Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase [37]
But the Beaumonts had abruptly left Paris a week after the party, and Dain hadn't come within a mile of her since the devastating kiss in the thunderstorm.
And so, if he had been told that Jessica Trent was besotted with him, he obviously didn't care. Which was just as she preferred it, Jessica assured herself.
Because there was only one way the Marquess of Dain could care about any woman, and that was for as long as it took to tumble her onto a bed— or a tavern table— unbutton his trousers, dispatch his business, and button up again.
Besotted or not, she knew better than to tempt Fate by risking another encounter with him, when he might see for himself her mortifying condition, and might take it into his head to treat her to his version of caring.
She had scarcely finished convincing herself that the intelligent thing to do was to leave Paris immediately, when Lady Wallingdon's invitation arrived.
Within twenty-four hours, Jessica was aware— as all Paris was— that Dain, too, had been invited.
It did not take a genius to figure out why: She and Dain were expected to provide the main entertainment. She also understood that a great deal of money would change hands, based on her performance— or lack thereof— with His Lordship.
She decided she didn't want any part of it.
Genevieve decided otherwise. "If he goes, and you are not there, he will feel humiliated," she said. "Even if he merely wishes to go, for whatever reason, and learns you will not attend, he will feel the same. I know it is irrational and unfair, but men are often so, particularly in any matter they imagine concerns their pride. You had better attend, unless you prefer to risk his rampaging after you to relieve his wounded feelings."
Though Jessica very much doubted Dain had any feelings to be wounded, she was also aware that Genevieve had several decades' more experience with men. A great many men.
The invitation was accepted.
* * *
Dain could not decide what to do with Lady Wallingdon's invitation.
A part of his mind recommended he burn it.
Another part suggested he urinate on it.
Another advised him to shove it down Her Ladyship's throat.
In the end, he threw it into a trunk, which contained, along with various souvenirs of his travels, one mangled bonnet and one frilly umbrella. Six months from now, he told himself, he would look at those things and laugh. Then he would burn them, just as, years earlier, he'd burned the gloves he'd been wearing when Susannah had first touched his hand, and the piece of a feather that had fallen from her bonnet, and the note inviting him to the fatal dinner party at her uncle's.
At present, all he had to decide was how best to settle accounts with Miss Trent, as well as with the pious hypocrites who expected her to effect the miracle of bringing Lord Beelzebub to his knees.
He knew that was why Lady Wallingdon had invited him. Respectable Paris would like nothing better than to see him fall. That his slayer was a slip of an English spinster made the prospect all the more delicious. He had very little doubt that every self-righteous blockhead in Paris was praying for his defeat— the more ignominious, the better— at her hands.
They wanted a morality play, the Triumph of Virtue or some such rubbish.
He could leave them waiting, let them hold their collective breath until they were asphyxiated, while the stage remained empty. He rather enjoyed that image: a few hundred souls dying of suspense while Beelzebub dallied elsewhere, laughing, drinking champagne, his lap filled with painted harlots.
On the other hand, it would be delightful to laugh in their faces, to stalk onto the stage and treat them to a performance they'd never forget. That image, too, had its appeal: an hour or so of satanic mayhem in one of the Faubourg St. Germain's most decorously exclusive ballrooms. Then, at the climax, he would sweep Miss Jessica Trent into his arms, stamp his cloven hoof, and disappear with her in a cloud of smoke.
He'd