Page 50 of To Pleasure a Prince

“Oh? Then why does she ask me so many personal questions about you?”

He caught his breath. “Like what?”

“Where you went to school. Why you won’t spend money on clothes.” She arched an eyebrow. “If you’ve always been such a grump.”

That a respectable woman,anywoman, would ask about him stunned him. Yes, Regina had responded to his kisses, but he’d never guessed she might be interested in him otherwise. The possibility intrigued him. Which made it dangerous. “What did you tell her?”

“You’ll have to askher.I would never relate a private conversation.”

“You just related—” He bit back a curse, fighting the urge to take his sister over his knee for the first time in his life. “Never mind. I don’t care what you gossiping females said behind my back.”

She sighed. “Oh, Marcus, I know you like her. Why not apologize? Do what you must to get her back?”

“I am not apologizing to that harpy!” Not if he could help it. He couldn’t do much about Regina, but he could damned well control his sister. “Regardless of the situation between Regina and me, you are not to see Foxmoor.”

She thrust her chin out mutinously. “No?”

“No,” he said firmly. “And that is my final word on the subject.”

“I see.”

His eyes narrowed. “You will obey me in this.”

“Of course. Whatever you say.”

“No protests?” he said uneasily. “No objections?”

“None.” She cast him a distinctly Regina-like smile, and his blood ran cold.

She’ll resent you even more for your stubbornness,Regina had told him at Castlemaine,which will give her justification for deceiving you at every turn.

God help him. Louisa would do it, too. Being out in society had emboldened her. If he stopped going about with her in London, he’d have only the Iversleys to rely on—who were absorbed with their new marriage and their new baby and who weren’t entirely convinced that his concerns about Foxmoor were valid.

Damn, damn, damn.

He could join them in chaperoning Louisa, but that meant going into society and seeing Regina at every party, with sycophants like that confounded Whitmore slobbering at her feet. He’d rather have his fingernails removed with pincers.

Not that he could get himself invited to the parties Louisa would want to attend, anyway. Although his association with Regina had garnered him an invitation or two, those would dry up as soon as she asked her friends to stop inviting him.

Which brought him back to relying on the Iversleys to watch Louisa.

He gritted his teeth. Too bad he couldn’t lock his sister in the dungeon. But Regina was liable to find out and engineer her escape, then give the girl refuge in her own home.Foxmoor’shome. Better to have his enemies right under his nose where he could keep an eye on them.

Perhaps it was time to change his tactics. His first plan hadn’t worked the way he’d wanted; Louisa was still on Regina’s side. And if Regina told his sister that she’d thrown him over because he was some drooling idiot who didn’t know “gentlemanly deportment,” Louisa would make his life hell. Or they’d both join forces against him, God forbid.

A “proper” courtship might be more effective. He could keep an eye on Simon and Louisa more easily if he wasn’t always trying to infuriate Regina, and the result would be the same in the end. Because if he behaved like a gentleman and Lady Lofty saw that society condemned him anyway, she would still break with him.

But Louisa wouldn’t be able to blamehimfor it. Once she saw Regina heartlessly spurning him despite his efforts to please, Louisa would surely side with him. Then she’d break with Simon, too, for how could she let him court her after his sister had mistreated Marcus?

“All right, you win,” he said. “I’ll get Lady Regina back.”

“And Simon can still court me?”

Her hopeful expression made him groan. “For the moment.”

With any luck, his new plan would put her squarely on his side. If it didn’t, he just might have to resort to his dungeon after all.

Perhaps he should put Regina in it, instead of his sister. A variation on his dream last night flitted through his mind—Regina locked up in his dungeon, offering to do anything that might please him. Regina kneeling at his feet, her hair tumbled about her shoulders, her siren’s mouth begging him to take her to his bed. Regina naked, without a harp to shield her from his gaze—