Winter's Woman (The Wicked Winters Book 9) Read online

  Was it wrong to want that sort of love herself? To long for a love like Romeo and Juliet’s?

  “Milady?” he prodded.

  She did not want to answer him. Not only because she had just made a most unhappy realization about her future with Lord Denton. But also because revealing her true feelings to Mr. Winter felt far too intimate. Every bit as intimate as the unexpected sensation of his hand on her bare skin.

  “Shall I read more?” she asked, instead of giving him the response he wanted.

  “No.”

  They stared at each other. His silence was deafening. His gaze shrewd. She could not shake the feeling he saw to the heart of her. Saw everything she did not want him to see. Everything she had not seen herself.

  Until now.

  Until this man.

  He was dressed like a gentleman, but his cravat was an ornamented knot. His clothing was fine, of excellent construction. His particular branch of the Winters may have been born to the rookeries, but they had ultimately grown their wealth. She could almost look upon him now and imagine he was a lord.

  Except no lord would be so large, his hands so roughened by manual labor. His stare so direct, his manner so lacking polished charm.

  “Can you read, Mr. Winter?” she asked him suddenly, giving voice to the question which had been running through her thoughts ever since she had begun reading to him.

  Ever since his reaction to her remark about his ability to count, in fact.

  She had not intended to blurt it just now, but mayhap it was a manner of deflecting his attention away from herself and subjects she had no wish to discuss. His jaw hardened, his gaze sharpening. She regretted the rude query, but it was too late to recall it.

  “No.”

  A lone, clipped word was his sole response. Nary a hint of emotion. No trace of anything on his impassive face, either.

  Instead, Evie was the one whose cheeks went hot with shame, for prodding this proud man into an admission he may not have wished to make. She struggled to find something—anything—she could say, to allay the damage she had done.

  “Forgive me, Mr. Winter. I did not intend to—”

  “No need to apologize. I ain’t a fancy lord. I can’t read. There’s no schooling for bastards raised in the East End to Covent Garden whores.”

  There was no anger in his voice, and yet she still flinched. “I am sorry, Mr. Winter.”

  “I ain’t.” His lip curled. “Read to me if you like, Lady Evangeline. Or don’t. Time is wasting.”

  A hollowness blossomed in her heart, spreading. “I could teach you.”

  He stared at her, once more solemn and silent.

  “To read,” she elaborated, feeling foolish and yet needing to continue. To make amends. To erase the damage she had so rashly done. “I could teach you to read, Mr. Winter. Whilst we are both trapped here with little else to entertain us, it may prove an excellent diversion.”

  “Is that what I am to you, milady?” he growled. “Entertainment? A diversion?”

  “No.” She shook her head, needing him to understand for reasons she did not dare comprehend. “I want to teach you, if you wish to learn.”

  “I don’t need the charity of a duke’s daughter.”

  “It is not charity,” she bit out, frustrated with him, with herself. “I want to teach you, if you wish it. And in return, you may teach me a skill unfamiliar to me. Think of it as an even exchange between the two of us.”

  The two of us.

  How those words lingered. How the thought lingered. Her cheeks went hotter still, and yet she refused to avert her gaze. To look away. To surrender. She held his stare. Blue burned into her, bluer than the summer sky. He was astoundingly handsome, Mr. Devil Winter, and Evie had never been more aware of that fact than now.

  “You want me to teach you a skill,” he said, doubt dripping from his baritone.

  Did she? The prospect seemed ill-advised. Dreadfully so, as Mr. Winter teaching her anything would require a great deal more time spent together. So, too, her teaching him how to read.

  And yet, the notion of spending more time with him did not perturb her in the least.

  “Yes.” Her answer left her before she could think better of it. “I will teach you to read, and you teach me a skill of your choice.”

  A wicked grin curved his lips.

  Good heavens, when Devil Winter smiled, he was lethal. He stole her breath. She did not think she had ever seen a man as irresistibly, magnetically attractive.

