Chapter Seven
“I ’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” She sounded sharp, stern. Like a proper spinster.
She knew it wouldn’t be enough to deter a man like Devil. She wasn’t a complete idiot. Despite the fact that she found the moss-green flash of his eyes distracting, the slightly too perfect shape of his mouth fascinating.
He was every inch the fallen angel: beautiful, tempting, burning with an unholy power. With that strangely delicate curl to the side of his lips when he almost smiled.
Possibly she was reading too many novels.
This was a man who always got what he wanted and who was at this very moment trying to intimidate her. He hadn’t threatened her yet, but it was surely the very next thing on his agenda.
The fact that he smelled delicious made no difference to her.
She hadn’t even noticed.
Much.
She refused to take a deep breath to figure out if it was cedar or pine. Or frankincense? Definitely incense: sweet, spicy, smoky.
To a church she had never been to, where devils were angels. Where fire did not burn—it merely led you home.
“Kitty.” It was clearly not the first time he had said her name. His half-smile was devastating. “Am I boring you, Miss Caldecott?”
She swallowed. “Not at all. But we’re closed for the day.” She moved slightly, trying to slip past him.
His hands closed around the edge of the desk on either side of her. There was no violence or anger to the movement, only finality. He wanted her caged and so she was caged. “I don’t think so.”
“Goodness, I had no idea you were so obsessed with literature,” she said, deciding to brazen it out. “I suppose I could sell you some poetry. Byron? Or perhaps A Vindication of the Rights of Women ? I always keep it in stock.”
He leaned a little closer, just enough that she could not see anything but him. Gone was the bookshop, the light darkening at the window behind him. There was only Devil. “I’ve already read it.”
“You…have?”
“And I’m not here to discuss literature or political tracts, Miss Caldecott. You’ve taken something from me and I’ll have it back.”
“Egregious accusation.”
Also: entirely true. Kitty was desperate enough to try anything. It would save her sister. Lord knew, her other plans had not.
And now here she was.
“I imagine you have already searched my shop,” she said. It had taken him a few weeks to find her, after all.
He inclined his head.
“Arrogant jackass,” she muttered.
“What was that?” The question was smooth, a challenge. She felt the press of his knee against her, the brush of his arm. Her breath stuttered, just a little.
“You broke into my shop, didn’t you?” she accused.
“Well, you did steal from me.”
“I can’t imagine why you think so, as you’ve found not a shred of evidence.”
“I’m not done searching.”
“Oh? I assure you, you’ll find nothing untoward on my person.” She lifted the hem of her borrowed dress, past the plain stockings where they were tied with ribbon at her knee. He tracked her fingers, the bare skin of her thigh.
Stop taunting him, Kitty.
Instead, she tugged the pocket free from where it was tied around her waist over her stays and opened it. “See? Empty?”
If her voice was a little husky, she absolutely would not admit to it.
“I doubt very much you had my vowel on hand when you ran across the rooftops this morning in order to later hide in your borrowed dress.”
How did he know it was borrowed? How did he notice every little detail? It was infuriating. Then again, this borrowed dress was much finer than anything she had in her own trunks and just a little too long for her. She dropped the hem, once again refusing to consider the silks and satins and embroidered ribbons he was no doubt accustomed to seeing on powdered, pampered ladies. And nary a paper cut from book pages or ink stains from ledger calculations.
He’d already told her this morning that this was not a game she could win.
She straightened, the weight of the day back on her shoulders. Her collarbones ached. She was suddenly exhausted. Playing at being a temptress was ridiculous. Futile.
“Fine,” she admitted. “I stole from you.”
He retreated just slightly, as if she’d surprised him.
“But it’s mine now and I’m not giving it back,” she added.
“Oh, aren’t you?”
She lifted her chin mutinously. “I need it.”
“I need it more.”
“I find that doubtful.”
“Do you, now?” He was still as a blade, shining and sharp.
“Are you being forced to marry Lord Portsmouth?” she snapped.
“No, thank Christ.”
“Well, my sister is.”
“A pity, but I fail to see how that is my problem.” Every word was a dark promise of retribution, a tightened bowstring. A sword leaving the scabbard, ringing with only one purpose: to cut down the enemy.
“I need every weapon at my disposal,” Kitty said. “Including the debt vowel belonging to Lord Worthing.”
“Belonging to me .”
“To me , actually.”
He huffed a brief, incredulous laugh. More of a complicated exhale. She did not imagine he laughed often. “There are men who have lost limbs for less.”
“I am not a man.”
“I’ve noticed.” There was a purr to his voice suddenly, a charm that made every nerve ending below her navel shimmer to life. The scoundrel.
His mouth was near her ear, his breath soft, calling up a trail of goosebumps as though they belonged to him. Heat washed through her when his lips brushed against her.
“You’re trying to seduce me,” she said as flatly as she could, which was a struggle, as all of the blood in her body was suddenly flinging itself about with wild abandon. That his ploy was working was something he did not have to know. Could not know. Ever.
“Believe me, you’ll enjoy it more than my other tactics.”
Of that , she had no doubt. Especially as there was that particularly harrowing story of a duke missing a foot after crossing Devil. He had not been jesting about the missing limbs. Probably.
