Chapter 15

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

L ady Beatrix’s gaze skittered away and a light blush pinked her cheeks. “What’s there to talk about?” she asked, all frustrating innocence. “The night was a success.”

“The kiss,” said Dev, blunt.

Her gaze swung to meet his. “Is the money still doubled?”

“Yes.”

“Then, no.”

More silence expanded into the air between them—the only patch of quiet in all Hampstead, considering how dense and raucous the crowd had become.

Still, he had yet one more thing to say to this woman. “Your new clothes…”

Her gaze narrowed.

“You’re not wearing them.”

“This isn’t really the sort of crowd who can appreciate a lady dressed in the first stare of fashion.” The dry note in her voice said she didn’t care too much about it herself.

Still… “But your ring.”

Her expression went from mildly mocking to wholly incredulous. “I couldn’t wear that here.”

“Why not?”

“Are you trying to get me robbed or murdered for my flash clothes and jewels?”

“You’re the daughter of a marquess,” he said, slowly, as if it needed explaining to her. “You’re entitled to wear every jewel beneath the sun whenever and wherever you like. You could bring a manservant to protect you.”

Her brow lifted with open skepticism. “Are you suggesting I bring Cumberbatch with me everywhere and let Destroyer of Worlds dispatch with the ruffians?”

Dev wasn’t giving up. “I’ll hire someone.”

Her eyes rolled skyward. “All so I can wear a ring?” She exhaled a long-suffering sigh. “Oh, Mr. Deverill.”

A feeling stirred to life inside Dev. He rather liked the way his name sounded from her mouth. The woman was exasperated, but the note in her voice suggested she accepted him for who he was.

In the way of a friend.

“Call me Dev.”

Mischief sparked within her eyes. “Not Your Excellency Lord Devil?”

He snorted. “That blasted nickname. They’ve turned me into a fetish for ladies. Dev will do.” He asked the next question as a matter of course. “May I call you Bea?”

That pulled a smile from her. “Because of my sting?”

“Because Lady Beatrix is a mouthful, and we’re betrothed.” The last point should’ve been reason enough, but there was yet another… “And I like it.”

The final point was the entire truth.

The mischief faded from gray depths. “Why don’t we start with Beatrix?”

He nodded. It would have to do— for now .

“The ponies are lining up for the next race,” she said, changing the subject. “Shall we move closer for a better view?”

“ Ponies? ” he asked while they walked. “Actual ponies?”

“Oh, yes,” she said. “You’ve only attended the major races, where only Thoroughbreds are run.”

Actually, that reminded him of a question he’d always been too embarrassed to ask. “What makes a Thoroughbred, anyway?”

Surprise flickered within her eyes before she replied, “Thoroughbreds were produced when Arabian stallions were mated to native English mares. The shape of head is like that of an Arabian, finely sculptured. But the sturdy English stock makes them bigger than their Arabian grandsires. They stand at sixteen hands and more. Quick and elegant, you’ll have noticed, and built for stamina.”

“Ah.”

“On small courses like Hampstead,” she continued, “there is no oversight by the Jockey Club and therefore fewer rules. So, on any day, all types of races can be run. Thoroughbreds one day, ponies the next. Cocktails are gaining popularity.”

“ Cocktails? ”

“Half-bred horses,” she explained. “But those races are usually ruined when someone smuggles a Thoroughbred in.”

“Didn’t you just say Thoroughbreds are half bred?”

“Oh, not for decades. They’re an official breed now.” She cast her gaze toward the racecourse itself. “I don’t think the smaller courses like Hampstead will survive much longer.”

“It’s a convivial enough atmosphere, and it’s packed with race-goers.” Both facts were obvious, even to the casual observer.

“This is common land, which is the problem,” she explained. “The local gentry have started insisting on compensation for its use. Further, since the Jockey Club doesn’t oversee common- land races, they’re even more corrupt than the average corrupt horse race.”

