The Devil She Knows Read online

  Surely the rewards would be worthwhile for doing this.

  She climbed off him unsteadily and knelt on the floor. Her skirts fanned out around her in a billowing pool of embroidered flowers, like a promise.

  The first button seemed to be made of butter, judging by how it slid away from her jerky fingers and refused to move from one side of his vest to the other. By the time she finally saw a wider vee of shirt, she’d tasted blood from where she’d bitten through her lip.

  “More,” Gareth commanded harshly.

  Her eyes flashed to his, unbearably drawn by his tone.

  “Undo my vest, sweet Portia,” he said a little more gently, his breathing as bitterly controlled as a tiger pacing out his territory’s limits.

  “I can’t,” she stuttered, fascinated beyond thought by how crystal bright his eyes had become behind his thick lashes. And how untamed his hair was when it fell over his forehead.

  “If you unbutton my vest,” he coaxed, his chest rising and falling underneath it, “I’ll undo my cufflinks for you.”

  She ran the back of her finger down one wrist. So very big and strong—but the hands they guarded? Heavens, the delights they’d wrought upon her that morning.

  His breath creaked to a sudden halt.

  “I can manage them,” she bargained, suddenly more confident. “But you have more fastenings than I do.”

  A black eyebrow slashed upward like an artist’s brush stroke. “What do you mean by that?”

  “If I unfasten those few, how will you help speed up our undressing?” she asked, startled at her own frankness. She knew she hungered for him but why was she speaking so boldly about it?

  “By taking my shirt and boots off,” he answered promptly. “Or your gown.”

  She closed her eyes against the reckless instinct to simply hurl herself at him.

  Her fingers were vibrating faster than her heartbeat when she bent over him again. Only the knowledge that her hair shielded her face kept her close to him.

  But she sighed when he stroked her shoulder and down her arm.

  “Beautiful silk,” he murmured, “but not half as lovely as my lady.”

  The last button undone, she stayed where she was, head bent and panting far too much for breath.

  “So many flowers.” Gareth undid her gown’s top button very slowly. She could feel his eyes on her like a caress, warming her from the inside out. She turned toward him further, fireflies taking flight from her skin.

  He brushed his fingertips against the base of her neck, like the gentlest of kisses. She arched her head back and let herself float into a sea of lust, sparkling like sunshine over waves through her body.

  “Delicate and strong to survive winter’s harsh winds, yet bring beauty in the spring.” He undid the second button, then another and another.

  She swayed toward him, like the flower he called her, and met his mouth. Joy floated between them, pure and bright as the ocean waves reflecting off the ceiling.

  He rolled her onto her side and she caught his head in her hands. His shirt rasped her aching nipples through her fine lawn chemise and she twisted against him.

  “What is it?” Gareth murmured against her throat.

  “You promised,” she murmured disconsolately—and gasped when he nibbled the pulse at the base of her throat.

  “Promised? Ah, my shirt.” He trapped her gaze, his mouth a passionate invitation to carnal folly.

  “Yes,” she gasped. “And your boots.”

  His eyes narrowed at her demand for everything he’d promised, rather than a more ladylike minimum.

  He came to his feet with a panther’s speed and removed his shirt, tossing it carelessly toward the door. His boots and socks received the same cavalier dismissal, thudding to the floor as emblems of masculine dishabille.

  Portia’s core became a furnace, melting itself into a slick river of hungry cream for him. Nothing mattered except looking at him. Even fear, once so deeply embedded in her bones, seemed unimportant compared to his glories.

  “Your eyes are very dark, Portia honey.” Gareth’s voice lured her, rich and slow as fine brandy—or the Kentucky bourbon she’d stolen once as an adolescent.

  “Still too many clothes,” she complained. But whether to herself or to him, she couldn’t have said.

  She drew up her legs and began to tear off her beribboned slippers, cursing the fashionable idiots who’d insisted on so many bows.

