Page 93 of A Deal with the Devil

Chapter Twenty-Three

Due to her extensive and varied reading material, Kitty knew what to expect after a night of torrid lovemaking with a vampire, say. Or a Minotaur, or a kraken. An actual devil.

She did not know what to expect this morning, however. Never mind devils—earls were even more mythical than monsters.

For one thing, she woke in her bed knowing full well that she had not fallen asleep there. She had fallen asleep in Rhys’s arms, her bones soft and warm as melted wax. Had he carried her all the way up to her chamber? Was he the one who had tucked the coverlet around her? Had she snored? Murmured sleepy poems about his thighs? The way she thought about him being properly betrothed to someone else and bared her teeth?

She buried her face into her pillow. He wasn’t for her.

But oh, a woman could dream. She had never felt anything akin to what he made her feel. Even when she wasn’t naked.

It was extremely inconvenient.

And no one’s problem but her own. She could handle pontificating vicars, disparaging ladies, any number of flying vegetables. She could handle violent men shouting at her because they could not find their wives. Her family. Disdain.

So she could certainly handle her own self.

She washed with cold water from the basin and pulled on one of the dresses she had packed. It was her favorite one, the one with the pretty gathers at the capped sleeves. She pinned up her hair. Took it down, brushed it, pinned it up again. Wiped her damp palms on her skirt. Called herself a fool and a coward and marched herself down the stairs like a soldier going to battle.

Shelby met her with a smile. “The breakfast room is just this way.”

“Thank you, Shelby.”

She was shown to a room painted with murals of a country hillside, complete with shining rivers where nymphs gathered. The table was long enough to seat twenty people. The sideboard glittered with crystal bowls of sugar and marmalade and spiced honeys, as well as mountains of potatoes, rashers of bacon, coddled eggs, fried trout, and baskets of pastries. There was enough food for a dozen people. For an army.

Devil sat with a cup of steaming coffee and a folded newspaper. Across from him, Macleod drank tea. Yelena was beside him, eating raspberries with a gold fork. “Good morning,” she said, smiling.

“Good morning.” Kitty smiled back. This was a lot of smiling for someone who generally communicated with grimaces before noon.

“Good morning, Miss Caldecott,” Devil murmured.

His deep voice had the same effect it always did: it shot straight through her body like mulled wine on a cold day. She swallowed and tried not to look like she needed to fan herself. Did women really swoon at his feet? Probably.

Had he really carried her up to her bed in his arms? And she had slept through it like a cabbagehead?

She turned to the sideboard so her blush would not give her away entirely, but then could only hover there uncertainly. Could she serve herself? Was she supposed to sit down and wait for a footman? That did not seem expeditious. Her arms worked perfectly well. She could scoop up her own eggs. But she swore her aunt had once gone on a tirade about being served breakfast properly, and now she did not know what to do.

That was too many decisions to make before even a single cup of tea.

“Angus, make a plate for Miss Caldecott with some of everything,” Devil said calmly. “So she may decide what she likes.”

Kitty turned back to the table in relief. She sat in the nearest chair, probably a little too abruptly to be considered perfectly genteel. Something about the way Macleod also sat in his chair, alert and as though he had a claymore hiding under the table, as well as the way the footmen stood at attention. Even Shelby had the same wary stance. And they shared quite the collection of scars between them.

Something clicked in her head, like puzzle pieces. Everyone knew Devil had his own soldiers, but she had not realized before now that it might be literal. “You fought in the war together,” she murmured, one of the many mysteries of Devil coming to the light. “On the Continent. Didn’t you? All of you?”

“Aye, well spotted.” MacLeod nodded.

She turned to Devil, searching for new clues, new stories. He sat so still and expressionless that she knew she had hit a nerve. “I’m sorry.”

“He was our commanding officer. Saw us through Waterloo. And the years before.”

“Macleod.” Devil said it softly, but it reverberated like a command across a battlefield.

The men who had returned from the war with France had not returned the same. That much she knew for herself, though she had not thought many earls went fighting overseas, and certainly not through the blood and mud of Waterloo.

“Have a crumpet,” Yelena said lightly into the silence. Her black hair gleamed, coiled in perfect curls.

Kitty helped herself to a crumpet. A cup of strong tea was placed before her, with a dish of sugar and a crystal swan that poured milk from its beak. “Tom thinks he has good taste,” Devil said drily. Kitty did not miss the way the others relaxed their posture when it was clear he was changing the subject of the conversation.