Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase [45]
Even as a schoolboy, at thirteen, he had not behaved like a moonstruck puppy. Even then, he had not nearly wept with longing.
Oh, Jess.
His throat tightened. He paused and ruthlessly swallowed the burning ache, composed himself, and walked on.
At the Palais Royal, he collected a trio of plump tarts and an assortment of male comrades, and plunged into dissipation. Harlots and gambling hells and champagne: his world. Where he belonged, he told himself. Where he was happy, he assured himself.
And so he gambled and drank and told bawdy jokes and, swallowing his revulsion at the familiar smell of perfume, powder, and paint, filled his lap with whores, and buried his grieving heart, as he always did, under laughter.
* * *
Even before Dain's laughter had faded and he'd disappeared into the garden's shadows, Jessica was dragging herself from the black pit of humiliated despair into which he'd dropped her. There was no choice but to lift her chin and face the next moment and all the moments to come. She faced the onlookers, daring them to utter an insult. One by one, they turned their backs and silently retreated.
Only one came forward. Vawtry was shrugging out of his coat as, clutching her bodice to cover herself, Jessica leapt down from the sarcophagus. He hastened toward her with the coat.
"I tried," he said unhappily, his eyes tactfully averted while she wrapped his coat about her. "I told them Dain had left alone and you had gone to look for your grandmother, but one of the servants had seen you enter the sun parlor…" He paused. "I'm sorry."
"I should like to make a discreet exit," she said, keeping her voice expressionless. "Would you be kind enough to find Lady Pembury?"
"I hate to leave you alone," he said.
"I don't faint," she said. "I don't indulge in hysterics. I'll be quite all right."
He gave her a worried glance, then hurried away.
As soon as he was gone, Jessica pulled off his coat and restored her gown to rights as best she could without her maid. She couldn't reach all the fastenings, most of which were in back, but she found enough to secure the bodice, so that she didn't have to hold it up. While she struggled with the ties and hooks, she reviewed her situation with brutal objectivity.
She knew it hardly mattered that Dain hadn't ravished her. What mattered was that it had been Dain with whom she'd been caught. That was enough to make her damaged goods in the eyes of all the world.
Within less than twenty-four hours, the story would reach every corner of Paris. Within a week, it would reach London. She could see well enough what the future held.
No self-respecting gentleman would sully his family name by marrying Dain's leavings. After this, she wouldn't have a prayer of attracting to her shop the hosts of rich, respectable people her success— and her own respectability— depended upon. Ladies would hold their skirts to keep from brushing against her when they passed, or cross the street to avoid contamination. Gentlemen would cease being gentlemen and subject her to the same indignities they offered the lowliest streetwalker.
With a handful of words, in short, Dain had destroyed her life. On purpose.
All he'd needed to do was sweep one of his deadly glances over them and tell them they'd seen nothing, and they would have decided it was healthiest to agree with him. All the world feared him, even his so-called friends. He could make them do and say and believe what he wanted.
But all he'd wanted was revenge— for whatever it was his twisted mind believed Jessica had done to him. He'd taken her to this garden with no other purpose. She wouldn't have put it past him to have dropped a hint beforehand to somebody, to make sure the discovery would take place at the most humiliating moment: her bodice undone and sagging to her waist, his tongue down her throat, his filthy