Lord of Scoundrels (3 page)

“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
,” said Dain.

He heard a rustle of movement and a muffled sound somewhere ahead and to his left. His gaze shifted thither. The female whose murmurs he’d heard was bent over a display case of jewelry. The shop was exceedingly ill lit—on purpose, to increase customers’ difficulty in properly evaluating what they were looking at. All Dain could ascertain was that the female wore a blue overgarment of some sort and one of the hideously overdecorated bonnets currently in fashion.

“I particularly recommend,” he went on, his eyes upon the female, “that you resist the temptation to count if you are contemplating a gift for your
chère amie
. Women deal in a higher mathematical realm than men, especially when it comes to gifts.”

“That, Bertie, is a consequence of the feminine brain having reached a more advanced state of development,” said the female without looking up. “She recognizes that the selection of a gift requires the balancing of a profoundly complicated moral, psychological, aesthetic, and sentimental equation. I should not recommend that a mere male attempt to involve himself in the delicate process of balancing it, especially by the primitive method of
counting
.”

For one unsettling moment, it seemed to Lord Dain that someone had just shoved his head into a privy. His heart began to pound, and his skin broke out in clammy gooseflesh, much as it had on one unforgettable day at Eton five and twenty years ago.

He told himself that his breakfast had not agreed with him. The butter must have been rancid.

It was utterly unthinkable that the contemptuous feminine retort had overset him. He could not possibly be disconcerted by the discovery that this sharp-tongued female was not, as he’d assumed, a trollop Bertie had attached himself to the previous night.

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.

Bertie approached, and in his playing-field confidential whisper asked, “Any idea what she said, Dain?”

“Yes.”

“What was it?”

“Men are ignorant brutes.”

“You sure?”

“Quite.”

Bertie let out a sigh and turned to the female, who still appeared fascinated with the contents of the display case. “You promised you wouldn’t insult my friends, Jess.”

“I don’t see how I could, when I haven’t met any.”

She seemed to be fixed on something. The beribboned and beflowered bonnet tilted this way and that as she studied the object of her interest from various angles.

“Well, do you want to meet one?” Trent asked impatiently. “Or do you mean to stand there gaping at that rubbish all day?”

She straightened, but did not turn around.

Bertie cleared his throat. “Jessica,” he said determinedly, “Dain. Dain—Drat you, Jess, can’t you take your eyes off that trash for one minute?”

She turned.

“Dain—m’sister.”

She looked up.

And a swift, fierce heat swept Lord Dain from the crown of his head to the toes in his champagne-buffed boots. The heat was immediately succeeded by a cold sweat.

“My lord,” she said with a curt nod.

“Miss Trent,” he said. Then he could not for the life of him produce another syllable.

Under the monstrous bonnet was a perfect oval of a porcelain white, flawless countenance. Thick, sooty lashes framed silver-grey eyes with an upward slant that neatly harmonized with the slant of her high cheekbones. Her nose was straight and delicately slender, her mouth soft and pink and just a fraction overfull.

She was not classic English perfection, but she was some sort of perfection and, being neither blind nor ignorant, Lord Dain generally recognized quality when he saw it.

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.

But out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed his reflection in the glass.

His dark face was harsh and hard, the face of Beelzebub himself. In Dain’s case, the book could be judged accurately by the cover, for he was dark and hard inside as well. His was a Dartmoor soul, where the wind blew fierce and the rain beat down upon grim, grey rocks, and where the pretty green patches of ground turned out to be mires that could suck down an ox.

Anyone with half a brain could see the signs posted: “
ABANDON ALL HOPE, YE WHO ENTER HERE
” or, more to the point, “
DANGER. QUICKSAND
”

Equally to the point, the creature before him was a lady, and no signs had to be posted about her to warn him off. Ladies, in his dictionary, were listed under Plague, Pestilence, and Famine.

With the return of reason, Dain discovered that he must have been staring coldly at her for rather a while, because Bertie—bored, evidently—had turned away to study a set of wooden soldiers.

Dain promptly collected his wits. “Was it not your turn to speak, Miss Trent?” he asked in mocking tones. “Were you not about to make a comment on the weather? I believe that’s considered the proper—that is,
safe
—way to commence a conversation.”

“Your eyes,” she said, her gaze perfectly steady, “are very black. Intellect tells me they must be merely a very dark brown. Yet the illusion is…overpowering.”

There was a quick, stabbing sensation in the environs of his diaphragm, or his belly, he couldn’t tell.

His composure faltered not a whit. He had learned composure in hard school.

