Devil's Daughter (The Ravenels #5)(45)

“Would we be alone?” she asked warily.

“I’m afraid so.” West’s voice lowered as if he were relating something scandalous. “Just the two of us in the study, poring over the lascivious details of income and expenditure estimates. Then we’ll move on to the really salacious materials . . . inventory . . . crop rotation charts . . .”

The man never missed an opportunity to mock her.

“Yes,” Phoebe said wryly, “I’ll join you.” She pulled two handkerchiefs from her pocket. “One for Stephen’s hands,” she said, giving them to him, “and one for Justin.”

“What about me?” West asked. “Don’t you want my hands to be clean?”

Phoebe fished another handkerchief from her bodice and gave it to him.

“You’re like a magician,” he said.

She grinned and returned to Nanny, who was tidying the interior of the pram. “We’ll go back to the house now,” she said briskly. “Don’t fuss when you see the boys: they’re both filthy but they’ve had a splendid time. Did you happen to see where the cat went?”

“She’s under the pram, milady.”

Phoebe crouched to look beneath the vehicle and saw a pair of amber eyes gleaming in the shadows. The cat crept from beneath the pram with the toy horse in her mouth and came to drop it in her lap.

Phoebe was amused and a bit touched by the cat’s obvious pride in the offering. The toy was no longer recognizable, the leather shredded and most of the stuffing removed. “Thank you, my dear. How very thoughtful.” After tucking the toy in her pocket, she picked up the cat. For the first time, there were no needling claws as the creature settled in her arms. “I suppose we’ll have to keep you until we leave Hampshire. But you’re still not a house cat, and you can’t go to Essex with us. My plans are fixed . . . and nothing will alter them.”





Chapter 17




“There’s nothing wicked about you, except your kisses.”

Ever since Phoebe’s astonishing whisper in his ear, West had been in a most peculiar state. Happy. Miserable. Off balance, fidgety, hungry, hot. He woke repeatedly in the middle of the night, his blood clamoring for morning.

It reminded him of the days when he used to drink himself into a stupor and regain consciousness in a dark room, bewildered and groggy. Not knowing the day, the time, or even where he was. Remembering nothing, not even the pleasures of gross self-indulgence that had put him there.

He sat at the long table in the oak-lined study, with stacks of ledgers and document folios in front of him. It was one of his favorite rooms in the house, a compact rectangular space lined with bookshelves. The floor was thickly carpeted, the air agreeably scented of vellum, parchment and ink. Daylight poured through a large window filled with a multitude of glittering antique panes, each no bigger than his hand.

Usually he was happy to be sitting here. He liked doing the accounting; it helped him understand how the estate was doing in every aspect. But at the moment his usual interest in the world around him—people, land, and livestock, the house, the weather, even food—had narrowed down to Phoebe.

He needed to be either right next to her or very far away from her. Anything in between was torture. Knowing she was in the same house or somewhere on the estate, somewhere reachable, made every cell in his body ache to find her.

When West had seen her so unexpectedly yesterday morning, he’d been jolted with an intense feeling of happiness, pleasurable on the surface but painful several layers down. She had been so beautiful there by the stream, as flowerlike as the wild irises on the banks.

Of all the mistakes in his life, and God knew there had been many, the worst had had been kissing her. He would never recover from it. He could still feel her head in his hands, and the softness of her lips against his. Twenty years from now, his fingers would still be able to shape the exact curves of her skull. Every sweet kiss she’d given had been like a promise, one hesitant leap of faith after another. He’d forced himself to be careful, gentle, when he was dying to crush and devour her. It had felt as if his body had been made for no other purpose than to pleasure her, his mouth to stroke her, his hardness to fill her.

As for what Phoebe might think or feel, West had no illusion that his desire was reciprocated. Not fully, anyway. If there was one thing he was good at, it was gauging the level of a woman’s interest in him. There was liking and attraction on her side, but it didn’t come close to matching his. Thank God. She had enough problems as it was—she didn’t need to add him to the list.

“Here are the latest banking and investment statements,” came his brother’s voice. Devon walked into the room with a document folio and dropped it on the table in front of him with a smart thwack. “So far, Winterborne’s advice has paid off well, especially concerning the railway shares and commodities.” He pulled a chair back and sat with his legs stretched out before him. Contemplating the tips of his polished shoes, he commented, “The only blot on the portfolio, as usual, is the Norfolk estate. Still losing money.”

A house and land in Norfolk had been among the various properties Devon had inherited along with the title. Unfortunately, the past three earls had neglected the maintenance of the estate, as they done with everything else. Most of the fertile fields had gone to rough grass, and the elegant Georgian country house had been closed and abandoned. “There are only five tenant families left,” Devon continued, “and we’re paying more in annual taxes than we’re taking in. We could sell the property, since it’s not entailed. Or . . . you could do something with it.”