Nicola Cornick Collection

by Nicola Cornick

  Frazer’s mouth had turned down at the corners. “Your harlot must have been a cut above those Haymarket drabs,” he said sourly.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” Dev said, ambushed by a sudden fierce protectiveness toward Susanna that took him by surprise. He threw back the covers and stood up.

  “Aye well, ye be careful, laddie,” Frazer said, handing him his robe. “Seventy thousand pounds Lady Emma has. Worth more than a quick fumble with a whore—”

  “That in no way describes my experience last night,” Dev bit out, holding on to his temper by a thread, “and I suggest you speak of it no more, Frazer.”

  It was the first time that he had ever spoken in such a way to Frazer and he saw the man’s brows rise before a faint wintry smile touched his lips.

  “Very good, sir,” the valet said, and there was approval in his voice. “There’s a gentleman to see you by the name of Hammond,” Frazer continued. “I wouldn’t have woken you otherwise. Said you had consulted him on a business matter last night.”

  Dev stopped. He had completely forgotten that the previous night he had stopped off in a coffeehouse to speak to Hammond, the most illustrious inquiry agent in London. He had asked the man to find out all he could about Susanna—and her husband, the late lamented Sir Edwin. Hammond had looked at him with weary, cynical eyes and had said he would report back the following day.

  “Changed your mind?” Frazer said, not unsympathetically, as Dev hesitated. “I can send him away.”

  “No,” Dev said slowly. He was aware of a curious duality in his feelings, a need to know the truth and at the same time a feeling of reluctance. He might not like what Hammond had to tell him. Very likely he would not like it. Protectiveness toward Susanna stirred in him again and he shook his head impatiently. He had made wild and uninhibited love with Susanna but that should not mean anything to him other than that it had been deeply pleasurable and he wanted to do it again. It did not mean that he thought her any less of an adventuress. It certainly did not mean that he cared for her. Yet he could not quite erase the picture of her sleeping in his arms, her hair spread across his chest, her head resting on his shoulder, her body soft and sweet against his, vulnerable in sleep.

  With a sigh he reached for his shirt, shrugged himself into his jacket whilst Frazer tutted at his impatience and lack of care, then went through to the drawing room. The late-afternoon sunshine lay across the floor in bars of gold. He had indeed slept late.

  “Sir James.” Hammond got to his feet and shook Dev’s hand. He brought with him the smell of the alehouse, of old smoke and stale beer. It seemed ingrained into his skin. But his shrewd dark eyes were bright.

  “An interesting case you gave me,” he said, “that of Caroline Carew.” He sounded, Dev thought, like a man who had solved a particularly complex and pleasing puzzle.

  “I did not expect you to have an answer for me so soon,” Dev said.

  Hammond bared his teeth in something that just about passed as a smile. “I pride myself on the speed and efficiency of my work. Besides, I was already asking a few questions about the merry widow.”

  Dev felt a stir of disquiet.

  “Why?” he said swiftly.

  Hammond gave another of his vulpine smiles. “When a woman as rich, beautiful and mysterious as Lady Carew comes to Town I am … shall we say … naturally curious? I already had a man working on it. Just in case.”

  Dev grimaced. Even though he had commissioned Hammond to find some information on Sir Edwin Carew it disturbed him that others had already been digging into Susanna’s secrets. Somehow it made him feel protective of her all over again, which was folly when Susanna was surely as vulnerable as a tigress.

  He signaled to Hammond to take a seat and waited, aware of the same odd mix of anticipation and unease.

  “Caroline Carew,” Hammond said deliberately, “is not, strictly speaking, a widow.”

  For a moment Dev was rendered speechless. “Sir Edwin Carew is still alive?” he queried.

  Hammond grinned. “Not at all, sir. Edwin Carew never existed.”

  Dev frowned. Evidently Hammond was not as accomplished an inquiry agent as he claimed to be. “Of course he does, man,” he said. “I’ve met people who claim to have known him! The Duke and Duchess of Alton—” He stopped again. Hammond was looking very amused.

