Notorious (13 page)

“I cannot really afford to commission you to find out more, Mr. Hammond,” Dev said, “but if you were to take on this case, what would you do next?”

Hammond laughed. “You’re asking for free advice, sir?”

“Yes,” Dev said, “I suppose I am.”

“I’d find out all about the lady, sir,” Hammond said. “I’ll wager Caroline Carew is not her real name, for a start.”

“I could save you the trouble there,” Dev said. “It is not.”

Hammond laughed again. “Well then, sir,” he said, “you don’t really need an inquiry agent, do you?”

“I want to know what Lady Carew has been doing since we last met,” Dev said.

“Then ask her,” Hammond said. “My guess would be you will find a way to persuade her to tell you.” He looked Dev straight in the eye. “Set a thief to catch a thief, eh, Sir James?”

Dev smiled ruefully. “Are you implying I am a scoundrel, Mr. Hammond?”

“No more than Lady Carew is an adventuress, Sir James,” Hammond said. He raised his battered hat in a salute. “Diamonds cut diamonds, so they say.”

“So they do,” Dev agreed softly as the door closed behind the inquiry agent. He thought of Susanna, naked in his arms, her mouth open and eager beneath his, her body clasping his in the most intimate and abandoned of embraces. It was true that there was a bond between them, a passion as violent and consuming as their lovemaking had been. What the bond was and how it might be broken he had no idea.

He walked across to the mantel and picked up the sheaf of invitations there, flicking through them all. In two days’ time he was supposed to be squiring Emma to Lady Bell’s Midsummer Ball. He felt his heart drop like a stone at the thought. Then, like the purest temptation the thought crept in that Susanna might be attending and if so, he would contrive for them to be alone together. He would enjoy confronting her about her fictitious husband. And then he
would take her home, bundling her into a carriage, taking her on the seat, her skirts up about her waist, her body warm and willing about his, and he would drown once again in that wickedly pure pleasure.

He already felt hot and hard at the thought of it. But it could not be. It must not be. He had to put Susanna from his mind and never think of seducing her again. He had to atone for the wrong he had done Emma by being the most attentive and faithful fiancé in the world. He had behaved without honor. Not only that, he had put all his future plans at risk.

Dissatisfaction stirred within him. For a moment he glimpsed an alternative future, one where he took up again his Naval commission and did something more useful with his life than fetch and carry for Emma. Once again he would have broad horizons and life-and-death challenges. He felt the excitement rise within him. Then he thought of his debts, sufficient to see him in the Fleet, and of Chessie ruined through his disgrace. Her hopes of marrying Fitz were almost lost already. He could not condemn her to suffer for his foolishness, too. He had looked after Chessie since the day his father, the most reckless, feckless gambler of them all, had shot himself, leaving their lives ripped apart when he was nine and his sister six years old. He had been stupid, following in his father’s footsteps in profligacy, but for him it was not too late and he would never let his sister down the way that Sir Gerard Devlin had.

As for Susanna, he had to forget the wild pas
sion that there was between them and concentrate on bringing her down. If she gave him the slightest advantage he would take it. If he could spill her secrets whilst keeping his own he should not hesitate. Susanna was ruthless in pursuing what she wanted. He had to be ruthless, too. This dangerous attraction he felt and the even more dangerous urge to protect her had to be denied. With a muttered curse Dev let the invitations scatter on the table and went out to find Frazer and a large bowl of ice-cold water to cure his ardor.

L
ADY
B
ELL’S BALL WAS
the most desperate crush, yet with an inevitability that seemed preordained, Susanna saw Dev the moment that she stepped into the ballroom. He was dancing with Emma; the two of them were halfway down the set of a country dance. Emma was looking about the room as though she was desperately searching for an acquaintance in the crowd whilst Dev was making desultory conversation to her and was being largely ignored.

