The Heart of a Scoundrel (6 page)

Phoebe ignored the other young woman’s scandalized expression and gave Honoria a sad smile. “Perhaps, but I’d rather be a fool than a cynic who doesn’t see the goodness in people.”

“He is not a man, he is a monster,” Honoria insisted, unrelenting.

Phoebe squared her jaw. “Lord Rutland has given me no reason to believe he is a monster.”

“He makes a scandal of himself with widows and wicked ladies,” her friend said on a loud whisper, and then she looked about as though fearing they’d been discovered.

Phoebe’s lips tingled in remembrance of that hot, fleeting kiss. Honoria flicked her on the arm. “Ouch.” She winced.

“Get that look out of your eyes, Phoebe Barrett, this instant.”

“Can we not return?” Gillian pleaded.

For once, the voice of reason to their troublesome trio, Honoria and Phoebe ended the debate on the Marquess of Rutland’s humanity. Folding her fingers over the small peach rose in her hand, she trailed along at a slower pace behind her more cynical, world-wary friends, wondering about the Marquess of Rutland…

C
old. Calculated. Rational. Methodical. Those were but a handful of words loudly whispered of Edmund, the Marquess of Rutland. He frequently heard them uttered by scandalized mamas and sighing, lonely wives. He’d always relished the image he’d crafted as a coldhearted bastard. His was no mere image, however. Edmund truly was a coldhearted bastard and that was the more generous of insults hurled at him.

The following evening, seated at his private table at Forbidden Pleasures, he sipped his brandy and reflected on his chance meeting with Miss Phoebe Barrett. His first opinion of the lady had proven erroneous. With her generous décolletage and auburn tresses and lips made for the devil’s delight, she belonged in a man’s bed—his bed. He swirled the contents of his glass. There had been a shimmer in her blue eyes that had spoken to the lady’s interest.

He frowned into the contents of his glass as he shifted his thoughts to the woman who’d been the central figure of his scheme in his quest for revenge against Margaret. In Miss Honoria Fairfax’s eyes, there had been little hint of the warmth and intrigue from her too-trusting friend. Instead, there had been guardedness and a cynicism he’d not expected in one who’d only just made her Come Out one, nay two, years ago.

He’d been impatient and rash. Two words that were not often ascribed to him. In his youth, perhaps. Back when he’d foolishly imagined he had a heart and believed that heart belonged to just one woman. Edmund thrust aside remembrances of Margaret and instead focused his energy upon his plans for Miss Fairfax—plans that, considering the go-to-hell look in her eyes, would not make his efforts of ruining and ultimately forcing her into marriage as easy as he’d expected.

Edmund took another swallow of his brandy. The lady’s friend, on the other hand, Miss Barrett, with her breathless sighs and moon-eyed looks had demonstrated a physical awareness of him that was more conducive with his plans of revenge. He smelled lust and the lady had desired him. He’d have staked all his possessions and all the debt owed him on that fact, and it was a pleasure he’d gladly act upon. There was something intriguing about the prospect of laying down the trusting innocent, parting her legs, and teaching her the pleasure one could find in darkness.

“My lord is there anything you desire?”

Edmund glanced up at the owner of that sultry whisper. He flicked a bored gaze over the blowzy blonde woman with rouged lips and a promise in her eyes. Life had taught him the perils of distraction. Margaret had been a distraction. She’d been the last. Wordlessly, he waved the barely-clad woman away. She departed on a flounce of crimson skirts.

Any other day, any other moment, he’d have gladly welcomed a diversion with one or two of the warm, willing women of Forbidden Pleasures. Not since his meeting with
Phoebe
, as the young lady had insisted he call her—a rather silly, ladylike name. More specifically, not since his encounter with Miss Honoria Fairfax. Following that meeting, he’d come to the rather surprising revelation it would be a good deal harder to slip into that lady’s good graces and lure her away from respectability. Such a woman would take care to avoid being alone in Edmund’s company, which, in turn, would make ruining the pinch-mouthed miss difficult. His mouth tightened. No, he’d not earn himself Miss Fairfax’s favors, but he
could
earn the favors of the more trusting, naïve Phoebe Barrett.

Edmund tapped his fingers along the edge of his tumbler. The lady’s friend was an altogether different matter. No, the prickly, pinch-mouthed Miss Fairfax would be the one he was saddled with. He gave a shudder at the prospect of shackling himself to that one; though revenge would certainly sweeten the otherwise unpalatable prospect of having her for his wife.

