A Devil Named DeVere (The Devil DeVere) (22 page)

"Really?" Diana remarked, intrigued despite herself. "How is it different?"

DeVere gave her a wicked smile. "It is highly erotic in nature. But if the subject truly interests you, I would be delighted to find you some instruction in oriental dance."

"You are beyond the pale." Diana glared. DeVere laughed.

She was still trembling when the final notes sounded at the end of the dance, but now from a completely different cause. She could neither comprehend nor control the effect this man had over her. Her pulse raced; her breathing was short. She repeated her obeisance to partner and onlookers in a daze wrought of conflicting emotions. Suddenly feeling as if she was suffocating, Diana turned in a swish of silk skirts to flee the stifling ballroom.

***

"Just look at
them, Hew," Vesta gushed as Diana and DeVere departed the dance floor. "Have you ever seen a more handsome couple? Who would ever have thought?"

"Couple? I see no couple," said Hew, remarking on  Diana's flight. "She has left my brother standing there gaping. To all
appearances, she could not leave him fast enough."

"She's in love with him, you know," Vesta declared.

Hew sputtered on his drink. "Diana and my brother? Impossible! I mean, there may have been something between them in the distant past, but anyone can see how much she despises him."

"Poor darling," she cooed, "you know so little of women. She only
wants
to despise him. That's quite another thing, you know."

"Oh, no! I have come to recognize that devious gleam, Vesta. Do not meddle with my brother and Diana. I assure you, Ludovic is not a man to be crossed, and there is already some history between them we know nothing about."

"But don't you see it's for their own good? They only need time alone together, Hew, and I am certain they will come to feel quite differently about each other." She beamed up at him. "Just as we did."

"Just because your scheming worked
once
does not mean I'll condone it again."

"But we don't actually have to
do
anything, Hew. That's beauty of it. All they need is the opportunity for nature to take its course. And I know just the thing."

Before Hew could even think to stop her, Vesta was already tripping across the ballroom toward the French doors.

***

Bursting onto the terrace, Diana gasped in a great breath, only to discover DeVere had trailed after her. Although she had given him no encouragement, she still wasn't surprised by his dogged pursuit. Once he set his sights on a goal, he was ruthless in obtaining it. He would wear her down until she had no strength left to resist him. She wished she had never
recrossed his path.

"Why?" She spun on him. "Why do you continue to importune me when I have made my repugnance clear?"

"Why?" he shot back. "Because I always get what I want, and I find I still want
you.
Indeed, the unfulfilled craving is driving me half-mad."

"Only
half
-mad?" she jeered. "You are
completely
insane if you think to ever have me again. What passed between us was a monumental mistake and one I have no intention of repeating. Why can't you accept that and just let me be?"

"Why do you continue this game, Diana?" he asked, his voice a soft rumble against her hair. He was standing close enough to engulf her in his scent, a concoction of brandy, leather,
horses, and male musk that made her senses reel. "Your own body belies you," he said. "The faintest touch has you trembling with want."

"Your conceit is unbearable. I'm shivering with cold, you insufferable boor!"

"The first statement is undoubtedly true." He chuckled. "But I have grave doubts about the second."

She felt his hard thighs against her backside and his hands on her waist, slowly ascending, the heat of his touch infusing her skin through the light silk of her gown. His thumbs brushed the outsides of her breasts, making her body rack with tiny but undeniable quivers of sensation. "It's not the cold, Diana." His hot breath fanned her nape. "And you know it."

It was past time to escape. Diana spun around only to hear a familiar, feminine voice declare from inside the ballroom, "So that's where the draft is coming from!" The terrace door clicked firmly shut, followed by the sound of the tumblers turning in the lock. Realizing she was now trapped with DeVere, Diana wanted to cry out in dismay. She turned her back to him in an effort to compose herself. She fixed her gaze out over the lawn, at the fountain in its midst shimmering under the light of myriad flambeaux. "Please," she said in an unsteady voice, "I can't bear it again. I truly don't want this."

Her heart galloped when he stroked the backs of his fingers down her arms and then over her breasts. Her treacherous body betrayed her once more, her nipples instantly tingling and hardening in response to him.

"But I think you do," he said.

"No! I don't! I am not the same woman I was four years ago. I'd had a horrible shock. Several, in fact, that made me much too vulnerable to you. My life was crumbling before my eyes, and you exploited that."

"Is that what you tell yourself?" he asked. "I did no such thing, Diana. You turned to me in your need. I did not coerce you."

"You saw my weakness and took advantage of it!"

"How?" he asked "How did I take advantage of you? You sought me out, remember? You came to
my
bed, and I gave you what you asked for...and much more. How is that exploitation?"

"As soon as you got what
you
wanted, you broke it off and disappeared! You were gone for
four years,
Ludovic! No word. Nothing!"

"And you believe it was by my choice?" His voice sounded rough and edged with bitterness. "Have the past years not
brought you any clarity?"

"You made it clear enough at the time. 'Amorous idylls are best ended before the bloom is off the rose.'" She laughed, an equally harsh sound.

He winced. "Did I say that?"

"Yes! And then you paid me off like some high-priced whore."

"It was an exceedingly generous settlement, intended to provide for your security."

"Am I supposed to feel gratitude?"

"Frankly, yes!"

"But a lease to a house is so very mundane, Ludovic. What do you intend to offer me this time? Diamonds and rubies?"

"Don't, Diana! You are different from the rest."

