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“Milord, if I might take the liberty of reminding you,” said his secretary with a sigh, “you perform acts that could be termed exceedingly boneheaded all of the time.”

“I won’t step into the parson’s mousetrap with some girl I’ve spoken with twice.

No matter how much my stepmother wishes me to.

” Penrydd’s leather boots thudded on the wooden floor of the tavern parlor as he swung them off the horsehair chair he’d been lounging in. “What time is it? And where’s my rum?”

“It is half six in the afternoon and far too early to begin imbibing. But it is past time we dealt with your correspondence. Sir.” Ross tapped his finger on the stack of vellum and foolscap spread over the small table where he sat.

“Bah. I pay you to deal with my correspondence. And deliver my rations of grog.” Penrydd glared. “Don’t leave off the lime this time.”

The secretary rolled his eyes but held his tongue, and Penrydd was glad he wouldn’t have to endure yet another lecture.

His old navy compatriots poked fun at Pen’s affection for the watered rum they’d been rationed aboard ship, flavored with sugar and, when Spain’s blasted alliance with France made lemons as well as many other goods hard to come by, the splash of lime juice that prevented scurvy.

The noblemen he knew drank brandy or, if they wanted to be cultured, bourbon. They bought Champagne and Madeira from free traders who had evaded the import tax. They drank cider and sherry and beer.

Penrydd enjoyed those, too, but he liked his rum.

Fortunately, he didn’t have to begin bellowing or throwing things around, as he’d been obliged to do yesterday to make his point with Ross, who liked all too well to bully him.

A scratch at the door announced a young man bearing a tray with Penrydd’s glass.

He swiped it up and swallowed a long draught and, instantly, the chafing settled.

The tremor in his hands ceased, the ache in his head receded, the nervous, fretful feeling changed to one of brief well-being.

And the constant bite of pain faded for one blessed moment.

He thought of it as teeth sinking into him.

Sometimes it was the teeth of a rat, needle-sharp and annoying.

Sometimes it was the teeth of a donkey, a blunt and ever-present pressure.

And sometimes it was the teeth of a huge cat like the sailors who had been to India described, the tigers bigger than a man who could take off a limb with one snap.

He wished he could be eaten by a tiger. It would put a swift, tidy end to all the ills that plagued him.

“Where’s my dinner?” He eyed the servant. “You might bring more grog with it.”

“I won’t feed you until you’ve finished with these letters,” Ross said.

Penrydd rubbed his chest. The rum dulled the aches, but his demons never released their grip. “Aren’t I supposed to be giving orders to you ?”

“You pay me to get the work done,” Ross answered, “and unfortunately I cannot do that until?—”

“Dinner,” Penrydd snarled, slamming his empty glass on the tray of the young boy, who reared back in alarm.

“I want a thick flank steak, not burned through as it was yesterday, and in a sauce that’s a few more degrees above freezing.

And leave off anything fancy, or leafy, or green. I won’t have French fare at my table.”

He glared at the lad, who turned pale. Where was the sweet-faced maid who’d brought his meals yesterday?

She’d caught him appreciating her bosom and had given him a saucy wink.

He liked a woman who knew what she was about.

If a girl was going to put her best wares in the front window, she deserved to have a man enjoy the display.

“They’s a gel ’ere to see ye, milor’,” the boy stammered, backing toward the door.

Pen brightened. “Did you find me a companion for this eve, Ross? Turbeville had his ladybird with him last night, and it was deuced annoying to be the odd man out.”

“I regret to say, sir, I did not have time for the effort. I had other matters demanding my attention. Like your correspondence,” Ross said through gritted teeth.

“You couldn’t find one bit of fluff? In a town the size of Bristol?” Pen scowled at his worthless secretary. His fingers itched for a second glass of grog.

“I am not your procurer, sir,” Ross said. “If you desire female company, then you might have taken up the invitation to stay with Mr. Turbeville.”

“Aye, and have all three of his sisters lined up at the table like mares at market, and his mother ready to toss on the leg-shackle the moment my gaze alights.” Penrydd kneaded his ever-aching shoulder. “I’d rather pay them to go away when we’re done.”

“Send ’er up, shall I?” The boy scooted out the door, tail end first. “Right, then!”

