Devil in Winter (wallflowers, #3)

In Lisa Kleypas's Devil in Winter, four young women who bonded over their shared status as perennial wallflowers have been helping one another find husbands. Two have already married. Now the shyest of the group, Evangeline "Evie" Jenner, takes her turn in a desperate gamble.

Evie arrives uninvited at the London home of Sebastian, Lord St. Vincent, a notorious rake who recently disgraced himself by attempting to kidnap the heiress Lillian Bowman from Lord Westcliff's estate. Sebastian needs a wealthy wife because his father, the Duke, has squandered the family fortune. Evie is the only child of Ivo Jenner, the owner of a successful London gambling club, and a mother from the genteel Maybrick family who died giving birth to her. Raised by her cruel maternal relatives, Evie has endured years of physical abuse, particularly from her uncle Peregrine. Now the family plans to force her to marry her cousin Eustace to seize her inheritance, and her father is dying of consumption, a wasting illness of the lungs.

Evie proposes a marriage of convenience: her fortune for Sebastian's protection. She insists they leave immediately for Gretna Green, a Scottish village famous for hasty weddings. Sebastian accepts, recognizing their mutual desperation. During the grueling forty-eight-hour carriage ride, he tends to the exhausted Evie with surprising care. They share personal histories, and a fragile intimacy develops. Evie's lifelong stammer diminishes notably in his company.

A jovial blacksmith named Paisley MacPhee marries them in the traditional anvil ceremony. Evie selects a gold ring engraved with the Gaelic words for "My love is upon ye." Sebastian purchases it but dismisses its sentiment as meaningless. Outside in the rain, he kisses her for the first time, a deep kiss that leaves them both shaken. He postpones consummation until morning. When he wakes her with intimate caresses, the experience overwhelms them both; Sebastian is alarmed by the intensity of his response, realizing she affects him more powerfully than any woman before her.

On the return journey, Evie insists she will stay at Jenner's club to nurse her dying father. At the club, Sebastian displays an unexpected fascination with the operations and examines the account ledgers, discovering that the club's manager, Clive Egan, has been embezzling for years. He dismisses Egan and announces his intention to run the club himself.

Evie reunites with her father, who is emaciated and barely recognizable. Cam Rohan, a Romani croupier who has worked at the club since boyhood, serves as a loyal ally. Sebastian initiates sweeping changes: he dismisses the club's prostitutes, promotes Cam to factotum, or general manager, and insists Evie limit her exposure to her father's sickroom, citing a theory that consumption spreads through invisible organisms. During an argument about these restrictions, Sebastian makes an angry gesture and Evie flinches, shielding her head from years of conditioning by her uncle's beatings. Shaken, Sebastian vows he would never strike her and holds her gently as she reveals the extent of the abuse.

Ivo Jenner dies with Evie at his bedside. Before his death, he confirms that Cam, though dear to him, is not Evie's brother. Sebastian comforts Evie with practical care while maintaining emotional distance, and warns Cam afterward never to kiss Evie again, even platonically, revealing possessive feelings he refuses to acknowledge.

Sebastian arranges an elaborate funeral and continues restructuring the club. One Sunday while Sebastian is away on business, Joss Bullard, a club employee paid by Uncle Peregrine, deceives Evie into coming to the back entrance. Peregrine and another uncle seize her, and Eustace waits in a carriage. Sebastian returns and fights Peregrine in the alley, felling the much larger man. In the volatile aftermath, Evie accuses Sebastian of visiting a prostitute during his absence. He furiously denies it, and his desire for her erupts in an explicit whispered confession that leaves them both trembling.

Evie negotiates a bargain: she will sleep with him willingly if he remains celibate for three months, proving his capacity for fidelity. If he fails, he must apologize to Lord Westcliff for the kidnapping. Sebastian is outraged but accepts, negotiating unrestricted kissing privileges. In a moment of pique, Evie removes her wedding ring; Sebastian takes it and slides it onto the tip of his smallest finger, his hands far too large for it to fit anywhere else.

Evie's friends visit: Annabelle Hunt brings clothes, and Daisy Bowman discovers a secret passageway where Cam steals three kisses from her in exchange for showing her the hidden door mechanism. Sebastian adapts to club life, breaking up brawls and learning street-fighting techniques from Cam. He and Evie share increasingly intimate moments, including a billiards lesson that becomes an erotic encounter, with Sebastian arguing that their bargain restricts only intercourse, not all forms of intimacy.

On the night Jenner's reopens, Bullard infiltrates the club and aims a pistol at Evie from the second-floor gallery. Cam spots him first; Sebastian, following Cam's intent gaze, identifies the threat, leaps forward, and shields Evie with his body, taking a bullet through his side. As he lies bleeding, he begs Westcliff to protect Evie and apologizes for the first time in his life for the kidnapping. Evie discovers the wedding ring on a chain around his neck, Sebastian having moved it from his finger to wear hidden against his chest.

Sebastian's wound festers and fever climbs. The doctor insists on bloodletting, but Sebastian, though delirious, begs Evie not to allow it. She defers to her husband's wishes. Westcliff and Lillian, now his wife, arrive to help. Together with Cam, who provides Romani remedies including bog moss and a fever-reducing plant tincture, they irrigate and treat the infected wound. After days of uncertainty, the fever breaks.

During convalescence, Sebastian struggles with unprecedented vulnerability. He rings the bedside bell constantly to summon Evie, unable to admit he simply wants her near. Evie ends their bargain on her own terms, seducing him in his sickbed so he will lose the bet with her rather than with another woman. Afterward, he places the wedding ring back on her finger.

Westcliff traces the pistol to Egan, who reveals that Bullard believed himself to be Jenner's unacknowledged son. His jealousy of Evie turned murderous as his mind deteriorated from syphilis. Egan reports that Bullard died at a hospital, but Bullard has in fact escaped. He infiltrates the club through a hidden passage and confronts Evie in her bedroom with a knife, his body ravaged by disease. Sebastian enters and speaks calmly, offering Bullard shelter and medicine while repositioning to give Cam a clear shot from the doorway. Cam fires, killing Bullard. Evie protests that Bullard was lowering the knife, but Cam responds quietly that it was a mercy.

Sebastian attempts to send Evie to the country, confessing he is consumed by jealousy and longing but refusing to call it love. His childhood losses have made emotional attachment feel like a prelude to devastation. Evie refuses to leave, declaring her love plainly and challenging him to take the same risk. She lists the ordinary intimacies she wants: watching him shave, sharing a bed, having his children. Sebastian's resistance collapses. He admits he loves her so completely he feels he is drowning in it, and surrenders to that feeling rather than sending her away.

In the epilogue, the four wallflowers gather as winter ends. Jenner's club thrives, and the couple has settled into a devoted marriage. Annabelle is heavily pregnant, Lillian announces her own pregnancy, and the conversation turns to finding a husband for Daisy. Evie confirms with a quiet smile that her reformed rake has changed "just enough."