Chapter Twenty-Seven
“T his is a terrible idea,” Kitty blurted out.
“You wanted to search Portsmouth’s house.” Devil shrugged as if Kitty was not gaping at him in abject horror.
“I do want that,” she said. “But not this .”
“ This is how you get that .”
“Surely there’s another way.”
That crooked smile, swift as a swallow at dusk. “It’s just a party.”
“ Celebrating our betrothal .” Which was temporary. She tried not to shout, she really did. “With every duke and earl in London! There are three marquises on this list. The bloody Prince of Wales is on this guest list.” She jabbed an accusatory finger at it, then at a sample invitation on thick paper with red and gold trim.
You are cordially invited to join Lord Birmingham in celebration of his betrothal to Miss Catherine Caldecott, Rochester House, Thursday evening .
Even reading it made her break out into a cold sweat.
“That’s tomorrow. ”
He would expect her to know the rules of Polite Society beyond the obvious ones. To know how to waltz. Or speak French or Italian. To make scintillating small talk as if she was not sweating through her stays. Worse, he would expect his guests to attend despite her reputation and standing in Society. And they would attend, because he was Devil. Were he anyone else, they would snub him for his supposed marriage to an infamous bookseller.
“You don’t know what you’re asking.” She rubbed at her breastbone. “You’re insane. Clearly. I always knew it.”
“I’m asking you to stand in an abysmally boring receiving line for half an hour and then sneak out the side door with me so we can rifle through Portsmouth’s house while he is drinking my very expensive champagne.”
“Oh.” She perked up. “ That , I can do.”
“Don’t let them scare you.”
“I’m not scared of them.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m scared one of them will sneak in a rotten cabbage and hurl it at my head.”
“Believe me, that is not going to happen.”
“I think you underestimate them, Polite Society or not.” After all, she had helped secrete away more than one of their wives.
Devil’s eyes were hot, his tone cold. The combination should not have made her lightheaded with sudden desire. “I think you underestimate me. ”
Kitty did not know the first thing about planning a dinner party for nearly one hundred of the highest-ranking members of the Ton at the best of times, never mind these times, which were very much not the best. This was supposed to be a spectacle, a message to the Ton . A way to keep Portsmouth occupied.
The prince had declined, thank God. Her family had not been invited, thank the Devil.
And she had no idea what sauce partridges should be cooked in or if was to be served on silver platters, à la Russe or in the French style.
The housekeeper might as well have been speaking actual French. Kitty had no intention of eating pigeon in jelly. There was also mushrooms in white sauce, baked artichokes, fricasseed hare, roasted lamb, mackerel in fennel and mint. White soup.
What was white soup?
Kitty stared at the housekeeper while reminding herself that this was not an actual disaster. This was very low on the list. She could withstand public humiliation. She had infinite expertise. She might embarrass Devil, which she did not care to do, but it was his own fault, really.
“I can hear you panicking from down the hall.” Tom poked his head into the parlor. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Winter,” he said, winking at the housekeeper. He had just come from some errand, likely to the Sins, and wore a lovely lilac top hat to match the fading bruise around his eye. “When are you going to run away with me?”
“Just as soon as you stop leaving your gloves strewn about the place like dandelions,” she replied crisply.
Sarcasm. Delightfully inappropriate sarcasm that ignored the proper order of things: i.e. servants and booksellers in an earl’s house about to feed three dukes and a marquis. Six earls.
Kitty’s spine felt less like it was made of glass that might shatter at any moment. Or at any question regarding dessert forks. She could add columns of numbers in her head and calculate percentages in her sleep. She knew the names of every couple from each of the thirty-book series about blue-skinned warriors.
Tom glanced at the menu prepared by Mrs. Winter. “That looks perfect, Mrs. W,” he said. “Perhaps we could substitute the pigeon with pheasant. My brother will want it known that he spares no expense for his bride-to-be.”
Kitty goggled at him. “Do you know how many Minerva Press novels I could buy for one pheasant? And they are six shillings apiece!”
Mrs. Winter patted her arm. “It’s robbery, plain and simple, but you’ll never convince them.”
“Certainly not. We’ll use the Coalport dishes, the cobalt-blue ones. And the crystal goblets, naturally. Gilded.”
Kitty groaned. Tom flicked her a glance. “Take a deep breath.” While she did that, he made half a dozen more decisions with the flare and insouciance of someone who knew exactly what they were doing. “And tell Shelby I’ve a list of whom he is to turn away at the door. It’s the only reason they were invited.” Power plays within power plays.
