L ORETTA C HASE L ORD OF S COUNDRELS Thanks to: Sal Raciti, for the choice Italian phrases; Carol Proko Easton, for the loan of her splendid books on Russian icons; Cynthia Drelinger, for computer processing my pencil hieroglyphics; and my husband, Walter, and our friend, Owen Halpern, for an unforgettable journey through England’s beautiful west country. Contents Prologue In the spring of 1792, Dominick Edward Guy de Ath… 1 Chapter 1 “No. It can’t be,” Sir Bertram Trent whispered, aghast. His… 16 Chapter 2 Above the whirring and clicking of the automaton, Jessica heard… 31 Chapter 3 It would have eased Jessica’s mind, could she but have… 48 Chapter 4 Dain had given Miss Trent more than enough opportunity to… 63 Chapter 5 Then he nearly trampled her down because, for some insane… 78 Chapter 6 On the afternoon following Madame Vraisses’ party, an unhappy Roland… 97 Chapter 7 Dain knew the house. It had belonged to the previous… 114 Chapter 8 The shot threw Dain back against his chair, which crashed… 129 Chapter 9 On the way to Calais, Dain had ridden with Bertie… 149 Chapter 10 On a bright Sunday morning on the eleventh day of… 170 Chapter 11 Jessica’s dinner appeared about twenty minutes after the mill. Her… 190 Chapter 12 Despite the unplanned-for pause at Stonehenge, Dain’s carriage drew up… 207 Chapter 13 Jessica wasn’t sure when exactly she’d become aware she was… 225 Chapter 14 “Hell and damnation,” Dain muttered as he gingerly withdrew from… 245 Chapter 15 Andrews entered then, and the first footman, Joseph, with him. 268 Chapter 16 Half an hour after he’d stormed into his bedroom and… 290 Chapter 17 At two o’clock that afternoon, Dain stood with his wife… 310 Chapter 18 An accomplished strumpet Charity Graves certainly was, Roland Vawtry thought. 327 Chapter 19 Mrs. Ingleby had told Jessica that when Athcourt had been enlarged… 344 Chapter 20 At two o’clock in the morning, Lord Dain emerged from… 359 About the Author Praise Cover Copyright About the Publisher Prologue I n the spring of 1792, Dominick Edward Guy de Ath Ballister, third Marquess of Dain, Earl of Blackmoor, Viscount Launcells, Baron Ballister and Launcells, lost his wife and four children to typhus. Though he’d married in obedience to his father’s com- mand, Lord Dain had developed a degree of regard for his wife, who had dutifully borne him three handsome boys and one pretty little girl. He’d loved them insofar as he was able. This was not, by average standards, very much. But then, it wasn’t in Lord Dain’s nature to love anybody at all. What heart he had was devoted to his lands, particularly Athcourt, the ancestral estate in Devon. His property was his mistress. She was an expensive one, though, and he wasn’t the wealthiest of men. Thus, at the advanced age of two and forty, Lord Dain was obliged to wed again and, to satisfy his mistress’s demands, to marry pots of money. Late in 1793, he met, wooed, and wed Lucia Usignuolo, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a wealthy Florentine no- bleman. Society was stunned. The Ballisters could trace their line back to Saxon times. Seven centuries earlier, one of them had wed a Norman lady and received a barony from William I in reward. Since 1 2 / Loretta Chase then, no Ballister had ever married a foreigner. Society con- cluded that the Marquess of Dain’s mind was disordered by grief. Not many months later, His Lordship himself gloomily suspected that his mind had been disordered by something. He had married, he thought, a very beautiful raven-haired girl who gazed at him adoringly and smiled and agreed with every word he uttered. What he’d wed, he found out, was a dormant volcano. The ink was scarcely dry on the marriage lines before she began to erupt. She was spoiled, proud, passionate, and quick-tempered. She was recklessly extravagant, talked too much and too loudly, and mocked his commands. Worst of all, her unin- hibited behavior in bed appalled him. Only the fear that the Ballister line would otherwise die out kept him returning to that bed. He gritted his teeth and did his duty. When at last she was breeding, he quitted the exercise and began praying fervently for a son, so he wouldn’t have to do it again. In May of 1795, Providence answered his prayers. When he got his first look at the infant, though, Lord Dain suspected it was Satan who’d answered them. His heir was a wizened olive thing with large black eyes, ill-proportioned limbs, and a grossly oversize nose. It howled incessantly. If he could have denied the thing was his, he would have. But he couldn’t, because upon its left buttock was the same tiny brown birthmark in the shape of a crossbow that ad- orned Lord Dain’s own anatomy. Generations of Ballisters had borne this mark. Unable to deny the monstrosity was his, the