Page 100 of A Deal with the Devil

Chapter Twenty-Five

Dinner at Rochester House was like nothing Kitty had ever experienced.

She was accustomed to her distracted father drifting in and out between high-stakes games, her aunt’s pointed lectures, Evie’s attempts to keep the peace. More often than not, Kitty remained at the shop for a quick meal of bread and cheese and then felt guilty for abandoning her sister.

She missed her sister terribly, but she did not miss her father or her aunt. She wondered if that made her a bad person. If she cared.

The cutlery was silver and a single fork cost more than her wardrobe. The goblets were cut crystal, the tablecloth cream-colored lace. It was a crime to eat on it. Some old woman had likely spent months working on it by the light of a single, awful-smelling tallow candle, her fingers gnarled and aching.

“Daphne Penderghast is half my age and suggested I soak my head in a pail of slop when I asked her if she would rather I find her other work,” Devil said drily, as if Kitty amused him deeply.

She closed her eyes briefly. She really had to learn how to keep her every thought inside her head.

“That sounds dull,” he said.

“Stop it.”

“Stop what?”

“Reading my mind. I am sure I didn’t say that last part out loud.”

“Are you?”

“Mostly sure.” She made a face. “Probably.”

Tom sat across the table watching them as if they were the most fascinating play ever to grace Drury Lane. Beside him was Yelena, and Macleod, Brutus, and Godric had joined them as well. None of them wore silks or brocades or diamond buckles. It made her feel better about her simple dress, the one she had borrowed from the Spinster Society house. It was nicer than all of hers, with nary an ink stain on the sleeve or bodice. Yet.

“Are you very shocked to be eating with simple soldiers?” Tom grinned at her. He wore diamond buckles and a brocade vest, but it did not make her feel smaller. It only made him happy. She was too used to diamonds and pearls being used as weapons, subtly or otherwise.

Godric looked up, pained. “We can eat in the kitchen. I didn’t think.”

“You’ll do no such thing,” Kitty said sharply. “Godric, you are aware by now, I am sure, of the sorts of books I mostly sell and lend?” His cheeks turned ruddy. She took that as an affirmative. “So you see, I should be the one eating in the kitchen.”

“No one is eating in the kitchen,” Devil said in that mild way of his, which was not mild at all.

Kitty liked this table and this room and this group of people eating together. She liked this man. And as she was very aware that their time together was limited, she did not bring up the kitchen again. Except to offer her firstborn child for another serving of the best strawberry trifle she had eaten in her entire life.

“How is your ankle?” Devil asked her as they rose from their chairs to move to the drawing room.

“Barely hurts at all,” she assured him.

“Bet it feels better than that blighter’s ankle does after trying to snatch you away,” Tom said with a vengeful glee.

“Tom…” Devil said.

“What do you mean?” Kitty asked.

Tom grinned. “Look at the time. I’m late to…be somewhere else.” He took off with a jaunty wave.

Kitty narrowed her eyes. “What did he mean? About the man who tried to abduct me?”

Devil shrugged. “He hurt your ankle. So I broke his.”

She gaped at him. “You can’t just—”

He raised an eyebrow. “He hurt you.”

“But—”