Page 57 of The Devil in Her Bed

“What if we attended as your guests?” the duchess offered. “Redmayne and Ramsay have both been courted by the council…”

“You weren’t invited,” Francesca said. “They’d suspect something.”

“We could send protection?” Cecelia presented.

“I don’t need it.”

“You’ve done it for us.”

“That was different.”

Alexandra made a caustic noise. “How, exactly, was it different?”

“In each case, the threats to your lives were in the shadows. Mine has a face. A name. A tangible reason. I know what I’m walking into.”

It was an absolute lie, but… in for a penny and all that.

“But you don’t know their motivations, not when it comes to you. And you don’t know what information they have on you.”

“That’s what I intend to find out, and if you love me, you two, you will do nothing to stop me.” Whirling on her heel, Francesca stormed toward the archway, above which the ceiling had long since crumbled.

The women who had loved her stubborn hide looked after her silently until she’d mounted her horse and spurred it in the direction of the hills.

Alexandra released a calming breath. “Lord, but she could start an argument in an empty room.”

Cecelia’s face glimmered with concern. “Should we… do something? Tell someone?”

“She’d hate us,” Alexandra said soberly.

“I’d rather have her irate than dead.”

Alexandra thought for a moment, then brightened. “Lord Kenway’s estate abuts the ruins of Miss Henrietta’s School for Cultured Young Ladies, does it not?”

Cecelia caught her smile as if it were as contagious as the unspoken idea. “It does, indeed.”

“She may think that she’s walking into the lion’s denand will emerge unscathed. And while she might be alone, she will not be without backup.”

That decided, the remaining contingent of the Red Rogues packed up to go back to the castle.

They had secret arrangements to make.

CHAPTERFIFTEEN

Francesca noticed Luther Kenway’s butler was blindfolded before it registered that he was also stark naked. She stood at his threshold, seized with astonished indecision.

“I’m…” She’d quite forgotten why she’d come. In fact, she’d forgotten her name.

“Countess, welcome. Do come in.” As stately as any yeoman, the man stepped back and widened the door for her, sweeping a grand gesture toward the interior of the Kenway estate.

Swallowing a surge of nerves, Francesca picked up the hem of her crimson garment and entered as he bade her.

She wasn’t certain which disturbed her most: the blindfold; the nudity of an elegant, if portly, man well past his prime; or her own ensemble, a shimmering robe the color of the devil’s own blood, and an intricateporcelain mask hand-painted by a masterful artisan in the form of a fox head.

Francesca paused on the landing of the grand entrance and absorbed the cornucopia of curiosities before her. She hadn’t exactly known what to expect when she’d made her way through the London night following the exact route her invitation had specified. She’d been unable to identify travelers with a similar possible destination, and she would have, as the hour was late for the beginning of a soiree of any kind.

A midnight masquerade, it seemed.

Devotion.It was the only word on the invitation upon which the map had been depicted.