“Would you go, please?” the interloper in his chamber asked in her perfect, aristocratic English.
Surely he had misheard her.
“Pardon?”
“Miss Wilhelmina will be too fearful to emerge with a stranger here.”
He still could not believe she had named a cat Miss bloody Wilhelmina. It was something only a pampered lady would do, one who had never needed to worry where her next meal would come from. One who had never feared the shadows in the night. One who had never suffered a moment in her privileged life.
“Too fucking bad for Miss Wilhelmina,” he snapped, in a foul mood at the reminder of his cursed past. “This is my chamber, and she is not welcome here. Nor are you. I don’t tup virgins, and even if I did, you aren’t my sort, sweetheart.”
He was being rude, he knew. He had cursed and referenced all manner of things not fit for a proper lady’s ears. But Blade Winter wasn’t a gentleman. And he was only rusticating in the midst of nothing in Oxfordshire because Dom had strong-armed him into it.
As the leader of the bastard Winters, the eldest of them all, and the one who ran The Devil’s Spawn, Dom made such decisions. The rest of them fell in line like good little soldiers. Even if it meant being sent to the monkery where strange, lovely ladies were rummaging about beneath their beds in search of cats with preposterous names.
“There is no cause to use such language, sir, or to be so ungenerous,” the lady in question said now, her tone frosty enough to rival the wintry winds buffeting the outside of this massive old cavern of a home.
“I’ve been traveling for two days, and this is the last place I want to be,” he pointed out, punctuating his words with an annoyed sigh. “Enough talking, madam. I will extract the beast myself.”
He noted the carpet was thick and new. Fine, too. Of course it was. Nothing but the best for old Dev. Blade tried to temper the bitterness festering inside him whenever he thought of the legitimate heir to the Winter fortune.
Devereaux Winter had been born on the right side of the blanket, the eldest and only legitimate son of their father, a merciless merchant who owned half of London by the time he had cocked up his toes. But neither the bastard Winters—Dom, Devil, Blade, Demon, Genevieve, and Gavin—nor the legitimate Winters—Devereaux, Pru, Eugie, Grace, Bea, and Christabella—had been aware of one another until their sainted sire’s death.
“You cannot fetch Miss Wilhelmina,” the vexing woman intruding upon his solace said, cutting through Blade’s thoughts.
“Well, you are not fetching her, are you?” he pointed out. “And I want my chamber back. Stands to reason one of us has to get the damned thing, and it may as well be me.”
She bit her lower lip, drawing his attention to the ripe succulence of her mouth. She had the sort of lips made for kissing, no denying it. And though she wasn’t his sort—he hadn’t been lying about that—he found himself drawn to her in a most unwanted way. A most dangerous way, too.
She is not for you, Blade. Virgins make your cock shrivel.
Most of them did. Pity this one didn’t. Then again, mayhap she was no virgin at all, but a bored wife. The prospect improved his mood. She appeared young, and the pale-ivory gown suggested an innocent, but he had reached an assumption about her too soon.
“She will claw you, Mr. Winter,” she warned. “I found her, lost and wandering, and she is quite suspicious of anyone aside from myself. Please, it is best if I fetch her.”
“Reluctant to be returned to your loving arms, is she?” He quirked a brow, trying to ignore how radiant she was at this proximity, how her sweet scent of jasmine invaded his senses. “I am afraid I do not know your name, and if I am to rescue your feline, I ought to have that, at least. Do you not think?”
Her nostrils flared, and he was struck by the most ridiculous urge to kiss the tip of her nose. He banished the unworthy thought. As nonsensical as the name of her cat.
“Lady Felicity Hughes,” she said, giving him a name at last.
Hughes.
Blade knew the name. The bastard Winters were in the business of earning as much coin as they could from the quality, and it behooved them to stay informed. Her papa was the Earl of Harding. Pockets to let. Bad gambling habit, that old cur. Had three daughters, all in desperate need of husbands. The eldest was a diamond of the first water.
Lady Felicity.
Blade had never crossed paths with her, limited as he was to Cyprian balls and wicked house parties for the depraved. Until now.
She was a virgin, damn it.
There went all his fun.
His lip curled. “I’ll be fetching Miss Wigglesby now, my lady.”
He lowered himself, belly first to the carpet—dreadfully annoying position when his cock was hard—and slid beneath the bed.
“Miss Wilhelmina,” Felicity corrected the outrageous bounder whose room she was unintentionally intruding upon.
But her words did not seem to reach him, for the tall, lean man was already slipping beneath the bed. She could not wrest her gaze from him, no matter how inappropriate it was for her to be alone with this uncouth man. His breeches were fitted to his long legs perfectly, showing off his muscular thighs and calves. To say nothing of his bottom.
That reminded her.
He had remarked upon her bottom. Had claimed it had been in the wind. The man was a devil. An ill-mannered, ill-tempered boor.
Also handsome.
Desperately, rakishly so. A golden-haired Adonis, with a surly disposition. That was her ill fortune, little Miss Wilhelmina—who was not supposed to be present at this house party to begin with—hiding herself beneath this man’s bed.
Felicity shuddered.
And that was when she realized her bosom had almost fallen out of her décolletage. She had been putting on a shocking display. That devil! His eyes had been wandering all over her as he said nary a word.
She tugged at her bodice, frantically hauling it upward. That was the problem with having a generous bosom. She was forever attempting to hide it. Truly, she ought to have donned a fichu before she had gone traipsing after Miss Wilhelmina. But she had been too distressed to think of anything else when she had noticed the kitten missing.
“There you are,” Mr. Winter growled from beneath the bed. “I’ve got you now.”
More shifting—Felicity averted her gaze, which wanted to linger on his distressingly masculine form, then stole one last glance at the way his breeches clung lovingly to his backside—and he had emerged, holding Miss Wilhelmina aloft by the scruff of her neck.
Felicity took the poor darling from him at once, cuddling her precious ball of fur to her bosom. When in need of a fichu, the kitten would do. Soft, gray fur, purring like mad, warm and beloved, nestled against her. “That is no way to hold a kitten, Mr. Winter,” she chastised, aware of his eyes on her.
She was overheated.
Why was it so dreadfully hot in here?
Why could she not stop being fascinated by the fullness of his lips?
“That is how the mother cat moves them about,” said those lips. “Now do run along, Lady Francine. I do not like cats or trespassers.”
She frowned. How lowering. The mannerless rogue had already forgotten her name. “Lady Felicity, sir. And how can you dislike cats? Do you not have a soul?”
“I expect not.”