  “It’s a neat confidence trick, sir,” the inquiry agent said. “I’ve seen it happen before. One person claims to know Sir Edwin and before you know it there will be people who remember meeting him, or discussing astronomy with him at a lecture or sharing a whisky with him in an Edinburgh inn. They will even give you a physical description of the man.”

  Dev sat down heavily. If Susanna had invented Sir Edwin Carew it could only be for one reason—to hide her real past. She had told him that she had left Balvenie for Edinburgh, to find a rich husband. Sir Edwin was supposed to have been that man. Sir Edwin had not existed. She could only have invented him in order to bait the trap, the rich widow out to catch a marquis. Would that marquis find, when it was too late, that the prize he thought he had captured was no more than a penniless adventuress on the make? A cynical smile twisted Dev’s lips. Susanna had been very clever. She had pulled the wool over everyone’s eyes. But now the thread was starting to unravel and if he was cunning he might just be able to find a way to persuade Susanna to cease her pursuit of Fitz before it was too late for Chessie. It was unlikely, given the secrets she knew about him, but if there was a way he would find it.

  “You are absolutely certain of this?” he questioned.

  Hammond looked offended. “I am the best, sir.”

  “Very well,” Dev said. “Thank you.”

  Hammond nodded, stood.

  “I cannot really afford to commission you to find out more, Mr. Hammond,” Dev said, “but if you were to take on this case, what would you do next?”

  Hammond laughed. “You’re asking for free advice, sir?”

  “Yes,” Dev said, “I suppose I am.”

  “I’d find out all about the lady, sir,” Hammond said. “I’ll wager Caroline Carew is not her real name, for a start.”

  “I could save you the trouble there,” Dev said. “It is not.”

  Hammond laughed again. “Well then, sir,” he said, “you don’t really need an inquiry agent, do you?”

  “I want to know what Lady Carew has been doing since we last met,” Dev said.

  “Then ask her,” Hammond said. “My guess would be you will find a way to persuade her to tell you.” He looked Dev straight in the eye. “Set a thief to catch a thief, eh, Sir James?”

  Dev smiled ruefully. “Are you implying I am a scoundrel, Mr. Hammond?”

  “No more than Lady Carew is an adventuress, Sir James,” Hammond said. He raised his battered hat in a salute. “Diamonds cut diamonds, so they say.”

  “So they do,” Dev agreed softly as the door closed behind the inquiry agent. He thought of Susanna, naked in his arms, her mouth open and eager beneath his, her body clasping his in the most intimate and abandoned of embraces. It was true that there was a bond between them, a passion as violent and consuming as their lovemaking had been. What the bond was and how it might be broken he had no idea.

  He walked across to the mantel and picked up the sheaf of invitations there, flicking through them all. In two days’ time he was supposed to be squiring Emma to Lady Bell’s Midsummer Ball. He felt his heart drop like a stone at the thought. Then, like the purest temptation the thought crept in that Susanna might be attending and if so, he would contrive for them to be alone together. He would enjoy confronting her about her fictitious husband. And then he would take her home, bundling her into a carriage, taking her on the seat, her skirts up about her waist, her body warm and willing about his, and he would drown once again in that wickedly pure pleasure.

  He already felt hot and hard at the thought of it. But it could not be. It must not be. He had to put Susanna from his mind and never think of seducing
her again. He had to atone for the wrong he had done Emma by being the most attentive and faithful fiancé in the world. He had behaved without honor. Not only that, he had put all his future plans at risk.

  Dissatisfaction stirred within him. For a moment he glimpsed an alternative future, one where he took up again his Naval commission and did something more useful with his life than fetch and carry for Emma. Once again he would have broad horizons and life-and-death challenges. He felt the excitement rise within him. Then he thought of his debts, sufficient to see him in the Fleet, and of Chessie ruined through his disgrace. Her hopes of marrying Fitz were almost lost already. He could not condemn her to suffer for his foolishness, too. He had looked after Chessie since the day his father, the most reckless, feckless gambler of them all, had shot himself, leaving their lives ripped apart when he was nine and his sister six years old. He had been stupid, following in his father’s footsteps in profligacy, but for him it was not too late and he would never let his sister down the way that Sir Gerard Devlin had.

