The Wolf of Mayfair

I wish that all those, who on this night are not merry enough to speak before they think, may ever after be grave enough to think before they speak!

—Ann Radcliffe, The Italian

“A visitor has arrived, my lord.”

While the rest of Polite Society departed for the winter months, ensconcing themselves in their cozy country estates, the Marquess of Wingrave took refuge in London. It spared him the tediousness of being shut away with his family, the annoyance of putting up with the domineering influence of his father, the Duke of Talbert.

When the duke left and took his subservient wife with him, Wingrave remained in this coveted residence and envisaged a time when it would belong to him—when all of it would.

Few things fired his lust more, though much did.

Conveniently, in remaining in London, Wingrave found there was no end to the debauched pleasures awaiting him.

Leaning over the billiards table, he assessed the green velvet surface for his next shot.

“A visitor has arrived, my lord.”

“I heard you the first time.” He drew back his cue and propelled it effortlessly forward.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught the mottled color splotching the stout fellow’s big cheeks. “I thought you might care—”

“I don’t.” Wingrave didn’t care about anything or anyone. The world knew that. Apparently, however, his family’s recently hired butler had not received the memorandum.

“This particular visitor claims to have business here—”

“I’m not expecting anyone.”

“No, she indicated as much.”

She.

His curiosity picked up. Over the years, there’d been any number of bold widows, married ladies, and lusty mamas who’d sought him out. Always in his bachelor’s residence, though—never the ducal townhouse.

Now, that was a titillating prospect. An image slipped forth: of him and some wanton fucking in every room, in every bed, on every table, until Wingrave had succeeded in marking this place thoroughly and completely his.

He went hard.

The other man finally had his attention.

“A lady of the night?”

The servant dissolved into a choking fit. “N-no, my lord. I’d never dare let such a person in the ducal household.”

Wingrave’s erection wilted in an instant. “As long as I’m here, I am in charge. I do not care if the most notorious trollop on God’s green earth arrives naked on my doorstep, you’ll let me decide whether she remains or goes. You’d do well to remember that. For someday,” he whispered icily, “this residence will belong to me. And your employment? Will depend on me. Is that clear?”

His butler gave a juddering nod. “Y-yes, my lord,” he croaked. “It i-is understood. As I said your current visitor is no lady of the night, but rather a lady.” The young man’s voice slipped to a whisper, like the latter was the more scandalous of the two possibilities.

And in a way, it was.

“A lusty widow then?” Wingrave snapped.

Color set the other man’s cheeks aflame. “I . . . would not know, m-my lord,” he stammered.

Wingrave smiled coldly. “Oh, you’d know.” From their state of dress—or undress—they were easier to identify than a whore in church.

“I . . . She is young. A very young lady.”

A young lady seeking him out in his familial residence? Curious, that. Not curious enough for Wingrave to care—especially for some innocent miss who’d made the mistake of visiting his doorstep. For all his well-earned reputation as society’s most notorious rake, he’d never been so caddish as to bed a virgin.

He did a slow walk about the table. All the while he lazily contemplated the billiard balls scattered upon the green velvet surface.

He’d little interest in virgins’ simpering and tears, and he had even less interest in training those creatures for the future use of other men, who’d benefit from the largesse of Wingrave’s efforts.

No, he wanted the women he took as lovers to be skilled and possessed of as insatiable an appetite as him—though that invariably proved a rare feat.

Leaning an elbow against the rose, Wingrave launched another effortless shot that ricocheted off the back center of the table and landed in the opposite pocket.

“You’re still here,” he said, infusing a steely warning into that observation.

The servant cleared his throat. “Y-yes.”

The fool didn’t say anything more than that.

“Get rid of her,” Wingrave snapped.

“Y-yes, my l-lord. It is just . . . the lady is not here to see you, my lord.”

It took a moment to register that the butler not only remained but that he did so and continued to speak about the nighttime visitor at Horace House.

At last, Wingrave looked up at the annoyingly tenacious servant.

“The lady is here to see the Duke and Duchess of Talbert.”

Ahh. “You should have led with that. I care even less about the chit’s identity and presence here. The duke and duchess have retired to Bedford Manor, so direct her there.”

The servant’s face turned a deeper shade of crimson. “Yes, but there is a storm brewing, my lord.”

Still poised to spring his next shot, Wingrave looked across the table and winged an eyebrow up. “Which is something you believe I care about?” he drawled mockingly.

“No, my lord?”

“No. That is the first right thing you’ve said this evening.” He lifted his glass in a jeering salute to the stammering fellow and took a welcome swallow of the subtly sweet brandy.

The butler beamed like he’d been given a raise for good services rendered.

“Do you know what you should care about?” Wingrave asked the grinning hireling.

Even the huge shake the butler gave of his head couldn’t dislodge the brown hair he’d combed to the right and heavily slicked with pomade.

“Your employment. That is what you should care about—”

“I believe she is a ward of His and Her Grace,” the servant beseeched.

