Page 46 of As the Devil Dares

“A book?” Ross sat up curiously at that. The gentlemen at White’s were notorious for committing infamous firsts. The first man to ride a horse backward to Richmond, the first to wear trousers to dinner, the first to bet on a race of raindrops sliding down a window…but a book delivered to the club? Certainly this was the first time that had ever happened. “Who would send that to you here?”

“No idea,” he mumbled and removed a note card that had been stuck between the pages.

In your desperation to flee from us women

and our shopping, you forgot this. Consider

it the start of your grand library.

—M. W.

“Mariah,” he murmured, stunned that she would have thought of this.

Ross asked with surprise, “The Hellion’s sending you gifts?”

“It’s not a gift.” He tossed it onto the table with a grimace. “It’s a portent.”

With a knowing shake of his head, Ross pointed at the book with his cigar. “That doesn’t seem the action of a woman set on your slow and torturous death.”

No, it certainly didn’t. Which only made him even more suspicious.

If they weren’t at odds, he might have taken the gift as nothing more than a kindness. Just as he would have genuinely found her likeable. But in his fight with Mariah, there truly was no judging a book by its cover.

“This season is going to end badly for you,” Ross assured him, flicking ash from the end of his cigar. “And I don’t mean your business interests.” His eyes softened on Robert in that same contemplative diplomatic expression he used at court when he wanted to sway opinions on whatever new political stance King George wanted to take. “Either you’re going to be blamed by her father when she finishes her last season as a spinster and lose the partnership, or she accepts a marriage offer and you lose her.”

“Don’t be daft. I don’t want her for myself.” He glared at his cousin for even suggesting such a thing. “She’s a hellcat.”

Ross smiled slyly, studying the glowing tip of his cigar. “And what’s wrong with a woman with spirit?”

For a moment, his mind blanked, and he couldn’t find an answer.

What was wrong with Mariah, except that she would do anything to work at her father’s side? That ebony hair and creamy pale skin, those berry-red lips that tasted as spicy-sweet as they looked…and to his great surprise, a brilliant mind. She wasn’t some simpering young miss; she was a confident woman, one who donated her time and most of her allowance to helping children. For heaven’s sake, she knew naval battle strategy. And wasn’t afraid to use it.

She was pure challenge, every breathtaking inch of her.

If she had been any other woman except for Henry Winslow’s daughter, he would have pursued her. Without hesitation.

But she wasn’t any other woman. Mariah was the only obstacle preventing him from proving that he deserved the Carlisle name. And no one, not even an intelligent, intriguing, and achingly beautiful woman, would stop him from doing exactly that.

“Everything,” he muttered as he shoved himself out of the chair and walked away.

Ross called out after him, “Aren’t you bothered that she’s refused her invitation to St James’s ball?”

He halted in mid-step and craned around to gape at his cousin. “What did you say?”

“She declined Olivia Sinclair’s invitation,” Ross explained as Robert slowly stalked back to him.

“Impossible.” Because he divided his time between Parliament and court, Ross often heard news before the rest of Mayfair. But this time, he’d gotten it wrong. Completely wrong. “That ball’s to be her formal introduction. Mother personally arranged it with Lady St James.”

“And yet, Miss Winslow refused,” Ross insisted as he rolled the cigar between his fingers. “St James was grumbling about it yesterday in the Lords. Seems the countess was beside herself wondering what the proper protocol is for a seventh-season debutante who refuses her own introduction, while St James didn’t know whether to take it as an insult or a disaster averted.” With a shake of his head, he lifted his glass in a toast. “Foreign armies and women, Robert. Best to avoid engaging with either of them.”

Without a word, his teeth clenched so hard that the muscles in his neck jumped, Robert spun on his heel and stormed from the club.

This time, the little minx had finally gone too far.

* * *

An hour later, Robert charged up the main stairs at the Gatewell School, taking them three at a time. The housekeeper who’d answered the door said he could find Mariah on the second floor in the schoolroom. And God help her when he did.