  “What if the skill I choose is not proper, milady?” he asked.

  Heat flared in her belly, between her thighs, telling her she would not mind.

  However, she fixed him with her most disapproving stare. “Mr. Winter.”

  “Knife fighting?”

  She blinked. “I cannot imagine I would require such a skill.”

  “Pistol shooting? Fisticuffs?” he carried on.

  “Whatever you wish, Mr. Winter,” she relented, because she felt she owed him that much.

  “Anything?”

  There was a distinctively wicked note in his voice.

  Everything, she longed to say.

  More heat slid through her. She could not seem to keep her gaze from his lips. They were so full and thick. Tempting.

  Nay! What was she thinking?

  “Milady?”

  His question sliced through her tumultuous thoughts. She forced her eyes away from his mouth. “Any skill you wish to teach me, Mr. Winter, as long as it is suitable for a lady.”

  There. He could not misconstrue her words.

  Even if she wanted him to.

  He nodded. “An even exchange. Whittling. That is what I shall teach you, Lady Evangeline.”

  For some reason, she wished he would call her Evie. But she wisely kept that thought to herself. They had crossed enough boundaries as it was this evening.

  “Whittling, Mr. Winter?” she asked.

  “I can carve almost anything you’d wish from a hunk of wood.”

  “A snowflake?” she suggested.

  “Aye.” He nodded. “I could make a snowflake with ease, and I can teach you to carve one as well, if you like.”

  “Yes. I would like that very much, Mr. Winter.” She smiled at him. “You see? An even exchange.”

  He shrugged and maintained his stony silence.

  Leaving her with no recourse save to continue reading where she had left off. She took up the volume of Shakespeare once more. “O, I have bought the mansion of a love…”

  Chapter Five

  Lady Evangeline Saltisford teaching him to read was Devil’s idea of hell.

  She hovered at his elbow, her nearness filling his head with fire. The scent of ripe apple would forever give him a cockstand from this moment forward. Her finger traveled slowly over the page, moving beneath the letters he was supposed to be reading.

  At the moment, he could not concentrate on a single bloody thing outside the tempting swell of her bosom, hovering perilously near. He was jealous of his own damned elbow, which was the closest portion of his anatomy to her breasts. Terrible travesty, that.

  “Say the word with me, Mr. Winter,” she urged softly.

  He could not force his attention to the page. Instead, he allowed himself the luxury of studying her profile. Her nose turned up ever so slightly at the end. A smattering of freckles was scattered on the elegant bridge. Her lashes were darker than her burnished curls.

  “Romeo,” he guessed. That one appeared often enough on the page.

  “Romeo starts with an R, Mr. Winter.” She glanced at him, and he realized her eyes were not brown at all. Rather, they were an exotic blend of gold and mahogany, with flecks of cinnamon.

  Fuck.

  What was wrong with him?

  “Juliet,” he guessed next.

  Her lips pursed. It required all the restraint he possessed to keep from kissing her.

  “There is no letter J in the word,” she said softly. “If you truly wish to learn
to read, you must at least try.”

  That was the crux of the matter. He did not want to learn to read. What he wanted to do was hoist her over his shoulder and carry her away to his chamber. Then, he would take those soft lips for his own and get her out of that pale-pink gown.

  “Where is your lady’s maid?” he asked.

  “Smithson has the afternoon to herself today,” she said.

  How the hell was he expected to keep his hands to himself with temptation a hair’s breadth away and no damned lady’s maid presiding over these lessons?

  “Isn’t proper,” he growled, irritated with her for continually appearing in his presence, unchaperoned.

  She blinked. Then blinked again. Finally, her lips curved into a smile. And then she laughed.

  Warmth trickled through his chest. My God, the throaty sound of Lady Evangeline’s laughter stole his breath. And ability to think. Longing slammed into him, fierce and intense.

  He swallowed past the steadily rising knot in his throat. “What is so bloody funny?”

