Free The Last Hellion by Loretta Chase Page A

her for a few minutes. Then, "Men are such odd creatures," she said. "And I begin to think the Duke of Ainswood is one of the oddest. I cannot quite make out what he's about."
    "He's one of those people who can't abide peace and quiet," Lydia said. "If there isn't a stir, he has to make one. He constantly picks fights, even with his good friends. I'd thought people exaggerated about his troublemaking. But I've seen for myself. He can't let well enough alone. It wasn't enough to simply put me in the hackney and send me on my way, for instance. He must plague me all the way home as well. I'm not at all surprised that Dain pounded him a while back.
    Ainswood would try the patience of a saint."

    Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion
    "I had not heard Lord Dain was a saint," Tamsin said with a little chuckle. "From what I can gather, he and the duke are two sides of the same coin."
    "That may be, but Ainswood had no business picking a fight with him on his wedding night." Lydia scowled into the small mirror. "The brute might have considered Lady Dain's feelings at least."
    She didn't know why she was still so outraged about the mill in Amesbury.
    Dain was nothing to her except a very distant relative. Her mother had come from a lowly cadet branch of the Ballisters, and they'd ceased to admit her existence once she had married John Grenville. So far as Lydia knew, no living person was aware of her connection to the Ballisters, and she was determined to keep it that way. The trouble was, she couldn't keep herself from caring about Dain, though he was, as Tamsin said, Ainswood's match in wickedness.
    Lydia had stood outside St. George's Church, Hanover Square, on Dain's wedding day. Like her fellow journalists, she'd come only for the story. But when Dain had emerged from the church with his bride, his ebony eyes glowing in a most unsatanic way while his lady looked up so lovingly into his dark, harsh countenance… Well, the long and short of it was, Lydia had come perilously near bawling—in public, amid a crowd of her fellow reporters, no less.
    It was absurd, but she'd felt an aching affection for him ever since, and an even more ludicrous protectiveness.
    She'd been furious with Ainswood when she'd heard how he'd spoiled Dain's wedding night with the stupid brawl, and the anger lingered, against all reason.
    Tamsin's voice broke into her thoughts. "But the duke was highly intoxicated, wasn't he?"
    "If he could keep on his feet and utter coherent sentences, he couldn't have been as drunk as people seem to believe," Lydia said. "You have no idea the capacity Loretta Chase - The Last Hellion
    such men have for liquor, especially overgrown louts like Ainswood." Her eyes narrowed. "He was only pretending to be blind drunk. Just as he pretends to be stupid."
    "Yes, and that's what I meant about finding his behavior so odd," Tamsin said.
    "He isn't in the least inarticulate. Obviously, it wants a very quick intelligence to keep up verbal sparring with you, Lydia. If that had been a stupid man in the carriage, I'm sure you would have tied his tongue in knots. Instead…" She paused, frowning. "Well, it's difficult to say who won tonight's war of words."
    "It was a draw." Lydia took up her brush and angrily dragged it through her hair.
    "He had the last word, but that was only because of the push he gave me before I could answer. And shoving me was so childish, I could scarcely keep a straight face, let alone trust myself to say anything without going off into whoops."
    "Oh, look what you're doing!" Tamsin cried. "You'll be tearing out clumps of hair and making red welts in your skin." While she spoke, she came off the bed and crossed to the dressing table. "Let me do it."
    "You're not my maid."
    Tamsin took the brush from her. "If you're vexed with His Grace, you should not take it out on your own scalp."
    "He let Crenshaw get away," Lydia said tightly. "And now he'll make himself scarce, the swine, and Mary Bar-ties will have to go home