Leslie LaFoy by Come What May Read Free Book Online

turning her back on him. He watched in amusement as she roughly stripped the coat from her shoulders and flung it on the bed. Her shirt followed within mere seconds and Devon's sense of victory suffered a quick demise. He sucked in his cheeks and shifted his stance, told himself that wisdom lay in observing propriety, in looking away while she unwound the bindings that had flattened her chest.
    But he couldn't. God, he couldn't take his gaze from the flawless cream of her skin, couldn't keep it from roaming over the inviting length of her slender neck and down the elegant sweep of her shoulders and arms. It dropped lower to touch the curve of her hips where it disappeared into the waistband of her breeches, and he found himself again wondering about the provocatively long legs hidden by the woolen fabric.
    The inner voice came again, this time soft with mockery.
You want her
. Devon swore beneath his breath. If the little half-naked hoyden ripping open the valise appealed to his baser instincts, it was only because he hadn't sought any release since he and Darice Lytton had parted ways. He could change that situation easily enough. He could set aside his suspicions, and Darice would forgive him at the first caress.
    His gaze wandered over her again, his already heated blood warming even more at the sight of her bent over the now open valise. Devon forced his attention to the low ceiling of the room, but a flutter of white instantly brought his attention back to her.
    “Where's your maid?” he heard himself ask as he watched her pull loosely laced stays over her head and down over her torso. Odd, he mused, he'd never disliked the idea of that particular garment before.
    “I don't have a maid,” came the distracted reply.
    “Am I to assume that you've traveled from London unaccompanied?”
    She glanced at him over her smooth, alabaster shoulder. “Since I suspect that anything I might offer in way of explanation would be ignored, I'll leave you to think whatever you like.”
    Christ, he frankly had no idea what to think of her. She'd been charming in a countrified way at their introduction in Edmund Cantrell's office. Then she'd bristled with all the indignation of a peer insulted in the House of Lords. The masquerade as a young man had been well crafted. She'd calmly stood her ground when confronted at the bar. In the courtyard behind the tavern, she'd been the vulnerable and skittish maiden. Now she played the cool, unflappable lady of quality. Claire Curran apparently changed who and what she was with the unexpected suddenness of spring weather.
    Devon smiled to himself. Solving the puzzles of people had always intrigued and entertained him. The secretlay in throwing them off kilter; goading them to anger was the simplest means to that end. “And would the worst I could imagine about you be so very far off the mark?” he asked.
    She took a dress from the valise, the same dress she'd been wearing when he'd first met her. “I owe you no accounting of my circumstances, sir.”
    He cocked his head, his mind reeling back through all the words they'd exchanged that morning. “That's the second time in our brief
courtship
that you've thrown those particular words at me,” he observed quietly, watching her. “Apparently your circumstances are of some consequence to you. As your husband, I have a right to know if they're likely to cause me some—”
    “Social embarrassment,” she finished with just the slightest hint of derision in her voice. Her scorn was fully apparent when she added, just under her breath, “How utterly predictable.”
    “Are they likely to need an explanation to my friends and family?” he pressed, his pride smarting from her tiny assault and demanding that she pay for it. “There must be a very good reason George Seaton-Smythe thought to concoct this desperate plan to marry you off. An indiscreet affair, perhaps? A petty theft?”
    She whirled about, her hands on her hips, her chin set in hard