, and I am here. Alone."

"Do you wish to rejoin them?"

"No," she said. "I like London."

"Then you wish to stay here?"

"Where else am I to go?" she huffed.

Simon raked a hand through his hair. Why were females so bloody complicated? A good meal and a tumble would suffice for any man, but obviously this situation required some finesse. He'd get nowhere near her bed, let alone into it, with her feathers in a ruffle as they were.

"If you are bored, I'll be happy to take you out and about. Do you wish to attend the playhouse?" He supposed he could sneak her into his parents' box. They rarely attended. His mother disapproved of the illicit tone of the theatre. "Whatever your pleasure, Freddie, I place myself at your disposal." He gave her a gallant bow.

"The playhouse? How can I go to the playhouse without any clothes?"

"Clothes? There are clothes everywhere." He gestured to the garments that littered the floor.

"Hardly the kind for a lady." Freddie rose from the bed with a snort. "He thought it a lark to keep me as a lad when we went about. The rest of the time, he said I had no need of 'em."

She kicked violently at the breeches and shirts on the floor. Garbed only in DeVere's nightshirt, the act provided Simon with a gratuitous view of slim and shapely legs.

Simon cursed DeVere in a surge of envy. Why had he been the one to discover Freddie? He was the luckiest blighter and thoroughly undeserving to boot. "Yes, I suppose DeVere would see it that way. Did he leave you any coin?"

"Are you daft? Do you s'pose I'd be stuck here in these rooms had milord left me any coin?"

Great. Just bloody great. DeVere had reaped all the benefits and now left Simon to deal with the upshot. But deal with it he would.

"DeVere does not lack generosity, Freddie," he explained in his most placating tone. "No doubt, it simply didn't occur to him because he had so much on his mind before his departure."

"Then what's to become of me?" The misty eyes returned. She blinked, and the first tears spilled from her black eyes to roll down her cheeks. It was nearly Simon's undoing.

"Come now, Freddie! Please don't weep." He went to her and clasped her hands. "He's hardly abandoned you. He let this lodging for you after all and asked me to look after you—albeit in a somewhat vague and circuitous fashion."

"Then you will be my protector?"

"Protector? Hell, I don't know! I've never kept a mistress before."

"Then you don't want me?" Freddie sniffed.

"Bloody hell! It's not that, Freddie!" The problem wasn't a lack of desire to keep her, but the means to do so. His pockets were empty and he had no means to rectify the situation. He also wasn't certain that DeVere had meant for him to poach on his preserves. Then again, the key had seemed like a gift of sorts.

"I don't believe you." Freddie's lips quivered. "Just like him, you are going to leave and never come back."

"No!" Simon protested. "I promise I'll return."

"You swear it?" She slanted a coy look through her dewy lashes.

He crossed his heart. "Gentleman's honor."

Her tears abruptly ceased. She snaked one arm around his neck while her other hand toyed with the buttons of his waistcoat. She was warm, soft, and smelled like woman. God, how he loved the scent of a woman, either delicately perfumed, or wearing the heady aroma of her natural essence; it didn't matter to Simon. He shifted in uncomfortable awareness of the tightening in his groin.

"Then you'll keep me? As a real mistress?"

She darted her pink tongue over her full lips, an action that sent another rush of blood into his throbbing manhood. Bugger! All she had to do was look at him to incite a cockstand.