Page 20 of Bad Luck Bride (Scandal at the Savoy #3)

I n the fortnight that followed his encounter with Kay at Simon and Delia’s opera supper, Devlin barely had time to breathe.

Countless discussions with lawyers, accountants, and the other board members about the new hotel, helping Simon with the final arrangements for the Mayfair’s opening, and meeting Pam’s dozens of relatives took up every waking moment of his time, but sadly, none of that stopped his mind from returning to Kay again and again and her barbed implications.

I can’t think how you managed the blunt for such an investment. Lady Pamela’s dowry, I suppose…

Did she really think he was marrying Pam for her money?

The opposite was closer to truth, since Devlin’s future father-in-law was mired in debt, with a portion for his daughter of less than a thousand pounds.

Devlin’s current balance in his London bank alone was a hundred times that much, but Kay, it was clear, didn’t know any of that.

They’d been interrupted before he could set her straight about his finances, but he damn well intended to do so at the very first opportunity.

And she had brass to criticize him for having mercenary motives when she had not only thrown him over for her wealthy cousin but she was now marrying a man who was not only obscenely rich but also twice her age.

He could believe she’d been fond of Giles, but what was her motive for marrying Rycroft?

True love? Not bloody likely. He’d be sure to tell her that, too, next time they met.

“How’s that sound, Devlin?”

“Hmm?” Roused from his contemplations by the sound of his name, he looked up to find both the duke and Simon looking at him expectantly.

“Excellent, excellent,” he replied with no idea what he was praising.

The other two, however, seemed satisfied, and the conversation moved on to the question of a menu for the Mayfair’s grand opening celebration.

Devlin paid attention just long enough to agree with making it a stand-up affair, with champagne and claret cups and canapés served on trays before his mind wandered again to Kay’s insinuations.

We both know what you’re willing to do for money.

Granted, her father had not approved of his daughter marrying the impecunious fifth son of a baron, but Kay hadn’t seemed to care a bit about his lack of money.

Not then, anyway. That she felt compelled to rub his face in it now stung a bit, he had to admit.

But thinking back on the other night, he was dismayed to realize that her poor opinion of him wasn’t what really hurt.

No, what hurt was that even as she’d stood there, shredding him into spills and freezing him with those glacial green eyes, even as he’d teased her and countered her accusations with a show of indifference, all the old passion for her had been there, too, rumbling deep down within him, ready to rise up again at the slightest provocation.

Hell, their prospective marriage partners had been in the very next room, and yet Kay had still managed to ignite his desire quick as lighting a match.

That’s really why he resented her so. Because despite everything, he was still not free of her.

Fourteen years, he thought in self-disgust, and yet she could still infuriate him and hurt him and arouse him like no other woman ever could.

It had always been that way. It probably, he appreciated grimly, always would be.

What a galling thought.

She’d moved on with her life, and he thought he had as well, and yet now he wondered if he’d only been fooling himself.

What did Kay have to do for him to stop feeling this way?

he wondered. Push him off a cliff? Shoot him with a pistol?

And what about Pam? At the thought of his fiancée, Devlin’s frustration deepened.

He had a future with Pam, he could build a life with her.

The only thing he and Kay had ever built was a bonfire of passion and an ash heap of regrets.

“The twenty-third of April, it is, then.” Simon stood up, Westbourne with him, and Devlin, roused from his contemplations, jerked to his feet. “I shall have Delia make all the arrangements and send the invitations straightaway.”

“Now that we’ve settled that question,” the duke put in, “might I suggest some luncheon? We can finish going over the changes to the incorporation papers while we enjoy an excellent joint of beef at the same time.”

Simon concurred with that suggestion, but given that Devlin had no idea what changes had been proposed during this meeting that still required going over, he was relieved that he had other plans.

“Sorry,” he replied. “I can’t stop. I’m meeting Pamela and her mother for luncheon, and she has some outing planned for us afterward. You two can manage the remaining details on the incorporation without me, I trust?”

Assured on this essential point, Devlin left the Mayfair and returned to the Savoy, where he found Pamela waiting for him in the lobby, and at the sight of her, looking sweet and lovely, with a welcoming smile on her lips, Devlin’s tumultuous thoughts about Kay faded away, replaced by a sureness that he was doing the right thing.

