A Devil Named DeVere (The Devil DeVere) (17 page)

"Yet he shows you considerable favor in having sent the dispatch." Hew gave a wry smile. "For my brother generally answers to no one."

"He is an abominable man!" Diana declared with a scowl.

"Inarguably." Hew chuckled but then suddenly sobered. "You were speaking only a moment ago of your reasons for coming to London. Am I to suppose it was due in part to Ned's remarriage?"

"Yes. Vesta is vastly displeased about it. One can hardly blame her for being unsettled, given the suddenness of it."

"I pray you would indulge my impertinence, but might I assume the marriage made you uncomfortable as well?"

"Perhaps," Diana answered evasively.

"You have feelings for Ned?"

"Only of a platonic nature," she said. "I have known Edward for half my life. He is a good and kind man. I think sometimes had he asked, I might have been persuaded to assume a legitimate, rather than surrogate role as Vesta's mother, but now there is no longer a need. She is grown."

"But what of yourself? Do you not desire security?"

"What woman does not?" She laughed. "Yet, I have a home for as long as I wish and an income sufficient to my modest needs."

"What of companionship?" he asked.

"I have had that with Edward and Vesta."

"And affection?"

Diana briefly met his inquiring gaze and turned away. "Surely every woman desires all those things, Hew, but they are not always to be." Yes, she had once dared hope. She was a fool to have done so.

"I shan't hedge any longer," he said. "You must know I wish to pay my address to you, Diana. I can offer you security, my affection, and utmost fidelity."

"Priceless gems," she answered with a sad smile. "But do you not also seek passion in a marriage?"

Hew's face flushed. "I would expect that to follow."

"There you are wrong, dear Hew. Affection may spring from mutual respect, but passion can never be willed. It just
is.
" She added softly, "Sometimes whether we desire it or not."

"It's my brother, isn't it?"

"What do you mean?" she snapped.

"I know about the leasehold, but the rest was mere speculation until you opened his dispatch. Don't deny it, Diana. Your reaction betrayed you, and your disquiet disturbs me."

"As you well know, my husband's death occurred at your brother's estate. It was all a most unpleasant episode that I have no desire to resurrect."

"Please know it is not my desire to unsettle you, yet as a gentleman, there is one more thing I must ask—did my brother at any time importune you?"

Diana felt her hackles raise. "There is nothing between me and Lord DeVere."

"I see," he replied. And she feared he really did. "Pray pardon my impertinence."

"Hew, you are all that is good and honorable. You have my greatest respect and admiration, but I have no wish to wed. I would never do so again unless I could give my heart. I cannot. And you deserve much more."

"That is your final word?"

"I'm a woman who knows my own mind."

"Very well then," he said with a fleeting smile. "We will speak no more of it."

***

"Vesta!" Diana nearly ran to the girl when she entered the vestibule. "Where on earth have you been?" She clasped the girl's shoulders with a stern reproach. "Don't you know we were worried sick about you?"

"But why?" Vesta asked as she removed her bonnet and gloves. "I was with my godfather."

Diana led her into the drawing room. "But how was I to know that? Moreover, how came you to be with him in the first place?"

Vesta bit her lip. "Did I not say? He invited me for a drive."

"No! You didn't say!" Diana retorted.

"I'm so sorry to have worried you, Aunt Di, but I was so eager to see my godfather, and he has yet to pay a call."

"I would strongly discourage him from doing so."

"But why?"

"Because you are in my charge and should do as I ask," Diana replied in a fruitless attempt to squelch the subject.

"But he has a box at the Theatre Royal for us, Aunt Di!" Vesta protested. "It's for
The Maid of The Oaks.
By the by, I've invited Uncle Vic and Captain Hew for afternoon tea tomorrow."

"Tell me you did not!" Diana retorted, her outrage mixed with dismay.

"But I just told you I did! Why should I not? I am excessively fond of my godfather. This is my father's house, after all. Besides, you appear to have no objection to entertaining Captain Hew."

"That is my own business, young lady." Diana sniffed. "Besides, they may be brothers, but I assure you the two are cut from distinctly different cloth."

"You are unfair, Aunt Di!"

