Page 8 of The Devil in Her Bed

Was she being too obvious? Would her enemies guess what she was about?

Frowning, Francesca rolled her eyes and pulled a few more pins from her hair as she assessed her appearance in the gilded mirror of Lord Colfax’s bedchamber.

She just might look like a loose-moraled spinster who’d enjoyed a rollicking night of unbridled sex. Not, however, the kind of night other unfortunate women had reported to have had with Lord Colfax.

He was a famously passionate rake. A ruiner of clothing and reputations. A user of women and worse.

A man who deserved what he was about to get.

Pursing her lips, she let out a breath of exasperation. What could she change about her appearance to make the ruse more believable? Her gold bodice drooped in tatters, the lace mangled and torn. Her skirt was a puddle of silk on the carpets, and one of the ribbons on her garters had disappeared. Her scarlet coiffeur hung limply to the left, half the pins scattered or missing. She’d never really been able to hold a curl, so her locks appeared more garbled than tousled.

Still… it didn’t look right.Shedidn’t look right.

Puffing a bit of fringe away from her forehead, she shrugged a slim, pale shoulder. Old Colfax likely wouldn’t notice. Men were so extraordinarily oblivious. They’d believe just about any sort of hogwash if it fed their largely undeserved egos.

And yet… how could they not suspect her deception?

A woman’s skin glowed with dewy luminescence if she’d been well and truly ridden. Her eyes would laze at only half-mast, glistening with a dreamy satisfaction. Her lips were often swollen and the skin about her mouth a little pinkened as though scrubbed with something abrasive. Like a man’s stubble or beard.

Sometimes those marks were elsewhere. Her neck, her clavicles.

Lower.

Francesca did her best to soften the gem-hard green of her eyes, to blink them with a slothful sort of decadence. There, that almost seemed like—

A loud snore shook the crystals twinkling from the wall sconces next to the stately bed.

She whirled, studying her so-called lover for signs of consciousness. Her heart gave a few kicks, threatening not to remain as steady as she’d trained it to be.

Lord Colfax was larger than most of the men with whom she played this sort of sport. Not tall, exactly. But wide and sturdy, strong despite his aging status. Not many men retained such strength into their fifties, but then again, he was part of a powerful and corrupt society.

One with many enemies.

It wouldn’t do to be seen as weak.

His mouth dropped open to reveal revolting, uneven teeth stained by every imaginable sort of vice. Francesca swallowed her revulsion and crept back toward the bed.

Her reflection would never truly seem right. No matter how much she scrubbed at her skin and bit at her lips. She never quite adopted that appearance of pleasure. She’d neverbeenpleasured. Pleasure wasn’t something she had the time or inclination for, all told.

She supposed, in Lord Colfax’s case, she didn’t have to exactly seem as though he’d done well. Because men such as he only ever thought of their own pleasure.

She had to convince him that their night was one of sexual abandon he was too drunk to remember.

Her concoction of belladonna, senna, and a few other exotic herbs Serana could only procure from the Chinese tent city would wear off within the hour. A few dropsrendered a person drowsy, susceptible to suggestion. She only had to whisper something in their ear to make it a memory before they sank into the nether.

And then, while her lovers slept, she discovered their secrets.

She already had Lord Colfax’s fate locked beneath her corset and in the trap of her brain. Her suspicion had been right. He was a toad, one who croaked for the Crimson Council, a secretive occult society only whispered about in the darkest corners. Their purpose was to use as much of their power, money, and influence as possible to spin the world to their whims.

Those whims had become increasingly sadistic. Sexual.

And possibly treasonous.

Evil enough to massacre everyone she’d ever loved. To slit the throats of children.

Her entire life, every decision she’d made, had brought her closer to finding them.

An old hatred rose within her, and Francesca had to swallow three times as it splashed the back of her throat with acid.