Dancing With A Devil Read online

  How horribly humiliating. She had wanted his affection and eventually his love, and instead she had his pity. She shrugged. “I’m perfectly fine. We should return to the others.” She tugged her hand away and went to turn toward the door, but Trent caught her arm.

  “Can we still be friends?”

  His suggestion startled her and left her unable to immediately reply. Her aunt and uncle had been friends before they married. And her mother had believed men and women could be friends. Audrey frowned. She had always thought it rather preposterous that most people considered it impossible, yet she had never suspected Trent might think so as well. This was not exactly what she had hoped for, but maybe―“I suppose,” she forced out, her voice wobbling even though she tried to make it steady.

  “Good.”

  What sounded like regret filled his voice. Her heart skipped a beat. Heavens, no doubt she was hearing what she wished. “We should leave,” she said, determined not to make a further fool of herself.

  “Yes,” he agreed but did not release her arm.

  She glanced pointedly at his hand. When she looked up, her stomach flipped at the intensity of his stare. “Trent?”

  He refocused on her. “Do you not think some ideas people hold to be antiquated?”

  This had to be about being friends! Her jaw parted. She clamped it shut and prayed he would say more.

  He increased his hold on her arm with gentle pressure before speaking. “We’ll show them all men and women can be friends.”

  He released her arm and she swiveled quickly toward the door to hide her grin. He may have vowed he wanted only to be friends, but the hunger in his eyes told another story. As friends for now, she would continue to see him socially. Now all she had to do was be so irresistible that he would not be able to help falling in love with her and forgetting his ridiculous objection to getting married.

  One week later

  London, England

  Inside the gaming halls of Wolverton’s Den

  Trent stared at the cards in his hands, but they blurred, refusing to fight for his attention. In all his years of playing Vingt-et-un he had never lost a game, unless purposely in order to obtain information, but he was about five seconds away from losing.

  From across the table, his cousin Whitney’s betrothed, Drake Sutherland, glanced up from his cards and smirked, causing fine lines of amusement to appear around his keen brown eyes.

  “I seem to be winning,” he drawled, his American accent making the words sound slower than they ought to.

  Trent narrowed his eyes, refusing to bandy words, though given this last week it was unlikely a simple look would stop Sutherland from prying. The previous seven rude warnings had not deterred the man. Irritating as it was, Trent had to forgive him. Sutherland was only following the well-intended, though misguided, directives of Whitney. Since she was his favorite cousin, by nature of their similar personalities, Trent forgave her too, but when he saw her next, he was going to have to set her straight on meddling in his life. He refocused on his cards, hoping Sutherland’s attempt was over.

  “Say, Dinnisfree, do you not think Davenport has been rather preoccupied this last week?” Sutherland boomed. Trent snapped his head up and shot Justin Holleman, the Duke of Dinnisfree, a warning look.

  The duke flicked his red hair out of his eyes and acknowledged Trent’s look by tapping his right index finger on the table, a signal no one but one of the prince regent’s spies―or retired spies in Trent’s case―would understand. Sometimes using one of the old secret signals would twist his gut with regret and make him question whether giving his resignation to the prince had been the right decision. Then he would remember the little matter of his revealed identity thanks to his deceitful, double-crossing deceased French wife. May her black soul rest in peace.

  Dinnisfree picked up a card. “I’ve noticed nothing unusual in Davenport’s mannerisms. The man is aloof, as always.” Dinnisfree’s bored tone offered no friendly avenue to continue the conversation. Trent relaxed, until Sutherland grinned.

  Sutherland laid his cards faceup. “I’ve won again, gentlemen.”

  “So you have,” Trent agreed, working to keep his tone carefully neutral.

  Sutherland drew his winnings toward him, the coins scraping the wood as he did so. Once he had a neat gleaming pile, he spoke. “This is exactly what I mean, Dinnisfree. You cannot deny Davenport’s preoccupation.” Sutherland glanced at Trent. “Someone has your attention to the exclusion of everything else. Very unlike you.”