Dev couldn’t deny it. He was impressed. Beatrix knew this world as well as she knew the back of her hand. Out of necessity, one could say. After all, her deep well of knowledge served her articles, which had put food on her table—for years, he suspected. But that didn’t account for the full extent of it… “You love it out here, don’t you?”

She tore her gaze from the track where the ponies were lining up for the blast of the starting gun. “I always have.”

The truth, her eyes told him, but a complicated one.

Her cheeks went bright with passion. “Racing has everything. Open spaces, beautiful animals, dastardly scoundrels, noble competitors, money changing hands too fast for honest accounting, greed, duplicity, and soaring triumph in the end. On any given afternoon, on any given racecourse, the hooves of Thoroughbreds, ponies, and any other four-legged animal on offer pound out a dozen Greek plays—some tragedies, others comedies. The drama of the sport is literally bred into it.” She shrugged. “Also, I need the money.”

Dev couldn’t let that pass unchallenged. “You did need the money. Now, you have?—”

The word that wanted to follow felt wrong to speak.

Me.

It felt like a promise—and he and Lady Beatrix St. Vincent had no promises between them.

They had an arrangement and a payment schedule.

That was all.

Her mind seemed to have heard the same me and performed the same calculation—with the same intention to leave it unacknowledged and unspoken. Her gaze shifted and settled on the line of horses. She pulled the small journal and pencil from her reticule and wet the pencil tip with her tongue.

Pencil poised above paper, she was ready for the race to begin.

“Well, well, well,” came a voice behind them.

It was an aristocratic voice—and one soaked in whiskey, at that.

Yet the voice held an edge.

Beside Dev, Beatrix froze, and her eyes squeezed shut as if denying the reality of that voice at her back.

But it proved to be composed of quite solid substance when it boomed, “If it ain’t the happy couple.”

She released the breath she’d been holding and turned, her shoulders square with tension. Dev pivoted alongside her to find a ruddy-faced, barrel-bellied aristocrat shambling toward them.

In an instant, Dev knew the man.

The Marquess of Lydon …

Beatrix’s father.

The two shared the same gray eyes and the same fine, straight nose—but that was where similarity ended.

“Lydon,” she said once he’d come closer than shouting distance.

A laugh rumbled from the depths of the marquess’s belly. “Hear what the chit calls her own father?”

Before Dev could come up with a diplomatic response—how did one answer such a question, anyway?—Beatrix cut in. “By your name?”

“And the mouth on her?” Lydon continued addressing Dev. “You’re certain you don’t want a sweeter bride?”

In that instant, Dev understood something. In his haste to have what he wanted, he hadn’t gone through the proper channels. He hadn’t asked Lydon for his daughter’s hand.

“Your lordship,” he said, very properly, ignoring the unladylike snort that sounded at his side. “Will you grant me the honor of taking your daughter’s hand in marriage?”

He didn’t need to glance at Beatrix’s face to know it had gone pale with horror.

“The chit doesn’t have a dowry.” Lydon barked what passed for a laugh. “I rather misplaced it a while back.”

Clearly, he got a grand old kick from what passed for wit with him.

Beatrix flinched.

Dev opened his mouth to spout some romantic rot about living for love, not a triviality like money. But it was the canny glint in Lydon’s eye that had the words dying in his mouth.

“What’s she worth to you?” asked the old scoundrel.

Money.

That was what Lydon saw when he looked at Dev.

So, it would be a negotiation.

“The question is, my lord,” began Dev, his voice gone to stone, “what’s she worth to you ?”

Lydon gave a shrug. “A little here, a little there.”

That answer had Dev’s hackles rising. “A hundred quid?” He measured the sum as a decent starting point for a negotiation with a marquess.

“Per week?” Lydon nodded contemplatively. “That should about do me.”

A strangled noise sounded in Beatrix’s throat. Dev paid it no heed as he held Lydon’s gaze, wondering if he should demand a shake on it. This pretend future father-in-law would be an expensive one.

