Lord of Scoundrels

by Loretta Chase

  “Well, we’ll get to see if anything interesting appears in her eyes tomorrow—or today, rather,” said Jessica. She finished her cognac and slid down from the bed. “I wish we were there already. I feel strongly disinclined to sleep. I have the nasty feeling I’m going to dream about a shark.”

  Chapter 3

  It would have eased Jessica’s mind, could she but have known, that she gave Lord Dain nightmares.

  That is to say, his dreams started out well enough, with thoroughly lewd and lascivious activities. Since he’d often dreamt of females he wouldn’t, awake, have touched with the proverbial long pole, the marquess was not alarmed about dreaming of Bertie Trent’s irritating sister. On the contrary, Dain thoroughly enjoyed putting the supercilious bluestocking in her place—on her back, on her knees, and, more than once, in positions he doubted were anatomically possible.

  The trouble was, every time, just as he was on the brink of flooding her virginal womb with the hot seed of latent Ballisters, something ghastly happened. In the dream, he would wake up. Sometimes he found himself sinking in a mire. Sometimes he was chained in a foul black cell, with creatures he couldn’t see tearing at his flesh. Sometimes he was lying on a slab in a morgue undergoing an autopsy.

  Being a man of considerable intelligence, he had no trouble understanding the symbolism. Every nightmarish thing that had happened was, metaphorically speaking, exactly what did happen to a man when a female got her hooks into him. He did not understand, however, why, in his sleep, his brain had to make such a ghoulish bother about what he already knew.

  For years he’d been dreaming about women he had no intention of becoming entangled with. Countless times, awake, he’d imagined that the whore he was with was a lady who’d caught his eye. Not very long ago, he’d pretended a voluptuous French tart was Leila Beaumont, and he’d come away quite as satisfied as if she had been that icy bitch. No, more satisfied, because the tart had made an excellent show of enthusiasm, whereas the real Leila Beaumont would have dashed out his brains with a blunt instrument.

  Dain, in short, had no trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality. He had met Jessica Trent and felt a perfectly normal lust. He lusted for virtually every attractive female he saw. He had a prodigious sexual appetite, inherited, he had no doubt, from his hot-blooded Italian whore of a mother and her family. If he lusted for a whore, he paid her and had her. If he lusted for a respectable female, he found a whore as a substitute, paid her, and had her.

  That was what he’d done regarding Trent’s sister. Or tried to do—because it still wasn’t properly done.

  The dreams weren’t all that thwarted him. The incident at Vingt-Huit had not precisely killed his appetite for trollops, but it had left a sour taste in his mouth. He had not returned to Chloe to take up where he’d left off, and he hadn’t taken up any other tart since. He told himself that Beaumont’s voyeuristic tastes were hardly a reason for swearing off whores altogether. Nonetheless, Dain felt extremely reluctant to enter any room with any fille de joie, which created a serious problem, since he was just fastidious enough to dislike having a female in a reeking Parisian alleyway.

  Consequently, between uncooperative dreams and the foul taste in his mouth, he was unable to exorcise his lust for Miss Trent in the tried-and-true fashion. Which meant that, by the time a week had passed, Dain’s temper was badly frayed.

  Which was exactly the wrong time for Bertie Trent to tell him that the dirty, mildewed picture Miss Trent had bought for ten sous had turned out to be an extremely valuable Russian icon.

  It was a few minutes past noon, and Lord Dain had moments earlier dodged the contents of a washtub, dumped from an upper-story window on the Rue de Provence. His attention on avoiding a drenching, he had failed to notice Trent trotting toward him. By the time the marquess did notice, the imbecile was already there, and well launched into his exciting revelations.

  Dain’s dark brow furrowed at the conclusion—or rather, when Bertie paused for breath. “A Russian what?” the marquess asked.

  “Acorn. That is to say, not a nut sort of thing, but one of them heathenish pictures with a lot of gold paint and gold leaf.”

  “I believe you mean an icon,” said Dain. “In which case, I fear your sister has been hoaxed. Who told her such rubbish?”