“The conversation has progressed with astonishing rapidity to the personal,” he drawled. “You are fascinated by my eyes.”

“I can’t help it,” she said. “They are extraordinary. So very
black
. But I do not wish to make you uncomfortable.”

With a very faint smile, she turned back to the jewelry case.

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.

He decided to leave. He could just as well wrestle with this incongruity out of doors. He was heading for the door when Bertie turned and hurried after him.

“You got off easy,” Trent whispered, loud enough to be heard at Notre Dame. “I was sure she’d rip into you—and she will rip if she’s a mind to, and don’t care who it is, either. Not but what you could handle her, but she does give a fellow a headache, and if you was thinking of going for a drink—”

“Champtois has just come into possession of an automaton you will find intriguing,” Dain told him. “Why don’t you ask him to wind it up so that you can watch it perform?”

Bertie’s square face lit with delight. “One of them what-you-call-’ems? Truly? What does it do?”

“Why don’t you go look?” Dain suggested.

Bertie trotted off to the shopkeeper and promptly commenced babbling in accents any right-thinking Parisian would have considered grounds for homicide.

Having distracted Bertie from his apparent intention of following him, Lord Dain had only to take another few steps to be out the door. But his gaze drifted to Miss Trent, who was again entranced with something in the jewel case, and eaten by curiosity, he hesitated.

A
bove the whirring and clicking of the automaton, Jessica heard the marquess’s hesitation as clearly as if it had been a trumpet’s blare at the start of battle. Then he marched. Bold, arrogant strides. He’d made up his mind and he was coming in with heavy artillery.

Dain
was
heavy artillery, she thought. Nothing Bertie or anyone else could have told her could have prepared her. Coal black hair and bold, black eyes and a great, conquering Caesar of a nose and a sullen sensuality of a mouth—the face alone entitled him to direct lineage with Lucifer, as Withers had claimed.

As to the body…

Bertie had told her Dain was a very large man. She had half expected a hulking gorilla. She had not been prepared for a stallion: big and splendidly proportioned—and powerfully muscled, if what his snug trousers outlined was any indication. She should not have been looking
there
, even if it was only an instant’s glance, but a physique like that demanded one’s attention and drew it…everywhere. After that unladylike instant, it had taken every iota of her stubborn willpower to keep her gaze upon his face. Even then, she’d only managed the feat because she was afraid that otherwise she’d lose what little remained of her reason, and do something horribly shocking.

“Very well, Miss Trent,” came his deep voice, from somewhere about a mile above her right shoulder. “You have piqued my curiosity. What the devil have you found there that’s so mesmerizing?”

His head might be a mile above her, but the rest of his hard physique was improperly close. She could smell the cigar he had smoked a short time ago. And a subtle—and outrageously expensive—masculine cologne. Her body commenced a repeat of the slow simmer she had first experienced moments earlier and had not yet fully recovered from.

She would have to have a long talk with Genevieve, she told herself. These sensations could not possibly be what Jessica suspected they were.

“The watch,” she said composedly. “The one with the picture of the woman in the pink gown.”

He leaned closer to peer into the case. “She’s standing under a tree? Is that the one?”

He set his expensively gloved left hand upon the case, and all the saliva evaporated from her mouth. It was a very large, powerful hand. She was rivetingly aware that one hand could lift her straight off the floor.

“Yes,” she said, resisting the urge to lick her dry lips.

“You’ll want to examine it more closely, I’m sure,” he said.

He reached up, removed a key from a nail on the rafter, moved to the back of the case, unlocked it, and took out the watch.

Champtois could not have failed to notice this audacity. He uttered not a syllable. Jessica glanced back. He seemed to be deep in conversation with Bertie. “Seemed” was the significant word. What one generally meant by conversation was, with Bertie, barely within the realms of probability.
Deep
conversation—and in French—was out of the question.

“Perhaps I had better demonstrate how the thing operates,” said Dain, yanking her attention back to him.

In his low voice, Jessica recognized the too innocent tones that inevitably preceded a male’s typically idiotic idea of a joke. She could have explained that, not having been born yesterday, she knew very well how the timepiece operated. But the glint in his black eyes told her he was mightily amused, and she didn’t want to spoil his fun. Yet.

“How kind,” she murmured.

“When you turn this knob,” he said, demonstrating, “as you see, her skirts divide and there, between her legs, is a—” He pretended to look more closely. “Good heavens, how shocking. I do believe that’s a fellow kneeling there.” He held the watch closer to her face.

“I’m not shortsighted, my lord,” she said, taking the watch from him. “You are quite right. It is a fellow—her lover apparently, for he seems to be performing a lover’s service for her.”