"I have my reasons to be, Vesta. You may entertain
him
if you like, but I feel a megrim coming on and just may feel the need to spend tomorrow abed. I pray you will make my excuses to Lord DeVere."

***

"A missive from the miss, my lord," said Pratt with a grin.

"And how are you getting by with the little rogue?" DeVere asked as he broke the wax seal. He scanned the contents and shook his head with a laugh. He then rang for his majordomo.

"She sure be a taking little thing, my lord," said Pratt.

"So she's won you over too, eh? Taking, indeed! But the question still remains whether Hew will take her."

Pratt's grin broadened. "Wi' all due respect to the cap'n, my lord, do ye truly think he will have much say in't?"

DeVere roared with mirth. "By the look of things, I'd say highly unlikely!"

When Winchester promptly appeared, DeVere handed him the billet with the command, "See all of it done at once."

DeVere House, Bloomsbury

Viscount Ludovic DeVere
sprawled indolently on his Turkish divan, pulling on a hookah while a voluptuous redhead serviced him with her decadent mouth. Eyes at half-mast, he lazily surveyed the scene of oriental decadence that could have been stolen from an Ottoman sultan's seraglio—the myriad hues of silk draping the walls and ceiling, the vivid Turkish rugs and cushions that scattered the floor, the writhing shadows created by the luminous glow of brass lanterns.

Through the purple-blue haze of smoke and incense, his boon companions engaged in various and sundry acts of pleasure with the half-dozen women he'd engaged for an evening of debauchery, and Ludovic realized he was bored out of his senses. He'd been this way for days—restive, edgy, and irritable—as if his life had become suddenly unbalanced. He also recognized with even greater self-annoyance that the marks of his discontent had commenced upon a
certain
person's arrival in London, a circumstance that aggravated him beyond measure.

Although he'd successfully avoided any encounter with Diana in the past sennight, Hew's apparent interest in her had eaten away at him, a circumstance that had both spurred Ludovic to assist in Vesta's abduction scheme, as well as subconsciously inciting him to host tonight's fest of carnal indulgence. Deep down, he still carried the obstinate belief that with sensory repletion, the yearning for something more would go away. Unfortunately, neither the drink, the opium, nor the sex, had sufficed to fill the yen that the knowledge of her nearby presence had created. Yet, paradoxically, he still wished to avoid her at all costs.

"What the devil is it, Winchester?" Lord DeVere snapped at the appearance of his majordomo. "I thought I communicated quite clearly that we were not to be disturbed."

The flushing servant diverted his gaze to the ceiling in an obvious effort to ignore the ongoing orgy. "But there is a
lady
to see you, my lord. She is most insistent."

"Another one?" Lord Malden chortled. "By all means, have him send the baggage in. Damn me, DeVere, but you are well supplied."

"I am, indeed," DeVere answered. "It is a most amicable arrangement with Madam Hayes, but I had not requested another." DeVere gave another long, lazy pull on the stem of the hookah proffered by his scantily clad companion and cast a sadly indifferent gaze at the temptress who enthusiastically sucked his cock.

The servant flushed. "You misapprehend, my lord. This
lady—
"

"Will
not
be turned away." Diana stepped boldly into the room.

Ludovic almost laughed aloud.
For there she stood, as if he'd conjured her. Although a black veil obscured her face, he could have identified her proud carriage and sultry voice among a hundred similar women. In all of his six-and-thirty years, he had
never
allowed a woman to get under his skin, but
this
one had infected him with an infirmity for which he had yet to find a complete cure.

Oh, he'd sought balm for his condition, all right. In Paris, he had soothed his raging fever with opera dancers, and in Italy, the finest Venetian courtesans had served as a temporary unguent. Following in the footprints of the ignoble Baron Baltimore, after whom he had capriciously chosen to model his life, Ludovic had sojourned to the East in an endeavor to satiate his sybaritic senses in every possible way. But still, his symptoms—the hollow
sensation, the emotional detachment as if he were sleepwalking through life—inevitably returned.

Though his pulse had quickened at the very sight of Diana, he addressed the woman kneeling between his legs with an air of careless indifference. "Put your playthings away, my pet, for we have an unexpected guest."

