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Chapter One
London
April 1827
Beneath hooded eyelids, Nicholas Challoner, Marquess of Ranelaw, surveyed the whirling snowstorm of white dresses. A debutantes’ ball was the last place the ton expected to encounter a rake of his appalling reputation. A rake of his appalling reputation should know better than to appear at any such respectable gathering.
With his arrival, the chatter faltered away to silence. Ranelaw was accustomed to causing a flutter. Neither curiosity nor disapproval distracted him. As the orchestra scratched a trite écossaise, he scanned the room for his prey.
Ah, yes. . .
His jaded gaze settled upon his mark.
The chit wore white. Of course. The color symbolized purity. It convinced buyers in this particular market that no human hand had sullied the merchandise.
For Miss Cassandra Demarest, he’d ensure that promise was a lie. Nothing much excited him these days, but as he contemplated his victim, satisfaction stirred in his gut.
After the brief, shocked silence, the room exploded into hubbub. Clearly Ranelaw wasn’t the only person convinced he belonged elsewhere.
A fiery, subterranean elsewhere.
The guests were right to be perturbed. He carried mayhem in his soul.
A smile of wicked anticipation teased at his lips as he studied the girl. Until a caricature in black stepped between him and his object of interest, spoiling the view. He frowned, then turned when Viscount Thorpe spoke beside him.
“Sure you’re ready for this, old man? The tabbies are giving you the cold eye and you haven’t asked Miss Demarest to dance yet.”
“A man reaches the age to set up his nursery, Thorpe.” He glanced up again, seeking his quarry. The black barrier hindering his inspection resolved itself into a tall woman with a nondescript face. At least what he saw was nondescript, under tinted spectacles and a lace cap with ugly, dangling lappets.
Thorpe scoffed. “Miss Demarest won’t give you the time of day, my good fellow.”
Ranelaw’s smile turned cynical. “I’m one of the richest men in England and my name goes back to the Conquest.”
Thorpe released an unimpressed snort. “The name you’ve done your best to disgrace. Your courtship won’t be the doddle you imagine, my fine friend. Miss Demarest has the kingdom’s most fearsome chaperone. You might gull the filly, but the redoubtable Miss Smith will send you packing before you get your paws on the girl’s fortune. Before you get so much as a whiff of it, I’ll wager.”
“I’m not interested in Miss Demarest’s fortune,” Ranelaw said with perfect honesty. “And surely you don’t rely on some sparrow of a spinster to circumvent me. I eat chaperones for breakfast.”
He ate courtesans and widows and other men’s wives for lunch and dinner, with much more pleasurable result. He trusted very little in his life, but since his first heady experience of sex, he’d trusted the fleeting delight he found in a woman’s body. He asked nothing more of his lovers, frequently to their chagrin.
Thorpe’s eyes brightened with greed. “A hundred guineas say Miss Smith dismisses you with a flea in your ear when you make your bow.”
“A hundred? A paltry risk for a sure thing. Make it five.”
“Done.”
Lady Wreston wove through the throng to greet the arrivals. Thorpe had made sure his aunt sent Ranelaw a card for the ball. Nonetheless she looked less than overjoyed to see him.
A pity. She’d looked overjoyed to see him yesterday afternoon in her summerhouse. She’d looked even more overjoyed half an hour later with her drawers around her ankles and a hectic flush heightening her famous complexion.
Devil take their delicious hides, but women were a capricious sex.
Ranelaw glanced past his comely hostess to where Cassandra Demarest shifted back into sight. He’d had the girl followed since her arrival in London a week ago and he’d observed her himself from a distance. She was a fetching little piece. Blond. A graceful figure. Ranelaw had never been close enough to read her expression with accuracy. Doubtless it would reveal the same vacuous sweetness that shone from the face of every maiden here.
If one excepted the chaperones.
His attention returned to the woman leaning over Miss Demarest like a sheltering tree over a ewe lamb. As if divining his thoughts, the chaperone stiffened. Her head jerked up and she focused on him.
Even across the room, even through her spectacles, her gaze burned. Severe, assessing, unwavering. Absolutely nothing fetching there, but he found himself unable to look away. Uncannily the surrounding cacophony faded to expectant hush.
As blatant as a tossed glove, she flung down a challenge.
Then she turned to answer something her charge said, Lady Wreston bustled up in all her plump glory, and the instant of hostile awareness splintered.
Unaccountably disconcerted by that wordless exchange of fire, Ranelaw bowed over his hostess’s hand and asked to meet the Demarest heiress. Millicent, Lady Wreston, couldn’t hide her flash of pique, but she knew what their world demanded. Girls were born to be wedded then bedded. Single men did the honors. Even single men who had sown a continent of wild oats required a legitimate heir.
The polite fiction of his interest in the marriage mart was convenient, although he rarely used respectability to cloak darker intentions. Hypocrisy counted among the rare sins he didn’t commit on a regular basis. Nor did he indulge in willful self-deception. He knew that he’d roast in hell for what he plotted. Cassandra Demarest was an innocent who didn’t deserve the fate he intended. But what he wrought was too important for him to ignore how perfectly the girl fitted his purposes. He couldn’t allow scruples to discourage him.
Scruples and he had long been polite strangers.
He lingered to soothe his hostess’s vanity, all the while watching Miss Demarest’s every move. She’d accepted a dance, and her partner now returned her to t
he fearsome chaperone. The fearsome chaperone was a long Meg under that loose, rusty black gown at least five seasons out of date.
Then the Demarest chit spoke and the uninteresting Miss Smith smiled.
And became no longer quite so uninteresting.
Ranelaw felt winded, like someone had punched him in the belly.
Ridiculous, really, to be intrigued. So the crone possessed a lush mouth. Except now that he sauntered closer, he recognized Miss Smith wasn’t a crone after all. Her skin was clear and unlined, with a soft flush of color like the pink of dawn. He found himself wondering about the eyes behind those unbecoming spectacles.
Good God, what was wrong with him?
The haggish chaperone demonstrated signs of desirability. Who the hell cared? He had other fish to fry. Young, unsuspecting fish trapped in a net of vengeance.
Lady Wreston performed introductions. “Lord Ranelaw, may I present Miss Cassandra Demarest, the daughter of Mr. Godfrey Demarest, of Bascombe Hailey in Somerset? This lady is her companion, Miss Smith.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Ranelaw watched the chaperone straighten as if scenting danger. She was more awake than her charge, who blushed and dipped into a charming curtsy.
