The Secrets of a Scoundrel by Gaelen Foley

Nick’s resentful glares than he would have been at the tantrums of a child with the chicken pox.
    He measured him by various methods, height and weight; inspected his tongue; bounced the light off a little mirror into his eyes; peered into his ears with a little funnel thing; checked his head for lice; banged on his knees with a dainty hammer; checked his pulse; listened to his heart; and palpated his abdomen, checking the healing around his solar plexus where he’d taken the bullet for the thankless bloated Prince of Whales.
    “Tell me about this bullet wound,” the doctor said, inspecting it.
    “It hurt,” he drawled.
    “Did it pierce the bowel or other internal organs?”
    “No,” he said with a sigh. “The distance saved me. It hit the muscle and went flat. Hurt like hell, though.”
    “I imagine so.” He paused. “You’re very lucky.”
    “You wouldn’t think so if you ever saw me in a card game. I’m bloody cursed.”
    The doctor snorted. “Drop your trousers.”
    “But we only just met.”
    The irked physician shot him a baleful glance. Then he made him piss in a cup and examined the color of his “water” by the sunlight.
    “Are we quite through here?” Nick demanded, sufficiently humiliated for one day.
    “Don’t button up just yet.”
    Good God! Nick let out a wordless exclamation as the old country doctor finished his inspection by checking to make sure he didn’t have the French disease.
    “Good news, no mercury for you.”
    “And why exactly does she want to know the condition of my cock?” Nick asked cynically while the old man, through with him, went to wash his hands.
    Dr. Baldwell gave him another disapproving scowl. “Her Ladyship is only trying to help you.”
    “Good riddance,” Nick muttered when the old man left a moment later, leaving him alone to fasten his clothes again and make himself presentable once more.
    But the question he had asked aloud still gnawed at him. What exactly would his duties to this baroness entail?
    The question left him bristling with renewed mistrust.
    Was he going to be expected to service her on top of everything else? He was not sure how to feel about that.
    Obviously, he was attracted to her, but that wasn’t really the point. He had thought his time of being used as some rich woman’s plaything was over. He’d been down that road before, and it hadn’t ended well.
    The more he brooded on her unknown motives, the angrier and the more suspicious he became.
    So why, then, was Lady Burke being so kind to him? Taking such good care of him? What did she really want? He growled under his breath as he put his clothes back on.
    After all, when something looked too good to be true, it usually was.
    Well, it was plain to see she was a woman of the world, with her young lover. She had better not be assuming Nick would take over where her missing toy boy had left off just because she said so. A man had his pride.
    If she thought her arrangement with the graybeards gave her leave to use him for a bloody male whore, she was misinformed.
    If he could resist her.
    Torn between lust and resentment, all he knew was that he did not like her control over him one bit. Don’t be so quick to trust her just because she’s Virgil’s daughter.
    She was keeping as many secrets as her father.
    Spooked to wonder whether this chance at earning back his freedom would cost him the last few remnants of his pride, Nick decided that until he figured out what this woman really wanted from him, he had better stay on his guard.
    Dinner was sure to be interesting.
    T hat evening, Gin took a sip of wine as she sat at her dressing table in the candlelit alcove of her opulent bedchamber, legs crossed. Clad in a silk peignoir before dressing in her dinner gown, she reviewed Dr. Baldwell’s notes from his examination of Lord Forrester.
    She was surprised at the degree of her own relief to find that his health was sound, from head to toe and at all points in between. Not that it