  “Le Feuvre,” said Bertie, pronouncing the name as “fooh-ver.”

  Lord Dain experienced a chill sensation in the environs of his stomach. Le Feuvre was the most reputable appraiser in Paris. Even Ackermann’s and Christie’s consulted him upon occasion. “There are countless icons in the world,” said Dain. “Still, if it’s a good one, she obviously got a bargain at ten sous.”

  “The frame’s set with a lot of little gems—pearls and rubies and such.”

  “Paste, I collect.”

  Bertie grimaced, as he often did when toiling to produce a thought. “Well now, that would be an odd thing, wouldn’t it? Sticking a lot of trumpery gewgaws onto a handsome bit of gold frame like that.”

  “The picture I saw was framed in wood.” Dain’s head was beginning to pound.

  “But that’s what’s so clever, ain’t it? The wood thing was part of the case they’d buried it in. Because it had been buried, you know. That’s why it was so god-awful disgusting. Ain’t it a laugh, though? That sly beggar, Champtois, hadn’t the least idea. He’ll be tearing his hair out when he hears.”

  Dain was considering tearing Bertie’s head straight off his neck. Ten sous. And Dain had discarded it, had not given it more than a cursory glance, even while the dratted sister had pored over it with her curst magnifying glass. She has an interesting expression, she’d said. And Dain, distracted by the living female, had not suspected a thing.

  Because there was nothing to suspect, he told himself. Bertie hadn’t half the brain of a peahen. He’d obviously got everything wrong, as usual. The “acorn” was merely one of those cheap saintly pictures every religious fanatic in Russia had in a corner of a room, with a daub of shiny paint on the frame and some bits of colored glass stuck on.

  “Course, I’m not to tell Champtois,” Bertie went on in marginally lower tones. “I’m not to tell anybody—especially you, she said. But I ain’t a dancing bear, like I told her, and there wasn’t any ring in my nose that I could see, so I wouldn’t be led about by it, now would I? So I hopped straight out to look for you—and found you in the nick, because she’s going to the bank straight the minute Genevieve tucks away for her nap—and then it’ll be locked up in a vault and you’ll never get a proper look at it, will you?”

  The Marquess of Dain, Jessica was well aware, was furious. He lounged back in his chair, his arms folded across his chest, his obsidian eyes half-closed while his glance moved slowly round the coffee shop. It closely resembled the species of sullenly sulphurous look she had always imagined Lucifer bestowing upon his surroundings when he first came to after the Fall.

  She was much surprised the gaze didn’t leave a trail of charred remains in its wake. But the patrons of the café simply looked away—only to look back again the instant Dain returned his brimstone displeasure to her.

  Though she’d already made up her mind how to deal with the problem, Jessica was irritably aware that it would be easier if Bertie had been a trifle more discreet. She wished she hadn’t taken him along yesterday when she’d gone to collect the picture from Le Feuvre. But then, how could she have known beforehand that it was more than simply the work of an unusually talented artist?

  Even Le Feuvre had been astonished when he went to work on it, and found the bejeweled gold frame within the decayed wooden one.

  And naturally, because the piece, when Le Feuvre had finished with it, was pretty and shiny and sparkling with gems, Bertie had become very excited. Too excited to listen to reason. Jessica had tried to explain that telling Dain would be like waving a red flag in front of a bull. Bertie had pshished and pshawed and told her Dain wasn’t that sort of bad sport—not to mention he probably had a dozen such
of his own and could buy another dozen if he liked.

  Whatever the Marquess of Dain had, Jessica was certain it wasn’t anything like her rare Madonna. And though he had looked bored when she showed it to him today, and congratulated her in the most patronizing manner, and laughingly insisted on accompanying Bertie and her to the bank to scare off any would-be robbers, she knew he wanted to kill her.

  After the icon had been locked away in a bank vault, it was Dain who’d suggested they stop here for coffee.

  They’d scarcely sat down before he’d sent Bertie out to find a type of cheroot that Jessica strongly suspected didn’t exist. Bertie would probably not be back before midnight, if then. For all she knew, he’d hie to the West Indies in search of the fictitious cigar—precisely as though Dain truly were Beelzebub, and Bertie one of his devoted familiars.

