Page 48 of As the Devil Dares

She stopped, freezing in place like a startled doe, but he knew her sharp mind was whirling at a million miles a minute to find a way out of this latest mess she’d placed herself into.

Then, drawing a deep breath, she sat back on her heels and folded her hands contritely in her lap. “Now, Robert, please understand—”

“Your own introduction,” he bit out, not allowing himself to be distracted by her use of his given name. Or her captivating mix of innocence and wickedness as she gazed up at him through lowered lashes. “Are you trying to end your season before it’s even begun?”

He squatted down onto the balls of his feet and brought his eyes level with hers. The angry glare she must have seen on his face kept her silent. For once. Wise woman. He was through playing games.

“Lord and Lady St James have been kind enough to allow the use of their ball to introduce you. So you will accept the invitation,” he ordered, his voice far more controlled than he felt. But then, he was rarely in control of himself around her. “And you will send a note to the countess apologizing for the confusion and any distress you have caused.”

Defiance flared in her eyes. “No, I won’t.”

Damnable woman. Challenging and obstinate at every turn. “And my mother?” he pressed, playing his trump card. “Should she be gossiped about because you refuse to attend?”

Guilt flitted across her face, and he felt a small surge of satisfaction. But when she bit her bottom lip and drew his attention to her ripe mouth, he felt something else pulse through him, this time tingling down to the tip of his cock and leaving him achingly unsatisfied.

“You are going to that ball,” he warned, his blood beginning to heat from the irritation she stirred inside him, and from the way her wet clothes clung to her, “even if I have to toss you over my shoulder and carry you inside the ballroom myself.”

Her chin raised stubbornly. “I’d like to see you try!”

He growled out through bared teeth, “Mariah, if you don’t—”

“Miss!” A child’s high-pitched yell cut through their argument, followed by the sound of footsteps pounding up the stairs. A wailing cry echoed through the rooms. “MMMMIIIISSSS!”

A little girl raced into the room and sped right past Robert without a glance as she launched herself at Mariah, who caught the child in her arms. She pulled the girl close as violent sobs poured from the skinny creature with mussed blond braids, who couldn’t have been more than four or five. The girl’s left arm wrapped tightly around Mariah’s neck while her right arm gripped a headless doll.

Mariah cooed soothingly and pulled the girl onto her lap. She cradled her in her arms, rocking her softly until the worst of the wailing ceased and the cries gentled into strangled sobs.

Her eyes lifted to meet Robert’s, and she held his gaze for a moment over the little girl’s head. Her concern for the child and her wariness that he was witnessing the incident were both unmistakable.

“What is it, Polly?” She carefully unwrapped the little girl’s arm from its death grip around her neck and set her away just far enough to look down into her tear-streaked face. With a worried frown, she smoothed the girl’s hair away from her forehead. “What’s happened?”

“It’s—it’s Lu-Lucy,” Polly choked out between hiccupping sobs. Her nose glowed red. “The boys took her, and they—they—” She thrust the headless doll at Mariah, as if that said it all. So did the angry “Boys!” that she bit out.

Then Polly glared over her shoulder at Robert, as if he embodied all the most horrible aspects of his sex. The ferocity of her look set him rocking back onto his heels.

“Not all boys are bad,” Mariah assured her, the fleeting glance she spared him inscrutable. “What did they do?”

“They hurt her!” Polly thrust the doll at her again. “See?”

Robert’s chest panged at the girl’s grief over her doll. The boys hadn’t hurt the pathetic little collection of stuffed rags in a dirty blue dress—they’d decapitated it.

“Where?” Mariah asked, her brow furrowing.

Where? Good Lord, it was obvious. But he had to give her credit for her composure in front of the child, the way she lovingly brushed her fingertips over the girl’s hair and calmly soothed away her tears. It was a caring, maternal side to her. And it stunned him to see it.

“Right here.” Polly lifted the mangled doll and pointed to a spot on its arm. “See?”

“Oh dear,” Mariah said with deep concern, taking the piece of stuffed rags gently into her hands. “She’s cut her arm.”

Her arm? The doll was missing its head, for heaven’s sake! But Mariah seemed as nonplussed about the decapitation as the girl.

“They hurt her,” Polly whispered, so intensely that Robert feared she might start wailing again.

“I’m certain they didn’t mean to,” Mariah assured her gently.

And Robert was certain the boys had intended much worse. He remembered every doll of Josie’s that he and his brothers had shaved bald, dragged from ropes behind their ponies, strapped to an archery target to take turns shooting arrows at it…They’d even blown one up with gunpowder. Boys, indeed.

“Will she get better?” Polly wiped the back of her dirty hand across her eyes.