see how she would respond to Dev’s calculated remark.
“I am flattered that you claim to remember so much about me,” Susanna said lightly. “I had forgotten all about you.”
Dev’s smile deepened at the setdown. The look he gave her sent heat searing through her.
“Oh, I remember everything about you, Lady … Carew,” he said.
“You never knew everything about me, Sir James,” Susanna said.
Their gazes locked like the hiss of blades engaging. Susanna’s skin prickled with awareness. Too late to back down now …
“On the contrary,” Dev said. “I remember, for instance, the very last time we met.” There was a hint of devilry in his eyes. He was enjoying baiting her. Susanna saw it and felt a flare of anger.
Then her gaze fell on Emma’s furious, pouting face and her anger dissolved into relief. This was just for show on Dev’s part, to punish her for past sins and make her squirm. He had no intention of revealing the truth. It would damage him as much as it would her. Emma, she was already persuaded, was no meek and biddable betrothed. And Emma must surely hold the purse strings because Dev had never had any money at all.
Susanna allowed her gaze to consider the extravagant embroidery on Dev’s white and gold waistcoat, the crisp quality of his linen and the unmistakable value of the diamond in his cravat pin. Then she let her eyes drift to Emma again. She saw Dev’s gaze follow her. She knew he understood.
Finally, she smiled. “Well,” she said, “I am sure you would not be so churlish as to bore everyone with the details, Sir James. There is nothing so tedious for others as old acquaintances harping on about past times.”
“Did you know one another in Ireland?” Emma had clearly had enough of their conversation. She pushed between them, looking from Dev to Susanna with ill-concealed jealousy. She made Ireland sound like the back of beyond, a place fit only to leave.
“We met briefly in Scotland,” Susanna said, “when Sir James was visiting his cousin Lord Grant one summer. It was a very long time ago.”
“But now we have the happy opportunity to renew our acquaintance.” The expression in Dev’s eyes was in direct contrast to the smoothness of his tone. “You must grant me the next dance, Lady Carew, so that we may talk about the past without boring our friends.”
In one sentence he had demolished her attempts to escape. Susanna mentally gritted her teeth. She recognized that determination in him. He had had the same single-mindedness at eighteen. He had seen something he wanted and he had taken it. She shivered.
“I have no desire to rake over the past,” she said. “I fear I am promised for the next, Sir James. You must excuse me.”
She turned pointedly to Fitz, allowing her fingers to brush his wrist in the lightest of gestures that nevertheless conveyed a hint of promise. She had almost forgotten about Fitz in the tumult of her feelings on seeing Devlin again. Already she had allowed herself to become distracted, which was not good enough when Fitz’s parents’ commission was all that stood between her and life on the London streets.
“Thank you for introducing me to your friends, my lord,” she said. “I hope we shall meet again soon.”
She scattered an impartial smile around the group, noting that Chessie’s response was a rather less than friendly nod and that Emma failed to acknowledge her at all. Fitz seemed impervious to the strained atmosphere and kissed her hand with a gallantry that made Dev frown. Chessie turned away, as though she could not bear to watch Fitz’s attentiveness to another woman.
Susanna started to walk quickly toward the ballroom door. Now that she had escaped Dev her heart was bumping against her ribs in reaction and she felt breathless and shaky all over again. She needed somewhere quiet to go. She needed to think, to try to unravel the tangle of deceit and confusion she was suddenly caught up in.
“May I beg a dance later in the evening, Lady Carew?”
Freddie Walters was blocking her path, his gaze insolent, assessing her like a thoroughbred horse, his touch on her arm more than familiar. His tone said that he already knew everything he needed to know about her, that she was a widow of questionable morals who was probably not averse to a light love affair. The blatant disrespect in his manner set Susanna’s teeth on edge.
“Thank you, Mr. Walters,” she said, “but I have decided to go home. I have the headache.”
“A pity,” Walters murmured. “Perhaps I could call on you?”
“You’re making the lady’s headache worse, Walters.” It was Dev’s voice, cold with a hard edge. Susanna saw Walters’s eyes widen, then, as Dev made a sharp gesture, the other man scuttled off. Dev watched him out of earshot, then his gaze came back to Susanna’s face and fixed there. She had wanted to scuttle away, too, but she had the lowering thought that Dev would simply grab her if she tried to run out on him now. He did not appear to care much for the conventions of the ballroom since he had accosted her in the center of the floor.
“Thank you for your assistance,” she said coldly, “but it was quite unnecessary. I can look after myself.”
Dev smiled. “I am aware,” he said. His gaze, hard and appraising, traveled over her in a manner quite different from Walters’s blatant sexual calculation. It was thoughtful, measured and infinitely more disturbing.
“I was not trying to rescue you,” he added gently. “I wanted you to myself.”
His choice of words and the look in his eyes made Susanna quiver somewhere deep inside. He had removed the feeble threat that Walters posed only to replace it with something far more dangerous. Himself. He was confronting her here, in full view of the Duke and Duchess of Alton’s guests. It was audacious. It was impossible.
“I don’t have anything to say to you.” Susanna kept her voice steady. She had had nine years of learning how to protect herself. It had never been as difficult as it was now, trying to erect defenses against this man and his perceptive blue gaze and his forcefulness.
He laughed. “You can do better than that, Susanna. What the hell is going on?”
“I have no notion what you mean,” Susanna said. Her pulse was racing. She looked around but there was no refuge. She started to walk slowly to the side of the dance floor. Dev took her arm, adapting his long stride to her shorter steps. To an observer it would look as though they were doing what everyone else did between dances, strolling around the floor, chatting with the casual indifference of social acquaintances. Except that there was nothing casual in the touch of Dev’s hand.
“You owe me an explanation at the very least,” Dev said. “An apology, even—” his tone was sarcastic “—if that is not too much to expect.” For a moment Susanna saw something fierce in his eyes. A passing couple shot them a curious glance. They had caught the tone if not the content of Dev’s words and had sensed the tension in the air.
Susanna deployed her fan to shield her expression.
“It was a long time ago.” She aimed for disdain, cool and dismissive, and hit exactly the right note. “Yes, I left you, but surely you have managed to recover from the loss.” She paused, smiled. “Don’t tell me I broke your heart.”
She had provoked him
