Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

L ike a king.

That was how Lord Devil lived.

The instant the footman had opened the door to Mr. Deverill’s suite, it was the aroma that hit Beatrix first.

Fresh pine…crisp sea…clean.

The man wasn’t even here, yet here he was, conjured.

How did he smell so good?

Money.

That was how.

Deverill smelled like money. Not of the ill-gotten variety, but the sort gained by skill, intelligence, and determination. Whatever else the man might’ve been, one couldn’t deny those qualities about him.

After it became apparent to the footman that Beatrix would not be slipping him a bit of coin, he shut the door with a mild sniff, leaving her alone in Lord Devil’s lair.

She snorted.

Lord Devil’s lair .

A bit dramatic, that.

But her first observation held. All rich, warm woods and refined hues of cream and rose invited one to sit and relax. This suite of rooms with its delicious scent, stylish Rococo Chippendale furniture, original oil paintings—was that a Gainsborough?—eight-foot windows, and high coffered ceilings was fit for a king or a very wealthy duke.

She cast a longing eye over an overstuffed chaise longue situated beside a high window. That would be a perfect reading spot during the day. Filling out the drawing room were a sofa, two armchairs, a few console tables strewn about, and a painted silk screen done in the Chinoiserie style so popular this last century.

An object on the low table before the sofa caught her eye.

A small, flat box.

Unable to resist, curiosity had her crossing the room and picking it up. The box was light, which meant whatever was inside was likely very expensive.

Carefully, she slid the top off and gasped at the contents within.

Chocolates .

Three rows of three, each little sweet different from the one seated beside it—this one with a delicate leaf of gold on top, that one with a tiny purple violet, yet another with a single perfect coffee bean.

Beatrix’s mouth watered, and temptation beckoned. It would only be the one. Deverill wouldn’t miss it…

But he would notice.

For none had yet been eaten.

A shame, that.

With a sigh of resignation, she replaced the cover and returned the chocolates to the exact spot of table where she’d found them—before her mind could twist the logic around and she convinced herself it would be all right to take a single, wee chocolate.

She crossed to the dining area—she needed some necessary distance between herself and the chocolates—where she found a gleaming mahogany table that seated six. In the center sat a silver bowl filled with apples and pears, which would’ve been procured from a greenhouse, for the fruit was yet a few months out of season.

On impulse, she grabbed an apple and took a bite before she could think better of it.

She moaned.

Crisp and sweet with a delightful edge of tartness, not a hint of mealiness, it was the most delicious apple she’d ever tasted.

She took another bite, this one better than the first.

A word came to her.

Forbidden .

So, this was how Eve felt.

Perhaps it was the forbidden quality of the apple that enhanced its deliciousness.

Crunching into her third bite, she entered his bedroom. She wasn’t certain what she’d been expecting, but it wasn’t this . If pressed, she would’ve envisioned something resembling a bordello—all crimson velvets and gilded mirrors—even one on the ceiling. Not that she’d ever witnessed such a thing firsthand. But she didn’t lack for imagination.

Yet strangely, this room that saw Deverill at his most vulnerable felt utterly devoid of him.

Except for his scent.

That lingered, as ever.

She savored another bite of apple and wandered into the bathing room. Stark white marble and obsidian black. She didn’t stop, her feet carrying her into the dressing room. All clothing neatly hung or folded away. Nothing appeared to be out of place.

Deverill kept his life tidy.

Which rang true to her.

In the bathing room, her forefinger dragged along the lip of the tub and caught a large drop of water. This water would’ve come from his bath. Water that had touched his naked body. It felt like an unexpected sort of intimacy to be rubbing it between her fingers.

Her eyebrows crinkled, and she exhaled a sharp breath.

Her presence here was wrong.

And her reaction to being here… Frankly, it was getting a little strange.

She shouldn’t be eating his fruits and ambling through his rooms and touching the little that remained of his bath water.

Her curiosity, insatiable as it might be, didn’t give her the right.

