The Prince of Pleasure (Notorious 5)

Julienne froze. She couldn't allow herself to be swept away by his consuming passion again. It was deplorable enough, her need to be near him, to touch him…

"I should go," she murmured. "I'm risking scandal as it is, calling alone at the residence of a notorious rake."

"Are you that concerned for your reputation?"

"Not really. An actress has little reputation to defend, as you well know. But my calling here might give our audience the wrong idea that I had succumbed to your seduction."

For a moment Dare looked as if he might object, but then he cleared his throat and stepped back a pace. "I will have someone see you home."

She set down her untasted glass of sherry and stood. "Will you let me know what you discover?"

"Are you truly interested?"

"Yes. And I went to a great deal of trouble for you today, Dare, so I think I deserve to hear the outcome."

"Perhaps you do. I could kiss you for this, you know."

Julienne gave him a provocative smile. "I would prefer that for once you refrained."

"Very well, love. Whatever you say." He belied his words, though, by bending and giving her nose a chaste peck. "But I could almost forgive you for stealing my grays."

Several nights later, Dare lounged on a couch at one side of the drawing room, watching in satisfaction as three nubile beauties assaulted Riddingham with their sensual arts. In short order they had divested the viscount of his clothing and aroused him till he was near bursting.

Then one of the beauties mounted him while the other two continued to attend him with their hands and mouths and bare breasts.

His face flushed with passion, Riddingham writhed and bucked beneath their erotic ministrations. Moments later his lanky body spasmed, and he gave a hoarse cry of ecstasy as he spent himself. Eventually he fell back, limp with exhaustion.

Dare sighed with ennui.

He had invited Riddingham for an evening of pleasure at Madame Fouchet's salon, so he shouldn't be disappointed that his invitation had been accepted. He'd been forced to arrange this means of interrogating Riddingham, since Lady Castlereagh had recalled nothing further about who might have been pursuing her companion.

It had taken some doing to persuade the viscount to unruffle his angry feathers. But Dare was nothing if not persuasive, and his change of tactics seemed to do the trick. Dare had complained that Miss Laurent refused to forgive him until he'd made peace with his rival, and griped that he was losing the battle for the Jewel's affections.

Letting Riddingham believe he was winning her put the viscount in a more generous mood. Thus, three nights following their curricle race found them at Madame Fouchet's elegant sin club.

"You will take good care of my friend?" Dare had asked the Frenchwoman.

"Mais oui, absolutement," she replied in her husky, welcoming voice as she discreetly nodded to three of her Venuses.

Dare gladly gave Riddingham into the madame's care, knowing she would skillfully ply him with port and sex and make him feel like a king-or at least an Eastern potentate with a luscious harem.

Then Dare settled back in one corner of the room, prepared for a long night.

In his wilder days, he had been a frequent visitor here, and he still knew some of these straw damsels by name. Glancing around the room, he saw that Riddingham wasn't the only gentleman partaking in the debauchery. A half-dozen other acquaintances were enjoying the erotic pleasures Madame Fouchet offered.

But he had no desire to follow suit.

Rising abruptly, Dare poured himself a brandy and went to stand at the French window, looking out at the dark night. Despite his years, he felt suddenly old, raw with weariness, burned to the core.

His brutal discontent had caught him by surprise. For the most part he'd succeeded in denying its existence until recently.

It was no wonder, of course, that he suffered from boredom and loneliness. All his closest friends had married, abandoning their wicked ways in favor of home and hearth with their chosen mates.

Sin had been the first to go. Damien Sinclair was once as notorious a rakehell as Dare himself, until he embarked on a calculated seduction and found the one woman he couldn't live without.

Lucian Tremayne had been content to play his spymaster games until he lost his heart to the flame-haired siren he'd only wed in order to gain an heir.

Lucian's distant cousin, American privateer Nicholas Sabine, had developed a unquenchable