To Desire a Devil (Legend of the Four Soldiers #4)(21)

“Aunt Mary’s old prayer book.”

He gently touched a finger to the disassembled book. “I well remember how she used to carry it to church in the country. It belonged to her great-great-grandmother, you know.”

“I remember her telling me,” Beatrice said softly. “The cover was quite worn through, the spine had cracked, and the pages were coming loose from the stitching. I thought to restitch it and then rebind it in a blue calfskin. It’ll be good as new.”

He nodded. “She would’ve liked that. It’s good of you to take such care of her things.”

Beatrice looked at her hands, remembering Aunt Mary’s kind blue eyes, the softness of her cheeks, and the way she used to laugh full-throatedly. Their household had never been the same without her. Since Aunt Mary’s death, Uncle Reggie had become a less-humorous man, more prone to quick judgments, less able to understand or sympathize with other people’s intentions.

“I enjoy it,” she said. “I only wish she were here to see the result.”

“As do I, m’dear, as do I.” He patted the pages once more and then moved away from her table. “I think I must send him away, Bea, for your safety.”

She sighed, knowing they’d returned to the subject of Lord Hope. “He doesn’t present any danger to me.”

“Bea,” Uncle Reggie said gently, “I know you like to put things to rights, but some things can’t be fixed, and I’m afraid a man this wild is one of them.”

Beatrice set her lips stubbornly. “I think we must consider how it’ll appear if we toss him out of Blanchard House and he regains the title. He won’t look favorably on us.”

Uncle Reggie stiffened. “He won’t get the title—I won’t let him.”

“But, Uncle—”

“No, I’m firm on this, Bea,” he said with the sternness he rarely showed her. “I’ll not let that madman take our home from us. I vowed to your aunt Mary that I’d provide for you properly, and I intend to do so. I’ll agree to let him stay here, but only so I can keep an eye on him and gather proof that he’s not fit for the title.”

And with that, he closed the door to her room firmly.

Beatrice looked down at Aunt Mary’s prayer book. If she didn’t do something, there soon would be bloodshed in her house. Uncle Reggie was adamant, but perhaps she could make Lord Hope see that her uncle was only a stubborn old man.

“UNCLE REGGIE COULDN’T possibly have sent someone to kill you,” Miss Corning said for the third or possibly fourth time. “I’m telling you that you don’t know him. He’s really the sweetest thing imaginable.”

“Maybe to you,” Reynaud replied as he sharpened his long knife, “but you’re not the one displacing him from a title—and monies—he thought were his.”

He examined her from under his eyebrows. Did she think him a madman? Was she afraid to be in his company? What had she thought of his actions just hours before?

But despite his watchfulness, all he saw was irritation on Miss Corning’s face.

“You’re not listening to me.” She paced from the window of his bedroom to where he sat on the edge of the bed and stood before him, arms akimbo like a cook scolding the butcher’s boy. “Even if Uncle Reggie wanted to kill you—which, as I keep telling you, he never would—he’d not be stupid enough to stage an assassination in front of his own house.”

“My house,” Reynaud growled. She’d been haranguing him for the last half hour and showed no signs of stopping.

“You,” Miss Corning stated through gritted teeth, “are impossible.”

“No, I am correct,” he answered. “And you simply don’t want to acknowledge the fact that your uncle may not be nearly as sweet as you think.”

“I—” she began again, her tone indicating she might very well continue the argument until doomsday.

But Reynaud had had enough. He threw aside the knife and whetstone and rose from the bed, nearly in her face. “Besides, if you really did consider me impossible, you would never have kissed me.”

She skittered back, and he felt a spear of rage shoot through him. She should not fear him. It wasn’t right.

Then her lush mouth parted in what looked like outrage. For a moment she couldn’t speak, and then she burst out, “It was you who kissed me!”

He took a step toward her. She took a step back. He stalked her silently across the room, waiting for fear to turn her eyes dark. Hadn’t she realized what he’d shouted, out there by the carriage?

Didn’t she know he was mad?

He bent over her, leaning down until the wisps of hair near her ear brushed his lips, inhaling the scent of sweet English flowers. “You returned the kiss; don’t think I didn’t notice.”

And he had. Her soft lips had opened beneath his for just a fraction of a second before he’d turned and run toward the wounded footman. That kiss would be burned in his memory forever. He angled his head and looked into her eyes.

Instead of going dark with fear, they were snapping with green sparks. “I thought you were about to die!”

Foolish girl.

“Tell yourself that if it assuages your delicate sensibilities,” he murmured, “but the fact remains that you. Kissed. Me.”