It was the same feeling he’d had the first evening Pam had come to dinner at his villa in Cairo with her parents.

When he’d watched her coming up the steps of his home, he’d seen his future.

He had no intention of throwing that away because of his past.

“Darling,” he greeted. “How pretty you look. New dress?”

“Delivered by the dressmaker’s this morning.” Smiling, she lifted her hands, palms toward the ceiling, and twirled, giving him a full view of her gown, a chocolate-box confection of pink-and-white stripes.

“I’m not sure I need lunch,” he said. “Because you look good enough to eat.”

She laughed, clearly pleased, but before she could reply, another, far less agreeable voice intervened.

“Mr. Sharpe.”

“Lady Walston.” He turned, freezing his smile in place to greet Pamela’s mother.

His prediction that being tardy to dinner would only worsen things with his future mother-in-law had proven true.

She’d been disapproving before; now she was barely civil.

They lunched at the Savoy, but be he ever so charming, she continued to eye him as if he were a bug she needed to squash.

Thankfully, however, when they took a stroll through the nearby Victoria Embankment Gardens afterward, she complied with her daughter’s thinly veiled hints and moved out of earshot, giving them some privacy.

“So what is this outing you’ve got planned for us this afternoon?

” he asked as they strolled between beds of bright yellow tulips and purple pansies, her mother following them at a discreet distance.

“Punting on the lake in Hyde Park? Hiring a motor for a drive in the country? It’s a perfect day for either,” he added, glancing upward, where for once not a single cloud marred the sky.

“And it would be nice to see something of dear old England before we sail back to the other side of the world.”

“No, no, not a drive in the country, though we could do that tomorrow if the weather holds. But for today, I had rather a different plan in mind. One that involves the indoors more than the out.”

“Now, you’ve intrigued me, I confess. What is this plan?”

She stopped walking, causing him to stop as well, and turned toward him, smiling a little. “I thought,” she murmured, taking his hands in hers, “we might perhaps look at some London houses.”

“London houses?” he echoed in surprise. “Whatever for?”

Pam looked up, fixing that limpid brown gaze of hers on his face. “Once we’re married, I expect we’ll need one.”

“I don’t see why, since we’ll be living in Egypt.”

“Of course,” she agreed at once. “But you have this hotel venture with your friend, Lord Calderon now, and I thought—”

“Yes?” he prompted when she fell silent and looked down.

Pam didn’t reply for a moment. She pulled her hands from his, apparently distracted by an undone glove button, and as she moved to remedy the problem, he studied her bent head, wondering just what was going on inside it.

“I thought,” she said slowly as she worked to push the button at her wrist back through its hole, “you’d want to stop on here for a bit longer than we’d originally planned.

You know, until the new hotel is well established.

I heard you tell Papa at dinner the other night that things there are at a crucial stage right now. ”

“Well, that’s true enough, but by the wedding, it will all be sorted.

And afterward, Simon will have my proxy for anything the board needs to vote on.

He can easily cable me in Cairo if any sort of emergency decision has to be made, or if he comes across other properties the company may wish to purchase.

We can’t stop on here too long. I have other hotels to run. ”

“I see,” she said with a nod, but still preoccupied with her glove, she didn’t look up, and he began to feel uneasy. “So there’s no need to visit Cook’s and change our itinerary?”

Was that really her only concern? he wondered. “No need at all. We’ll spend the wedding night at the Savoy, just as we planned, then leave for Paris on our honeymoon the next day. We’ll spend a few days in Paris, a couple weeks in Italy, then we’ll continue on to Constantinople, then Cairo.”

As he spoke, he thought suddenly of Kay and the plans they’d made to go to Africa together, and how she’d balked at the last minute, and he wondered with a sudden flash of alarm if history was going to repeat itself.

Was Pam getting cold feet? Granted, he’d made it very clear that Africa was where they’d be living, but then…

he’d made that clear to Kay, too, all those years ago.

Would Pam, like Kay, shy at the jump and decide living in England was more important than he was?

Could he find himself jilted at the altar a second time?