The Devil and the Debutante by Christi Caldwell

Author:Christi Caldwell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Romance, Regency
Publisher: Christi Caldwell
Published: 2022-09-03T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

Faith’s gaze remained locked on Rex’s hands, those powerful palms that had once stroked her and caressed her now crimson from blood. She took in the shards of glass scattered throughout the floor that indicated there’d been a struggle of some sort and hated she should wonder and worry about this hateful, hurtful gaming hell owner.

Faith forced her eyes back to his.

Rex stared furiously back as if he were a child who’d been caught with his hand in the biscuit jar and resented the one who’d discovered his secret.

Rex DuMond had made a fool of her. What was worse than that, however, was he’d broken Faith’s heart. He’d made her fall in love with him when all along he’d been making her fall for an illusion, the dream of someone she’d yearned for in every way. A man who gave of his time to her mother’s school and who made her laugh and treated her as an equal.

He’d made her body sing. Only when she’d been weak-kneed from his most intimate loving, her senses addled, she’d been doused with the truth of what he’d done. By his father, at that.

As such, she should hate him. And she did. Or that was what she’d told herself the whole carriage ride home from the Earl of Chevening’s, when she’d been forced to sit in a carriage with her family, acting as if everything was all right. Pretending that she’d not been shattered in the most painful of ways again.

But if she did hate him, she should relish the sight of any pain he might suffer. So why didn’t she? Why did the sight of that ravaged, blood-covered hand cause a like pain in her breast?

“You’re hurt.” Her voice sounded faintly accusatory to her own ears.

“I’m fine,” he said gruffly. “I don’t give a damned about my hand.” He fixed a hard stare on her face. “What I want is an answer about you and Argyll.” His gravelly demand bordered on a growl. “Did. He. Seduce. You?”

She should tell him to go to hell with his arrogance. What gave him the right to think he was entitled to any answers from her about what had transpired—or not transpired—with the Duke of Argyll or, for that matter, any man? Only…Faith angled her head. With the fury radiating from his eyes and the harsh set to his features, it almost appeared as if he were jealous.

Which was preposterous. Absolutely ludicrous. A ruthless man did not send another man—his business partner at that—to seduce a woman and then feel any way about it.

Faith drew her hood back into place, and she caught the way his eyes flared as she headed over to the door and unlocked it.

“You’re leaving,” he taunted. “I never took you for a coward, Faith Brookfield.”

Ignoring that mockery from the cocksure man who’d upended her world, she drew the panel open and spoke quietly to the guard stationed there.

She waited.

And while she did, Rex said nothing. He didn’t press her for any more answers about the time she’d spent with the duke.

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