She beheld the apple core in her right hand.

Blimey .

She’d eaten almost the entire, delicious thing.

Which she should regret.

But couldn’t quite.

She needed to leave—and was intent on doing precisely that when it caught her attention.

Over by the window, a draftsman’s table, large sheets of detailed mechanical drawings littering its surface. All done by Deverill’s hand, she knew instinctively. What she was beholding was his work. The very work that had made him an obscenely wealthy man. Though she knew nothing of invention or the mechanical arts, she did know talent when she saw it.

Again, the question that had driven her here tonight returned.

Why would such a man give a toss about being accepted into the haut ton ?

He seemed too intelligent for society nonsense.

She needed to let this go. She understood that. Deverill’s business was none of hers.

And in this very moment, technically, she was committing a crime.

She needed to leave— now .

She’d only returned to the drawing room and was making a straight line for the door when the handle jiggled.

Within the space between one second and the next, her mind performed a quick calculation.

That door was on the brink of swinging open and admitting Deverill into his lair.

Blimey.

It wasn’t conscious thought that had her feet scrambling across the room, making for the silk screen in a near dive, but instinct. She curled into a tight crouch and attempted to control her breath and calm her racing heart. As for her perspiring palms, there was no help for them.

It hadn’t even been half an hour. But she reckoned it was the man’s prerogative to come and go as he pleased in his own hotel suite.

The door clicked shut, and a metallic clank sailed through the air. That would’ve been the room key discarded into a bowl.

Heavy footsteps— male footsteps—strode deeper into the room.

Breath held to the point of bursting her lungs, Beatrix shifted so she could peer through the long crack between screen panels.

Deverill.

As he hadn’t immediately begun searching the rooms for her, she could only thank her lucky stars that the concierge hadn’t informed him of the lady awaiting him in his suite.

The solid length and width of his back was to her as liquid hit crystal. He was pouring himself a whiskey.

She could use one of those herself.

To celebrate her escape from this room.

If that ever occurred.

He set the crystal tumbler on the dining table, and she harbored the hope that he would go to his bedroom. Instead, he removed his gloves, revealing an ostentatious ruby ring on his left pinky. She hadn’t ever seen him without gloves, so she wouldn’t have known about this ring. It wouldn’t be inscribed with a signet, because he wasn’t a lord. The rich quality of gold and size of the ruby, however, proclaimed his right to be anywhere he pleased. Then he shrugged off his evening coat and draped it over the back of a chair.

If only he would leave the room…

He reached up and tugged at his cravat, loosening, then discarding it. His shirt fell open into a narrow V, revealing a dark smattering of chest hair.

She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone too dry.

He took one shirtsleeve and began rolling, fold by fold, revealing a forearm sinewy with muscle and a dark dusting of hair.

A bead of sweat rolled down the side of her face. She’d gone hot— too hot . Such heat couldn’t be beneficial to one’s health.

When he began rolling up the other sleeve, she considered the possibility she might combust on the spot.

A light tap-tap-tap sounded at the door.

He opened the door with a playful flourish, and Lady Standish dramatically swept inside.

Certain dread crawled through Beatrix. Now that Lady Standish was here, Deverill was sure to be removing more than gloves, coat, and cravat.

Blimey.

She needed to be gone.

Actually, what she needed was not to have been here in the first place.

Good sense arrived at too late.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said to Lady Standish without an ounce of humility.

The lady took in the room around her, the critical glint of assessment in her eye clear. “I suppose it’s serviceable enough.”

Beatrix nearly snorted.

Here she’d been thinking Lord Devil lived like a king.

“I wasn’t sure the concierge would let me in,” she continued on a huff.

“Oh?”

“He gave me a bit of blather about Mr. Deverill having a busy work night. The man winked at me. The cheek!” she exclaimed. “I have half a mind to take it up with his superior.”

Beatrix almost felt badly, considering she was, presumably, the additional party contributing to the busy work night.

