No matter. Once she knew the truth of the man, she would know how to handle him. Besides, she didn’t need to brighten that midnight voice. She needed to survive its tongue lashing.
Mrs. Smith opened that gate to hell, ushered her in, then stepped back into the hallway, leaving Isabella alone with the devil himself.
This room as dark as the hallway. Only a single candle on the desk against the very back wall, and a low fire in the grate illuminated the objects of the room. There were outlines, shadows, just like the hulking man sitting behind the desk. She could not see him.
Shefelthim. He was a tingle up her spine, an itch in her belly, the rapid pulse at her wrist. His shadowed form spoke of bulk—broad shoulders, tall, a frame to swallow all the meager light of the room. She took a step forward, peering into the darkness.
“Mr. Trent?”
The shadow roused and rumbled, then—a tapping sound. In the small circle of light cast by the candle on his desk, a large hand moved, a finger lifted and dropped. Such control and precision in the sinewy digit. The blunt fingernail hitting the wood like a shot in the night.
She did not flinch. She did not blink. “Sir?”
“Step closer to the fire.”
She did. Not even thinking. He’d given an order, and her body simply… obeyed.
Slowly, the shadow lengthened, the hand disappeared from the halo of light as he rose higher and higher, his bulk stepping out from behind the desk, sweeping along the wall to the very edge of the shadows nearest the fireplace.
She saw him better now. Slightly. He wore no jacket, and the stark white of his shirt sleeves and cravat seemed to glow in the dark.
“Yes,” he said, his voice another rumble, another shiver up her spine, “you’re the right one.”
What didthatmean? “The right one for… what, sir?”
“What is your name?”
“Miss Sarah Crewe.” No need to give him the real one, even if he did know her to be a fake.
“Sarah.” Something that sounded like a grunt. Or had it been a laugh? “Doesn’t suit you. I suppose that hardly matters, though.”
“A-and why not?” And here was where he told her everything he knew—her name, her age, her highest aspirations and darkest desires. A devil like him would know. Would he make her pay for poaching gossip on his land? Of course he would. But how?
The toe of his boot appeared out of the shadows, then the rest of him followed—long legs and thick, muscled thighs encased in dark trousers that cinched around a hard, narrow waist. His waistcoat well fitted over a broad chest. And those shoulders. He’d crossed his arms over his chest, so the linen that encased him strained. He wore no jacket, the rogue, and she could not imagine him fitting into that garment, no matter how well tailored. Too broad, too big. Not bigger than a doorway, but no wolf, either. He spoke in neither howls nor barks but in those chocolate tones she wanted to sip on.
She wanted, as well, to touch those shoulders, measure their width. She wanted to… sit on them? No, that was odd. Odder still, the desire to see them, the skin of them rolling over what must be well-honed muscle. She had a sprinkling of freckles across her shoulders. Did he? Or a mole perhaps on the wing of his shoulder blade. Or…
Oh, what had she been thinking? All thought dissipated like fog on a sunny day when she caught sight of the countenance above the perfection of his snowy cravat.
A face like marble, carved to make women lose their wits. Every bit of him below his slicked-back black hair, sharp and beautiful, from the strong chin and chiseled jaw to his high cheekbones and wide eyes. Green. They flashed in the fire, held her mesmerized. Only the gentle, raised curve of a scar around the outside of one eye softened him, as ifwhatever experience was stamped upon his face had tried its best to smooth out his hard edges. It had failed. The myth of the mysterious man burned away in the potent, masculine reality of him.
Andromeda had a curse she liked to apply to impossibly frustrating situations, and it alone bounced on Isabella’s tongue.
Hell and chaos. Quite.
The devil stepped forward, his expression unreadable, the corner of his firm lips quirking up, just a bit. “Your true name does not matter, Miss Crew, because where we’re going, you only need call yourself Mrs. Trent.”
Chapter Four
He’d found her. Found thesidhewho appeared and disappeared as it pleased her.Thispleasedhim, having her alone in his study, only firelight between them. Yes, she would do nicely for the job he intended to offer her. If he must pretend to be married, why not to a woman like this, one who stood tall before him with courage in the set of her chin. More likely for Mr. Barlow to believe the ruse. Because a man like Rowan would marry a woman like her.
“Pardon me?” Her fairy features collapsed, those golden brows winging toward one another and her pink lips puckering. “Mrs. Trent! What exactly do you mean by that?”
Demanding. Confident. Curt. Perfect.
Except for the tiny detail of her current disdain.
An explanation would fix that.
