Notorious. Nicola Cornick
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at him. “I was supposed to be attending Lady Astridge’s musicale this afternoon. Instead you bring me to this mausoleum so that I can watch Fitz dance attendance on Lady Carew.” Her pretty face screwed up into a tighter expression of disgust. “If I had wanted to torture myself I would have stayed at home and read an improving book.”
Dev drew his sister behind one of the huge pillars that supported the soaring roof. He wanted to tell her to stop being so childish and petulant, but he supposed she did have an excuse. For the last fortnight it seemed that Susanna’s name—or at least her assumed name—had been on everyone’s lips. The ton was full of the arrival of the beautiful, rich widow in their midst, the papers followed her every move, the London gown shops reportedly sent her dresses hoping she would wear them to the nightly balls she attended. And Fitz was now behaving as though he could not quite remember whom Chessie was, so dazzled was he by his new inamorata. To Chessie, fathoms deep in love with Fitz and now thwarted and ignored, it must be unbearable. Dev felt a pang of sympathy for his little sister, who had been so close to her fairy-tale betrothal and was now slighted. Chessie was pining visibly, losing weight, appearing thin and wan, all her vivacious sparkle lost. The ton was laughing at her. Emma had told Dev all about the gossip and had, he thought, derived a certain pleasure from doing so.
“We are here to thwart Lady Carew,” he said calmly, “and you will not do so by flouncing around like a child in a temper.”
A spark of interest came into Chessie’s eyes. “Tell me how I am to achieve that then,” she said.
“By being everything that Lady Carew is not,” Dev said.
Chessie’s mouth drooped. “You want me to be ugly and stupid? I cannot see how that will help.”
Dev stifled a grin. It was true that Susanna was both beautiful and intelligent and no matter how much he detested her it was pointless to deny it. Very few men would be indifferent to Susanna. Some might dislike her wit, but with them she would be clever enough to pretend to be stupid. It was difficult to identify her weakness but he was determined to find it. Find it and use it against her.
“You are younger than Lady Carew,” he said. “That will do for a start.”
Chessie arched her brows. “Is that the best we can do? I am a year or two younger?”
“Four years,” Dev said, without thinking.
Chessie frowned. “How do you know?” Her gaze was a little too penetrating for Dev’s liking. “Did you know her very well in Scotland?”
Intimately.
Dev glanced across to where Susanna was perusing her guidebook, head bent, a very pretty picture of beauty and scholarship combined. Superimposed on the image of the bluestocking was another, that of the wanton beauty who had lain in his arms for just one night. In the heat of their lovemaking her cool reserve had dissolved into the most fierce and passionate desire. She had refused him nothing and he, drunk with the need to possess her, had ravished every last exquisite inch of her. His body tightened on the thought and he slammed the memory back down into darkness where it belonged. Reigniting that flame, feeling himself burn again for her, was not something he could ever tolerate. He was in control now. He was not that headstrong boy who had fancied himself in love.
“Dev?” Chessie’s gaze had become even more quizzical.
Dev shrugged the question away. “I’m just guessing,” he said. “And she is a widow—”
“Which Fitz likes,” Chessie said gloomily. “He prefers the older, more sophisticated woman.”
“Only as a mistress, not as a wife,” Dev said.
Chessie sighed. “Do you think that all she wants is an affaire? Perhaps if I wait—”
“You’re too good to sit around waiting for Fitz whilst he takes another woman as a mistress,” Dev snapped. He felt very grim and it was not simply all the tombs that were lowering his mood. He knew Susanna had set her sights on Fitz and he was certain she was not simply interested in an affaire. Watching his former wife become Fitz’s mistress would have been bad enough, evoking in him the sort of primal anger that Dev did not want to examine too closely, but seeing her become Marchioness of Alton evoked an equally strong reaction in him compounded of the same white-hot possessiveness and a fury that Susanna could so easily, so carelessly, ruin Chessie’s hopes. He clenched his hands within the pockets of his coat. Possessiveness was misplaced when his short-lived marriage to Susanna was as dead as ashes. Fury would not help, either. Cold, hard calculation was what was needed now to stop Susanna in her tracks.
“Perhaps I could become Fitz’s mistress instead,” Chessie was saying. “Beat her to the job—”
Dev grabbed her. “Don’t even say that in jest, Chessie,” he said through his teeth.
For a second he saw fear reflected in Chessie’s eyes. Her eyes swam with tears. “It was only an idea—”
“A very bad one,” Dev said. He let her go; tried to lighten the mood. “Apart from anything else,” he said, “I would have to put a bullet through Fitz and then Emma wouldn’t want to marry me anymore.”
Chessie gave a little watery giggle. “That would be no loss other than in the financial sense.”
“I used to like Fitz,” Dev said, “before he started behaving like an ass.”
“That is because you and he had so much in common,” Chessie said with the sort of unflattering truth that only a sister could get away with. “You both like women and gambling and sport and drink. Or at least you used to,” she added. “When you were permitted to do so. Before Emma.”
“One thing I don’t like is sightseeing in a mausoleum,” Dev said. Susanna had wandered across the aisle now and was looking up at the mosaics that rioted across the cathedral’s dome. As he watched, a beam of watery sunlight cut through the gloom to pin her in a ray of light. She looked bright and ethereal, though anyone less like an angel would be difficult to imagine. Fitz, however, looked as though he had been struck by a vision.
“You should find someone else,” Dev said abruptly.
“It was difficult enough finding Fitz,” Chessie said. “Had you not noticed, Devlin, that I do not have suitors queuing up at the door?”
“You have a good dowry,” Dev said. Alex, their cousin, had put ten thousand pounds aside for Chessie’s future.
“A modest dowry,” Chessie corrected. “No one is going to take me for that when there are heiresses to catch. Not when I have no eligible connections.”
“You have me and Alex and Joanna,” Dev said.
“That,” Chessie said, “proves my point. No eligible connections and plenty of scandalous ones.”
Dev drew her hand through his arm. “Come along. I will distract Lady Carew whilst you ask Fitz a question about Restoration architecture or something.”
“Could you not do that permanently?” Chessie said hopefully. “Take Lady Carew away from Fitz, I mean. You could pretend to be in love with her. Or you could just seduce her. You used to be quite good at that sort of thing, so I heard.”
“That is not the sort of thing one wants one’s sister to hear,” Dev said. “Or to suggest, for that matter.”
“Don’t be stuffy,” Chessie said. “Do it for me.”
Seduce Susanna …
The temptation grabbed Dev like the grip of a vise. To pursue Susanna ruthlessly, to tumble her into his bed, to sate his desire in that cool, untouchable body … He had always wanted what he could not have. Already the lust drove him at the mere thought.
He took a deep breath and the carved faces of the cherubs on the tombs swam back into focus. This was, Dev thought, a most inappropriate place to harbor such carnal thoughts.
“It wouldn’t work,” he said.