Stepping closer, Diana addressed him with icy hauteur. "So
this
is what you have reduced your life to, my lord?"

"It is fortunate that I don't give a damn for your opinion, madam," he answered with a taunting smile. Defiantly, he caressed the bare breast of his would-be odalisque and took another pull on the hookah, blowing purple-cast smoke rings into the air. "Now, to what do I owe the privilege of your queenly condescension?" He could almost see her hackles rise, a circumstance that gave him a peculiar twinge of pleasure.

"How dare you ignore my messages and compel me to come to this...this...den of iniquity!"

He could no longer suppress a chuckle. "It was your choice to invade my domain. Thus, it is not for me to concern myself with your injured sensibilities. I already conveyed to you that the girl is safe. There was nothing further to be said." He gave her a bland lift of his brow, enjoying the hell out of her reaction.

"Nothing further! Where is she?" Diana demanded. "She was last in your charge and has not returned! I found her maid locked in her room! If anything has happened to her—"

"I assure you she is perfectly safe in my brother's keeping."

"Hew is involved in this? I don't believe it. He would never—"

Ludovic's mouth kicked up in the corner. "Perhaps I misspoke. It would be vastly more correct to say
he
is in
hers
." The girl was a tiny virago. He
almost
felt pity for his brother.

Diana looked befuddled. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"When Vesta revealed to me that she was determined to have Hew, I agreed to lend some small assistance in the matter."

"That's ludicrous! Vesta hasn't even had her come-out. It is far too soon for her to be thinking of anyone!"

"Nevertheless." He shrugged.

"Is that all you have to say?"

"For the nonce. Conversation is not my chief pursuit at the moment, but should you be inclined to join me..." He surveyed her with a slow and deliberate appraisal meant both to insult and incite. He was pleased to note the rapid rise and fall of her breasts, proof that his power to inspire her lust had not waned in the least.

"You revile me!" Diana spat. "I will expect your call with a full explanation at nine o'clock on the morrow."

"An ungodly hour," he replied. "I doubt I shall have risen before two."

Diana spun toward the door. "You
will
call, my lord, or you will much regret my methods of rousing you."

"I doubt that, my dear," he replied. "You may
rouse
me any way you like."

The room rumbled with snickers and guffaws.

She had meant it as a threat, but Ludovic could picture her face behind the veil, the high color in her cheeks, the passion lighting her green eyes, marking her righteous indignation, the very things that had appealed to him four years ago. He had determined the moment he first saw her that he she would be his. She had been a challenge, but he had, indeed, claimed her. Several ways, in fact, but still not enough to satisfy him. She was the only lover with whom he hadn't grown bored. He told himself it was only the brevity of their liaison. It hadn't had sufficient time to grow monotonous.

Though he'd only meant to taunt her further, he felt himself growing rock-hard at the vision of her once again in his bed,
proof positive that he hadn't had his fill of her yet. The notion had sprung from nowhere, but there it was, just as she, staring him in the face.

"A tolerable, handsome figure," Lord Malden remarked to her departing back, "but a tongue like a shrew." He added sotto voce, "Perhaps you can teach her a better means of employing it, eh, DeVere?"

Oh, he had done that and more. He had taught her many things, and she had proven both eager and wonderfully sensuous, but her education remained incomplete.
Unless
... He wondered with an unfamiliar stab of something he didn't care to identify if Diana had taken other lovers in his absence. He paused to examine that question. Would it really matter if she had? In the end, he found it didn't diminish his desire for her in the least. His brother was now out of the picture, not that he would have allowed
that
courtship to have progressed any further.

With one hand on the door, she spun around to confront her detractors. He could almost see her livid gaze penetrating through her veil. "Better a shrew than a sheep, my lord. For hapless sheep are devoured by ruthless wolves."

So that is the way of it.
He chuckled as the door clicked behind her. He had introduced her to passion and left her to her own devices, and for that, she resented him. He had felt her bitterness as a living, breathing force. Yet, there was no doubt in his mind that
this sheep
desired nothing more than to be devoured slowly and deliberately by a wolf's mouth, and he would be only too happy to oblige her.