Page 3 of Tempting the Scoundrel
Kent didn’t seem concerned. “You’ll have lessons. I recently obtained the estate bordering mine in a card game. You’ll stay at the house, play the role of some impoverished nobody who recently came into a title due to the death of a distant relation. Any holes in your performance will be attributed to your low birth. It need only last long enough to make her like you.”
This toff was mad, he was. Cracked in the head. A Bedlamite with a fancy title and too much money. “Who are we speaking of?”
The earl’s expression hardened. “My wife’s bastard. You’re going to pretend to be a nobleman, seduce her, and marry her.”
This was too much. Thorne rubbed his forehead with the back of a hand. “Not interested. Best of luck with”— he gestured vaguely—“all that.”All that shite.
Thorne had wrenched open the door when the earl spoke again. “It’s this or the gaol. And the prison cell doesn’t come with one-hundred thousand pounds and a sack full of jewels.”
He shut the door with asnick. One-hundred thousand pounds.One-hundred thousand pounds.Christ. Thorne was beginning to think he’d imagined that part. “Why not marry her off to some aristo with a gamblin’ problem? One or two of ‘em are bound to be desperate enough to marry a lass born on the wrong side of the blanket.”
Kent’s lip curled. “My wife made certain I believed the child to be mine before she died. I only recently discovered the deception in one of her diaries.”
Brilliant. Thorne came for jewels and now he had to stay for the family melodrama. “You’re tellin’ me your wife’s daughter doesn’t know about any of this?”
“She’ll comprehend after I see her married off to a baseborn like she deserves. That you’re an Irishman and a criminal only adds insult to injury.”
Thorne’s expression hardened.Baseborn.Irishman.Criminal.Aye, that’d put him lower than shit in the eyes of an aristocrat. He almost felt sorry for the lass; as far as she knew, she was legitimate—and the man she thought was her father planned to marry her off to a confidence artist.
Toffs were a callous lot.
“I suppose she’ll be grateful you’re settling one-hundred thousand pounds on a bastard, rather than just tossing her into the street.”
Kent didn’t indicate he’d heard Thorne’s sarcasm. “I wouldn’t settle a farthing on the chit, but my wife ensured the money was put in a trust. If Alexandra doesn’t marry in the next three years, the fortune is hers by law. I won’t let that happen. Do you understand?”
Thorne lifted a shoulder. “Don’t care.” He wasn’t interested. Not about anything other than the money and how to get it.
“Mm.” Kent sipped his port. “In any case, the girl is staying in Hampshire at present. I’ll throw in an extra thousand pounds if you can convince her to elope with you by Michaelmas.”
Good god. Thorne couldn’t help but rear back in disgust. “That desperate to be rid of her?”
Kent’s expression turned cold. “My wife made me look like a fucking fool. Since she’s not alive, I’ll do the same to her daughter. Do we have a deal, or not?”
Thorne let out a breath. “For one-hundred thousand pounds, I don’t particularly care if she looks like a fool. But I’ll take some blunt upfront for takin’ her off your hands.”
Kent’s smile was slow. “I would expect nothing less of a criminal.”
Chapter 1
London. Four years later.
Lady Alexandra Grey flung the newspaper aside with a frustrated noise. “Bloody hell,” she muttered.
Her brother, Richard, watched the broadsheet flutter to the floor like an injured dove. The startled footman waiting by the breakfast sideboard delicately cleared his throat. Barnes might as well have said,For the love of god, instruct me on how to respond to this. Alexandra ought to have commended him on his measured expression; one really only saw it for recalcitrant children.
“Hand it here, Barnes,” Richard told the footman. “I’d like to read it before she burns this one.”
“Don’t bother,” Alexandra said, angrily buttering her toast. “It’s absolute rubbish. Dross. A waste of paper and ink. Who told men they could publish?”
Barnes hesitated, but at Richard’s gesture, handed the paper over. Richard took it and murmured a calm dismissal meant to soothe a servant who’d grown accustomed to the mercurial moods of his master’s sister. Alexandra had made a recent habit of visiting Richard’s townhouse to drink his coffee, break her fast, and destroy his newspapers.
No, no, it wasn’t anintention.That implied she found some perverse joy in setting fire to the dull words of mediocre men. Rather, it was their topic of choice over the last few months: her.
Well, and her complete bastard of a husband.
Ever since her disastrous marriage had leaked to London’s gossips, she’d had no peace. Everyone knew Nicholas Thorne was her husband.
Lady Alexandra Grey, secretly married to a gaming hell owner. It was the scandal of the year! Why, rumor had it that her husband was a former criminal who blackmailed politicians! He had the distinction of being loathed bybothHouses of Parliament.
