Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase [130]
"Paris?" Vawtry sat up abruptly.
"Said the fellers there'd like her better and treat her kinder 'n them hereabouts. 'N I guess the gal liked the idea, cuz she lit up purty, 'n said Her Ladyship weren't a bad sort. 'N I was to tell Her Ladyship that she done what Her Ladyship said— tole the boy some'at or other like Her Ladyship asked her to."
…it was better to leave him where he would be safe…and provided for. Jessica had told the whore what to say and the whore had done it.
Then Dain saw how much trust his wife had placed in him. If she hadn't, she would have come with him, no matter what he said or did. But she'd trusted…that he'd make the boy feel safe, and make Dominick believe that what he'd been told was true.
Perhaps, Dain thought, his wife knew him a great deal better than he knew himself. She saw in him qualities he'd never discerned when he'd looked into a mirror.
If that was the case, he must believe she saw qualities in Charity he'd never suspected were there. Charity must possess something like a heart, if she'd taken the trouble to prepare Dominick for her desertion.
Jessica had also said that Charity was a child herself.
That seemed true enough. Plant an idea in her head, and she would run away with it.
He found himself grinning at Vawtry. "You should have found another bauble to distract her with," Dain said. "Something safer to scheme and dream about. She's a child, you know. Amoral, unprincipled. At present, she has fifteen hundred pounds in her hands, and she's forgotten all about the icon— and you. She'll never know— or if she hears, she won't care— that you risked your life and honor for…" Dain gave a short laugh. "What was it, Vawtry? Love?"
Beneath the bruises and lumps and caked blood, Vawtry's countenance turned a very dark red. "She wouldn't. She couldn't."
"I'll wager fifty quid she's on her way to the coast this very minute."
"I'll kill her," Vawtry croaked. "She can't leave me. She can't."
"Because you'll hunt her down," Dain said mockingly. "You'll follow her to the ends of the earth. If, that is, I don't see you hanged first."
The color abruptly drained from Vawtry's battered face, leaving a mottled landscape on a sickly grey background.
Dain studied his former comrade for a long moment. "The trouble is, I can think of no more fiendish a purgatory than the one you've stumbled into all by yourself. I can imagine no torment more hellish than being hopelessly besotted with Charity Graves." He paused. "Except one." Dain's mouth curled into a mocking smile. "And that is being married to her."
* * *
It was the most efficient solution, Dain decided. It was certainly a great deal less bother than prosecuting the besotted fool.
Vawtry had committed one crime, arson, and attempted another, theft.
Still, he had set fire to the least valuable structure on the estate and, thanks to the damp and the quick action of Dain's people, the damage was minimal.
As to the theft: Jessica had punished the inept criminal more brutally than Dain would have done. That a woman had administered the punishment added a lovely touch of humiliation to Vawtry's other woes.
Any gentleman possessing a modicum of masculine pride would rather have his ballocks torn off with red-hot pincers than allow the world to learn he'd been thrashed by a slip of a female.
Therefore, with the wisdom of Solomon— and a vivid recollection of Jessica's blackmail method in Paris— His Lordship pronounced sentence.
"You will find Charity Graves, wherever she is," Dain told his prisoner. "And you will marry her. That will make you legally responsible for her. And I will hold you legally and personally responsible if she ever comes within ten miles of my wife, my son, or any other member of my house-hold. If she bothers us— any of us— ever again, I will throw a large dinner party, Vawtry."
Vawtry blinked. "Dinner?"
"To this dinner, I will invite all of our boon companions," Dain told him. "And when the port goes round, I shall stand up and regale the company