  The brother out of the way, Dain had just silently warned the café’s patrons to mind their own business. If he took her by the throat and choked her to death then and there, Jessica doubted any one of them would leap to her rescue. She doubted, in fact, that any of them would dare utter a peep of protest.

  “How much did Le Feuvre tell you the thing was worth?” he asked. It was the first word he’d uttered since giving the coffee shop owner their order. When Dain entered an establishment, the proprietor himself rushed out to attend him.

  “He advised me not to sell it right away,” she said evasively. “He wished to contact a Russian client first. There is a cousin or nephew or some such of the tsar’s who—”

  “Fifty pounds,” said Lord Dain. “Unless this Russian is one of the tsar’s numerous mad relations, he won’t give you a farthing more than that.”

  “Then he must be one of the mad ones,” said Jessica. “Le Feuvre mentioned a figure well above that.”

  He gave her a hard stare. Gazing into his dark, harsh face, into those black, implacable eyes, Jessica had no trouble imagining him sitting upon an immense ebony throne at the very bottom of the pits of Hades. Had she looked down and discovered that the expensive polished boot a few inches from her own had turned into a cloven hoof, she would not have been in the least amazed.

  Any woman with an ounce of common sense would have picked up her skirts and fled.

  The trouble was, Jessica could not feel at all sensible. A magnetic current was racing along her nerve endings. It slithered and swirled through her system, to make an odd, tingling heat in the pit of her belly, and it melted her brain to soup.

  She wanted to kick off her shoes and trail her stockinged toes up and down the black, costly boot. She wanted to slide her fingers under his starched shirt cuff and trace the veins and muscles of his wrist and feel his pulse beating under her thumb. Most of all, she wanted to press her lips to his hard, dissolute mouth and kiss him senseless.

  Of course, all such a demented assault would get her would be a position flat on her back and the swift elimination of her maidenhead—very possibly in full view of the café’s patrons. Then, if he was in a good humor, he might give her a friendly slap on the bottom as he told her to run along, she reflected gloomily.

  “Miss Trent,” he said, “I am sure all the other girls at school found your wit hilarious. Perhaps, however, if you would stop batting your eyelashes for a moment, your vision would clear and you would notice that I am not a little schoolgirl.”

  She hadn’t been batting her eyelashes. When Jessica did play coquette, it was purposely and purposefully, and she was certainly not such a moron as to try that method with Beelzebub.

  “Batting?” she repeated. “I never bat, my lord. “This is what I do.” She looked away toward an attractive Frenchman seated nearby, then shot Dain one swift, sidelong glance. “That isn’t batting,” she said, releasing the instantly bedazzled Frenchman and returning to full focus upon Dain.

  Though one could hardly believe it possible, his expression became grimmer still.

  “I am not a school boy, either,” he said. “I recommend you save those slaying glances for the sorts of young sapskulls who respond to them.”

  The Frenchman was now gazing at her with besotted fascination. Dain turned and looked at him. The man instantly looked away and began talking animatedly with his companions.

  She recollected Genevieve’s warning. Jessica couldn’t be certain Dain had any active thoughts of reeling her in. She could see, however, that he’d just posted a No Fishing sign.

  A thrill coursed through her, but that was only to be expected. It was the primitive reaction of a female when an attractive male displayed the usual bad-natured signs of proprietorship. She was hammeringly aware that her feelings about him were decidedly primitive.

  On the other hand, she was not completely out of her mind.

  She could see Big Trouble brewing.

  It was easy enough to see. Scandal followed wherever he went. Jessica had no intention of being caught in the midst of it.

  “I was merely providing a demonstration of a subtle distinction which had apparently escaped you,” she said. “Subtlety, I collect, is not your strong point.”

  “If this is a subtle way of reminding me that I overlooked what your gimlet eyes perceived in that dirt-encrusted picture—”

  “You apparently did not look very closely even when it was clean,” she said. “Because then you would have recognized the work of the Stroganov school—and would not have offered the insulting sum of fifty quid for it.”

