And it was all Dain’s fault.
Since the encounter at the coffee shop, he could not bear to have Bertie out of his sight. Wherever Dain went, whatever he did, he could not enjoy himself unless Bertie was there.
Bertie, of course, believed he’d finally won Dain’s undying friendship. Gullible baconbrain that he was, Bertie had no idea the alleged friendship was Dain’s revenge on her.
Which only showed how despicable a villain Dain was. His quarrel was with Jessica, but no, he couldn’t fight fair and square with someone capable of fighting back. He had to punish her via her poor, stupid brother, who hadn’t the least idea how to defend himself.
Bertie didn’t know hownotto drink himself unconscious, or quit a card game, or resist a wager he was bound to lose, or protest when a tart cost thrice what she ought to. If Dain drank, Bertie must, though he hadn’t the head for it. If Dain played or wagered or whored, Bertie must do exactly as he did.
Jessica did not, in principle, object to any of these practices. She had been tipsy more than once and, upon occasion, lost money on cards or a bet—but within discreet and reasonable bounds. As to the tarts, if she had been a man, she supposed she’d fancy one now and then, too—but she would certainly not pay a farthing above the going rate. She could scarcely believe Dain paid as much as Bertie claimed, but Bertie had sworn on his honor he’d seen the money change hands himself.
“If it’s true,” she’d told him exasperatedly, only last evening, “it can only be because his requirements are excessive—because the women have to work harder, don’t you see?”
All Bertie saw was that she was implying he wasn’t as lusty a stallion as his idol was. She had impugned her brother’s masculinity, and so he had stomped out and not come—or been carried, rather—home until seven o’clock this morning.
Meanwhile, she’d lain awake until nearly then, wondering what exactly Dain required of a bed partner.
Thanks to Genevieve, Jessica did understand the basics of what normal men required—or provided, depending upon how one looked at it. She had known, for example, what the bewigged gentleman hiding under the lady’s skirts had been doing, just as she’d known that such poses weren’t common in naughty watches. That was why she’d bought it.
But since Dain wasn’t normal, and he’d surely paid for a great deal more than mere basics, she had tossed feverishly in her bed in an agitated muddle of fear and curiosity and…well, if one was perfectly honest with oneself, which she generally was, there was some hankering, too, heaven help her.
She could not stop thinking about his hands. Which wasn’t to say she hadn’t contemplated every other part of him as well, but she’d had direct, simmering physical experience of those large, too adept hands.
At the mere thought of them, even now, furious as she was, she felt something hot and achy curl inside her, from her diaphragm to the pit of her belly.
Which only made her the more furious.
The mantel clock chimed the hour.
First she’d kill Dain, she told herself. Then she’d kill her brother.
Withers entered. “The porter has returned from the marquess’s establishment,” he said.
Bertie, following the custom of the Parisians, relied upon the building’s porter to perform the tasks normally assigned at home to footmen, maids, and errand boys. Half an hour earlier, the porter, Tesson, had been dispatched to Lord Dain’s.
“Obviously he hasn’t brought Bertie back,” she said, “or I would have heard my brother hallooing in the hall by now.”
“Lord Dain’s servant refused to respond to Tesson’s enquiry,” said Withers. “When Tesson loyally persisted, the insolent footman ejected him bodily from the front step. The servants, Miss Trent, are abominably well suited, in point of character, to the master.”
It was one thing, Jessica thought angrily, for Dain to exploit her brother’s weaknesses. It was altogether another matter to allow his lackeys to abuse an overworked porter for trying to deliver a message.
“Pardon one offense,” Publilius had said, “and you encourage the commission of many.”
Jessica was not about to pardon this. Fists clenched, she marched to the door. “I do not care if the servant is Mephistopheles himself,” she said. “I should like to see him try to ejectme.”
A very short time later, while her terrified maid, Flora, cowered in a dirty Parisian hackney, Jessica was plying the knocker of Lord Dain’s street door.
A liveried English footman opened it. He was close to six feet tall. As he insolently eyed her up and down, Jessica had no trouble deducing what was going through his mind. Any servant with a pennyweight of intelligence would see that she was a lady. On the other hand, no lady would ever come knocking on the door of an unwed gentleman. The trouble was, Dain wasn’t a gentleman. She did not wait for the footman to work out the conundrum.
“The name is Trent,” she said briskly. “And I am not accustomed to being kept standing on a door-step while an idle lout of a lackey gawks at me. You have exactly three seconds to step out of the way. One. Two—”
He backed away and she strode past him into the vestibule.
“Get my brother,” she said.
He was staring at her in numb disbelief. “Miss—Miss—”
“Trent,” she said. “Sir Bertram’s sister. I want to see him.Now.” She rapped the point of her umbrella upon the marble floor for emphasis.