  A trace of humor underlay the words, but the remark still set Trent on edge. He gripped his whiskey glass and downed the contents with a single gulp. Fire blossomed in his belly. As he set the glass down with a clank, one of the many demireps Nash Wolverton, the club’s owner, employed to keep the men in his hellfire club happy and present, strolled past, only to stop in front of the elaborately painted Chinese wall where she turned slowly to face Trent.

  She ran one hand down her sheer jade costume. The woman’s long dark hair reminded him of Audrey’s. It was almost the same shade, but not nearly as shiny, nor did it have the soft waves Audrey’s hair possessed. Trent’s fingers flexed in remembrance of the way her locks slid like silk through his hands the one time he had touched the strands.

  Damnation. This preoccupation with her was getting worse with each passing day―not better. As the demirep sauntered toward him with an open invitation of sin on her parted moist lips and her eyes slumberous with desire, he shook his head subtly. Her eyes opened wide, but she took his hint and twisted away. This was the seventh open invitation to sleeping with a woman he had turned down this week.

  What the devil was wrong with him? The only thing he could pinpoint was Audrey. Had asking her to be his friend been foolhardy? Should he have handled things differently with her when the truth of her innocence and what she wanted had surfaced? Even if he should have, he was not sure he could have. A picture of her standing in the Duchess of Primwitty’s guest chamber flashed in his mind―disheveled hair, swollen kissable crimson lips. Her face tinged a lovely shade of pink with the heat of her embarrassment. When her confession of her innocence and desire tumbled out of her mouth in a rush of words, he had not been able to retain his anger for her misleading him. Not only that, he had been incapable of ending their acquaintance.

  The idea of being friends had come to him and seemed a fine plan. Learning she was innocent and wanted him to court her, he had assumed the nightly fantasies of her would cease. But she still appeared in his dreams every night naked and writhing on his bed with his cream silk sheets tangled about her slender body, her dark hair fanned out around her in sable waves and her bodice undone to expose the swell of creamy flesh her elaborate gowns always pushed up enticingly. He groaned at the mental picture.

  Laughter erupted across the table, almost drowned by the dull roar of conversation from the lords gambling and talking nearby. His former training as a spy to hear everything and nothing at once allowed him to pick out a trace of a slow American guffaw. He narrowed his gaze on Sutherland. Before he could warn the man not to pester him further, Sutherland spoke. “You can deny it all you want, but ever since you got the preposterous notion in your head that you and Lady Audrey can be friends, you’ve been preoccupied by thoughts of her.”

  Trent ground his teeth. “I’m not preoccupied by any woman.” Dreams of his dead wife Gwyneth’s betrayal surely did not count. When he slept, he could not block the memories of being deposited by her and her Napoleon-crazed brother in a French prison to be tortured and killed. As for Audrey…England would go a year without rain before he ever admitted to fantasizing about her. Besides, it was temporary. He was sure of it. Once he bedded another woman, his lust would slack.

  Sutherland shrugged. “As I said, refuting it is useless. I see it in your eyes. You may as well abandon your stance against marriage and give in. Now that Lady Audrey is under your skin, you will fall. I predict sooner rather than later.” Sutherland whipped
out a cigarillo and lit it. He took a long draw before continuing. “Mark my words.”

  Trent did not consider himself a violent man, but he had the urge to mark something―as Sutherland had put it―like the man’s smirking face. A nice sound facer would likely make Sutherland quit looking at him as if he knew his inner thoughts better than he did, but that would ruin their friendship, and since Sutherland was to marry his cousin next week, thereby becoming a relative, fisticuffs did not seem the best solution.

  He drummed his fingers against his thigh. It got so tiresome fending off his friends and family’s well-meaning efforts to understand―and because they never could quite comprehend― then try to change the fact that he did not presently have nor ever want a wife. He would love to give up the sham of the perpetually carefree rake, but he could not.

  Trent yanked on his cravat. His own questioning of his ability to stick to what he said was one thing, but he despised another man doubting him, especially when the man did not know all the facts.

