What the Hart Wants - Fiona Davenport Page 0,2

armchair beside the empty fireplace and opened the book.

Reading should be a means to further a moral and spiritual education. But Byron’s words, written by a man renowned for debauchery, stirred unwelcome feelings in her body, and she closed the volume with a snap, coughing at the dust which tickled her nostrils.

To succumb to the body’s desires was the first step to humiliation. And one only had to recall the fate of Lady Caroline Lamb or Augusta Leigh to understand the imbalance of society in favor of rakes such as Byron.

She had no desire to suffer humiliation at the hands of such a man. Her first ball of the Season had shown her the dangers of doing so, when, in search of the dance partner Dexter had taken great pains to secure for her, she’d come across him in flagrante delicto with another.

Which just went to prove that men of the aristocracy were not fit to rule the world.

She jumped at another crash—this time much closer.

Someone was in the house. A ripple of fear raised the hairs on the back of her neck. She stood from her seat and looked around the room.

Her gaze landed on a vase situated on a pedestal beside the window, decorated in bright, gaudy colors and embossed with gold leaf. It contained the ashes of the seventh duke. Perhaps, today, one of the cursed Molineuxs would prove himself useful in her hour of need.

She picked it up, drawing comfort from its cold hardness, as she tried to dispel images of ruffians and brigands ransacking their way through London and murdering the innocent.

She heard a curse right outside the door, which resembled a deep growl.

The door handle turned, metal winking in the fading sunlight, and she lifted the vase over her head, ready to defend herself as the door swung inward.

*

Fraser crossed the front garden and stopped when the house came into view.

It was worse than he feared. Clayton House was a bloody ruin. The cost of restoring it would reduce his funds to almost nothing.

He cursed himself for not coming to London sooner, though there had been little point while the Excise Act was still being debated. But now that the Act had been passed, he could openly attract investors and customers, and show these London fops, that compared to a MacGregor single malt, French brandy was nothing more than horse piss.

The building before him seemed to soak up the light, the windows, reproachful eyes staring blankly out. The light of the setting sun glittered on the glass, where some of the windows had been smashed.

Perhaps he should burn it to the ground and start again. Or let the dissidents do it for him. The newspapers had been full of stories of houses being ransacked. It seemed as if the Terrors in France had ignited bloodlust in the dispossessed, and a handful of riots had sprung up, resulting in the occasional nobleman finding himself standing outside a burning building in his breeches.

One paper, the City Chronicle, even encouraged such behavior. Not directly, of course, but a careful editor could use language to incite unrest. Only last week he’d heard someone complaining in Whites about a new series of articles entitled Essays on Patriarchy. The author, a Mr. Jeremiah Smith, was nowhere to be found—most likely, too cowardly to write under his own name. The bastard had even made a reference to the Molineux lineage in his first piece.

Though Fraser might agree that the previous dukes had earned their reputation as wastrels, such notoriety risked his chances of using the title to further his business prospects.

A flicker of light caught his eye, then a shape moved across one of the ground-floor windows.

A trespasser. Or worse.

The front door was ajar, and he pushed through it, wincing as the hinges creaked. He paused but heard no movement from inside. Wrinkling his nose at the smell of dust, damp, and rotting vegetation, he crept across the hallway. Patches of mold adorned the walls, and the marble statues guarding the doors had a greenish hue.

As he moved deeper into the building, a noise came from behind a door to the right.

Someone was there. In his house.

The noise stopped, then he discerned faint footsteps. They were too light to be those of a man. Perhaps a child was playing hide-and-seek. With a stern word and a clip on the ear, Fraser could dispatch him with little trouble.

He pushed the door open. The walls of the room were lined with books, from