Lord of Scoundrels

  His grin faltered a bit. “Still, you know all about it. You weren’t in the least puzzled by what the lady and gentleman in your grandmama’s pocket watch were doing. And you seem to have an excellent notion of the services the tarts are employed to perform.”

  “There is a difference between intellectual knowledge and practical experience,” she said. “I will admit I’m a trifle anxious in the latter regard. Yet you are not at all inhibited, and so I am sure you will not be shy about instructing me.”

  Jessica hoped he wouldn’t be too impatient to do so. She was a quick learner, and she was sure she could discover how to please him in a relatively short time. If he gave her the chance. That was all she was truly worried about. He was used to professionals who were trained to satisfy. He might easily become bored and irritated with her ignorance, and abandon her for women who were less…bother.

  She knew he was taking her to Devon with the intention of leaving her there when he’d had his fill of her.

  She knew she was asking for heartache to hope and try for more.

  Most of the world—all but a handful of the wedding guests, certainly—viewed him as a monster, and her marriage to the Bane and Blight of the Ballisters as a narrow notch above a death sentence. But he was not a monster when he held her in his arms. And so Jessica couldn’t stop herself from hoping for more of that, at least. And hoping, she was determined to try.

  His gaze had slid away. He was rubbing his thumb over his knee, and frowning at it as though a wrinkle had had the audacity to appear in his trousers.

  “I think we’d better continue this discussion later,” he said. “I had not…Gad, I should think it was simple enough. It’s not as though you’re competing at university for a first in Classics or Mathematics.”

  Only for first in his black heart, she thought.

  “When I do something, I want to do it well,” she said. “Actually, I always want to be the best. I am terribly competitive, you see. Perhaps it comes of having to manage so many boys. I had to beat my brother and cousins at everything, including sports, or they wouldn’t respect me.”

  He looked up—not at her, but at the coach window. “Amesbury,” he said. “About bloody time, too. I’m starving.”

  What the Bane and Blight of the Ballisters was, at the moment, was terrified.

  Of his wedding night.

  Now, when it was too late, he saw his mistake.

  Yes, he knew Jessica was a virgin. He could hardly forget it, when that had been one of the most mortifying aspects of the entire situation: one of Europe’s greatest debauchees mindless with lust for a slip of an English spinster.

  He had known she was a virgin just as he had known her eyes were the color of a Dartmoor mist, and as changeable as the atmosphere of those treacherous expanses. He knew it in the same way he knew her hair was silken jet and her skin was creamy velvet. He’d known it, and the knowing was sweet, when he’d looked down at his bride as they stood before the minister. She’d worn a silver-grey gown and a faint pink had glowed in her cheeks, and she was not only the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen, but she was pure as well. He had known no other man had possessed her, that she was his and his alone.

  He had also known he would bed her. He’d dreamt of it long and often enough. Moreover, having waited what seemed like six or seven eternities, he had made up his mind to do it properly, in a luxurious inn, in a big, comfortable bed with clean linens, after a well-prepared supper and a few glasses of good wine.

  Somehow, he had neglected to take into account what being a virgin meant, beyond being untouched. Somehow, through all those heated fantasies, he’d left out one critical factor: No series of men had gone before him to make the way easy. He had to break her in himself.

  And that, he feared, was just what he’d do: break her.

  The carriage halted. Suppressing a desperate urge to scream at the coachman to keep on driving—until Judgment Day, preferably—Dain helped his wife out.

  She took his arm as they started toward the entrance. Her gloved hand had never seemed so woefully small as it did at this moment.

  She had insisted she was taller than average, but that wasn’t the least bit reassuring to a man as big as a house, and likely to have the same impact when he fell upon her.

  He would crush her. He would break something, tear something. And if he somehow managed not to kill her and if the experience did not turn her into a babbling lunatic, she would run away screaming if he ever tried to touch her again.

  She would run away, and she would never again kiss him and hold him and—

  “Well, stand me up and knock me down again—either a coal barge just hove into view or it’s Dain.”

