And The Widow Wore Scarlet (Scandalous Sons 1)

“Marriage is not for the likes of us,” he said, drawing her towards the terrace for he needed an opportunity to thrust the note he’d written into Miss Steele’s hand.

“Us?”

“The cynical.”

“I doubt I would ever trust a man again,” she agreed.

“You never told me the name of your husband’s mistress.” Whoever it was paled in comparison to the Scarlet Widow. “It might be an idea to add her to the list of suspects.”

She swallowed her champagne and placed the empty glass on a tray carried by a passing footman. “Madame Larousse.”

“Madame Larousse? The French actress?”

“Oui,” she said with a giggle, and he caught a glimpse of the innocent woman to whom he owed his life. “Though I’m told she has another benefactor and has no gripe with me. If anything, I would like to offer her a reward.”

Damian would have liked to watch the widow’s expression when she learnt the news of her husband’s demise. “The madame’s voracious appetite is to be commended.”

“Indeed.” The widow cast him a brilliant smile.

Somehow it found a chink in his armour and infused his chest with a warm glow. To add to this unsettling sensation, he saw his father striding through the crowd, heading in his direction.

Damnation!

Damian reached into the pocket of his evening coat, removed a silver flask and downed two mouthfuls of brandy. “You told Rathbone you wanted to pay homage to your host.” He slipped the flask back into his pocket and tugged the cuffs of his coat. “Here’s your chance.”

Anger burned in Damian’s veins as his father drew closer. Over the years, he’d tried every means possible to eradicate the feeling. Absence. Dismissal. Vengeance. Nothing tempered the ugliness inside, the hostility battling for a voice.

The marquis joined them. A few years had passed since Damian last stood within a few feet of the suave lord. Silver streaked the dark hair at his father’s temples, but it only added to his air of sophistication. The marquis’ dark eyes shone with the confidence and arrogance of a man who commanded attention.

“I cannot decide what I consider most shocking,” the marquis said smoothly, capturing the widow’s hand and pressing a kiss to her knuckles. Most ladies melted beneath the lord’s sultry stare, but not the widow. “The fact you dishonour your husband’s memory by wearing red, or that you’re having an intimate relationship with my son.”

“Illegitimate son,” Damian corrected. Bitterness brought bile to his throat. “Or had you forgotten you refused to marry my mother?”

The marquis’ amused gaze drifted over him. “Maria did so enjoy telling her bedtime stories.”

Damian straightened to his full height. “Are you calling my mother a liar?”

“Would I do that when you duel with every man who so much as brushes against you in a distasteful manner?”

“Would I call you out when you boast that your skill in every regard is greater than mine?” Damian countered.

A man might hate his kin, but that didn’t mean he wanted them dead.

“Greater in all things but one.” His father glanced at the widow, a sinful smile tugging on his lips. “You appear to have outplayed most men of the ton, though I consider seducing a woman to win a bet rather crass.”

“Then you lack my skill on more than one count. The widow seduced me.” It wasn’t a lie. Being proficient in the art of manipulation, she had found his one weakness.

Your mother would be ashamed of you.

Those words had cut deep. Sliced through the iron casing around his heart. It was one thing being aware of one’s own hypocrisy, another to have someone call you out. Indeed, if Maria Alvarez could look upon her son, would she see his whoremonger of a father staring back?

“Then the widow means to use you,” the marquis said blatantly as if challenging her to refute the claim, “use you for her own devilish ends.”

Damian focused on the stranger who’d sired him, on the hatred that made life easier to bear, and tried to determine the reason for his attack. Had the marquis tried to bed the widow and failed? The lord’s languid demeanour gave nothing away.

“For a gentleman with impeccable breeding, you banter like a commoner, my lord,” the widow said in the haughty manner of a blue-blooded matron. “You may arrive at the riverside in your gilt carriage, but you seem intent on washing your soiled linen with all the other housemaids.”

A muscle in the marquis’ cheek twitched.