Page 2 of Heartbreaker of the Ton
She rose to her feet. “You would mock me, given the love we share?”
“Love? Ha!” he cried, not moving to stand. “Our difference in rank renders you so far beneath me as to be hardly worth my notice, but I will concede that we are alike in one aspect.”
Why was he not standing? Throughout their courtship he’d been the epitome of gentlemanly grace—offering her his arm while they promenaded, barking orders at his footmen to fetch an umbrella for her when it had begun to rain, dismissing the same footman when he’d failed to show her due reverence. He’d even draped his jacket over a puddle to save her having to veer onto the wet grass.
So why, then, was he not standing in the presence of a lady?
“Are you not pleased, Your Grace?” she asked.
“Pleased?” he scoffed. “I ought to be affronted, but I am disposed to be amused.”
Affronted? Amused?
And he wasstillsitting!
“Your Grace, I don’t intend to amuse,” she said. “Perhaps you should request an audience with my father.”
“What for?” He laughed. “Do you wish me to commiserate him on his misfortune?”
“His misfortune?”
He leaned back in his chair and crossed his ankles. “The whole of London knows that Sir Leonard Howard’s elder daughter is an imbecile, for all that she attracted the hand of a duke—out of pity, no doubt. And now, the younger daughter is proven to be a whore.”
She recoiled at the insult. “How dare—”
“Spare me the indignation, madam,” he said. “Do you think me a fool? Did you think I’d offer for you merely because you spread your legs and offered your cunny?”
Tears stung her eyes. “I-I did no such thing!” She blinked, and a droplet splashed onto her cheek. “You seduced me. You told me I was the most delectable…”
“Oh, spare me the tears, please!” he huffed. “A woman should know when to keep her legs open and her mouth shut. There’snothing more distasteful to a man than a slut who clings on like a leech.”
“I’m not a…”
“By your own admission youare, Miss Howard,” he snarled. “A filthy whore who, no doubt, thought she could entrap me into marriage by offering her body, then decided to up the ante and fuck her way through London in an attempt to appeal to my desire for an heir.”
He gripped the arms of his chair, then heaved his body up until he stood before her. She cringed at the stench of sour breath and the distaste in his eyes.
“You’ll findmethe superior player, madam. I have no intention of shackling myself to an ambitious little slut whose lineage is tainted by the stench of the shop.”
“My mother was a viscount’s—”
“It matters not whose daughter your mother is,” he said. “She tainted her family name by shackling herself to a commoner. I’ve no intention of taintingmyname by doing the same. Now, I think it’s time you left.”
“But—”
“Leave, madam, or I’ll have you thrown out like the blackmailing tart that you are.”
“I’m no—”
“You spread your legs to entrap a duke into matrimony, hoping to establish some other man’s by-blow as the future Duke of Dunton. Imagine what the gossipmongers would have to say about that?”
Her gut twisted in horror. “You wouldn’t!”
He smiled, his eyes glittering in his fleshy, pasty face. “I’ll be generous and refrain from warning my acquaintance of your sinful ways, provided that you leave now, and make sure that I never set eyes on you again.” He sauntered toward the bellpullby the fireplace, his ungainly body rolling from side to side with each footstep. “I’ll have Thomas show you out.”
Thomas—the brutish footman who always lingered about Dunton’s lodgings, whose eyes darkened with lust each time he looked at Etty.
“Thomas might be disposed to take my leavings,” Dunton said. “What do you say? I daresay there’s a shilling in it for you.”
