Cold-Hearted Rake (The Ravenels 1)

“My lord,” Kathleen began breathlessly, “I thought you’d gone to Hampshire.”

“I did.” His wrathful gaze flickered to her. “I just returned to Ravenel House. The twins said they thought you might be here.”

“I found it necessary to talk to Mr. Winterborne about Helen —”

“You should have left it to me,” Devon said through gritted teeth. “The mere fact of being alone with Winterborne could create a scandal that would haunt you for the rest of your life.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

His face darkened. “From the first moment I met you, you’ve tortured me and everyone else within reach about the importance of propriety. And now it doesn’t matter?” He gave her an ominous glance before turning to Winterborne. “You should have turned her away at the door, you conniving bastard. The only reason I haven’t throttled you both is that I can’t decide which one of you to start with.”

“Start with me,” Winterborne invited gently.

The air was charged with masculine hostility.

“Later,” Devon said with barely restrained rage. “For now, I’m taking her home. But the next time I see you, I’ll put you in a fucking box.” Turning his attention to Kathleen, he pointed to the doorway.

She didn’t like being commanded as if she were a disobedient poodle. When he was in this state, however, she decided it was better not to provoke him. Reluctantly she started forward.

“Wait,” Winterborne said gruffly. He went to a table near a window and seized something. She hadn’t noticed it before; it was the potted orchid that Helen had given him. “Take this bloody thing,” he said, shoving the pot at Kathleen. “By God, I’ll be glad to be rid of it.”

After Devon and Kathleen had departed, Rhys stood at the window to view the scene outside. A streetlamp shed a weak lemon glow over a line of cab horses, illuminating the puffs of steam from their nostrils. Groups of pedestrians hurried across the wood pavement toward the department store display windows.

He was aware of Quincy’s sturdy footsteps approaching.

After a moment, the valet asked reproachfully, “Was it necessary to frighten Lady Trenear?”

Rhys turned his head to give him a slitted glance. It was the first time Quincy had dared to speak to him so impudently. In the past, Rhys had fired more valuable men for far lesser remarks.

Instead, he folded his arms and returned his attention to the street, loathing the world and everyone in it. “Aye,” he said with soft malice. “It made me feel better.”

Although Devon didn’t say a word during the short ride back to Ravenel House, the force of his anger seemed to occupy every square inch of the carriage’s interior. Clara huddled in the corner as if she were trying to make herself invisible.

Vacillating between guilt and defiance, Kathleen reflected that Devon was behaving as if he had rights over her, which he did not. He was carrying on as if she’d done something to injure him personally, which she had not. The situation was his fault – he was the one who had encouraged Winterborne to court Helen, and he had manipulated Helen into the engagement.

She was vastly relieved when they arrived and she was able to escape the confines of the carriage.

Immediately upon entering Ravenel House, she discovered that a sepulchral silence had settled in her absence. Later, she would learn from the twins that Devon became so overwrought when he’d discovered her missing, everyone in the household had prudently disappeared from view.

Setting the orchid pot on a table, Kathleen waited as Clara took her outer garments and gloves. “Please take the orchid upstairs to the parlor,” she murmured to the maid, “and then come to my room afterward.”

“You won’t need her tonight,” Devon said brusquely. He gave the girl a dismissive nod.

Before Kathleen had fully absorbed the words, twitches of indignation chased across her shoulders and the back of her neck. “I beg your pardon?”

Devon waited until Clara had begun up the stairs, and then said, “Go wait for me in my room. I’ll join you after I’ve had a drink.”

Kathleen’s eyes widened. “Have you gone mad?” she asked faintly.

Did he actually believe he could order her to wait in his room as if she were a strumpet being paid to service him? She would retreat to her own bedchamber and lock the door. This was a respectable household. Even Devon wouldn’t dare make a scene when his actions would be witnessed by servants, and Helen and the twins, and —

“No lock would keep me out,” he said, reading her thoughts with stunning accuracy. “But try it if you like.”

The way he said it, with a sort of casual politeness, sent burning color to her cheeks.

“I want to see how Helen is,” she said.

“The twins are taking care of her.”

She tried another tack. “I haven’t had dinner.”

“Neither have I.” He pointed meaningfully to the stairs.

Kathleen would have loved to decimate him with some scathing remark, but her mind had gone blank. She turned stiffly and ascended the stairs without looking back.

She could feel him watching her.

Her mind revolved in frantic dithering. Perhaps after a drink, Devon would become calmer and return to his old self.

Or perhaps he would have more than one… several… and come to her just as Theo once had, drunk and determined to take what he wanted.

Reluctantly she went to Devon’s bedroom, rationalizing that it would be easier than trying to evade him and play out some farcical scenario. After trudging over the threshold, she closed the door, while her skin blazed and her insides turned cold.

The room was large and grand, the floor covered with thick soft carpeting. The hulking ancestral bed was even larger than the one at Eversby Priory, with a headboard that went up to the ceiling, and disproportionately huge columns adorned with imbricate carvings and strapwork. A richly embroidered counterpane of stylized forest scenes covered the endless plateau of mattress. It was a bed intended for the procreation of generations of Ravenels.

She went to stand near the hearth, where a fire had been lit, and flexed her cold fingers in the radiant heat.

In a few minutes, the door opened, and Devon entered the room.

Kathleen’s heart began to beat so heavily that she could feel her rib cage vibrate from the blows.