  Hell, he had ended up becoming a spy because of a situation similar to this one. His father’s long-ago revelation that he had formerly been a spy, followed by his laughing comment that Trent did not have the bollocks for such a commitment, had sent Trent straight to Prinny to offer his services. In less than a week, he had given up gambling, drinking and chasing women to go into training to serve his country. It had transformed his life. Thank God, his father had still been alive to see the change.

  That old training now echoed through his head. Every movement you make gives your enemy a clue, his father had once told him. He moved his hand and Sutherland’s gaze followed. Sutherland was not an enemy, but he was attempting to meddle. Trent forced himself to hold perfectly still. “As usual, Sutherland, you have no idea what you’re speaking about.”

  Marriage required trust and faith, and after his disastrous marriage to Gwyneth, no trust and faith remained in him to give to another woman. Of course, Sutherland did not know that. No one, except Dinnisfree, knew he had not so long ago been a spy for Prinny. And the only living individuals who knew he was the widower of a clever French spy who had duped him and betrayed him were Dinnisfree and Gwyneth’s brother. Frustration coiled through his body.

  As usual, he could not explain himself. There was no explaining his dead wife without lying about who she was and who he had been, and he’d had enough lies to last a lifetime. Besides, he would never put his family in danger by relenting to his wish to make them understand why he did not want to marry. No words could aptly describe how being duped into marrying the very enemy he was working for England to guard against still twisted his gut into pulsing hard knots.

  “This conversation is boring me,” Dinnisfree said, shoving his chair away from the table. He clamped a hand on Trent’s shoulder. “If you aren’t going to accept that bit o’ muslin’s invitation to bed her, I will.”

  Trent flicked his gaze toward the woman in question lingering by the grand piano in the corner of the room. She had one hand placed cleverly above her head to best display her ample charms. It rested, as if naturally, on the large white column that reached to the vaulted ceiling. Her other hand lingered on the curve of her tiny waist. Trent waited for a surge of lust. Interest. Anything. By damn, there was not a hint of desire, same as all week.

  He pushed the bothersome thought away and focused on the two men talking to her. She stepped toward the shorter of the two gentlemen and slid her arms around his neck. “Looks like she has already found another patron for the night.”

  “Probably best,” Dinnisfree said. “If she is willing to sleep with a drunken dandy like Richard Cringlewood, then I’m certain I would not be impressed by her.”

  Trent chuckled as he stared across the smoky room. Audrey’s brother, Cringlewood, reached behind his neck and untwined the woman’s hands. “It appears that Cringlewood is declining her invitation as well. Perhaps he is not as cork-brained as you think him to be.”

  Dinnisfree slapped a palm on the table, making the glasses rattle. “Do not let your lust over the man’s sister cloud your senses. You know as well as I do Cringlewood has a gambling problem and is overly fond of liquor.”

  Damned the duke for his loose tongue. Typical of his unapologetic friend, he shrugged when Trent glared at him. “I’d wager Cringlewood only declined the demirep’s offer because he lacks the funds she would expect from any gentlemen as payment for services well rendered.”

  Ignoring the stares of the few men who had dared to look their way, Trent sought Cringlewood out once more. “I’ve heard rumors that his debt at many of the clubs is mounting.”

  “I’ve heard the same,” Dinnisfree said with a nod. “I’ve also seen him and his partner in misadventure, Thortonberry, at every club I’ve been to this week.”

  “As have I,” Trent said. “I don’t care for Thortonberry. The man acts as if he is hiding something. Not only that, I have seen him with a different demirep for seven straight evenings.”

  “That part does not bother me,” Dinnisfree quipped. “But I agree he has the shifty-eyed look of a man concealing a secret.”

  “I think he is simply reserved,” Sutherland said. “I had a chance to become better acquainted with him this week, as Whitney has dragged me to a different ball every night, and last evening I spoke with him after he danced with Lady Audrey.”

