“Apparently he much prefers to spend his time with the other members of his club, a very small and exclusive group of gentlemen who are interested in rare books and fine art.”
“You appear to be intimately acquainted with the details of his private life,” mused Anna.
Josette gave another lift of her shoulders. “As I said, servants do like to gossip. Especially when trying to impress one another.”
Ha—yet another reason Devlin had to admit that having a lady as an ally was useful.
The tick, tick seemed to grow louder in the flutter of silence. “Voilà, your toilette is finished, Mademoiselle Caro,” said the maid, stepping back and casting a critical eye over both her charges. “The two of you look very well. Now you had best hurry to join the others.”
“Thank you,” murmured Anna, as Caro slid off her seat and fluffed her skirts. “We are very fortunate to have a person of your skills, Josette.”
Devlin surveyed the room over the rim of his drink, trying to quell his impatience. He was never impatient, and most certainly not when a lady was concerned.
But this was no ordinary lady, he reminded himself.
A fact that he wasn’t quite sure was very good or very bad.
His brain, however, had little time to parse the question. As Anna floated through the doorway in a rippling of shimmering sea-green silk, it went utterly blank, and all rational thoughts sunk into…
Some depth of demented crosscurrents he had never experienced before.
Breathe. Basic instincts seemed to be the only messages emanating from his head. His lungs slowly obeyed, and the rush of fresh oxygen seemed to dispel the sensation of drowning, drowning, drowning.
Turning away, Devlin gulped down a swallow of wine to steady his shaking hand.
“Where were you today?” growled McClellan, bringing him back onto firmer ground.
“I was feeling lazy,” he replied. “We indolent idlers are not used to the rigors of tramping your moors. Satan must have been Scottish to have formed such hellishly steep climbs and bone-chilling mists to torture us soft Sassanach creatures.”
McClellan’s mouth twitched, showing the man wasn’t completely devoid of a sense of humor. “Aye. How perceptive of you to have noticed that his cloven hooves are those of a shaggy Highland steer.”
“Actually it was more of a lucky guess,” drawled Devlin, the exchange stirring his senses back to some semblance of normal. “Next time I am in his presence, I shall be sure to take a closer look.”
“A closer look? And here I had assumed the two of you were already intimately acquainted.”
McClellan was drinking a dark red-gold whisky rather than champagne, and his eyes were already a little overbright. “It’s never wise to make assumptions when the Devil is involved,” said Devlin. “All too often you will find that his red-hot pitchfork ends up jabbing you in the arse.”
“Is that supposed to make me fearful, Davenport?”
He widened his eyes in mock surprise. “Good Heavens, no—it’s supposed to make you laugh.” He lifted his glass to his lips, this time to take a smaller sip. “What reason would I have to make you fearful?”
“A good question,” answered the baron.
“What is a good question?” asked Caro, as she and her sister approached.
“Lord McClellan and I were just discussing theology,” replied Devlin.
At that, the baron did let out a snort of laughter. “Good and Evil is such an interesting topic, but let us not bore you ladies with such talk.”
“Oh, Lord Davenport is never boring,” replied Caro, in a voice that left little doubt as to what she was leaving unsaid.
Devlin remained silent, noting the glitter in the baron’s eyes was now more like a dancing of fullblown flames. Heeding his own advice, he decided not to make any assumptions on why the fellow seemed in a volatile mood.
“I’m sure that Lord McClellan can converse intelligently on a number of topics,” interjected Anna. “Like the poetry of Goethe. I happened to note that the assistant secretary had set several volumes aside in his name when I visited the library this morning.”
Caro’s expression went through an odd little series of contortions. “You read Goethe’s poetry?”
A flush rose to McClellan’s cheeks. “Unlike much verse, his work at least strives to capture the full range of human emotion.”