Certain dread crawled through Beatrix. Now that Lady Standish was here, Deverill was sure to be removing more than gloves, coat, and cravat.
Blimey.
She needed to be gone.
Actually, what she needed was not to have been here in the first place.
Good sense arrived at too late.
“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said to Lady Standish without an ounce of humility.
The lady took in the room around her, the critical glint of assessment in her eye clear. “I suppose it’s serviceable enough.”
Beatrix nearly snorted.
Here she’d been thinking Lord Devil lived like a king.
“I wasn’t sure the concierge would let me in,” she continued on a huff.
“Oh?”
“He gave me a bit of blather about Mr. Deverill having a busy work night. The manwinkedat me. The cheek!” she exclaimed. “I have half a mind to take it up with his superior.”
Beatrix almost felt badly, considering she was, presumably, the additional party contributing to thebusywork night.
“Well, now that you’re here…” No mistaking the wickedness inflecting Deverill’s voice. “Are you ready to fulfill your amanuensis duties?”
Beatrix could groan—but didn’t.
Lady Standish closed the few feet between them. “Igive the orders.”
The lady’s back was to Beatrix, which left her with an unimpeded view of the amused, indulgent curl of Deverill’s mouth that spoke of familiarity with the game Lady Standish was playing. She touched light fingertips to Deverill’s chest and began trailing down until they reached the buttons of his waistcoat.
Beatrix couldn’t breathe.
Lady Standish began undressing Deverill—and Beatrix couldn’t not watch, her face pressed so close to the crack between the screen panels her eyelashes brushed it with every blink. Waistcoat discarded, the lady tugged his shirt free of his trousers with a giggle. Then the garment was up and over his head and joining the waistcoat on the floor.
At the sight of his bare chest and the stacked rows of muscles on his stomach, Lady Standish gasped.
Behind the hand that had flown to her mouth, so did Beatrix.
One would need a good five minutes to count all the muscles rippling across stomach, chest, and arms, so defined and…male.
She’d never beheld anything so male in all her life.
What would it feel like to touch such a powerfully built man?
Unbidden, the memory of the water from his bath returned.
That drop of water knew.
Lady Standish’s hands kept moving…down.
Feathering along the waistband of his trousers…and furtherdown…
Grazing across theveryobvious bulge beneath superfine.
“Oh my,” she giggled, “is that a devil in your trousers demanding to greet me?”
