A Sinner without a Saint by Bliss Bennet

Author:Bliss Bennet [Bennet, Bliss]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

“Another dram, my lord?”

Dulcie lowered his glass and gazed about the Saybrook library, which earlier this Sunday morning had been filled with the gentlemen of Lincolnshire, gathered to raise a glass in celebration of the new Lord Saybrook’s birthday. But now, the room stood nearly empty, the visitors trickling out in dribs and drabs, either to return to their homes or to attend the fair taking place in neighboring Oldfield Village later in the day.

“No, thank you Parsons. I’ve need of a clear head this afternoon at the fete. I do hope Saybrook has relieved the staff of its duties for the rest of the day, so you may all attend the festivities.”

“Indeed he has, my lord. A sad day it would be, to miss the Oldfield Village Fair.” Parsons nodded, then moved away to gather the abandoned glasses that littered the scattered tables and fireplace mantel.

The plan to formally present Saybrook to his tenantry with a birthday celebration before the village fete had struck Dulcie as deliciously feudal. But Saybrook and his people had managed to pull it off without anyone, including the head of the family himself, appearing ridiculously out-of-fashion. Why, Saybrook had looked almost as comfortable taking the center of the stage as Dulcie would have been, if his father had ever thought to host such an event for his own son and tenants.

At twenty-one, though, when such events usually took place, Dulcie had decidedly not been in Lord Milne’s good graces. His father had hoped sending him to Oxford would cure him of his juvenile attraction to members of his own sex, yet temptation existed at university too, even as the privacy afforded a collegian made it all the easier to turn temptation into act. The sins Dulcie had only dreamed about at Harrow proved wickedly easy to indulge in at Oxford. And after his father had intercepted yet another note, this one not from a besotted boy but from the affronted uncle of an actual lover, a man who crudely demanded not Dulcie’s affection but Lord Milne’s money in exchange for his silence on the matter, he’d hardly been inclined to hold a coming-of-age ceremony for his disappointment of a son.

Since the excruciating shame of that day, Dulcie had never again been tempted to allow passion to take the reins over reason. Oh, he indulged his carnal urges, yes, but never with the same carelessness or abandon of his university days. And rarely with the same fellow for more than a fortnight or two. No incriminating love notes to betray him that way, and little risk of the wrong person noticing him paying undue attentions to any one man—safety in anonymity and perpetual variety, that was Dulcie’s creed.

Today, he saved his deepest passion for his favorite paintings. No one could feel shame at expressing regard for a Poussin or a Rembrandt. A lesson he would have taught George Norton, if this whole business with Benedict and Polly Adler had not disrupted his plans. Yes, young

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