Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase Page A

couldn’t tolerate having them in a brothel or in the streets, he would have them at home.
    It would not be the first time.
    Nine years ago, at his father’s funeral, a round-heeled local girl named Charity Graves had taken his fancy, and he had taken her, a few hours later, in the great ancestral bed. She had been jolly enough company, but not nearly so jolly as the thought of his recently deceased sire spinning in the tomb of his noble ancestors—and most of the ancestors whirling along with him.
    An annoyance had resulted nine months later, but that was easily enough dealt with. Dain’s man of business had dealt with it to the tune of fifty pounds per annum.
    Since then, Dain had confined himself to whores who plied their trade according to businesslike rules, and knew better than to produce—let alone attempt to manipulate and blackmail him with—squalling brats.
    Denise and Marguerite understood the rules, and he had every intention of getting properly down to business at last.
    Just as soon as he dealt with Miss Trent.
    Though Dain had felt certain she would accost him sooner or later, he had not expected her to explode into his drawing room. Still, that was, in a general way, in accordance with his plans. Her brother was falling to pieces with a gratifying rapidity, now that Dain had taken an active role in his disintegration.
    Miss Trent would certainly know why. And being a clever female, she would soon be obliged to admit she’d made a grave error in trying to play the Marquess of Dain for a fool. He had decided she would be obliged to admit it upon her knees. Then she would have to beg for mercy.
    That was where matters seemed to have gone awry.
    All she had done was give her brother one bored look and the guests another, and dropped a faintly amused glance upon Dain himself. Then, cool as you please, the insufferable creature had turned her back and walked out.
    For six days, Dain had spent nearly all his waking hours with her accursed brother, pretending to be that dithering imbecile’s bosom bow. For six days, Trent had been yapping in Dain’s ears, nipping at his heels, slavering and panting for attention, and tripping over his own feet and any hapless object or human in his way. After nearly a week of having his nerves scraped raw by her brainless puppy of a brother, all Dain had accomplished was to find himself the object of Miss Trent’s amusement .
    “ Allez-vous en ,” he said in a very low voice. Denise and Marguerite instantly leapt up from his lap and darted to opposite corners of the room.
    “I say, Dain,” Vawtry began mollifyingly.
    Dain shot him one incinerating glance. Vawtry reached for a wine bottle and hastily refilled his glass.
    Dain set down the pistol, stalked to the door and through it, and slammed it behind him.
    After that, he moved quickly. He reached the landing in time to see Trent’s sister pause at the front door and look about for something.
    “Miss Trent,” he said. He didn’t raise his voice. He didn’t need to. The angry baritone reverberated through the hall like low thunder.
    She jerked open the door and darted through it.
    He watched the door close and told himself to return to shooting the noses off the plaster cherubs on the ceiling, because if he went after her, he’d kill her. Which was unacceptable, because Dain did not, under any circumstances, sink to allowing any member of the inferior sex to provoke him.
    Even while he was counseling himself, he was running down the remaining stairs and down the long hall to the door. He wrenched it open and stormed out, the door crashing behind him.

Chapter 5
     
    T hen he nearly trampled her down because, for some insane reason, Miss Trent wasn’t fleeing down the street, but marching back toward his house.
    “Confound his insolence!” she cried, making for the door. “I shall break his nose. First the porter, now my maid— and the hackney. It is the outside of enough.”
    Dain stepped in her way, his