Page 56 of A Deal with the Devil

“I’m here for you.”

That conjured up all sorts of new ideas.

Not helping.

He had steered her to his waiting carriage before she quite knew what he was about. Sir Reginald hung nearly halfway out of his window to watch them. He was going to land right on his head if he leaned out any further. A curtain twitched upstairs, over their heads. Her aunt’s room.

Kitty all but leapt into the carriage. “If you want to talk to me, you can drop me at the bookshop,” she said. Devil’s carriage was just as luxurious in the light of day.

“Certainly.”

But when the carriage pulled to a stop, she peered out of the window. “Bollocks.” She turned to glare at him. “You are not in your right mind.”

Escorting Kitty was like escorting a firecracker. A particularly stubborn, quarrelsome firecracker.

He liked that about her.

These days the people who were brave enough to deny him were generally desperate. Even then, they were just as willing to fall over themselves to gain his favor, to do exactly as he asked in the exact manner in which he asked them. He knew several ladies who would have hurled themselves bodily into this particular shop had he suggested even a hint of interest.

Not Kitty.

She dug in her heels, expression blazingly and adorably mutinous. Her freckles smoldered like sparks. “Are you insane?” she asked again.

Pedestrians glanced at them curiously, as did one of the shop clerks. When he recognized Devil through the glass, he bowed his head in greeting. Carriages continued to trundle along behind them, horses snorting, wheels creaking. A dog barked at them from the end of a braided leash. Still, Kitty did not move. Not one inch.

He’d wanted her before—that was no secret. He wanted her even more now.

She glared up at him. “No.”

He leaned one shoulder against the doorjamb, perfectly willing to wait her out. If he knew anything, it was patience. The clerk stilled at his subtle gesture. “What’s the problem, little firecracker?”

Her glare narrowed further. “Little firecracker?”

“You are practically breathing fire.”

She rolled her eyes. “I have red hair, yes, very clever. And I’m short, well spotted.”

“You have fire in your veins, Kitty. Your hair has nothing to do with it.”

He had confused her, just a little. Good. She bewildered him daily, and it was high time he returned the favor. She was distracting. It was unacceptable.

And yet here he was.

“De—Rhys, you can’t be serious. I’m not setting foot in there with you.”

“You make it sound positively sordid,” he drawled, mostly because he knew the drawl would needle her. And he liked her needled. It made her even more honest. Distracting and refreshing. “It’s just Rundell and Bridge.”

“‘Jewelers to Their Majesties,’” Kitty read from the sign as though Devil had taken a wrong turn somewhere, “‘His Royal Highness the prince regent and the royal family.’”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Why?” she asked bluntly. Suspiciously. It made him want to kiss her until she was soft and warm against him. Breathless.

“I am shattered that you do not remember our betrothal,” he said.

He saw the exact moment she wrestled her expression into something suitable, because before that he had seen more than she wanted: curiosity, temptation. Horror.

Horror.