Never Love a Scoundrel

by Darcy Burke

  “Were they?” Lydia asked softly, a new picture forming in her mind. One she understood all too well. He’d had a mother who loved him. And she’d been taken away. Just like Lydia’s.

  “Quite.” Mrs. Lloyd-Jones sipped her tea. “Lady Lockwood took the death of her husband badly. She wore full mourning for over a year, and then never strayed from half mourning.”

  This didn’t seem to fit with the woman Aunt Margaret had described. Would someone who was bitter over her husband’s infidelity honor his memory in such a way? “Aunt Margaret said she was very jealous of Lord Lockwood’s mistresses.”

  Mrs. Lloyd-Jones blinked in rapid succession. “What woman isn’t? That doesn’t mean she didn’t love him. Indeed, if she was guilty of anything, it was of loving him too much.”

  Lydia couldn’t imagine being that overwhelmed by emotion, likely because she tried very hard not to display any, which had become easier over the years. “But she went insane with it, didn’t she?”

  Mrs. Lloyd-Jones’s expression turned sad. “Yes. I don’t know how it happened or if there was anything that could have been done to prevent it. She manages all right now, in the peace of the country, but she’s very fragile. She can’t return to Town, to the life she led before. It’s such a tragedy and not fodder for gossip.” She was warning Lydia about spreading this information, and Lydia couldn’t argue with her. The entire story seemed very tragic and not just because she’d met Lockwood and—as Mr. Locke had said—“formed an opinion about him.”

  What was that opinion exactly? That he was interesting. Refreshingly honest. Exciting. Was there a way at all she could attract him? He’d seemed at least moderately intrigued by her—before he’d learned of her relation to Margaret. Perhaps she could prove to him they were not that alike. “Rest assured, I don’t wish to cause Lord Lockwood any pain. I will guard my tongue. Especially since you seem to think we’ll suit.” She gave Mrs. Lloyd-Jones a knowing smile and wink, hoping to interject a little levity into their tea. Things had turned far too maudlin, and Lydia endured enough of that living with her aunt.

  “Oh, yes. You leave things to me, dear. I’ll have you and Lockwood to the altar before the end of the year. And how happy that will make me.” She beamed at Lydia.

  Lydia wondered if it would make her happy, too. Then she pondered the notion of someone finding joy on her behalf and decided that alone would be enough.

  Chapter Seven

  THE FOLLOWING evening Jason took up one of his two favorite positions at Lockwood House during a vice party. He lounged in a dark corner of the drawing room that gave him an excellent vantage point from which to view people as they arrived and decided where to go or what to do first.

  Some went directly through to the gaming room. Others surveyed the feminine wares on display. The drawing room was always well populated with demimondaines who—for a fee—would entertain his guests and, as the evening wore on, were usually in lessening states of dress. Still others arrived with their own entertainment—in pairs, or trios, or whatever combination they preferred—and simply made good use of Jason’s facilities.

  Jason’s blood thrummed more than usual. His parties could always be relied upon to boost his mood. It was a combination of things, not the least of which was witnessing the ton’s elite indulging their basest desires—and thinking about how he could ruin people with the things he knew. Though revenge against those who’d ostracized him would be sweet, it wasn’t the reason he’d begun these parties, and, perhaps surprisingly, he’d actually befriended some of the gentlemen. It would be interesting to see how they reacted now that he was back in circulation. Perhaps he ought to drop by White’s.

  His eye was caught by a vivid scarlet gown sweeping into the drawing room. Cora Stroud was immediately set upon by a young buck. Her rouged lips parted in a beguiling smile. She’d flirt, she’d tease, she might even give him a taste or two, but she’d save the best for Jason, as she’d done the past, what—five months?

  He’d never had a consistent paramour before. In the early days, he’d invited women here—courtesans who serviced him for a price and treated him the way he’d been used to, before he’d been scarred and branded a probable lunatic. Some left as soon as they saw him, others endured their evening and then opted not to return, and after a time, some began to ask to be invited again, while still more clamored for an invitation. With an armful of beautiful women to aid him, he was able to increase his social circle—the only one available to him—and so he’d invited a handful of wastrels to make a party of it. Then it had simply become habit.

