Simply, she wasn’t sure his plan would succeed.
She wasn’t exactly the most popular or known lady in theton, even if she was the daughter of a marquess.
She was the daughter of adebt-ridden, debauchedmarquess.
An important distinction.
Still, as he said he would, he’d paid out half of the agreed-upon £5,000, so she would be giving his plan her all.
£2,500… That was the amount presently hidden away beneath the floorboards under her bed.
Oh, yes, she would be giving his plan her very best effort.
Then he would pay her the other half.
Money… For the first time in her life, she had a substantial amount of it. Money had always seemed more like a shapeless concept than a tangible thing. But now, against her skin, the slide of new silk and fine muslin—luxurious…decadent…possibly sinful…
She liked it.
Further, though she was nearing confirmed spinsterhood, she felt…lovely.
Her place within society had been set these last eight years, but this new stylish dress suggested her place might need to be reevaluated.
Which only helped her purpose along.
This lovely dress—and the conferred loveliness of her in it—suggested to society that she might be a catch.
Of a sudden, she feltit—an alteration in the air. A dip in the volume of the crowd, followed by an immediate buzzing spike, even louder than the volume that preceded it.
The intriguing Lord Devil had arrived.
Oh, the figure he cut in society.
A veritable collector of superlatives was Lord Devil.
He wasn’t the tallest man in the room—but rather the most imposing.
So, too, was he the best dressed and most handsome.
And the most magnetic.
It was those eyes of his.
Eyes that held a wicked glint—and wicked secrets. He might even share them with you—but only if you were very lucky.
Oh, where had that last thought come from?
Her own wicked places, she supposed. For she held wicked places within herself, she’d recently accepted.
Or perhaps it was Lord Devil himself who stirred those places to life.
That, more than anything, was his effect on a room.
And upon an individual within it.
“We should be friends.”
She didn’t have many friends.
