Kathryn Smith (19 page)

“Are you available for the next waltz, Lady Blythe?”

Mutely, she nodded, her eyes still wide from his challenge. He had shocked her. Truly, he had shocked himself. He still wasn’t certain he believed in love, and even less certain that he deserved it, but by God, if it was that important to her, he was willing to give it a shot. He would do anything to call her his own. Surely she could see that now.

Devlin offered her his arm and escorted her back to Miles and Varya, both of whom smiled at him encouragingly. It was an action that did not go unnoticed by interested spectators. People liked to watch him, and he had called a lot of attention to himself by dancing with Lady Blythe, who had also garnered public interest with her sudden return to society. Tongues would start wagging when he collected Blythe for a second waltz—especially since he had no intention of dancing with anyone else for the rest of the evening.

Let the gossips talk. He would walk down Bond Street in nothing but his unmentionables and a ladies’ corset if it would help persuade Blythe to be his.

He would do anything to have her—even if it meant eternity in hell for lying to her about his past. He would hide it forever if it meant having her love him. Even having her eventually discover the truth would be worth knowing just a day of being loved.

She was his. She would always be his. He just had to convince her of that.

He was just about to leave Blythe with her family when a very drunk young man swaggered up to him with two friends in tow. He saw this sort of thing so often, it didn’t surprise him anymore. Why did young men come to such parties if all they wanted to do was drink? They should be at a club instead.

The young man jabbed a finger into Devlin’s shoulder. “So you’re the big war hero, what?”

Oh Christ. Not this again. It wasn’t the first time a little man had tried using him to make himself look bigger. Heads were beginning to turn. “Let me guess—I don’t look that big
to you?” The young man didn’t stand much higher than Devlin’s shoulder.

Red-rimmed blue eyes tried to focus on his face. “Thas right.”

Devlin sighed. What made some men act this way when they were in their cups? Brahm had never gone looking for fights. Of course, Brahm never had to; they usually found him of their own accord. Pissing in a punch bowl was good for that.

“You are foxed.” Nothing like stating the obvious, but perhaps the young man didn’t realize just how impaired his judgment was. “You should go home.”

Obviously the young man didn’t like being told what to do if the loose-muscled sneer contorting his face was any indication.

“I think I sh’d put you in your pl-place.” The youngster belched, sending a whiff of noxious fumes in Devlin’s direction. “You’re just a youn’r son. I’m going to be an earl som’-day.”

A younger son he might be, but Devlin didn’t bother to remind the boy that he was also almost a foot taller, two to three stone heavier, and almost ten years older. The boy had something to prove to himself; he could understand that. He just didn’t want to be part of it.

He had met many men like this one—young and old—who felt small within their own lives, either physically or emotionally. They all had one thing in common—they wanted to prove their virility, their power, by taking down the big fellow. For some reason, Devlin was often that fellow. It was odd, because he had spent much of his own life trying to prove himself as well.

The young man turned to grin at his equally foxed friends before addressing Devlin again. “I’m going to hit you so hard y’ull wish you were back fighting Boney.”

Devlin allowed himself a smile. “Little man,
nothing
could make me wish for that.”

In hindsight, it hadn’t been the best thing to say to diffuse the situation. The future earl drew back his fist and let it fly in a wide, drunken arc.

Devlin caught it with his left—his weaker hand. He closed his fingers over the young man’s knuckles, the muscles in his arm barely straining under the pressure. The poor boy really was drunk.

He was aware of the stares leveled upon him. Someone in the crowd shouted, “Let the pup have it, Ryland!” But the only gaze he was concerned with was Blythe’s. She certainly wouldn’t be impressed by his beating a drunk boy, and even if she would be, he wouldn’t do it. There was no honor in defeating something smaller and less powerful than yourself. The boy knew that.

What the boy also needed to learn was to pick his battles a bit more wisely.

“There,” he said softly as the young man stared at him in open distress. “You did it. You took a swing at me. Now be proud of that and go home.” He relaxed his fingers, releasing the fist in his.

The young man staggered backward, staring at his hand as though he didn’t recognize it. As his friends—who had obviously decided against any more attempts at violence—dragged him from the ballroom, he kept his gaze fastened on Devlin until the doors closed behind him.

The conversation and music started up again. A few gentlemen slapped Devlin on the shoulder and complimented him on his “gentlemanly” behavior. Others told him he should have taught the boy a lesson.

“I think I did,” he replied with a patient smile. These people fancied themselves so wise to the ways of the world, so knowledgeable of how things should be, so why did he, an uneducated soldier, sometimes feel as though he knew so much more than they did?