  The raucous voice jolted Dain back to the moment and to his forgotten surroundings. He’d entered the inn without noticing and heard the landlord’s greeting without attending, and was, in the same distracted way, following his host to the stairway that led to the chambers Dain had reserved.

  Coming down the stairs was the voice’s owner: his old Eton schoolfellow Mallory. Or, rather, the Duke of Ainswood now. The previous duke, all of nine years old, had fallen victim to diphtheria a year ago. Dain recalled signing the condolence note his secretary had written to the mother and the tactfully combined condolences and congratulations to Mallory, the cousin. Dain hadn’t bothered to point out that tact was wasted on Vere Mallory.

  Dain hadn’t seen the man since Wardell’s funeral. His former schoolfellow had been drunk then and he was drunk now. Ainswood’s dark hair was a greasy rat’s nest, his eyes puffy and bloodshot, and his jaw rough with at least two days’ growth of beard.

  Dain’s nerves were already in a highly sensitive state. The realization that he must introduce this repellent figure to his dainty, elegant, pure wife stretched those frayed nerves another dangerous notch.

  “Ainswood,” he said with a curt nod. “What a charming surprise.”

  “Surprise is hardly the word.” Ainswood stomped down to the foot of the stairs. “I’m knocked acock. Last time I saw you, you said you wouldn’t come back to England again on anybody’s account, and if anyone else wanted you at his funeral, he’d better contrive to keel over in Paris.” His bloodshot gaze fell upon Jessica then, and he grinned in what Dain considered an intolerably obscene manner. “Why, bless me if hell hasn’t truly frozen over. Dain not only back in England, but traveling with a bit of muslin, to boot.”

  The threads of Dain’s control began to unravel. “I won’t ask what hermit’s cave you’ve been living in, that you don’t know I’ve been in London for nearly a month and wed this morning,” he said, his voice cool, his insides roiling. “The lady happens to be my lady.”

  He turned to Jessica. “Madam, I have the dubious honor of presenting—”

  The duke’s loud guffaw cut him off. “Wed?” he cried. “Quick, tell me another. Mayhap this bird of paradise is your sister. No, better yet, your great aunt Mathilda.”

  Since any female out of the schoolroom would know that “bird of paradise” was a synonym for “harlot,” Dain had no doubt his wife was aware she’d just been insulted.

  “Ainswood, you have just called me a liar,” he said in ominously mild tones. “You have slandered my lady. Twice. I will give you precisely ten seconds to compose an apology.”

  Ainswood stared at him for a moment. Then he grinned. “You always were good with the daring and daunting, my lad, but that cock won’t fight. I know a hoax when I see one. Where was your last performance, my dove?” he asked Jessica. “The King’s Theatre, Haymarket? You see, I don’t slander you a bit. I can tell you’re above his usual Covent Garden wares.”

  “That’s three times,” said Dain. “Innkeeper.”

  Their host, who’d withdrawn to a dark corner of the hall, crept out. “My lord?”

  “Kindly show the lady to her chamber.”

  Jessica’s fingers dug into his arm. “Dain, your friend’s half-seas over,” she whispered. “Can’t you—”
r />   “Upstairs,” he said.

  She sighed and let go of his arm and did as she was told.

  He watched until she’d passed the landing. Then he turned back to the duke, who was still gazing upward at her, his expression lewdly expressive of his thoughts.

  “Prime piece,” said His Grace, turning back to him with a wink. “Where’d you find her?”

  Dain grabbed his neckcloth and shoved him against the wall. “You stupid, filthy piece of horse manure,” he said. “I gave you a chance, cretino. Now I have to break your neck.”

  “I’m quaking in my boots,” Ainswood said, his bleary eyes lighting at the prospect of battle. “Do I get the chit if I win?”

  A short while later, oblivious to her maid’s protests, Jessica stood on the balcony overlooking the inn’s courtyard.

  “My lady, I beg you to come away,” Bridget pleaded. “It isn’t a fit sight for Your Ladyship. You’ll be ill, I know you will, and on your wedding night, too.”