  His lip curled. “I didn’t offer anything. I expressed an opinion.”

  “To test me,” she said. “However, I know as well as you do that the piece is not only Stroganov school, but an extremely rare form. Even the most elaborate of the miniatures were usually chased in silver. Not to mention that the Madonna—”

  “Has grey eyes, not brown,” Dain said in a very bored voice.

  “And she’s almost smiling. Usually they look exceedingly unhappy.”

  “Cross, Miss Trent. They look exceedingly ill tempered. I suppose it’s on account of being virgins—of experiencing all the unpleasantness of breeding and birthing and none of the jolly parts.”

  “Speaking on behalf of virgins everywhere, my lord,” she said, leaning toward him a bit, “I can tell you there are a host of jolly experiences. One of them is owning a rare work of religious art worth, at the very minimum, five hundred pounds.”

  He laughed. “There’s no need to inform me you’re a virgin,” he said. “I can spot one at fifty paces.”

  “Fortunately, I’m not so inexperienced in other matters,” she said, unruffled. “I have no doubt Le Feuvre’s mad Russian will pay me five hundred. I’m also aware that the Russian must be a good client for whom he wishes to make a shrewd purchase. Which means I should do considerably better at auction.” She smoothed her gloves. “I have observed many times how men’s wits utterly desert them once auction fever takes hold. There’s no telling what outrageous bids will result.”

  Dain’s eyes narrowed.

  At that moment, their host sallied forth with their refreshments. With him were four lesser minions who bustled about, arranging linens, silver, and crockery with painful precision. Not a stray crumb was allowed to mar a plate, not a trace of tarnish smudged the flawless sheen of the silver. Even the sugar had been sawed into perfect half-inch cubes—no small feat, when the average sugar loaf was somewhere between granite and diamonds on the hardness scale. Jessica had always wondered how the kitchen help managed to break it up without using explosives.

  She accepted a small slice of yellow cake with frothy white icing.

  Dain let the fawning proprietor adorn his plate with a large assortment of fruit tarts, artistically arranged in concentric circles.

  They ate their sweets in silence until Dain, having decimated enough tarts to set every tooth in his mouth throbbing, set down his fork and frowned at her hands.

  “Have all the rules changed since I’ve been away from England?” he asked. “I’m aware ladies do not carelessly expose their naked hands to public view.
I did understand, though, that they were permitted to remove their gloves to eat.”

  “It is permitted,” she said. “But it isn’t possible.” She raised her hand to show him the long row of tiny pearl buttons. “I should be all afternoon undoing them without my maid’s help.”

  “Why the devil wear such pestilentially bother-some things?” he demanded.

  “Genevieve bought them especially for this pelisse,” she said. “If I didn’t wear them, she’d be dreadfully hurt.”

  He was still staring at the gloves.

  “Genevieve is my grandmother,” she explained. He hadn’t met her. He’d arrived just as Genevieve had lain down for her nap—though Jessica had no doubt her grandmother had promptly risen and peeped through the door the moment she’d heard the deep, masculine voice.

  The voice’s owner now looked up, his black eyes glinting. “Ah, yes. The watch.”

  “That, too, was a wise choice,” Jessica said, setting down her own fork and settling back into her business mode. “She was enchanted.”

  “I am not your little white-haired grandmother,” he said, instantly taking her meaning. “I am not so enchanted with icons—even Stroganovs—to pay a farthing more than they’re worth. To me, it’s worth no more than a thousand. But if you’ll promise not to bore me to distraction by haggling and trying to slay me with your eyes in between, I shall gladly pay fifteen hundred.”

  She had hoped to work him round by degrees. His tone told her he had no intention of being worked upon. Straight to the point, then—the point she’d decided upon hours ago, after catching the expression in his eyes when she’d let him examine her remarkable find.

  “I shall gladly give it to you, my lord,” she said.

  “No one gives me anything,” he said coldly. “Play your game—whatever it is—with someone else. Fifteen hundred is my offer. My only offer.”