Notorious by Nicola Cornick Page A

his severe sexual frustration, he thought. Boxing, fencing, various other legally sanctioned outbursts of violence had been the only outlet for his feelings. Until the previous morning… And now the memory of Susanna in his arms haunted him. He had wanted her before. Now he ached for her.
    “No,” Frazer said. He shook his head. Dev watched the deft scrape of the razor in the speckled mirror.
    “No what?” he said.
    “No, I didnae do anything stupid when I was young,” Frazer said. “I was in Edinburgh gaol when I was thirteen. Not much chance of doing anything stupid locked up in there. They only let me out to join the Navy.”
    “Of course,” Dev said, entranced by this vision of a youthfully criminal Frazer. “How foolish of me to imagine you would have done anything stupid in your younger days, Frazer.”
    “What did you do then, Mr. Devlin?” Frazer asked slyly.
    “I?” Dev said. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”
    Frazer gave a snort of disbelief. “Ye always were a headstrong lad. Like as not you ran off with someone else’s wife.”
    No, Dev thought. Only with my own. Except that he had not run off with Susanna. She had run off without him.
    He could only be grateful that no one else knew about his youthful indiscretion. He had been staying in Scotland with his cousin Alex Grant when he had met Susanna. Neither Alex nor his first wife, Amelia, had suspected the affair. Dev was sure of it. Alex had never been the man to enquire too closely into his personal affairs and Amelia… Dev paused in his thoughts, remembering his cousin’s first wife, so soft and sweet on the outside, so hard on the inside,like a bonbon coated in sugar. Amelia had been so absorbed in herself that she had surely had no space to think about anything or anyone else. He pulled a face. Frazer muttered a word of warning as the razor hovered over his throat.
    “Keep still, Mr. Devlin, or you’ll lose more than your shirt at play tonight.”
    Dev froze as the razor resumed its work. He wondered if Susanna gambled. It was one of the vices of many rich widows. He had not seen her at the card tables since she had come to London but then she had been so busy pursuing Fitz that she had not had much time for other hobbies. Fitz was a gambler, too, though, and perhaps he had introduced Susanna to the pleasures of playing high. Dev felt his fingers itch for the cards. Throughout his life he had fought a fierce battle with himself to avoid his father’s obsession with gaming. Most of the time he could control the compulsion. Occasionally he could not. Now he acknowledged that he would like to fleece Susanna at faro—or at any other game of chance. That would be very satisfying. Except, of course, that she might win. Susanna might be as shallow as a puddle and as grasping as the greediest whore but she was damnably single-minded when she wanted something, clever, too. Engaging with her on any level was a risk. Being in debt to her would be intolerable.
    Frazer finished, washed the soap away and handed Dev a towel.
    “Ye still have all your vital parts,” he said sourly. “I’ve told you before to keep still when I shave ye.”
    “Sorry,” Dev said. “I have matters on my mind.”
    “Women matters,” Frazer said, even more sourly. “I know that look of yours. Be careful, Mr. Devlin.”
    “I will,” Dev said. He grinned. “Thank you for your concern, Frazer. It’s good to know you care.”
    Frazer pulled a face that looked like milk in the act of curdling.
    Thirty minutes later, with his cravat tied in the Irish, a style he had made his own in neat homage to his antecedents, his jacket eased over his shoulders by Frazer, puffing like a bellows, and a particularly dashing waistcoat of gold and green, Dev was ready.
    “The playhouse tonight, is it?” Frazer asked with a long face. “Bunch of jessies.” Frazer hated the theater and condemned anything to do with it as soft. Dev suspected that this went back to a voyage Frazer had