She liked to think it was a rumor, an exaggeration.
She was fairly certain it was not.
She flattened her palms over his chest, the muscles firm under her touch. Was he strong all over? Hard and powerful?
Not now, Kitty Caldecott.
“I don’t think so,” she said.
He paused. “Pardon?”
She nearly laughed. He had not been denied in a very long time. But she would only disappoint, and anyway, it would not get her what she needed.
What she wanted , almost certainly. Not what she needed .
What her sister needed.
“I won’t be seduced.” Even if she suddenly really, really wanted to be. Rather desperately, it had to be said. She knew her cheeks were pink, the skin below her collarbones. She always blushed at the worst times. No delicate pink wash, just an angry red. “And I have freckles.”
Now why had she said that ?
Devil blinked, his mouth caught between a smirk and a promise of something darker and more delicious. “Pardon?” he said again.
She refused to repeat herself. Bad enough to be an idiot once.
“I happen to like freckles,” he murmured.
She shot him a look. There were no fewer than three advertising sandwich boards being carried about by peddlers across the street at this very moment, all selling various concoctions promising to eradicate bothersome freckles forever. Arsenic washes. Lead paste. Lemon water—which she knew from experience the summer she was twelve years old did not work and only broke her out in an itchy rash.
Devil did not take her seriously. She could hardly blame him. She’d acted a breathless ninny ever since he backed her into her own shop. And before that he had seen her stumble across a rooftop, run through London barefoot, and wrestle a hedgehog in a gold cage out of a tree. She was not precisely daunting, as far as adversaries went.
Yet…
She was a bookseller. She knew account books and costs and percentages. Profit. The value of a thing.
“I have something you want,” she said.
“Yes.” There were threads glittering through his tone that she could not decipher. “Though I can do without Worthing’s stable of horses.”
“But still, it’s what was promised to you. I imagine if I went about showing the Ton how easy it was to steal from the Devil, that would cause problems for you.”
“Careful.” It was a quiet growl, no less effective for its softness.
She swallowed. “Yes, well, as I said, I have something you want. And you have something I need.”
“I’m gratified to hear it.”
She rolled her eyes. “Not that.”
It was clear no one had rolled their eyes at him in a very long time either.
She was out of her depth.
Oh well. Sink or swim.
“I will give you the vowel,” she said.
“I know.”
She frowned at him. “You are vexing.”
“Believe me, the feeling is mutual.”
“You also think you are vexing?” she asked with feigned innocence. “I don’t blame you.”
That almost-laugh again. Crossed with another…growl?
Why did she feel that sound in her thighs?
Not the point.
“I will give you the vowel,” she repeated pointedly. “After you help me rid my sister of Lord Portsmouth.”
“I am not in the habit of murdering earls,” he said. “Though I could.”
“Not murder.” She paused. “Well, not yet , anyway.”
That time he definitely smiled. “And why exactly do you think I can help do away with an unwanted suitor?”
“Don’t be tiresome. You’re Devil. ”
“I am.”
“You have power and money.”
“I do.
“And don’t you think if I had either of those things I would have already freed my sister? Mayfair runs on those two things like water runs a millwheel.”
“And reputation.”
“Fine, that too. Yours is rather fearsome.”
“I was beginning to think you hadn’t noticed,” he said drily.
“Don’t be daft. It’s very useful to me.”
“I am, of course, delighted to be of service.” The sarcasm to the slight bow of the head was thick enough to choke on. “Why don’t you just marry your sister off to someone else?”
She sighed, more than a little annoyed. “Yes, because kind men who overlook no dowry whatsoever and a father-in-law in debt grow on trees in London. Or better yet, I’ll just order one from the shop next door, shall I? Perhaps they’ll throw in a meringue.”
“Kindness? That’s what you want?”
“For my sister, yes. And enough money to live comfortably.”
“And for you?”
“For me?”
“What do you want, Miss Caldecott?”
He pressed closer, and she realized her hands were flattened against his very nice chest. She dropped them hastily. The tingle she felt was imaginary. Obviously. “Immaterial.”
“Is it?”
“Entirely.” Why was it so warm in here? She should have opened a window. Was she sweating? That was hardly ladylike. Or appealing. Not that it mattered.
“Hmm.”
“What does that mean?” she demanded. She was blotchy, she just knew it. Pink and red and freckled and shiny .
“Nothing.”
“Liar.”
“You are very brave.” He said it calmly—detached, even. As though she couldn’t see a flash of something dark and furious in his face before he wrestled it away. “To steal from the Devil and then call him a liar.”
She shrugged because anything she might have said tangled in her throat. Had she pushed him too far? She was no gambler. Clearly, the lack of talent ran in the blood.
“Very well, then,” he said softly, dark eyes snaring hers as easily as if she were a rabbit and he a wolf. “You have yourself a deal.”
Relief made her feel lightheaded. She held out her hand to shake. He glanced down, amused, then predatory. Alarm bells rang inside her skull.
“Oaths used to be sealed with a kiss to make them legal. And you’re in bed with the Devil now, my little thief.”