16 Chapter 16

"Mistook you?"

The glare Devorlane shot Tilly-hoped he did anyway-did nothing to silence her. How terrible for her to have to sleep beneath the same roof as a thief and a rapist. Not that a thief or a rapist were exactly going to want to find their way into whatever she was wearing beneath her skirt. Being his older sister it wasn't nice to think, let alone imagine. Even if she wasn't his sister, it wouldn't be.

"But how, Devorlane? How could she possibly mistake you?"

"Evidently she did, my dear sister." Having made his selection from the breakfast dishes that stood on the once elegant mahogany sideboard, he sat down. Whether he'd an appetite for the sardines and bacon he'd forked onto his plate remained to be seen, what with the pounding in his head after last night's sweat and it nearly being put in with a broom.

He wasn't a man who ate breakfast. He never had been. But he unfolded his napkin and laid it across his dove-gray covered knee.

"A woman's prerogative, Tilly." Eudora smiled as she waved away the serving girl.

A pretty little thing, with fetching copper curls. A nice backside too. The serving girl that was. Even he wouldn't stoop so low as to consider his younger sister sexually enticing. Although he was forced to admit, it would be nice if she'd wave away this throbbing headache the same way.

"Sometimes it is possible to mistake these things."

Tilly jabbed her fork into her bacon as if she wanted to kill it. "I understand that. Truly. It's just-"

"What were you doing at her door like that?" Belle said from the end of the table, the far end he'd purposely avoided sitting at-Charlie too-for just that very reason. "That's what Tilly wants to know."

Dragging himself from his contemplation of the serving girl's backside, Devorlane glanced around the table. Yesterday it had been his intention to march in and march Tilly and Belle out. Yesterday belonged to a different universe.

How the hell could that damned baggage be married for example? When she kissed like that? Kissed him anyway. As if he was eating a peach, soft, succulent, only better. He shook his head to clear it. There was no denying in that second he forgave her everything.

When revenge could and should be kept businesslike it was as well she'd ended it. What her lips had done to him was bad enough. Just imagine what her body would. Sitting here so respectably at this nice breakfast table, how could he help doing just that? Imagining it. Although, would she keep him for longer than a night? Unlikely. No woman had.

"That's none of Tilly's damned business." He mustered a smile.

By now he should be taking his fill of the sinful jewel he'd brought all the way from London. But how could he dally with her after the indignity he'd suffered-at least last night he'd prayed it was the indignity he'd suffered-nearly being accused of rape-that had made him incapable. Sapphire had turned it all around nicely on him, hadn't she? The same as she'd done that Christmas Eve too.

Then, like now, he'd been caught out by what she'd roused. Beguiled into thinking it hardly mattered. Into selling his soul for a taste of her lips. That was what happened at her door last night, wasn't it? He'd been led straight up the herb garden path. Then bang, when she had him where she wanted him ... Rape.

Casting his napkin on the table, he pushed back his chair. "Tilly should just be glad Tilly still has a roof over her head. You too."

"Me? But Devorlane ..." Belle fingered her throat. "You, you just ... Well, you can't. Why your dear mama always said there was a place for me here. Indeed, if I may be so bold as to say so-"

"You may not, but you probably will anyway."

Gritting his teeth-as always his leg hurt like hell in the morning-he walked to the sideboard and poured two generous brandies. One for himself. One for Charlie. An awful lot better than that piss pot of chocolate coffee that was on the go. Not so effective as an opiate in terms of dulling that plaguing throb in his thigh, but enough to improve his capacity to think straight.

"Your dear mama thought that one day you and I-"

"I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for that to arrive. Unless you want to expire. Swoon in those lovely stays of yours. End up in the family vault."

Him and Belle? He'd need to be knocked dead first. His stomach curdled. Insufficiently to stop him lifting the glass to his lips, as he contemplated the mist wreathed lawn outside. "No. I was actually thinking how Lady Armstrong's attempts to have me drummed out the district might impact on you, Eudora, and Tilly."

He turned his head. What had been wrong with him, going berserk like that?

That damned piece had made that accusation and something in him surged, as it hadn't surged in years. Something long dormant, something trapped in ice, had risen like a subterranean creature and shattered the icy crust it had wintered in for a long millennium. "But hopefully it won't come to that. She retracted."

"I-I am gratified to hear it." Tilly set down her fork. "Although it worries me to think there might be some other man in the area given to standing, to peering, in a window of all places."

"I shouldn't worry too dearly he's going to peer in these ones."

