Charming the Devil Read Free

nothing Faye could do but stare, breath caught in her throat, heart pounding like a trapped animal’s. And suddenly all her refinement, all her careful training sloughed away like water from a gargoyle’s roaring maw, and she was young again. Young and small, with Lucifer’s heavy footfalls pounding on the forest floor behind her.
    She spun about, ready to flee, to run as she always had. To beg for forgiveness. But something caught her arm. She stifled a scream.
    “Mrs. Nettles,” Rennet said, and a modicum of sanity settled into her reeling brain. “Are you quite well?”
    She nodded once, though every quivering instinct insisted that she escape. Sheer power of will allowed her to stay, though the nape of her neck was already damp with chilled perspiration. She should have thought to bring a handkerchief, but she had never yet remembered one, though sheperspired like a Thoroughbred when nervous.
    “You look as if you’ve seen a ghost.”
    Not a ghost. He was real. Would always be real. At least in her mind.
    “You’re as pale as alum.”
    Behind her, the bewigged orchestra played a sweeping waltz, but it only sounded discordant to her pounding head. Conversation swirled around her as elegant couples gossiped and conversed, flirted and lied.
    She could feel the deceit boiling around her like acid.
    Her captor tilted his golden head at her and smiled. “Perhaps you should lie down.”
    Off to Faye’s left, a man bellowed a laugh. The noise sounded maniacal, echoing in her brain.
    “There are empty beds aplenty above stairs,” he said, and winked. “Not that I would know.”
    She’d been a fool to pretend she was prepared for this. A fool to pretend she would ever be prepared.
    “Perhaps you are overwhelmed by my manly charms,” he said.
    She should answer. That much she knew. She should smile, converse. Perhaps flirt a bit. It was far more likely she’d turn into a speckled rock and fall off the face of the earth.
    Across the room, the giant stood alone, surveying the room. His eyes were deep-set and intense, his hair sable, his skin dark. And his body…Beneath the midnight green of his fitted coat, hisshoulders looked as wide as a carriage, his thighs as broad as cannons. How the devil had she ever thought she would be able to approach him?
    Her captor laughed. The sound was happy, lighthearted.
    She stifled a wince, knowing she should emulate that gaiety. Should laugh, tease, lie. She managed an arched brow. When scared witless, try haughty; it was, perhaps, Madeline’s most practical advice.
    “Perchance some fresh air is in order,” Rennet said, and, clearing his throat, steered her toward the open double doors.
    But just as she turned, he found her, speared her with his eyes, caught her. She felt the contact like a strike to her heart.
    “Tell me, Mrs. Nettles, where is Mr. Nettles?” She heard Rennet’s words like nothing more than a mumble in her mind, for the giant Scot was watching her. Did he know she’d been sent to ferret out his secrets? Did he know already that she suspected him?
    “Mrs. Nettles?”
    “Yes?” She yanked her gaze from McBain and pulled her tattered decorum around her like a cloak.
    “Your husband—”
    “Is dead.” It was part of the story she’d been given. The story she’d painstakingly memorized. “Drowned.”
    “I am—”
    “Fell through the ice while returning to our modest but happy home in Imatra.”
    Rennet drew a deep breath. They were still moving toward the doors. Beyond the arched portals, the darkness of the garden called to her. “So you’re a widow.”
    Across the room, the giant stepped toward her.
    Panic reared inside her, striking with flinty hooves, but Rennet had a hold on her arm, and she dare not bolt. Dare not cause trouble. Not again. Not after the oboist. But how was she supposed to know woodwinds would make such an ungodly racket when they were mysteriously flung into the percussionists behind them? She’d only been trying to