“I’m at the boardinghouse down the way,” she said. “Once the sun sets, I’m going to take you there. I’ll show you what scraps of fancy I’ve got on under my clothes. We’ll see then if you can curl that whip around me without the slightest pain. You show me you have that kind of control, no matter how worked up I’ve made you—and we’re nowhere close to how worked up I intend to make you—and you can dish out whatever pain you want. I’ll take every bit of it. But you will owe me that drink.”
“God, you’ve no sense of fair play, do you, love?”
“Play assumes a game, Dev.”
He’d lost his mind. “Whip’s mainly for cracking. Strikes are usually trick stuff.”
“But you can do both.” She wasn’t leaving him any room for escape.
“Maybe I should leave it at the one dance,” he said. She really didn’t understand the extent of what he wanted tonight. He wasn’t sure himself anymore.
“Elle, do you have a back room?” Lady Daniela spoke as if she’d known Elle all her life. As if she were a family servant. Dev almost winced at the imperious sound of it.
The woman gave her a gimlet eye, jerked her head at a door on the back wall.
“Good, then.” Lady Daniela turned to lead the way. Gathering his wits back about him, Dev shot Elle an ironic look. But he followed the Lady Danny, as he’d dubbed her in his mind. While her eagerness to get him alone for whatever reason was flattering, he was prepared for her reaction when she turned the knob and pushed her way through with confident determination.
Or so he thought.
She stepped right into the light of a sun a breath away from setting, because the door led not to a back room, but to the yard behind the building.
He’d been right on her heels and so pulled the door firmly closed, eager to have her to himself, only to find she’d spun on her heel and thrown herself into him with a gasp of genuine alarm. Reacting instinctively, Dev swung her behind him, back against the door to protect her with the shadow of his body. He was uncertain what the threat was, but he suspected his city lady had startled a snake on the back steps.
“Inside.” As she made the demand, she shoved at the door so the jamb splintered. It had a history of being stubborn, but apparently it had rotted through at last, though the shards of wood that fell off looked sound enough. He pushed it open for her with his palm on the panel above her head and she quickly lunged back into the bar. It was then he smelled burned flesh.
The three men were on their feet as she made a direct line for Elle, moving so swiftly Devlin couldn’t catch up in time. Elle was going for her shotgun, but before she could bring it out, Lady Daniela had caught the woman’s collar and hauled her halfway over the bar one-handed, as if Elle’s stocky body weighed as much as a doll.
“You human bitch,” she snapped. “I paid in advance for your drinks. Not to mention the filthy rooms at that boardinghouse leased by your cousin.”