The Devil You Know by Victoria Vane Read Free Book Online Page B

feminine sensibili-
    ties. Instead, she snuffed the candle and pressed as closely as she
    dared to the door. Still, she only caught frustrating snippets of the
    exchange.
    “ … amazed such a fine specimen of womanhood…such a buffoon…”
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    The Devil You Know
    She found it strange that she took Edward’s high regard for
    her in stride, yet DeVere’s words of admiration stirred something
    deep within. She couldn’t comprehend why—when he’d already
    shown himself a rake of the first order and a man with no respect
    for women—yet his interest almost made her forget the issue of
    Reggie’s debt. She heard the clink of glass, and then the conversa-
    tion was frustratingly muffled, as if they had turned their backs
    or moved further away.
    They were now speaking of DeVere’s odious mistress, a topic
    she had not the slightest interest in. She turned to leave, but her
    breathing arrested as her own name assailed her ears. It was Ned,
    and he was laughing.
    “Diana come to your bed ... whoremonger ... wouldn’t touch you with gloves...”
    Diana’s hand flew to her mouth at DeVere’s unmitigated pre-
    sumption. While she was certainly guilty of encouraging a harm-
    less flirtation with him, the notion of joining ranks with such as
    Caroline Capheaton was beyond the pale. With her blood near the
    boiling point, she spun on her heel and returned to her room. It
    would be a cold day in hell before she ever allowed herself to be
    used by such a libertine.
    But then again, it was precisely this illicit thought that took
    root in her subconscious as she returned to her chamber—what it
    would be like to know such a man as a lover, to give herself up to
    selfish, lascivious lust, to finally let loose the deep and relentless
    yearning after a lifetime of suppressed passion?
    She recalled the hungry way his blue gaze had devoured her
    at their very first meeting, and the suggestion that had hung heav-
    ily in the air between them. She had thought herself dismissed
    as a potential lover until overhearing his profession of interest to
    Edward, a confession that inspired within her equal parts loath-
    ing and lust.
    Feeling stifled, Diana flung open the French doors and
    stepped onto the balcony into the moonlight. She stood there in
    the deep silence of the night, lost in her reflections and the illicit
    visions that kept returning to DeVere. When the damp chill forced
    her back inside, Diana explored her room, still restless and seek-
    ing escape from her disquieting ruminations. She discovered a
    leather-bound volume of John Donne and opened it at random to
    The Dream, an unfamiliar work, but one whose theme she hoped
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    Victoria Vane
    might induce sleep. By the end of the first stanza, however, Diana
    realized her error. The erotic message of the poem was clear.
    Unbidden, her mind conjured Donne’s lovers. The man asleep
    and dreaming of his love only to be awakened by the object of his
    passion took the form of DeVere. She cast the book aside with a
    listless sigh before her mind’s eye could invoke what she knew
    would be the intimately familiar features of his lover.
    Her footfalls w
    ***
    ere lost in the plush Turkish carpet of DeVere’s bed-
    chamber. Behind the shield of her hand, the flame of the lone candle flick-
    ered as she padded across the room to the massive tester bed. The cur-
    tains were drawn back, but the bed was cast in the obscurity of shadow.
    She wondered briefly if one body or two would be revealed in the faint
    light of her fluttering flame, yet she moved closer still with bated breath
    that expelled from her lungs in a soft rush to find him alone. She snuffed
    the candle, waiting for her vision to adjust. She stood there, pulse rac-
    ing and heart hammering a rapid tattoo against her breastbone at the
    thought of him waking to find her there.
    He was sprawled on his back, arms outstretched in the confident re-
    pose of a king or some other invincible being. A sheet draped over a