Ross tapped the table. “We should also discuss the matter of finding you a valet for your stay with Mr. Vaughn, since the one you brought from London peeled off without notice.”

“I’ll use Vaughn’s and count myself lucky to be shot of the blighter.

” Pen threw himself back in the stiff chair.

It couldn’t be that he was particularly hard to work with.

All his cronies, the titled lords and the gentlemen’s sons and the worthless hangers-on looking for a leg up, all of them complained about how difficult it was to find and keep reliable servants.

If they weren’t sneaking the liquor or feeling up maids in the pantry, they were filching a man’s valuables and spending too much time at the pub.

Pen had to admit that, if he’d had the damnable luck to have to work for his living, he’d likely be guilty of the same.

But he was a viscount now, the biggest joke yet that an evil-humored Creator had played upon him.

A peer of the bloody British realm, with bloody lesser titles and all sorts of properties he now had to look after, including a bloody estate in Britain’s back-end, Wales, where there were bloody tenants he had to see to and a handful of crumbling bloody ruins that he had to rid himself of to pay the debts his brother had left behind.

Didn’t he hire men to deal with his confounded business so he could concern himself with more important things?

Like blunting the pain before it made him a beast. And dedicating himself to the pursuits of a gentleman in the manner of their good Prince George: drinking, wenching, gambling, riding to hounds, and indulging to excess any pleasures that tumbled across his path.

Small enough pleasure in the world otherwise.

He did not intend to cave to his stepmother’s demand that he marry some milky white-livered maiden and breed mewling brats, nor sire a small Penrydd who would grow up to humiliate and defy him in the exact ways he had defied and humiliated his father.

Not even if she brought a dowry that might make his brother’s bad investments disappear.

Being blown to bits on the beach at Tenerife had put paid to any debt Pen might have owed to his nation, his family, his bloodline, or his class.

War had taught him that there was no honor, no higher purpose. He was nothing but a motile, highly destructible piece of flesh. And he meant to enjoy every sensory pleasure this flesh could afford before the next cruel prank of the universe sent him to oblivion.

“Lord Penrydd?”

Pen’s boots hit the floor again as he sat up. Speaking of pleasure. His capricious God had consented to smile on him for once. The most exquisite female-shaped creature he had ever beheld stood at the parlor door.

She wasn’t dressed like a lady of the night.

Her petticoat was clean and white, over it a gown of buttermilk muslin trailing vines of red flowers.

It was a quaint style, quite outdated, but one that followed a woman’s curves.

A delicate lace crossed her bodice, tied at her back.

He wanted to unwrap her, like a present.

An absurd cap of lace and silk roses covered curls of a dusty brown, the color of the paths at his favorite hunting property when they had baked in the sunlight on a summer afternoon.

Her face was extraordinary. She didn’t have the pasty complexion of a woman who never went about in the sun, rather a healthy glow and the tiniest dusting of freckles along a nose that suggested a personality both strong and pert.

Independently the wide thick-lashed eyes, high cheekbones, lush lips, and arrowed jaw were pleasing yet unremarkable, but put together, the effect was mesmerizing.

“Fifty pounds,” Pen blurted.

Her eyes rounded in surprise. They were some shifting, undefined color, the grey-green of the sea on a cloudy morning. Was she worth more? “A night,” he added. He’d pay anything. He wasn’t even going to pretend to negotiate.

Ross raised his thick brows. Pen ignored him, as usual.

“A night ?” Her voice rang clear and fine, trained, the voice of a singer. But her tone held dismay. The lace over her bosom fluttered as she put a hand there. Long, delicate fingers, a fine-boned wrist with an elegant turn. He stared at her hands and imagined them trailing over his skin.

His rough, scarred, contemptible skin. “Not enough? Name your price.”

“I hadn’t arrived at a number, actually. I suppose I ought to have asked Mr. Barlow.”

Who was Barlow? Her flesh broker? Her go between? Pen envied the man who had any hold over her. But she had a proud tilt to her head, that of an independent woman who answered to no one. He’d make her forget Barlow. He’d make her forget everything but her name. What was her name?

“In truth, I’m not certain what the going rate for such things is,” she said.