Lord of Scoundrels by Loretta Chase Read Free Book Online Page B

sinking in a mire. Sometimes he was chained in a foul black cell, with creatures he couldn’t see tearing at his flesh. Sometimes he was lying on a slab in a morgue undergoing an autopsy.
    Being a man of considerable intelligence, he had no trouble understanding the symbolism. Every nightmarish thing that had happened was, metaphorically speaking, exactly what did happen to a man when a female got her hooks into him. He did not understand, however, why, in his sleep, his brain had to make such a ghoulish bother about what he already knew.
    For years he’d been dreaming about women he had no intention of becoming entangled with. Countless times, awake, he’d imagined that the whore he was with was a lady who’d caught his eye. Not very long ago, he’d pretended a voluptuous French tart was Leila Beaumont, and he’d come away quite as satisfied as if she had been that icy bitch. No, more satisfied, because the tart had made an excellent show of enthusiasm, whereas the real Leila Beaumont would have dashed out his brains with a blunt instrument.
    Dain, in short, had no trouble distinguishing between fantasy and reality. He had met Jessica Trent and felt a perfectly normal lust. He lusted for virtually every attractive female he saw. He had a prodigious sexual appetite, inherited, he had no doubt, from his hot-blooded Italian whore of a mother and her family. If he lusted for a whore, he paid her and had her. If he lusted for a respectable female, he found a whore as a substitute, paid her, and had her.
    That was what he’d done regarding Trent’s sister. Or tried to do—because it still wasn’t properly done.
    The dreams weren’t all that thwarted him. The incident at Vingt-Huit had not precisely killed his appetite for trollops, but it had left a sour taste in his mouth. He had not returned to Chloe to take up where he’d left off, and he hadn’t taken up any other tart since. He told himself that Beaumont’s voyeuristic tastes were hardly a reason for swearing off whores altogether. Nonetheless, Dain felt extremely reluctant to enter any room with any fille de joie , which created a serious problem, since he was just fastidious enough to dislike having a female in a reeking Parisian alleyway.
    Consequently, between uncooperative dreams and the foul taste in his mouth, he was unable to exorcise his lust for Miss Trent in the tried-and-true fashion. Which meant that, by the time a week had passed, Dain’s temper was badly frayed.
    Which was exactly the wrong time for Bertie Trent to tell him that the dirty, mildewed picture Miss Trent had bought for ten sous had turned out to be an extremely valuable Russian icon.
    It was a few minutes past noon, and Lord Dain had moments earlier dodged the contents of a washtub, dumped from an upper-story window on the Rue de Provence. His attention on avoiding a drenching, he had failed to notice Trent trotting toward him. By the time the marquess did notice, the imbecile was already there, and well launched into his exciting revelations.
    Dain’s dark brow furrowed at the conclusion—or rather, when Bertie paused for breath. “A Russian what? ” the marquess asked.
    “Acorn. That is to say, not a nut sort of thing, but one of them heathenish pictures with a lot of gold paint and gold leaf.”
    “I believe you mean an icon ,” said Dain. “In which case, I fear your sister has been hoaxed. Who told her such rubbish?”
    “Le Feuvre,” said Bertie, pronouncing the name as “fooh-ver.”
    Lord Dain experienced a chill sensation in the environs of his stomach. Le Feuvre was the most reputable appraiser in Paris. Even Ackermann’s and Christie’s consulted him upon occasion. “There are countless icons in the world,” said Dain. “Still, if it’s a good one, she obviously got a bargain at ten sous.”
    “The frame’s set with a lot of little gems—pearls and rubies and such.”
    “Paste, I collect.”
    Bertie grimaced, as he often did when toiling to produce a