“Well, now that you’re here…” No mistaking the wickedness inflecting Deverill’s voice. “Are you ready to fulfill your amanuensis duties?”

Beatrix could groan—but didn’t.

Lady Standish closed the few feet between them. “ I give the orders.”

The lady’s back was to Beatrix, which left her with an unimpeded view of the amused, indulgent curl of Deverill’s mouth that spoke of familiarity with the game Lady Standish was playing. She touched light fingertips to Deverill’s chest and began trailing down until they reached the buttons of his waistcoat.

Beatrix couldn’t breathe.

Lady Standish began undressing Deverill—and Beatrix couldn’t not watch, her face pressed so close to the crack between the screen panels her eyelashes brushed it with every blink. Waistcoat discarded, the lady tugged his shirt free of his trousers with a giggle. Then the garment was up and over his head and joining the waistcoat on the floor.

At the sight of his bare chest and the stacked rows of muscles on his stomach, Lady Standish gasped.

Behind the hand that had flown to her mouth, so did Beatrix.

One would need a good five minutes to count all the muscles rippling across stomach, chest, and arms, so defined and… male .

She’d never beheld anything so male in all her life.

What would it feel like to touch such a powerfully built man?

Unbidden, the memory of the water from his bath returned.

That drop of water knew.

Lady Standish’s hands kept moving… down .

Feathering along the waistband of his trousers…and further down …

Grazing across the very obvious bulge beneath superfine.

“Oh my,” she giggled, “is that a devil in your trousers demanding to greet me?”

“It does have demands,” he said on a deep rumble.

“I believe investigation will be necessary.” One could hear the shiver in her voice as her hand tightened on the bulge—which somehow had grown bigger .

Deverill sucked in a breath.

Another gasp flew from Beatrix—but her hand smothered it too late.

Deverill went stone still, and his gaze shifted.

Toward the screen.

Beatrix froze.

Likely, he was staring at the lovely painted landscape on the silk screen. Serene lake scenes might be a favorite of his.

She didn’t know him—not truly, anyway.

His gaze narrowed…

On hers.

Or had it?

She couldn’t be sure, but just in case it had, she didn’t move, breathe, and or even blink.

For her part, Lady Standish didn’t seem to have noticed anything different about Deverill beyond his use for the night. He grabbed her hand and brought it to his mouth, applying a kiss to the back, like a gentleman—as if that very hand hadn’t just been caressing the rather substantial bulge in his trousers.

“I’ve just remembered I have an early meeting tomorrow morning,” he said, apology in every word.

“ Early meeting? ” asked Lady Standish, as if the concept were entirely foreign to her.

In all fairness, it likely was.

“And I must prepare beforehand.”

“ Prepare beforehand? ” scoffed the lady. Another foreign concept aired.

He lifted his hands in the universal gesture of helplessness. “The vulgar ways of business, I’m afraid.”

“You would…” The lady huffed. “You would rather…” The lady puffed. “Than…” In her fit of pique, complete sentences eluded her. “With me ?”

He gave another lift of helpless hands, which proved too much for Lady Standish, who whirled in a great flurry of skirts and angrily jerked the door open, only to slam it shut behind her.

The room went silent.

Until this moment, Beatrix hadn’t known silence could, in fact, be this silent.

Deverill lifted his tumbler of whiskey off the dining table and took a long pull.

She squeezed her eyes shut and waited.

Muted footsteps crossed the room.

She squeezed harder, and still, she waited.

Any second now rough hands would wrap around her arms and haul her to her feet, then toss her from this room like so much rubbish.

Except… What her ears caught was undefined movement on the opposite side of the room.

One eye carefully slitted open—then blinked in disbelief.

There, directly across from her, he sat with his legs sprawled, one arm stretched along the curved spine of the sofa, tumbler in hand.

Somehow, his utter maleness was… enhanced .

His gaze shifted…

And met hers through the crack in the screen.

She gasped— again .

Idly, he said, “You can come out now.”

Somehow, around the solid lump in her throat, out came the truth. “I’d rather not.”