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  Praise for Minerva Spencer's NOTORIOUS Book 1 in

  The Rebels of the Ton series:

  ★A PopSugar Best New Romance of November

  ★A She Reads Fall Historical Romance Pick

  ★A Bookclubz Recommended Read

  “Brilliantly crafted…an irresistible cocktail of smart characterization, sophisticated sensuality, and sharp wit.”

  ★Booklist STARRED REVIEW

  “Sparkling…impossible not to love.”

  —Popsugar

  “Both characters are strong, complex, and believable, and the cliffhanger offers a nice setup for the sequel. Readers who like thrills mixed in with their romance should check this out.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “Packed full of fiery exchanges and passionate embraces, this is for those who prefer their Regencies on the scandalous side.”

  —Library Journal

  Praise for Minerva Spencer & S.M. LaViolette’s THE ACADEMY OF LOVE series:

  “[A] pitch perfect Regency …. Readers will be hooked.” (THE MUSIC OF LOVE)

  ★Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

  “An offbeat story that offers unexpected twists on a familiar setup.”

  (A FIGURE OF LOVE)

  Kirkus

  “[A] consistently entertaining read.”

  (A FIGURE OF LOVE)

  Kirkus

  Praise for Minerva Spencer's Outcasts series:

  "Minerva Spencer's writing is sophisticated and wickedly witty. Dangerous is a delight from start to finish with swashbuckling action, scorching love scenes, and a coolly arrogant hero to die for. Spencer is my new auto-buy!"

  -NYT Bestselling Author Elizabeth Hoyt

  "[SCANDALOUS is] A standout...Spencer's brilliant and original tale of the high seas bursts with wonderfully real protagonists, plenty of action, and passionate romance."

  ★Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

  "Fans of Amanda Quick's early historicals will find much to savor."

  ★Booklist STARRED REVIEW

  "Sexy, witty, and fiercely entertaining."

  ★Kirkus STARRED REVIEW

  Praise for S.M. LaViolette’s Books:

  “Lovers of historical romance will be hooked on this twisty story of revenge, redemption, and reversal of fortunes.”

  ★Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW

  "A remarkably resourceful heroine who can more than hold her own against any character invented by best-selling Bertrice Small, a suavely sophisticated hero with sex appeal to spare, and a cascade of lushly detailed love scenes give Spencer's dazzling debut its deliciously fun retro flavor."

  ★Booklist STARRED REVIEW

  "Readers will love this lusty and unusual marriage of convenience story."

  -NYT Bestselling Author MADELINE HUNTER

  "Smart, witty, graceful, sensual, elegant and gritty all at once. It has all of the meticulous attention to detail I love in Georgette Heyer, BUT WITH SEX!"

  RITA-Award Winning Author JEFFE KENNEDY

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  Copyright © 2021 Shantal M. LaViolette

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  First printing May 2021

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Names, characters, and places are products of the author’s imagination.

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  Printed in the United States of America

  Chapter 1

  London

  Hugo tightened his grip on the Duchess of Beckingdon’s narrow hips and plunged into her, filling the spacious bedchamber with the sound of skin slapping against skin, and making the huge four-poster bed shudder with his savage vigor.

  He was servicing Her Grace exactly the way she liked it: rough, hard, and—yes—with lots of vulgar, earthy language.

  “Admit you’ve been a wicked hussy and beg for what you need,” he ordered, smacking her buttock hard enough to sting his hand.

  Her spine arched and she gave a low, guttural groan. “Please, Hugo, I’ve been so naughty. Punish me with your cock. I—I need it.”

  A smile of genuine amusement twisted his lips as he grasped the thick silver and black rope of hair that had fallen over one of her shoulders, pulled her head back until her neck was arched at a cruel angle, and commenced to ride her even harder.

  Hugo had to admit there was nothing quite like rogering a peeress of the realm as roughly as a stallion covered a mare. Not to mention making her beg for it.

  Well, he reflected, that wasn’t entirely accurate. Rogering a royal duke—something Hugo did three or four times a year—did outrank servicing a duchess.

  He grinned at the obnoxious thought and leaned forward to bite her shoulder, not hard enough to draw blood the way he’d seen horses do, but hard enough to leave an angry red mark. And hard enough to send the duchess flying over the edge into bliss.

  Hugo stilled, keeping himself buried deep inside her as she convulsed around him. He ignored his own incipient orgasm—like a good whore should—while she climaxed, her contractions exquisite agony around his aching shaft. When her shoulders began to sag with exhaustion, he reached beneath her and teased a second orgasm from her remarkably responsive body.

  He was ready to keep going, but again she begged. “Please, Hugo, no more. I can’t bear it. Please—

  So, that was it, then.

  He gripped the base of his still erect yard to hold the sheath on his body while he pulled out. Even though he rarely spent in a punter—or a client, as Melissa liked to call them—he always wore a sheath. That was his only rule when it came to whoring and it was a rule he would never break; he had seen far too many old whores wandering the streets with faces like open sores, their minds eaten by the pox.

