She plucked Romeo and Juliet from the shelf and turned back to him. “Do you mind if I read aloud?”
For a lengthy pause, he said nothing. Merely held her stare. Just when she thought he would not answer, he tipped up his chin. “If you wish, milady.”
She settled herself upon a divan, obliging him to fold his tall body into a nearby chair that was, as the chairs at her sister’s townhome, comically little for a man of his size.
“That chair is far too small for you,” she pointed out.
He growled.
She sighed. “Come and sit here on the settee with me, if you please. You look like a giant sitting in a dollhouse chair.”
A grumble emerged from him.
She waited. “I will not begin reading until you move.”
Why was she being so persistent? It was not as if she truly wanted him near.
Was it?
Of course not. She was merely trying to be polite. To make amends for her surliness earlier.
They stared at each other. Finally, he sighed and rose, stalking across the Aubusson before settling himself upon the settee at her side. Though the settee was large, Devil Winter was larger still. He crowded her with his big body and his nearness, his scent wafting over her, curling around her. Taunting. His heat radiating.
She swallowed, flipped open the book, and began reading to distract herself. “‘Two houses, both alike in dignity’…”
Chapter Four
The days had begun to pass, and blessedly without incident. No more gunshots. His men keeping watch on the perimeter reported nary a sign of anything suspicious. Nothing of greater concern than a stray cat trying to get mounted and a drunkard in the mews, attempting to take a piss. The cat and the man had been chased away with ease.
For the third evening in a row, Devil awaited Lady Evie in the library. Their secret life at Devereaux Winter’s spare townhome in Grosvenor Square had settled into an almost eerie ease.
As she had each night following dinner—he took his with the servants while she enjoyed her meal in the dining room as was proper—Lady Evie swept over the threshold. Her gown this evening was almost ethereal, her wild, golden hair scarcely confined. Curls had sprung forth to frame her lovely face.
For the first time since their odd little evening routine had begun, she smiled at the sight of him. A welcoming, bright smile. The sort of smile a man could not help but to feel in his prick.
Fuck. He was not meant to feel an inkling of attraction for Lady Evangeline Saltisford, aristocrat, sister-in-law to his brother. She had a betrothed. Lord Denton, he reminded himself, and not without an accompanying surge of bitterness.
Where the hell was that emerging from?
He tamped down all his emotions—unwanted as they were—for he was excellent at feeling nothing. At hiding everything. He was a wall when he chose to be. Impassive. Imperceptible. Rigid. He’d had to be so for years now.
“More Romeo and Juliet?” she asked cheerfully, as if she were happy to see him there, waiting for her like a puppy longing for a pat on the head.
Christ. How pathetic, Devil Winter lingering in the library for a lady to come and read some drivel to him. He wondered if she had guessed he could not read. If this was her attempt at a truce between them. Or perhaps pity, if she suspected the truth.
At times, over the years, he had wished to change his inability to comprehend the written word. Nothing had done him a whit of good. His brother Dom read with ease. He had learned on his own. But Devil’s mind was different. The woman who had birthed him had called him a stupid little twat and boxed his ears regularly.
Mayhap he was stupid. He got on well enough. He could count. He could tally ledgers. But words eluded him. He could make his mark. Theodore Winter was all he could manage. The letters seemed scrambled every time he made an attempt at making sense of words. And so he had made more sense of other things, finding his worth in his strength and his fearlessness and his cunning.
Until now.
When Lady Evie Saltisford read to him, he had realized for the first time what he had been missing. To be sure, her soft, husky voice enhanced the pleasure. But it was also the words coming alive, the characters, the scenes, that took his mind to a new place. A previously unoccupied place.
He was enjoying listening to her read.
Much to his shame.
Devil Winter did not enjoy such nonsense. Or at least, he had not.
“Mr. Winter?” she pressed. “Shall I read more tonight?”
He ought to tell her no. She had been referring to him as Mr. Winter since they had begun this nightly ritual. Better than Mr. Nothing, he supposed. But sitting on the settee by her side was a form of torture.
He cleared his throat. “If it pleases you, milady.”
“It pleases me greatly.” A warm, sweet smile curved her lips. “Otherwise, I am dreadfully bored, trapped in this place.”
She crossed the carpets. Devil tried not to watch the way she glided, with such elegant ease. Or the way the drapery of her gown clung to her hips. Or the creamy expanse of her bosom on display. His cock was standing at attention, and he was imagining what color her nipples would be.
Hellfire and damnation.
He forced himself to move, folding his too-large frame into a fancy chair that scarcely contained him. It was deuced uncomfortable and it killed his ardor whilst putting some necessary distance between himself and Lady Evie.
She pulled the ribbon she had been using to mark her page from the volume and glanced up at him, a frown marring her forehead. It was the most displeased expression she had directed toward him since the day of their arrival.
Interesting.
“Why are you sitting over there, Mr. Winter?”
Her query and curious stare were as unwanted as the unexpected attraction he felt to her. Devil could not offer the real answer, that he did not trust himself to remain in proximity to her without being tempted to touch her. That her scent had been driving him to distraction.
That if he had to envision hell, it would likely be an eternity of being stuffed into a settee next to Lady Evie Saltisford, having a view straight down her bosom as she read Shakespeare to him, unable to touch her.
But nay, he could say none of that. He held her gaze. “Because I want to.”
Milady was not appeased. “You must sit nearer. I have no wish to yell as I read.”
He was not terribly far away. Far enough he could not catch her scent on the air. Sweet, luscious fruit. He was never going to eat an apple again without thinking of her, damn the woman to perdition.
Devil shrugged, saying nothing.
But Lady Evie was stubborn. “If you want to hear what happens next, you will move nearer.”
He cast a glance about the library, searching for her lady’s maid, who always seemed to have her nose in her embroidery and sat in a faraway corner. Once, he had sworn the woman had been snoring. This evening, she was nowhere to be found.
“Where is Smithson?” he asked, his voice sharper than he had intended.
Two golden brows arched. “She was not quite feeling the thing this evening, so I sent her to bed early.”
An unexpected surprise, that. Milady cared about her servant’s welfare?
Something shifted inside Devil’s chest. He longed to beat on it with his fist and force the unwanted change to reverse itself.
Instead, he swallowed. “Kind of you. Best if I stay here.”