Page 110 of A Deal with the Devil

Chapter Twenty-Seven

“This is a terrible idea,” Kitty blurted out.

“You wanted to search Portsmouth’s house.” Devil shrugged as if Kitty was not gaping at him in abject horror.

“I do want that,” she said. “But not this.”

“This is how you get that.”

“Surely there’s another way.”

That crooked smile, swift as a swallow at dusk. “It’s just a party.”

“Celebrating our betrothal.” Which was temporary. She tried not to shout, she really did. “With every duke and earl in London! There are three marquises on this list. The bloody Prince of Wales is on this guest list.” She jabbed an accusatory finger at it, then at a sample invitation on thick paper with red and gold trim.

You are cordially invited to join Lord Birmingham in celebration of his betrothal to Miss Catherine Caldecott, Rochester House, Thursday evening.

Even reading it made her break out into a cold sweat.

“That’s tomorrow.”

He would expect her to know the rules of Polite Society beyond the obvious ones. To know how to waltz. Or speak French or Italian. To make scintillating small talk as if she was not sweating through her stays. Worse, he would expect his guests to attend despite her reputation and standing in Society. And they would attend, because he was Devil. Were he anyone else, they would snub him for his supposed marriage to an infamous bookseller.

“You don’t know what you’re asking.” She rubbed at her breastbone. “You’re insane. Clearly. I always knew it.”

“I’m asking you to stand in an abysmally boring receiving line for half an hour and then sneak out the side door with me so we can rifle through Portsmouth’s house while he is drinking my very expensive champagne.”

“Oh.” She perked up. “That, I can do.”

“Don’t let them scare you.”

“I’m not scared of them.” She wrinkled her nose. “I’m scared one of them will sneak in a rotten cabbage and hurl it at my head.”

“Believe me, that is not going to happen.”

“I think you underestimate them, Polite Society or not.” After all, she had helped secrete away more than one of their wives.

Devil’s eyes were hot, his tone cold. The combination should not have made her lightheaded with sudden desire. “I think you underestimate me.”

Kitty did not know the first thing about planning a dinner party for nearly one hundred of the highest-ranking members of the Ton at the best of times, never mind these times, which were very much not the best. This was supposed to be a spectacle, a message to the Ton. A way to keep Portsmouth occupied.

The prince had declined, thank God. Her family had not been invited, thank the Devil.

And she had no idea what sauce partridges should be cooked in or if was to be served on silver platters, à la Russe or in the French style.

The housekeeper might as well have been speaking actual French. Kitty had no intention of eating pigeon in jelly. There was also mushrooms in white sauce, baked artichokes, fricasseed hare, roasted lamb, mackerel in fennel and mint. White soup.

What was white soup?

Kitty stared at the housekeeper while reminding herself that this was not an actual disaster. This was very low on the list. She could withstand public humiliation. She had infinite expertise. She might embarrass Devil, which she did not care to do, but it was his own fault, really.

“I can hear you panicking from down the hall.” Tom poked his head into the parlor. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Winter,” he said, winking at the housekeeper. He had just come from some errand, likely to the Sins, and wore a lovely lilac top hat to match the fading bruise around his eye. “When are you going to run away with me?”

“Just as soon as you stop leaving your gloves strewn about the place like dandelions,” she replied crisply.

Sarcasm. Delightfully inappropriate sarcasm that ignored the proper order of things: i.e. servants and booksellers in an earl’s house about to feed three dukes and a marquis. Six earls.

Kitty’s spine felt less like it was made of glass that might shatter at any moment. Or at any question regarding dessert forks. She could add columns of numbers in her head and calculate percentages in her sleep. She knew the names of every couple from each of the thirty-book series about blue-skinned warriors.