Page 101 of A Deal with the Devil

“Now he knows better. So does everyone else.”

He shrugged again as if that was the matter settled.

She found herself in the garden some time later wondering what was wrong with her that Devil’s violence on her behalf did not upset her. No one had ever done anything like that for her before.

It was unacceptable, of course. Inappropriate. She should be shocked.

She should be feeling a great many things she was not feeling, and not feeling a great many things she was feeling.

She should not be fighting a secret smile. Not here in this beautiful Mayfair garden where she could only smell mint and roses and not a hint of the Thames. Mayfair did not escape the ubiquitous yellow fog completely, but it hung in wisps, allowing starlight to peek through. She knew in the later weeks of summer the stink of the Thames would reach even here, and the neighborhood would pack up for their country estates. She imagined patchwork hills, stone walls, clear rivers frothing through groves of trees. It would be lovely. But this garden lit by candles with white gravel footpaths and benches tucked under rose arbors was even lovelier.

Because it belonged to Devil. And he was here sharing it with her.

She knew he was there before he made a sound. Her body recognized his nearness. The amber and wood smoke smell of him. Her pulse thrummed in her wrists and throat and belly. He stepped out of the shadows, looming over her.

“I should have guessed that you would not sit on one of the perfectly good benches.”

She had found a soft corner of grass tucked under an arch of red roses. “I like it here.”

“I like you here too,” he said softly, sitting next to her.

She flushed, feeling suddenly shy. She was not used to compliments. His gaze tracked her blush, the heat of it traveling up her throat. She was not used to feeling shy, either. She generally had no time for it.

“Are you planning on sleeping out here?” he asked. “With the grasshoppers and the nightingales?”

“Maybe. I have never slept outside before. You must have done during the war.”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever miss it?”

“No.”

“Will I shock the neighbors?” she asked wryly. “It’s a talent of mine, after all.”

“Don’t worry, I have thoroughly shocked them already. They know not to bother us back here.”

“The neighbors might,” she scoffed. “But I am quite certain you have any number of ladies still trying to climb over the garden wall to catch a glimpse of the Devil himself.” When he shifted uncomfortably, she turned to grin at him. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“Certainly not.”

“I am! I knew it.” The tiny triumph at catching him out was swiftly replaced with an odd sense of discomfort. Why would he be here with her when debutantes and widows from the length and breadth of England probably daydreamed about him on a regular basis? In fact, there was more than one novel in her circulating library with a dark devil of a hero, usually named something like Hades or Sebastian or Maximillian, who was uncannily similar to Devil, right down to his chilling green eyes. Not that she found them chilling anymore.

At all.

“Do they leave you tokens?” she asked, wondering why she was torturing herself with details that did not matter. “They must be very beautiful,” she added before he could answer, and she sounded a little more wistful than she meant to.

“You are beautiful.”

Now he was mocking her. She was not long and lithe and beautiful. She did not have fortune or connections or land. She did not even have a proper set of stays that did such interesting things to a woman’s decolletage. She had red hair and freckles and an upper lip that was too big for the rest of her mouth.

And debt. Mustn’t forget that.

When she shifted to move away, his fingers closed around her wrist. “Why do you do that?”

She stilled. “Do what?”

“Doubt me.”