“I would think that you see enough of those in three-dimensional form,” Marcus replied dryly. “Aren’t you a bit preoccupied with the subject of female anatomy, St. Vincent?”

“You have your hobbies, I have mine.”

Marcus glanced at his brother-in-law, who was politely expressionless, and Simon Hunt, who seemed amused by the exchange. The men were all remarkably different in character and origin. Their only common denominator was their friendship with Marcus. Gideon Shaw was that most contradictory of terms, an “American aristocrat,” the great-grandson of an ambitious Yankee sea captain. Simon Hunt was an entrepreneur, a former butcher’s son who was shrewd, enterprising, and trustworthy in every regard. Then there was St. Vincent, an unprincipled scoundrel and a prolific lover of women. He was always to be found at some fashionable party or gathering, staying only until the conversation became “tedious,” which was to say that something meaningful or worthwhile was being discussed, and then he would leave in search of new revelry.

Marcus had never encountered a cynicism as deep-seated as St. Vincent’s. The viscount almost never said what he meant, and if he ever felt a moment of compassion for anyone, he concealed it expertly. A lost soul, people sometimes called him, and it did seem likely that St. Vincent was beyond redemption. It was equally likely that Hunt and Shaw would not have tolerated St. Vincent’s company were it not for his friendship with Marcus.

Marcus himself would have had little to do with St. Vincent were it not for his memories of the days when they had attended the same school. Time and again St. Vincent had proved himself to be a supportive friend, doing whatever was necessary to get Marcus out of a scrape, sharing packets of sweets from home with nonchalant benevolence. And he had always been the first by Marcus’s side in a fight.

St. Vincent had understood what it was like to be despised by a parent, as his own father had been no better than Marcus’s. The two boys had commiserated with dark humor, and had done what they could to help each other. In the years since they had left school, St. Vincent’s character seemed to have eroded considerably, but Marcus was not one to forget past debts. Nor was he one to turn his back on a friend.

As St. Vincent lounged in the chair beside Gideon Shaw’s, they presented a striking picture, the two of them fair-haired and abundantly favored by nature, yet so qualitatively different in appearance. Shaw was urbane and handsome, with an irreverent grin that beguiled all who saw it. His features were agreeably weathered with subtle signs that life, despite its bounty of material riches, had not always been easy for him. Whatever difficulties came his way, he handled them with grace and wit.

St. Vincent, by contrast, possessed an exotic male beauty, his eyes pale blue and catlike, his mouth edged with cruelty even when he smiled. He cultivated a manner of perpetual indolence that many London fashionables tried to emulate. Had it flattered him to dress like a dandy, St. Vincent undoubtedly would have. But he knew that ornamentation of any kind only served to distract from the golden splendor of his looks, and so he dressed with strict simplicity, in dark, well-tailored clothes.

With St. Vincent present in the study, the conversation naturally turned to the subject of women. Three days earlier a married lady of good standing in London society had reputedly tried to commit suicide when her affair with St. Vincent had ended. The viscount had found it convenient to escape to Stony Cross Park amid the furor of the scandal. “A ridiculous display of melodrama,” St. Vincent scoffed, using the tips of his long fingers to play with the rim of his brandy snifter. “It’s being said that she slit her wrists, when in reality she scratched them with a hatpin and then began screaming for a maidservant to help her.” He shook his head in disgust. “Idiot. After all the pains we took to keep the affair secret, she does something like this. Now everyone in London knows, including her husband. And what did she hope to gain from it? If she sought to punish me for leaving her, she’s going to suffer a hundred times more. People always blame the woman the most, especially if she’s married.”

“What of her husband’s reaction?” Marcus asked, focusing at once on practical considerations. “Is it likely that he’ll retaliate?”

St. Vincent’s look of disgust deepened. “I doubt it, as he’s twice her age and hasn’t touched his wife in years. He’s not likely to risk challenging me for the sake of her so-called honor. As long as she kept the thing quiet to spare him being labeled as a cuckold, he would have let her do as she pleased. But instead she’s done everything possible to advertise her indiscretion, the little fool.”

Simon Hunt stared at the viscount with calm inquiry. “I find it interesting,” he said softly, “that you refer to the affair as her indiscretion rather than yours.”

“It was,” St. Vincent said emphatically. The lamplight played lovingly over the clever angles of his face. “I was discreet, and she was not.” He shook his head with a world-weary sigh. “I should never have let her seduce me.”

“She seduced you?” Marcus asked skeptically.

“I swear by all I hold sacred…” St. Vincent paused. “Wait. Since nothing is sacred to me, let me rephrase that. You’ll just have to believe me when I say that she was the instigator of the affair. She dropped hints left and right, she began to appear everywhere I went, and she sent messages begging me to visit any time I chose, assuring me that she lived separately from her husband. I didn’t even want her—I knew before I touched her that it was going to be a crashing bore. But it got to the point at which it was bad form to keep refusing her, and so I went to her residence, and she met me na**d in the entrance hall. What was I supposed to do?”