“I’m not shocked at a dissolute gentleman keeping a mistress,” Lucy said.“I’m shocked that any woman would put up with you for longer than an evening.Although now I think about it, perhaps I do understand it.”
“Do you?”he replied.He held his fish knife and fork delicately, his thumb rubbing along the silver shaft of the knife in a smooth, hypnotic motion that made Lucy feel an unwilling warmth in her belly.
“Yes.Those women put up with you because you pay them handsomely to do so.”
Something kindled in the depths of those black eyes.Lucy couldn’t tell if it was anger or admiration, or some complicated amalgam of the two.It was gone before she could decide, swallowed up by Thornecliff’s usual air of bored disdain.
“Haven’t you heard, Lady Lucy?I’m reformed.”
“Reformed!I’m surprised you can pronounce the word with a straight face.”
“Some might even say…” He paused to take a small bite and chew it thoroughly.“A hero.”
“Oh, please.No oneis saying that.”
“I can only speak to what I’ve heard,” he said placidly, spearing another morsel of fish.
“I know I’ve been away from England for some time,” Lucy gritted out, “but I cannot
believe the English language has altered so substantially as to allow the definition of ‘hero’ to encompass a man who is a known despoiler of innocents!A rumormongering, manipulative, lying rake of the first order!”
“I did save your brother from a burning building,” he pointed out.“And I’ve been quite taken up with charitable concerns of late, including the fate of all the dear little orphans and foundlings.Isn’t that right, Ashbourn?”
“You have certainly donated a quantity of money to the Augusta Lively Home for Orphaned Children,” Ashbourn agreed dryly.
Lucy could not believe her ears.How was anyone swallowing this twaddle?Saved her brother from a burning building, indeed.One brave act committed under extraordinary circumstances didn’t wipe away a lifetime of selfish cruelty.
The Duke of Thornecliff was a villain.He had always been a villain.He was currently still a villain.And he would be a villain forever and ever, amen.“Two good deeds, for which I’m sure you have ulterior motives that I will discover now that I’m home, do not wipe clean a lifetime of evil deeds!”
“Evil deeds such as ensuring your sister’s little coaching inn became the talk of the Ton?”Thornecliff gazed at Lucy inquiringly.“Enabling her to succeed in her scheme of wedding a duke?”
Lucy nearly choked on her sole.“That is not what happened!”
Actually, it sort of was.But the manner in which he’d done it had caused untold heartbreak and humiliation along the way.
“I suppose we must agree to disagree,” Thornecliff replied, still wearing that air of cool detachment that made Lucy long to stand up and yank the table linens out from under the dishes, just to force him to change his expression.
“I daresay we don’t agree on anything,” Lucy shot back.“And we never shall.”
“On one point, I’m afraid, we must come to some accord, Lady Lucy,” Thornecliff said.“I have never despoiled an innocent and I cannot have you besmirching my reputation by saying so.”
“Of course you have,” Lucy protested, taken aback.“As if you would scruple at seducing a virgin.”
“Name one.”
“What?”
“Name an innocent virgin I have supposedly seduced.”Thornecliff lifted his brows expectantly.“I’ll wait.”
Heat scorched Lucy’s cheekbones.“You… I mean…”
“You cannot.Shall I tell you how I know you cannot?”He leaned back in his chair and eyed her across the table.“Because innocent girls are entirely too much work.Can you picture me?Working?”
“All right,” Bess broke in calmly.“I believe that’s quite enough from you two.Talking of virgins and matters of finance at the dinner table—even I know better than that, and I was brought up on a farm!”
A bolt of fear shot through Lucy at Bess’s casual reference to the circumstances of her birth.Rounding on Thornecliff in a protective fury, she hissed, “You’d better not go running to your Fleet Street friends with that!”
Visions of the ugly, demeaning caricatures of her sister cavorted through Lucy’s head—caricatures Thornecliff had all but commissioned when he carried tales of Gemma’s doings back to London.Those cruel drawings had nearly broken Gemma’s spirit and ruined everything between her and Hal, the man she loved, and that close brush with disaster was directly attributable to the man across the table.
