Page 60 of The Devil in Her Bed

“I would have RSVP’d if you’d have preferred, but alas…” She let the insinuation drift away. When he didn’t reply, Francesca continued. “You certainly went through a lot of costuming trouble for someone you weren’t sure would attend.” She took another drink.

For a man with so much money and influence, he had shit taste in wine.

“I said I wasn’t certain you’d come, but I’ll admit I was confident.” The mask lent his voice a certain growl, as if the soul of the lion did, indeed, inhabit his body.

“And what inspired this confidence?” she asked, turning so she stood shoulder-to-shoulder with him, rather than facing the frightening mask.

“I know you are an inquisitive woman.” His lips, both foreign and familiar, drew into a tight, almost cruel smile. “I know you couldn’t help but indulge your curiosity.”

Something about the way he said this rankled at her.

What else did he presume to know about her?

“Sothisis the Crimson Council.” She surveyed the room with an unaffected air she didn’t feel. Hard to believe she’d finally made it.

Now how could she irrevocably destroy it?

“All this could be yours,” he murmured.

She looked up at him sharply.

“My dear Countess, you must know that I do nothing by degrees, and I did not offer my proposal lightly. I think we could be good together, you and I.”

“I think you mean I could be good for you.”

He tilted his head in an almost doglike gesture of confusion. “Are you saying I have nothing to offer you that you would want?”

She shrugged “I am already a countess, so you could offer me no higher title,” she pointed out. “And while you may be wealthier than I am, I have enough money to last me generations. I have no interest in politics, notreally. And if I were to marry you, what is mine would become yours. How exactly, is your proposal supposed to tempt me, Lord Devlin?”

Instead of angering him, as she’d suspected she might, he indulged her with a sound of amusement. “A privileged woman, indeed,” he said blithely. “I’m curious, then, as to why you would attend my fete.”

“Perhaps to see what else you had to offer.” She tilted her head coyly and was rewarded with the sense her answer pleased him.

“My lady, I can offer you what you most desire. All you need do is tell me what that is.”

The truth. Justice. No, more than that, revenge.

“Freedom,” was what escaped her lips. And the truth of it resounded in her soul.

“Look around, my dear.”

She did. And what she saw confused, intrigued, and sickened her.

His hand landed on her shoulder, and it took every ounce of will she had not to duck away from it.

“Freedom is exactly what I’m offering. It is what these devotees of the council seek.”

She looked up in genuine amazement. “I would have thought power. Or wealth. Political influence or—”

He shook his head both immediately and violently the moment she began to speak.

“Our wealth helps us to gain our influence,” he conceded. “And therein we find power… but I’ll tell you a secret, little vixen.” He leaned closer, tilting his head down as if the lion and the fox might kiss. “Power is an illusion, one we certainly maintain as a tool to accomplish our main objective, one that aligns with your own.”

“I’m… not following.”

“Freedom,” he said, his voice ardent as he nudged her toward the dais, where a sensual cello refrain drifted around them.

“Nothing about this room speaks of freedom to me.” She gestured with her chin to a gagged woman offering her wares to a group of guests.