  As for Susanna, he had to forget the wild passion that there was between them and concentrate on bringing her down. If she gave him the slightest advantage he would take it. If he could spill her secrets whilst keeping his own he should not hesitate. Susanna was ruthless in pursuing what she wanted. He had to be ruthless, too. This dangerous attraction he felt and the even more dangerous urge to protect her had to be denied. With a muttered curse Dev let the invitations scatter on the table and went out to find Frazer and a large bowl of ice-cold water to cure his ardor.

  LADY BELL’s ball was the most desperate crush, yet with an inevitability that seemed preordained, Susanna saw Dev the moment that she stepped into the ballroom. He was dancing with Emma; the two of them were halfway down the set of a country dance. Emma was looking about the room as though she was desperately searching for an acquaintance in the crowd whilst Dev was making desultory conversation to her and was being largely ignored.

  It was two days since they had met, days that Susanna had spent almost exclusively with Fitz, driving in the park, dancing at a succession of balls, luring Fitz closer and closer to a proposal of marriage whilst he became increasingly possessive and almost equally sexually frustrated. She had flirted with him, teased him, provoked him and promised him access if not to her body then certainly to her huge, fictitious fortune. She was beginning to think that Fitz was almost as keen to get his hands on the money as he was to get them on her person, which was interesting since he was not a poor man but he was almost certainly a greedy one. The more time she spent with Fitz the less she liked him, recognizing that beneath his appearance of conviviality was a man who was inconsiderate and selfishly devoted to his own pleasures. If it had not been for hurting Francesca Devlin’s future then she would have had no qualms about her role in distracting Fitz and then ultimately discarding him. He richly deserved something to go awry in his pampered life.

  It was also two days in which Susanna had—almost—convinced herself that when she saw Devlin again it would cause her no emotion other than indifference. It was two days in which she had consistently deceived herself as well as others because now she looked at Dev and felt her awareness of him blaze into vivid life and she knew she could never, ever escape her feelings for him.

  Her eyes locked with Dev’s over the heads of the dancers. He kept his gaze on her for one long, long moment. The expression flared in his eyes and Susanna felt the impact of it wash through her, down to her toes, hot and turbulent. It almost wrenched a gasp from her. The events of the previous two days faded as though they had never been.

  So they were not to pretend that it had never happened. Neither of them had the power to deny it.

  “Cold?” Fitz asked heartily, seeing her shiver. “Dash it, my dear, it is as hot as Hades in here.” His handsome face was moody. He had suggested in the carriage that they might cut the ball and go somewhere more exciting, a party for just the two of them. Susanna, knowing that Fitz had partaken liberally of the brandy before they set off, and knowing also precisely where his thoughts were tending, had not been encouraging. Fitz had been in a sulk ever since.

  A very pretty countess wafted up to them intent on claiming Fitz’s attention. The room was indeed stiflingly hot, the music and chatter exceedingly loud. Susanna suppressed a sigh. Before she had come to London she had been assured that it was the most exciting place on earth. That might be so, but the Season was no more than the same people encountering each other over again in the same places pursuing the same pastimes: dancing, drinking, flirting. It was beginning to feel unconscionably boring.

  She left Fitz flirting with the countess and wandered into the supper room. So much food … Her stomach growled but she forced herself to take only a meager amount. People were watching. She ate a bowl of strawberries and longed for a cream puff. Perhaps later …

  “How charming you look, Lady Carew.” The country dance had ended and Dev was standing slightly behind her. She had not seen him approach in the crowd and now she jumped. He spoke softly in her ear. “Cream silk—how virginal and inappropriate. For a widow,” he added as she turned to look at him. “At least you did not push the fiction too far and wear white.”

  “Sir James.” Susanna kept her voice very level, ignoring the flutter of sensation along her nerves. “I would like to say that it is a pleasure to see you again but—” she shrugged lightly “—I would not wish to lie.”

