Page 94 of A Deal with the Devil

Kitty poured herself some milk and smiled. It was such an odd, sweet thing to find in a house dripping with velvet and gold. Not to mention assassins. Footmen-turned-bodyguards. Soldiers home from war. She drank her tea, unsurprised to find it was the best she had drunk in her entire life, with hints of bergamot and vanilla. “I want to swim in this.”

“Shelby, make sure this tea is available to Miss Caldecott whenever she wants it.”

The butler bowed. He was standing near the door in case he was needed, with three of those footmen-turned-bodyguards in their livery. What a strange thing to have people standing about watching you eat. Especially with so many daggers gleaming on their persons. Now she knew what to look for: at the top of the boot, inside the lining of a coat, in the small of the back.

Kitty ate eggs and toasted bread with butter and honey and something green and salty that she loved but could not have named on pain of death. There was sweet custard topped with stewed raspberries. First thing in the morning, on a random, ordinary day. Maybe there was something to this ludicrously decadent lifestyle.

But she could not let it distract her. She could not let Devil distract her.

Even if he had carried her in his arms, even when he insisted she was supplied with tea. Even if he had saved her from abduction—she absolutely, positively, could not fall in love with him.

Too late.

She was in love with Devil. Lord Birmingham. Rhys. All the parts that made him who he was.

The knowledge of it flooded through her, and she would be as successful fighting it as she would have been fighting the tide.

It wasn’t just inconvenient. It was a bloody disaster.

“Miss Caldecott, are you well?” MacLeod asked. “You’ve turned green.”

She forced a smile. “Perfectly well.”

She was not at all in love. With the wrong man.

Liar.

“I would like to find Lady Caroline’s lady’s maid and speak to her,” she said instead. “Servants always know more than anyone else in a household. I assume she is the Agnes mentioned in the book.” The book she’d stolen. “It’s as good a place as any to start, anyway.”

“Very well. I’ll go with you,” Devil said. He was darkly and impeccably dressed as always, wearing power and menace as easily as other people wore perfume. His green eyes were sharp and otherworldly. His handsomeness made others feel awkward, as if they had too many hands, not enough feet. An extra nose. She could attest to it personally, even if his glance now made her only think of bare skin and fingers gripping her hips.

“You can’t come with us,” Kitty blurted out.

He looked mildly insulted. “Why not?”

“No lady’s maid is going to tell the truth with you looming over her.”

“I do not loom.”

“You are the Lord of Looming. And brooding.”

“Are you quite finished?”

She tilted her head. “The Daunting Devil. Harrowing Hades.” She flashed a grin. “Now I’m finished. Maybe.”

“Oh, please say you aren’t,” Tom interrupted, dragging himself toward the silver carafe of coffee. It was shaped like a bear rearing up on its back legs, clearly another one of his purchases. She loved it. “What time is it?”

“Half past ten.”

He shuddered. His hair was not quite tamed and he wore a dressing gown and no slippers. There was lipstick on his neck. “We aren’t becoming morning people, are we?”

“The Dastardly Devil?” Kitty asked. “Perish the thought.”

“I really do like you,” Tom yawned at her over his cup.

“I like you too.”

Devil sat back in his chair, faintly amused and also exasperated. “The lady’s maid?” he asked, steering back to the matter at hand.