Touch of a Scoundrel (Touch of Seduction 3) by Mia Marlowe

grooming. They walked in silence toward the parlor, but he could hear her occasional hitched breath. It made his own catch in his throat.
    She didn’t dare be alone with him. She was afraid of him, for God’s sake.
    It confirmed what he’d always suspected.
    He was a monster.
    He’d long recognized that his unusual gift of touch imparted a sort of “otherness” to him that could be sensed even if one knew nothing of his ability. He doubted anyone could point to a specific reason why being around him made people uneasy. No one could say definitively, “ This is why Lord Devonwood is different from the rest of us.” It was simply the sort of thing that raised the hair on the back of one’s neck for no apparent cause, left a vague uneasiness in the belly, and made a person shift subtly away from the source of difference.
    Even his closest friends, whom he could count on the fingers of one hand, would charitably name him “a hard man to know.”
    Theodore’s voice wafted toward them from beyond the open parlor door, his tone excited. Teddy was always one for great passions—French paintings and German composers, the latest medical advances, and new cartography from the South Pacific. His knowledge of arcane subjects was broad as the ocean, but shallow as a puddle. He never stuck with anything long enough to get bored. The long string of his past fixations would stretch from London Bridge to the Cliffs of Dover.
    This Egyptian phase was only the latest.
    Perhaps the woman on Devon’s arm was also a passing fancy. Maybe he worried for nothing. Emmaline Farnsworth might have no greater tenure in his brother’s attention than that canal-widening project Teddy had thought would make them a fortune. By the time Theodore had lost interest in it, Devon had already invested heavily on the strength of his brother’s enthusiasm. The family might have seen a devastating loss had Devon not guessed correctly that the rail system would eclipse canals for transporting goods. Fortunately, he moved his holdings to railway stocks before the market turned on the canal company.
    All their lives, Devon had cleaned up after Teddy, making sure he didn’t suffer for his fecklessness. It was what an older brother was expected to do, especially once their father had died. He was six years Ted’s senior. There was enough difference between them that fourteen-year-old Devon must have seemed like a man already grown to Teddy when they’d buried their father and Devon had ascended to the earldom.
    Or maybe it was only the weight of his guilt over their father’s death that made him seem so much older.
    Devon slanted a gaze at the woman on his arm. Emmaline Farnsworth was just another of Theodore’s canal certificates. The sooner Devon moved her out of the family portfolio, the better.
    “I tell you, the Tetisheri statue will revolutionize the way we view Egypt,” Theodore pontificated to his mother and sister as Devon entered the parlor with Miss Farnsworth on his arm. “It’s nothing short of a sea change in the body of knowledge on the subject.”
    On the low table from which his mother usually served tea stood an object about twelve inches high. It was draped with a square of black silk, as if it was a new work of art about to be unveiled before an adoring public.
    “Ah, Devon, there you are.” Ted waved a hand toward the covered object. “Will you do the honors?”
    Devon supposed he should be grateful his brother was so wrapped up in his new amusement that he couldn’t be bothered to notice his intended was pale as parchment. It wouldn’t do to allow Teddy time to detect that something was amiss. Without thinking, Devon strode forward, reached out, and grasped the black silk.
    Everything went suddenly hazy, as if watered gauze had been drawn across his vision.
    Devon advanced toward a phantom table where a tall wicker basket stood. A musty, withering scent filled the room with an unwholesome tang.
    His hand sank into the