The Hertfordshire estate needed a new roof, the village they supported repairs to the schoolroom, the roads. He and Griff had a maintenance list for the London townhouse, too. Titles were notoriously expensive to sustain, when he’d, once upon a time, sought to hemorrhage their legacy.
However, marrying for money over affection was a forbidden topic.
Griff’s union with Willie was a love match, through and through. If Dom ever considered wedding for reasons other than blind devotion, he’d best keep it to himself. His brother might have agreed to that before—but not now.
Anyway, it was only a simple affair at a duke’s Cleveland Row residence.
Another inane tea. An hour lost. A favor to appease an aunt he hoped to coax back into his good graces.
Too, maybe he was being unfair. He’d never met Lady Louisa,only read about her explosive escapades in the scandal rags. Possibly they were exaggerated, overblown fiction for society to peruse over crumpets. Frowning, he tapped his glass against his thigh. Though most ofhiseditorials had been remarkably accurate. Even the time he’d followed Griff’s lead and had a brief affair with an unusually indiscreet widowed baroness.
Because he was a man, his mind drifted into sensual waters. It had been months since he’d experienced a night of raw pleasure, so he closed his eyes and pictured it: a beautiful arsonist draped in silk sheets, her sighs carrying through the darkness.
What would that kind of rebelliousness be like in bed?
“Fine,” he said, setting his empty glass atop the invitation, the heavy vellum a gauntlet thrown, daring him. When he’d onceloveda dare. “I’ll go. I’ll be polite. I won’t stay long. I would like to make it up to Bessie for the trouble I caused at the Lyon’s Den.”
Griff grinned, seeing he’d won a round with the keenest cardsharp in England. “Are you allowed back?”
Doubtful. Though Dom didn’t intend to step foot inside a gaming hell ever again.
Restless, the heat of Griff’s regard scorched him as he rose and crossed to the window, rum lingering on his tongue, the taste not wholly unpleasant. Outside, a gust rattled the panes—sharp, cold, carrying the piquant scent of the Thames and the promise of rain. The city sprawled before him, lamplit and unrepentant. It reminded him of other foul-weather days, all of them ending in some manner of regret. He tapped his knuckle to the leaded glass, realizing this was the only one in the room his father hadn’t managed to shatter with his famous temper.
Somewhere out there, casks of illegal liquor arrived and departed, nourishing London’s thirst for vice. And somewhere else, perhaps in a warm, well-appointed drawing room, a woman with a reputation for bedlam quietly considered which man might suit her.
It wouldn’t be him.
However, for his family, he would go. But he would be careful.
Because mayhem had a way of recognizing its own, and he feared Lady Louisa Radcliffe would take one look at him, see the ruin beneath the man, and try to mend what could not be mended.
Chapter Three
Where words collide and sparksfly.
Louisa never sleptwell before a debut.
The morning of her scheduled tea, she sat cross-legged on the floor of her laboratory, a forgotten attic now lined with shelves of jars, vials, and the occasional scorched scrap of parchment. A tin of ginger biscuits sat at her side, along with scores of uncapped bottles, each filled with a different permutation of salt and acid blue she’d been coaxing toward stability for a quite singular pyrotechnic. The house was as quiet as a library at dawn, her entire family—save her lady’s maid, Lucinda—having gone to Bath for the week.
She dunked a biscuit into her tea, nibbling the softened edge while she weighed whether the cobalt blend might hold if she added the faintest pinch of iron shavings. Her hand stilled over a vial as a nervous quiver rolled through her.
This morning was not meant for experiments, however much they soothed her.
Bessie Dove-Lyon’s missive sat folded on a crate serving as a table, the vellum scented with lavender and authority. Louisa had considered declining a meeting she’d requested, but the memory of DominicBeckett in the bookshop years ago had been enough to override her fear.
“Of course, an earl would be a better choice,” she whispered, picking up the bottle and jamming the cork stopper home.
This was advice from her parents, though they’d be happy with any union that didn’t involve the vendor who sold fresh cod on the corner. They’d been egregiously pleased about her possibly hooking Harcourt. On the other hand, a viscount’s second son—one with a reputation as lamentable as hers—was an utter disappointment.
She set the vial aside, rose, and wiped a smudge of blue from her fingertips onto the hem of her work apron. The gardens below were already stirring, landscapers crossing the lawn like chess pieces, shifting in and out of sunlight. Somewhere in that bright sprawl waited the day’s true experiment. Because, over the past fortnight, her matchmaker had decided Dominic Beckett might be worth the risk.
Even if it washergrand idea, Louisa wasn’t sure.
Men of rank, second sons included, were generally dull as spent matches, those with a reputation for reform even duller. Yet, she supposed, following a rook’s flight over the yew hedges, even the dreariest spark could be coaxed into something…combustible.
In any case, Louisa couldn’t agree to marrying anyone until she faced the boy in the bookshop, now grown into a man. If he turned out to be like the rest—a cad, a bore, a tyrant—she would resign herself to a union that made sense on paper and shone so brilliantly inside every garish parlor in England that it made the ton’s eyes bleed.
Even if it left her heart cold. Weren’t most hearts in London icy throughout?
