The Heart of a Scoundrel by Christi Caldwell

Was it a wonder when she’d been forced into a miserable existence with this fiend as her father? To keep from dragging the other man across the table and choking the air from his lungs, Edmund gripped the edges of the table so hard his fingernails marred the smooth, mahogany wood. Relishing the viscount’s discomfiture, he forced himself to lighten his grip. He reached with deliberate slowness for the bottle. He splashed several fingerfuls of brandy into his glass and then, knowing it would drive the other man to near madness, filled it to the remainder of the brim.
    Tired of the man’s presence, Edmund brought them ’round to the reason for this meeting. “I’m here to discuss your daughter.”
    “Eh?” Waters scratched his furrowed brow. “I thought you wanted the ugly one, the Fairfax girl.” At the further narrowing of Edmund’s eyes, he continued on a rush. “Of course you’re welcome to my daughter, either of my daughters,” he amended. He wrinkled his nose, giving him the look of a small rodent. “Though, if you take my youngest daughter, Justina, then I can let Allswood have Phoebe and my debts to that man…”
    Edmund set his glass down and reached across the table. Lip pulled back in a snarl, he clasped Phoebe’s father about the neck, effectively cutting off air flow and silencing the man. The viscount’s words roused images of Allswood laying claim to Phoebe. “Shut your goddamn mouth, Waters,” he hissed. All the while an icy rage seared through him. No one dared tread upon that which he had already claimed. Even in the spirit of pretend courtships.
    He released the man with such alacrity, Waters collapsed back in his seat, taking great, heaving gasps of air. It was a testament to the evil that went on in this place that only mildly curious glances were tossed their way. “I’d charged you the task of finding out her interests.”
    What if I were to say I’m not escaping but searching…
    Waters rubbed his neck where Edmund had so roughly handled him. “The gel likes her travel books, I told you,” he whined.
    In short, the man didn’t know a jot about his daughter beyond that. Edmund layered his elbows upon the table and leaned across the smooth, mahogany surface, shrinking the gap between them. “I intend to find out for myself, Waters.”
    The viscount’s cheeks turned ruddy and then in a shocking display of courage and boldness, he said, “You aren’t going to ruin the chit, now are you?” Ah, so there was a bit of fatherly loyalty to the woman. Waters’ beady eyes darted about the club and then returned to Edmund once more. “Can’t have you ruining her. Not when I can use her to make a match.” Of course, that would account for any father’s sense of concern for his daughter’s virtue.
    Edmund downed the contents of his brandy in a long, slow swallow and set the glass down hard. With a last, disdainful glance at the corpulent lord, he shoved back his chair and stood.
    “Rutland?” the viscount’s pleading voice called after him.
    He ignored the other man and continued his path through the clubs with renewed purpose for Phoebe Barrett. The viscount asked him not to ruin his daughter, failing to know she’d been ruined the moment she’d made friends with Miss Honoria Fairfax.
    Silently he catalogued the viscount’s newest revealed weakness—using his own daughter as a pawn.

Chapter 7
    T he following morning, Phoebe, inside the Viscount Waters’ carriage, rolled slowly through crowded London streets. She fiddled with her reticule. At any other moment, and any other time before, an eager excitement would have consumed her every thought so all she might think about was this trip she now made.
    You’d go to Wales to be closer to your Vikings, instead of spreading your wings and daring to dream…you deserve more in your dreams and for them…
    Edmund, a mere stranger to her just three days ago, had somehow reached inside her and seen both the hopes she carried and,