  “You fretting over propriety.”

  “Why shouldn’t I? I’m here to protect you.” Including from himself, which was apparently growing more and more necessary.

  She stared at him, her expression turning pensive. “You seem rather stiff today, Mr. Winter.”

  She had no bloody idea.

  He bit the inside of his lip and said nothing.

  “Is something amiss?” she pressed.

  He forced himself to look away from her lovely face. To the book that was open on the desk before them. To the word her forefinger still rested beneath. But even then, he could not concentrate on the typeset word, the ink printed upon paper. All he could look at was her.

  Even her nails were elegant. Smooth and rounded, with a sheen no woman who worked with her hands could ever manage, the nails long rather than cropped short. They were not roughened and reddened like the hands of the other women he had known.

  He should not be thinking of that lone finger trailing down his chest. Or her dainty hand wrapped around his cock. But there was something about Lady Evangeline Saltisford that made him think about everything he should not.

  And then think about it some more.

  “Are you ashamed?”

  Her query startled his attention back to her. She was watching him with an expression that was part curious, part sympathetic.

  His lip curled, because he would not be pitied. Not by her. Not by anyone.

  He raised a brow, as if he had not a care in the world. “Ought I to be?”

  “Of course not.” She paused, seeming to search for the right words, mayhap realizing there were none. “Forgive me, Mr. Winter. I am going about these lessons all wrong, I fear.”

  Yes. Yes, she was. For one thing, she needed to be on the opposite end of the room. For another, she needed to wear a gown that buttoned to her chin. She also needed to stop smelling of fresh, ripe fruit. And looking at him with those big, brown-gold eyes. And to never touch him. By God, also to never again utter the word stiff in his presence…

  “The lessons are perfectly fine,” he gritted. “The problem is me. My mind. It does not comprehend reading.”

  “Give yourself a chance, Mr. Winter.”

  He could not stifle his bitter laughter at her optimism. “And why should I give myself a chance when no one else ever has?”

  She frowned at him. “I am giving you a chance.”

  “Why?”

  Lady Evangeline blinked, confusion furrowing her brow. “Why would I not, sir? We are together beneath a shared roof, bound to spend the remainder of this fortnight together. I find you are not as disagreeable as I once supposed you to be. Indeed, you are quite affable when it pleases you to be.”

  Affable. A fancy nib’s word, that.

  Yet another reminder his world and milady’s could not be further apart, even if they were currently inhabiting the same space. Everything was temporary. When their fortnight of banishment was at an end, he would return to the East End rookery where he belonged. And she would marry her Lord Dullerton.

  “Not as disagreeable as you supposed,” he repeated grimly. “And affyble, aye?”

  “Affable,” she corrected him gently. “Forgive me. That was discourteous of me. I meant to say I…like you, Mr. Winter.”

  She…liked him.

  Lady Evangeline Saltisford. Daughter of a duke. Blonde beauty. Diamond of the first water. Liked him.

  Devil stared at her, at a loss for how he might offer proper response. The need to kiss her thundered through him, brash as any storm. He tamped the desire down. Ignored it. Had to. There was no place for desire here. Lady Evangeline would wed her Lord Dullerton. He would carry on guarding and protecting The Devil’s Spawn. They came from different worlds.

  Like Romeo and Juliet. Wasn’t going to end well for either of them.

  He stared at her, searching her face. Committing it to his memory, in truth. There would come a day, all too soon, when he would not see her with such regularity. When he would perhaps never see her again. The knowledge was a physical ache, tearing through him.

  “Have you nothing to say, sir?” she asked softly, plumbing his gaze with her deep, mahogany-and-honey stare.

  He had been silent again, he realized. All too often, he held his tongue in a show of power. He had learned long ago that what was left unsaid could be more powerful than words. But when he was silent with Lady Evangeline, more and more, that lack of speech was down to the way she made him feel instead.

