Wild and Wicked Read Free Page B

thought cynically as the yule candle burned bright before him. He had no interest in foolish, ambitious women. The page refilled his cup and he wondered when the evening would end.
    “By the saints, ’tis an angel,” Aunt Violet whispered almost reverently as she gazed upon the guests.
    Devlynn slid a glance in the older woman’s direction and saw her pale lips quiver in awe. Hurriedly, with deft be-ringed fingers, she made the sign of the cross over her ample, velvet-draped bosom. ’Twas as if she were warding off evil spirits rather than embracing a divine being cast down from the heavens.
    Devlynn paid little mind to the old woman and swallowed another gulp of wine.
    Though her once-clear eyes had clouded with age, Violet was always seeing spirits and ghosts. Now, during the holidays, his aunt was forever searching for some sign of heavenly intervention—conjuring up a miracle to lift what she considered a dark, gloomy pall that had fallen upon the Lord of Black Thorn’s shoulders.
    ’Twas foolishness.
    A scamp of a child, the daughter of his sister Miranda, screamed gleefully as she dashed past.
    “Hush, Bronwyn, off to bed with you,” Miranda ordered.
    “Nay, mother, not yet,” the girl cried, brown curls bouncing around her flushed eight-year-old face. “We’ve not yet played hoodman’s-blind or bob apple.”
    “But soon, the nurse will take you upstairs.”
    “Where be Yale?” she asked Devlynn.
    “Already abed,” her mother said sternly. “Where you should be.”
    “Why? ’Tis not like him,” Bronwyn sniffed.
    “Nay, ’tis not,” Devlynn agreed, wondering if the lad was becoming ill.
    “Mayhap he is only pretending sleep and he is even now escaping the castle, as he has before!” Bronwyn said, her eyes glittering at the thought of her adventurous cousin.
    “Nay. ’Tis only too much merriment and festivities,” Miranda said and Bronwyn, as if realizing she was in danger of being hauled off to bed this very minute, tossed her dark ringlets, then scampered away, chasing after a servant carrying platters of jellied eggs, tarts and meat pies.
    “Violet is right. She is a beauty,” Collin whispered under his breath. There was awe in his voice, but Devlynn refused to be infected with the rapture his brother felt for females.
    “All women are beauties to you, brother.” Devlynn tossed back his mazer, wiped his mouth and, bored by the conversation, searched the milling crowd with his eyes.
    Then he saw her.
    Unerringly.
    Knowing instinctively that it was the “angel” of whom his aunt had murmured in awe. Mayhap his doddery, ancient aunt was right for the first time in her seventy-odd years, that the unknown woman was a magical being sent straight from the gates of heaven.
    She certainly was like no other Devlynn had ever seen.
    Tall and slender, bedecked in a dazzling white gown, she moved through the crowd with an easy, elegant grace. Her dress was embroidered with silver and gold thread, intricately woven, and her hair, as pale as flax, was threaded with silver and gold ribbons. Her eyes sparkled from the reflection of the hundreds of candles within the room, her cheekbones arched high above rosy spots of color on flawless skin.
    Devlynn’s heart thumped in his chest. He silently called himself a fool. Took another swallow of wine.
    Who the devil was she?
    “You told me not that you had invited divinity,” Collin teased, leaning closer to his brother, one side of his mouth lifted in cynical, wicked appreciation.
    “I knew not.” Devlynn couldn’t pull his eyes from the curve of her cheek, nor the lift of her small, pointed chin.
    Christ Jesus. The air stilled in his lungs.
    “I think I might ask her to dance.” Scraping his chair back, Collin lifted an eyebrow in his brother’s direction, as if in challenge. ’Twas his way these days. Collin seemed restless and bored, ready for a fight, always daring his older brother.
    A spurt of jealousy swept through Devlynn, but he raised