After he’d taken his leave of the ball last evening, he’d immediately realized he must alter his plans. Miss Honoria Fairfax could not be easily seduced away from respectability. No, the lady’s defenses could only be broken down if he ingratiated himself to Phoebe Barrett. Through her friend’s affiliation with Edmund, Miss Fairfax would slowly come to realize his trustworthiness. He’d crumple the walls of her reservations, and when she at last trusted—as they all inevitably did—he would trap her and, at that, have his revenge. His plans now all hinged upon another woman—Miss Phoebe Barrett.

He scanned the crowded, noisy club. His gaze alighted upon a familiar, bumbling form as he ambled past the other patrons. Lord Waters lurched his large frame through Forbidden Pleasures, carelessly shouldering younger dandies in his haste to get to his tables. The man’s lecherous gaze lingered upon the women scattered about the club, plying their trades. He paused and a brown-haired beauty sidled up to the fat viscount. Edmund studied the woman almost dispassionately. Never one to desire a brown-haired beauty, he’d long favored blonde creatures and the ladies with midnight black locks, as Margaret’s.

There had been something faintly
interesting
about Miss Phoebe Barrett’s tresses. What would those strands look like spread upon his satin sheets? He gave his head a brusque shake. Where in the hell had that bloody idea come from? He didn’t dally with innocents, but preferred his women as skilled and jaded as himself. A scantily clad woman leaned up and flicked her tongue over Waters’ ear. Edmund eyed Phoebe’s father disinterestedly. Give a lady some coin and it mattered not who she took to her bed. The Prince Regent, a pauper who’d found a purse or, in this case, the paunchy Viscount Waters.

Growing impatient while the man took his pleasures there, Edmund downed his brandy.

The viscount stiffened. His back straightened and like a buck caught in a hunter’s snare, he scanned the room. His beady eyes collided with Edmund’s and then he stumbled away from the brown-haired beauty. He walked with a far brisker pace than Edmund would’ve believed the man possible of, drawing to a stop at Edmund’s table. “R-rutland.” The lecherous beast directed that greeting to Edmund’s partially empty bottle.

With a deliberate glee for the man’s weakness, he picked up the bottle and poured another glass to the rim. “Sit,” he commanded.

Lord Waters hefted his corpulent frame into a seat.

“There is something more I require of you.”

The other man planted his elbows on the table and the furniture shifted with the abrupt movement, rattling the bottle. He shot a hand out, righting it before it tipped. “I couldn’t get the shawl,” he said on a wheedling tone.

He flicked a piece of imaginary lint from his sleeve. “As such, you’ve only increased your debt to be paid back with interest.”

The viscount swiped a hand through his sparse hair. “And you’ll forgive my debts if I help you with the ugly miss?”

Edmund yawned. “A fat, foul bastard such as yourself has little right to cast aspersions upon the lady’s attributes.” His was spoken as a matter of fact. Crassness had ceased to bother him since he’d become the jaded boy of seven who’d been forced to witness his mother and her lover—a man who also happened to be her brother-in-law. Red suffused the viscount’s fleshy cheeks. It mattered not that the lady in question would one day be his wife. “I need to know the lady’s whereabouts.”

Lord Waters shifted his enormous belly. “I imagine the Fairfax girl is at some ball or another.”

He leaned across the table. “Not this moment, you fat fool.”

The man whitened, but then a knowing glint reflected in his eyes. “Eh, you want to court the gel?” He reached for the bottle. “My daughter would make you a lovely wife.” An image as Phoebe had been last evening, the moon’s light bathing her face in a soft glow, came to mind. Her full lips parted with an unwitting invite in her eyes.

The viscount noted that imperceptible pause. “Pretty girl, my Phoebe is.” He scratched his paunch. “My younger daughter is even prettier. You’re welcome to either of them. Prettier than the Fairfax chit. That one’s mother was a whore. My wife knew her proper place, gave me a son and allows me to carry on as I will. My girls will do the same.”

Edmund drew his bottle back, unfazed by the man’s blunt cruelness in talking of his family. Then, when one’s father forced you to watch your mother being tupped by her brother-in-law, everything else ceased to shock. “It matters not if she’s a whore,” he drawled. He expected when they were wed, the lady would have any string of lovers in her bed. That was the way of their world of false propriety.

