Notorious

Dev gave a crack of laughter. “I wouldn’t throw away that much money on something that might kill me.”

“You have changed then,” Susanna said politely. Then added, as he raised his brows in quizzical challenge, “Wild-goose chases to Mexico in search of treasure, ludicrously dangerous missions for the British Navy, a preposterous voyage to the Arctic during which you boarded another ship as though you were a pirate …” She stopped as the look in his eyes turned to pure amusement.

“You have been following my career,” he murmured. “How flattering and unexpected. Could you not quite let me go, Susanna?”

Susanna had in fact followed every step of Devlin’s career but she did not want him to know that. It would only feed his conceit, as well as raising awkward questions about why she had cared, questions she could not and did not want to answer.

“I read the scandal sheets,” she said, shrugging. “They convinced me that you were as reckless as I had always believed you to be.”

“Reckless,” Dev said. There was an odd tone in his voice. “Yes, I have always been that, Susanna.”

At seventeen Susanna had loved that wildness in him, such a counterpoint to her staid and predictable life. She had been dazzled, blinded by the thrill of it all, swept away. Their secret meetings had been breathtakingly illicit. The risk had transfixed her. Even though a tiny, sensible part of her mind had argued that Dev was too handsome and too exciting ever to belong to her, she had wanted to believe that he could. Even though she had secretly suspected he had only proposed to her because he wanted to sleep with her, she had wanted to believe he truly loved her. For one brief day and night she had given herself up to pleasure, feeling alive for the first time in years, lit up with love and excitement. But in the morning had come the reckoning and after that she had paid and paid.

She swallowed what felt like a huge lump in her throat. It was too late now to regret her lack of courage or faith. She did not know why she should feel this misery, as though she had let something valuable slip away, because over the years Dev had surely proved himself exactly as irresponsible and rash and dangerous as she had known he would be.

“I am not Susanna anymore,” she said. “I am Caroline Carew, remember?”

Dev’s hand came out and caught her sleeve. She looked up, startled, to see the spark of pure anger in his eyes.

“So you jettisoned your name along with everything else,” he murmured. “You could not rid yourself of your old life fast enough, could you?”

Susanna shrugged. “One moves on from past mistakes. And Caroline is my middle name.” She paused. “I hope I can rely on you to remember that I am now Caroline Carew?”

For a long moment Dev looked into her eyes and Susanna almost flinched from the dark anger she saw there. Her heart was racing, her chest tight. Her skin prickled with awareness.

“I would hate you to think that you can rely on me for anything,” he said pleasantly. “Is not ambiguity the spice of life?”

“Servant, Devlin.” Fitz’s bored, aristocratic tones cut across them and Dev dropped Susanna’s arm as though it was a hot coal, straightened, turned and sketched Fitz a bow.

“Alton.” His voice was very cold.

Fitz’s gaze darted from him to Susanna’s face. She pressed her gloved hands together to prevent them from shaking. There was something about Devlin’s potent physical presence that got through to her every time. Over the years she had built up such a strong protective facade that she had thought it could withstand anything. Dev demolished it with one look or one touch.

“Lady Carew,” Dev said, and Susanna heard the emphasis he put on the name, “is trying to decide whether to accept your recommendation, Alton.”

Susanna saw the frown that touched Fitz’s forehead at the suggestion that his judgment of horseflesh might not be sound.

“He is a beautiful horse, my lord,” she said quickly, to repair the damage, “but I am in two minds—I can always hire a riding horse from the livery stables. Would it not be more fun to own a racehorse instead?”

She thought she heard Dev snort—but it could have been one of the horses. Fitz’s face cleared miraculously.

“A racehorse!” he said enthusiastically. “Capital idea, Lady Carew! Capital!”

“I am sure,” Susanna said, slipping her hand through his arm, “that it would be vastly exciting to watch it run—and to gamble on it, as well, of course.”

“Only if you are plump in the pocket,” Dev said dryly. His gaze traveled over her, lingering on the neat fit of her riding habit as it emphasized the lush curve of her breasts. “But I forgot—you are very well endowed, are you not, Lady Carew?”

His direct gaze brought the blood up into Susanna’s face. She could remember more than Dev’s gaze lingering on those curves.

“I do apologize for Devlin,” Fitz said. “His cousin sent him to Eton but education don’t make the man, I am sorry to say.”

“No, indeed,” Susanna said. Her gaze clashed with Dev’s cool blue one. “I am, as you say, endowed with many advantages that you lack, Sir James, including good manners.”

“Once a knave,” Dev murmured, without any hint of apology. There was a glimmer of wickedness in his eyes. “But you knew that about me already, Lady Carew. You know all my secrets.”

