Page 44 of A Deal With a Notorious Devil
Through the sparse gold hair scattered across his chest, she found a scar over his heart with the tip of one finger, tracing the raised edge. This one had been deep. Not deep enough to kill, but deep enough to leave a dreadful scar. The straight edge of it suggested a knife, perhaps a dagger. Probably he’d come out of this scrape only a centimeter from occupying a casket.
And there, just above the edge of the bandage wrapped round him. Less obvious than others, but the skin was shiny in a small, round patch, unnaturally smooth beneath her fingertips. A burn?
Above the jut of his hip, another imprecisely round mark, like a divot carved into his flesh. A lead ball, she thought. So this mustn’t have been his first tangle with a pistol. In the silence, she—
Silence?Silence. Not even the muted rhythm of a snore. Slowly her gaze drifted up, her muscles tensing as she found him staring back at her, blue eyes open, curious, and without even the slightest glaze of the drugged stupor she might have expected.
“Lower,” he said. “And a bit to the right.”
Startled, she gave a squeak reminiscent of a frightened mouse, leaping back as if he’d singed her. In her haste to absent herself, she nearly dropped the lamp altogether—and his dark, knowing laugh followed her all the way down the hall.
Chapter Thirteen
Phoebe!”
It hadn’t been the first time Chris’ insistent shout had echoed throughout the house, and Phoebe doubted that it would be the last.
“I swear,” Charity murmured as she daintily selected a lump of sugar with a tiny pair of tongs and stirred it into her cup of tea. “There is simply no reasoning with such behavior.” But she had said it with such a longsuffering sort of air that Phoebe suspected it was hardly the first time Charity had been treated to such nonsense.
“Is he always like this, then, in your experience?” Phoebe asked.
“Oh, yes,” Charity said. “Can’t abide not having his own way. Rather like a child.” She gave a judgmental sniff. “He’s seven and thirty, if you can believe it. One might think he’d have learned better by now.”
Well, when one was forced to endure a succession of plaintive and petulant shouts, it did seem hardly believable that the man had nearly two score years to his credit. “He’s just ill-tempered because he didn’t wish me to meet with you,” Phoebe said. And now, like a child, he sought to interrupt them in any way he might.
“Really?” Charity blinked. “That doesn’t seem very like him. Ought I go?”
“I don’t see why you should,” Phoebe said. “Presently, you’re my guest—not his.” And if she were honest, Chris had been correct. Shedidlike his mistress. She’d expected Charity to be beautiful, since a man of Chris’ wealth could likely have had his pick of mistresses, and what gentleman would not prefer beauty when it was available to him? But the woman was also a pleasant companion. Genteel, even if she had been born common. Elegant and polite and refined. And, most happily of all, well-read. They’d discussed a fair few books together during tea, while doing their best to ignore Chris’ caterwauling.
“It was kind of you to invite me,” Charity said. “I suppose most women would prefer to ignore their husbands’ mistresses.”
Not simply to ignore them, in Phoebe’s understanding, but to pretend as if they did not exist at all. “Oh, well—we don’t have the sort of marriage that might give rise to jealousy or resentment over such things,” Phoebe said as she served herself another tiny slice of cake.
“Phoebe!” came another plaintive shout from above.
Charity smiled over the rim of her teacup. “Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard him so desperate to gain someone’s attention,” she said.
“Really?” Phoebe blinked in surprise. “Not even yours?”
Charity gave a light laugh. “My goodness, no,” she said. “He’s paid for the privilege of my attention, dear. He doesn’t have to shout for it. Oh, don’t misunderstand me—I am fond of him, naturally, as a friend would be. But our relationship is one of business, not one of love.”
“Is that—usual?” Phoebe inquired as delicately as she could. “I mean to say, it seems a cold sort of arrangement.”
“Not at all,” Charity said. “I’ll admit I’ve been luckier than most. Some men use their mistresses like—like mere vessels toslake their lusts. But when one’s partner is competent, well, then, there’s a great deal of satisfaction to be gained. And if one might earn a tidy income from the purveyance of pleasure...” She lifted her shoulders in a small shrug. “I live a life of leisure,” she said. “And when we part company, I’ll have put enough away to maintain my standard of living indefinitely. Perhaps then I shall take lovers only for the fun of it. Or perhaps I shall marry, if I should find a man worthy of me.”
What a marvelously self-assured woman Charity was, Phoebe thought. Entirely certain of her place within the world, unburdened by the shame that others might have thought she deserved to bear. Confident and content to live her own life in the manner of her choosing. She wished she had ever had half so much poise and dignity.
A certain strange curiosity compelled her to ask, “And is he…competent, then?”
“What, you don’t know already?” Charity’s rich brown eyes widened in surprise. “Not even to consummate your marriage? I’d thought certainly you would have at least once.”
“No, I—I said I didn’t want to,” Phoebe admitted, feeling her cheeks burn with a violent blush. “And, really, unless we intended to seek an annulment, no one was ever going to ask.”
For a moment, Charity only stared in mute shock, as if she could not conceive of the notion. “You said you didn’t want to,” she repeated at last, as if the words had made little sense to her. “Didn’t? Do you now?”
“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s just—” She would have been reluctant to speak of such things to a virtual stranger under ordinary circumstances, but this woman was her husband’s mistress. Probably she would understand. Though children were often the obvious results of such arrangements, often enough they were ruinous to such a career. If any woman of her acquaintance could empathize, it would have to be Charity. “Ihave no natural affinity for children, no maternal instinct to speak of,” she admitted. “The risk of such a thing…”
“Pish.” Charity’s full lips pursed into a little moue. “There’s numerous ways one might prevent the conception of children, darling. I’ve avoided that unwelcome circumstance for well over a decade now, myself. There’s condoms, sponges—if you like, I’ll give you the direction of an herbalist of my acquaintance who produces a tea known for that quality. It’s a bit bitter, to be sure, but a squeeze of lemon and a bit of honey, and it’s perfectly palatable.”