  “I’ve seen fights before,” said Jessica. “But never one on my account. Not that I expect they’ll do much damage. I calculate they’re evenly matched. Dain is bigger, of course, but he must fight one-armed. And Ainswood is not only well built, but drunk enough not to feel much.”

  The cobblestoned yard below was rapidly filling with men, some in dressing gowns and nightcaps. Word had quickly spread, and even at this late hour, few males could resist the lure of a mill. Not just any mill, either, for the combatants were peers of the realm. This was a rare treat for boxing aficionados.

  Each man had drawn a circle of supporters. Half a dozen well-dressed gentlemen were gathered about Dain. They were offering the usual loud and contradictory advice while Dain’s valet, Andrews, helped his master out of his upper garments.

  Bridget let out a shriek, and scuttled back against the balcony door. “Heaven preserve us—they’re naked!”

  Jessica didn’t care about “they.” Her eyes were upon one man only, and he, stripped to the waist, took her breath away.

  The torchlight gleamed upon sleek olive skin, over broad shoulders and brawny biceps, and spilled lovingly over the hard angles and flexing curves of his chest. He turned, displaying to her dazzled eyes a smooth expanse of back, gleaming like dark marble and sculpted in clean lines of bone and rippling muscle. He might have been a marble Roman athlete come to life.

  Her insides tightened, and the familiar heat coiling through her was a thrumming mixture of yearning and pride.

  Mine, she thought, and the thought was an ache, bittersweet, of hope and despair at once. He was hers in name, by law both sacred and secular. But no law could make him truly, fully hers.

  That would want a long and dogged battle.

  The drunken Ainswood, she thought ruefully, stood a better chance of winning than she did. On the other hand, he did not seem overly intelligent, and her struggle wanted brains, not brawn.

  Jessica did not lack brains, and the mouthwatering sight below constituted more than sufficient motivation.

  She watched one of the men secure Dain’s left arm in a makeshift sling. Then the two combatants stood up to each other, nearly toe to toe.

  The signal was given.

  Ainswood instantly made a fierce rush at his opponent, head down and fists flailing. Dain, smiling, retreated, carelessly dodging the shower of blows, simply letting the duke come on as hard as he could.

  But hard as the man came, he got nowhere. Dain was light on his feet, his reflexes lightning-fast—as they must be, for Ainswood was surprisingly quick, despite his insobriety. Nonetheless, Dain led him a merry chase. Blow after blow that seemed certain to connect struck only air, infuriating the duke.

  He came on harder yet, throwing more power into the assault, trying every angle. One blow glanced off Dain’s arm. Then there was a blur of movement and a loud thwack! And Ainswood staggered backward, blood streaming from his nose.

  “A conker, by gad,” Jessica muttered. “And I never saw it coming. Nor did His Grace, to be sure.”

  Bloody but undaunted, Ainswood laughed and bounded back for yet another dogged attack.

  By this time, Bridget had returned to her new mistress’s side. “Mercy on us,” she said, her round face wrinkled with distaste. “Isn’t once enough to be hit?”

  “They don’t feel it.” Jessica turned back to the fight. “Until it’s over, that is. Oh, well done, Dain,” she cried as her lord’s powerful right slammed into the duke’s side. “That’s what he wants. To the body, my dear. The oaf’s head is thick as an anvil.”

  Fortunately, her cries could not be heard over the shouts of the assembled onlookers, or Dain might have been distracted—with unfortunate results—by his dainty wife’s bloodthirsty advice.

  In any case, he’d evidently worked out the matter on his own, and one—two—three—brutal body blows at last brought Ainswood to his knees.

  Two men rushed forward to haul His Grace up. Dain backed away.

  “Give it up, Ainswood,” someone in Dain’s circle shouted.

  “Aye, before he really hurts you.”

  From her vantage point, Jessica could not be certain how much damage Dain had done. There was a good deal of blood spattered about, but the human nose did tend to bleed profusely.

  Ainswood stood, swaying. “Come along, Big Beak,” he taunted, gasping. “I’m not done with you.” Clumsily he waved his fists.

  Dain shrugged, strode forward and, in a few swift motions, knocked the flailing hands away and planted his fist in his opponent’s gut.

