He tipped his glass and finished the final swallow, then rose to sway toward the sideboard, where the bottle waited.

After soaking away a night of lilacs, musk, and depravity, Chatham lounged in his rooms on the third floor of the club, enjoying the darkness supplied by heavy draperies, the false luxury of a gold-painted mirror, and the sting of illicit whisky burning his throat and stomach. Why don’t you summon a bottle of whisky and a bath? There’s a good man.” Within an hour, Shaw had done just that, adding a tray of sliced tenderloin and warm bread from Reaver’s French cook. Shall I summon a physician or an undertaker?” Chatham’s lips quirked. The lean, brown-skinned man arched black brows and commented with tact and delicacy, “You are appallingly gray, my lord. But already, he had been forced to sell everything his father had not. It was true that, as a peer, Chatham could not be tossed into debtor’s prison. Left his son, the disgrace, to claim the title and inherit every bloody bad decision the previous Rutherford had made, more debt than he could possibly pay in a lifetime. Until apoplexy had seized his father in its grip and sent the second Marquess of Rutherford to join his first wife in the hereafter. Knightley, he had lived quite comfortably for seven years. Between gaming and benefactresses such as Mrs. Chatham did not often lose at the gaming tables, but then, he’d always had a way with numbers. Many young lords and spares had lost entire fortunes within Reaver’s gilded walls, and some were rather fond of their dueling pistols. While he collected those of his patrons, he guarded his own jealously. As the owner of a decadent club catering to gentlemen’s thirst for risk and luxury, Sebastian Reaver understood the value of secrets. From his perspective in the chair opposite her bed, Chatham fancied her a perverse painting. He raised his glass to her then tossed back another burning slide of whisky. Little wonder you are my favorite.” Lazily, he eyed red-flushed buttocks, a poured-cream back, a blond cascade tossed artfully over one shoulder, and lips swollen with three hours of satisfaction. Knightley from her tangled nest of bedding. The skin like cream poured from a pitcher. MaLondon Something about a woman’s naked back beguiled Benedict Chatham. If that were so, Parliament would be forced to devote every session to such declarations, leaving no time at all for ruining the empire.” -The Dowager Marchioness of Wallingham to Lady Gattingford upon said lady’s musings about the scandalous new Marquess of Rutherford. “Devils do not renounce their wickedness simply because they inherit a title.

The Devil Is a Marquess by Elisa Braden