Lord of Scoundrels

by Loretta Chase

He’d loved them insofar as he was able. This was not, by average standards, very much.

“I collect he fuels it with gin,” Jessica muttered. “Say again?” “I said, ‘I reckon his brain’s like a steam engine.’”

“I believe I’ve remarked before, Trent, that you might experience less aggravation if you did not upset the balance of your delicate constitution by attempting to count,”

Her accents proclaimed her a lady. Worse—if there could be a worse species of humanity—she was, by the sounds of it, a bluestocking. Lord Dain had never before in his life met a female who’d even heard of an equation, let alone was aware that one balanced them.

If she had been a piece of Sevres china or an oil painting or a tapestry, he would have bought her on the spot and not quibbled about the price. For one deranged instant, while he contemplated licking her from the top of her alabaster brow to the tips of her dainty toes, he wondered what her price was.

Dain wasn’t certain what exactly was wrong with her, but he had no doubt something was. He was Lord Beelzebub, wasn’t he? She was supposed to faint, or recoil in horrified revulsion at the very least. Yet she had gazed at him as bold as brass, and it had seemed for a moment as though the creature were actually flirting with him.

“A prig, dear. A prig and a prude. A regular Methodist.”

I shall simply hope his reaction to you was nothing like yours to him. That is a man who gets what he wants, Jessica, and if I were you, I should not want him to be the one reeling in the line.”

Jessica couldn’t be certain Dain had any active thoughts of reeling her in. She could see, however, that he’d just posted a No Fishing sign.

because if he went after her, he’d kill her. Which was unacceptable, because Dain did not, under any circumstances, sink to allowing any member of the inferior sex to provoke him. Even while he was counseling himself, he was running down the remaining stairs and down the long hall to the door. He wrenched it open and stormed out, the door crashing behind him.

Fourth, she had goaded him into assaulting her. Fifth, she had very nearly choked him to death, demanding the assault continue. Sixth, it had taken a bolt of lightning to knock her loose.

It wasn’t amusing to be edgy and restless and lonely and bored past endurance because it was nearly midnight and one despicable brute couldn’t be bothered to come. It wasn’t amusing, either, to know it was better he didn’t come, and to want him here all the same and to hate herself for wanting it.

All she had to do now was figure out what game he meant to play, and play it by his rules, and hope the rules fell somewhere within the bounds of civilized behavior.

He’d remembered the stiff courtesy that couldn’t disguise the fear and revulsion in their eyes. He’d remembered the women turning pale at his approach and the false heartiness of the men. He had forgotten, though, how bitterly alone they made him feel, and how the loneliness enraged him. He had forgotten how it twisted his insides into knots and made him want to howl and smash things.

He kept on marching until the men crowding about Miss Trent had to give way or be trodden down. They gave way, but they didn’t go away. He swept one heavy-lidded glance over them. “Go away,” he said quietly. They went.

She heard it then, faint but recognizable. She’d heard it before, in boyish boasts and taunts: the small, discordant note of uncertainty beneath the laughter. She swiftly reviewed the words he’d uttered, and wondered if that was all his pride would allow him to say.

She leaned back and contemplated Dain’s Steeds from Hell. They were the worst-tempered horses she’d ever encountered in her life. They fussed and snorted about and objected to everything and everybody that strayed into their path. They tried to trample pedestrians. They exchanged equine insults with every horse they met. They tried to knock over lampposts and curb posts, and strove to collide with every vehicle that had the effrontery to share the same street with them.

The beasts tossed their heads and answered with evil horsey laughter.

He’d found it a great deal easier to pretend when she wasn’t near. Easier to make believe he’d chosen that particular ring simply because it was the finest. Easier to hide in his dark wasteland of a heart the real reason: that it was a tribute, its symbolism as mawkish as any the jeweler’s clerk had proposed. A bloodred stone for the brave girl who’d shed his blood. And diamonds flashing fiery sparks, because lightning had flashed the first time she’d kissed him.

He’d explained how the future Marchioness of Dain was to be treated. It was simple enough. Jessica was not to be pestered and she was not to be contradicted. She answered to nobody but Dain, and he answered to nobody but the king, and then only if he was in the mood.

She’d wanted him to burn for her, just as she’d wanted him to set her ablaze.

That is the artist’s talent: He makes one wonder. It’s rather as though he played a joke on the viewer, isn’t it?”

He would allow her to make him happy, certainly. He would let himself be flayed alive and boiled in oil, however, before he’d allow his wife to pity him.

But the frigid darkness had come, as it always did, to preserve him, and it smothered feeling, as it always did.

After three weeks, he was desperate. He would have settled for anything vaguely like affection: one “blockhead” or “clodpole”—a priceless vase hurled at his head—his shirts in shreds—a row, please God, just one. The trouble was, he dared not goad her too far. If he rose to the truly heinous heights of which he was capable, he might provoke the row he craved; he might also drive her away. For good. He couldn’t risk it.

Dain did not handle his emotional problems well. He had only three methods for dealing with “bother”: knock it down, frighten it away, or buy it off. When the methods didn’t work, he was at a loss. And so he had a tantrum.

He raged at the servants because they weren’t quick enough in assisting his wife out of her wet outer garments, and then let everything drip on the marble floor of the vestibule—as though sodden garments weren’t bound to drip or muddy boots leave dirty footprints. He was in fits because their baths had not been drawn and weren’t steaming and ready the instant they reached their apartments—as though anyone had any idea of the precise moment lord and lady would return. He bellowed because his boots were ruined—as though he hadn’t two dozen pairs at least.

“Jessica, you are a pain in the arse, do you know that?” He scowled at her. “If I were not so immensely fond of you, I should throw you out the window.”

This is my favorite line in the whole book

“Jessica, I am going to collect the little beast,” he said grimly. “I am not going to puzzle about anything. I shall collect him and bring him to you, and you may puzzle over him to your heart’s content.”

“Phelps, I think I’ve killed him.” Dain could scarcely move his lips. His entire body was paralyzed. He could not make himself look down…at the corpse. “Then why’s he breathin’?”

He did not have a sunny disposition, either. Nor did his filthy vocabulary enhance his appeal. He wasn’t a pretty child and he certainly wasn’t a charming one. He was just like his father.

“Like the conscienceless brute I am.” She reached up to caress his arrogant jaw. “Ah, well, at least you’re a handsome brute. And rich. And strong. And virile.”

He grinned, and in his eyes, black as sin, she saw the devil inside him laughing. But he was her devil, and she loved him madly.