Free Notorious by Nicola Cornick Page A

offering.
    “Do you intend to seduce Fitz into marriage?” he asked.
    Her gaze came back to his face, mocking him. “What a very vulgar question, Sir James. I have no intention of answering.”
    “As you have said yourself, a widow may use certain experience to her advantage.”
    A smile touched Susanna’s lips beneath the shadow of the bonnet. “Very true,” she said. “Just as a rake may use his knowledge and skill to trap a debutante heiress.”
    There was silence between them, thick and taut, in the dark, enclosed world of the hackney coach. The rain drummed hard on the roof. The wheels splashed through the puddles on the road outside.
    “You’re staring,” Susanna said coolly. “Try the window instead.”
    “I see London every day,” Dev said. “I was admiring you.”
    Susanna laughed. “I doubt that very much.”
    “I meant in the aesthetic sense,” Dev said. “You are very beautiful. I’m not telling you anything you don’t know,” he added.
    “You can spare me the compliments,” Susanna said dismissively. She smoothed her skirt with a gloved hand. “I am quite comfortable with silence.”
    “I was trying to play nicely,” Dev said.
    She cast him another glance, disdainful. “I doubt you do anything nicely, Devlin.”
    “I make love very nicely indeed,” Dev said. “Do you not remember?”
    “No.” She turned her face away again so that he could not read her expression. Her voice was cold but Dev sensed some emotion beneath her words. Discomposure? Discomfort? Surely so experienced an adventuress as Susanna could not be embarrassed by a reference to their mutual past so perhaps she was simply annoyed to have given him the opportunity to raise the subject of their passionate, shameless lovemaking. He felt a sudden strong urge to bait her further.
    “You must surely remember it,” he said. “You were as wild and wanton in your response to me as any woman I have ever met.”
    For a moment he thought she would win the encounter simply by ignoring his provocation but this was too blatant for her to let it go. He saw her eyes flash as she rose to his challenge and felt a stab of triumph to be able to force a reaction from her.
    “How sweet of you to recall it after all this time,” she said cuttingly. “But I am afraid that for me it was in no way memorable.”
    Liar.
    The word hung on the air between them. Dev saw a tinge of color sting her cheeks as though he had spoken aloud. He shifted on the seat, shrugging.
    “Perhaps the experience has been superseded byso many others that your memory fails you,” he said politely.
    She looked at him with contempt. “Perhaps you confuse my romantic past with your own, Devlin. I heard that you were scarcely fastidious in your choices before your engagement to Lady Emma. Quantity over quality was your motto, so I believe.”
    Touché. He had indeed been an enthusiastic rakehell.
    “Once again I am flattered by the attention you give to my life,” Dev said. “Are you very interested in my romantic career?”
    “Of course not!” Susanna said. Her face was very pink now; hot, angry, animated.
    “All evidence to the contrary,” Dev said. “It is perhaps an odd preoccupation for my former wife—”
    “You always did have good opinion of yourself,” Susanna interrupted. “Or perhaps I mean a boundless conceit.”
    “I plead guilty,” Dev said. “But there are some things at which I do excel.”
    Susanna rolled her eyes. “Why do men feel the need to brag of their sexual prowess?”
    “I could demonstrate my prowess rather than simply talk about it if you prefer,” Dev offered blandly.
    Now it was Susanna’s smile that was edged with scorn, her eyes vivid with challenge. “You would try to seduce me? I don’t believe you would have the nerve, Devlin.”
    Dev laughed. “It’s dangerous to dare me.”
    Susanna shook her head. “You are all talk. You would not do anything to put your betrothal with Lady Emma at risk.”
    “She