Page 12 of Bad Luck Bride

“No,” Kay agreed with a sigh. “But this is how it has to be. We’ve no choice.”

Josephine eyed her with sympathy. “Maybe it will get easier as time goes on.”

“It will,” Kay replied, hoping that was true. “Now that the initial shock is over.”

“And who knows what might happen?” Jo said, settling back beside Kay as the cab jerked into motion, circled the fountain, andmade its way out of the Savoy courtyard and onto the Strand. “You and Sharpe might even be able to bury the hatchet before it’s all over.”

“I’ll never bethatnice,” Kay countered at once, giving a sniff as she settled back beside her sister. “I’ll be civil, because I must. I’ll be polite. But the only way I’ll ever truly bury the hatchet with Devlin Sharpe is if I can put the blade right into his despicable, deceitful heart.”

3

Devlin stared at the empty doorway of the flower shop, a slew of emotions seething inside him like a caustic stew.

Surprise at seeing her, however, was not one of those emotions. Pam’s desire for a big society wedding here in London at the height of the season had all but guaranteed that he and Kay would meet again. All three families were part of the ton, after all, and regarded doing the season as a necessity of life.

Not that he cared much how his own family would feel. His mother had died giving birth to him, a fact for which his father had never forgiven him. And since his disastrous elopement with Kay, he hadn’t even been on speaking terms with the old man.

Devlin would have liked to heal that particular breach for Pam’s sake, but his trip to Yorkshire had not made much headway in that regard. And if he did succeed, he was under no illusions that it would be due to his efforts. The fact that he was allying their insignificant barony with the powerful Marquess of Walston would do far more to bring about a truce with his father than any olive branch he might hold out.

As for Devlin’s four older brothers, only two were left. Rogerand James were dead, killed in a cholera epidemic half a dozen years ago. Stephen, the only one who’d made an effort to keep in contact with him after the debacle with Kay, was settled in Australia now. As for Thomas, well… he was the eldest, the heir, and as he’d done all their lives, he would take his cue from their father. The rest of Devlin’s relations would do the same.

Still, no matter which way the chips fell with his family, he and Kay would be running across each other, and probably more often in the weeks before his wedding than either of them would welcome. He’d been prepared for that. What he hadn’t been prepared for was all the powerful emotions his first sight of her had evoked.

Absurdly, what had come first was desire, flickering to life inside his body, demonstrating that the wild, uncontrollable passion he’d had for her in his youth was a flame that, despite his best efforts to extinguish it, had never quite gone out.

Then, like paraffin tossed onto the spark of that old desire, had come anger, anger that had flared up with sudden, undeniable life. He thought of those early days in Africa—his travels from Cape Town to the bush of East Africa, to Cairo, as he searched for an occupation, a career, a way to make good and prove to Kay’s family that stealing her hand wasn’t all he was capable of, that he was worthy of her, that he would be able to support and take care of her and make a life for her, even if that life was on another continent. He thought of all the letters he’d written, how careful he’d been to give particulars of where she could write back, but she never had. Even after he’d finally settled permanently in Cairo, he hadn’t given up. No, like a fool, he’d sent more letters; he’d even sent cables, but as one year became three with still no word, his hopes had become harder and harder to prop up.

And while he’d been going through all of that, what had she been doing? Letting another man push in and take his place.

With that reminder, he once again felt the pain, the pain of her unfaithfulness, hitting him just as hard now as it had the day he’d read in an old copy of theLondon Timesof her engagement to her cousin Giles. In hindsight, he supposed the fact that she’d thrown him over shouldn’t have been much of a surprise. Not only had Giles had far more money than him at the time, he’d also been heir to a title—the Raleigh title, to be precise—and a title was something Devlin was unlikely to ever possess.

He’d been tossed aside without a word, and though she and Giles had called off the engagement a few months later when the elopement rumors had begun to surface, that had been no consolation to Devlin’s betrayed and devastated heart.

Now she was engaged again. He had no reason to resent her for that, of course, but when he thought of how she’d looked moments ago, telling him of her engagement with that gleeful little smile on her face, it felt like salt poured into ripped-open wounds.

Suddenly he hated her for that, hated her for proving that even now, after all this time, even engaged to someone else, he still wasn’t completely free of her.

And if all that wasn’t enough to drive a man to the brink, there was the identity of her new fiancé. Of all the wealthy, eligible men in the world, he thought in aggravation, she’d had to pick Wilson Rycroft? A hard-drinking man from the wilds of America’s Midwest, richer than Devlin and Giles combined, old enough to be Kay’s father, Wilson Rycroft also happened to be, like Devlin, one of the investors in his friend Calderon’s new hotel. Had he known of Kay’s engagement, he’d have refused his friend’s offer to be apart of this new venture, but he hadn’t known. Had Rycroft known about him? he wondered. Either way—

“Devlin?”

Engrossed in his own thoughts, he barely heard Pamela’s voice. Perhaps he ought to bow out of this hotel investment group? He had plenty of investments in Northern Africa—his touring company, his hotels in Cairo and Luxor—he didn’t need anything like that here. Backing out would be letting Simon down, but to be involved in any sort of business venture with Kay’s future husband could prove awkward, even if he was only here for the next few months. If Simon had only told him, warned him. But then, Simon probably hadn’t known of her engagement, either—

“Devlin?”

This time, the sound of Pamela’s voice penetrated his thoughts, and he opened his eyes to find her watching him in puzzlement.

“Are you…” She paused, frowning a little. “Are you all right?”

“Of course. Shouldn’t I be?”

“Well, I’ve been talking and talking, and you’ve been standing there like a statue.”

“Sorry. I was thinking.”

“I daresay,” she countered, pouting a little. “It must be a matter of great importance, since you haven’t heard a word I’ve said.”

“It’s a matter of business.” He hesitated, wondering what to tell her, knowing he could be walking onto rather thin ice. “About that new hotel venture I’m involved in.”

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