Winter's Woman (The Wicked Winters #9) - Scarlett Scott Page 0,1
“I do not like him.”
“Heard that,” he growled. “Feeling’s mutual.”
Evie’s gaze returned to him. Their stares clashed, the connection sending a visceral jolt through her. She could not seem to look away. The certain knowledge that Devil Winter was going to cause her a great deal of trouble lodged in her heart like a thorn.
Fucking, fucking, fuck.
Why had he agreed to his half brother Dom’s bloody asinine request?
Lady Evangeline Saltisford was a golden, saucy bit of baggage. She was the sort of lady who was beautiful and she knew it. The kind who could have any man in London on his knees, ready to lick the soles of her slippers. A duke’s daughter. Born to wealth and privilege. One of the quality, she was. The sort of petticoat who would swoon if she ever spied a rat, let alone have to catch one and eat it as her dinner.
She was the sort of woman Devil despised.
And she looked at him now, darting glances of disapproval in his direction every few moments as if he were a rat himself. Speaking about him as if he hadn’t a pair of ears to hear or the sawdust betwixt them to understand her speech.
“I do not like him,” she told Dom’s wife, Lady Adele—her twin—mayhap supposing her dulcet voice could not carry to him.
It could.
“Heard that,” he growled. “Feeling’s mutual.”
For twins, the two of them had not one damned thing in common. Lady Adele was kind and sweet as sugar while her counterpart was lovely as a gem and coldhearted as a lump of coal. Lady Adele’s dark-haired loveliness was a distinct contrast to Lady Evangeline’s blonde beauty.
Why the devil had he sat in this bleeding chair? It was two sizes too small and pinching his arse.
“I beg your pardon?”
The question broke through his thoughts. Feminine and cutting. As if he had been the one to insult her first.
The quality.
Fuck them all. Except Lady Adele, he added grudgingly. She was not half-bad, and she was in love with his ill-tempered brother, so that was saying something. Dom deserved happiness more than anyone Devil knew.
“You don’t like me, my lady,” he said, his voice feeling rusty. He did not care much for conversing. “Fine. I don’t like you neither.”
“Either,” she snapped, her eyes locking with his.
His lip curled. “I beg your pardon?”
She cleared her throat primly. “The correct manner of speech is to say I do not like you either, Mr. Winter. Not I don’t like you neither. That is most improper form, but do not fear. A hint of correction is good for the constitution, now and then.”
He growled. This supercilious chit could go to Hades.
But she did not stop there. One wheaten brow raised. “I am afraid I did not hear your response, sir.”
That was because she hadn’t gotten one. And if she knew what was good for her, she would stuff her airs up her pretty arse and close her lips. She would not like to hear anything he had to say to her. Likely, it would make her petticoats curl.
“Evie, Devil is doing us all a favor,” Lady Adele was telling her sister in quiet reprimand. “We are fortunate indeed. No one can keep you safer than he shall.”
This time, the other brow went up, a full show of milady’s disbelief. Someone ought to take her over his knee, throw up her skirts, and spank her. Briefly, he allowed himself the fantasy of imagining her bare bottom, how lush and full it would be, her outrage as his coarse palm connected with her smooth, ivory flesh.
But it wouldn’t be Devil. He liked his women soft and seductive and knowing, not tart-tongued and elegant and arrogant.
“He looks as if he is the sort of person I ought to be guarded against, Addy. Rather than the opposite.”
This judgment, too, was delivered in a whisper. One she undoubtedly believed the simpleton in the corner could not comprehend. Milady was about to receive an education.
He would have risen to his feet had he not feared the goddamn chair would stick to his arse. Instead, he remained where he was, pinning his nemesis with a disparaging stare of his own.
“I am the guard, Lady Elizabeth,” he snapped, intentionally using the wrong name.
It was small of him, he knew. But enjoyable, nonetheless.
Her shoulders drew back. “My name is Lady Evangeline.”
He scowled. “Right. And my name is Devil. Not Mr. Winter. Not sir. Devil. Repeat it after me if you like.”
Her cheeks flushed. “Forgive me, but Devil cannot