* * *
It could not be her!Surely! The lights dimmed, and he had to stare at the woman closely to see if his mind was playing tricks.
She’d invaded his thoughts on and off all afternoon. Ever since he’d watched her walk away from him.
“I do like you,”she had told him. He did not believe she’d meant to speak such thoughts aloud. It had been more as though they’d escaped her mouth unwittingly.
She had blushed.
And then, perhaps, regretted her words.
She’d become distracted and nervous, insisting upon returning home.
An engaged lady, for Christ’s sake. He was not the sort of man to interfere with another man’s betrothed.
And so, he’d ignored his instinct again, to pull her into his arms and kiss her senseless. Gentlemen did not ravage young ladies on the street for all to see. Unless, that was, he was amenable to getting caught in the parson’s trap himself.
Which he could have been, had he been willing to compromise her.
Ha, parson’s trap indeed!
But that was not his way. He would have a lady make her own choices.
Furthermore, as she’d attempted to point out to him earlier in the day, they did not really know one another at all.
He did not know her family, nor where she was from. And she knew nothing of him.
And yet, despite all of that, their souls had connected.
Which ought to have sounded ridiculous but somehow did not.
When she appeared in the box, clutching Harold’s arm, Dev had wondered at his own sanity for just a moment.
The lights went down before any introductions could be made.
By God, itwasher though.
Sophia Babineaux was Harold’s betrothed.
This knowledge, as it raced through Dev’s mind, raised all sorts of questions. It also, perhaps, provided a host of answers.
Of course, if the duke had already made payments to her family, she could not back out of the engagement.
A sweet deal, indeed. Miss Babineaux had landed a husband who would make no physical demands upon her whatsoever, but provide financial security — hell, abundance — for the rest of her life. For both her family and herself.
She sat with a ramrod straight spine, not touching the back of her seat, her eyes pinned to the action on the stage.
She’d seen him, oh yes. Those angelic eyes had widened in shock for the briefest of moments.
She would not look back.
Of course, she could not.
Dev stared at her profile as the stage lights whispered across her features.
His cousin, Harold, sat beside her, quite unimpressed by everything. He was not happy, Devlin knew, with his father’s decision to hasten the wedding date. Harold’s shoulders pressed into the corner of his chair, away from Sophia. Plenty of empty space separated the engaged couple.
Sophia was in an arranged marriage.