  The duke folded up like a rag doll and toppled backward. Fortunately, his friends reacted quickly, catching him an instant before his head could hit the cobblestones. When they’d pulled him up into a sitting position, he grinned stupidly up at Dain. Sweat mingled with blood trickled down the duke’s face.

  “Apologize,” said Dain.

  Ainswood took several heaving breaths. “Beg pardon, Beelz,” he croaked.

  “You will also take the first opportunity to apologize to my lady.”

  Ainswood sat, nodding and breathing hard for a long moment. Then, to Jessica’s chagrin, he looked up toward the balcony. “Beg pardon, my lady Dain!” he called out hoarsely.

  Then Dain looked up, too. Damp black curls clung to his forehead, and a fine sheen of sweat glistened on his neck and shoulders.

  His eyes widened briefly in astonishment when they lit upon her, and an odd, pained look crossed his features. But in the next instant, the familiar, mocking expression was in place. “My lady,” he said, and swept her a theatrical bow.

  The crowd cheered.

  She nodded. “My lord.” She wanted to leap down from the balcony and into his arms.

  One-armed, he had fought his own friend, because of her. He had fought cleverly, splendidly. He was magnificent. She wanted to cry. She mustered a tremulous smile, then turned and hurried through the door Bridget held open for her.

  Not certain at first what to make of his bride’s troubled smile, Dain took stock of the situation and his appearance, and ended by making the worst of it.

  The smile and the cool composure, he decided, were for the audience’s benefit. It was a cover-up smile, as so many of his own were, and he could easily imagine what she was covering up.

  Her new husband was an animal.

  He’d been brawling in an innyard like a common ruffian.

  He was dirty and spattered with Ainswood’s blood and sweating and stinking.

  He was also half-naked, and the torchlights had given her a lurid view of what he’d intended to conceal in darkness: his gross blackamoor’s body.

  By now, she was probably clutching a chamber pot, casting up her accounts—if she wasn’t bolting the door and helping Bridget push heavy furniture against it.

  Dain decided against washing up in the room. Instead, he marched to the pump, deaf to his valet’s warnings about the night air and fatal chills.

  Not to be outdone, Ainswood joined him there. They silently doused themse
lves while their friends gathered round them to exclaim and argue about the fight.

  When the two had completed their cold ablutions, they stood eyeing each other and shrugging their shoulders to conceal their shivering.

  Ainswood spoke first. “Wed, by gad,” he said, shaking his head. “Who’d have thought it?”

  “She shot me,” said Dain. “She had to be punished. ‘Pardon one offense,’ says Publilius, ‘and you encourage the commission of many.’ Can’t have every female who feels vexed with me running after me with pistol cocked. Had to make an example of her, didn’t I?”

  He glanced round at the others. “If one female gets away with shooting Beelzebub, others might start thinking they can get away with shooting any male, on any trifling pretext.”

  The men about him fell silent. As they pondered this outrageous prospect, their expressions grew very grave.

  “I wed her as a public service,” he said. “There are times when a man must rise above his own petty concerns and act on behalf of his friends.”

  “So he must,” said Ainswood. He broke into a grin. “But it doesn’t seem so great a sacrifice to me. That is a prime—I mean to say, your lady is exceedingly handsome.”

  Dain affected indifference.

  “I should say beautiful,” said Carruthers.

  “Quality,” said another.

  “Her bearing is elegant,” another volunteered.

  “Graceful as a swan.”

  While his chest expanded and his shoulders straightened, Dain managed to appear disgusted. “I give you leave to cudgel your brains, composing lyrical odes to her perfection,” he said. “I, however, mean to have a drink.”

  Chapter 11

  Jessica’s dinner appeared about twenty minutes after the mill. Her husband did not. He was in the bar parlor with some companions, according to the innkeeper, and had requested Her Ladyship not to wait for him.

  Jessica was not surprised. In her experience, after trying desperately to knock each other’s brains from their skulls, men promptly became the very dearest of friends and celebrated their intimacy by becoming cockeyed drunk.