“Your true name.”
What was the harm?
“Theodore.” The name, so foreign and unfamiliar, one he had not claimed in years, left his tongue. Hung in the air. Suspended.
“Theodore,” she repeated.
Heat flared in his chest. And lower. On her lips, he did not mind the hated name quite as much. But then, on her lips, everything was better. Sounded better. Tasted better.
He was bloody well doomed. If she asked him for more kissing lessons, he could not deny her.
Devil Winter’s name did not suit him, Evie thought. Far too fussy and proper. Devil Winter was a man who was wild and bold and strong.
A man who had just told her she was promised to wed a gentleman who had a mistress. Mistresses were not suitable conversation for ladies to broach with their future husbands. She would have never done so. However, she would have liked to believe Denton would have been clear with his intentions for their marriage. Clear enough that she would have known he planned a traditional society union.
Which was not at all what she wanted.
And any guilt she may have felt at enjoying the kiss of another man was decidedly washed away by the reminder that her betrothed had never once set his lips upon hers. Meanwhile, he was kissing one of London’s most famed actresses. And doing only heavens knew what else with her as well. Supposing she could believe Mr. Winter’s word, that was. Certainly, he could be lying.
But such prevarication on his behalf now hardly made any sense. What did he stand to gain? Nothing, as far as she could see. She had already kissed Mr. Winter and all but thrown herself at him in embarrassing fashion. Besides, men like Devil Winter did not marry women like herself. That her twin sister and Mr. Dominic Winter were happy now was almost an impossibility. Their disparate worlds colliding in harmony—the rookeries of the East End and Mayfair—never happened.
And yet it had for Addy. Evie could not suppress the sudden, most unbecoming surge of jealousy accompanying that thought. Suddenly, true love—Juliet’s love for Romeo and his for her—seemed far more important than any society match Evie could ever make.
“Mr. Winter is fine,” he growled. “Or Mr. Nothing.”
She regretted having called him the latter now. How cool she had been to him initially. Because she had been quite wrong about him, she thought. And intensely irritated at having to hide herself away, as if she were a shameful secret. Also fearful of what would happen. It was not every day a lady found herself suffering a gunshot wound in Mayfair.
But that was neither here nor there at the moment, because Devil Winter was still near enough to touch, watching her in that way that said keep your distance.
“You dislike your name,” she inferred from his response—the tensing of his jaw, the stiffness in his bearing, the curling of his lip.
“I dislike the woman who saddled me with it,” he snapped.
“Your mother.”
“The woman who bore me.”
They stared at each other, Evie assessing, Mr. Winter attempting to resurrect his walls.
“What did she do to make you hate her?” she asked softly, though she was certain she ought not to prod.
“Not enough time in the day for the list, milady.” He inclined his head.
His reluctance to reveal more of himself to her sent a pang of disappointment through Evie. Was she wrong to feel as if they had bonded in the last few days they had spent together? That the kisses they had just shared meant something?
For her, they had been revolutionary.
“Tomorrow, then,” she suggested.
His lips compressed. “No.”
“Why Devil?” she asked him, changing her tactic. “It seems a rather extreme name.”
“Sends the proper message, don’t it?”
“Does it not,” she corrected him.
“Ain’t having lessons now, am I, milady?” His voice was mocking, his eyes hard.
She was scratching beneath his surface, and he did not appreciate her efforts. She wondered how much of himself Mr. Winter had ever shared with anyone.
“I enjoy our lessons,” she confessed.
“No more lessons, milady,” he said gruffly. “Bad idea, and I should have known it. No use teaching me to read. And you kiss just fine.”
“Fine,” she repeated, dismayed.
“I’ve kissed better.”
His cutting words, issued in his deep growl, insinuated themselves inside her heart, where they lodged like a tiny, painful splinter. She could not decide if he was being deliberately cruel because he wanted to flee her presence, or if her kisses had indeed been dreadful. It was a distinct possibility her kisses had been uninspiring, though she hated to admit as much.
Still, Evie was not about to allow him to see how much his callousness affected her. “I am certain you have, considering I have not had the practice one undoubtedly requires.”
He raised a dark brow, the scar on his forehead lending him a menacing air. “And you imagine I have had the practice, milady?”
He looked as if he had had the practice. He was a dangerously handsome man. She could not countenance the notion of any lady not wanting to kiss Devil Winter. Particularly now that she had known his lips upon hers.
“Have you not, sir?” she asked, feeling bold.
Feeling as if someone else had overtaken her. Someone who dared to ask a wicked man like Devil Winter for kissing lessons and challenged him at every turn. Who made certain her lady’s maid was otherwise occupied so she could be alone with him at every opportunity.
Yes, she had done all those things since her forced confinement at Mr. Devereaux Winter’s townhome. An abundance of caution had left her with a dearth of it herself. She was catapulting herself into danger.
“Hardly any of your concern how many ladies I have kissed, is it?” he asked, his gaze traveling over her in a familiar fashion.
She felt that stare as if it were a caress.
Once more, she was aflame. Because Lord Denton had a mistress, and she was alone with a man who did not.
Or did he?
She frowned. “Do you have a ladybird, Mr. Winter?”
The word left her tongue with great difficulty. In part because the notion of him having such a woman awaiting him filled her with dread, and in part because propriety and rules had haunted her each day of her life with a dogged persistence. Her mother, her governess, even her older sister Han, and her twin Addy—every female she had ever known from her ailing grandmother down—had impressed the importance of maintaining an impeccable reputation.
“How is that your business any more than how many women I’ve kissed, milady?” he asked, cool and confident.
He had kissed her with such fire, and now he spoke to her with a distinct lack of passion. Was it because he was tempted as she was, or because her kisses had been a true disappointment? Oh, how she wished he did not fill her with such confusion.
“I suppose it is not,” she agreed, feeling small. Terribly small. Tinier than an ant. “Once more, I must beg your forgiveness, Mr. Winter. I have kept you here long enough, forcing my whims upon you.”
But instead of leaving as she had imagined he would, Devil Winter remained where he was, studying her with that sky-blue gaze that saw too much.
“Not force,” he bit out, his words and his tone clipped.
Almost angry.