“I have no ambition to know anything about you, Sir James,” Susanna said coldly. Her heart was beating a warning; how much would he risk, how much would he reveal?

“You must think yourself fascinating indeed to make yourself the subject of the conversation,” she said.

She could see what Dev was trying to do: he wanted to suggest to Fitz that there was more to her than met the eye, that she had a checkered rather than a romantically mysterious past, that she had been his mistress, even. He wanted to imply that whilst she might be a rich widow now she was not the sort of person a marquis would marry, especially when there was the far more suitable virginal debutante Miss Francesca Devlin waiting patiently in the wings …

“Lady Emma not with you today, Devlin?” Fitz asked pointedly. He tightened his grip on Susanna’s arm. Susanna found she did not like it but resisted the urge to pull away, instead smiling sweetly at Fitz and moving close enough to brush her body against his.

“No,” Dev said. “Emma dislikes horses unless they are doing something functional such as pulling her carriage.” He bowed, a sardonic light lurking in his eyes. “I can see that I am de trop here. I will leave you to throw your money away on a racehorse, Lady Carew.”

“How thoughtful of you,” Susanna said. “Good day, Sir James.”

She could feel the tension in Fitz’s body as they stood together watching Dev stroll away.

“I say, Lady Carew,” Fitz said, turning to look down at her, “Devlin is most frightfully disrespectful to you. Are you sure there is nothing more between the two of you than old acquaintance?”

Mentally cursing Dev and his meddling, Susanna plastered on her most convincing smile. “I met Sir James on his cousin’s estate at Balvenie in Scotland when I was little more than a child, my lord,” she said. “I am afraid I did not like him and I made the mistake of letting it show. Even then Sir James was insufferably conceited and wanted all the ladies to fall at his feet. He has never forgiven me that I did not.”

She had not fallen at his feet; she had fallen into his bed. But Fitz was smiling, she saw with relief. “Grant’s estate, eh?” he said. “Sound fellow, Grant, but barely a feather to fly. The whole family is ramshackle. There’s no breeding to speak of and bad blood in the Devlin family.”

Susanna was surprised to hear him dismiss Chessie thus, especially when his attentions to her had been so marked and could surely have been nothing but honorable. But it augured well for her own plans. Chessie was as good as defeated already and none of Dev’s interference could change that.

She smiled prettily, squeezing Fitz’s arm. “I wonder if you have the time to accompany me to the wine merchant, my lord?” she said. “I require to purchase a special gift of champagne and I know you have a knowledge of the best vintage.”

Fitz looked gratified and Susanna, her gaze falling on one of the shovels used to clear out the horseboxes, wondered just how thickly she would have to lay on the flattery before he became suspicious of her. Dev’s stringent wit and intelligence would have demolished her in an instant but there seemed to be no limit to the Marquis of Alton’s self-regard.

“Delighted, Lady Carew,” Fitz said. “And afterward perhaps we may celebrate with a glass together, eh?” His smile was vulpine. “I should enjoy that a great deal, just the two of us.”

“That would be splendid, thank you,” Susanna murmured. “I very much appreciate having a friend to lean upon when I am so new to London.” She slipped her hand from Fitz’s arm and walked a little ahead of him so that he could appreciate the sway of her hips beneath the luxurious fall of the velvet riding habit. She could feel Fitz’s eyes on her—and sense, too, his frustration that once again she had taken a step back from the intimacy he was trying to create between them. Frustration bred eagerness, and that was exactly what she wanted from him. Smiling, she turned the corner of the yard and walked straight into Devlin, who was lounging against the doorway, an appreciative gleam in his eyes.

“Beautifully done, Susanna,” he whispered. His breath stirred the tendrils of hair that had escaped from beneath her hat. She felt them brush her cheek with the lightest caress. “What a lot of practice you must have had in the art of seduction.”

“Endless amounts,” Susanna agreed. She saw that Fitz had stopped for a final word with Richard Tattersall and cursed the delay. The last thing she wanted to do was reengage with Dev again and to give him another opportunity to undo all her good work.

“I thought that you had gone,” she seethed.

“Alas, I could not tear myself away,” Dev said. “I felt an almost overwhelming desire to see in action the methods employed by the modern adventuress.” He smiled straight into her eyes. “You are a consummate professional, Susanna.”

“And you are a damned nuisance,” Susanna snapped.

Dev kissed her fingers. She tried to withdraw her hand but he held her tight. His touch seared her even through the material of her glove. Her palm tingled.

“Choose another victim,” he murmured. “You could have anyone. Leave Fitz alone.”