A gentle pressure on his arm had him turning his head to his left—to Blythe.

Her eyes shone with something that looked very much like pride. “That was a good thing you did.”

He shrugged. What was he supposed to do, agree? Disagree? He wasn’t certain how to do either without looking like an idiot.

Their gazes locked. He gave her a glimpse inside. Did she see the darkness in his soul? Did she know how much light she’d brought into his life? Before he met her he hadn’t dared dream that life would ever be better for him, that he would ever find a reason to dream or hope. Before her he had no goals except to find a place of his own. Now he knew that what he really wanted was to find where he belonged, and where he belonged was with her.

“I want you,” he told her in a tone too soft for anyone else to hear.

Her eyes widened as a soft blush bloomed in her cheeks. “You should not say such things in public.”

“Then let’s go somewhere private.”

The blush deepened, but he could see a spark of desire in her eyes. She wanted to go with him. Her heart might not know what it wanted, but her body did. “You know we cannot take such a risk again.”

“I want you,” he repeated. “Not just in my bed but in my life and in my future. I will do whatever it takes to get and keep you in all three.”

She arched a brow, but he could see her trembling. “Even fall in love?”

He smiled. He had nothing to lose by risking everything; eventually she would learn that. There was nothing in his life that wasn’t worth losing except for her. “If that is what it takes.”

“It is.” The bravado in her voice was touching. The sheer
tone of it was enough to tell him that she was very much in danger of falling in love with him.

“Then I am prepared to risk it.”

Her jaw dropped.

He couldn’t help touching her. It was the briefest contact, simply running the tip of his finger along the back of her hand, but it was enough to make her shiver and to send a jolt of awareness shooting through every nerve and fiber of his being.

“What about you, my fierce amazon?”

She seemed genuinely confused. “What about me?”

“Are you prepared to risk falling in love with me? Because I will not settle for anything less.”

She swallowed, and he knew she was afraid of risking her heart again. Damn Carny, he hadn’t deserved her love in the first place.

“I am prepared,” she whispered.

Devlin smiled again. “Good. Regardless of the outcome,” he murmured, leaning close to her ear. The scent of cinnamon and sandalwood filled his senses. “We both win.”

He left her then with a stiff bow and a smile that was cockier than he felt. He wanted Blythe to love him, and dear God, if he was capable of it, he wanted to love her. There was only one question niggling at his conscience.

Could Blythe bring herself to love a murderer? And if she did, would she continue to love him even after learning the truth?

T
he morning after the ball, Blythe sat at the small, round breakfast table chewing thoughtfully on a piece of toast with jam and sipping a cup of strong, hot tea. What had she been thinking when she accepted that absurd challenge of Devlin’s? Make him fall in love with her indeed! As if she could.

He proclaimed it a winning situation for both of them, but what if one fell in love and the other didn’t? How could that be a victory? It would be hollow at best, and potentially painful for the besotted party—which she greatly feared would be she.

She couldn’t go through loving and not having that love returned. Not again. At least if they were lovers and he lost interest, he could walk away from her. Marriage would bind them forever.

“These just came for you,” Varya announced, as she swept into the room in a morning gown of garnet muslin. She carried a Wedgwood vase filled with lilies.

“Oh, how pretty.” She preferred roses. “Who are they from?”

Varya set the vase on a table next to the morning’s other offerings. Oddly enough, she was suddenly quite popular among London bachelors, or so it seemed. “These are from Montrose.”

“Ahh, the young viscount. Good height. Too skinny, though.” Blythe sipped her tea.

Her sister-in-law regarded her with her hands on her full hips. Her pregnancy was becoming increasingly more noticeable. It wouldn’t be long before she would be forced to give up appearing in public. “You have found fault with every man who has sent you flowers this morning.”

Blythe shrugged. “I cannot help it.” Was it her fault that these men were flawed in some major way? Certainly if she noticed, then their flaws had to be large indeed.

Varya looked dubious. “Well, if you bother to start a list of their virtues, please add the fact that they were considerate enough to send flowers. The size of a man’s waist is nothing compared to the size of his heart.”

She was right, of course, and Blythe was duly chastised. “I am certain they are all the best of men.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t go that far.” Varya seated herself at the table and poured a cup of tea from the silver pot. “Although I am certain they are each fine in their own way. I think in your estimation there is only one man who deserves to be called ‘the best.’”

An uncomfortable heat seeped into Blythe’s cheeks. “Is it that obvious?”

