Page 64 of A Deal With a Notorious Devil
“Oh, this and that.” Her voice squeaked across an octave or two, pitching too high to be anything but suspicious.
So Charityhadtold her.
A rap upon the library door heralded the arrival of a maid bearing a silver tea tray. To Chris’ consternation there was no pot; only a single cup resting upon it already filled. Probably she’d called for it before he had arrived, and so the servants hadn’t known to supply him with any.
“Thank you,” Phoebe said as the maid placed the tray upon the low table before her, her face glowing hotter still. With jerky little movements she seized the cup, lifted it to her lips, and took a sip.
Her face changed, her nose wrinkling into a little expression of distaste. She set the cup back down, and began to plunk lump after lump of sugar within it.
“Hell,” he said. “You’ll ruin it with so much sugar. If it’s not to your liking, ring for more.”
“That’s not necessary,” she said, her jaw firming in determination. “It’ll be fine. It just needs—”
“For God’s sake. The staff has got to learn somehow. What is it, scorched tea leaves?”
Another sugar lump, and she cast a frown in his direction. “I’m certain they did their best.”
But their best had resulted in tea that was unpalatable. “Hell,” he said. “I’ll drink it, then, if you wish so badly to spare their feelings. Go and ring for more.” He nipped the tea cup out from beneath the sugar tongs, ignoring the little gasp she gave.
“Wait!” she said as he lifted the cup to his lips. “That’s mine!”
An instant before the cup touched his lips, a familiar scent drifted to his nose. Bitter, slightly floral, weedy. Now sugared excessively to make it less offensive to the tongue.
Charity’s tea. The one she swore by drinking to prevent the conception of children. He glanced across the table, where Phoebe sat upon the couch, red-faced and shaking with mortified fury.
“Ah,” he said, and set the cup back on its tray. “I see.” But the tiniest hint of satisfaction had woven itself through his voice, and her flush deepened to a vibrant crimson.
Phoebe gave a garbled sound of rage, throwing up her hands. “You should be so lucky!” she said crisply as she rose from the couch.
He should. He really, truly, should.
She stormed out of the library in a glorious snit—but she took the cup with her.
“Wives,” Chris said on a sigh to Hieronymus, who had completed a leisurely circuit of the room and had come to rest once more near the toe of his boot. “Not that you’d know, eh?”
∞∞∞
There was nothing particularly unusual about a wife visiting her husband’s bed chamber, Phoebe reassured herself as she paced before Kit’s door. The minute trembling of her hand set the light of her candle quavering, making the shadows of the hallway shiver. Well, nothingtoounusual, at least. Probably the reverse was somewhat more common, for those couples who did not share a bed chamber.
Her fingers touched the door handle, and promptly drew away as if the cool metal had seared them. It wasn’t as if she had never been within his bed chamber, or that she feared she risked a rebuke for intruding upon the sanctity of her personal space, it was just that—
That she had the strangest sense that this one decision would change her. Make her over into a new and different version of herself. One person before, and another after; fundamentallyand intrinsically altered.
For better or worse.
Did she want to be so changed? Moreover, did she want to remain the same woman she had been these nine and twenty years, unchanging? She had already gotten everything she had ever thought she had wanted out of life. Was it selfish, then, to reach for just a little more?
The door creaked open, and Phoebe leapt back, startled, as Kit appeared there in the open doorway, bordered by darkness on all sides. His banyan hung loosely from his shoulders, clearly thrown on with little care. “Make up your damned mind,” he said, scrubbing one hand over his face. “Coming or going?”
“I—I—how did you know?”
A low snort. “You’ve been pacing before my door and muttering to yourself for at least ten minutes. Pulled me out of a sound sleep, I don’t mind saying. Thought you were Old Nick come to drag my misbegotten soul straight to hell.” The hinges of the door let out a soft squeak as he pushed the door open wider. “Coming or going?” he repeated.
“Have you…made preparations?” she inquired delicately.
“’Course. Seemed the prudent thing to do.”
“And presumptuous.”
