Page 78 of Dukes Are Forever
"You didn't believe me."
"I didn't want to believe you."
A small smile burst over her mouth. "You're starting to make me nervous, Malloryn. All these nice things you're saying. Apologies. Peace. Are you worried you'll have me on your conscience if this all goes wrong?"
"No." His expression hardened. "Because nothingisgoing to go wrong. Clara will be accompanying you, and she's an expert at hand-to-hand combat. You know what you must do?"
Adele rolled her eyes as the intimacy of the previous moment evaporated.
"I show my invitation. I giggle. I flirt. I do nothing to make Devoncourt suspicious. You're going to be listening in, so my role is to act the wide-eyed ingénue and see what he'll say to me. I'm to identify any lords I recognize, and see what they want me to do in regards to you. And then I'm going to have a violent reaction to the champagne and be forced to withdraw early."
"And don't go anywhere alone with Devoncourt."
"What if he expects a kiss?"
"Then play coy."
"I've been playing coy with him for months. He's just invited me to a secret masquerade. You yourself said how dangerous this is if he discovers I'm playing him false."
There. The faint tic of the muscle in his jaw.
"It's just a kiss," Adele whispered, though she couldn't let him know she didn't give a damn whether Devoncourt kissed her or not. No. She wanted to know if her husband would even care. "How else am I to wrangle the truth out of him? I can hardly wrap him around my little finger in public."
"Adele." A growl.
"And you've been kind enough to teach me how little I knew of kissing. I'm sure I've mastered the art by now. He won't know what's hit him."
"I wasn't aware you were planning to go in there to kiss him."
"Well, I can hardly arm wrestle him into submission. Or tie him to a chair and question him. How did you think I was going to try and get answers from him?"
Silence.
A thick, weighted silence.
She couldn't resist torturing him a little more. "Don't worry, Malloryn. He's kept it fairly chaste until now. I'm sure he'll suffer in comparison to your expert ministrations."
"I don't know why I let you talk me into this."
"Do you know what I think?" Adele whispered.
"What?"
His face was so close to hers, she could almost taste his breath against her lips. Byrnes, Ingrid, Herbert, and Clara hovered nearby, but the pair of them might as well have been alone for the way the air thickened around them.
"I think," she said, tilting her lips almost to his in a taunt, "that you don't want me anywhere near Devoncourt. And it's got nothing to do with him being an ex-Falcon."
"Do you know whatIthink?" He banked the smoldering heat in his eyes with pure willpower, but the look he gave her was no less dangerous.
"What?"
"I think we're no longer talking about Devoncourt kissing you. Are we? Do you want me to kiss you, Adele?"
There. There it was.
He hadn't touched her since the other day in the study.
She shrugged. "We're on a rooftop. I'm about to embark on a dangerous mission. It hardly seems the time or place."
