Lord of Scoundrels (Scoundrels 3)

But maybe it wasn’t.

Jessica reminded herself that “maybe” was hardly a reliable basis for marriage.

On the other hand, Genevieve had advised her to reel him in. Even as late as this morning, after all that had happened, Genevieve had not changed her mind. “I know he behaved abominably, and I do not blame you for shooting him,” she said. “But recollect that he was interrupted at a time a man most dislikes interruption. He was not thinking rationally. He could not. All the same, I am certain he cares for you. He did not look so insolent and cynical when he danced with you.”

“Marriage or nothing,” Dain’s impatient voice broke into her thoughts. “Those are the terms, the only terms. Take your pick, Jess.”

Dain told himself it didn’t matter. If she consented, he could at least exorcise his idiotic lust in exchange for the extortionate sum he had to pay. Then he could leave her in Devon and pick up his life again. If she refused, he’d pay nothing, and she would go away and stop plaguing him, and he would forget the lust and her. Either way, he won and she lost.

But his heart pounded all the same, and his gut twisted with a chill, throbbing dread he had not felt since his boyhood.

He set his jaw and endured while he watched her move away from Herriard toward a chair. But she didn’t sit down. She simply stared at it, her beautiful face a blank.

Herriard frowned. “Perhaps you want some time, Miss Trent. A few minutes of privacy. I am sure His Lordship would concede that much,” he said, turning the frown upon Dain. “After all, the lady’s entire future is at stake.”

“I don’t need more time,” said Miss Trent. “It is easy enough to calculate the assets and liabilities on either side.”

She looked up at Dain and, to his astonishment, smiled. “I find the prospect of a life of poverty and obscurity in a remote outpost of civilization singularly unattractive. I can think of nothing more absurd than living so merely for the sake of my pride. I had much rather be a wealthy marchioness. You are perfectly awful, of course, Dain, and I don’t doubt you’ll strive to make my life a misery to me. However, Mr. Herriard will see that I am well provided for in the mercenary sense. Also, I shall derive some personal satisfaction from knowing that you will have to eat every last contemptuous word you ever uttered about men who let themselves be trapped into marriage and entanglements with respectable women. I should give anything to be a fly on the wall when you explain your betrothal to your friends, my lord Beelzebub.”

He stared at her, afraid to trust his hearing.

“The answer is yes,” she said impatiently. “Do you think I’m such a sapskull as to say no, and let you off scot-free?”

He found his voice. “I knew that was too much to hope.”

She approached him. “What will you tell your friends, Dain? Something about marriage being less bother than having me chasing after you and shooting you, I suppose.”

She lightly touched his coat sleeve, and the small gesture made his chest constrict painfully.

“You ought to put it in a sling,” she said. “Make a show of it. Not to mention you’ll be less likely to damage it accidentally.”

“A sling would spoil the line of my coat,” he said stiffly. “And I don’t need to make a show of or explain anything.”

“Your friends will roast you unmercifully,” she said. “I should give anything to hear it.”

“I shall announce our betrothal to them tonight, at Antoine’s,” he said. “And they may make what they like of it. It’s nothing to me what those morons think. Meanwhile, I advise you to run along and pack. Herriard and I have business to discuss.”

She stiffened. “Pack?”

“We’ll leave for England the day after tomorrow,” he said. “I’ll see to the travel arrangements. We’ll be married in London. I won’t have a mob descending upon the Dartmoor countryside and agitating the cattle. We can leave for Devon after the wedding breakfast.”

Her eyes darkened. “Oh, no, you don’t,” she said. “We can be wed here. You might allow me to enjoy Paris for a while at least, before you exile me to Devon.”

“We will be wed in St. George’s, Hanover Square,” he said. “In a month’s time. I’ll be damned if I’ll plead with the sodding Archbishop of Canterbury for a special license. The banns will be read. And you may enjoy London in the interim. You are not staying in Paris, so just put that idea out of your head.”

The idea of the Marchioness of Dain living in the stewpot he called home on the Rue de Rivoli made his flesh creep. His lady wife would not sit at the table where half the degenerates of Paris had caroused and eaten and drunk until they were sick—and retched upon carpets and furniture. She would not embroider or read by the fire in a drawing room that had housed orgies the Romans would have envied.

He made a mental note to order a new mattress for the ancestral bed in Devon, and to have all the present bedclothes and hangings burnt. He would not have the Marchioness of Dain contaminated by the objects amid which he’d fathered a bastard upon Charity Graves.

“I have had a perfectly wretched time in Paris, thanks to you,” she said, her grey eyes sparking. “You might at least allow me to make up for it. I should not dream of expecting you to live in my pocket, but I should think I might be permitted to go to parties and enjoy my newly redeemed honor and—”

“You can go to parties in London,” he said. “You may have as grand a wedding breakfast as you like. You may buy all the frocks and fripperies you like. What the devil do you care where you are, so long as I pay the bills?”

“How can you be so insensitive?” she cried. “I do not wish to be hustled away from Paris as though I were a mortifying secret.”

“A secret?” His voice rose. “In St. George’s, Hanover Square? How much more bloody public and respectable can this infernal match be?”

He looked over her head at Herriard, who was at the table, tucking papers into his leather document case, his countenance expressing studied oblivion to the row. “Herriard, perhaps you can explain what harrowing crime I shall perpetrate with a London wedding.”

“This dispute is not within my jurisdiction,” said Herriard. “No more than is the number of wedding guests or any of the other disagreements which usually attend upon a betrothal. You will have to negotiate on your own.”

Lord Dain thought he’d endured enough “negotiating” for one day. He had not come intending to marry the author of his misery. Not consciously, at any rate. He had offered, he’d thought, only because he couldn’t bear to be cornered and harried and beaten by a vengeful little spinster and her diabolical lawyer.

He had not realized, until he offered, how very much her answer did matter. He had not realized until now how boring and depressing Paris and the weeks and months to come would appear when he contemplated her gone…forever.

Though she’d consented, he was still anxious, because she wasn’t his yet, and she might escape after all. Yet his pride wouldn’t let him yield to her. Yield an inch, and a woman would take an ell.

He must begin as he meant to go on, he told himself, and he meant to be master in his own house. He would not be managed. He would not change his ways for anybody, even her. Dain gave the orders; others obeyed.

“Cara,” he said.

She met his gaze, her expression wary.

He took her hand. “Pack your bags,” he said softly.

She tried to pull her hand away. He let it go, but only to wrap his good arm about her waist and pull her close and up, off the floor, and clamp his mouth over hers.

It was over in an instant. She scarcely had time to struggle. One swift, brazen kiss…and he let her down and released her. She tottered back a step, her face flushed.

“That’s all the negotiating you get, Jess,” he said, hastily smothering the heat and hunger the too short embrace had stirred. “If you go on arguing, I shall assume you want more.”

“Very well, London it is—but that will cost you, Dain,” she said.

Sh

e turned away. “Mr. Herriard, show him no mercy. If he wants blind obedience, he will not get it cheap. I shall expect a king’s ransom in pin money. My own carriages and cattle. Ample portion to issue, female as well as male. Make him howl, Mr. Herriard. If he does not roar and stomp about like an outraged elephant, you may be certain you are not demanding enough.”

“I should pay a great deal,” Dain said, grinning evilly, “for blind obedience. I shall begin making a list of commands this very night.” He made her an extravagant bow. “Until the day after tomorrow, then, Miss Trent.”