“How awful,” Felicity whispered in his ear from too far away.

“He did not sleep. Did not eat. He found pleasure in no one and nothing, as he spent all his time—an eternity of time—guarding the past, warding against the inevitable future. Where other gods rivaled and battled for access to each others’ power, none warred with Janus . . . they saw the pain he suffered and steered far clear of it.”

She leaned forward, that dress pulling even more, tempting even more—like the future that could be seen and not warded against. “I imagine he was not a cheerful deity.”

He gave a little bark of laughter. “He was not.” Her eyes widened and she sat up. “What is it?”

“Nothing, only you laugh so rarely.” She paused. “And I like it.”

His cheeks warmed. Like he was a goddamn boy. He cleared his throat. “At any rate. Janus could see the future, and knew it brought only tragedy. Except there was one thing he could not see. A thing he could not predict.”

Her brown eyes twinkled. “A woman.”

“What makes you say that?”

She waved a hand in the air. “It’s always a woman if it’s unpredictable. We’re changeable like the weather, did you not know? Unlike men who always act with clear and logical purpose.” She ended with a dry harrumph.

He inclined his head. “It was a woman.”

“Ah. You see?”

“Would you like me to tell you the story or not?”

She leaned back against the bench, cradling her face in her hand. “Yes, please.”

“Her name was Cardea. And he could not see her coming, but once she was there, he saw her in bright, vivid color. And hers was the greatest beauty he had ever known.”

“Aren’t they always the greatest beauty, these unpredictable women?”

“You think you are so smart, Felicity Faircloth.”

She grinned. “Am I not?”

“Not in this case, because, you see, no one else could see her beauty. She was plain and uninteresting to the rest of the gods. She’d been made so before birth, as punishment to her mother, who had crossed Juno. And so the daughter was punished with mediocrity.”

“Well, I certainly can understand that,” she said quietly, and it occurred to Devil she had not meant for him to hear the words. He wouldn’t have, if not for the bench.

“But she was not plain. And she was not uninteresting. She was beautiful beyond measure, and Janus could see it. He could see the beginning of her and the end of her. And in her, he saw something he had never allowed himself to see.”

Her full lips opened on a tiny inhale. He had her. “What did he see?”

“The present.” He would have stayed there, forever, on that bench, imprisoned by her rapt attention. “He’d never cared for it before. Not until she arrived.”

Not until she showed him what it could be.

“What happened?”

“They married, and on the consummation of their marriage, Janus, the god with two faces, became the god with three. But only Cardea saw the third face—it was for her alone, the face that experienced happiness and joy and goodness and love and peace. The face that saw the present. Only Cardea was gifted a look at the god in his full, glorious form. As only Janus was gifted a look at his goddess in the same way.”

“She unlocked him,” Felicity whispered, and the words threatened to bring Devil to his knees.

He nodded. “She was his key.” The words came like wheels on gravel. “And because she had gifted him the present, he gave her what he could of the past and future, of beginnings and ends. The Romans worshipped Janus for the first month of the year, but by his will, they honored Cardea on the first day of every month—the end of what had been, the beginning of what was to come.”

“And then? What became of them?”

“They reveled in each other,” he replied. “Gloried in having finally found the other being in all the world who could see them for who they were. They are never apart—Janus, forever the god of the lock, Cardea, forever the goddess of the hinge. And the Earth keeps turning.”

She slid toward him for just a moment, just until she realized what she was doing—that she shouldn’t be moving. That it wasn’t proper. Not that anything between them had ever been proper.

He wanted her near him. Touching him. This bench was a torture device. “Did you like the kiss?”

He shouldn’t have asked it, but she replied nonetheless. “Which one?”

He raised a brow. “I know you liked the one we shared.”

“Such modesty.”

“It’s not conceit. You liked it.” He paused. “And so did I.” She inhaled sharply, and he heard it as well as saw it, the way she straightened. Perhaps it was the ease of whispering, but he couldn’t stop himself from adding, “Has anyone ever told you that you have a beautiful blush?”

