London's Last True Scoundrel by Christina Brooke Read Free Book Online

a dastard he was, but that wasn’t exactly news, so he didn’t listen. He was too busy applying his mind to the problem of her heart’s desire.
    They both wanted the same thing: to go to London.
    “I’ll take you to Town,” he said.
    What could be better? He’d made up his mind to make a nuisance of himself around Wrotham Grange until the novelty of baiting Miss deVere palled. But truthfully, he wouldn’t vouch for the bed linen in this establishment and the whores were a distraction he didn’t need.
    If he took Honey to London, he’d kill two birds with one stone.
    She hadn’t heard him. “I only hope I may not be ruined,” she was saying miserably. “I should be obliged to marry you after all, and then I’d likely murder you before the wedding breakfast was over.”
    “Steady on,” he protested. “I said I’d take you to London, not take you to wife.”
    She stared up at him, deflated. “I would rather drown myself than go anywhere with you.”
    “Bath,” he said, taking her by the shoulders and turning her about. “Hot bath, dry clothes. Then we’ll talk.”
    He propelled her down the corridor. She let him, suddenly listless, as if the catastrophes that had befallen her today had crushed her spirit.
    He didn’t like that, so he said hopefully, “Come to think of it, I’m cold and wet, too.”
    She didn’t answer.
    “We could save your servants the bother and pool our resources, so to speak—”
    “I know what you are trying to do, but it won’t work,” she said dully. “I will have a bath. Alone . I will put on dry clothes. And when I come back downstairs, Lord Davenport, I expect you to be gone.”

 
    CHAPTER FOUR
     
    The bath helped calm Hilary to the point where she ceased imagining various and original forms of torture for a certain peer of the realm.
    There was no use casting all of the blame on him. She was responsible for her own fate. If only she’d listened to Hodgins. If only she hadn’t flown into such a dreadfully unbecoming rage with Davenport.
    Looking back, she wasn’t sure why she’d done it. If it had been any other of her brothers’ loutish friends standing there, inviting her to an orgy, she would have coldly requested him to leave and then ushered her guest to a different room.
    She would not have flown at him and tried to scratch his eyes out.
    Seeing Davenport with those women had set her alight. Why, ten minutes before he’d been kissing her .
    She suspected such behavior was entirely typical for the Earl of Davenport. Thank goodness, once again, that she’d never married him as her mother had planned.
    She slid down in the tub, tilting her head back to wash her hair, and grimaced at the new spiderweb of cracks in the ceiling. Dry rot, wet rot, death watch beetle, they had it all here. The place was falling down around their ears and her brothers did nothing to stop it.
    She had to leave. She simply must get out of this shameful situation. She’d give anything for a London season, but until Miss Tollington had arranged an introduction to Mrs. Farrington, her prospects of making a London debut had been zero.
    She’d made friends at the academy when she’d been a boarder there, but all of her friends were married now, comfortably settled in the country, and disinclined to participate in the fashionable whirl of the season.
    Why hadn’t she the sense to cultivate more useful friendships? She sighed. All of the more fashionable, aristocratic girls thought her a bore and a prude. Or else, they’d looked down their noses at her family.
    She’d been content at the academy, but now that the promise of more had been dangled before her she couldn’t simply let her dream go. She would have to find another way to get to London this season.
    She’d been so close to leaving all this behind. To enjoying the myriad delights of a London season—dancing and balls and dinners, trips to the theater, the opera. To finding a quiet, kind, gentlemanly husband who would