Page 19 of Bad Luck Bride (Scandal at the Savoy #3)
“We’re in business together now. It’s in his best interests and mine if we can rub along. As I said, it was simple to arrange. The simplicity, however, doesn’t really negate your obligation, does it?”
Dissembling, she decided, was her best option. “Oh?” she said, pretending bewilderment. “What obligation would that be?”
“Oh, Kay, don’t be coy.” He paused, tilting his head to one side, looking so infuriatingly pleased with himself that she felt again the almost irresistible temptation to slap him. “I salvaged your grand wedding affair. I think that pretty much puts you in my debt, doesn’t it?”
“Debt?” she echoed with lively scorn. “Of all the arrogant, conceited, idiotic—”
“Careful,” he cut in, his eyes on her face, his grin widening. “We’re being watched.”
She glanced toward the doorway, dismayed to see that he was right. Several people were observing them through the opening, heads together, whispering.
She looked at him again and offered her prettiest smile in return. “As I already pointed out, it’s not a favor to give back what you stole.”
“Indeed? So, since I stole it from you, what possible reason could I have for trying to make it up to you now?”
“Heaven only knows why you do the things you do. Probably just to give yourself the chance to crow.”
“That must be it,” he countered with a shrug and took a sip of his drink.
She frowned, the light tone of his voice giving her sudden pangs of doubt about her theory, despite the fact that crowing was exactly what he’d been doing for the last five minutes. “Why, then? I can’t believe it’s pangs of conscience.”
He made a scoffing sound. “Hardly that, since I have nothing to feel guilty about.”
“As I said this afternoon, you’re such a hero.”
His smile didn’t falter, but his eyes flashed, a glimmer of anger and something more, something she couldn’t quite identify, something that, if she didn’t know better, might have been hurt.
It vanished, however, before she could be sure, and when he spoke, his voice had resumed its light, airy tone.
“Either way, my motives don’t really matter, do they?
Your problem is now solved, and all’s well that ends well.
You and your American millionaire can host the swankiest wedding banquet since Queen Victoria, and he can keep you in the style to which you’ve always been accustomed, something I certainly couldn’t have provided you at the time. Your father would be so proud.”
She felt compelled to defend her parent. “My father loved me. He did,” she insisted as Devlin raised an eyebrow. “He always had my best interests at heart.”
“A husband with money being your father’s definition of what’s in your best interests?”
“His refusal of your suit wasn’t only due to your lack of money!
I deserved a proper courtship, not an elopement in the dead of night.
Had you stayed and made your case patiently, he would have eventually allowed you to court me in honorable fashion and prove yourself worthy of me.
And he’d have given his blessing in the end. ”
“You know,” he said slowly, “there was a time when I badly wanted to believe that.”
She lifted her chin, giving him the haughtiest look she could manage. “Whether you believe it or not,” she said with dignity, “it’s the truth.”
“We decided to elope, if you recall, because we knew he would not give his permission. But he was happy to give it for Giles, wasn’t he?
Whether it was because of Giles’s wealth, or his title, it rather makes his motives and aspirations regarding you pretty plain, don’t you think?
How bitter his disappointment must have been when you and Giles called things off. ”
There was a glimmer of truth in his conclusions about her father, of course, for Papa had always favored her marriage to her wealthy cousin.
She had no intention, however, of acknowledging the fact, nor admitting that Giles had broken their engagement because she was damaged goods.
Even if he already knew all that, admitting it to him now would be too humiliating.
“An accusation of mercenary motives on anyone’s part is laughably hypocritical, coming from you,” she shot back instead, her voice shaking, even as she worked to hide her resentment of him from any watching eyes. “After all, we both know what you’re willing to do for money.”
He had the gall to look as if he didn’t know what she was talking about. “What the devil do you mean by that? If you’re referring to Pamela’s dowry again—”
“Lady Kay?”
Both of them turned at the interruption to find the Savoy’s ma?tre d’h?tel nearby, making her wonder wildly what the man might have overheard.
“And you asked me earlier,” Devlin muttered, “how secrets get out? This is how.”
Though she was loath to admit it, he had a point, and she realized in chagrin that yet again, he had managed to provoke her into forgetting discretion, goaded her into doing and saying things that put her at risk, and gotten her all stirred up over resentments that were all in the distant past. It seemed to be, she thought grimly, his special gift.
With an effort, she ignored him, tamping down the resentment roiling within her, and addressed the ma?tre d’h?tel. “Yes, Monsieur Latrec? What is it?”
“My apologies for interrupting, my lady, but dinner is about to be served, and we need to finish preparing the banquet room.”
“Of course,” Devlin said before she had the chance. “We wouldn’t dream of delaying you. Lady Kay?”
He offered her his arm, but when she looked at it as if it were a venomous snake, he gave a low, unexpected chuckle.
“Don’t worry, Kay. I won’t bite you. I can’t. After all, we’ve no reason for animosity, remember? And besides, we’ll all be mingling in society together this season. Your fiancé wants that, and so does Pam, apparently, so we have to be matey, and affable, and all friends together.”
“Ugh,” she groaned. “Saints preserve us.”
Still, he was right that neither of them had a choice in the matter, so she put her hand on his arm as lightly as possible. “Very well. Let’s get this over with.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Her face a mask of serene amiability, her hand in the crook of his arm, she accompanied Devlin back through the doorway, but the moment they were once again in the reception room, she pulled free, for the last thing she wanted was to be forced by proximity to accompany him in to dinner.
Before she escaped his company, however, she couldn’t resist offering one last parting shot.
“I may have to put up with you for the sake of this hotel investment business you’re involved in with Wilson, but as for us ever being friends…”
Aware that all eyes in the room were fixed upon them, she paused to give him one more smile, though she only managed it through clenched teeth. “I’d rather be friends with Lucifer.”
She turned away, but if she’d hoped her parting words would leave a mark, she was disappointed, for his amused laughter followed her all the way across the room.