She figured she might as well continue as she’d started. “There’s the Duke of Rakesley’s Hannibal. His stable won’t have eased up on training.”
“Oh, I know all about the methods of Rakesley’s stables.”
She sensed a truth hidden just beyond sight. “How is that? Stables are secretive and guard their methods closely.”
“If you must know?—”
“I must.”
“—When I won Little Wicked in that card game off Clifton, I knew nothing about horse racing. I thought the game rule number one was that everyone cheated.”
Slow dread churned through Beatrix. “What did you do?”
“I hired a spy.” He gave an unconcerned shrug.
If he thought she would let such a provocation pass, he didn’t yet know anything about her. “You installed a spy in the Duke of Rakesley’s stables?” She couldn’t keep the incredulity from her voice.
“Aye,” he said, nodding. “The practice is shockingly common.” Another shrug. “I’m certainly housing a few spies in my own stables as we speak.”
“That’s beside the point.” Her next question was most inappropriate, but so, too, were her entire dealings with this man. “Did you learn anything of value?”
“Nothing the grooms and trainers I’d hired didn’t already know.”
“And the spy?” she asked.
“You don’t know how to let a matter drop, do you?”
Beatrix proceeded as if he hadn’t spoken. “Is the spy still in Rakesley’s stables?”
A dry laugh sounded through Deverill’s nose. “In a manner of speaking.”
She lifted her eyebrows and let them ask the next question for her.
“The duke up and married her.”
It only took the split of a second for the implication of those words to sink into the air and find purchase in Beatrix’s mind. “Are you saying the new Duchess of Rakesley was a?—”
Deverill held up a single finger, staying the rest of the question in her mouth. “Thatdoes not find its way into one of your articles.”
Fair play, she supposed. Deverill had no way of knowing that since Rakesley was the brother of her best friend, no gossip about him would ever flow from her pen. “Then you’ll know,” she said, “that Hannibal will be tough to beat.”
Deverill nodded. “As will the Duchess of Acaster’s Light Skirt and the Marquess of Ormonde’s Filthy Habit. In fact, Little Wicked has yet to beat any of them.”
“Then there’s whoever wins the St. Leger in September.”
“Aye.” His attention returned to Little Wicked. “I know little about horses and racing, but there is something special about this filly, isn’t there?”
Beatrix’s eye assessed Little Wicked from muzzle to haunch. “She has a magic to her.”
He nodded appreciatively. “Theywill have to beatherin the Race of the Century—not the other way round.”
A question had been nagging at Beatrix for days—since before they’d entered into their arrangement, in fact. If there ever was a time to ask, it was now. “Why?”
Intense aquamarine eyes shifted and met hers. “Whywhat?”
“Why did you keep Little Wicked and become part of this world?”
Unreadable emotion flicked behind his eyes before he lifted them toward the ceiling. “The rains have passed.”