It was two days since they had met, days that Susanna had spent almost exclusively with Fitz, driving in the park, dancing at a succession of balls, luring Fitz closer and closer to a proposal of marriage whilst he became increasingly possessive and almost equally sexually frustrated. She had flirted with him, teased him, provoked him and promised him access if not to her body then certainly to her huge, fictitious fortune. She was beginning to think
that Fitz was almost as keen to get his hands on the money as he was to get them on her person, which was interesting since he was not a poor man but he was almost certainly a greedy one. The more time she spent with Fitz the less she liked him, recognizing that beneath his appearance of conviviality was a man who was inconsiderate and selfishly devoted to his own pleasures. If it had not been for hurting Francesca Devlin’s future then she would have had no qualms about her role in distracting Fitz and then ultimately discarding him. He richly deserved something to go awry in his pampered life.

It was also two days in which Susanna had—almost—convinced herself that when she saw Devlin again it would cause her no emotion other than indifference. It was two days in which she had consistently deceived herself as well as others because now she looked at Dev and felt her awareness of him blaze into vivid life and she knew she could never, ever escape her feelings for him.

Her eyes locked with Dev’s over the heads of the dancers. He kept his gaze on her for one long, long moment. The expression flared in his eyes and Susanna felt the impact of it wash through her, down to her toes, hot and turbulent. It almost wrenched a gasp from her. The events of the previous two days faded as though they had never been.

So they were not to pretend that it had never happened. Neither of them had the power to deny it.

“Cold?” Fitz asked heartily, seeing her shiver.
“Dash it, my dear, it is as hot as Hades in here.” His handsome face was moody. He had suggested in the carriage that they might cut the ball and go somewhere more exciting, a party for just the two of them. Susanna, knowing that Fitz had partaken liberally of the brandy before they set off, and knowing also precisely where his thoughts were tending, had not been encouraging. Fitz had been in a sulk ever since.

A very pretty countess wafted up to them intent on claiming Fitz’s attention. The room was indeed stiflingly hot, the music and chatter exceedingly loud. Susanna suppressed a sigh. Before she had come to London she had been assured that it was the most exciting place on earth. That might be so, but the Season was no more than the same people encountering each other over again in the same places pursuing the same pastimes: dancing, drinking, flirting. It was beginning to feel unconscionably boring.

She left Fitz flirting with the countess and wandered into the supper room. So much food… Her stomach growled but she forced herself to take only a meager amount. People were watching. She ate a bowl of strawberries and longed for a cream puff. Perhaps later…

“How charming you look, Lady Carew.” The country dance had ended and Dev was standing slightly behind her. She had not seen him approach in the crowd and now she jumped. He spoke softly in her ear. “Cream silk—how virginal and inappropriate. For a widow,” he added as she turned to look
at him. “At least you did not push the fiction too far and wear white.”

“Sir James.” Susanna kept her voice very level, ignoring the flutter of sensation along her nerves. “I would like to say that it is a pleasure to see you again but—” she shrugged lightly “—I would not wish to lie.”

“I should not worry about that,” Dev said lazily. “Deception is a speciality of yours, is it not? You seemed pleased enough to see me last time we met,” he continued, before she could respond. “I remember—”

“Sir James,” Susanna cut in quickly. They were not overheard but even so this was no place of a private conversation. She knew Dev was only seeking to provoke her. And damn it, he was succeeding.

“You will oblige me by forgetting our last encounter,” she said coldly. “And as a gentleman you most certainly would not remind me of it.”

“Ah…” Dev sounded regretful. He had taken hold of her hand, his fingers moving gently against the pulse at her wrist.

“I am sure that a gentleman would accede to your wishes, Lady Carew,” Dev said. “But you know that I am no such thing.” His smile was brilliant, devastating. “So, alas, all I can say is that if you ever wish me to oblige your desires I am always yours to command.”

Remembering those desires and where they had
led her, Susanna felt her pulse jump. Dev felt it, too. She saw the light in his eyes intensify.

“Susanna,” he said, his voice even lower, no more than a rumble against her ear, “you do not regret it. I know you do not.”

Susanna looked up and met his eyes and could not look away. She had expected to see nothing but challenge in his expression. Instead there was sincerity and tenderness that made her heart leap.

“I…” She hesitated on the edge of disclosure, tempted to admit her feelings honestly but at the same time afraid. Dev was so close in that moment, his lips but an inch from hers, the scent of his skin and the sandalwood cologne filling her senses, his hand warm on hers. His touch, his proximity, made her stomach drop with longing. She forgot everything, the ball, the crowds, even her mission to entrap Fitz. There was nothing but Devlin watching her with that dizzying gentleness in his eyes.

