The question returned Honoria to reality with a thump. "Melissa Claypole."
Her rescuer frowned. "Is she the dark one or the fair one?"
"The fair one." Propping her chin in her hand, Honoria gazed into the flames. "An insipid miss with no conversation-God knows how I'm supposed to render her attractive. I was booked to go to Lady Oxley but her six-year old caught chicken pox, and then old Lady Oxley died. I'd declined all my other offers by then, but the Claypoles' letter arrived late, and I hadn't yet replied. So I accepted without doing my usual checks."
"Checks?"
"I don't work for just anyone." Stifling a yawn, Honoria settled more comfortably. "I make sure the family is good ton, well connected enough to get the right invitations and sufficiently beforehand not to make a fuss over the milliner's bills."
"Not to mention those from the modistes."
"Precisely. Well"-she gestured briefly-"no girl is going to snare a duke if she dresses like a dowd."
"Indubitably. Am I to understand the Claypoles fail to meet your stringent requirements?"
Honoria frowned. "I've only been with them since Sunday, but I've a nasty suspicion…" She let her words trail away, then shrugged. "Luckily, it appears Melissa is all but spoken for-by a duke, no less." A pause followed, then her rescuer prompted: "A duke?"
"So it seems. If you live about here you must know of him-sober, reserved, rather reclusive, I think. Already tangled in Lady Claypole's web, if her ladyship speaks true." Recollecting her burning question, Honoria twisted around. "Do you know him?"
Clear green eyes blinked back at her; slowly, her rescuer shook his head. "I can't say I've had the pleasure."
"Humph!" Honoria sank back in her chair. "I'm beginning to think he's a hermit. Are you sure-"
But he was no longer listening to her. Then she heard what had caught his attention-the rattly breathing of the wounded youth. The next instant, he was striding back to the bed. He sat on the edge, taking one of the youth's hands in his. From the chair, Honoria listened as the youth's breathing grew more ragged, more rasping. Fifteen painful minutes later, the dry rattle ceased. An unearthly silence filled the cottage; even the storm was still. Honoria closed her eyes and silently uttered a prayer. Then the wind rose, mournfully keening, nature's chant for the dead.
Opening her eyes, Honoria watched as Devil laid his cousin's hands across his chest. Then he sat on the pallet's edge, eyes fixed on the pale features that would not move again. He was seeing his cousin alive and well, laughing, talking. Honoria knew how the mind dealt with death. Her heart twisted, but there was nothing she could do. Sinking back in the chair, she left him to his memories.
She must have dozed off. When next she opened her eyes, he was crouched before the hearth. The candle had guttered; the only light in the room was that thrown by the flames. Half-asleep, she watched as he laid logs on the blaze, banking it for the night.
During their earlier conversation, she'd kept her eyes on his face or the flames; now, with the firelight sculpting his arms and shoulders, she looked her fill. Something about all that tanned male skin had her battling a fierce urge to press her fingers to it, to spread her hands across the warm expanse, to curve her palms about hard muscle.
Arms crossed, hands safely clutching her elbows, she shivered.
In one fluid motion he rose and turned. And frowned. "Here." Reaching past her, he lifted his soft jacket from the table and held it out.
Honoria stared at it, valiantly denying the almost overwhelming urge to focus, not on the jacket, but on the chest a yard behind it. She swallowed, shook her head, then dragged her gaze straight up to his face. "No-you keep it. It was just that I woke up-I'm not really cold." That last was true enough; the fire was throwing steady heat into the room.
One black brow very slowly rose; the pale green eyes did not leave her face. Then the second brow joined the first, and he shrugged. "As you wish." He resumed his seat in the old carved chair, glancing about the cottage, his gaze lingering on the blanket-shrouded figure on the bed. Then, settling back, he looked at her. "I suggest we get what sleep we can. The storm should have passed by morning."
Honoria nodded, immensely relieved when he spread his jacket over his disturbing chest. He laid his head against the chairback, and closed his eyes. His lashes formed black crescents above his high cheekbones; light flickered over the austere planes of his face. A strong face, hard yet not insensitive. The sensuous line of his lips belied his rugged jaw; the fluid arch of his brows offset his wide forehead. Wild locks of midnight black framed the whole-Honoria smiled and closed her eyes. He should have been a pirate.
With sleep clouding her mind, her body soothed by the fire's warmth, it wasn't hard to drift back into her dreams.
Sylvester Sebastian Cynster, sixth Duke of St. Ives, known as That Devil Cynster to a select handful of retainers, as Devil Cynster to the ton at large and simply as Devil to his closest friends, watched his wife-to-be from beneath his long lashes. What, he wondered, would his mother, the Dowager
Duchess, make of Honoria Prudence Anstruther-Wetherby? The thought almost made him smile, but the dark pall that hung over his mind wouldn't let his lips curve. For Tolly's death there was only one answer; justice would be served, but vengeance would wield the sword. Nothing else would appease him or the other males of his clan. Despite their reckless propensities, Cynsters died in their beds.
But avenging Tolly's death would merely be laying the past to rest. Today he had rounded the next bend in his own road; his companion for the ne
xt stretch shifted restlessly in the old wing chair opposite.
Devil watched her settle, and wondered what was disturbing her dreams. Him, he hoped. She was certainly disturbing him-and he was wide-awake.
He hadn't realized when he'd left the Place that morning that he was searching for a wife; fate had known better. It had placed Honoria Prudence in his path in a manner that ensured he couldn't pass her by. The restless dissatisfaction that had gripped him of late seemed all of a piece, part of fate's scheme. Jaded by the importunities of his latest conquest, he'd come to the Place, sending word to Vane to meet him for a few days' shooting. Vane had been due to join him that evening; with a whole day to kill, he'd thrown a saddle on Sulieman and ridden out to his fields.
The wide lands that were his never failed to soothe him, to refocus his mind on who he was, what he was. Then the storm had risen; he'd cut through the wood, heading for the back entrance to the Place. That had put him on track to find Tolly-and Honoria Prudence. Fate had all but waved a red flag; no one had ever suggested he was slow to see the light. Seizing opportunity was how he'd made his name-he'd already decided to seize Honoria Prudence. She would do very well as his wife. For a start, she was tall, with a well-rounded figure, neither svelte nor fleshy but very definitely feminine. Hair of chesnut brown glowed richly, tendrils escaping from the knot on the top of her head. Her face, heart-shaped, was particularly arresting, fine-boned and classical, with a small straight nose, delicately arched brown brows, and a wide forehead. Her lips were full, a soft blush pink; her eyes, her finest feature, large, wide-set and long-lashed, were a misty grey. He'd told true about her chin-it was the only feature that reminded him of her grandsire, not in shape but in the determination it managed to convey.
Physically, she was a particularly engaging proposition-she'd certainly engaged his notoriously fickle interest.