“Of course,” Mrs. Winter replied.
Kitty’s hands had stopped sweating. “You’re very good at that.”
He shrugged one shoulder. “I’ve had more practice. But yes, actually, I am very good.”
“But you’re not supposed to be?”
“I’m supposed to care about horses and shooting pistols and drinking port. Or fashion, if I were a dandy.” He tossed his hat onto a chair. “To be clear, I am very good at all of those things, too. But I am also good at this. And the pianoforte for some reason.”
“Which is why you run Pride at the Sins.”
“Yes. I’m a second son, and it beats the hell out of the army or the church. Not that Devil would let me get within a hundred miles of the army.”
“I imagine not.”
“Even though I am a better shot than him.”
“I will remember that. Thank you, by the way.”
“You don’t have to worry about that sort of thing, you know. Devil doesn’t. And Mrs. Winter and I have been making those decisions for ages. It’s not a bother.”
“I don’t want to embarrass him,” she admitted. Even if their betrothal would come to an end soon enough and it would not matter who chose between pigeons and pheasants.
Tom grinned, lounging back in the settee and propping his boots on the carved mahogany table in front of him. Kitty squeaked. The furniture in this small family parlor alone could easily grace the palace.
“I am the embarrassment in this family, thank you very much,” he said. “You’ll have to get your own title.”
On Thursday evening, Devil stood in the drawing room, impeccably dressed as always. Sophisticated, elegant, but not fussy. As if he knew the names of a hundred different wines, at least half of which he had personally smuggled from France, and also had a dagger in his boot and a pistol inside his coat. A woman waiting in each bedchamber upstairs and one in the unmarked carriage down the lane.
That last woman was Kitty, wearing her simplest, grayest dress and a cap pinned over her hair.
Not remotely right for a celebration dinner at Rochester House, of the marble columns and gold candlesticks. But exceedingly perfect for prowling around Lord Portsmouth’s house while pretending to be a housemaid. Just as soon as Devil was finished charming the guests, pouring large quantities of wine, and remarking that ladies had a right to make an entrance and it was their honor to wait.
Devil’s hint that invitations to the opening of the Sins might well be handed out as party favors at the end of the evening would be enough to entice Portsmouth to stay, for a little while at least. It was precisely the sort of thing he could not resist: preferential treatment, something to brag about that he would consider his due. Devil had welcomed him personally before sneaking out one of the many hidden doors.
Also, as Portsmouth was still advertising to all and sundry that he was marrying Kitty’s sister, it would have been odd indeed had he not attended.
It was probably best that Kitty was waiting in the carriage, as the temptation to poison Portsmouth’s soup would have proven too much to resist. But she could not very well welcome guests in a dress better suited to a housemaid.
That was reserved for breaking into Portsmouth’s house. Which was minutes away once Devil slipped into the carriage.
Only a few minutes more and they were standing outside another grand Mayfair house. The household staff inside would be taking advantage of a long-awaited rest. The housekeeper would know Kitty was not under her domain, but Kitty did not expect her to be upstairs. The only one who might cause trouble was the valet, but Devil had explained that Portsmouth often traveled with his valet in order to keep the earl’s coat looking just right.
The peerage really were an absurd lot.
“Stop grumbling about the peerage,” Devil said mildly. “And let’s get this done before I change my mind.”
“Too late.” Kitty tossed him a cheeky grin over her shoulder and darted through the servants’ entrance before he could stop her. She would not put it past him to simply haul her over his shoulder.
She refused to consider why the image made her squirm a little. A lot.
Interesting.
Not now, Kitty.
The door led to the servant hall, lit dimly with a single candle in a wall sconce. There were murmurs from the main room where the staff took their meals. The housekeeper’s door was shut. If Kitty was very careful, she could sneak up the narrow stairs without anyone noticing her.
Easier to do when one did not trip over the kitchen cat, suddenly interested in the newcomer and whether or not she had treats on her person. Kitty caught herself before she smacked her head into the wall.
She was quite certain Priya would not have stumbled. Nor Yelena.
The cat meowed, insulted.
“Kitty, is that you?
Kitty froze.
The cat padded toward the voice, tail high. “There’s a clever cat. Who’s a good kitty?”
