Page 84 of A Deal with the Devil

And any debt her father owed to Devil would, frankly, not make a difference. There were too many of them owed to too many men. He hadn’t a considerable sum available for him to lose in a long time. It was all dripping away like rainwater through a crack in the roof.

That was not a metaphor, unfortunately.

“Ask him for pin money, then,” Aunt Priscilla said.

“We aren’t even married yet,” Kitty pointed out. Nor would they be. And then any favors asked would sit oddly, chafing. One disaster at a time. If she said it often enough, maybe some benevolent spirit would indulge her.

“Useless, as always. Bewitch him if you must, though I can see how that might pose a problem.” She shook her head. “You are starting to look like a street urchin. Ladies do not go about with ink on their fingers and mud on their hems.”

Walking through London, literary tour notwithstanding, was messy business. Walking anywhere in London was generally messy business.

Nearly getting abducted was not much better for one’s sartorial splendor.

Her dress was dusty, her hair coming loose of its pins, as it always did at the end of a long day. She was not fit for a drawing room. It did not appear to bother Devil any at present, but surely he would change his mind. At the moment, she was a unique taste of something different, not a full meal. And he had every banquet and feast available to him.

“Catherine, are you listening to me?”

She was suddenly so very, very tired.

She glanced at the door longingly, wondering if it was worth walking back to the shop on her sore ankle in the rain in order to sleep in the one comfortable chair in her reading room.

The door swung open as if by magic.

And it was not an angel come to save her.

It felt wrong to leave Kitty, even for a moment. Not even here across the river in Lambeth, on Hercules Street, with terraced brick houses overgrown with ivy. But he had caught the movement in the shadows across the street when he set her down.

He knew when someone was lurking.

And he knew when it was not one of his men. They would never be so sloppy. They had learned their tricks on battlefields and hidden camps from Spain to Waterloo. A rainy street in London was nothing.

He paused behind his carriage to retrieve his walking stick, the one with the silver swan head his brother insisted on stealing at every opportunity. He nodded to Dean, who had also spotted the man lurking in view of Kitty’s front window and was ready. His brother Michael was perched at the back of the carriage, as usual, armed to the teeth.

The brothers Winchester had been on the Continent with him as well, and as they preferred riding through the night on temperamental horses even then, they chose the mews instead of the Sins. But they were both trusted and well trained and vicious enough to watch over Kitty for a quarter of an hour.

That was all the time he estimated he would need to fix this particular problem.

He waited for another carriage to pass, using it to hide until he was safely across the street. And then he was on the man in moments, driving him back further into the darkness. One solid, brutal punch to the nose had him reeling back, smashing his head on the brick wall in the process. He grunted, spat blood, and was slow to react. Devil got in another strike to the stomach. A blow glanced his jaw, not close enough for any real damage. Another hit before he had to duck a fist the size of a Christmas goose.

As he was spoiling for a proper fight, it made him smile.

Even the flash of the pistol aimed at him did not make his smile falter. He brought his walking stick down, smashing it over the man’s wrist. There was a crack that could be heard even with the rain falling on them. The pistol hit the ground.

The man’s eyes widened when he recognized Devil, saw the infamously ruthless green eyes. “Devil,” he said. “Ain’t got no beef with you. No trouble.”

“You’re lurking outside the house of my betrothed. So I can assure you, there is, indeed, trouble.” Devil knew what he sounded like: chillingly, icily merciless. He felt worse. He felt unmoored with the fury inside his chest over even the suggestion of danger to Kitty. He pressed the walking stick across the man’s throat until he choked. “Did Portsmouth send you?”

“He’ll kill me.”

“I’ll kill you,” Devil said. He increased the pressure of the walking stick across his windpipe. “Die today or die tomorrow. Roll the dice.”

The man shivered at whatever he saw in Devil’s face. “I never saw him, but yeah. I get messages and payment through the Blue Lion. That’s all I know, I swear.”

Devil contemplated another threat, decided it wasn’t needed. As he had no intention of leaving Kitty here, Portsmouth could send as many men as he liked.

This one, though…

“Were you at the Golden Griffin tonight? Did you put your hands on her?”