The Devil's Match by Victoria Vane

murmured.
    “Sometimes I wonder how good,” Ludovic replied
cynically. “So you see? My very birth defies all that is right and
true. Perhaps you better understand now my aversion to wed? To
reproduce? For I carry in my blood an entire legacy of corruption
and sin. My entire existence is one great lie, Diana. My blood is
tainted and my life a fraud.”
    “That’s ridiculous!” she exclaimed. “You only
use your history as a convenient excuse to do as you please.”
    “That’s right, my dear. I live for pleasure
because it’s my legacy to do so for I am damned either way. ‘Yet he
does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and
their children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth
generation.’”
    “If you wish to elicit sympathy from me, I am
sorry to disappoint you.”
    Ludovic shrugged and dropped his mask
comfortably back into place. “The only thing I wish to elicit
from you , my dear, are
screams of rapture.”
    “Back to that again, are we? You waste your
breath. Now why did you bring me here?” Diana demanded.
    “You challenged me last night, Diana, taunted
even, when you know damn well I never take such a thing lightly. So
I wish to know what you propose by way of a wager.”
    “Perhaps I haven’t had sufficient time to think
on it,” she hedged.
    “Don’t dissemble when we both know you had
already something in mind before you even spoke.”
    “All right, my lord. I will tell you. I would
very much like to rebuild my former racing stables, but I have not
the means to do so without a quality breeding stallion.”
    “A woman has no business with a racing
stud.”
    “Perhaps that is my concern and not for you to judge, my
lord.”
    DeVere quirked a brow. “Very well. Then what are
you asking? You wish me to wager one of my stallions?”
    “Not just any stallion. I wish to you wager
Centurion.”
    “The sire of my best prospect for the
Derby?”
    “I thought it would be more than you would be
willing to chance.” She turned for the door.
    “I have not yet decided,” he retorted. “I would
first know what I might stand to gain from this wager.”
    “You once expressed interest in Cartimandua,”
she suggested.
    “An unequal bargain,” he replied. “A brood mare
may produce a single foal per year at best, while a proven stallion
can sire a hundred offspring at a considerable profit. No, my dear,
you must offer a much greater incentive than that.”
    “But I am not a wealthy woman, and you
know as well as I that you acquired that stallion through dubious
circumstances. You owe me the
opportunity to win him back!”
    “I owe you? I seem to recall only recently your
great affront at just how much I have already paid you.”
    “That is not what I mean! You owe me the
opportunity to redeem my honor, my lord. Were I a man, we would
have settled this long ago on a dueling field.”
    “You still have a taste for my blood, madam? On
second thought, you need not answer.” He touched his lip with a
bemused smile. “So it is now your honor that’s at stake?”
    “Yes.” Diana faced him with her hands braced on
her hips.
    He laughed, a low rumble. “Ironic indeed, when
your person is the only thing that remotely interests me.”
    Her gaze narrowed. “You wish me to wager
myself?”
    He shot one brow up. “How badly do you want the
stallion?”
    “What are your terms?” she asked.
    “If I win, you will be mine for a week...to take
whenever and however I please. No conditions. No constraints.”
Ludovic was prepared for a reaction of shock, outrage, or at least
righteous indignation. Instead, to his amazement, she appeared
calm, pensive, even calculating.
    “A very tall order,” she remarked. “If I were to
agree, do I have your assurance that afterward you will never
harass me again?”
    He inclined his head with a half smile. “If that
is your wish.”
    “I know my own mind.”
    “Then let it be my object to change it.”
    “So be it then,”