Page 8 of The Misfortune of Lady Lucianna

Luci was in the presence of a rogue—a taker of the innocent, a philanderer with no moral compass, a charlatan in lord’s attire. The set of his crooked, self-assured grin, and his open appraisal of her was something Luci had witnessed on at least a dozen occasions.

She knew the type well, had lived under the roof of such a man her entire life—and called him father.

“What is so amusing?” she asked when he continued to grin at her after this laughter had ceased—likely due to her penetrating stare and uplifted chin. “Do you think it luck that handed me the win today?”

“Oh, certainly not, my lady.” He moved and set his mask and foil on the bench against the far wall and then proceeded to remove his gloves, his back to her. “For a lad, your skill was at an expert level, but for a woman?” He shook his head and turned back to face her. “It was complete mastery—a practiced prowess many men never achieve in all their years at the sport.”

Her face flushed—from the compliment or the overt use of the word prowess, she was uncertain. “I am overjoyed to see that we are in agreement of my skill, and furthermore, your need to study the sport more thoroughly before our next match.” She rocked back on her heels, not attempting to hide her smugness over her victory and her mastery of their back and forth banter.

As he paced back toward her, he tapped his bottom lip with his forefinger. “And what, my lady, makes you think I would agree to another match only to be bested soundly once more?”

It was Luci’s turn to laugh. Her deep chuckle filled the room, empty except for her and the jet-black-haired man before her. His shoulders stiffened when she expressed her own merriment with the situation. “Are you saying you would turn down another round of sparring?”

“I said nothing of the sort; however”—he halted several feet from her—“I am not in the routine of agreeing to things if there is no chance of them working in my favor.

“Well, I never offer if I do not know I will win.” Luci tilted her chin up a notch.

“Your name, my lady?” he requested again, his stare returning to its former intensity and never leaving hers. He was not appreciating her womanly curves nor waxing poetic prose about her silky hair and vibrant green eyes. It appeared he truly wished to learn her given name. “My lady?” His brow arched in question.

She should not give her name, but there was something about the man that pulled the words from her. It could be his sincerity, his forthright nature, or possibly his confidence in being bested by a woman at a predominately male sport. “Lady Lucianna Constantine, my lord.”

“Your Grace.”

“Pardon?”

“It is Your Grace.” His smirk returned as he seemed to go from intense to playful with each breath he took. “The Duke of Montrose, but you may call me Roderick—you have bested me with a foil, after all.”

All thoughts of her own coy nature disappeared quickly with the one damning name.

As she’d suspected, he was a rogue, a rakehell, and a debauched man.

And the very first lord she’d taken down with the Mayfair Confidential.

The exhilaration from her victory on the strip dissipated.

Chapter 3

Roderick whistled as he stepped through his townhouse door just as the sun was setting on the day. The shock on his butler’s face was evident; however, he was still wholly focused on the nimble beauty that was Lady Lucianna. He’d attended Bentley’s for several years now and had never crossed paths with the woman. Or had he? Would he have known a woman resided under her fencing attire?

Their time together had ended quickly when he’d given his name, as she’d no doubt recognized him from the scandal two months prior, when he’d been falsely accused of being unfaithful to Lady Daphne—his betrothed. But the gossip sheets had gotten it all wrong.

Unfortunately, Lady Lucianna hadn’t given him the time to explain anything. Bloody hell, he wasn’t even certain that was the reason her entire demeanor had changed and she had hurried off.

Blast it all, but he couldn’t resist thinking of her tightly clad legs that had seemingly gone on forever. No skirting with petticoats and underpinnings to hide the muscular curves of her calves or the toned expanses of her thighs.

He shook the image of said thighs wrapped tightly around his waist from his mind as he handed his overcoat to the waiting servant.

He’d thought of her well-trimmed, slender frame—while she’d been plotting her escape.

“Your Grace, Lucian awaits you in your study.” The butler dipped his head and hurried off.

Lucian had returned already?

Roderick had expected the servant to rest and return to the Gazette on the morrow, or by earliest that night.

“Inform him I will see him now.” His words echoed in the empty foyer; his butler having departed for parts unknown. “I suppose I can inform him myself,” he mumbled, starting down the hall toward his study.

The man’s news could only serve to further brighten his day after so many months—nay, years—of desolation caused by his father’s reckless investments, and then that bloody column.