  Lady Beckingdon gave a soft mewl of satisfaction and rolled onto her side, her tall, thin body tangling in the rose-colored silk sheeting that cost more than a housemaid earned in a decade.

  Hugo stripped off the sheath and discarded it in the small brass rubbish bin tucked unobtrusively beneath a gilt-edged nightstand. Unlike the streets, or in some of the seedier brothels, you never needed to re-use such things at The White House—or Solange’s, as it was now called.

  Hugo pulled the bedding up over the duchess’s slender form, once again impressed by her vigor. For a woman in her late fifties, she was far more active—and adventurous—than many of his younger clients. Sometimes she wanted him two or three times during an evening. Sometimes she wanted him and another man. That was fine by Hugo, she paid a packet for him, and he had no qualms about working tandem.

  Hugo padded across the room and poured water into the was
h basin. He took his time bathing the sweat from his face and neck before wiping down his chest and groin. He disliked leaving sweat to cool on his body and despised feeling sticky.

  He cut a glance at himself in the oval mirror that hung over the tallboy dresser and then wished he hadn’t. Every time Hugo saw his reflection it surprised and disappointed him. For some reason, he always looked different in his mind’s eye: his nose smaller—aquiline and elegant—his lips fuller, his eyes a sky blue instead of the color of peat. In effect, Hugo imagined himself handsome. Or at least marginally attractive, and certainly not the dark-eyed, dark-haired, harsh-featured, and vaguely sinister looking man he saw in the mirror.

  He would have liked to be taller and have the slim, graceful build of an aristocrat, but he was only of medium height and his hard, muscular body was sculped with brutal precision rather than sleek elegance.

  Still, for all that he was such an ugly sod, it seemed that scads of women—and not a few men—couldn’t keep their eyes or hands off him.

  That was fine by Hugo. If somebody offered him enough money, he would fuck them—female or male, it made no difference to him.

  They could beat him with birch switches and ride him as hard as a willful hack; they could have him beat them; they could dress up in a nappy and call him Papa, Hugo didn’t give a damn. He only drew the line at anything involving children and animals.

  Yes, even a soulless, damned-to-hell whore like Hugo had his limits.

  He knew that most men, including several who worked in the brothel, believed that taking it up the arse was effeminate—not to mention dangerous and illegal. But Hugo didn’t give a damn about any of that. He was in this business to make money, not to impress anyone—certainly not other whores or the punters who paid them.

  Besides, male customers paid even more than women like the duchess did—both for what Hugo did with them as well as what he did afterward: which was keep his gob shut. Hugo kept mum as much for himself as anyone else. After all, if he were caught with another man, it wouldn’t be just his client’s neck in a noose. Being a sod was cause enough for death; being a poor sod was almost a guarantee that you’d get the rope.

  Hugo poured fresh water over the soft cotton cloth and wrung it out before wiping down his arms and legs.

  His popularity among their clients had never stopped mystifying him. There wasn’t a night when customers weren’t lining up for him. Of course, his appeal was limited to sexual attraction. Hugo’s thin lips twisted with derision; people didn’t flock to him for his sparkling conversation or lively wit. And none of his faithful clients ever made the mistake of imagining that they’d fallen in love with him.

  He glanced over his shoulder at the duchess—not that he was supposed to know her name or rank, inside these rooms she was plain Mrs. Ellen Fletcher—to offer her a fresh cloth, but she was a silent lump on the bed, so he tossed the cloth aside.

  The false names were another holdover of Melissa Griffin’s—the prior owner of Solange’s—many rules. But Hugo had been born to break rules and he made it his business to know exactly whom he was sticking his cock into. Why the hell would he put almost every penny he’d ever earned into Solange’s unless he could control the variables of his whoring?

  Hugo went back to the bed to snuff out the candle on the nightstand and check on Her Grace. He’d worn her out and knew from experience that she would sleep until it was time for her to go if he didn’t wake her. Some nights he let her sleep, others he gave her more than she paid for—it was only good business. Besides, he didn’t mind fucking her, not that he got any relief from it. It wasn’t that he couldn’t climax with a client, it was that he rarely let himself take that ultimate pleasure because all it did was fog his brain and make him feel like he was something other than a paid servant.

  He was especially careful around such a rarified creature as a duchess—which were about as common as unicorns, in Hugo’s experience—and always kept in mind that she was paying him for her pleasure, not his.

  Hugo paused a moment to study her features. The duchess wasn’t what you’d call beautiful, but she had a face that drew a man’s gaze and held it. Even now, with mostly gray hair and deep lines around her eyes and mouth, she was a handsome woman.

  She was also exactly twenty-five years older than him. Today was both their birthdays—although he’d not shared that information with Her Grace. While Hugo made it his business to know whom he was servicing, he also made sure his clients didn’t know a damned thing about him. At least nothing but the bits of information he’d carefully created and provided.