  Cora’s kohl-rimmed eyes found his, and she gave him a secret smile full of promise. Oddly, Jason’s desire didn’t stir, but he was distracted. Likely by the prospect of Ethan. He nodded toward her and then put her from his mind. He wanted to focus on the matter at hand. No distractions. Which is what he’d instructed his retainers as well, not that they were easily lured from their posts. Jason knew after one party whether a servant was going to succeed at Lockwood House. Watching the goings-on at one of his vice parties was not for the faint of heart, nor for the indiscreet.

  Jason decided it was time to mingle. He moved through the drawing room, greeting guests who made eye contact with him through the slits of their masks. One couple came forward as he passed them. The woman clutched the man’s arm, and dipped her head down and then up. Then she leaned up and whispered something into the man’s ear. Despite her mask, Jason knew when he was being surveyed.

  “We were hoping you might join us upstairs later this evening,” the man said. Jason couldn’t quite place him, but thought he might be a young man called Swindon.

  “Though I’m flattered by your proposition, I’m afraid that’s not where my interests lie.” He offered a benign smile. “I do know some other gentlemen who come here looking for just that sort of thing, however, and I’d be happy to direct one of them your way. Or, I can have a member of my staff simply set something up for you.”

  Swindon bent his head and spoke softly near the woman’s ear. Her mouth, just visible beneath her ebony mask formed a disappointed little moue, but she ultimately gave a slight nod.

  “That would be appreciated, my lord. Thank you.” Swindon inclined his head and then escorted his “lady friend” away.

  A footman opened the door for Jason to enter the sitting room. It was a smaller, more intimate room, with scant lighting. When attendees wished for a quieter atmosphere or if they simply couldn’t bother themselves to retreat to a chamber upstairs, they came in here for a modicum of privacy.

  Jason passed a couple entwined on a chaise, the woman’s hand clearly stroking the man’s cock through his trousers. Privacy was not perhaps the reason they came in here. The drawing room was for looking. The sitting room was for doing.

  He scanned the semidarkness for Scot, knowing that he was more likely to be stationed in this room than anywhere else. Jason found his valet near the wall, flirting with a pale blond Cyprian. She gave Jason a provocative smile as he approached and then took herself off as she recognized that he wanted a word with his retainer.

  “There’s a couple in the drawing room. They’re looking for a male counterpart to join them upstairs. Are Pinnock or Blickleigh here?” Jason asked.

  “I think I saw Pinnock in the billiards room. I’ll take care of it.” He cast a lingering glance at the Cyprian, who’d gone to a man lounging in the corner and had just dropped to her knees before him. He exhaled, muttering, “Later.”

  Jason stifled a smile as he followed Scot to the gaming room where he spent the next half hour talking with various gentlemen and surveying the evening’s participants. He watched Pinnock eagerly leave the hazard table in order to meet Swindon and his companion upstairs. And he witnessed Mrs. Ulmer, a widow who never bothered to wear a mask and was one of the few women Jason invited, accepting the invitation of a much younger gentleman to join him in the fantasy room. Such couplings made Jason smile because it reminded him of why he loved to host these p
arties: Anything could happen at Lockwood House.

  But still no Ethan.

  Just as Jason’s frustration began to mount, a masked man stood from a table in the corner. As he made his way between the tables, Jason assessed his build and tried to determine his identity, but couldn’t place him—only his mouth and chin were visible beneath the black mask covering the rest of his face up to his dark hairline. The man sidled up beside him without formally addressing him, as if they were close friends. Jason’s neck prickled.

  “Lockwood,” Ethan drawled. “I’m honored to be included in one of your legendary parties. I feel as if I have . . . arrived.”

  The pompous ass. “You fool yourself if you think entrée to one of my parties will somehow solidify your tenuous position in Society. But come, let’s discuss it.” Jason turned and led him into the corridor where they would skirt the rooms open to partygoers.

  “Going to your office?” Ethan asked, trailing just behind him.