  Trent narrowed his focus on Thortonberry’s black evening-attire-clad figure in the distance. The man was dressed for an evening at a ball. Was he planning to seek Audrey out again? Trent studied him, not liking what he saw. Thortonberry grasped the demirep by the elbow and led her under the warm glowing light of six gleaming chandeliers and out of the gaming hall toward the direction of the pleasure rooms. Trent considered Sutherland’s revelation. The desire to ask which dance Audrey had granted Thortonberry and if they had danced more than once gnawed at his belly, but he refused to give in to the emotions. Instead, he focused on learning more about the man’s character. “Did the marquess seem a forthright man to you?”

  “He did, though I will say he acted rather bumbling around Lady Audrey, as if she made him nervous. I thought that rather odd for a man who has no problem bedding a different woman every night, unless of course Lady Audrey makes him self-conscious because he cares for her.”

  Dinnisfree snorted. “Or that is his ploy to seduce her. Rather a smart one if you ask me, though I’d never resort to such measures.”

  Trent squeezed the ledge of the table until a jagged splinter pierced the flesh of his index finger. Without a sound, he jerked his hand away and plucked out the splinter.

  “Is something a matter?” Sutherland asked, his mouth turned up in a sly smile, his gaze locked on Trent’s hand.

  “Not a thing.” Jealousy may be pounding through him, but he would be damned if he would give in to it or reveal it in his tone.

  When Cringlewood glanced in their direction, Trent waved the man over.

  Sutherland grinned. “Are you quite sure your cousin is not right and that you do actually care for Lady Audrey?”

  Trent gave Sutherland a long hard look. “I’m concerned for her welfare as I would be for any friend.”

  “Yet she is not your friend,” Dinnisfree said, his reddish-blond brows pulling together. “She is a woman.”

  “I’m aware of that fact,” Trent drawled. “I’m of the opinion”―albeit a new one―“that men and women can be friends. As her friend, I’d be utterly remiss if I did not alert her brother to the potential threat to her innocence.”

  Sutherland gawked. “Are you saying Thortonberry is threatening her innocence? This is rather ironic considering you were a threat to her virtue, don’t you think?”

  Trent clenched his jaw. “Unwitting threat,” he muttered.

  “I find that hard to believe,” Sutherland countered, amusement lacing his tone.

  Trent ground his teeth until pain shot up the right side of his face. He was not about to defend himself by besmirching Audrey’s reputation
. No one need ever know they had shared a kiss and then she had informed him of her innocence. “I suppose you are correct. I learned first hand how chaste the woman is when I tried to kiss her. I can tell you, she has quite a smart slap.” He rubbed his right cheek as if remembering.

  “I’ll be damned,” Dinnisfree blurted, showing surprise, which was not like him at all. “I never thought I would live to see the day a woman turned you down.”

  Trent shrugged. “Now you have.”

  Sutherland frowned. “Your confession is noble, Davenport, but what does it have to do with you thinking Thortonberry is trying to seduce Lady Audrey?”

  “I’m telling you from personal experience a man who sleeps with a different demirep every night has no intentions of properly courting any woman anytime soon. If he did he would refrain.”

  Sutherland nodded. “I’m inclined to agree.”

  Trent raked a hand through his hair. Since he had met Audrey, he had not slept with a single other woman, let alone seven like Thortonberry. For that matter, he had not even felt a sliver of desire for any other than her. Not good. Not good at all. He did not want to be infatuated with Audrey or any other woman ever again. When a man relented to those sorts of emotions it gave a woman power over him, and a woman who could bend a man with her smile could unhinge him body and soul.

  Again, he had the prickling notion that asking her to be his friend may not have been wise, but it was done. He prided himself on his ability to control his emotions and he never turned his back on a friend. As her friend, it was his duty to make sure her brother was keeping a sharp eye on her. And if he learned she was not being properly chaperoned now that she was home, he would warn her away from Thortonberry himself, as any good friend would do. “I have to keep Thortonberry away from her,” he muttered.

  Sutherland leaned forward. “I’m not so sure. Thortonberry may not have decided if he wants to court her yet or not. Perhaps when he makes the decision he will give up the demireps, as he should. Besides, how do you plan to tell her brother you think he is doing a poor job of supervising his sister? How well do you know Cringlewood?”