The Heart of a Scoundrel (The Heart of a Duke #6)(15)

A beleaguered sigh escaped the viscount. “Can’t you just court the Fairfax chit as any other of the gents?”

No, his connection to Miss Fairfax’s aunt made that an impossibility. He leveled the man with an icy stare that silenced any further recommendations or presumptions.

“Er…right.” He eyed Edmund’s brandy once more and smacked his lips.

“How often does your daughter see Miss Fairfax?” he asked in hushed undertones lest any passerby foolish enough to come close might hear.

“Not altogether certain,” he mumbled.

“How long has she known her?”

The man scratched his creased brow. “I don’t quite know—”

“How do the young ladies spend their time together?” This would prove useful and spare him the tedium of having to find anything out about the rambling miss with her delectable derriere.

Lord Waters sat back in his chair and folded his hands over his paunch. “Do you know, I’ve no idea how those three occupy themselves?”

“Then start. I want to know where your daughter goes, and with whom, and what her interests are.”

“Her interests?” Edmund fixed a dark glower that had the man nodding. “Er, right…I’ll find out her interests.”

The nearly destitute man failed to realize his inattentiveness would mean the ultimate ruin of his already doomed daughter. Those unattended young ladies invariably found themselves with their ivory skirts tossed up and a rutting lord between their legs. The image merely drew up the memory of Miss Barrett bent over the rail, a piece of her gown caught in Lord Delenworth’s spear. An unwitting smile played about his lips.

“Er, have I said something amusing?” Lord Waters asked, puffing out his chest with pride.

His smile died. “No,” he seethed. The man deflated. It would take a good deal more than this bumbling fool to elicit any amusement on his part. Delighting in tormenting the viscount, Edmund picked up his brandy and downed another glass. He welcomed the fiery trail it blazed down his throat. Edmund shoved back his chair and stood.

“You’re leaving? May I finish your b—?”

He ignored the other man and started through the club, winding his way past drunken fops, who nearly fell over themselves in their haste to be free of the Marquess of Rutland. Except one.

A tall figure stepped into his path. Edmund flicked a cold gaze over the blond-haired gentleman with bloodshot eyes. The man had been drinking. “What do you want?” he asked on a silken whisper that would have sent most any other man fleeing. This one remained.

“You do not even know who I am?”

Oh, he knew the man. The Viscount Brewer. Up to his neck in debt, with creditors knocking, and a miserably unhappy wife. The occasionally visible bruise worn by the viscountess in Polite Society indicated just why the lady was so unhappy. That discontent had driven her to seek a place in Edmund’s bed several weeks past. “Do you expect I should know you?” And he’d been happy to oblige the woman.

The viscount snapped his eyebrows together in a furious line. His cheeks turned a mottled red.

Edmund peeled his lip back in a sneer. “Say what it is you’d say or step out of my way.”

Lord Brewer’s momentary courage seemed to flag, for he fell silent, and with a sound of impatience, Edmund stepped around him. “My wife.” The other man called after him.

Edmund turned around with a deliberate nonchalance. He dusted a fleck of imaginary lint from his sleeve. “What of your wife?” He’d had the young viscountess in his bed for that one exchange, but took an abiding pleasure in taunting her sniveling coward of a husband. “I’ve had so many men’s wives in my bed, surely you don’t expect me to remember yours?”

The man opened and closed his mouth several times, and when he still said nothing, Edmund continued on, and dismissed the drunken bastard from his thoughts. Instead, as he reached the entrance and accepted his cloak from a servant, he returned his attentions to the delectable Miss Barrett. Prior to their exchange on the terrace, she’d merely represented the key to his plan in lowering Miss Honoria Fairfax’s defenses. He shrugged into his cloak and then the majordomo pulled the door open. He stepped outside and a cool blast of wind slapped his face. I suspected the wind might have carried it off when I was looking at the grounds below…

The whispery soft quality of Miss Phoebe Barrett’s voice slipped into his mind. Now she occupied his thoughts for entirely different reasons. Her sultry tones were best reserved for wicked games upon satin bedsheets and a familiar stirring of lust struck him. Edmund strode down the handful of steps to his waiting carriage.

The liveried driver yanked the door open.

“Home,” he commanded in clipped tones. He climbed inside and sat upon the crimson squabs. The door closed with a firm click behind him and then the carriage dipped with the young driver scrambling atop his box. A moment later, the black lacquer conveyance rocked into motion. He peeled back the edge of the curtain and peered out at the passing unfashionable, seedy streets. He’d long preferred the sordid London hells to the respectable, polite White’s and Brooke’s. The world of dark and deception was, at least, sincere in what it represented unlike the fa?ade of polite, wedded lords and ladies who’d simultaneously gasp with outrage at the fabric of a person’s garments while taking their pleasure with another.