And he was in control, despite the burning pain from Lucifer’s Mark—the agony that bespoke of the devil’s displeasure with Dimitri. He resisted. He fought it.
Nothing was stronger than his resolve. Not even the devil.
Until she nicked her finger with a knife.
And he smelled the blood.
1
Wherein Lord Corvindale Is Reduced To Analyzing Handwriting
One hundred thirteen years later
London
Who in Lucifer’s bloody hell did Miss Maia Woodmore think she was, giving orders to an earl?
Dimitri, the Earl of Corvindale, glared down at the elegant script covering a piece of thick stationery. Feminine, perfectly formed, with only the occasional embellishment and not one ink splotch, the words marched across the page in ruler-straight lines. Even the descenders and ascenders were neat and properly aligned so that none of them over lapped. The stationery smelled like feminine spice and lily of the valley and some other intriguing note that he refused to expend the effort to define.
Naturally her demand was couched in the most proper of syntax, but Dimitri was obviously no innocent when it came to female machinations. Though he strictly avoided women—all of them, especially the mortal ones—he was well-schooled in the way they worked and in reading between the lines, so to speak.
And from what he read between the lines here, Miss Maia Woodmore was annoyed and filled with indignant self-righteousness, just as she had been during that incident in Haymarket three years ago. And she expected him to jump to her whim.
Lord Corvindale, it read, forgive me for contacting you in this untoward manner, but it is only upon the specific direction of my brother, Mr. Charles Woodmore, that I am doing so. (Here he could fairly feel her outrage at being ordered thus by her sibling.)