A Devil Named DeVere (The Devil DeVere)
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A Devil Named DeVere
Victoria Vane
~The Devil DeVere~
The Devil DeVere Series
A Wild Night's Bride ( #1)
The Virgin Huntress (#2)
The Devil You Know (#3)
The Devil's Match (#4)
A Devil's Touch (4.5)
Jewel of the East (#5)
Devil in the Making (Devilish Vignette#1)
The Trouble with Sin (Devilish Vignette#2)
Other Titles by Victoria Vane:
The Sheik Retold
Treacherous Temptations
A Breach of Promise
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author's imagination, or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real.
A DEVIL NAMED DEVERE Copyright © 2012 by Victoria Vane. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Editor: Tara Chevrestt
Cover Illustration: Polina Ipatova
ISBN-13: 978-1492240020
ISBN-10: 1492240028
DEDICATION
To DeVere lovers everywhere!
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book and series would never have been possible without the support of those who believe in me, especially my loving husband John, and my dedicated editor, Tara Chevrestt.
Contents
Prologue
PART I:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
PART II:
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
PART III:
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Epilogue
Sneak Preview: Jewel of the East
Victoria's Titillating Tidbits
About Victoria Vane
A Devil Named DeVere
Prologue
Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens, 1768
The melodious strains of the Corelli air grew fainter, the lamps swaying gently in the evening breeze sparser, and the tree-lined pathway narrower, while the stars glimmered in the clear night sky like diamonds against black velvet. It was all seemingly custom-ordered for the two couples who meandered the lesser-traveled Lovers’ Walk. While the first pair perambulated arm-in-arm, pausing upon occasion to steal a laughing kiss, the second lagged farther and farther behind until the young lady caused their progress to halt altogether. “Ouch! Pray stop,” she cried, clutching her companion’s arm.
“What is it, Caroline?” asked Ludovic, Lord DeVere.
“Only a minor nuisance. I’ve a pebble in my shoe.” The couple ahead, Sir Edward and Lady Annalee Chambers, immediately turned back.
“No, no.” Lady Caroline waved them onward with a smile. “Don’t trouble yourselves. Pray go on ahead. I just need to find a bench where I might remove my slipper. We’ll catch up with you directly.”
Lady Chambers looked to her husband with hesitation. “I don’t know… I would hate to be deemed a negligent chaperone.”
The two men exchanged a conspiratorial look.
“I promise she is in good hands with me, Annalee,” Lord DeVere reassured. “Why don’t we just meet up with you at the Ruins of Palmyra?”
Lady Chambers’ brows met in a frown until her husband whispered something reassuring in her ear. Her mouth formed a perfect O, and then she smiled. “Very well, then. Ned and I will walk slowly, but pray don’t be too far behind.”
Waiting until the Chambers disappeared into the darkness, the remaining couple cast a last furtive glance up and down the path to ensure their privacy before coming together in a fierce and impassioned embrace. Panting, clutching, and moaning between fervent kisses, the lovers backed deeper into the privacy of the trees, tugging at cravat and laces, tearing at clothes.
Her bodice loosened, DeVere freed Caroline’s breasts from their confinement and pulled a nipple eagerly into his mouth. She threw her head back with a cry and groped for the placket of her lover’s breeches. He raised his head from her half-bared bosom with a groan and halted her progress by encircling her delicate wrist in his iron grip.
“What a delightful wanton you are, but if you seek proof of my desire, I’ve already given you undeniable evidence. There’s no need to torture me further.”
“But I have a very special birthday gift for you, my darling.”
“Do you, indeed?” he asked, his interest growing in tandem with his erection.
She glanced down with a half-smile at the huge bulge in his breeches. “I want to feel your desire, Ludovic.” She ran her fingers leisurely up the length of him and brazenly cupped his straining cock through his breeches. “Oh my,” she voiced her delight as if she’d discovered an unexpected bounty.
Damn the vixen! ‘Oh my’ isn’t the half of it. He was already hard as a rock, and her boldness only pulled at his last shreds of restraint. He was actually trying to behave with circumspection…for a change.
“Yes,” she gushed. “A very special gift.”
“You play with fire, Caroline,” he warned. “You know we mustn’t take this much further.”
She met his gaze with a guileless expression. “You do intend to marry me, don’t you?”
“I have already asked to speak to your father. Surely, he knows my purpose.”
“He won’t have the slightest objection to your suit, I assure you. Papa only wishes to see me happy and will agree to whomever I choose…so long as he’s noble…and rich,” she added with a laugh. “So what harm is there in seeking a bit of pleasure while we can?”
She removed his hand from her breasts and brought it to her lips. Wetting it with her little pink tongue, she slowly drew his index finger into the hot confines of her mouth. Her other hand squeezed the bulge in his breeches.
Ludovic ground his teeth. “Methinks you don’t know what you do, Caro.”
