Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase [46]
Though her face heated at the recollection, she refused to feel ashamed of what she'd done. Her behavior might be accounted indecent by Society's rules, and misguided according to her own, but it wasn't evil. She was a healthy young woman who had simply yielded to feelings countless other women yielded to— and might do with impunity if they were married or widowed and discreet about it.
Even though she wasn't married or widowed, and by normal rules should have been considered out of bounds, she couldn't, in all fairness, blame him for taking advantage of what was offered so willingly.
But she could and would blame him for refusing to shield her. He had nothing to lose, and he'd known very well that she had everything to lose. He could have helped her. It would have cost him nothing, scarcely an effort. Instead, he'd insulted and abandoned her.
That was the evil. That was the base, unforgivable act.
And that, she resolved, was what he'd pay for.
* * *
At half past four in the morning, Dain was holding court in Antoine's, a restaurant in the Palais Royal. His circle of companions had by this time widened to include a handful of Lady Wallingdon's guests: Sellowby, Goodridge, Vawtry, and Esmond. The subject of Jessica Trent was scrupulously avoided. Instead, the fight in the cardroom, which Dain had missed— between a drunken Prussian officer and a French republican— and the ensuing mayhem were discussed in detail and at argumentative length.
Even the tarts felt obliged to express their opinions, the one on Dain's right knee taking the republican side, while the one on the left was squarely with the Prussian. Both argued with a level of ignorance, both political and grammatical, that would have made Bertie Trent seem an intellectual prodigy.
Dain wished he hadn't thought of Trent. The instant the brother's image flickered in Dain's mind, the sister's arose: Jessica gazing up into his eyes from under an overdecorated bonnet…watching his face while he unbuttoned her glove…hitting him with her bonnet and her small gloved fist…kissing him while lightning flashed and thunder crashed…whirling round a dance floor with him, her skirts rustling about his legs, her face glowing with excitement. And later, in his arms…a fire-storm of images, feelings, and one sweet, anguished moment…when she had kissed his big, loathsome nose…and cut his heart to pieces and put it back together again and made him believe he was not a monster to her. She had made him believe he was beautiful.
Lies, he told himself.
They were all lies and tricks, to trap him. He'd ruined her brother. She had nothing left. Thus, like Susannah, whose brother had gambled away the family fortune, Jessica Trent was desperate enough to set the oldest trap in history to catch herself a rich, titled husband.
But now Dain found himself considering the circle of men about him. All were better prospects altogether.
His gaze lingered upon Esmond, who sat beside him, and was the most beautiful man on three continents, and also very possibly— though no one knew for sure— even wealthier than the Marquess of Dain.
Why not Esmond? Dain asked himself. If she needed a rich spouse, why should a quick-witted female like Jessica Trent choose Beelzebub over the Angel Gabriel, hell rather than heaven?
Esmond's blue gaze met his. "Amore è cieco," he murmured in perfect Florentine accents.
Love is blind.
Dain recollected Esmond telling him a few weeks ago about "bad feelings" regarding Vingt-Huit, and recalled the events that had taken place almost immediately thereafter. Gazing at him now, Dain had an uncomfortable feeling of his own: that the angelic count was reading his mind, just as he'd read clues, invisible to everyone else, about the now defunct palace of sin.
Dain was opening his mouth to deliver a crushing setdown when Esmond stiffened, and his head turned slightly, his gaze fixing elsewhere while his smile faded.
Dain looked that way, too— toward the door— but at first he could see nothing, because Sellowby had leaned over to refill his glass.
Then