Free Devil Takes A Bride by Gaelen Foley

I am. The question is, what are you going to do with me now?”
    â€œYou are indecent!” She slipped around the couch, putting the furniture between them. “I summoned you here for the sake of your aunt. Stop it!” she cried when he began to move around the couch, sauntering toward her again.
    Miraculously, he obeyed.
    Letting out a weary sigh, Lord Strathmore lowered his chin and clasped his hands behind his back, knitting his raven eyebrows together as he studied the floor. For a long moment, he was silent. “Your letter, Miss Carlisle, quite scared the hell out of me. No small feat. I confess, at the moment, I do not know what to believe. Is my aunt ill or no? Tell me—and by God, speak the truth.”
    Somewhat reassured that the decadent nobleman was done playing with her for the moment, she shook her head earnestly. “All that ails Her Ladyship is loneliness, my lord. Is that so hard to understand? I do my best to entertain her, but I am not her flesh and blood. You are all she talks about. She misses you desperately—not that she’d ever complain. I’m sure you must realize this, and yet you ignore her.”
    â€œI don’t ignore her!” A shadow of some dark emotion tautened his chiseled features. Perhaps it was guilt. “She is always in my thoughts.”
    â€œI’m afraid that is not good enough,” she told him softly. “Good intentions cannot replace your spending time with her. If you could see how she sits here—at this table—playing solitaire for hours on end, day after day after day, with nothing to break the monotony but her weekly visits from the doctor—I can’t bear it!”
    Her pained words hung on the silence as Devil Strathmore studied her in keen perception. “If my aunt is unhappy, you could have simply said that in your letter. You had no cause to lie to me.”
    â€œI did not lie! Merely—exaggerated slightly—and if I hadn’t, you wouldn’t have paid any heed!”
    â€œWhat makes you so sure?” he challenged her. “You never even gave me a chance.”
    â€œWhat chance?” she cried, but flushed at the grain of truth in his accusation.
    â€œMen like you don’t concern themselves with the health of their aged relatives.”
    â€œOh-ho, men like me? And what, pray tell, do
you
know about me?”
    â€œMore than you realize,” she bit out, her voice turning tight and prim.
    â€œLike what?”
    â€œI know of—of your travels. A-and your preference in tailors. And the fact that you have no head for three-card loo! Really, you must be the worst gambler on the planet!”
    â€œAnd how, exactly, do you know that?” he asked with the most ominous arching of his eyebrow.
    She stared at him in stubborn silence, cursing herself for saying too much.
    â€œMiss Carlisle?” he prodded, folding his arms slowly across his chest. “I’m waiting. Or shall I inform my aunt of your deception? A word from me, and she’ll throw you out on your sweet derriere,
ma chérie
.”
    She bristled at his deliberately lewd threat. “Very well. You want an explanation, my lord? You shall have one!” Rattled now and dangerously angry, she pivoted with her chin high and marched out of his looming shadow to Her Ladyship’s desk. She glanced at the door to make sure they were still alone, reached into the desk with trembling hands, and returned with a stack of his bills. “Your aunt is the one who should be demanding an explanation, but since she will not, I will do it for her.”
    He regarded her in suspicion as she strode back to him with a pile of his shameless bills in her hand.
    â€œExplain these, if you can! Two hundred guineas for a diamond cravat pin?” She flicked the jeweler’s bill at him as if she were pitching cards. “Or this? A thousand guineas to Hoby’s for ten pairs of boots. Ten!” The