Sudden insight struck him.

Beatrix had been dealing with this all her life.

Lydon directed a too-serious bow toward Beatrix. “Daughter.” He turned to Dev. “Welcome to the family.”

And with that, he was off, sauntering into the distance, a whistling tune trailing in his wake.

Welcome to the family.

An unexpected feeling expanded within Dev. Those parting words—and one in particular—imbued the exchange with a strange solidity.

Family.

Of a sudden, this pretend engagement to Beatrix felt less like a game of pretend and more… real .

Her gaze remained affixed to the distant point in the crowd where the marquess had disappeared from sight. “When I was a child,” she began, “Lydon didn’t allow me to call him Papa or even Father. Lydon , he’d insisted.” Her eyes rolled toward the sky. “He’s impossible.”

Family.

Dev was about to say as much when he felt it—a raindrop on his nose.

Beatrix must’ve experienced a similar sensation for she held out her hand and tipped her head back, directing her attention toward clouds that had grown considerably blacker in the last five minutes. “We have about thirty seconds before?—”

But she was unable to complete the sentence before the clouds opened and unleashed their heavy burden directly on top of their heads. Without hesitation, he grabbed her hand. “Come with me,” he shouted, feet already on the move toward his waiting carriage.

She offered no resistance as they dashed across the racecourse grounds, race-goers and horses alike running around in a mad scramble as they attempted to secure shelter from the sudden onslaught. A few more minutes of this deluge, and one would need a rowboat to paddle home.

Soon, they reached Dev’s carriage and clambered gracelessly inside. With the rain belting an unrelenting tattoo on the roof, they each collapsed onto opposite benches. Soaked to the skin, hair clinging to her face in sodden strings, Beatrix was a mess.

“Have you caught a chill?” he asked, already shrugging off his overcoat.

“I’m all right,” she dismissed, curtly. The shiver that visibly ran up and down her body told the lie.

“Your lips are turning purple.” It needed to be said.

“I just need to get home.”

“London will be a tangle of traffic. It’ll take three hours to get to Mayfair in this weather.”

“Best we get rolling, then.”

She was a headstrong one.

When her teeth started chattering, Dev made a decision. “We’re not returning to London.”

“We’re not?” she asked through clenched jaw.

“Primrose Park is a few miles from here.”

“ Primrose Park? ”

“My estate.”

Her mouth curved into what would’ve been a smile— of sorts —if it didn’t look so painful. “Is there no problem you can’t solve?”

“I haven’t encountered one yet.” In fact… He thrust his greatcoat across the footwell. “ Here. ”

“I can’t take your coat.”

“You can.” A stubborn second ticked past. “And you will.”

She made no move to accept the garment. Instead, the blasted woman crossed her arms over her chest.

If she wanted to play it that way… “Or I take the seat beside you, and you use my body for warmth.”

She simmered with pique before grudgingly accepting the coat. She slipped one arm, then the other, into the sleeves and brought the collar to her chin, wearing it backwards so it resembled more blanket than garment. Large, wet-lashed gray eyes stared out at him. She muttered something, but through the cacophony of rain on the carriage roof, he couldn’t make out her words.

“What was that?”

She exhaled a deep, long-suffering sigh. “Thank you.” What might’ve been a smile curled a corner of her mouth. “ Friend. ”

Dev knew the smile that curved his own mouth was a smug one and that it would irritate her no end, but there was no help for it. His sense of gratification was too strong. He gave the ceiling three firm raps to differentiate the sound from the rain. “Primrose Park,” he called outside to the coachman who was hunkered into his duck-cloth overcoat that was imperviable to all varieties of English weather.

The carriage lurched into motion, and Dev settled back into plush leather, his only view the woman before him, who was fixedly staring out the window.

He resisted the urge to right her hat, which sat on her head at an askew angle.

It might prove too large a test for their fledgling friendship.

So, he, too, directed his gaze out the window and let the carriage drive him home.

The evening would be an interesting one.