Virtuous Scoundrel (The Regency Romp Trilogy Book 2) by Maggie Fenton

Author:Maggie Fenton [Fenton, Maggie]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Published: 2015-10-05T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eleven

In Which the Bad French Melodrama Rears Its Ugly Head Yet Again, for Which the Author Apologizes in Advance

AFTER A SLEEPLESS night spent alternately reeling from Katherine’s rebuff and plotting a way into her good graces, Sebastian emerged from his early morning toilette in the possession of a tentative course of action and relatively high spirits, all things considered. Seduction had clearly been premature, so he’d pull back on the reins a bit and go with good old-fashioned romance, even though that word shot a shudder of dread straight through his jaded soul.

She had not believed his declaration of love, believed him still to be little more than a philandering cad, and certainly not suitable material for a serious relationship. But that was his fault, wasn’t it? For years he had cultivated just such a black reputation, had never bothered to refute the erroneous gossip—had, in fact, shielded himself behind the lies. He’d been a coward through and through, but his virtue had been like an albatross around his neck, too shameful in its origin to ever be something he could truly be proud of. He’d always preferred the ridiculous fiction.

Until now. First the Blanchard affair had nearly cost him his life, and now . . . now this. This dreadful misunderstanding of his character that threatened to take away all that made his life worth living.

But all was not lost. She’d not kicked him out on his arse yet, an auspicious sign. And she had responded to his ham-fisted seduction, even initiated some of it before coming to her senses. He had a chance.

He didn’t look half bad as he studied his reflection in the mirror, armed to the teeth in his brocade and buckskins. Crick had scrubbed him raw in the bath, shaved his face, and trimmed up his Brutus cut until his curls had achieved just the right air of whimsy. He’d dressed him in his favorite jacket of blue silk brocade and spent an hour tying his cravat until it was perfect in its artful dishevelment. Sebastian looked very nearly presentable.

Aside from the two black eyes, swollen jawline, and split lip.

Well, he had looked better. But his appearance was not about to stop him from his errands. A plague couldn’t have stopped him.

He was out the door by daybreak, Mongrel the only other resident of the household awake to notice his departure. She had not been happy about it, judging from her barking, but he was off in a phaeton Crick had nicked from Montford’s stables before Mongrel had aroused suspicion.

His early start, however, had rather overshot the mark, as he discovered when he arrived on New Bond Street to find all of the shops aside from the florist’s still closed. After loitering behind a bucket full of towering, exotic gladiolus fronds until the shopkeeper began sending pointed looks in his direction, he ordered his bouquet of red hothouse tulips, which Crick had assured him meant “perfect love” in the so-called language of flowers

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