Page 13 of The Lady Knows Best

“I believe we ascertained just moments ago that I’m no gentleman.”

All at once, she seemed to realize where they now stood: on the dimly it balcony, alone.

“Oh, I see.” She looked around, and then her chin jutted forward. “I ought to have been on my guard, given what I’ve heard about your penchant for darkness and . . . chess.”

Chess?

Good God, had Alistair been serious? Was playing chess really the latest slang for seduction? Though it would surprise him if even Miss Burke was outspoken enough to use the kind of vulgarities favored by dandies and rogues.

No, her choice of words felt almost as mocking as her moves on the dance floor had done. As if she somehow knew...

But how could she? The magazine had omitted certain details about that night from its sordid tale, including that fateful game of chess. Had Miss Grey originally been more forthcoming? And had Miss Burke somehow seen that letter in its entirety? How could that be, though, unless she had some connection to the magazine . . . ?

Understanding dawned, uncharacteristically sharp and bright.

She spun to face him, and the timing of her movement made him half wonder whether there had been an audible click as the pieces came together in his mind.

Her steely eyes flashed. She stood closer now than she had earlier. Too close. “What is it you want, Lord Deveraux?”

“I think you already know the answer.”

She shook her head, as if trying to deny it.

“I need a wife to win a wager. And you’re going to find me one.”

A sound grated in the back of her throat, something between a choking noise and a scoff. “Why would I do that?” she demanded, though some of the certainty had left her voice.

“I think you know the answer to that too.” He tipped his head closer still, so that his lips brushed the shell of her ear as he whispered, “Don’t you, Miss Busy B.?”

CHAPTER 5

The buzz in Daphne’s ears was loud enough to drive away thought. When she managed to speak—“I haven’t the faintest notion what you’re talking about!”—the words sounded muffled and far away.

His warm laugh stirred her hair. “Oh, I think you do.”

Quickly, she moved away from the door, where they might be overheard, and toward the railing, near where she’d been standing earlier. When she glanced back at him, he was wearing a smug expression.

“How did you—?” she demanded incoherently. “Were you eavesdropping on my conversation with my sister?”

“Eavesdropping?” As he’d done while they were dancing, he laid his hand over his heart in a gesture of mock sincerity. “Perish the thought. No, you told me who you are.”

“I told you?”

“Oh, not in so many words,” he acknowledged, stepping closer. The light from the torchieres made his golden hair gleam. “Well, one word. Chess.”

Daphne had never let herself dwell for long on what exactly Aggrieved in Grosvenor Square had witnessed between her betrothed and another woman, though she’d always suspected the game of chess was a euphemism for something salacious.

Now that she had realized the man involved was Lord Deveraux, she was sure of it.

“The only person who could have told you exactly what she saw that night in the library was Miss Grey,” he said. “The details weren’t included in the magazine, if you recall. I asked myself why she would have done that, how she happened to know Miss Burke. Burke with a B, you see. And then I asked myself why you seemed to have taken a personal interest in avenging her honor. Why you reacted so strangely when I suggested that the truth . . . stings.”

With every revelation, her jaw tightened further, until by the end of his explanation, her teeth ached. A better writer would have been more careful with her words.

“Do you know,” he added, with one of those lopsided, charming smiles, “if I’d realized when I was younger that my brain is capable of such perspicacity, I wouldn’t have had to snap quite so many of my mathematics tutor’s pencils, nor hide from lessons quite so often.”

Of course he’d been a poor student too. She narrowly avoided rolling her eyes. “And now you expect me to find someone willing to marry a cad like you?”

“Yes, yes. That devil, Deveraux. The worst scoundrel in existence.” He sounded bored. And vaguely . . . hurt? But no. That couldn’t be. He hadn’t even tried to deny Miss Grey’s accusation. “I find it strangely reassuring, knowing I can’t sink any lower in your estimation.”