Varya dropped two lumps of sugar in her cup. “Dearest, it was that obvious the night we found you in the maze. You are not the type of woman to be easily swept off your feet.”

“No,” she replied with a bitter chuckle. “I am too large for that.”

The other woman pinned her with a penetrating gaze. “I meant too sensible, but do not let me stop you from belittling yourself. It is such an
attractive
trait, after all.”

What else was there for Blythe to do but laugh? She picked at her toast. “Do you ever get tired of being right all the time?”

Varya waved a dismissive hand but her blue eyes twinkled with laughter. “Your brother makes it positively exhausting.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about,” Miles announced as he entered the room, “but I am going to assume it has to do with my overwhelming virility.”

Both his sister and his wife rolled their eyes. “Think that if it makes you happy, my love,”Varya replied with a warm smile.

Blythe watched the two of them with unquenchable envy. They gazed at each other with a mixture of love, lust, and friendship that she desperately wanted for herself. She wanted someone to look at her the way Miles looked at Varya.

She thought of the way Devlin had looked at her last night when he told her he wanted her, not just in his bed but in his heart. It wasn’t the same look, but it was close. Could she make it closer? Could she make him look at her the way she wanted him to look?

“Congratulations, brat.” Blythe jumped as Miles tossed the morning paper in front of her, the corner narrowly missed the thick layer of jam on her toast. “You made the scandal sheets
again.
”

He made it sound as though it was a regular occurrence. If it were the season, the gossips wouldn’t pay any attention to her at all, but since it wasn’t the season and
on dits
were in short supply, her return to society was being treated like news.

She picked up the paper, careful not to get ink on her fingers, or jam on her brother’s paper. “What are they discussing this time, my glorious hair, my poignant lips?” Two days ago someone had rhapsodized about her “Junoesque” figure and “jade-like” eyes.

“No,” Miles replied with a smirk as he seated himself beside his wife. “This morning’s topic is how attractive you and Devlin Ryland look together.”

“Oh.” Was it possible for one’s heart and stomach to trade places?

Tightening her grip to keep the paper from shaking, Blythe scanned the page for her name. Miles had kindly left the paper open to the society pages. Hmpf, as if kindness had anything to do with it. He was on Devlin’s side.

Blythe snorted. He wasn’t wearing the whole uniform. Did this writer not know anything? If he’d been in uniform he would have been wearing a sword and different trousers. At least then she could have fooled herself into thinking it was the hilt of that sword brushing her hip when they’d danced and not something else.

“Elegant.” Blythe didn’t even bother to lower the paper. “Two years ago my height was pitiable, now it’s enviable.”

“Society is fickle,”Varya remarked, followed by the gentle clink of a cup meeting its saucer.

“This person is an idiot.” Blythe tossed the paper onto the table and wiped her fingers on her napkin.

Varya grabbed the paper. “What did she write?”

Blythe focused on her toast. If she looked at Miles he would see the anxiety and joy in her eyes, and she didn’t want that. She knew better than to believe the writer actually thought her lovely, but the fact that she suspected a match between herself and Devlin, well…that was something else entirely!

He was a hero. He was popular and liked. Despite the fact that he was the youngest son of a viscount, his family connections were reasonably good and his fortune impressive. He could probably have his choice of bride.

Obviously one person thought that choice was she. If society were a bit thicker, if the women at these parties weren’t either dowagers or young debs practicing for the next season, Blythe wouldn’t even be considered for the short list of Devlin’s prospective wife. It was only because she was the oldest, the tallest, the…whatever she was, that the gossips were making such a fuss over it. They had to fuss over
something
, after all.

But Devlin claimed
she
was his choice as well. Wasn’t that worth the risk? Carny might have made her more cynical and jaded, but she was still a hopeful romantic underneath it all.

“Oh.” Varya grinned as she looked up from the paper.

“This is good!”

Miles, who had since seated himself at the head of the table, sliced an apple with a silver-handled knife. “It certainly sounds as though you have impressed someone, brat. How, I have no idea.”

Blythe shot him a narrow glance despite the humor in his tone. Miles just couldn’t be happy unless he made fun of her at least once a day.

“This should ensure that your birthday party will be a huge crush,” Varya gushed, buttering a slice of toast. “Lady Pennington will be so jealous!”

The rivalry between Lady Pennington and Varya went back to before she and Miles were married. Blythe didn’t know all the particulars, but she was in perfect agreement that Lady Pennington deserved whatever misery she got.

Blythe grinned at her sister-in-law’s enthusiasm. “I hope they all bring gifts.”