She opened her reticule, took out a small magnifying glass, and subjected the watch to very narrow study, all the while aware that she was undergoing a similar scrutiny.

“A bit of the enamel has worn off the gentleman’s wig and there is a minute scratch on the left side of the lady’s skirt,” she said. “Apart from that, I would say the watch is in excellent condition, considering its age, though I strongly doubt it will keep precise time. It is not a Breguet, after all.”

She put away the magnifying glass and looked up to meet his heavy-lidded gaze. “What do you think Champtois will ask for it?”

“You want to buy it, Miss Trent?” he asked. “I strongly doubt your elders will approve of such a purchase. Or have English notions of propriety undergone a revolution while I’ve been away?”

“Oh, it isn’t for me,” she said. “It’s for my grandmother.”

She had to give him credit. He never turned a hair.

“Ah, well, then,” he said. “That’s different.”

“For her birthday,” Jessica explained. “Now, if you’ll pardon me, I had better extract Bertie from his negotiations. The tone of his voice tells me he’s trying to count and, as you so perceptively remarked, that isn’t good for him.”

He could pick her up with one hand, Dain thought as he watched her saunter across the shop. Her head scarcely reached his breastbone, and even with the overloaded bonnet, she couldn’t weigh eight stone.

He was used to towering over women—over mostly everybody—and he had learned to feel comfortable in his oversize body. Sports—boxing and fencing, especially—had taught him to be light on his feet.

Next to her, he had felt like a great lummox. A great, ugly,
stupid
lummox. She had known perfectly well what sort of watch the curst thing was all along. The question was, What sort of curst thing was she? The chit had stared straight into his blackguard’s face and not batted an eye. He had stood much too close to her and she had not budged.

Then she had taken out a magnifying glass, of all things, and evaluated the lewd timepiece as calmly as though it were a rare edition of Fox’s
Book of Martyrs
.

He wished now he had paid more attention to Trent’s references to his sister. The trouble was, if a man paid attention to anything Bertie Trent said, that man was certain to go howling mad.

Lord Dain had scarcely completed the thought when Bertie shouted, “No! Absolutely not! You just encourage her, Jess. I won’t have it! You ain’t to sell it to her, Champtois.”

“Yes, you will, Champtois,” Miss Trent said in very competent French. “There is no need to regard my little brother. He has no authority over me whatsoever.” She obligingly translated for her brother, whose face turned a vivid red.

“I ain’t
little!
And I’m head of the curst family. And I—”

“Go play with the drummer boy, Bertie,” she said. “Or better yet, why don’t you take your charming friend out for a drink?”

“Jess.” Bertie’s tones took on a pleading desperation. “You know she’ll show it to people and—and I’ll be
mortified
.”

“Lud, what a prig you’ve got to be since you left England.”

Bertie’s eyes threatened to burst from their sockets. “A what?”

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

Bertie uttered several inarticulate sounds, then turned to Dain, who had by this time given up all thoughts of leaving. He was leaning upon the jewel case, observing Bertie Trent’s sister with a brooding fascination.

“Did you hear that, Dain?” Bertie demanded. “Did you hear what the beastly girl said?”

“I could not fail to hear,” said Dain. “I was listening attentively.”

“
Me!
” Bertie jammed his thumb into his chest. “A
prig
.”

“Indeed, it’s thoroughly shocking. I shall be obliged to cut your acquaintance. I cannot allow myself to be corrupted by virtuous companions.”

“But, Dain, I—”

“Your friend is right, dear,” said Miss Trent. “If word of this gets out, he cannot risk being seen with you. His reputation will be ruined.”

“Ah, you are familiar with my reputation, are you, Miss Trent?” Dain enquired.

“Oh, yes. You are the wickedest man who ever lived. And you eat small children for breakfast, their nannies tell them, if they are naughty.”

“But you are not in the least alarmed.”

“It is not breakfast time, and I am hardly a small child. Though I can see how, given your lofty vantage point, you might mistake me for one.”

Lord Dain eyed her up and down. “No, I don’t think I should make that mistake.”

“I should say not, after listening to her scold and insult a chap,” said Bertie.

“On the other hand, Miss Trent,” Dain went on just as though Bertie did not exist—which, in a properly regulated world, he wouldn’t—“if you
are
naughty, I might be tempted to—”

“
Qu’est-ce que c’est, Champtois?
” Miss Trent asked. She moved down the counter to the tray of goods Dain had been looking over when the pair had entered.

