Page 2 of Enticing the Devil

Quickly gathering her supplies, she stepped from her secluded little spot to the garden path. As she did so, her paint box slid from her grip. It opened when it hit the ground, spilling her paints and brushes all over the stone walkway. The incident caused quite a clatter, immediately drawing Lord Mayhew’s attention. As she’d intended.

As she also anticipated, the lord promptly altered direction to come to her aid.

“Lady Anne, allow me to help you,” he said as he neared with a polite, though clearly distracted, smile.

“Thank you, Lord Mayhew,” she answered. If her tone was a bit louder than necessary, the kind lord gave no indication of it. “I’m frightfully clumsy, I’m afraid.”

“Not at all,” he replied as he crouched beside her to start collecting the strewn objects. “I don’t suppose you happened to see Lady Mayhew pass by?”

His question had her stiffening as her tongue tied into a knot. It wouldn’t be an outright lie to say she hadn’t seen his wife since she’d only heard the woman, but she couldn’t quite bring herself to say the words.

Then she didn’t have to as the lady herself came sweeping toward them. “My darling, whatever are you doing out here?” she asked with a wide smile and hands outstretched. The seductive purrs the lady had employed only moments ago had been replaced by a cajoling, almost patronizing tone that prickled roughly over Anne’s tightly strung nerves.

Rising, Lord Mayhew took the lady’s slim, ringed fingers in his. “I saw a flash of your gown from an upstairs window as I headed down for breakfast. I thought you were planning to sleep in this morning.”

“Oh, I was, but the garden was just too inviting. I couldn’t resist.” As she answered, Lady Mayhew slipped her arm through her husband’s and began to lead him back toward the house.

They’d gotten a few steps away before the gentleman came to a halt and glanced back at Anne where she still knelt on the ground gathering her things.

“Allow me a moment to assist—” he began, but his wife interrupted.

“The lady appears to have everything in hand, don’t you, dear?”

There was a sharp note in the woman’s sugared words that did not escape Anne’s notice. Clearing her throat, she quickly replied, “Yes, of course. Thank you for your kindness, my lord, but I can manage the rest.”

“If you’re certain?”

“Quite,” Anne replied with a smile of assurance.

As the married couple continued back toward the house, the ill feeling in Anne’s stomach only grew worse.

Had she done the right thing? Perhaps it would have been better for Lord Mayhew to discover his wife’s faithlessness. But just the brief imagining of such a scene filled her with dread and compassion for a man who didn’t deserve such a painful betrayal.

Still, she probably should have just stayed out of it. Now she felt complicit in the woman’s disloyal behavior and that didn’t sit well with her at all.

With a heavy sigh, she closed her paint box then tucked it beneath her arm along with the rest of her supplies and started to rise from where she’d been kneeling beside the path. But as her gaze lifted, she caught sight of a pair of worn boots and brown trousers standing right in front of her. She gasped and would have fallen back on her rear if the man who’d approached her so silently hadn’t taken a quick, firm grip of her shoulders to unceremoniously haul her the rest of the way to her feet.

“Thank you,” she muttered automatically, feeling distinctly unsettled by the man’s sudden appearance and abrupt handling of her person.

“Yours, I believe,” he said thickly in a voice she now recognized as he extended one of her paintbrushes in his large, calloused hand.

Her heart raced as her gaze traveled from his very masculine fingers up the length of an obviously strong arm clad in a simple coat of dark brown that also spanned frightening wide shoulders to a face framed by longish waves of black hair. Broad, rugged features were shaped into an expression of undeniable irritation as the man glowered down at her.

Mr. Beynon Thomas.

Lady Anne had heard of him—there weren’t many people in London who hadn’t—though she’d never actually met the man. His introduction to society at the start of the most recent season had been the scandal of the year. Not his introduction per se, but the fact that he’d been introduced as the Earl of Wright’s illegitimate half brother. Apparently, the prior earl had produced quite a few illegitimate children. Mr. Roderick Bentley, who owned a popular gambling hell, had been known as the earl’s by-blow all his life. But no one had been aware there were others until recently. The most surprising part was that the current earl was making a very obvious point of acknowledging his siblings despite the damage to his family name.

The earl didn’t seem very concerned about public opinion when it came to his half siblings, which Lady Anne understood to number four in total, though she hadn’t heard much about the other two. But that didn’t stop the gossipmongers from going absolutely wild with the information. Especially once Mr. Thomas made an appearance in the London social scene.

Most bastard children, even when acknowledged and supported by family, were subjected to rejection from a significant portion of society. And Mr. Thomas surely faced his share of such prejudice and judgement. Not only was he a lord’s by-blow, but he was also an outsider—a Welshman who was wildly rumored to be a farmer. That in itself caused a bit of an uproar when he started making appearances at a few select London parties.

But more than those things, it was Mr. Thomas’s manner that had become the juiciest topic of conversation. Apparently, he tended to be rather brusque and surly. The gossips liked to speculate on the reason for his somewhat malevolent nature, and anyone who managed to keep the ton twittering in private boudoirs was destined to become popular in a social scene that adored spectacle in any form.

Whenever the gruff and unpolished Mr. Thomas made an appearance at an event, it was sure to be talked about for days afterward. No hostess could resist such an incentive to include him on their guest list. Even so, he accepted invitations very sparingly, which, of course, made him all the more desirable.

Forcing herself to meet his dark gaze now, Lady Anne understood why some people called him the Welsh Devil in dark whispers. The man exuded animosity. In his large stature and intimidating bearing. And in the rigidity of his somber features.

Though the anger she’d heard in his voice as he’d spoken to Lady Mayhew was still evident in the tension of his firm lips and the heavy scowl marring his brow, it was his stare that unsettled her most. His black-eyed gaze was deep and penetrating. It felt as though he peered straight into the pit of her soul.

---