My Wicked Marquess Read Free

Inferno Club, he was at a particular disadvantage in his new quest.
    But, no matter. He knew how to woo human nature. He would soon have Society eating out of his hand, for he knew exactly what line of attack would deliver him to his desired destination with swiftest efficiency.
    In a word: marriage.
    The right sort of bride was the perfect instrument to help him begin reversing the dark fame of the Rotherstone lords.And so, a new hunt was on—this time, not for an enemy agent. His new mission was to find a wife.
    Which did not at all explain what he was doing here.
    From a strictly logical standpoint, he was just wasting his time. Obviously, he could not choose Daphne Starling, the last name on his handy list.
    And yet, after reading her file, he had been unable to resist the temptation. He’d been compelled to come here today, merely to have a quick look at the girl.
    There could be no harm in that, surely.
    Once he had satisfied his curiosity, Max was sure he would go back home and make the right choice, probably the bishop’s excessively virtuous daughter. Or, perhaps, the “spirited” horsewoman—he could not abide a shrinking violet. He would not pick the little sixteen-year-old, of course, since he was nearly old enough to be her father, but any of the others would do, as long as they weren’t Daphne Starling.
    One scandalous soul in the family would be quite enough, and that distinction already belonged to him. He needed a wife with a gleaming good reputation to counteract his own wicked one.
    Personally, Max did not give a damn what anyone thought about him, but he was adamant that his future children not be semi-outcasts in the world as he had been. Repairing his clan’s reputation meant giving his heirs every advantage in life. The great fortune that he had painstakingly built over the past decade was only half the equation: Money alone could buy neither respect nor true belonging in London society. The great merchant families could attest to that.
    No, it was key that he choose a wife, and a mother for his little future Rotherstones, who sprang from impeccable bloodlines and was a certified darling of the ton.
    Until quite recently, Miss Starling had fit the bill. But now with her present troubles, Max mused, Oliver had been quite right in suggesting that he cross her off his bride list straightaway.
    Max’s initial interest in her was naught but a lark, anyway. At least that’s what he kept telling himself. It had beensparked when he had turned over the bride list and had read his solicitor’s postscript.
    Max had been astonished, and then had laughed aloud to discover that her jilted suitor was none other than his boyhood archenemy.
    Albert bloody Carew.
    He shook his head in sardonic amusement, still staring out the window, waiting for her to come out of the orphanage, and ignoring the harlot, who was now massaging his shoulders and stroking his hair and doing everything in her power to try to get herself bedded.
    Dear old Alby! Ah, God . Max would’ve liked to say that after twenty years, now a grown man, he would’ve forgotten all about his boyhood nemesis and their ferocious rivalry, but, unfortunately, he remembered him all too well.
    The Carew brothers were the sons of the previous Duke of Holyfield; his obscenely wealthy neighbors had lived on the next estate out in the country where he had grown up in Worcestershire. Except for Hayden, the timid eldest, now the current duke, they had been a pack of little horrors growing up, and beating up on Max had been their favorite pastime.
    It was a convenient sport for them, as well, since their palatial home had sat not far from his own father’s crumbling country manor. Max had had to walk past the duke’s land each day on his way to his old tutor’s cottage.
    Most days, he’d been ambushed near the cow pasture or by the old pine grove.
    Albert, the second-born and leader of the younger ones, had