Mr. Blake Deverill…steam engine entrepreneur and upstart man about Town.
Or as society had dubbed him—Lord Devil.
Strictly from an objective position, he was composed of all the elements that made a man handsome—and a few that set him apart. Beneath the charcoal-gray superfine, his shoulders were broad, likely muscular, too. His hair, the black of a raven’s wing, was thick and appealingly wavy. He had a strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, and a straight nose.
Those were the elements that rendered him handsome in the commonly held sense.
As for those that set him apart… The glacial aquamarine blue of his eyes beneath straight black eyebrows… Those eyes pierced and prodded. They held a demand for the world.
And his mouth… It was at complete odds with the rest of him with its full, pillowy lips.
A lovely mouth, Lord Devil had.
Though Beatrix had never been kissed in all her life, she imagined that mouth most kissable.
The truth was—an uncomfortable truth, to be sure—every one of her senses perked to life at the very sight of him.
Whose wouldn’t? she thought a bit defensively.
The man possessed the sort of charismatic energy that made it next to impossible to remove one’s eyes from him.
Yet another quality that set him apart.
Now, Lord Devil could sell a few gossip rags.
Her pencil stopped.
She might give the idea of writing about Blake Deverill further consideration. He was a man who had made his way in the world through his own intelligence and determination.
And ambition and ruthlessness.
It wouldn’t do to make an enemy of him.
She had enough problems as it was.
With a mind toward solving a few of them, she tucked her writing journal into her satchel—which left the stack of letters patiently waiting on her lap.
Some opened…others decidedly unopened…
Alldreaded.
She started with the opened ones. Better the devil you know—or something like that.
Bills.
To a one.
None earned by her, but that hardly mattered.
They affected her.
She plucked a different journal from her satchel and began moving her finger along the column of figures, hoping she’d transcribed a few incorrectly. That the five guineas here was, in fact, five shillings… Or perhaps this bill for seven quid was actually a credit…
She’d written every single figure correctly.
Down to the penny.
She eyed the unopened letters.