  “I should not worry about that,” Dev said lazily. “Deception is a speciality of yours, is it not? You seemed pleased enough to see me last time we met,” he continued, before she could respond. “I remember—”

  “Sir James,” Susanna cut in quickly. They were not overheard but even so this was no place of a private conversation. She knew Dev was only seeking to provoke her. And damn it, he was succeeding.

  “You will oblige me by forgetting our last encounter,” she said coldly. “And as a gentleman you most certainly would not remind me of it.”

  “Ah …” Dev sounded regretful. He had taken hold of her hand, his fingers moving gently against the pulse at her wrist.

  “I am sure that a gentleman would accede to your wishes, Lady Carew,” Dev said. “But you know that I am no such thing.” His smile was brilliant, devastating. “So, alas, all I can say is that if you ever wish me to oblige your desires I am always yours to command.”

  Remembering those desires and where they had led her, Susanna felt her pulse jump. Dev felt it, too. She saw the light in his eyes intensify.

  “Susanna,” he said, his voice even lower, no more than a rumble against her ear, “you do not regret it. I know you do not.”

  Susanna looked up and met his eyes and could not look away. She had expected to see nothing but challenge in his expression. Instead there was sincerity and tenderness that made her heart leap.

  “I …” She hesitated on the edge of disclosure, tempted to admit her feelings honestly but at the same time afraid. Dev was so close in that moment, his lips but an inch from hers, the scent of his skin and the sandalwood cologne filling her senses, his hand warm on hers. His touch, his proximity, made her stomach drop with longing. She forgot everything, the ball, the crowds, even her mission to entrap Fitz. There was nothing but Devlin watching her with that dizzying gentleness in his eyes.

  Her gaze fell and she felt his fingers tighten on hers.

  “Susanna, answer me.” There was urgency in Dev’s voice. “You can trust me. I swear it.” He took a breath, leaned even closer. “I know you are in trouble of some sort,” he said quickly, in an undertone. “If you need help then tell me. I promise to do all I can to aid you.”

  Susanna’s heart started to race. She thought of her debts, of the crushing fear of failing Rory and Rose, of the anonymous note, of the whole complicated deceit that was now close to spinning out of control. She felt Dev’s touch, warm and reassuring, she remembered the intimacy they had shared, and in that moment she was so lonely she almost cried aloud.

 
“Trust me,” Dev said again and she looked up into his eyes and for a split second saw the flash of calculation there that gave the lie to the sincerity of his words.

  The illusion snapped.

  You can trust me …

  The truth was that Dev had enticed her right to the edge of revelation and she had almost fallen for it. He had seduced her, ruthlessly exploited her attraction to him and then used that weakness against her. He cared not a rush for her. Oh, she did not doubt that he had found physical pleasure in her arms. But that was all it was to him, whereas she had felt such terrifying emotional closeness. He had felt nothing. And now she was so vulnerable to him that she had almost done as he had asked and trusted him, spilling all her secrets. She shivered to see how close she had come to confession.

  “Trust you?” she said. “I’d sooner trust a snake.”

  Dev’s smile was so arrogant it made her want to drill the heel of her delicate evening slipper into his foot. “It was worth a try,” he said.

  “Bastard,” Susanna said, with feeling. Her heart felt sore and cold.

  Dev laughed. “I may be many things, but not that, as far as I know.” He cast her a sideways look. “You almost fell for it. Admit it.”

  “I do not want to talk to you,” Susanna said.

  He kissed her fingers. “You’ll sleep with me but not talk to me?”

  “I won’t do that, either,” Susanna said. “It was a mistake, Devlin. Forget it.” She smiled at him, a little taunting smile that belied the cold hurt that was inside her. “Or can’t you do that? Can’t you forget me?”

  Their gazes locked again in anger and awareness. Susanna wanted to walk away but the same compulsion held her as before. The emotion shimmered between them like a heat haze, bright, fierce and undeniable.

  “At least,” Dev said, “you do not need to worry about forgetting Sir Edwin Carew. Since he did not exist, you may invent whatever details suit your purpose.”