Chapter 8

CHAPTER EIGHT

T hat voice.

Recognition hung just beyond the edge of Dev’s memory.

“You’ll have to come out eventually.” He was only pointing out the obvious.

The obvious was met with silence.

And stillness.

The woman wasn’t coming out.

They were at an impasse.

He supposed it was within his rights to stride across the room, tear the screen away, and forcibly remove the woman, but in truth, this was the most interesting thing to have happened to him in weeks. It was even almost fun.

Still, she left him with no choice but to say, “You have exactly ten seconds before I send for the law.”

“No!” came a shout as the woman sprang to her feet and scrambled out from behind the screen, nearly tipping it over in the process.

And here was hazy memory come to solid life.

Lady Beatrix St. Vincent , as he lived and breathed.

Here , in his hotel suite.

Life could deliver some unexpected twists and turns, and that was a fact.

Cheeks flushed, eyes bright, her breath coming in sharp, shallow sips, she stared out at him. From the little he understood of her, he knew this much. She wasn’t the sort of woman who was lost for words.

Yet here she stood before him, exactly that.

He settled deeper into sofa cushions and crossed an ankle over the opposite thigh. A flash of irritation passed behind her eyes, and her jaw clenched and released.

His air of indolence annoyed her.

Good.

He wanted to poke at her…

Prod her…

Push her…

And test where her limits lay.

“You think I won’t have you arrested because you’re a lady?” He had to ask.

She didn’t flinch. “I don’t know what you’re capable of, Mr. Deverill.” She’d found her voice, but behind all that bravado, he detected a telltale wobble. “You did try to run me down with your horse.”

Her spark had certainly returned. “Are your ankle and wrist recovered?”

He hoped so. He didn’t like the echo of guilt he felt when he recalled her injuries.

“Quite.”

As if she would have said anything else.

He returned to the main subject. “I believe the law would find the case against you compelling, to say the least.”

Her eyes flashed gray steel.

“You’re guilty of both trespassing in my rooms and of spoiling what was promising to be a very pleasurable interlude with Lady Standish.”

She crossed her arms over her chest. A defensive stance. “I got carried away was all.”

“ Carried away? ”

The woman had nerve. He would give her that.

“It happens.”

In that instant, Dev saw something. Something a man like him was especially attuned to.

Opportunity.

And he understood something else.

Now wasn’t the time to push it. Going at this skirmish head-on with an adversary like Lady Beatrix wouldn’t get him anywhere—especially when it wasn’t yet clear where where was.

A pivot was necessary—for the moment.

“How did you know this was my suite?”

A natural enough question, given the circumstances.

She shifted from one foot to the other, indicating a distinct and new discomfort. “Isn’t it known you have rooms here?”

“Likely.” He would give her that. “But how did you get inside my rooms?”

Her lips remained firmly pressed together.

“This suite occupies the top floor,” he continued. “And the door wasn’t forced. Unless you possess untold talents of the magical variety, you didn’t scale the walls or fly.”

A slow, silent second ticked past, then another, as his words hung in the air like a lead weight. Just when he thought she wouldn’t respond, she heaved a resigned sigh. “I overheard you.”

“ Overheard me?”

She gave a brusque nod.

“You’ll have to do better than that.”

“With Lady Standish.” The admission sounded as if it had been extracted with a pair of pliers.

He was beginning to understand… “At Acaster’s ball?”

Another curt nod.

Of course … “So, you knew to tell the concierge you’re my amanuensis.”

Mutiny shone in Lady Beatrix’s eyes, as if to say she’d given him all she would.

“That would explain the concierge’s impertinence . The man must’ve thought we were having an impressively wild night.”

She averted her eyes. Was that the hint of a blush staining her cheeks?

“So, you’re not only a trespasser, but an eavesdropper, too.”

A strangled sound that might’ve been a protest escaped her, but that was all the defense she could muster.

He’d only spoken the truth.

And speaking of the truth… “Which reminds me.”

He uncrossed his ankle and shifted forward to slide a drawer open from the low table before him. “I have something of yours.”

The object he’d retrieved gave a satisfying little slap on the tabletop, punctuating the moment.

Her journal.

A strangled cry tore from her throat, and she took a reactive step forward before she remembered herself and the situation she’d become embroiled within.

“This is yours , no?”

Here he was, pushing her again. Yet she made no move to take it. He could only imagine the amount of self-control that took.

He lifted the journal and began paging through. “The prose is a bit sparse, but even so, it makes for interesting reading, given all the names belonging to members of the haut ton .”

Perhaps he was pushing it too far, for she’d somehow gone both pale and flushed. He wondered if she might even rather be arrested on the spot than endure this treatment.

“Some of the notes…” he continued thumbing through. “Well, less than flattering some of them. Shall I read a few favorites aloud?”

She heaved a deep, resigned sigh. She knew there was no stopping him, so better to get it over with. He could admire the pragmatism.

He cleared his throat. “ Lord Wrexford—human spaniel, only lacking wagging tail; competing with A for attentions of D of A? ” Dev glanced up. “I suppose you won’t be decoding names for me?”

Lady Beatrix threw darts at him with her eyes.

Oh, this was fun.

“ Lady Neale—rumor true; hair experiment gone wrong; green strands poking out from beneath wig. ” Dev closed the book and let it rest on his lap. “I reckon the lady wouldn’t care to have that bandied about.”

Lady Beatrix lifted her chin. “I suppose there’s a point to all this?” she asked in the cool, clipped, aristocratic voice she’d been gifted at birth.

The tone that deigned to address the lower organism before her.