She sucked harder, sending a jolt of molten lust to his throbbing staff and then withdrew his finger, using it to trace a sensuous path over her full mouth. She gave him a slow, evocative smile. “But that’s where you are quite wrong, my darling. I assure you, I know exactly what to do.”
Words filled with prurient promise. Bugger it all! Ludovic flung his best and most expensive silk frockcoat to the ground, spreading it wide for her to kneel upon, a willing sacrifice to the gods of pleasure. With her gaze fixed upon his face, Caroline lowered herself to her knees, plucking her gloves off with her perfect, little teeth while he manically struggled with the straining buttons holding his jutting cock at bay. Once freed, his entire hot, hard length sprang forth into her hand.
She s
lid it slowly up and down his shaft. “I don’t know who has the better gift, you or I.” She chortled, low and husky. Gazing into his eyes, she darted out her tongue, stroking the underside of his length, teasing him with little flicks and darts. He inhaled sharply, his cock reflexively jerking in her hand. With a look of devilment, she slowly circled his crown of smooth flesh between her parted lips.
“Dear God in heaven.” He threw his head back with a groan. His bollocks contracting in anticipation, he clasped her nape in encouragement.
“And the same heaven awaits you,” she murmured before taking him slowly and completely into her delicious and decadent mouth.
***
“There you are, my dears!” exclaimed Lady Capheaton when the two couples returned to their supper box. “I’d begun to fear you’d become lost.” Lady Capheaton gave her daughter’s escort a scathing look.
“Pray forgive us, Mama. It is entirely my fault, “Lady Caroline said. “I didn’t mean to worry you, but I was so completely engrossed by the mural of the Ruins of Palmyra. Lord DeVere has been there, you know, to nearly all the ancient ruins. When I discovered him a veritable fount, I took obscene advantage of him.” She looked to him with artless innocence, and DeVere thought he would swallow his own tongue. Fount, indeed! She nearly sucked me dry.
In one night, his proposed bride-to-be had revealed a depth of cunning and guile he never would have thought she possessed. In truth, their entire assignation had been purely her design, a revelation as equally disturbing and sublime as was the expert skill with which Caro had brought him to completion.
But while he’d initially been excited by her lively sense of adventure and even more delighted to know he wouldn’t experience a cold marriage bed, her actions now provoked myriad questions. Foremost was just how she had come by such intimate, carnal knowledge. Although Ludovic had never possessed a jealous nature, he had also never entertained the notion of sharing his future wife with another man. That one, or more, may have already preceded him was both irksome and highly disconcerting.
“We have an especial guest who has been patiently awaiting your return, Caroline.” Lady Capheaton’s voice interrupted his ruminations.
“Oh? And who might that be, Mama?” Caroline asked with barely veiled disinterest.
“Why, it’s his Grace of Beauclerc who honors us with his presence,” Lady Capheaton answered in her cloyingly sycophantic style.
A mincing, middle-aged dandy broke from conversation with Caroline’s father with a sweep of his leg and a flourishing bow. His coat cut from midnight velvet, his red-heeled shoes adorned with diamond buckles, and his elaborately-embroidered silk waistcoat could only have come from Paris. Caroline’s eyes widened in surprise while the duke’s glimmered with interest.
“Then I am honored, indeed, Your Grace.” Caroline abruptly released Ludovic’s arm to puddle her petticoats in a deep obeisance to the duke.
“My dearest Lady Caroline.” The duke took her hand as she rose, smoothing his lips over her fingers. “The reports of your pulchritude were sadly understated.” Ludovic noted a display of uneven and discolored teeth when he spoke.
“The duke is an old and dear friend of your father’s and newly widowed,” Lady Capheaton explained to her daughter. “Recently out of mourning, he has come to join our party with a particular desire to meet you.”
“You honor me too much, Your Grace,” Carline replied breathily, fluttering her lashes over modestly downcast eyes.
What the hell is the vixen playing at? Does she think to make me jealous? Ludovic discarded the notion as meritless, as he’d already expressed his intent to wed her. He stepped forward to put an end to the game and was met with the duke’s supercilious stare. Until that moment, Ludovic had watched the interaction between the duke and the Capheatons with a sense of detached amusement, but the haughty stare sent his hackles rising as if they were a pair of gamecocks being set-to for a match.
“I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” Beauclerc lifted a penciled brow.
“DeVere,” he answered.
“The Viscount?” asked the duke.
“His heir,” Ludovic volunteered more defensively than he would have liked. He made a second effort to mark his claim. “The Lady Caroline and I have just returned from a most delightful little promenade.”
The penciled lines became ludicrous squiggles. “Have you, indeed?”
Casting Ludovic a reproachful look, Caroline blurted, “Lord DeVere refers to the Ruins of Palmyra. From a distance, one would surely believe it real. It is so life-like, it stirs the blood. Have you seen it, Your Grace?”