  “Whatever you wish, my dear.” He sounded satisfied—or anticipatory. But she didn’t care, not when hunger ran hot and fast through every iota of her flesh and she could smell his need over the salt sea. For the first time, that scent drew her, made her want to luxuriate in it.

  Cloth whooshed through the air, thudded against the wall, and slithered onto the floor.

  Gareth swept a sheet onto the floor and lay down upon it, on his side.

  Portia’s breath stopped. His stalwart frame was magnificent and deadly, he was graceful and quick as a great cat—yet he bore so many scars. Somehow those imperfections drew her even more than seeing one of Michelangelo’s statues come to life would have. She wanted this man, hardened and experienced as any medieval warrior engraved at a chapel. She needed to touch him, to rub herself over him, to reassure her every fiber that he was real and not cold stone—and to keep hot life vibrant in the steel gray eyes watching her.

  She shrugged off her tea gown and threw it over his trousers.

  His eyes flamed, blue leaping in them like the hottest flames’ core.

  She licked her lips rapidly, then undid her drawers and tossed them aside. Her chemise dropped down to her knees, concealing her.

  “Ah, sweet Portia.” Hoarseness rippled through his voice like fuel being added to a fire.

  “Gareth.” She knelt beside him, eager to finally lose herself in him. Darling, she added privately.

  He pulled her into his arms and above him.

  She tugged her chemise over her head, heedless of any scattered buttons.

  He roared his approval and suckled her fiercely, making love to her breasts as if that morning had been the lightest sample.

  She sobbed her pleasure, lust lancing between his mouth and her core. Heat pulsed in her blood, hotter and faster.

  His muscles steadied her, while his crisp body hair pricked her into a world of wilder sensation. Her senses swam, engorged with his scent, drowning in a myriad of new sensations where everything was Gareth—sight, sound, scent, touch.

  His hands were everywhere, fondling, probing, adding just the right touch to drive her wild. His deep voice was like the magic smoke from a genie’s lamp, seducing both her ears and her bones.

  She burned for him, her muscles ached to hold him. She stropped herself over him, her lust’s bright edge growing sharper with every new inch of his body she discovered.

  “Dammit, Gareth, please.” She wrapped her hand around his shaft and squeezed gently, transfixed by the contrast between strength and velvet.

  “You’ve a lovely way of expressing yourself.” Gareth groaned and lifted her up but she never released him.

  When she came down, his shaft entered her precisely where she craved him. She bowed into an arc and her entire body became an instrument to envelop him.

  Both of them worked to find pleasure during that wild ride, hands, legs, thighs, hips—who cared whose muscles brought it, so long as passion flourished? Body drumming against body, hot musk perfuming the air, and insatiable lust burning hotter and brighter in Portia’s loins.

  She was a being of pure sensation, existing only for the delight of this moment with Gareth.

  Then he rubbed her pearl hard, the hidden nubbin only she—and he—had ever pleasured before.

  She sang out his name and leaped for the stars, tumbling into orgasm as if she’d never felt its delights before. Every bone melted and dissolved in a ribbon of lights.

  She pillowed her head on his chest, too content to be irked at his usage of a condom with a barren woma
n. She might have liked a small bit of hope for his child, no matter how unlikely.

  Or should she simply concentrate on praying that St. Arles would behave like a gentleman and leave town?

  Chapter Twenty-four

  Gareth handed Portia into Kerem Ali Pasha’s personal carriage, as carefully as if she were the Ottoman princess whose dowry had provided the luxurious vehicle.

  Damn, but she was beautiful enough for royalty, even if she did keep falling asleep immediately after she’d had an orgasm. And with the most adorably bewildered expression, too, as if she’d never before been safe enough to totally yield to pleasure and the relaxation it brought.

  She took her time settling into the fine carriage, fluffing out her skirts to make sure the acres of black, furbelowed silk remained crisp. For a nickel, he’d take her back to their bedroom and explore those enticing ruffles, both silk and feminine flesh, under her striped underskirts. She’d dressed as properly for an audience with the Pope on the outside. But what lay underneath was infinitely distracting to him.

