Read Online Scarlet Devices by Delphine Dryden - Free Book Online Page A

respond, then gasped as his words and the attendant imagery registered. Matthew coughed into his gloved fist and looked away, but not before she saw the sparkle in his eye.
    â€œYou’re strangely cheerful this morning.”
    â€œI’m excited,” he demurred.
    â€œI’m excited too. But aren’t you worried about the saboteur?”
    â€œOf course. Not as worried as I’ll be if he starts targeting drivers instead of vehicles, however. There’s always the chance the sabotage was meant to end with the . . . fertilizer. That was certainly bad enough to knock several cars out of the running. The fire might have been an unfortunate coincidence.”
    â€œYou don’t believe that.”
    He opened his mouth to reply and was cut off by the clanging bell that alerted the crowd it was time to meet the drivers. As the peals died down, Matthew turned toward Eliza and stepped closer, clasping her upper arms. “It’s true, I don’t believe that. I told myself I wouldn’t say this again, but as it’s my last opportunity,
please
don’t do this. It’s not worth the risk, Eliza.”
    She should have shrugged his hands off, or even slapped them away, but despite her anger she took comfort in the almost-embrace. Because she was anxious, doubly so since the sabotage, Pence’s words may have grated but his hands were gentle and warm. His eyes were cool, however, and almost glittering. Flecks of pale green and icy blue muddled the crystalline gray and seemed to catch the light. Why had she never noticed before how odd Pence’s eyes were? Not that it mattered in the slightest, she reminded herself firmly.
    â€œWhy is it not worth the risk for me, but worth it for you, Matthew?”
    â€œBecause you’re—”
    â€œDon’t.” Eliza lifted her chin, daring him to continue. He met her gaze with a stormy frown. “Think, really
think
about what you were going to say just then, Matthew. Think how if the roles were reversed, you would find it ridiculous, offensively ludicrous. And know that you sound every bit as ridiculous and offensive to me. I don’t need your condescension. I’m not your little sister.”
    His frown deepened, along with his voice. “You have no idea how aware I am that you are not my sister, Eliza. I’m perfectly aware that you’re—”
    â€œDrivers to the start,” a voice boomed over the loudspeakers outside, and Eliza yanked herself out of Matthew’s grip. She marched out of the building before he could recover his poise.
    Â â€¢Â â€¢Â â€¢Â 
    â€œA WOMAN,” M ATTHEW finished as he watched Eliza walk out onto the red carpet that bisected the crowded square.
    It was what he would have said, but not what he meant. Had he thought about it,
really
thought, as she’d exhorted him to? Of course he had, but he couldn’t see any way around it. He wanted Eliza out of the race to protect her, not because she was a woman but because she was
the
woman.
    Matthew had always considered himself an enlightened sort of fellow, supporting universal suffrage, women’s property rights, equality in general. In theory, he believed in all those things. In practice, he now realized he believed them mostly with respect to theoretical women. Servants and millworkers and machinists, typists and cryptologists and doctors. Women other than Eliza, for whom he instead felt a protective urge so ferocious it alarmed him. His other urges toward her were at least an expected part of his physiology. He wanted to keep her safe so he could have her all to himself and do wicked things to her.
    He hadn’t recognized it four years ago, that instant and inappropriate reaction. He’d been too young and still too likely to react physically in the presence of any reasonably attractive female; all his other irrational responses to Eliza seemed only to stem from that root source. Those