Chapter 3

She swayed past him and wrenched the library door open. No brothel madam showing him a larder-load of tarts could have looked prouder, except these were marriageable virgins. A shudder swept up his spine. To think she believed this was the way to sew his future up for the next ten years. As if he had any use for virgins. It must be bad though, that she'd given up trying to stitch him up with their mother's ward, Belle.

"As you can see Lady Armstrong's widowed. This cursed war. But as for the rest ..."

Devorlane didn't care to look at the rest. While he did his best to fight it, his stare was lured across the silken sea to the most amazing curves he had ever seen, being kissed by a sheath of dazzling black bombazine, in his entire life.

A crow sitting among doves that way. Nothing like a widow. Nothing like any widow he'd ever seen. In fact, never mind the sheath of black. Neither the severe scraping of her hair into a tight topknot from which it tried to escape, nor the meek set of her face, could disguise her boldly hot-house air. Her skin glowed like creamy alabaster. Brilliant shards of lapis lazuli seemed to glitter beneath finely winged brows. Not that his gaze exactly lingered. Why would it when her wayward lips beckoned?

Their coral ripeness perhaps best explained her allure in that he just wanted to kiss them. In fact he could think of only two words for them: sin incarnate. He could also imagine them clinging in all sorts of ways to his body. But it wasn't just the lips. There was a brassy confidence, a vitality he recognized. A slight commonness that made her face interesting-her nose and chin a shade too pronounced to be truly beautiful. He'd lay odds on her voice possessing a provocatively uncultured note.

If he'd encountered her in a whorehouse, he'd have put down his fortune to possess her. But here, in rural England, at afternoon tea with every well-bred virgin the county had to offer ...

Ridiculous.

Who the blazes was this creature? Flaunting the idea of widowhood with these eyes that spoke of dark, intimate, sexual knowledge.

Her husband-whoever he'd been-must have gone kicking and screaming to his grave, to be dragged from this bird of paradise. Any man would. Even he, standing in the doorway, only able to imagine how it would feel to possess that ripe sin of a mouth, felt his blood burn with painful longing, his groin tighten at ... that ripe sin of a mouth.

Memory stirred from its lavender press, stirred faintly like autumn leaves rustling along the alleyways of his mind. Christmas Eve. Ten years ago.

Lady Wentworth had been such a generous hostess, the best in the county, and her parties had always been bright, glittering affairs. Especially her Christmas ones. It had taken him no time at all to dance too little and drink too damned much.

Of course he had drunk too much. Why not? In those days he was a reckless young blade doing everything entirely too fast, and he always drank too damned much. He did everything too damned much. Hell, he'd to make up for Ardent, didn't he? The family's precious boy, who prayed and went to church and recited the bible in Latin. That was why Devorlane had been in the coach, alone, his head hanging out the coach window, going home in disgrace. Again.

"Lady Armstrong?" He tried to quell the uneasy feeling that he'd seen this perfectly exotic creature before somewhere, and it wasn't in the ten years he'd just spent in the military either.

Tilly's nod suggested faint moral discomfort. Despite being three sheets to the wind, clearly she'd still have been a damn sight happier if his gaze had slid to one of the other girls in the room. A younger one who didn't have the encumbrance of a former association, who she could neatly control, who wasn't in deepest mourning.

Mourning? His mind reeled. Talk about brass neck.

"Is she insane? What the hell is she doing here?"

"I know. I know." Tilly spread one bony hand despairingly. "And I'm so sorry. I know I shouldn't have let her come. I told Belle. I said, a widow should not flout herself in pulblic-hic-sorry, public, especially s'in times of war. But you know what Belle is s'like. Bossy as ... Well, bossy."

The hair had been entirely different. Fair in the clear, cold moonlight. So silvery, beneath the magenta hood, he'd actually thought he was gazing at an angel. But luxuriantly disarrayed, as if she'd impossibly tiptoed from some man's bed, only minutes before.

True, the fire's glow caressed raven black locks, so tightly bound he had to actively restrain himself from striding across the floor and freeing them from their prison of pins. But there was something very familiar about the widened curve of her lips and the jaunty tilt of her head, something which was getting the same unfortunate reaction from his straining trouser front now as then.

He gritted his teeth. This couldn't be. It couldn't be. Not here. Not now. Why the hell would she be here? Now?

"Another man lost to the war is it?"

"What? Oh, Devorlane, I don't know." Tilly shrugged. "But I honestly wish you wouldn't stare at her like that. S'it's impolite. Where are your manners? She's a widow for heaven's sake."

Heaven. Yes, in his completely befuddled state that's where he'd thought the beautiful, ethereal creature was from. In the frosted cavern, made by the dipping boughs, she'd looked unreal. A forest fairy. A tree sprite. Hang it all, it had been Christmas Eve, and he'd drunk enough punch to sink the British fleet-at anchor. The creamy skin, the succulent coral lips, had done more than just catch his attention. They'd drawn him in. Had cast a spell. So he'd ordered the coach stopped.

That rustle had begun to rush.