It was at that precise moment that Forsythe entered the room carrying yet another bouquet of flowers. This time they were roses—at least two dozen long-stemmed blossoms, their petals a delicate russet color.

“These just arrived for you, Lady Blythe.” He offered her the note.

“They are so beautiful!” Varya enthused. “Quick, who are they from?”

Blythe instinctively knew the sender before she even opened the note. Who else would know her well enough to guess her favorite flower and to pick such an unusual color? The spidery handwriting inside only confirmed her suspicion, especially as it was addressed to “My Amazon Princess.”

“They are from Devlin,” she replied before reading the rest of the note.

“I would like to see these against your skin, Dev.”

Heat flowed throughout her body, sending a shiver down her spine. Thank God neither Miles nor Varya had opened the note first! His words were positively scandalous. She tingled
in the most embarrassing places, and yet she wanted him to see them against her skin as well! Her skin and nothing else; she wasn’t so innocent that she’d believe otherwise.

It was then that Miles reminded Varya that they had to take little Edward to the park. Blythe didn’t often want to kiss her brother, but she did just then. He knew Varya would want to see the note, and he knew Blythe well enough to know she would want to keep it private.

Once they were gone, Blythe left the table and crossed to where the tea-colored roses sat in a simple alabaster vase. Gingerly touching a petal with the tip of her finger, she inhaled the velvety fragrance. She loved them.

They did not belong in the breakfast room where she would see them but once a day—where other people would see them as well. She wanted them where she could enjoy them whenever she wanted, and where they would be hers and hers alone.

Cradling the vase against the front of her cream-colored morning gown, she took it and the note upstairs to her room and placed them both on the small stand beside her bed. Now she would have a reason to think of Devlin every night as she went to bed, and every morning when she awoke.

Other than the fact that she missed him.

“Will your lady friend like it?”

Devlin smiled—as much at the hopeful note in the jeweler’s voice as in his own pleasure at the finished product.

Would Blythe like it?

“I’m certain she will,” he told the older man, even though he wasn’t totally confident. Who really knew what women liked and what they didn’t? The most minute, obscure details often made a huge difference between acceptance and pleasure where females were concerned.

“I shall get a box for it. Would you like it wrapped?”

“Yes please.” Devlin handed the delicate horseshoe-
shaped pendant across the gleaming counter, the chain tangling around his fingers. It was an expensive gift for a birthday present, especially when the woman concerned wasn’t his wife or even his betrothed. He had to have it specially made as the jeweler had nothing like it in stock, and of course plain gold wouldn’t do. He had to have diamonds set along the shoe—eight of them, one for every nail.

Would she appreciate the meaning behind the gift? That it not only symbolized the day he taught her to shoe Marigold, but that it was to serve as a talisman against ill fortune and further injury?

Of course she would appreciate the sentiment. Blythe wasn’t stupid by any stretch. Eventually she would learn the truth about him—she would see the blackness in his soul—but he’d already decided to make the most of the time he had with her. If she married him she would never be able to walk away from him. He would never lose her, not completely.

He refused to think that marriage might make her as miserable as it had his mother. He would treat her well, no matter what she thought of him.

The clerk returned with the pendant boxed and wrapped in pretty blue paper with a pale blue ribbon. Devlin thanked him and left the shop with the gift in his coat pocket.

His brother Wynthrope was waiting for him outside in the damp, gray afternoon, smoking a slender cigar and smirking in his usual manner. Wyn came across as cool and aloof, but Devlin remembered the little boy who used to drive himself to tears trying to be what he thought their father wanted him to be. He never said anything, but Devlin knew that was part of Wyn’s resentment toward Brahm—he was the second son and always felt second best against his older brother.

“You should never buy a woman anything she can sell later, little brother.”

Devlin looked down at him. He didn’t have to look far, but it still gave him pleasure to know he was bigger than the brother who used to get him into so much trouble.

“What would you have bought? Cheese?”

Wyn’s usually hard blue eyes lit with laughter. So many people thought him void of emotion. Only his brothers knew the truth, that Wyn felt too much so he protected himself by building a wall.

He flicked his cigar butt into the street. “Perhaps flowers, or a fine wine, but not cheese. No.”

“Flowers die and wine gets drunk,” Devlin lamented, as they began to walk, weaving in and out among other shoppers, “and then she’s nothing to remember you by.”

Wyn’s expression was that of the typical arrogant dandy, and his tone twice as jaded. “If she does not remember you by your skills in the bedroom, then you might as well give up.”