Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase Page B

massive body shielding the entrance. “Oh, no, you don’t. I don’t know or care what your game is—”
    “ My game?” She stepped back, planted her hands on her hips, and glared up at him. At least she seemed to be glaring. It was difficult to tell, given the large bonnet brim and the failing light.
    The sun had not quite set, but massive grey clouds were submerging Paris in a heavy gloom. From a distance came the low boom of thunder.
    “ My game?” she repeated. “It’s your bully of a footman, following his master’s example, I collect—taking out his vexation on innocent parties. Doubtless he thought it a great joke to frighten away the hackney—with my maid inside the vehicle—and leave me stranded— after stealing my umbrella.”
    She turned on her heel and stalked off.
    If Dain was interpreting this ranting correctly, Herbert had frightened away Miss Trent’s maid as well as the hired vehicle that had brought her here.
    A thunderstorm was rapidly approaching, Herbert had taken her umbrella, and the chances of locating an unoccupied hackney at this hour in bad weather were about nil.
    Dain smiled. “Adieu, then, Miss Trent,” he said. “Have a pleasant promenade home.”
    “Adieu, Lord Dain,” she answered without turning her head. “Have a pleasant evening with your cows.”
    Cows?
    She was merely trying to provoke him, Dain told himself. The remark was a pathetic attempt at a setdown. To take offense was to admit he’d felt the sting. He told himself to laugh and return to his…cows.
    A few furious strides brought him to her side. “Is that prudery, I wonder, or envy?” he demanded. “Is it their trade which offends you—or merely their being more generously endowed?”
    She kept on walking. “When Bertie told me how much you paid, I thought it was their services which were so horrifically expensive,” she said. “Now, however, I comprehend my error. Obviously you pay by volume.”
    “Perhaps the price is exorbitant,” he said, while his hands itched to shake her. “But then, I am not so shrewd at haggling as you. Perhaps, in future, you would like to conduct negotiations for me. In which case, I ought to describe my requirements. What I like—”
    “You like them big, buxom, and stupid,” she said.
    “Intelligence is hardly relevant,” he said, suppressing a ferocious urge to tear her bonnet from her head and stomp on it. “I do not hire them to debate metaphysics. But since you understand what I want them to look like, I should hasten to explain what I like them to do.”
    “I know you like to have them take off your clothes,” she said. “Or perhaps put them on again. At the time, it was difficult to determine whether they were at the beginning or the end of the performance.”
    “I like both ,” he said, jaw clenched. “And in between, I like them to—”
    “I recommend you try to fasten your buttons by yourself at present,” she said. “Your trousers are beginning to bunch up in an unsightly way over the tops of your boots.”
    It was not until this moment that Dain recollected his state of dress—or undress, rather. He now discovered that his shirt cuffs were flapping at his wrists, while the body of the garment billowed in the gusting wind.
    While the words “shy” and “modest” did appear in Dain’s Dictionary, they had no connection with him. On the other hand, his attire, unlike his character, was always comme il faut . Not to mention that he was marching through the streets of the most sartorially critical city in the world.
    Heat crawled up his neck. “Thank you, Miss Trent,” he said coolly, “for calling the matter to my attention.” Then, just as coolly, and walking at her side all the while, he unbuttoned all the trouser buttons, tucked the shirt inside, and leisurely buttoned up again.
    Miss Trent made a small choked sound.
    Dain gave her a sharp glance. He could not be sure, given the bonnet and the rapidly deepening darkness, but he thought