  Jason threw a feral smile over his shoulder. “I can’t think of a better place.” It was where their fight had begun all those years ago. Where Jason had found the bastard looking for a secret drawer in which their father had purportedly kept letters from Ethan’s mother.

  A few minutes later they entered Jason’s office, which was situated in the back corner of the house. Bookcases lined the interior two walls while a window graced one of the exterior walls, and a massive fireplace dominated the other. Above the fireplace hung the portrait of their father in his youth. Ethan looked disturbingly like him—sharp gray eyes, a firm mouth, and a perpetual sense of . . . something broiling just beneath the surface, as if he had a secret or was simmering with some strong emotion. The painting captured a young man in his prime, before he’d taken a wife and saddled himself with responsibility, not that he’d ever let that interfere with his preferences.

  Jason moved to the sideboard. “Whisky?”

  “Yes,” Ethan answered from behind him. “New desk?”

  Jason nodded as he poured whisky into two glass tumblers. “Do you like it? I had it made special.”

  “What happened to the old one?” Ethan asked, his tone guarded.

  Picking up a tumbler in each hand Jason turned. He offered a glass to Ethan. “I burned it.” Jason had never found the letters Ethan had been looking for. He hadn’t even searched. He’d simply had it broken down and fed to the fire.

  Ethan accepted the whisky and whipped off his mask. Yes, the resemblance between him and the portrait behind him was unsettling. “Naturally.” His tone carried a bite.

  Jason took a pull of his favorite whisky. Rich with heavy oak undertones, it was distilled in the lowlands of Scotland by one of North’s and Scot’s cousins and it soothed his roiling temper. He went and leaned against the sideboard. “This isn’t meant to be some sort of civilized meeting.”

  “It isn’t?” Ethan asked with an innocence that didn’t match the flint in his eyes. “Why the whisky then? In fact, why invite me at all?”

  “Tell me what you’re doing masquerading as a gentleman.”

  Ethan shrugged. He gazed about the room in practiced nonchalance—or what seemed practiced to Jason. There was still that undercurrent of energy, of barely-contained something.

  “It’s no masquerade,” Ethan’s voice had grown soft, but carried the edge of a sharpened razor. “I am a gentleman by birth.”

  “Half, but you haven’t behaved as one.”

  Ethan turned his body toward him, as if they were squaring off. Memories of that night seven years ago swirled about the room and thickened the moment. “And you have?”

  Jason let his own darkness creep in and sneered. “I’ve done what I must, given what you left me with.” He turned his scar toward Ethan.

  Ethan looked away. “I never meant for that to happen.”

  Jason gaped at him. Was he apologizing? What the bloody hell was Jason supposed to do with that? “You could have fooled me. It seemed you came here that day with an agenda to push me as far as you could.”

  The gray eyes so like their father’s pinned him with a sincerity Jason couldn’t quite believe. “I did. I hated you.” He shrugged. “You hated me. We’re even.”

  “Except for the part where you left me bleeding and scarred for life.” Both inside and out.

  “And I regret that.” He sipped his whisky. “But tell me, brother, if the situation had been reversed, what would you have done?”

  Jason wanted to say he would’ve helped him, that he would’ve ensured the staff knew it had simply been a fight between brothers and not the violent unhinging of a madman. But he couldn’t. Even now, if he were presented with the opportunity to ruin Ethan, he’d take it. Isn’t that what he was hoping to gain by helping Bow Street?

  Polishing off his drink, Jason went to the sideboard and poured another. “So you want to be a gentleman and you think to gain my support to accomplish that?”

  Ethan blinked at him, as if he wouldn’t have put it that way. “I am a gentleman and I’d hoped to take my place as your half brother. It seemed that might work best if we weren’t trying to kill each other.”

  “If you’re a gentleman as you claim, where have you been these last seven years? Why emerge now?”

  Ethan finished his whisky and then set the glass atop Jason’s desk with a loud clack. “It doesn’t matter. I was foolish to think we could overcome the past.”