Red crept to her cheeks. “No.”

“You do—it makes me think of summer berries and sweet cream.”

She looked down at her lap. “You shouldn’t—”

“It makes me wonder what I can’t see that has gone pink. It makes me wonder if all that pink tastes as sweet as it looks.”

“You shouldn’t—”

“I know your lips are sweet—your nipples, too. Did you know they are the same color? That pretty pink perfection.”

Her cheeks were flaming. “Stop,” she whispered, and he could swear he heard the sound of her breathing along their secret stone pathway.

He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Do you think we offend the bench?” She gave a little laugh, and he went hard at the sound, so close and with her so impossibly far away. “Because I imagine that when this bench was gifted to the lady of the house, her lover sat on the far end and said much worse.”

She looked to him then, and he saw the heat in her gaze. The curiosity. Felicity wanted to hear worse.

Better.

“Shall I tell you what I imagine he said?” he asked.

She nodded. Barely. But enough. And, miraculously, she didn’t look away. She wanted to hear more, and she wanted to hear it from him.

“I imagine he told her that he built this place inside this web of hedgerows so that no one would see. Because, you see, Felicity Fairest, it’s not enough that we can whisper and not be heard . . . because you reveal everything you think and feel on your beautiful, open face.”

She lifted one hand to a cheek, and he continued his soft litany. “I imagine the lady’s lover adored the way her emotions played across her face—the way her lips fell open like temptation incarnate. I imagine he marveled at the pink of them, wondering at the way they matched the perfect tips of her round breasts, and the pink perfection of somewhere else entirely.” She gasped, her eyes flying to his. He smirked. “I see you are not as innocent of thought as you would like others to believe, love.”

“You should stop.”

“Probably,” he replied. “But would you prefer I continue?”

“Yes.”

Christ, that word alone, the glory of it, rioted through him. He wanted to hear it from her again and again as he talked and touched and kissed. He wanted it as her fingers scraped through his hair, as they clutched his shoulders, as they directed his mouth wherever she wanted him to go.

He made to rise, to go to her and continue with his hands and his lips, but she stayed him. “Devil.” He met her gaze. “You lied to me.”

A hundred times. A thousand. “About what?”

“Marwick was never going to singe his wings.”

“No.” Not that Devil would have let it get that far. Not once he realized how hot she burned.

“I still want the singed wings.”

The sun was leaving, and the darkness was falling and with it, his ability to resist her. He shook his head. “I can’t make him want you.”

I won’t.

What a fucking mess he’d made. He’d lost control of all of it. Ceded all his power to this woman, who had no understanding of how she wielded it.

She shook her head. “I don’t want Marwick.”

She was twenty feet away, and the whispered words sounded like gunfire in his ears, but he still didn’t believe he’d heard them correctly. “Say it again.”

Felicity was watching him from her end of the bench, her velvet-brown eyes unwavering. “Marwick isn’t my moth.”

“Who, then?”

“You,” she whispered.

He was already moving toward her, fire already consuming him, knowing he’d never survive it.






Chapter Nineteen

She wanted him.

Not this moment, on the whispering bench in the gardens, though that, too.

She wanted him, forever.

And not only because she didn’t want the strange duke who seemed uninterested in marriage and even less interested in the trappings of it. No, she wanted him because she wanted a man who kissed her like she was everything he would ever want. She wanted a man who teased her and then bewitched her with long-ago stories. She wanted a man who made promises to her that only he could keep.

She wanted this man. Devil.

She didn’t know his name or his past, but she knew his eyes and his touch and the way he saw her and listened to her, and she wanted him. For a partner. For a future.

Here, in the gardens of her family home. In Covent Garden. In Patagonia. Wherever he liked.

And when he went to his knees in front of her, like he’d been there a thousand times before, placing one hand on her hip and the other around her neck to pull her to him and kiss her, she wanted him even more, and not only because his kiss made her want to live here, on this bench, his whispered temptation in her ears, his lips on her skin, for the rest of her life.