Free The Devil Who Tamed Her by Johanna Lindsey Page A

bare. There were paintings on every wall, which depicted scenes as varied as children playing in a field, a busy city street, a woman who looked rather sad, a vase with a single flower in it, among others. They certainly brightened up the room.
    It was quite an extravagance to fully furnish a house of this size, and it was very large merely for one man to enjoy it for a few weeks out of a year. She’d heard the Lockes were quite rich. It must be so. Not that it mattered to her. The heir apparent could choke on all his family’s money for all she cared.
    She’d resisted taking a look outside for as long as she could. She walked over to the closest window and moved aside one of the drapes and stared out at the falling snow. The flakes were quite large. When she looked below, she saw that the ground was almost covered.
    “How lovely,” she said.
    Sadie came up beside her to enjoy the same view. “I thought you’d think so.”
    “At least it’s thick enough to hide that there’s nothing beyond it to look at.”
    “The cook mentioned that it’s beautiful up here at certain times of the year, when the heather is in full bloom. Can you imagine, looking at nothing but heather for as far as you can see?”
    “I suppose that would look nice,” Ophelia allowed, though flowers didn’t interest her nearly as much as snow did.
    “If this keeps up, there may be a deep carpet of pristine white out there tomorrow,” Sadie predicted.
    Now that interested Ophelia. “Do you think?” she asked excitedly.
    “We’re far enough north for it to even stick around for a while. It’s coming so hard I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued into the night. Should I unpack some of your warmer clothes?”
    Sadie knew her well. Ophelia loved walking in freshly fallen snow if it was deep enough that her footsteps wouldn’t uncover the ground beneath it.
    “You might as well unpack everything now,” Ophelia said with a sigh.
    She hadn’t let Sadie do so last night, insisting they wouldn’t be staying. “I don’t think we’re leaving—for a few days at least,” she added, then turned to Sadie, opening her eyes wide so the maid could examine them. “My eyes didn’t really get red, did they?”
    “Planning to jump back into the fray, are you?” Sadie guessed.
    Ophelia didn’t deny that she was going to seek Raphael out again, now that she was back in control of her emotions. “Just tell me?”
    The maid tsked and pointed out, “You could just look for yourself. There’s a mirror right over there that is not your enemy.”
    “Sadie,” Ophelia said warningly.
    “Not red a’tall, which is too bad. Wouldn’t hurt for him to know you were crying. A little guilt works wonders on a man.”
    “He knows,” Ophelia replied in a disgruntled tone. “But a man has to have a conscience to feel guilty. Devils don’t have them, I’m sure.”

Chapter Eleven
    A T FIRST O PHELIA DIDN ’ T EVEN notice Raphael in the parlor, though she’d been looking for him and he was sitting right there on the sofa. But the drapes were open on a long bank of windows on the front of the house. She smiled to see that it was still snowing quite hard.
    “Feeling better?” Raphael asked.
    She located him on the sofa. Her smile left her. He was just setting down a book he’d been reading. He’d removed his jacket, probably because the fire was roaring in the fireplace. Esmerelda was there as well on another sofa. The room was large, with three sofas plus an assortment of comfortable chairs. The older woman glanced over the rim of her own book to give Ophelia a nod.
    “Morning, gel. Or is it still morning? Actually, it must be later than that, since I’m getting rather hungry. I don’t eat breakfast, you know. But skipping it just means I can’t wait too long for luncheon.”
    Ophelia’s smile returned for Raphael’s aunt. “They’re making a racket in the kitchen, so it probably won’t be long, Lady Esme.”
    “Eh?” Esmerelda said, not