Page 22 of The Devil in Her Bed

A group of sparkling revelers burst into applause.

“It was ye, my lady, who turned to find me in the crowd,” he reminded her.

“I sensed you.” Oh Lord, she’d said too much. “I sensed you watching me. Staring.”

“What sensation did I evoke?” he queried. “A chill?”

Quite the opposite, though she’d die before admitting it. “Why did you approach me?”

“I only answered the invitation in yer eyes.”

“Don’t be obtuse.” She rolled said eyes and maneuvered much-needed distance between their bodies. She couldn’t think with him so close. She never had a difficult time keeping her wits about her, but at the moment, if she began a battle of wits with Lord Drake she would be outgunned, outmaneuvered, and outmatched.

And that just wouldn’t do, not until she’d regained her composure.

“I wanted to know who ye were looking for, that’s why I was staring.”

The honesty in his voice gave her pause, likely because it was the first time she’d truly felt it from him.

“What makes you think I was looking for someone?”

“Were ye not?”

“What business is it of yours?”

His voice dropped. “Were ye looking for me, Francesca?”

“Hardly.” She tossed her head and snorted with a laugh that was meant to be insulting.Hadshe been searching for him? Had she been looking for one man who would tip the world off its axis with little more than a dance?

No.No, she didn’t need a distraction. Didn’t want a flirtation. Not a real one. She had work to do. “You are too familiar, Lord Drake, as I’ve not given you leave to use my name.”

“I apologize once again, my lady,” he saidunapologetically. “Perhaps ye can tell me who it was ye were searching for. I could help.”

“You don’t seem like a man who helps anyone but himself.”

“Allow me to surprise ye, then.”

Francesca famously kept her cards close to her chest. No one peeked at her hand until she played it. But what if… this once… she could glean information by giving it? “I imagine you’ve heard about the fire in which my family perished some years past.”

Though his face remained carefully blank, she noted the spark of interest in his hazel eyes. “Aye. Everyone from here to Peru has heard about it.”

“Well, I am still investigating it.”

“Ye believe it was set on purpose?” His brow wrinkled as if she’d been the one to surprise him. “I always thought it might have been.”

Her awareness of him sharpened, focused. “Did you?”

“I wondered, how did an entire household perish in a fire in the middle of the day, with no survivors? Not one person had the time to run out, to break windows? Doesna seem likely.”

“There was one survivor,” she murmured, keenly feeling the weight of guilt she’d carried around for decades now.

“How?” The word was the first raw sound made by his throat, which had seemed coated in silk until this very moment. “How did ye survive?”

“That’s not a story for a waltz,” she said. “But I will say you’re the first person I don’t believe is an absolute idiot in a long time.”

“That was almost a compliment, my lady.”

She looked up at him then, stared at him with the same intensity. Studied him. Absorbed him. Admired him with unrepentant candor. “So it was.”