  But he hadn’t yet earned that privilege. More important than anything else was seeing her laugh and maybe, one day, watching her throw herself at life the way she had before that hellish marriage.

  Before he’d betrayed her and let her be swept into that damnable union.

  “Ready, Gareth?” Her voice sliced through his heart. He’d have tolerated constant accusations better.

  “Of course.” He stepped inside the open barouche and reached for the door.

  “Cable for you, Lowell.” A yellow envelope was thrust into his hand. He barely had time to nod at one of his best men before Selim was gone, blending into the dockside crowd like the pickpocket he’d been.

  Gareth slid the latch home and rapped his cane on the floor. The carriage swung into motion, its pair of beautiful horses catching the eye and causing onlookers to step back.

  “Congratulations,” Portia murmured. “You look and behave quite the man about town.”

  “Their shirts are too well starched and their neckties too tight.” Gareth snorted. “But sometimes it helps to blend in with the scenery.”

  “Especially when we’re about to see the Sultan?”

  “Especially then,” he agreed.

  He measured his finger against the envelope’s flap then sighed and settled for a pen knife. His fancy gloves were too damn thick to fit inside much, let alone something this tightly sealed. A few seconds later, he passed the contents over to Portia without a word.

  He couldn’t think of anything fit for a gentlewoman’s ears, anyway.

  She stared at him. “Why, that filthy, double-dealing, lying, conniving…” She crumpled up the paper and hurled it onto the carriage floor.

  “Skunk?” Gareth suggested.

  “Bastard!”

  The unusual profanity made Gareth’s eyes widen.

  “He must have known when he spoke to me That Woman was already starting to dismiss the servants. People who’d been with his family for years.” Color flew in her cheeks like battle flags.

  “But not all of them, and not the four he named to you.” Thank God the coachman only spoke Turkish, not English or French.

  “Does it matter?” She tightened her lips and shook her little fists, as if begging for a target.

  “It might, if you’re holding to the letter of a bargain and not the spirit.”

  “Are you defending him?” She pulled her voice back from a shriek an instant before it echoed off the stone walls beyond the carriage.

  “Hardly; I’d rather kill him.” Very slowly, using some of the nastier Apache techniques.

  Christ, what he wouldn’t do to simply throw Portia over his shoulder and lock her up on the next London-bound ship to weigh anchor. But she’d simply jump ship or leap aboard the Orient Express, determined to come back here so she could protect her friends.

  He ignored the cavity sucking out his stomach and forced reality back into her calculations as he’d done so many times before.

  “Portia, you still have the chest which St. Arles needs.”

  “He will destroy my friends.” Agony wrenched her voice out of its usual music.

  “He will try.” Gareth caught her hand. “We have other friends in London who can help.”

  She looked up at him, terror distorting her expression beneath her feathered hat. “Are you sure?”

  “Always remember that you have something St. Arles needs.” He urged courage into her with his grip.

  “But if we meet him before we know my friends are safe—Maisie and Jenkins and…” She caught herself an instant before a hysterical sob. “What will I do if he demands the loathsome trunk then?”

  “Choose what your heart demands,” he answered slowly, “and I’ll be at your back.”

  The reception hall at Yildiz Palace was large, extremely gilded, and very full of rustling Europeans and hard-eyed Turkish soldiers, all arrayed in their best.

  Late afternoon sunlight streamed in through an enormous window, framed by cream curtains. Inlaid white and gold panels glowed like jewels above the crystal chandeliers. Mother of pearl panels adorned the walls, while garlands of painted flowers stretched up the columns before uniting with their embossed capitals. A single carpet rippled underneath like a cornfield, uniting the vast room and the crowd gathered within it.

  Portia might have called it inviting except for her strong desire to be at home, nestling in her husband’s arms where the world couldn’t harm her.

  “Please take your place wherever you wish, Mr. and Mrs. Lowell.” The court flunkey bowed and stepped away without waiting for an answer.