Kitty hissed out a breath and crept up the stairs as fast as she could. Her heart pounded in her throat as she slipped into a dark drawing room. Devil waited at the window, a stern silhouette. She unlocked it and pulled the sash open. “Any trouble?”
She smiled. “Of course not.”
“You are a terrible liar.”
“I am an excellent liar.”
“You have a tell, Catherine Caldecott.”
“I do? What is it?”
He snorted, with clearly no intention of enlightening her. He climbed inside as gracefully as if he did so every day of his life. No cat dared wind around his ankles to trip him up. The floorboards did not even dare to creak. “Hmph,” Kitty muttered.
“What was that?”
“Nothing. Hurry.”
He stalked behind her like a shadow, silent, unhurried. Graceful. Meanwhile, she felt like she had three left feet and her pulse was a hammer on an anvil, announcing her presence. They ducked through Lady Caroline’s chamber, stopping for another quick look around, but found nothing of note.
Kitty wasn’t sure what she expected from the earls’ chamber: bloody chains suspended from the ceiling, bones piled in the corner? Books burning in the grate instead of coal? Something appropriately awful for someone who murdered his wives.
Instead, it was one more Mayfair chamber that hid its rot behind glittering crystal chandeliers and oil paintings of horses and silk drapery. There was a leather chair by the window, a washstand of carved mahogany, a silver-embroidered coverlet on the bed. No hint that he had had a wife, never mind three. No portraits here, either, or love letters or stray hairpins. Nothing to suggest a woman had ever set foot over the threshold of this bedroom, or the entire house, really. Kitty wasn’t sure why, but it felt wrong. Ominous.
She would not let him erase her sister. Nor Lady Caroline. Miss Campbell.
“He has to be hiding something.” She was not as calm in her search as Devil. He was methodical, the slight frown beetling his brow the only hint that he was searching for something more than a lost button. He opened the drawers of a decorative table: three enameled snuffboxes, cheroots, matchsticks.
They looked under the mattress, under the bed. Under the cushions. The commode was not spared. Portsmouth’s collections of cravat pins and shoe buckles. An astonishing number of hats. Every pocket of every coat.
They only found an original volume of Chaucer’s Decameron . “He does not deserve this book,” Kitty said. She dropped it into the pocket tied around her stays.
Devil’s mouth quirked. “You do that a lot.”
“What?”
“Steal.”
She wrinkled her nose. “You break ankles.”
“True. Clearly a match for the ages.”
Hope flared in her chest before she trampled it down. He wasn’t serious, and she was clever enough to know that. It was getting harder and harder to remind herself that he was not for her. She would not ruin what they had—whatever it was—with unrealistic expectations.
Even if sometimes she thought he looked at her like he might want to keep her.
“There’s nothing here,” Kitty said softly. Her eyes prickled with frustration.
“We just haven’t found it yet,” Devil disagreed. “You’re not telling me that the Moral Scourge of Ladies’ Literature is giving up, are you?”
She scowled. “No.”
“I thought not.”
The carpet was thick and lush under her shoes as she paced. It was also nicer than he deserved. Everything was nicer than Lord Portsmouth deserved.
But it did remind her of something: the carpet in her own bedroom—a rag rug with horribly clashing colors that Evie had made for her. And that Galahad liked to bite. Also, under which Kitty hid any money she brought into the house. She hid Evie from suitors on the roof and coins from her father under a warped floorboard. She was very sure that none of the floorboards in this house were loose or warped or scratched up by a hedgehog, but even an earl needed a place to hide his secrets. Especially an earl like Portsmouth.
She kicked over the edge of the carpet. Instead of wasting time asking what she was doing, Devil crouched down to help. Then he watched her walk the length of each floorboard, head tilted, listening for the telltale creak or groan.
There.
If one cared to look very, very carefully, one could see the nail head sticking up higher than the others, and a groove in the side of the board. Kitty pried it loose and lifted it just as Devil lowered a candle stub, shielding the flame with his palm so it would not be seen under the door. The warm light fell on pouches of coins, keys, a dagger, and a packet of letters tied with a ribbon.
After a quick glance at the first letter, Kitty knew her smile was smug and sharp and vengeful, and she also knew that Devil would not hold it against her.
In fact, he smiled back.
They did not untie the bundle for a proper perusal until they had returned to the carriage. The cat had found them in the bedchamber and was not impressed. It seemed wisest to take what they had found and hope it was enough. Particularly as they had to make a grand and memorable appearance at their own party, and soon.