"Yes. But-"

"Tilly."

She lifted her coffee cup to her lips. "Well, thankfully Charlie was there. Thankfully the fuss was not too great. We must be grateful for that, especially ... well, especially after ... "

"Sapphire?"

There was nothing like saying the name, was there? Especially now he knew where she was. "No. Go on. You can say it. It's all in the past now. Besides, you believe me. What more can I want? Seriously."

"Yes, well. You know the pity is they never got her when they raided that Starkadder man's premises, the one they say was murdered by one of those dreadful Sisterhood specimens."

It was a pity. But how could she have been caught when she'd moved next door?

"Those ... Those ... A filthy, viperous nest of them the papers said. Cankers on the bosom of society. Of decent people, of people who-"

"Don't upset yourself, Tilly." Eudora squeezed Tilly's hand. "We know Devorlane never did anything wrong, and that's all that counts."

"I'm not upset. How can you think so?"

Because there was no doubt there was more than coffee in the cup she raised to her lips and slugged from. Hard living must run in the family. She set the cup back on the saucer.

"No. No. I just feel it would have been nice if he could have had the chance of identifying her, at least. Of adding the Wentworth emeralds to her list of crimes."

Yes. So Tilly might be received in polite society again. Not if she didn't curb the drinking though.

"But there, it just seems all she's done is get away again. Which means ... well, we know what it means."

"Yes. Things like last night." Belle broke open a roll. "And how easily you could be accused of anything, Devorlane. Although Tilly and I still don't know what on earth you were doing there, for Lady Armstrong to make these ridiculous assumptions that it was you looking in her windows at her. Or why you left the party either. Although, of course, perhaps it was fortunate for her you were there. Living on her own like that."

Slowly he lowered his gaze. Sapphire's skill and audacity had led him to believe she lived in a palace of splendor. Each nook, each cranny crammed with a maharaja's worth of treasures. Over-priced paintings, baubles she'd filched for her ears, her neck. Gowns of fine spun silk. Gold mirrors in which to admire her sinful countenance.

He hadn't considered for a second that just maybe this woman, who was the talk of London, lived as he'd witnessed last night. Fighting tooth and nail in some century's old dive. Clawing for survival amid dirt and mortar, against creatures like-pardon him, but hadn't Tilly said Ruby was very nice, very refined? He toyed with the brandy glass, swirling the liquid around. Then he emptied it in a long, satisfying slug.

"She's not alone. Not exactly."

"I never said she was. She has compan-"

"I'm not meaning them."

"What?" Tilly's coffee cup clattered back into the saucer.

"She has a man there."

The clattering cup was followed by a chair scraping back. He tilted his jaw and refilled his glass.

"Yes."

"I don't ... You mean a brother, or cousin? A-a nephew perhaps?"

"Not exactly."

"You mean-"

Pious cats weren't they? With the exception of Eudora. Yet if he'd brought his whore to breakfast, Tilly would have pulled out a chair because she'd good reason to welcome her. It was almost enough to make him envy the light-fingered snit, her brilliance, to view her as something else all together. Like yesterday when she'd murdered her way through that recital. He stared back out the window.

"Actually I was thinking we should hold a soiree here and invite them."

"Them? Devorlane ... you can't."

"Oh, for God's sake, don't sound so alarmed." Much as he didn't want to, it was time to arrest their falling jaws, even if he did sink another glass of brandy. "The man's her husband."

"Husband?"

To their credit, Tilly and Belle sounded as shocked as he was when he'd first heard the word. He had found it impossible to think of her as a widow, hadn't he? This man who said he was her husband, now-what was that about?

On the one hand she and her "husband" were as fine a pair of snaps as he'd ever seen up to God knows what they were up to. On the other-what if he was her husband? What if she'd run away with Ruby and Pearl and all they were doing was hiding from him? They had seemed a trifle surprised--horrified in fact--to see him.

Congreve had it wrong though. It wasn't a woman scorned hell had no fury like. It was guilty, given that little charge she'd tried laying on him just before that man-whoever the hell he was-had turned up.

Belle rose to her feet. "A soiree? Oh! Do you hear that, Tilly? Eudora? How delightful. It will bring such joy to the house. I will be able to sing another song."

She would be the first to welcome the thought. But that was all right, although yesterday a soiree had been furthest from his thoughts.

Perhaps Lady Armstrong was the military wife she claimed? Perhaps she really was Sapphire?

Either way, he was making it his priority to damn well find out.