Winter's Woman (The Wicked Winters #9) - Scarlett Scott Page 0,23

He understood women like Mrs. Hale. They were women like the one who had given him life, who had to earn their living rather than having it provided for them. They were cunning and bold, using anyone they could to better themselves. Women who would sell their own sons to the demons of hell without a qualm if it meant something for them. One less mouth to feed.

“What is your Christian name?”

The gentle question shook him from his thoughts of the past. “Devil.”

Lady Evangeline shook her head. “Your true Christian name. I do not believe anyone would name their child Devil.”

His name hovered on his tongue, and he did not know why. He answered to Devil. Devil was his name. It may not have been the name the woman who had birthed him had given him, but it was the name she had always called him. Later, he had embraced it for different reasons. He was no longer the weak lad she had birthed and abused.

He gave Lady Evangeline a grim smile. “Wrong, milady.”

“Your true name.”

What was the harm?

“Theodore.” The name, so foreign and unfamiliar, one he had not claimed in years, left his tongue. Hung in the air. Suspended.

“Theodore,” she repeated.

Heat flared in his chest. And lower. On her lips, he did not mind the hated name quite as much. But then, on her lips, everything was better. Sounded better. Tasted better.

He was bloody well doomed. If she asked him for more kissing lessons, he could not deny her.

Devil Winter’s name did not suit him, Evie thought. Far too fussy and proper. Devil Winter was a man who was wild and bold and strong.

A man who had just told her she was promised to wed a gentleman who had a mistress. Mistresses were not suitable conversation for ladies to broach with their future husbands. She would have never done so. However, she would have liked to believe Denton would have been clear with his intentions for their marriage. Clear enough that she would have known he planned a traditional society union.

Which was not at all what she wanted.

And any guilt she may have felt at enjoying the kiss of another man was decidedly washed away by the reminder that her betrothed had never once set his lips upon hers. Meanwhile, he was kissing one of London’s most famed actresses. And doing only heavens knew what else with her as well. Supposing she could believe Mr. Winter’s word, that was. Certainly, he could be lying.

But such prevarication on his behalf now hardly made any sense. What did he stand to gain? Nothing, as far as she could see. She had already kissed Mr. Winter and all but thrown herself at him in embarrassing fashion. Besides, men like Devil Winter did not marry women like herself. That her twin sister and Mr. Dominic Winter were happy now was almost an impossibility. Their disparate worlds colliding in harmony—the rookeries of the East End and Mayfair—never happened.

And yet it had for Addy. Evie could not suppress the sudden, most unbecoming surge of jealousy accompanying that thought. Suddenly, true love—Juliet’s love for Romeo and his for her—seemed far more important than any society match Evie could ever make.

“Mr. Winter is fine,” he growled. “Or Mr. Nothing.”

She regretted having called him the latter now. How cool she had been to him initially. Because she had been quite wrong about him, she thought. And intensely irritated at having to hide herself away, as if she were a shameful secret. Also fearful of what would happen. It was not every day a lady found herself suffering a gunshot wound in Mayfair.

But that was neither here nor there at the moment, because Devil Winter was still near enough to touch, watching her in that way that said keep your distance.

“You dislike your name,” she inferred from his response—the tensing of his jaw, the stiffness in his bearing, the curling of his lip.

“I dislike the woman who saddled me with it,” he snapped.

“Your mother.”

“The woman who bore me.”

They stared at each other, Evie assessing, Mr. Winter attempting to resurrect his walls.

“What did she do to make you hate her?” she asked softly, though she was certain she ought not to prod.

“Not enough time in the day for the list, milady.” He inclined his head.

His reluctance to reveal more of himself to her sent a pang of disappointment through Evie. Was she wrong to feel as if they had bonded in the last few days they had spent together? That