A welcoming, bright smile. The sort of smile a man could not help but to feel in his prick.
Fuck. He was not meant to feel an inkling of attraction for Lady Evangeline Saltisford, aristocrat, sister-in-law to his brother. She had a betrothed. Lord Denton, he reminded himself, and not without an accompanying surge of bitterness.
Where the hell was that emerging from?
He tamped down all his emotions—unwanted as they were—for he was excellent at feeling nothing. At hiding everything. He was a wall when he chose to be. Impassive. Imperceptible. Rigid. He’d had to be so for years now.
“More Romeo and Juliet?” she asked cheerfully, as if she were happy to see him there, waiting for her like a puppy longing for a pat on the head.
Christ. How pathetic, Devil Winter lingering in the library for a lady to come and read some drivel to him. He wondered if she had guessed he could not read. If this was her attempt at a truce between them. Or perhaps pity, if she suspected the truth.
At times, over the years, he had wished to change his inability to comprehend the written word. Nothing had done him a whit of good. His brother Dom read with ease. He had learned on his own. But Devil’s mind was different. The woman who had birthed him had called him a stupid little twat and boxed his ears regularly.
Mayhap he was stupid. He got on well enough. He could count. He could tally ledgers. But words eluded him. He could make his mark. Theodore Winter was all he could manage. The letters seemed scrambled every time he made an attempt at making sense of words. And so he had made more sense of other things, finding his worth in his strength and his fearlessness and his cunning.
Until now.
When Lady Evie Saltisford read to him, he had realized for the first time what he had been missing. To be sure, her soft, husky voice enhanced the pleasure. But it was also the words coming alive, the characters, the scenes, that took his mind to a new place. A previously unoccupied place.
He was enjoying listening to her read.
Much to his shame.
Devil Winter did not enjoy such nonsense. Or at least, he had not.
“Mr. Winter?” she pressed. “Shall I read more tonight?”
He ought to tell her no. She had been referring to him as Mr. Winter since they had begun this nightly ritual. Better than Mr. Nothing, he supposed. But sitting on the settee by her side was a form of torture.
He cleared his throat. “If it pleases you, milady.”
“It pleases me greatly.” A warm, sweet smile curved her lips. “Otherwise, I am dreadfully bored, trapped in this place.”
She crossed the carpets. Devil tried not to watch the way she glided, with such elegant ease. Or the way the drapery of her gown clung to her hips. Or the creamy expanse of her bosom on display. His cock was standing at attention, and he was imagining what color her nipples would be.
Hellfire and damnation.
He forced himself to move, folding his too-large frame into a fancy chair that scarcely contained him. It was deuced uncomfortable and it killed his ardor whilst putting some necessary distance between himself and Lady Evie.
She pulled the ribbon she had been using to mark her page from the volume and glanced up at him, a frown marring her forehead. It was the most displeased expression she had directed toward him since the day of their arrival.
Interesting.
“Why are you sitting over there, Mr. Winter?”
Her query and curious stare were as unwanted as the unexpected attraction he felt to her. Devil could not offer the real answer, that he did not trust himself to remain in proximity to her without being tempted to touch her. That her scent had been driving him to distraction.
That if he had to envision hell, it would likely be an eternity of being stuffed into a settee next to Lady Evie Saltisford, having a view straight down her bosom as she read Shakespeare to him, unable to touch her.
But nay, he could say none of that. He held her gaze. “Because I want to.”
Milady was not appeased. “You must sit nearer. I have no wish to yell as I read.”
He was not terribly far away. Far enough he could not catch her scent on the air. Sweet, luscious fruit. He was never going to eat an apple again without thinking of her, damn the woman to perdition.
Devil shrugged, saying nothing.
But Lady Evie was