The Trouble With Being Wicked by Emma Locke

Author:Emma Locke [Locke, Emma]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 098545587X
Amazon: B00AM1D766
Publisher: Intrepid Reads
Published: 2012-12-08T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eighteen

Three days later, Ash was of an entirely different mind. He’d had days to reconsider. To wish it was Miss Smythe he looked forward to, not some soulless Jezebel. Days to ask himself why he was doing this at all.

He’d gone to his sisters’ come out. Danced with them and played the gallant, but all the while he’d been waiting for midnight. Now, just after half two, a bottle of brandy kept him company while he drew up the courage to keep his assignation.

After a time it heard his secrets. Soon, it had heard too much. He tossed it into the fire. Lust should have burned in his loins. Instead, he felt all the excitement of a pile of sawdust.

The exquisite countess awaiting him was a prostitute. Nothing more. They would copulate and he would leave. In a few hours he’d be here alone, again, a shell of a man who had driven himself to deeds he barely understood. A man who wanted Miss Smythe—nay, Celeste Gray—with the consuming fire of a thousand suns.

He instantly regretted the loss of the bottle. At least a mouthful of brandy had swirled in the bottom of the vessel, a mouthful he desperately needed. It burned in a pretty blue flame that mocked him. Should he call for another bottle? Render himself incapable of an act he had no wish to perform?

He laughed bitterly. Wouldn’t impotence make an excellent rumor?

He was hardly impotent, however. He was painfully aware of his virility. He wanted release. Badly. Seven years was a long time to go without a woman. But no one could compare to the woman in his mind, not even Celeste herself. And so the question remained. How could one shameful night with a slattern sate him?

Ash lifted an empty crystal snifter and turned it idly in his hand, examining it for defects. He’d known she’d left Devon. He’d known she’d be here, and expected he would see her eventually. Why hadn’t he seen her yet? Where was she? She’d departed for London before he and his sisters had done. No explanation, no apology. Just packed her things and left.

People didn’t just leave. It was highly inconsiderate. God, he was a little foxed, wasn’t he? Why had she left? Had he made her flee? Had he railed at her until her only recourse was to leave? Even if he had, he deserved an explanation. People shouldn’t be allowed to just disappear.

An idea pushed its way through the mental fog that was his drunken brain. Why was he sitting here waiting to go to a strumpet he didn’t want, when he could be getting what he most desired from the one he did? He had made Celeste flee. And if it was his fault she had run, he could get her back.

At least for a night. That should be enough. Shouldn’t it?

He refused to wonder what he would do if it wasn’t.

His carriage awaited. He could use it to go anywhere he damn well pleased. And he knew precisely the address he wanted to give.

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