  He probably meant wherever they could find space at the window.

  Portia considered the horde gathered in front of the gilded frame and shuddered. Between the adults pressing forward to reach the glass and the children squirming like accomplished spies to pass through, the entire mass resembled a snake pit far more than a civilized encounter.

  The dozens of soldiers watching everyone present, as if anyone was worth a sudden shot or knifing, only added to the impression of barely contained primitives.

  And for what?

  The window displayed a beautiful little wedding cake of a mosque, almost breathtaking in its ivory purity. It was surrounded by dozens of ministers, Moslem priests of every sect, rank, and country, plus hundreds of soldiers, all of them dressed in their finest uniforms and glittering with decorations to out-shine the sun. They were arrayed in concentric rays, like beams of a living sun, vibrant and warm with life.

  “Can you see the courtyard?” Gareth asked quietly, wise enough not to jostle his way into the throng.

  “Where all the soldiers are? Yes.”

  “The Sultan will ride into it, followed by Ottoman guards, all of them on some of the finest Arabian steeds you’ll ever find.” A rare display of awe threaded his voice. “The most senior religious leaders will greet him and escort him inside, where he will pray.”

  “There are a great many priests there, even to visit a sultan.”

  “He’s also the caliph, the leader of the Moslem religion, and this is Friday evening prayers, the holiest time of the week.”

  Good heavens, he sounded as if he considered their ceremonies equal in symbolism to Christian ones.

  “That’s not a very big courtyard.” She strained to catch a little more of what impressed him. “How long will we see anything?”

  “A few minutes.”

  “All this pomp and ceremony for that?” She shot him an incredulous look.

  “All this protection to ensure the Sultan, heir to a centuries’ old line, stays safe at one of the few occasions evildoers can surely find him,” Gareth corrected.

  “There must be a thousand men there,” she protested. “Who—or what—could get through that?”

  “You’ve spent time around mining camps, Portia. Apply your brain.” Gareth all but hissed the last three, clearly enunciated words.

  She frowned at him then caugh
t his sideways glance at the circulating flunkeys.

  Spies? She mouthed.

  He nodded, his mouth very tight.

  Here?

  He didn’t bother to dignify that question with a direct answer. “Isn’t it glorious that so many men are willing to die for their Sultan?” he asked, more loudly.

  “Quite so,” she murmured, borrowing a phrase from her most despised former in-law.

  “Do you suppose the Sultan feels guilty for taking so many men away from their Friday prayers to guard him?” St. Arles’ studied, hateful drawl interrupted.

  Portia’s fingernails cut into her palms inside her sleeves. Who could she denounce him to? Would anyone pay attention if she screamed?

  “I’m sure the men in question consider their attendance an honor,” Gareth parried and discreetly guided them to the far end of the room, well away from anyone else. “Who are we, to argue with another religion?”

  “Blithering idiots, wasting men like that. Do you see how they’ve put so many men on the mosque’s roof that it looks like ants trying to carry off a gingerbread house? They should simply shove him into a back corner and let him babble his nonsense there.” St. Arles shook his head. “We know to do things more efficiently in England.”

  He called what all these people had gathered to celebrate, babbling nonsense?

  Rage surged through her, icily crisp as a desert wind scrubbing sands with snow.

  Portia regally turned to survey its loathed source, immeasurably stronger for the support of Gareth’s arm under her hand. Any decision would be hers, but having him beside her limited St. Arles’ potential for violence.

  The source of a hundred nightmares shot her another one of his impatient glances which had always ripped through her defenses. “Come along; we can’t talk in front of him.”

  “My husband stays with me.”

  “Husband?” For the first time, St. Arles truly measured the other man.

  Gareth gave him an equally insolent stare, the vicious appraisal of two predators assessing each other’s readiness for battle.

  Portia licked suddenly dry lips, uncertain who had the advantage. St. Arles’ nasty cunning had outwitted more than one opponent.