  He did not like it. Not one damn bit.

  But he liked her. Far too much.

  The last time he had allowed himself to feel anything had been with Cora.

  He inhaled sharply at the reminder. “You like me, milady?”

  Her cheeks went pink. He could not look away. When she was flushed, she was more beautiful. What must it be like, to have such a woman to call one’s own? He had never in his life coveted what another man had before. Not even Devereaux Winter, who had been born on the right side of the blanket. The legitimate heir to their sorry sire’s empire. But part of him raged at Dullerton making Lady Evangeline his wife.

  “I do not think you as vexing a man as I once supposed, when I first met you,” she said softly. “There is far more to you than you allow anyone to see and know, I suspect.”

  The urge to wrap his hand around her nape, pull her mouth to his, and claim it as his own was strong. Strong and mad in equal measures. He had no business longing for a proper lady.

  “Not as vexing as you supposed,” he repeated wryly, though he knew he should not.

  Knew he ought to leave it alone. To leave her alone. To do everything in his power to dispel this ridiculous desire pulsing to life within him. Entirely unwanted. Wrong in every way.

  She caught her lower lip in her teeth, then released it. “You are misunderstanding me, Mr. Winter.”

  “Am I?” He studied her, giving no quarter. “How?”

  “I like you. Not because you are no longer as vexing as I supposed. Not for any other reason than yourself. Forgive me for suggesting otherwise. I find you to be a most agreeable companion.”

  A most agreeable companion.

  As if he were a duenna. A governess. Someone in a gown and petticoats seated in the corner of the room instead of a man thrice her size who was drowning in unexpected—and unwanted—desire for her.

  He shot to his feet, needing to be anywhere other than near her. “Thank you for the honor you pay me, my lady. Your most agreeable companion has had quite enough of lessons for today. Mayhap we can try again tomorrow.”

  But when he would have departed from the study in which they had found themselves for his cursed reading lessons, a small hand on his arm stayed him. Hers. On a growl, he turned back to her, ready to unleash his displeasure.

  Her countenance had him stopping, turning back to find her watching him, her expression stricken. Her heart was in her eyes. And what a heart it was. Unscarred, unscathed. Whol
e and untouched, ready to be broken. But not by Devil. Never by him. Her husband would shatter that heart for her, likely within the first month of marriage. Lord Dullerton would turn to his mistress, and milady would be left crying into her pillow.

  Why should he give a damn? It was the way of the world, cruel and cutting, rife with bitter disappointment.

  “What?” he demanded, feeling churlish. Feeling as if his skin were suddenly too small for his body, as if he had been dipped into flames.

  “Do not go, Mr. Winter.”

  Her sweet entreaty irritated him. Because it burrowed inside his chest. Reached him in a way no woman had. Not since Cora. The two women had nothing else in common. Cora had been dark-haired, bright-eyed, and impossibly sweet.

  Until her sweetness had fled her.

  And until she had fled him.

  “No more lessons today,” he snapped.

  He was beyond his limits. Feeling things he had no wish to feel. Thinking thoughts he had no right to think.

  With that, he shrugged free of her touch and from her presence altogether. He stalked from the room, leaving her behind him, all too aware of her stare on his back as he went.

  She had displeased him somehow.

  Evie watched Devil Winter’s long-limbed stride taking him from the study, a feeling of helplessness overcoming her. She had intended to help him. To spend some time with Mr. Winter, understand him, get to know him. Instead, she had unwittingly chased him away.

  And she hated it.

  Loathed the way his handsome face had closed. Detested the hardness that had come into his sky-blue eyes, the tension in the bold slant of his jaw. Despised anything and anyone who made him feel inadequate, or as if he could never measure up to a peer of the realm.

  She chased after him before she realized what she was about, catching his arm. Staying his retreat. He turned toward her, his expression thunderous. The man was not pleased. Through his jacket and shirt sleeve, his warmth burned into her. She removed her hand.