  How Jason wanted to just ask him outright about his activities. Was he taking over the theft ring? Was he responsible for the theft on Curzon Street? However, he presumed Bow Street wouldn’t want him to be so unsubtle. “If I thought I could trust you, things might be different.”

  Ethan’s stare was probing, expectant. He looked more like their father than ever. “So try.”

  Jason set his glass down on the sideboard and leaned forward. “Give me a reason.”

  With a loud exhalation, Ethan looked at the floor for a long moment. When he raised his head once more, his features were tightly stretched. “I’m not what they say. Not now. I’m trying to change.”

  “How?” Jason wanted details. He moved a step forward. “What are you trying to change?”

  “Hell,” Ethan muttered. “Just give me some time. Will you do that? Soon, I’ll tell you everything.”

  And until then, Jason was simply supposed to have faith in the person who’d destroyed his life? No one was that indulgent. “Why not now? If you tell me, it would go a long way to establish trust.”

  “It would also go a long way to getting you killed.” His gaze was intense. “Just be patient, will you do that?”

  “You clearly know what I’ve heard. Put that with the Ethan Jagger I know, and I have no choice but to believe you’re up to no good.”

  “You’re so goddamned suspicious.” Ethan shook his head and murmured, “Just like your mother.”

  “What did you say?” Jason’s self-control suddenly and completely snapped. He lunged at Ethan and slammed him backward into the bookshelf. Ethan’s head made a dull thud as it hit the wood of the shelf, but he didn’t seem affected. He pushed back at Jason and swung out, catching his jaw with his knuckles.

  Scalding rage poured through Jason, stripping him of rational thought. He only wanted to punish this man who’d done nothing but hurt him and his mother. He sent his fist toward Ethan’s face, but the blighter dodged the strike. Ethan moved quickly with his own fists, driving them into Jason’s sides, first one then the other.

  Jason grunted and lashed out again. This time he caught Ethan’s cheek with the first blow, though he missed with the next. Ethan was fast, his defenses good. He punched Jason in his scarred cheek.

  “You move slow, old man,” Ethan growled.

  White fury blinded Jason for a moment as he grabbed Ethan’s upper arms and threw him against the other bookcases. His frame slammed into the wood, and several books fell from the shelves. Jason drove his fist into Ethan’s gut, and relished the whoosh of air he exhaled and the grunt that follow
ed.

  Ethan slid to the side and found his footing. He sent another fist into Jason’s side, sending a searing burst of pain along his ribs. The bastard knew exactly where to hit. And then it dawned on Jason. Ethan was fighting like a pugilist.

  “Have you been working out with your fighter?” Jason asked, his breath coming in harsh pants as he sent another pair of punches toward Ethan’s face. He only connected with one, but it was a good hit to Ethan’s nose.

  Ethan brought his hand to his nose and rubbed a knuckle over the end. “Yes. Father would’ve been very proud.”

  The son of a bitch. Of course Benjamin Lockwood would’ve been proud. The only thing he liked better than his whores was fighting. And leave it to Ethan to take after him and rub it in Jason’s ruined face. Jason roared with rage and reached for Ethan’s neck. Just as his fingers were closing around the collar of Ethan’s shirt, hands pulled him backward. Jason tried to throw them off. His vision tunneled until all he could see was Ethan’s taunting face.

  “Let him go, my lord.” North’s even tones broke into the fiery haze in Jason’s brain.

  “You’d best leave,” Scot suggested from somewhere to Jason’s right. He had to be talking to Ethan.

  Jason threw one of his retainers off him, freeing his left arm. “No, he can’t go. I’m not finished.” He swiped out at Ethan, trying to grab his cravat and hopefully choke him with it.

  But Ethan was too fast again. He moved quickly out of his reach and then delivered a sharp jab to Jason’s ribcage again—in the same spot he’d already hit twice before.

  This prick was not going to best him again.

  Jason reared up and pulled his right arm free. Then he dove on top of Ethan and tackled him to the floor. Ethan’s head grazed the desk as he fell. Jason pulled his hand back to deliver a blow to his face, but someone grabbed his fist and held him fast.

  Hands hauled him up and away from Ethan. “Let me go, goddammit!” he roared.