Good God, the man wouldn’t quit. As Wingrave saw it, he had two options before him: one, sack the servant, but then he’d be without a head of the household staff and, for that matter, required to expend energy to find a new one. And two, handle the man’s job for him, so he could enjoy his goddamned game and brandy.

“Where is she?”

“In the foyer,” the butler said quickly. The man’s previously tense shoulders sagged with a visible relief.

Wingrave returned his cue to the wall mount and went and collected his snifter. He thought better of it, grabbed the nearby decanter of brandy, and set down his half-empty glass.

With bottle in hand, Wingrave quit the billiards room.

As he strode the wide, red-velvet-carpeted halls, the butler trotted behind him like a small, obnoxious, obedient pup that tried to keep up with its master.

“Does she have a name?” Wingrave asked, without breaking stride.

“Not that I’m aware of. That is . . . I’m certain she does have a name, just not one—”

Wingrave’s low growl cut off the remainder of that damning admission. “Let me see if I have this correct.”

He stopped quickly and his slow-witted servant caught himself just before he would have stumbled into Wingrave. “You allowed some stranger, whose name you did not collect and whose identity is unknown, into the ducal residence on the basis of her claims that she has some connection to the duke and duchess?”

The man’s pallor turned a deathly shade of white. “I . . .”

“What proof did she give you? What official papers did she provide?”

“None,” the nervous servant whispered.

“None,” Wingrave repeated flatly. For centuries, the legacy, power, wealth, and influence that came with a dukedom dating back to William the Conqueror had ushered in all manner of graspers who sought whatever scraps they could through the family’s benevolence.

Every last one of them had learned the Blofields didn’t possess a shred of munificence in their cold-blooded bodies.

This latest parasite would be no exception.

Wingrave approached the foyer. He found her in an instant.

Diminutive and swallowed up by a too-big, tattered cloak, the lady stood in the middle of the black-and-white checkered floor. She’d tilted her neck so far back to view the fresco overhead, she’d knocked her hood loose, which left Wingrave an unhindered view of his visitor.

He did a cursory examination.

The young woman’s titian hair hung in a messy tangle down her back. What must be a thousand freckles or more smattered naturally plump cheeks, a dimpled chin, and a straight nose.

Yes, she was certainly no woman he’d ever kept company with, nor ever would. Furthermore, a bedraggled waif such as she certainly held no connection to the selective duke and duchess.

“This is the trespasser?” Wingrave drawled. His voice echoed in the cavernous three-story entryway and brought the lady whipping around.

She looked at him, and her pathetically revealing eyes flashed with recognition that quickly sapped the blood from her cheeks.

Yes, his reputation as a rake preceded him.

When his bumbling butler failed to form a response, he pinned his focus on the trembling creature before him.

Fear flashed in her eyes. “I’m nah a trespasser, my lord,” she whispered.

He leveled her with a look. “Do I know you?”

She dampened big, pillowy, soft lips made for a man’s cock. “N-nay?”

“Is that a question?” he jeered.

The long white, freckled column of her neck warbled. She drew in a breath. “Nay,” she said. “It was not a question but an answer. I do not ken ye.”

Wingrave did another assessment of the lady. She’d more courage than his servant, though that was hardly a feat for even the smallest babe.

He turned his attention away from the trembling chit. “She’s a wide-eyed miss. You couldn’t throw a damned slip of a woman out?”

“I . . . could not,” the head of the household staff said, his features as strained as his tone.

Wingrave let free a sound of disgust. “I should sack you.”

His butler appeared one utterance away from dissolving into tears.

Wingrave had opened his mouth to see it so when, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a rustle and flash of skirts.

The brave—or stupid—chit placed herself between him and his butler.

If he were a man given to humor and laughter, this waif defending a grown man, more than a foot taller than her, would certainly have moved him to mirth.

The fool brought her palms up as if in supplication. “Please, do not punish him,” she pleaded.

His lip drew back in a reflexive sneer. He despised little more than those pitiable souls who cowered and beseeched.

“Why shouldn’t I?” he demanded silkily.

As if the wench realized too late she’d drawn the attention and wrath of a dragon, she retreated a step.

Of course she did. Wingrave had yet to meet a soul unafraid of him or having his anger turned on them.

“It is not his fault.”

So unaccustomed to people uttering a single contrary word in his presence, it was a moment before Wingrave registered that faintest and most defiant of whispers.

Wingrave turned all his undivided, wrathful attention on the one most deserving of his displeasure—the woman who’d dared force her way inside his kingdom.

“No, it isn’t, is it?” he purred. “Then tell me, who should bear the blame for my anger this night?”

The freckled place between the lady’s brows came together into a fear-filled little furrow.

Ah, she’d realized too late then that silence had been her safest course.

His butler, on the other hand, wisely dissolved into the shadows and allowed the braver one who’d defended him to take on Wingrave’s wrath.

Wingrave didn’t suffer cowards.

He suffered fools even less.

The waif before him retained eye contact. The noisy whir of her skirts and cloak, on the other hand, betrayed her attempt at intrepid warrioress.

“You demanded to see me,” he said coolly. With a flourish, Wingrave spread his arms wide. “Well, you have my full, undivided attention.”