Page 22 of Deven and the Dragon
“To my aunt, Mrs. Phina Clifton,” Deven put in smoothly. “She’ll have a trunk for him to carry back for me.”
“Yes, my lord, and yes, sir,” Fred said. “Should I take it to your room when he brings it back, Mr. Clifton?”
“Bring it here,” Fiora said. “Thank you. Go at once.”
Fred disappeared down the stairs, whistling as he went. God, what was wrong with Fiora’s servants? Would all the housemaids appear and break into song, perhaps, the next time Fiora was in the midst of a…conversation?
It was just as well. The curse hadn’t gone anywhere. But the loss of the first moment in years Fiora had felt truly alive wasn’t any less demoralizing for knowing he’d have had to break it himself.
“I suppose we should eat that cake,” Fiora said miserably. “And then sit here and wait.” Deven had been so unconcerned about sending the note that it seemed clear he was telling the truth, about that at least — so they’d be waiting for Fiora to feel like an ass.
Bother.
Chapter Ten
“Do you stillwant any cake?” Deven asked cautiously. A moment ago he’d been on the brink of kissing Fiora — Fiora, who now wanted to be called by his given name, and who had seemed very much like he wanted to be kissed, didn’t trust Deven in the slightest, and was now slumped against the sideboard looking like a kicked puppy.
He haddefinitelywanted to be kissed. Deven could have recognized that body language blindfolded: the slightly arched back, the parted lips, the quick rise and fall of Fiora’s chest, the wide eyes.
More than kissed, even. Which made two of them. Deven was damn sure he wouldn’t have been able to stop at kissing.
And now Fiora was as closed-off as it was possible to be, with his head hanging down and his arms folded across his chest.
“No, I don’t,” Fiora muttered. “Cake doesn’t suit me.”
“Well, it is chocolate,” Deven said, suppressing a laugh despite everything. God, but Fiora was — oh, if he called Fiora’s melodramatic melancholycutethe man would never speak to him again. “But if that still isn’t dark enough, we could always blow out the candles before we eat it. Might get a bit messy, but I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“Don’t mock me!” Fiora looked up, and Deven was horrified to see that his golden eyes were glassy, as if sheened with tears.
“I wasn’t.” Fiora’s lip curled, and Deven hurried to say, “All right, yes, it sounded like that, but Fiora, I was teasing you. Not mocking. There’s a difference.”
“Not much of one.”
Oh, God, Fiora sounded so unhappy. And he was staring at his feet again, his long black eyelashes fanned over his faintly lavender cheekbones like something in a painting. An exotic painting, and definitely an expensive one. Fiora wouldn’t deign to appear in any portrait that wasn’t perfect, Deven was sure of it, and he’d give the artist hell.
Fiora, Deven was also sure, had never mucked out a stable in his life, and might not even know what mucking outwas. And since Deven hadn’t seen any evidence of Fiora having friends among the few other nobility who lived in the general area…was that why he’d offered to let Deven use his name? Was he simply, horribly, unutterably lonely?
Why had he come here to Ridley, anyway? It hadn’t ever occurred to Deven to wonder. Dragons, like other aristocrats but more so, did things on a whim that most men would never be able to do even with careful planning. Did they want a change of scenery? Buy a castle, then. There were other people to handle all the packing and cleaning, after all.
People like Deven, whose lives were spent painting and mucking and mending, not brooding over whether or not their cake happened to suit them.
But now he wondered. And he hated that he cared.
This would be so much easier if all he had on his mind was an easy seduction with a clear goal at the end of it — a clear end, at that, with no messy entanglements on either side.
And now Deven feltresponsible.
He couldn’t go through with his plans for the night, he simply couldn’t. Not when Fiora looked like that, and not when Deven had begun to suspect there wouldn’t be anything simple about seducing Fiora at all. Before Fred walked in, Deven had been ready to pull out all the stops then and there: kiss Fiora fiercely against the sideboard, get his hands under those proper gentleman’s clothes, and make Fiora forget anything but the pleasure of Deven’s touch.
Maybe he would have had the scale by morning, who knew? But that would have to wait. Deven told himself it was because the mood was broken, and it wouldn’t work anyway, but he had the lowering suspicion that he simply couldn’t bring himself to take advantage of Fiora’s unhappiness.
“Screw the cake,” Deven said, a plan forming in his mind. Hopefully this one would cause less trouble than his last, and in its favor, there weren’t any rabbits involved. “And the wine. And whatever other fancy-shmancy liquor you have in those bottles over there. Do you really think I’m going to try to pull some kind of bait and switch with my box of books, or are you willing to let me out of your sight for a bit?”
“You can go wherever you want, Deven. I don’t care.”
The sound of his name on Fiora’s soft lips took the last piece of Deven’s resolve, smashed it to bits with a sledgehammer, and then stomped on the broken remains of it.
He took a few steps forward, not enough to crowd Fiora, but enough to make him notice. “I’m going to go downstairs, but not until you promise to meet me at the far end of the rose garden in fifteen minutes.”
