Biting her lip, she copied his movements, thrusting the blade toward an invisible enemy, then slashing downward. Again and again, she repeated the action. Suddenly, he struck. He caught her wrist in a punishing grip, and her fingers opened. The dagger fell to the carpets with a thud. Dom hauled her to him, his face near hers, his eyes blazing with an emotion she could not define.
“If I were Jasper Sutton, you would be dead by now,” he said.
There was a finality in his voice that made her tremble. “Is that his name? Your enemy, I mean?”
His lip curled. “It does not matter what his name is. All that matters is that you need more practice. If anything should happen to you or the babe…”
As his words trailed off, Adele absorbed the answering tremor that went through him. There was no denying it. He cared. Dominic Winter, feared ruler of London’s underworld,caredfor her. The knowledge settled firmly in her heart.
“Nothing shall happen to us,” she promised him. “Show me, Dom.”
He gave a jerky nod, then dipped his head and took her lips in a kiss that was hard and possessive, yet fierce and sweet.
Much like the man she had married.
Chapter 13
“She will hate you for this.”
Dom skewered Devil with a glare as they stood together in his office at The Devil’s Spawn, a map spread on the desk before them. “Why should I give a damn? This course has been planned, its outcome inevitable.”
“You truly think Linross will be any more inclined to sell the land knowing you’ve married his precious daughter?”
His brother’s skepticism nettled. At the moment, Dom felt like sparring with someone. Boxing until his knuckles bled. Or hunting down Jasper Sutton and sinking his knife deep into the bastard’s guts. Watching his life blood seep into the dirt.
He told himself the fury lancing him had nothing to do with Devil’s assertion Adele would hate him when she learned his true motive for marrying her. And then he realized what an utter fucking lie that was.
“If Linross does not sell me the land, I will call in all his son’s notes,” Dom vowed, even as a foreign twinge of something in his chest accompanied those words.
Not guilt, surely?
When had he ever allowed himself to feel anything for anyone other than his siblings?
Since she came into your life.
“You would call in the brother’s notes and ruin ’im?” Devil asked. “A nib, your wife’s brother?”
Wife was still a new word, bringing with it more strange sensations in his chest. Ruthlessly, he tamped them down, clinging instead to his rage.
“I will do what I have to do,” he told Devil. “Jasper Sutton’s grip on the water supply and the East End has to be ended. If we do not crush him, he will crush us. His recent actions show that, and I have far too much to lose now.”
“Her?” Devil sneered.
His disgust for the quality was abundant and bitter. Dom’s had been the same, until a dark-haired, dark-eyed duke’s daughter had entered his life. Before Adele, Dom had considered aristocrats pawns. Plump, entitled pigeons. He had never given a damn about the losses they suffered at his tables. The borders were clear between their worlds, and Dom did not cross. It was one of the reasons he had chosen not to live in the Mayfair house.
“You do not know her as I do,” he said to Devil, struggling to explain. “She is not like the others.”
Devil grunted. “Course she is.”
“Damn you, Devil.” He slammed his fist on the map, crinkling it in the place where he intended to build the B.W. Waterworks. Just as soon as the Duke of Linross sold him the eleven bloody acres he required surrounding the River Lea. “Lady Adele is different.”
Devil’s sole response was to growl.
“She is carrying my child,” Dom blurted.
His brother issued another grunt.
“Is that felicitations I hear in your voice, brother?”
