Page 88 of A Deal with the Devil

The marble floor was laid out in a black-and-white checkerboard pattern, polished so expertly that her own reflection stared back up at her. She did not need to look at it to know she was woefully underdressed for such a house. A white statue of a Roman lady stood at the bottom of the curved staircase, easily ten feet tall.

Kitty was shown to a bedchamber the size of her entire bookshop by the housekeeper, who did not blink an eye at a spinster moving in so late at night and hobbling on one foot. Until Devil swept Kitty up in his arms again and insisted on carrying her up the stairs.

“I can walk,” she whispered against his chest.

“I like carrying you,” he said simply.

And there was nothing she could think of to say back to that. Because she liked him carrying her too. A lot. Too much.

Devil summoned a doctor, who confirmed her ankle was not sprained, and when he suggested ice and a comfrey wrap, Kitty smirked at Devil smugly. He also confirmed that the cut on Devil’s arm was healed and would not trouble him further, because Kitty refused to present her ankle until Devil presented his arm.

Devil also sent word to Yelena that she should join them as a chaperone. He looked charmingly helpless when he asked Kitty if he should invite anyone else to stay with them in order to safeguard her reputation.

Safeguarding reputations was not exactly what he was known for.

She only shrugged at him just as helplessly. It was not exactly her area of expertise either. She was the daughter of a disgraced minor baron. She was firmly on the shelf. Evie would have known. She’d read all of the etiquette books when she was not devouring volumes on the insects and venomous snakes of Ancient Egypt.

Kitty would rather poke herself in the eye. There were so many other books to read. Decorum made her sleepy.

A slight miscalculation on her part, perhaps.

She limped across the polished floors, dotted with hand-knotted rugs in a rich, dark blue that matched the curtains and the bedspread. Porcelain candlesticks painted with white roses stood on the mantel and on the table by the chair. A bench draped with lace sat next to the bed with another candle and a dish of sugared violets. The ceiling was a mural of the sky swirling with stars, a glowing moon overlooking it all. The whole chamber was like a still, dark winter’s night.

She loved it. It was peaceful. Dark in a way that was more comforting than froth and sunshine.

She still could not sleep.

The idea was laughable. She felt as though she had drunk the equivalent of the Thames in tea and then added a trough of coffee. Devil was just across the hall, doing whatever it was devils did when night fell. He had promised to do lovely, filthy things to her, but that was before the attempted abduction, before he broke down her door, before her family. Before the scramble to find a chaperone, which she still found ridiculous. Not only was she nearly thirty years old, but chaperones had to sleep like everyone else. It was laughably easy to work around them and sneak from bed to bed if one so wished. She would never understand Mayfair.

And she would not have to.

She was not really marrying Devil.

That was the entire point of not ruining her. So he would not be forced to marry her. She did not blame him. And so she would not fight the occult rules of the ton.

As if staying even one hour under the Devil’s roof was not enough to thoroughly ruin her.

In fact, she looked forward to it. If nothing else, she would have delicious memories that were just for her. It would have to be enough when Evie was safe and settled and Kitty went back to being a spinster who ducked rotting fruit professionally.

And anyway, she had more pressing problems, surely. Such as Lady Carolie. Or at least Agnes. Was it really only this morning that she had stolen a book from Lord Tadworth?

When it all threatened to overwhelm her, she left her rooms in favor of lurking about the house. A walk would do her good. It would siphon off some of the jagged energy swimming under her skin. Her ankle already felt much better. She was barely hobbling.

She headed for the library, because she always headed for the library.

It did not disappoint: it was filled with books and marble busts of Roman emperors. It smelled like wood smoke and roses and the sweet vanilla scent of paper.

And it was presided over by its king.

“I’ve been waiting for you,” Devil said quietly from the shadows of a leather armchair. The candle burning at his elbow cast him into suitable relief, like a carved Hades. He wore a black dressing gown. His damp hair curled, slightly too long and entirely perfect. She wanted to feel it between her fingers.

“Devil,” she said uselessly. She could not call him Rhys, not when he was so thoroughly Devil, from the shadows to the glint of his otherworldly eyes. She could easily imagine his ruling over hell. Or as a faery king. Didn’t some people consider the fairy folk to be just fallen angels under a different name?

“I thought you’d end up here eventually.”

“I can’t sleep,” she admitted.

“Is the chamber not to your liking?”

She sent him a dry look. There was no point in answering such an absurd question.

“Then you should go to bed,” he warned in a silky, whiskey-rough voice that made her swallow.

“Why?”

“Because I very much want to keep my promise to you.”