"How am I to think myself any different from your countless mistresses, concubines, and whores, when you took what you wanted and offered payment in return?"

"Damn you! It wasn't like that. You know that's
not
how I thought of you. How I feel about you!"

"Feel?" she cried out. "What could a man like you possibly
feel
beyond your—"

"My what?" He brought her hand to his groin. "Say it,
Diana. I love hearing vulgar words from your lovely lips."

"I refuse to gratify that." She snatched her hand away as if burned.

He laughed. "Then I'll say it for you—my cock. The part of me that oftimes governs my life. Yes, I feel a great deal
there
and with great frequency, but each encounter is soon forgotten. You were the exception to that. You were never just a fuck to me. Can't you understand that? For the first time, I wanted more. I wanted something else from you, Diana, but that something was denied me. And when I knew I couldn't have it, when it appeared utterly impossible, I was enraged."

"So you left."

"Yes, I left. I had several good reasons for doing so...not the least of which was to protect a
certain
widow's good name."

"What misery it must have been for you to be obliged to gallivant about continental brothels and gaming rooms for four years. So self-sacrificing," she jeered.

"I won't apologize to you or to anyone else for my way of life, madam. Wine, women, gaming, and horses are a lifelong habit but one with which I have become utterly bored of late. The drinking, the gaming, the whoring, it became the same day after day, just in other locales. 'Tis why I eventually went to the East to try to discover something more, something worthwhile. Ironically, the only diversion or peace I have found was among those so-called heathen Turks."

"Then why did you bother to return?"

"I almost did not, but you might say I wore out my welcome. My money only bought me limited time as they never truly accept infidels. I seriously contemplated conversion just to remain there, but I lacked the spiritual fortitude and could not in good conscience pretend to live under their religious yoke. I am many things, Diana, but
not
a hypocrite."

"You expect me to swallow that tripe when you have re
-embraced all the depravity you just professed to have shunned?"

"Don't mock me," he said. "I bear physical evidence of my sincere attempt of redemption, but I accept that I failed. Thus, what is left for me now but to indulge my senses?"

"Your journey of self-discovery is a truly moving tale, my lord, but I fail to see what any of it has to do with me."

"Do you not?" he asked. "For I see it at last. It's rare that I have known honesty, Diana. I realized this three weeks ago, the very moment you marched into my private chambers in all your glorious, self-righteous fury."

"But you knew I would come, didn't you? It was all a ploy, just an amusing game to you. That's all I have ever been, isn't it? Merely a challenge to entertain a bored rake?"

"That may have been true in the very beginning, but I told you, you are different to me. Your fire, your passion, it represents truth. You feel deeply, Diana, and do not conceal it. When we were together, I was more alive because of you. I wanted more of that...but then certain circumstances made it impossible."

"Certain circumstances or certain people?" she asked.

"Ah, so clarity does come at last! Yes, Diana, Caroline would have destroyed you. I would not be responsible for that."

"So you hied off to God-knows-where in order to protect me?"

"Yes. Leaving my home and my brother was not my preference, but I could not have protected you otherwise."

"Yet you hardly pined for your loss of me, and you stayed away far longer than was necessary."

"I don't deny I have enjoyed the company and the favors of other women, but the majority of them—as most of the people in my life, Hew and Ned excluded—have been largely parasitic. It's mutual, of course, for I have taken what I desired in return."

"A confession that brings us full circle, my lord."

"No, Diana. There you are wrong. I never took anything
from you that was not freely offered, and for the record, I reciprocated more than I have with any other. I ask nothing from you now beyond the same honesty you once gave me. I am weary of being surrounded by nothing but greed and vice."

"Because you seek it out!" she insisted. "And if anything good came to lie at your feet, you would be too blinded by hedonistic self-indulgence to see it!"

"Wrong again, my love," he murmured. "For I clearly see
you.
"

***

Diana opened her mouth to remonstrate, but no sound emerged.

Sensing her lowered guard, he entrapped her between his body and the marble balustrade in front of them, brushing his fingers along the neckline of her bodice, locating her nipples, while he sucked her neck. He found the hollow place behind her ear with his tongue, and her erstwhile protest transformed into a strangled moan.

"Are you going to bite me again?" he asked. "Or do I take that sound as an invitation?"

"Please, don’t," she protested, even as she tilted her head back, giving him easier access.

"Still, you contradict yourself," he said, licking and nibbling her skin while his thumb and forefinger teased her nipple. "The truth now, Diana. Do you
truly
wish me to stop? Or shall I take that rosy nipple into my mouth and suckle it while I finger you until you scream? Or would you rather I tongue you to your release? I would be happy to comply with either. The door is locked, and I would be concealed by those voluminous skirts of yours. Thus, it is purely your preference."

"Dear God," she cried out, a sound of mixed pleasure and protest. "Why are you doing this?"

"Because I'm a ruthless bastard when I want something, and I want the truth from you. If I must go to my knees to get it...so be it."

She gasped in another halfhearted protest, her chest rapidly rising and falling as he cupped her breasts, squeezing and molding the soft mounds. He ground his cock against her buttocks, and she arched into him with a soft cry. He released one breast to inch under her petticoat, skirting up the inside of her smooth, quivering thighs, until he approached the object of his desire. To his smug satisfaction, he found her wet with the want she so vehemently denied.

"A mere touch, and you'd explode," he remarked. "Don't dare refute it now, Diana. I've never known a woman want to come so badly. I can cure your ache. I can give you what you want...what you need."