Lord of Scoundrels

by Loretta Chase

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

“He is very wealthy, his lineage is excellent, he is young, strong, and healthy, and you feel a powerful attraction.” “He isn’t husband material.” “What I have described is perfect husband material,” said her grandmother.

It is as your sister and friend that I tell you Dain is a splendid catch. I advise you to set your hooks and reel him in.” Jessica took a long swallow of her cognac. “This is not a trout, Genevieve. This is a great, hungry shark.” “Then use a harpoon.”

“Wife or mistress, it’s all the same,” he’d told his friends often enough. “Once you let a lady—virtuous or not—fasten upon you, you become the owner of a piece of troublesome property, where the tenants are forever in revolt and into which you are endlessly pouring money and labor. All for the occasional privilege—at her whim—of getting what you could get from any streetwalker for a few shillings.”

“Sono il tuo schiavo,” he murmured. He felt the jump of her pulse against his lips. “It means, ‘I am your slave,’” he translated, as she snatched her hand away. “Carissima. Dearest.” She swallowed. “I think you had better stick to English.” “But Italian is so moving,” he said. “Ti ho voluta dal primo momento che ti ho vista.” I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you. “Mi tormenti ancora.” You’ve tormented me ever since.

You made me want you, he told her in his mother’s language. You’ve made me heartsick, lonely. You’ve made me crave what I vowed I would never need, never seek.

She would have him and keep him if it killed her. A monster he may be, but he was her monster. She would not share his stormy kisses with anyone else. She would not share his big, splendid body with anyone else.

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.

Beauty and the Beast. That’s what Beaumont would call it, the poison-tongued sod. But in thirteen days, this Beauty would be the Marchioness of Dain. And she would lie in the Beast’s bed. Naked.

He had said that someone had to marry her because she was a public menace, and he supposed he was the only one big and mean enough to manage her.

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.

“In my dictionary, romance is not maudlin, treacly sentiment,” she said. “It is a curry, spiced with excitement and humor and a healthy dollop of cynicism.” She lowered her lashes. “I think you will eventually make a fine curry, Dain—with a few minor seasoning adjustments.”

The feminine cry of pleasure sang in his veins. The rich scent and taste of Woman flooded his senses. She was all he wanted in the world, and she was his, wanting him, slick and hot for him.

The message, in other words, was that Jessica was permitted to desire him; she was not, however, to insult him with any softer emotions, such as affection or compassion. She was not, in short, to try to get under his skin or—heaven forfend!—weasel her way into his black, rotten heart.

He had tried to keep her out, just as he’d tried not to need more from her than was safe. Futile. He never had been, never would be, safe from her. Femme fatale.

Dain saw his own: the black troubled eyes…the hated beak…the sullen mouth. No, the child was not handsome by any stretch of the imagination. His face wasn’t pretty and his body was awkwardly formed—scrawny limbs, overlarge feet and hands, and great bony shoulders. 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.

And in Lord Beelzebub’s dark, harsh Dartmoor of a heart, the sweet rain fell and a seedling of love sprouted in the once barren soil.

“To you, my dear Lucia: for bringing my wicked husband into the world…for giving him so much of what was best in you…and for giving him up, so that he would live and grow up into a man…and I would find him.”

She came up and sank again, with the same torturous slowness. Another lightning bolt. Scorching. Rapturous. He begged for more. She gave him more, riding him, controlling him. He wanted it that way, because it was love that mastered him, happiness that shackled him. She was passionate chatelaine of his body, loving mistress of his heart.

“Ti amo,” he said. And so ridiculously simple it was that he said it again, in English this time. “I love you, Jess.”