Page 43 of To Pleasure a Prince

Drat him and all his questions. It was exceedingly difficult to discuss such things with a man who’d only moments before been tempting her to sin. “Eleven,” she snapped. “If you count Henry.”

“By all means, let’s count ‘Henry.’ And what’s so wrong with Whitmore that you refused him twice?”

The applause sounding in the house gave her an excuse not to answer. “Come on, we can’t wait any longer, no matter how your ardor is doing.”

“Believe me,” he retorted, as she opened the door, “my ardor is about as dampened now as a man’s can get.”

When Regina peeped out to find the passageway deserted, she nearly collapsed with relief. “Quickly now,” she murmured as she drew him out. “We’ll just tell Cicely and your sister that we were visiting old Lady Montgomery’s box. The countess is so forgetful that even if anyone asks, she’ll say we were there.” She cast him a small smile. “She likes me.”

“Everyone likes you, Regina,” he muttered.

“Even you?”

He had no chance to answer, for as they rounded a bend, they came face-to-face with Henry. And his brothers were with him, blocking the path and forcing her and Marcus to halt.

“Step aside, Whitmore,” Marcus ordered.

Henry glanced past them at the empty passageway, his face turning a mottled red. “The two of you have been in Foxmoor’s box all this time?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Regina said coolly. “We were visiting Lady Montgomery in her box.”

“Liar,” Henry said in a vile tone. “You’ve been with this blackguard. You won’t give me one minute alone with you, but you’ll let the Dragon Viscount—”

“I’d hold my tongue, if I were you,” Marcus broke in. “You’re speaking about a lady of impeccable reputation.”

“It won’t be so impeccable when people hear about this,” Henry retorted.

“Don’t be a fool, Henry,” Richard put in.

Before anyone could say another word, Marcus grabbed Henry by the throat and thrust the young lord up against a wall, his feet dangling off the ground.

“You will not say anything to anyone,” Marcus hissed into Henry’s face, which was already turning red as he struggled for air.

Drat men and their tempers. Praying that the passageway would stay empty another moment, Regina grabbed Marcus’s arm. “Lord Draker, put him down!”

She might as well pull on a lamppost, for Marcus didn’t even seem to notice. He shook Henry as easily as he might wring a chicken’s neck. “You won’t say a word, Whitmore. Because if I hear that you have, I will cut off your tongue and shove it down your goddamned throat. Do you understand me?”

The other two men gasped, as much at his speaking profanity in the presence of a woman as his threat of violence.

“Marcus!” Regina’s cheeks flamed. “For heaven’s sake, put him down!”

“Do you understand, you little ass?” Marcus slammed Henry against the wall. “Do you?”

Henry managed something like a nod, and Marcus released him abruptly. Henry crumpled to the floor like a hot-air balloon collapsing. As his brothers hurried to his side, her cousin pushed himself to his feet, and croaked, “You don’t fight like a gentleman, Draker.”

“No, I don’t,” Marcus growled. “See that you remember that the next time you think to drag a lady’s reputation through the mud.”

The man had lost his mind—did he really think such tactics would solve anything? He was lucky Henry was too big a coward to call him out. And though Henry might keep silent about her and Marcus, he would never keep silent about Marcus’s rough manner and coarse speech.

Marcus held out his arm to her. “Shall we go?”

The box doors burst open, spilling people into the corridor around them. She had no choice but to let him lead her away from her still-gaping cousins. As they navigated the halls her temper soared. Marcus had just made everything infinitely worse. Did he have no sense of how to behave in public? No understanding of the rules?

Either he had none, or he chose to ignore them. But why? She could not believe his mother hadn’t instilled some knowledge of appropriate behavior in him. So why did he ignore his upbringing at every turn?

He practically invited people to insult him. But their insults clearly bothered him, or why would he have been so snide last night when he’d thought she was cutting him? He was a proud man, yet he behaved in a manner sure to invite contempt and condemnation.

Then there was his behavior toward her. One moment he was sneering at her; the next he was kissing and caressing her with a tender passion that made her blood heat just to think of it. None of his actions made any sense.