Her gaze fell and she felt his fingers tighten on hers.

“Susanna, answer me.” There was urgency in Dev’s voice. “You can trust me. I swear it.” He took a breath, leaned even closer. “I know you are in trouble of some sort,” he said quickly, in an undertone. “If you need help then tell me. I promise to do all I can to aid you.”

Susanna’s heart started to race. She thought of her debts, of the crushing fear of failing Rory and Rose, of the anonymous note, of the whole compli
cated deceit that was now close to spinning out of control. She felt Dev’s touch, warm and reassuring, she remembered the intimacy they had shared, and in that moment she was so lonely she almost cried aloud.

“Trust me,” Dev said again and she looked up into his eyes and for a split second saw the flash of calculation there that gave the lie to the sincerity of his words.

The illusion snapped.

You can trust me…

The truth was that Dev had enticed her right to the edge of revelation and she had almost fallen for it. He had seduced her, ruthlessly exploited her attraction to him and then used that weakness against her. He cared not a rush for her. Oh, she did not doubt that he had found physical pleasure in her arms. But that was all it was to him, whereas she had felt such terrifying emotional closeness. He had felt nothing. And now she was so vulnerable to him that she had almost done as he had asked and trusted him, spilling all her secrets. She shivered to see how close she had come to confession.

“Trust you?” she said. “I’d sooner trust a snake.”

Dev’s smile was so arrogant it made her want to drill the heel of her delicate evening slipper into his foot. “It was worth a try,” he said.

“Bastard,” Susanna said, with feeling. Her heart felt sore and cold.

Dev laughed. “I may be many things, but not that,
as far as I know.” He cast her a sideways look. “You almost fell for it. Admit it.”

“I do not want to talk to you,” Susanna said.

He kissed her fingers. “You’ll sleep with me but not talk to me?”

“I won’t do that, either,” Susanna said. “It was a mistake, Devlin. Forget it.” She smiled at him, a little taunting smile that belied the cold hurt that was inside her. “Or can’t you do that? Can’t you forget me?”

Their gazes locked again in anger and awareness. Susanna wanted to walk away but the same compulsion held her as before. The emotion shimmered between them like a heat haze, bright, fierce and undeniable.

“At least,” Dev said, “you do not need to worry about forgetting Sir Edwin Carew. Since he did not exist, you may invent whatever details suit your purpose.”

Susanna could feel herself paling. For a second the floor seemed to swoop and plunge beneath her feet and it was Dev who caught her arm to steady her.

“It seems,” he said, with grim satisfaction, his eyes riveted on her face, “that I was right. Sir Edwin is pure invention.”

For one long, terrifying moment, Susanna’s mind was a tangled mass of apprehension and doubt. She scanned Dev’s face trying to ascertain just how much he knew, but his expression was impassive.
She would get no help there. In fact, he would be waiting for her to stumble, to give more away, to reveal those secrets he had tried to charm from her only a moment earlier. If one method failed then he would turn to another. Her only defense could be to stand up to him, to brazen it out.

She straightened her spine and looked him straight in the eye.

“Very well,” she said lightly. “I confess it. I invented Sir Edwin. He was…an embellishment.”

Dev grabbed her arm and pulled her behind a pillar, away from prying eyes. “What was he—a lie to give you respectability?” he said harshly. “The rich widow who was nothing of the sort?”

“Precisely that,” Susanna said coolly. It was a lie—just another lie—but at all costs she had to prevent Dev from getting close to the truth that she was in league with the Duke and Duchess of Alton. Her whole future depended on preserving that facade. Far better that Dev should think her an unprincipled adventuress on the make.

“You understand how it is, Devlin,” she said. “A fortune hunter has to give the appearance of wealth even if there is precious little to support it.”

Dev’s gaze traveled over her thoughtfully and lingered on the diamonds at her throat.

“Those are real,” he murmured. “They must have been paid for somehow.”

Marvelous. Now he thought her a whore plying her trade on the streets of Edinburgh, or perhaps a
paid mistress, a courtesan. Susanna shrugged mentally. There was no way that she could refute it, not if she wanted to keep the name of her paymasters a secret.