  The Duchess of Beckingdon reminded him of a horse with impeccable bloodlines. You could tell just by looking at her that she was the product of generations of careful breeding.

  The same could not be said for Hugo, who resembled a street cur. Even his costly, tasteful clothing couldn’t disguise his rough features or hide the fact that his eyes were permanently hungry, no matter how much he ate or how much money he had.

  Hugo snatched up one of the heavy silk robes provided for both clients and their companions and slipped his arms into it.

  Companion was yet another term of art that Melissa had coined. The word still made him laugh, even though he’d been whoring at Solange’s for well over a decade—the last three of those years as an owner. He frowned. Well, co-owner.

  He tied the black silk sash around his waist and strode into the sitting room that adjoined each of the bedchambers on this side of the house—the ladies’ side.

  His own garments hung on the hooks where he’d left them, and he fished a ruby-encrusted silver case from his coat pocket. The case was a gift from the duchess and the vile cigars inside it were from one of his other clients—a member of the Spanish royal family if you believed what the man had told Hugo. The cigars stank, but there was something about them Hugo couldn’t resist.

  He poured himself a healthy measure of the fine brandy the duchess paid to have stocked and went to the huge fire that roared in the fireplace—yet another luxury the duchess paid for. He took a spill from a glass bowl on the mantle and lit the cigar, tossing the small twist of paper into the fire before lowering himself into the big leather wingback chair nearest the blaze. Even though it was late summer, he was cold. He was always cold.

  “You are a terriblaay avertissmon for my cooking, Yougo. You ’ave no fat on you!” Oliver, the French chef who terrorized Solange’s kitchen staff—as well as slaughtering the English language—had yelled at Hugo more than once.

  Hugo ate almost constantly, but his body burnt food the way this huge fireplace consumed coal. No matter how much he ate, he remained lean, nothing but skin stretched taut over muscle, bone, and sinew.

  He exhaled a plume of dirty brown smoke, his jaws tightening as he contemplated the woman who owned the other fifty percent of this venture and was occupying his thoughts far too often these days.

  Laura Maitland was at least ten years older than Hugo and had been working at the exclusive brothel for over twenty years. She should have earned enough money to buy the brothel twice over. But Laura had a strong thirst for gin and cards, both of which had left her life in tatters.

  It had been lucky for Laura that Melissa Griffin had discovered the other woman’s addiction and taken charge of her before Laura could lose everything she had, including her life. Even with Melissa’s help, it had taken Laura years to pay her debts and save any money.

  Three years ago, when Melissa sold the brothel, Laura had finally scraped up enough money to buy half.

  Hugo had been furious. He’d saved for years to buy the place, but Mel refused to sell him the entirety of the business, insisting that she had an obligation to Laura. And so Hugo was stuck with Laura.

  He’d had to put up with the woman’s drunkenness for three long years. And he’d also had to advance her money repeatedly for her share of the business expenses. While she’d been drinking and gambling, Hugo had worked twice as much—taken twice as many clients—and saved
every penny. He was ready to buy her out.

  Hugo doubted that Laura would even consider an offer from him if she hadn’t begun seeing a big, brutal bastard named Cowan Morgan about six months ago. It was the first time Hugo had known Laura to take a regular lover. But then she was getting a bit long in the tooth to attract the young, handsome men who’d once flocked to her in droves. It wasn’t only her age, but all the drink that had taken its toll.

  Cowan had been lurking around Solange’s far too much for Hugo’s comfort. But the man worked as an enforcer for the Welsh crime lord Bevan Davies, so Hugo couldn’t exactly chase him off. Nobody in their right mind offended anyone connected to Davies.

  And so Hugo had tolerated Morgan’s presence. But the man was greedy and stupid and Hugo suspected that he might encourage Laura to accept an offer to buy her out. As dumb as Cowan looked, Hugo knew the man had to know that Laura lost more of the business every month she owned it.

  Hugo didn’t think it would be too hard for Cowan to convince her to sell and get away. Especially since Laura hated Hugo with such a virulent hatred.

  Hugo grinned; there was nothing like a woman scorned when it came to hating.

  The animus between them was mutual and dated back to his first week at the brothel, when Laura had shown up in Hugo’s bedroom, naked beneath her dressing gown. He’d been bloody amazed at her cheek.

  Hell! He had sex for a living—did the woman really believe that was how he wanted to spend his free time?

  Not bloody likely.

  That long-ago night—after he’d told Laura that if she wanted to have sex with him she could pay him just like any other customer—she’d shaken with fury. And had hated him ever since.

  Laura wasn’t the only person he’d angered with that sort of rejection. His steadfast refusal to take lovers had caused no small amount of heartburn over the years.

  Well, that was too damned bad; the last thing he wanted was to throw his lot in with anyone else—especially another whore. Other people were a burden he didn’t need. He'd spent the first twenty years of his life in poverty and want. He fully intended to spend the rest of it in comfort and luxury.