“Now we know how he keeps getting away with murdering his wives.” Devil’s mouth was hard as they read the letters.
“He’s using blackmail,” Kitty said, flipping through the pages. “I’ve counted a marquis, an archbishop, and one of Queen Charlotte’s ladies-in-waiting. A magistrate. A judge. He’s blackmailing them all. He’s made himself untouchable.”
“No longer.” Devil leaned back. “Secrets are power, but they aren’t the only power.”
She forced herself not to grip the letters too tightly, not to crumple them. “This is enough, isn’t it?” She was scared to hope. “To stop him from marrying my sister, at the very least?”
Devil smiled grimly. “At the very least. When it comes to blackmail, don’t you think we should show him how to do it right?”
She nodded, hope sparking more hope, sparking anticipation, relief. Renewed determination to bury Portsmouth in his own lies. In the ground would be better.
As the carriage rumbled along, Kitty pulled off her gray dress and her shoes and her very sensible stockings. None of which were suitable for the rest of the night that lay before them. And if Lord Portsmouth happened to notice that his belongings were gone, he would remember that Devil had welcomed him personally and that Kitty had greeted him while wearing a glowing gold gown that was impossible to miss.
Assuming she could wiggle her way into it.
She could manage just fine without a lady’s maid, but this kind of gown was not easy to handle while inside a moving carriage, especially with her mind whirling with all of the possibilities presented by those letters. In fact, this kind of gown was made by a very skilled modiste and fit Kitty almost perfectly. It had clearly not been pulled from a stack of dresses unpaid for or forgotten.
“Where did you get this gown?” She ought to have asked before. Did it belong to one of Devil’s paramours? She didn’t want to fuss, but she also had no wish to wear a dress he had peeled off another woman. She was ridiculous, of course. None of that mattered, especially not now . But there you had it.
Devil had been watching her wiggle about with great interest. “I had it made.”
“Yes, I gathered that. For whom?”
He tilted his head. “For you. Who else?”
“In two days? Without my having visited a modiste?”
He shrugged. “Yelena guessed your measurements, and I have found that if you throw a great deal of money at most problems, they tend to resolve themselves.”
Kitty frowned. “How much did you… Never mind, I don’t want to know. It will make me queasy.”
“Yes,” he agreed easily. “It will. And yet it was worth every penny.”
She shook her head, wearing only her stays and her chemise. She could argue, she could pretend that she did not feel pleasantly spoiled—later. There simply was no time for it now. Nor the relief that followed his statement that she was not wearing a borrowed dress belonging to someone more suited to marrying an earl.
“Are you cross that I did not let you choose your own dress?” he asked. “I sent Yelena because it seemed expeditious.”
She nodded. “It was.”
“There are stockings,” Devil said, flicking open a small box. They were fine silk, ivory with gold ribbons. She had never seen anything so delicate or so pretty in her life.
“Let me,” he added, lifting her foot onto the seat between his knees. He slipped the stocking over her toes and dragged it gently up her bare leg, leaving goosebumps in his wake. He bent his head to tie the ribbon. When he followed with the next stocking, he first brushed his mouth up her calf, over her knee, inside her thigh, until she was biting her lip on a gasp.
He undid the laces of her stays, his gaze never straying from hers until he dragged her chemise down over one shoulder, to bare her breast to him. He sucked at her nipple. The hot, wet heat of his mouth, the stroke of his tongue—all sent pulls of longing straight to her quim. He did not relent, not even when she clutched at his arms, his hair, moaning. He only moved to the other breast and back again until she thought she might come from this alone.
The light from the gas lamps glowed at the windows, behind the curtains. The carriage took a right, jostling them. Devil groaned against her nipple. “Damn the guests.” Her chuckle quickly turned to a gasp when he sucked at her breast again, a hot, deep pull that made her squirm. He pulled back reluctantly. His eyes were almost too green, even in the half light.
Her breath was shaky as she reached for the new stays, edged with gold to match her dress. They were soft, structured. Nothing poked through thinning material into her ribs. Devil helped her tie the laces, though he complained about it. “I should be helping you out of this, not into it.”
She was grinning when she pulled the gown over her head and it settled down around her like a cloud of fire. It was simple enough in design, with little embellishment, and the gold silk moved like liquid.
“It brings out your freckles,” Devil said, satisfied.
“I’ve been told that is not a good thing.”
“Because you’ve been talking to idiots.”