Devil Takes A Bride by Gaelen Foley Page B

upset Her Ladyship if we were cross with each other at table.”
    â€œPrecisely.”
    â€œBut under the terms of this truce, am I still in danger of losing my job?”
    He gave her a sardonic smile. “I never had any intention of getting you sacked,
chérie
. Pity, though, how you make me show mercy. I’m sure I could have used the threat to wrest any number of interesting favors from you.”
    â€œHmm, no doubt.” Gazing at him for a moment, she lifted her hand to his cheek and inspected his cut in fretful sympathy. “Your poor face. This is all my fault,” she murmured. “Does it hurt very much?”
    For a moment, Dev could not breathe let alone speak, electrified by her feather-light caress. “No,” he managed to force out, his voice gone a trifle hoarse. Her innocence ravished his defenses; his whole being begged her in a silent whisper,
Take me
.
    â€œI’m glad it wasn’t worse.”
    He flinched at the denial when she took her touch away, lowering her hand again to her side, but the artless smile she gave him was nearly his undoing. It dimpled both her glowing cheeks and lit her gray-blue eyes like silver sun-shafts piercing through a dark cloud-lattice. He could not tear his gaze away. It was the most generous, radiant smile he’d ever seen, and the kindest. He had the strange feeling he was out of his depth as a thousand questions about her exploded through his mind, fireworks on a midsummer’s night. Who was this angel? Where had she come from? He suddenly wanted to know everything about her.
    â€œVery well,” she resumed brightly, “I shall accept your truce, Lord Strathmore. And now we really should hurry. Your aunt will be waiting.”
    â€œMay I?” He offered her his arm.
    She smiled again, flicking a cautious glance over his face as she slipped her hand through the crook of his elbow. Dev sent her his own heated smile, absorbing the sheer lightning when they touched like a jolt from a Leyden jar. She seemed to feel it, too, quickly looking away with a fiery blush in her cheeks. They exchanged another guarded look full of fascination, but spoke no more as they went down together to dine.
    Â 
    Wistfulness—this maudlin sentimentality—was a most unaccustomed caprice for an old dragon lady who prided herself on her eccentricity and her ability to terrify rude young persons. But as Lady Strathmore gazed into the crackling fireplace, waiting for the others to join her, she was filled with the sense of time slipping away. And so it was. She would not live to see the spring. She could feel it in her tired old bones, no matter what that beardless whelp, Dr. Bell, had to say on the subject.
Tut-tut,
she scolded herself.
    Death, after all, did not scare Augusta Strathmore. Any woman who had flouted the Patronesses of Almack’s could hardly tremble before the Reaper. In any case, she was not sorry to go, for there had been a woeful lack of amusing conversation for some years now, all her most interesting friends having gone senile or hopped off into the afterlife ahead of her.
    What mattered was that she could look back in pride on a long life well lived. The heiress of an iron ore tycoon, she had crowned her ambitious papa’s efforts in life by snaring a penniless viscount for a husband, God rest his soul. She had never borne Jacob any children, for the odd duck had foolishly died shortly after their wedding. Ah, but she had led a merry life—had taken the Grand Tour before the war—why, once she had even danced with the now-mad old king, poor fellow. Such days! Oh, yes, she had given the ton a shock or two in her time, she mused as she toyed with her jet beads. She had countless fine memories and no regrets….
    But one.
    He walked in at that moment, tall, dark, and dashing in his black formal clothes—Augusta opted to ignore the earring. The white flash of his grin was as charming as ever, but she knew