Page 5 of Madcap with a Marquess
She hated herself for the pleading bubbling up in her throat, for the words already spilling over her lips. “But, Papa…”
“My lord,” he bit out. “You address me as. My. Lord.” He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose. “This would have all been so much simpler if you had just died along with your whore of a mother.”
Franny jolted where she stood. She couldn’t have possibly heard correctly.
He opened his eyes, a slow smile spreading across his face, the mirth in his eyes making the sneer all the more sinister.
“Yes, your mother was more whore than she ever was my countess. You are fortunate I have supported you and not tossed you out. Yourmother,”he spat, “ended up with child at the disgraceful age of eight-and-thirty with God knows which of her lovers.Youare a product of one of those affairs.”
His lips curled up. “You are nothing more than a bastard. So, yes, you will marry Lord Rutledge. No one else would deign to have you. And then where would you be?” His grin grew, and his eyes glimmered with sadistic amusement. “A whore like your mother, I expect. How fitting.”
A ringing started in her ears, and a suffocating heaviness settled inside her, as if her very being was being encased in lead, choking off her lungs.
“You are dismissed.”
She took a heavy step backward.
“Oh, and Lady Francine…? Do not dare think about running away. You won’t be pulling any tricks like what you and that friend of yours attempted. I have guards at your door and below your window. One more night until I get what I am rightly owed. A recalcitrant bastard will not stand in my way.”
Somehow through the numb fog, she managed to make her way to the study door, somehow managed to exit the room, somehow managed to make it to her bedchamber.
From one man’s cage to the next.
3
Rupert
RupertWinthrop,thenewlyappointed Marquess of Rutledge sat rigidly in a leather armchair in the back corner of Grambler’s Gentlemen’s Club. He brought his glass of scotch to his lips, but didn’t sip it, just stared out across the dim room. At the laughing men gathered around card tables, reclining in armchairs similar to his own, chatting amiably with their acquaintances, heavily painted ladies draped in their laps.
Wenches.
He tried and failed to drown out his mother’s words:Immoral, sinful, vulgar.
Rupert took a deep breath, and his hand tightened on the arm of his chair, the leather squeaking in protest. He tilted his glass back and downed half its contents. Closing his eyes, he basked in the distracting burn, his insides filling with heat.You can do this, Rupert. Bed a wench and get out of here.
“Can I help you, my lord?” a throaty purr whispered over his ear.
Rupert’s eyes flew open. He opened his mouth, but nothing came out. He hastily cleared his throat. “Erm. Good evening, Miss…”
She let out a husky chuckle and stepped in front of him, running a hand down his upper arm and over his forearm. “They call me Minnie.” She leaned forward, her generous bosom inches from his face. There didn’t seem to be anything…minnie about her.
He glanced to the side. To the floor. To the ceiling. He swallowed and patted the arm of the chair twice. This had been a bad idea. Inane idea. Insane idea.
Minnie tsked as she stepped back and walked behind him.Thank God.
“Oh dear, you are quite tense, my lord. So stiff.”
Her hands settled on his shoulders, and Rupert froze, stopped breathing. She massaged gently, her hands coasting down to his chest.
“Relax, my lord,” she murmured. “I can help alleviate any…stiffness.”
He was sure she could, and that had been his intention. But this didn’t seem as practical a plan as it had when he’d been pacing his bedchamber a few hours earlier. Maybe he should have done this sooner. One of the times his two—and only—friends from Harrow had asked him to go out wenching. Instead, he had built up one-and-twenty years of nerves.
But he had been raised to be a gentleman. Bedding a prostitute was a sin.Bedding anyone who was not his wife was a sin. And even when he had been tempted, the desires that took hold of his dreams…they had held him back, made him delay. Because they were too dark, too dangerous, too deviant.
Surrendering to temptation only leads to moral decay and eternal damnation, my son. Remember that always.
He attempted to shove away his mother’s words. But they lingered. They always did.