“
Rien, rien
.” Champtois set his hand protectively over the tray. He glanced nervously at Dain. “
Pas intéressante
.”

She looked in the same direction. “Your purchase, my lord?”

“Not a bit of it,” said Dain. “I was, for a moment, intrigued by the silver inkstand, which, as you will ascertain, is about the only item there worth a second glance.”

It was not the inkstand she took up and applied her magnifying glass to, however, but the small dirt-encrusted picture with the thick, mildewed frame.

“A portrait of a woman, it seems to be,” she said.

Dain came away from the jewel case and joined her at the counter. “Ah, yes, Champtois claimed it was human. You will soil your gloves, Miss Trent.”

Bertie, too, approached, sulking. “Smells like I don’t know what.” He made a face.

“Because it’s rotting,” said Dain.

“That’s because it’s rather old,” said Miss Trent.

“Rather been lying in a gutter for about a decade,” said Dain.

“She has an interesting expression,” Miss Trent told Champtois in French. “I cannot decide whether it’s sad or happy. What do you want for it?”

“
Quarante sous
.”

She put it down.

“
Trente-et-cinq
,” he said.

She laughed.

Champtois told her he’d paid thirty sous for it himself. He could not sell it for less.

She gave him a pitying look.

Tears filled his eyes. “
Trente, mademoiselle
.”

In that case, she told him, she would have only the watch.

In the end, she paid ten sous for the filthy, foul-smelling thing, and if she’d dragged negotiations out much longer, Dain thought, Champtois would have ended by paying her to take it.

Dain had never before seen the hard-nosed Champtois reduced to such agony, and he couldn’t understand why. Certainly, when Miss Jessica Trent finally left the shop—taking her brother with her, thank heaven—the only agony Lord Dain experienced was a headache, which he ascribed to spending nearly an hour, sober, in Bertie Trent’s company.

Later that evening, in a private chamber of his favorite den of iniquity, which went by the innocent name of
Vingt-Huit
, Lord Dain regaled his companions with a description of the farce, as he called it.

“Ten sous?” Roland Vawtry said, laughing. “Trent’s sister talked Champtois down from forty to ten? By gad, I wish I’d been there.”

“Well, it’s plain now what happened, isn’t it?” said Malcolm Goodridge. “She was born first. Since she got all the intelligence, there wasn’t a crumb left for Trent.”

“Did she get all the looks, too?” Francis Beaumont asked as he refilled Dain’s wineglass.

“I could not detect the smallest resemblance in coloring, features, or physique.” Dain sipped his wine.

“That’s all?” Beaumont asked. “Are you going to leave us in suspense? What does she look like?”

Dain shrugged. “Black hair, grey eyes. Something near five and a half feet, and between seven and eight stone.”

“Weighed her, did you?” Goodridge asked, grinning. “Would you say the seven to eight stone was well distributed?”

“How the devil should I know? How could anyone know, with all those corsets and bustles and whatever else females stuff and strap themselves into? It’s all tricks and lies, isn’t it, until they’re naked.” He smiled. “Then it’s other kinds of lies.”

“Women do not lie, my lord Dain,” came a faintly accented voice from the door. “It merely seems so because they exist in another reality.” The Comte d’Esmond entered, and gently closed the door behind him.

Though he acknowledged Esmond with a careless nod, Dain was very glad to see him. Beaumont had a sly way of getting out of people precisely what they least wished to reveal. Though Dain was up to his tricks, he resented the concentration needed to deflect the cur.

With Esmond present, Beaumont would not be able to attend to anyone else. Even Dain found the count distracting at times, albeit not for the same reasons. Esmond was about as beautiful as a man could be without looking remotely like a woman. He was slim, blond, and blue-eyed, with the face of an angel.

When he’d first introduced them a week earlier, Beaumont had laughingly suggested they ask his wife, who was an artist, to paint them together. “She could title it ‘Heaven and Hell,’” he’d said.

Beaumont wanted Esmond very badly. Esmond wanted Beaumont’s wife. And she didn’t want anybody.

Dain found the situation deliciously amusing.

“You’re just in time, Esmond,” said Goodridge. “Dain had an adventure today. There is a young lady newly arrived in Paris—and of all things, it’s Dain she runs into first. And he
talked
to her.”

All the world knew Dain refused to have any dealings whatsoever with respectable women.

“Bertie Trent’s sister,” Beaumont explained. There was a vacant chair beside him, and everyone knew who it was intended for. But Esmond wandered to Dain’s side and leaned on the back of his chair. To torment Beaumont, of course. Esmond only
looked
like an angel.