“I don’t believe I have,” the duke answered. “But since it is a while yet before the illuminations, perhaps you could show it to me?” He offered her his velvet-clad arm.
Caroline’s gaze flicked from Ludovic to the duke and back again. Her lips formed the slightest moue as if she weighed upon the scales of her mind the relative merits of a mere viscount-to-be against the certainty of a ducal cornet. DeVere realized she had found his side of the scale wanting when, with no more than an apologetic shrug, Caroline placed her dainty, white-begloved fingers upon the sleeve of the Duke of Beauclerc. Without even a final glance back at her erstwhile lover, Caroline and her duke departed.
Ludovic was incredulous. Although his first inclination was to wipe the duke’s smug expression from his bloated face, preferably with his fist, he realized the true rage he should have felt never surfaced. Certainly his pride was injured, but he would have expected to feel far more upon being so properly jilted. Right curious, that.
Chuckling at his dispassionate conclusion, Ludovic took up Beauclerc’s abandoned drink with an inward smile as another consoling thought came to mind. The burning question of Caroline’s capacity for fidelity no longer plagued him, but he would soon ensure that it plagued the good duke instead.
***
“Damme,” said Ned a few hours later in Ludovic’s crested carriage. “I’m stunned. Ludovic Lord DeVere, legendary lover, cast aside like some old shoe?”
“Lady Caroline and that old fop? I never would have believed it,” Annalee agreed.”It’s truly beyond comprehension. You were, by all appearances, the perfect couple.”
“Your naiveté astonishes me,” Ludovic said.
“I must say I regret to see your cynicism prove itself yet again,” Ned replied.
“Cynicism?” Ludovic laughed. “I am nothing if not a realist, dear Ned. In all fairness, do you honestly think that in Caroline’s stead, you would not also have grabbed for the golden goose? Damned if I wouldn’t have!” He smiled, a broad flash of even, white teeth. “But don’t fear I shall spend any tears over it, ol’ chum, especially when she consoled me in advance with such a magnificent parting gift.”
“What do you mean?” Annalee asked.
DeVere’s lips twitched. “Dear, sweet, innocent Annalee, I leave it to your devoted husband to illuminate you.”
Ned scowled. Annalee blushed. “So it’s truly over between you?” she asked.
“Truly, it never was,” DeVere said. “I never even made the formal proposal and would not have pursued her in the first place were it not for my damned Pater. Though he didn’t take to the shackles himself ‘til he’d turned the half century mark. If there’s aught that I can’t abide, it’s hypocrisy. The bloody devil rebuking sin is what that is!”
“Surely one can’t blame a man for wanting to ensure the continuation of his line,” Annalee remarked.
“It’s a damnable obsession,” DeVere said. “He’s bloody well fixated on his death, though he’s already managed to linger at its door far longer than is considered civil.”
“You really ought not to speak of your own father in such a way,” Annalee reproached.
“You might feel differently if ever you met the poxy, old bas—”
“He’s justifiably distraught, my dear,” Ned interjected with a gentle hand over his wife’s. “A gentleman needs to blow off steam in such circums
tances as these. Why don’t I take you home?”
She arched a brow. “So you and DeVere can go back out and get thoroughly foxed?”
“Well, yes,” Ned confessed. “That’s generally how it’s done.”
Annalee gave them both a warning look. “Just promise me no fisticuffs, Ned.”
“Fisticuffs?” He appeared to be affronted. “Why the devil do you think I would engage in fisticuffs?”
“I’ve ears on my head. I know how you and DeVere were used to entertaining yourselves.”
“But that was long before I met you, my sweet.” Ned raised her hand to his lips.
She gave a disbelieving huff. “You shan’t bamboozle me, Neddie. I know leopards do not change their spots.” She looked to DeVere with a scowl. “I don’t relish the mortification of collecting my husband from the round house come morning. Do you understand me, my lord?”
DeVere smirked. “Absolutely, my lady.” He added to Ned in an undertone, “Since I don’t see the ring in your nose, I can only imagine she’s put one through your ba—”
“Ah! We’ve arrived!” Ned pronounced as the carriage lurched to a halt. “I’ll escort Annalee inside and return directly.”
Ludovic watched them depart arm-in-arm, musing how three short years of so-called connubial bliss had nearly emasculated his best friend. He pulled a flask of brandy from his breast pocket, up-ending it in a salute to the beneficent guardian angel who had allowed his own near escape from the same woeful fate.
PART I:
The Devil You Know
When dealing with the devil
it's easy to get burned…
Chapter One
Epsom, Surrey-1778
While her traveling companion softly drowsed, Diana pulled aside the velvet curtain of the post-chaise, lost more in her own musings than in study of the landscape which was now greatly transformed from the hills, escarpments, and broad valleys of south Yorkshire whence they'd departed to the more gently rolling chalk downlands of Surrey.