Of a sudden, Dev was having less fun. Another memory slid into place… Her addressing him thusly on her doorstep, scoffing at the very idea of inviting him in for tea.

“The point of all this?” he returned, his voice gone cold.

“Really,” she continued, “what’s in that journal is none of your concern.”

She was attempting to turn it around and put him on the back foot. Well… “Try again.”

Her hands clasped before her, her knuckles gone white with tension. She understood she wasn’t leaving this room without a confession. “I write.”

“Clearly.”

“For a few turf rags.”

“Hair experiments gone wrong don’t fall within the purview of turf rags. Try again .”

She attempted an indifferent shrug. “I pepper in a few society morsels from time to time.”

Here, Dev’s sharp eye proved useful, for he saw straight through her words to what she was really saying. “The daughter of a marquess is a grubby, gossipmongering newshound.”

She opened her mouth—then snapped it shut. She managed on a croak, “It’s a lark.”

Which was a lie.

This woman didn’t lark about.

He shifted forward and extended the journal across the table. It took her only the split of a second to realize he was returning it to her before she snatched it away and held it behind her in tightly clasped hands. Her stance in combination with her white muslin gown conjured a vision of innocence.

Which she wasn’t.

Actually, he had no doubt she was an innocent in the carnal sense, but she’d intruded into his rooms, which placed her in an undefinable in-between space.

Before him in her innocent pose stood a different sort of lady, and…

He was intrigued.

He reached for the box on the table and slid off the lid. Chocolates. In truth, he hadn’t much of a taste for sweets, but the hotel liked to provide him with small offerings every so often, which he took home to Primrose Hill every week. Mama liked the caramels best.

“Is that all, then?” asked Lady Beatrix.

He glanced up, ready to inform her it would be all when he said it was all , but he caught something in her eyes and the words arrested in his mouth. If he wasn’t very mistaken, that was the specific gleam of… hunger .

On impulse, he took a chocolate between forefinger and thumb. “Forgive my sweet tooth.” He bit down on a chocolate and even groaned for effect. “Do you care for chocolate?”

“A bit.”

Dev extended the box. “Have one.”

Temptation beckoned.

She angled slightly forward, poised on the verge of accepting…

Then she blinked, and her shoulders squared. “It’s not proper for me to be in your rooms.”

He snorted. The woman had some audacity. “For a variety of reasons, in fact. The first being that you weren’t invited.”

Again, he scented opportunity in the air.

Now.

This was the moment to push it.

“What would you do not to be arrested?” he asked, mildly, as if he were inquiring about the weather.

A response took her only a moment. “Just about anything.”

“ Just about? ”

“Within reason.”

“Well, that’s not anything , is it?”

She swallowed against a surely dry throat. “Anything.”

And here it was—opportunity splayed open before him.

His for the plucking.

He wasn’t finished with Lady Beatrix St. Vincent.

Really, he’d only gotten started.

“What should I ask for?”

If she’d been a cat, the hair along her spine would’ve bristled to a stand. “A gentleman would let me leave with a mild admonishment.”

“Would he, now?” Dev nodded, slowly, consideringly. “’Tis a truth universally acknowledged that gentlemen have no imaginations.” He shrugged. “And I’m no gentleman. Nice effort on your part, though. You do have spirit—for a lady.”

He could see her mind racing behind her eyes. Any moment now, she was going to flee this room and never look back.

And he wasn’t finished with her yet.

“Here’s what will happen.” His became the voice of reason. “You will leave now, and I will call on you tomorrow once I’ve decided what to do with you.”

Arresting gray eyes narrowed with wariness. “Where?”

“At your humble abode, of course.”

“At my… house ?”

Her mortification at the idea of having him in her home was more than clear—which only made him more determined. “At your townhouse on Little Stanhope Street.”

Lady Beatrix wasn’t about to give up that easily. “Why not a coffee house? Or the park?”

“ Your house ,” he repeated. “I’ll be there at ten o’clock.”

“In the morning?” she squeaked. “I thought you had a meeting tomorrow morning.”

He suppressed a laugh. “My meeting will be finished by then,” he said. “Ten o’clock sharp . I’m always on time. Now,” he continued, “you may go.”

She didn’t need to be told twice as she all but flew from the room, the door a loud, decisive slam behind her.

Dev finished off the remainder of his whiskey before making his way to his draftsman’s table. He hadn’t been lying tonight. He did have an early meeting, which, of course, in typical circumstances wouldn’t have precluded what he and Lady Standish had been about to get up to—before Lady Beatrix St. Vincent had put a stop to it.

As he thumbed through the plans he would put to Shaw in the morning, a feeling strummed through him. An excitability when on the verge of an advancement. While Shaw wasn’t involved in the invention process, he was a keenly intelligent man who would ask the right questions and test the soundness of the idea. Further, with Shaw’s experience of manufacturing, he would be able to create a timetable for when the product could be feasibly produced.

As with all technology, it was a race, for his competitors were having the same or similar ideas. So, it was all down to not only whose ideas were best, but whose ideas could be implemented and brought to market fastest—and, really, it was the latter that mattered most.

It wasn’t until Dev was lying in bed an hour later that his thoughts returned to Lady Beatrix—and the rather interesting question mark she presented in his life.

Why had she trespassed in his rooms?

What was he going to do with her?

What opportunity did she present?

She was a lady—the daughter of a marquess, in fact. No doors in society were closed to her.

So, how could he benefit from that?

Really, it came down to his end goal.

Imogen.

And could Lady Beatrix be useful in, at last, having her?