Her head angled, her gaze lifted, black-fringed gray eyes meeting his. “Like that?”
Their mouths weren’t an inch apart, so close her words whispered across his lips. It would be so easy…so natural…to shift that complicated increment and press his mouth to hers…
Then he felt it—a wet splat square on the bridge of his nose, followed by another on the tip of an ear.
She blinked, as if waking from an altered state, but remained as she was. “Rain?”
A drop landed on her nose, and he resisted the impulse to lick it off.
“Of course,” he said on a wry chuckle.
Her expressive eyes rolled toward the darkening sky. “We might be the cure for drought.”
And Dev felt it—an echo of the friendship they’d formed before they’d becomesomething more.
“Beatrix!” Dashing straight for them was Lady Artemis, her three-legged dog keeping pace at her side. “Let’s go inside!”
Dev held Beatrix’s gaze for a full second longer, willing her to stay, the elements be damned. Then she inhaled a steadying breath and called out, “I’m coming!”
And she was off—and Dev was alone, watching her sprint for cover beneath the solid slate roof of the manor house. He didn’t blame her, but how he wished she’d stayed.
Though both guests and servants alike scurried and scrambled this way and that—a good, hard rain ever held the power to turn humans into squirrels—Dev felt no need to rush. Instead, he assisted the servants as they collected tea service, blankets, chairs, bows, arrows, and scattered newspapers—all the equipment of a morning’s archery outing.
A solid half hour had passed before he stepped into the boot room, thoroughly soaked.
Which was precisely what he’d needed after the archery lesson with Beatrix—a good, bracing cool down.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
EVENING
In the end, Beatrix had attended the evening meal.
But, oh, how she’d struggled with committing to the decision.
As fiancée of the host, she was the hostess by default. Her presence was expected by the guests—and the host himself.
Seated at one end of the long dining table, Dev at the other, she’d mostly conversed with Artemis to her left—as she’d fed a patient Bathsheba every other bite of her food—and to Lord Ipswich to her right, who was altogether too eager to relate in specific detail his most recent battle against a toenail fungus.
Every so often, her gaze had caught upon Dev as he continued to make the case that he had every right to breathe the rarified air of thehaut ton. The fact was he made his case well. There likely wasn’t anyone in attendance who hadn’t come around to the idea.
Of course, that was all destined to change.
When he incited a divorce between the Earl and Countess of Bridgewater—for there was little doubt in her mind that he would be successful in the endeavor—thetonwould close ranks around their own.
Not that Dev would care.
He would have what he wanted—and Dev always got what he wanted.
The thought inspired a slow shiver that made its sinuous way up her spine.
Now, she was stuck in the drawing room with the ladies while the majority of the men smoked cigars and drank brandy in the study. She lacked the patience for needlework, and the gossip being bandied about wasn’t all that fresh.
Her gaze caught on the only gentleman present.Lord Wrexford, positioned beside the piano, turning sheets of music for the eldest Miss Shaw while she played. Both were blushing as furiously now as they had been earlier.
Beatrix knew a blossoming love match when she saw one.
As for Artemis, the instant the meal had been over, she’d stood and declared Bathsheba in need of her evening ramble, after which, her friend would be taking herself to bed. “I keep country hours now.”