Waters frowned at Edmund’s lack of interest in Miss Fairfax’s gentility. “You’re certain you don’t want my Phoebe?” His breath came in little wheezes from the exertion of speaking. “You wed the Fairfax girl and she’ll only give you a bastard. Everyone knows…” Edmund fixed a glare on the man that left those words unfinished. Yes, all of Society knew the scandal that had whirred about of the lady’s family. Honoria Fairfax’s mother had been rumored to spread her thighs for footmen and dukes and everyone in between. Perhaps with their like pasts, they’d suit after all. He didn’t have an interest in innocence. It was the one thing he did not know how to handle, but for the corrupting of it. “I’ve no interest in your daughter,” he said flatly, which wasn’t altogether true. He had very specific interests in the lady, that all connected to the pound of flesh he’d exact.

A beleaguered sigh escaped the viscount. “Can’t you just court the Fairfax chit as any other of the gents?”

No, his connection to Miss Fairfax’s aunt made that an impossibility. He leveled the man with an icy stare that silenced any further recommendations or presumptions.

“Er…right.” He eyed Edmund’s brandy once more and smacked his lips.

“How often does your daughter see Miss Fairfax?” he asked in hushed undertones lest any passerby foolish enough to come close might hear.

“Not altogether certain,” he mumbled.

“How long has she known her?”

The man scratched his creased brow. “I don’t quite know—”

“How do the young ladies spend their time together?” This would prove useful and spare him the tedium of having to find anything out about the rambling miss with her delectable derriere.

Lord Waters sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his paunch. “Do you know, I’ve no idea how those three occupy themselves?”

“Then start. I want to know where your daughter goes, and with whom, and what her interests are.”

“Her interests?” Edmund fixed a dark glower that had the man nodding. “Er, right…I’ll find out her interests.”

The nearly destitute man failed to realize his inattentiveness would mean the ultimate ruin of his already doomed daughter. Those unattended young ladies invariably found themselves with their ivory skirts tossed up and a rutting lord between their legs. The image merely drew up the memory of Miss Barrett bent over the rail, a piece of her gown caught in Lord Delenworth’s spear. An unwitting smile played about his lips.

“Er, have I said something amusing?” Lord Waters asked, puffing out his chest with pride.

His smile died. “No,” he seethed. The man deflated. It would take a good deal more than this bumbling fool to elicit any amusement on his part. Delighting in tormenting the viscount, Edmund picked up his brandy and downed another glass. He welcomed the fiery trail it blazed down his throat. Edmund shoved back his chair and stood.

“You’re leaving? May I finish your b—?”

He ignored the other man and started through the club, winding his way past drunken fops, who nearly fell over themselves in their haste to be free of the Marquess of Rutland. Except one.

A tall figure stepped into his path. Edmund flicked a cold gaze over the blond-haired gentleman with bloodshot eyes. The man had been drinking. “What do you want?” he asked on a silken whisper that would have sent most any other man fleeing. This one remained.

“You do not even know who I am?”

Oh, he knew the man. The Viscount Brewer. Up to his neck in debt, with creditors knocking, and a miserably unhappy wife. The occasionally visible bruise worn by the viscountess in Polite Society indicated just why the lady was so unhappy. That discontent had driven her to seek a place in Edmund’s bed several weeks past. “Do you expect I should know you?” And he’d been happy to oblige the woman.

The viscount snapped his eyebrows together in a furious line. His cheeks turned a mottled red.

Edmund peeled his lip back in a sneer. “Say what it is you’d say or step out of my way.”

Lord Brewer’s momentary courage seemed to flag, for he fell silent, and with a sound of impatience, Edmund stepped around him. “My wife.” The other man called after him.

Edmund turned around with a deliberate nonchalance. He dusted a fleck of imaginary lint from his sleeve. “What of your wife?” He’d had the young viscountess in his bed for that one exchange, but took an abiding pleasure in taunting her sniveling coward of a husband. “I’ve had so many men’s wives in my bed, surely you don’t expect me to remember yours?”

The man opened and closed his mouth several times, and when he still said nothing, Edmund continued on, and dismissed the drunken bastard from his thoughts. Instead, as he reached the entrance and accepted his cloak from a servant, he returned his attentions to the delectable Miss Barrett. Prior to their exchange on the terrace, she’d merely represented the key to his plan in lowering Miss Honoria Fairfax’s defenses. He shrugged into his cloak and then the majordomo pulled the door open. He stepped outside and a cool blast of wind slapped his face.
I suspected the wind might have carried it off when I was looking at the grounds below…