Dev gave a wary shake of the head.
“Affection,” she said.
“Affection?”
She nodded, as if just as mystified as he. “And do you know what I said to that, Mr. Deverill?”
“I’m sure you’ll enlighten me, Lady Artemis.” He didn’t bother masking his exasperation.
“I said,” she began, “no one shocks the world with a surprise engagement overaffection.” She spread her hands wide, helpless to the facts. “It simply isn’t done.”
Lady Artemis… Through her smile composed of light and air shone a worthy adversary.
And she wasn’t finished… “So, what I want to know is what are you playing at, Lord Devil.”
She’d started calling him Lord Devil again.
That wasn’t promising.
“Ah, be a good man, old chap,” came a three-sheets-to-the-wind voice from the opposite end of the billiards table, “and pour me a tumbler of the good stuff, will you?”
The owner of the voice stepped into view.The Earl of Stoke. As Dev hadn’t moved from his place beside the liquor cart, the earl was addressing him.
“Of course.” Dev was relieved the earl had staggered into the room. Anything to pull him away from Lady Artemis’s interrogation.
He handed a half-full tumbler to Stoke and darted a glance toward the lady. She was staring at Stoke as if she’d just seen a ghost. “Are the two of you acquainted?” he asked.
That would come as a bit of a shock, considering Stoke was a known wastrel—albeit of the harmless variety—and Lady Artemis wasn’t the sort of woman to suffer such a fool lightly. Lest one forget, she was the daughter of one duke and sister of another. She was the rare lady who didn’t need to make herself attractive to every earl who happened across her path.
For his part, Stoke snorted. “That would be one way of putting it.”
An opacity entered Lady Artemis’s eyes. “We became acquainted through a misunderstanding.”
Stoke shook his head wonderingly, as if still mystified by the past to this day. “How could your mother have gotten it so upside down, anyway? Sharp as a needle, that one.”
Lady Artemis’s body became a straight, rigid line. “My mother?”
“The duchess.”
“I know who my mother is,” she returned, carefully enunciating each word. “Howdid she getwhatso wrong?”
Stoke shrugged, and the past was gone. “No harm done, anyway, eh?”
An extra beat of time ticked past before Lady Artemis said, “No, none.”
The light in her eyes had dimmed. Dev noticed that much, though Stoke wouldn’t have as he reached past Dev to top up his tumbler.
“And your family?” she asked of Stoke. “How is Lady Gwyneth?”
It was small conversation of the sort one made with an acquaintance, but the question emerged tight, as if asked through a constricted throat. For Lady Artemis, the light question held weight.
Stoke pulled a long-suffering face. “My sister thinks she should have a season.”
Lady Artemis’s brow gathered. “Lady Gwenyth must be approaching her nineteenth year. She hasn’t had a season yet?”
Stoke waved a dismissive hand. “So she can buy a load of expensive dresses and attend a bunch of balls? And for what? To bankrupt me?”
The question hung in the air, unanswered. How was the earlnotyet bankrupt? That was the question. His youth, Dev could only suppose. Stoke was only in his mid-thirties. Years lay ahead for him to bankrupt himself properly.
