CHAPTER ONE
By definition, Dominic Hawke was a scoundrel.
He was not a wastrel—he had amassed a fortune to rival Midas. Nor was he a rogue; rogues charmed their way into ladies’ hearts before ruining them, and he lacked the stomach for seduction.
With a commotion erupting in Lord Templeton’s marble-clad hall and pallor spreading through the ballroom, he might be a villain. Yet a man avenging a murdered mother was a hero. So why did matrons eye him like a bloodstain on brocade?
Amused, he adjusted his cuffs, offered a wolfish grin, and descended the stairs with the swagger of a man who held a trump card.
Lord Templeton was at his side before Dominic’s foot touched the polished parquet. “Good God, Hawke. What the blazes are you doing here? If this is about the misunderstanding last week, we’ll discuss it in my study.” Templeton offered a tight smile, the sort worn by men trying not to soil their breeches. “Curse the devil. My wife will expect me to throw you out. What am I to tell her?”
“Anything but the truth, unless you want to break her heart.” Best he didn’t mention warming a widow’s bed instead of tending the tenant accounts.
Men like Templeton thought rules were for lesser mortals, the sanctity of marriage for peasants. He should have thought of his wife before tangling himself in Shadowmere’s web of secrets.
Dominic turned from the gaping horde and tapped the lord’s chest, as one might silence an anxious servant. Templeton, still in his thirties and desperate to preserve his reputation, flinched.
“Step aside. It’s not your neck in the noose tonight. Though I do bring a letter from Monique. Perhaps your wife would care to learn you spent the weekend at my estate in Kingston upon Thames.”
A violent flush crawled up Templeton’s neck. He grasped Dominic’s arm and drew him closer. “What about the contract? What happens at Shadowmere is never spoken of beyond its doors. You gave your word.”
Dominic looked at the hand as if it were a beetle on silk, with faint disgust and the urge to flick it off. “I suggest you retire to your study and read it in depth. Buried in the small print is a clause. I’m permitted one favour. Refuse me and the contract’s void. If you want to attend the next gathering, you’ll remove your manicured hand from my arm and placate your wife.”
Templeton stepped back, doing a passable impression of someone in charge. “Just be aware, not everyone will welcome you tonight.”
Let them call him Lucifer. He hadn’t spent nine years amassing the ton’s sins to be turned away by cowards. They would have to kill him to silence him—though most were too weak to resist their base appetites, let alone act onconscience.
“They don’t have to welcome me. They only need to get out of my way.” He smirked at the panicked lord and gave his cheek a playful tap. “Monique sends her regards.”
Head high and shoulders squared, he cut through the crowd with ease. Whispered speculations trailed in his wake. Was he here to claim a debt? To expose a scandal? To inform a lord of his wife’s infidelity?
Men quaked as he passed.
Women shrank behind their painted fans as though he were a harbinger of doom. A daring few brushed his hand with theirs, a fleeting caress, as obvious as a beckoning finger. To bed him was considered the epitome of conquests.
But he had only one woman on his mind.
Miss Daphne Harland.
Daughter of the bastard who had driven his mother to an early grave. Daughter of the lord who had preyed on a widow’s poverty and blackmailed her into handing out favours. The villain’s identity had remained a mystery until a few weeks ago. But the best enquiry agent in London had succeeded where Dominic had failed.
The thought grated.
He’d be in no one’s debt. Least of all the illegitimate son of a duke who liked playing detective.
He snatched a flute of champagne from a passing tray, downed it in one swallow, and tossed the empty glass into a potted fern.
Everyone watchedhim, not the demure debutantes scrambling to secure a suitor now the end of the Season was nigh. The orchestra struck up a lively reel, but the room held its breath, waiting to glimpse the poor fool bold enough to coax the devil from Kingston.
For his own wicked amusement, he paused beside agentleman long enough to watch the blood drain from his face. Others exhaled, relieved they’d been spared his attention for now.
He hadn’t come to talk.
He’d come for vengeance.
To storm through the heart of the ton, take the serpent’s spawn in his arms, and kiss her so thoroughly that no one in the room, not even a scandal-hardened dowager, would doubt they were lovers.
The plan was simple: cast aspersions on her character and force her father to call him out.
