The sharp glint in her eye told Dev she would brook no opposition.
Then she dashed up the front steps as nimbly and with as much dignity as a half-soaked woman wrapped in a man’s greatcoat that dragged on the ground behind her could summon.
Dev wished she’d stayed.
Or invited him up to her bedroom to take part in the bath with her.
He gave himself a mental shake.
“Now,” said Bridgewater, “let’s see those stables of yours, Deverill.”
“Don’t mind me,” said Imogen.
“You can manage yourself,” dismissed Bridgewater.
“I always do, don’t I?” No mistaking the note of acid in the little laugh that followed in Imogen’s wake as she swept around them and into the house.
As Dev led Bridgewater toward the stables, the reality of the situation began to set in.
Imogen had arrived.
The anticipation of triumph should’ve been firing through his blood.
Vanquishment and surrender were within arm’s reach, he felt it in his bones. All he had to do was grab hold.
Yet, somehow, his appetite for it felt…diminished.
A novel experience, to be sure, for he never relented once he had a victory in sight.
But novel experiences, it seemed, were becoming rather the usual since Lady Beatrix St. Vincent had entered his orbit.
And these novel experiences with Beatrix… They brightened his world, didn’t they?
In a flash, he understood the source of his prevarication.
To seize victory on the one hand meant to suffer loss on the other.
Simply, and likely selfishly, he wasn’t ready for either outcome.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
NEXT DAY
As Beatrix traversed the corridors of Primrose Park toward the breakfast room with a bland smile affixed to her face, she felt rather proud of herself.
Somehow, she’d found the wherewithal to leave her bedroom.
Now, if only she could erase yesterday from existence.
Didn’t the universe have limits on how many things could go wrong at once?
Surely, she’d pushed those boundaries as far as they could go.
But it seemed not.
Lydon arriving with Jagger… The rainstorm… Thesomething morein the woods with Dev…
Meeting the Countess of Bridgewater looking, frankly, like an outright ravished mess.
