Page 74 of A Deal With a Notorious Devil
“You could at least try to be polite to my family,” she hissed.
“I will not,” he said, with a stubborn tilt of his chin. “It’samiabilitythat’s won me the company of your parents tomorrow morning—a dubious prize at best. You can be certain I’ll be on my worst behavior.”
Phoebe resisted the impulse to throttle him. She’d already injured his bad knee this evening; it would hardly be sporting to add strangulation to it. “You’ll be pleasant,” she said, “or the next breakfast we host will comprise all of the Toogoods.”
Kit staggered back a step, no doubt awestruck at her temerity. “All,” he repeated incredulously. “All? Even the children?”
“Especiallythe children,” she said spitefully, and grinnedwith malicious glee when he clutched one hand over his heart as if he’d been stricken with a fit of the vapors.
“Hell,” he grunted. “All right, then. Never say I don’t know when I’ve been beat. Come on, then, it’s time we were inside. And watch your step. Hieronymus is just by your right foot.”
Phoebe glanced down, her brows pinching in confusion to see nothing at her feet. Hieronymus had retreated to the pond once more, where he was dipping his front legs in the water. Too late, she recalled Kit’s warning about letting herself become distracted—she heard the swish of his cane through the air, and her knees buckled as he swept her legs out from beneath her. She landed on her bottom in the grass with an abbreviated cry, stunned.
Kit threw back his head and cackled to the sky. She had often wondered what a maniacal laugh sounded like, and now she knew. Now she knewexactly.
“I can’t believe you did that!” she huffed.
He braced the tip of his cane in the ground and bent down to offer her his hand. “Are you hurt?”
“No,” she grumbled. “I’ve bruised my pride, perhaps, but nothing more.” But still deserving of retribution. Her fingers itched to slip inside his pockets and relieve him of something.
“Do you know, I’ve taken more lessons to heart from bruised pride than from broken bones.” He pulled her to her feet once more. “Truce,” he said. “I’ll endeavor to be…pleasant over breakfast.”
Generous of him, she supposed. As they turned together toward the door, Phoebe slipped her right hand into his pocket and came up empty. Probably she’d filched one too many of his belongings just lately for him to carelessly leave them vulnerable within his pockets.
The stiletto. He’d tucked it back down the waistband of his trousers, but the hilt jutted above them. It would be the largestobject she’d ever attempted, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. She modulated her breathing, matched her pace to his, and waited for an opportune moment. She hooked her fingers around the hilt, and the dagger slid smoothly up and out, into her hand.
“Decent lift,” he said with a grin as he opened the door for her. “I hardly felt it.”
“Damn,” she said. “I truly thought I had it.”
“You did. If I hadn’t been expecting it, you’d have gotten away with it.”
“How could you have been expecting it?” she asked. “I only decided to take it seconds ago!”
A shrug. “You always steal something of mine when I’ve riled you, and I haven’t got anything in my pockets. The stiletto was the obvious choice. Keep it,” he said. “You stole it fair and square.” And he sounded…proud.
Chapter Twenty One
Phoebe awoke in the night with a frantic terror clawing at her throat. In the darkness of her bedroom, the shadows swirled and melded and formed a horrible amalgamation of evil, pressing down upon her until the air whooshed from her lungs, driven from them as if a fist had plowed itself into her stomach.
Russell’s hoarse, raspy voice echoed still in her ears, carried over into waking from the nightmare from which she had emerged.I can get to the both o’ ye anywhere I please.Her heart raced wildly in her chest, her limbs drawing tight and tense.
“Phoebe. You’re all right.” The sleep-roughened murmur of Kit’s voice near her ear produced a strange sort of sedative effect, as if he had somehow imbued the words with a command she was helpless but to heed. The furious pace of her heart slowed. Her lungs expanded with her first deep breath since waking. Her muscles loosened and relaxed once more.
In the darkness, his hand slid across her belly, found her hip, and pulled her toward him, and she went with a breathy little sigh, pitching face-first against him and pillowing her cheek against the warm wall of his chest, the sparse hair dusted across it tickling her nose. His skin smelled clean and faintly musky. Soothing to her scrambled senses.
His hand cupped the nape of her neck, kneaded the muscles there with gentle fingers. She felt the brush of his lips against the top of her head and closed her eyes with a sigh, sinking into the embrace.
“You’re all right,” he repeated in a sleepy rumble. A soft chuckle slid past her ear. “I’m the worst thing you’ll find in the darkness tonight.”
It seemed so strange to consider thathewas the monster most of London would fear to encounter in a dark alley. That perhaps he had haunted the nightmares of others just as Russell now haunted hers. She took only comfort from him—from the smooth sweep of his palm down her spine, and the deep, even breaths she could hear beneath her cheek. From the slide of his leg across her own and the fingers toying gently with her hair.
Perhaps it didn’t matter that he was the monster in anyone else’s story, so long as he washermonster. The one to send the rest of them skittering off in fear. The monster from whom other monsters fled. The monster who held her within the circle of his arms, who brought only comfort and safety.
“Thank you,” she breathed, snuggling her cheek against his chest.
“Third nightmare this week,” he said, pitching his voice low. “Getting to be a habit.”
