Loretta Chase - The Devil's Delilah Read Free Page A

said the earl, without looking up. "Some of those with whom Desmond consorted in his wicked youth have died of their excesses. Those who survived are today men of prominence, highly respected. They will not take kindly to such an exposure of their youthful follies. If you are not careful, you will be sued for libel."
    "My Lord, I assure you — "
    Lord Streetham continued, unheeding, "Furthermore, libellous or not, there may be information that would destroy the peace of innocent families. We can't have that." His lordship sipped his wine with an air of piety.
    Mr. Atkins panicked. "Oh, My Lord. For fear of a few domestic squabbles you are prepared to deprive the world of these recollections? I promise you, they'll be pounding at the doors every time a new installment is announced. I beg of you, My Lord, reconsider." Tears formed in the publisher's eyes.
    Lord Streetham reflected for several agonising minutes while Mr. Atkins mopped his brow and waited.
    "Very well," said the earl at last. "It would be wrong to deprive the public. He has lived an extraordinary life. You may publish, if you can — but on one condition."
    "Anything, My Lord."
    "I must approve the material first. A bit of editing here and there will do no harm, and may spare some of my colleagues considerable pain."
    Having agreed to accept any condition, Mr. Atkins could hardly quarrel with this modest request. Some time later, however, as he took himself to bed, he bewailed the cruel fate that had brought Lord Streetham to this accursed inn. By the time his lordship had done "approving" Devil Desmond's memoirs, they'd look like a book of sermons, and Mr. Atkins would consider himself very fortunate if even the Methodists would buy them.

    Lord Streetham took to his own bed in bad humour. He might have known this would be a night of ill omen from the start, when his mistress had failed to appear. Then, when Desmond's chit had entered his private parlour, he'd mistaken her for the tart, and nearly had his claret spilled. After that, he'd narrowly escaped certain death at Devil Desmond's hands, had had to truckle to the monster — with Jack Langdon, the soul of rectitude, a witness to the whole tawdry scene. Worst of all were these curst memoirs, whose pages must surely reveal secrets of his own to the unsympathetic London mob.
    His lordship was not altogether easy in his mind about the publisher, either. The choice between certain success and certain ruin is not a difficult one, and a desperate man is not a patient one. Suppose Atkins betrayed him, and made off with the manuscript? Suppose, even if he didn't, the book was so scurrilous that editing would not be enough? Perhaps it were safest to destroy the work altogether. With these and hosts of other, equally unsettling questions did Lord Streetham while away the long, dreary night.
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    Chapter 2

    Hoping once again to avoid his fellow travellers, Jack stole out of his room shortly after dawn. As he was about to turn the corner towards the stairs, there came a noise from a room nearby. Jack glanced back at the precise instant that another gentleman came hurrying around the corner. The two collided, and Mr. Langdon was sent staggering against the wall.
    "Drat — so sorr — Jack!" exclaimed the gentleman. "Is that you, truly?"
    He reached out a hand to help, but Jack had swiftly recovered his balance, though he was still rather dazed. He glanced up into what most women would have described as the face of an angel. It was a face that might have been painted by Botticelli, so classically beautiful were its proportions, so finely chiseled every feature, so clear, blue, and innocent its eyes, so golden the halo of curls that crowned it.
    This, however, was not only the face of a mortal man, but of a most unseraphic member of that gender. Lord Streetham's son, the Viscount Berne, was well on his way to becoming the most dangerous libertine the British peerage had ever produced. He was also Jack's oldest