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Though still not properly in control of his own respiration, Dain managed to get the words out. “I have no doubt you are. But it’s too late, you see.”
“I do.” She shook her head sadly. “I fear your reputation will never recover.”
He felt a prickle of uneasiness. He ignored it and, with a laugh, glanced about him at their fascinated audience. “Cara mia, it is your own rep—”
“The Marquess of Dain has been seen in the company of a lady,” she said. “He has been seen and heard wooing her.” She looked up, her silver eyes gleaming. “It was lovely. I had no idea Italian was so…moving.”
“I was talking about drains,” he said tightly.
“I didn’t know. Neither did anyone else, I’m sure. They all think you were making love.” She smiled. “To nitwit Bertie Trent’s spinster sister.”
Then, too late, he saw the flaw in his reasoning. Then he recalled Esmond’s remark about the legendary Genevieve. Everyone here would believe the chit followed in her grandmother’s foot-steps—a femme fatale—and the curst Parisians would believe he’d fallen under her spell.
“Dain,” she said in a low, hard voice, “if you do not release my hand this instant, I shall kiss you. In front of everybody.”
He had a ghastly suspicion he’d kiss her back—in front of witnesses—Dain, Beelzebub himself, kissing a lady—a virgin. He crushed his panic.
“Miss Trent,” he said, his own tones equally low and hard, “I should like to see you try.”
“By gad,” came an obnoxiously familiar voice from behind Dain. “I had to go nearly to that blasted Bwy Bullion—and it ain’t exactly what you wanted, I know, but I tried one myself first, and I daresay you won’t be disappointed.”
Oblivious to the tension throbbing about him, Bertie Trent set a small cigar box down upon the table one inch from Dain’s hand. The hand still clasping Miss Trent’s.
Bertie’s gaze fell there and his blue eyes widened. “Deuce take you, Jess,” he said crossly. “Can’t a fellow trust you for a moment? How many times do I have to tell you to leave my friends alone?”
Miss Trent coolly withdrew her hand.
Trent gave Dain an apologetic look. “Don’t pay it any mind, Dain. She does that to all the chaps. I don’t know why she does it, when she don’t want ’em. Just like them fool cats of Aunt Louisa’s. Go to all the bother of catching a mouse, and then the confounded things won’t eat ’em. Just leave the corpses lying about for someone else to pick up.”
Miss Trent’s lips quivered.
The hint of laughter was all that was needed to shrivel and crush and beat the tumultuous mixture inside Lord Dain into frigid fury.
He had commenced his formal education by having his head thrust into a privy. He had been mocked and tormented before. But not for long.
“Fortunately, Trent, you have the knack of arriving in the very nick of time,” he said. “Since words cannot express my relief and gratitude, actions must speak louder. Why don’t you toddle round to my place after you take your irresistible sister home? Vawtry and a few others are coming by for a bottle or two and a private game of hazard.”
After enduring Trent’s incoherent expressions of delight, Lord Dain took his cool leave of the pair and sauntered out of the shop, grimly determined to hold Bertie Trent’s head under until he drowned.
Even before Lord Dain arrived home, the eye-witness reports of his tête-à-tête with Miss Trent were moving swiftly through the streets of Paris.
By the time, close to dawn, his private orgy of drinking and gambling had broken up—and Bertie, a few hundred pounds the poorer, was being carried by a brace of servants to his bed—wagers were being made regarding the Marquess of Dain’s intentions toward Miss Trent.
At three o’clock in the afternoon, Francis Beaumont, encountering Roland Vawtry at Tortoni’s, bet him one hundred fifty pounds that Dain would be shackled to Miss Trent before the King’s Birthday in June.
“Dain?” Vawtry repeated, his hazel eyes widening. “Wed? To a gentry spinster? Trent’s sister?”
Ten minutes later, when Vawtry had stopped laughing and was beginning to breathe normally again, Beaumont repeated his offer.
“It’s too easy,” said Vawtry. “I can’t take your money. It wouldn’t be fair. I’ve known Dain since we were at Oxford. That business in the coffee shop was one of his jokes. To get everyone in an uproar. This very minute, he’s probably laughing himself sick about what a lot of fools he’s made of everybody.”
“Two hundred,” said Beaumont. “Two hundred says he stops laughing inside a week.”
“I see,” said Vawtry. “You want to throw your money down another rathole. Very well, my lad. Define the terms.”
“Inside a week, someone sees him go after her,” said Beaumont. “He follows her out of a room. Down a street. Takes her hand. Gad, I don’t care—grabs her by the hair—That’s more in his style, isn’t it?”
“Beaumont, going after women isn’t in Dain’s style,” Vawtry said patiently. “Dain says, ‘I’ll take this one.’ Then he lays down the money and the female goes.”
“He goes after this one,” said Beaumont. “Just as I said. Before reliable witnesses. Two hundred says he does it within seven days.”
This would not be the first time Roland Vawtry’s profound understanding of Dain would make him money. Predicting Beelzebub’s behavior, in fact, was how Vawtry made at least half his income. He thought that Beaumont didn’t, and the smug, superior smile on his face was beginning to irritate Vawtry. Arranging his own fair features into an expression of profound pity—to irritate Beaumont—Vawtry accepted the bet.
Six days later, Jessica was standing at the window of her brother’s appartement, scowling down at the street below.
“I shall kill you, Dain,” she muttered. “I shall put a bullet precisely where that Italian nose of yours meets your black brows.”
It was nearly six o’clock. Bertie had promised he would be home by half past four to bathe and dress, in order to escort his sister and grandmother to Madame Vraisses’ party. Mrs. Beaumont’s portrait of their hostess was to be unveiled at eight
o’clock. Since Bertie needed at least two and a half hours to perform his toilette, and the evening traffic was bound to be heavy, they were going to miss the unveiling.
And it was all Dain’s fault.
Since the encounter at the coffee shop, he could not bear to have Bertie out of his sight. Wherever Dain went, whatever he did, he could not enjoy himself unless Bertie was there.
Bertie, of course, believed he’d finally won Dain’s undying friendship. Gullible baconbrain that he was, Bertie had no idea the alleged friendship was Dain’s revenge on her.
Which only showed how despicable a villain Dain was. His quarrel was with Jessica, but no, he couldn’t fight fair and square with someone capable of fighting back. He had to punish her via her poor, stupid brother, who hadn’t the least idea how to defend himself.
Bertie didn’t know how not to drink himself unconscious, or quit a card game, or resist a wager he was bound to lose, or protest when a tart cost thrice what she ought to. If Dain drank, Bertie must, though he hadn’t the head for it. If Dain played or wagered or whored, Bertie must do exactly as he did.
Jessica did not, in principle, object to any of these practices. She had been tipsy more than once and, upon occasion, lost money on cards or a bet—but within discreet and reasonable bounds. As to the tarts, if she had been a man, she supposed she’d fancy one now and then, too—but she would certainly not pay a farthing above the going rate. She could scarcely believe Dain paid as much as Bertie claimed, but Bertie had sworn on his honor he’d seen the money change hands himself.
“If it’s true,” she’d told him exasperatedly, only last evening, “it can only be because his requirements are excessive—because the women have to work harder, don’t you see?”
All Bertie saw was that she was implying he wasn’t as lusty a stallion as his idol was. She had impugned her brother’s masculinity, and so he had stomped out and not come—or been carried, rather—home until seven o’clock this morning.
