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ranked somewhat lower than a leper.
    At the door of the hell he realized one irony. The warmest welcome he’d received tonight had been from Dare Debenham himself.
    Immediately came the never-quite-buried memory of Debenham holding a handkerchief to a bloody nose, saying, “Cave canem.”
    He slammed the door on that. It was over a decade ago, dammit, and since then he’d carved reputation and victory out of a hostile world. And now he’d do the same with the ton.
    After all, the Duchess of Yeovil had thanked him tearfully. He had Debenham’s sister in his grasp—the lovely, haughty Lady Theodosia. Her name meant “God’s gift.” God’s gift to him.
    He knocked on the door of the hell and was let in. Grigg’s was the sort of ill-lit place inhabited by men and women whose whole attention was fixed on cards, dice, and the EO table. No music here, or fancy refreshments. Being a Cave didn’t matter. Nothing did as long as a visitor had money to lose. Darien had made sure to lose at least as often as he won. He considered it a form of rent for usage of the space.
    He sought a simple game and sat at a macao table, where he could play the odds with half his mind as he reviewed his night.
    Why hadn’t he expected the ton’s reaction? Why had he expected them to see Canem Cave, military hero, instead of just another Cave, as vile as all the rest? He remembered the appalled look on Lady Theodosia Debenham’s face when he’d told her who he was. The way she’d insisted that he couldn’t be honorable….
    Why hadn’t he expected to have inherited the whole mess along with the viscountcy? His raking, duelist grandfather, who’d been called Devil Cave in an age when it took a lot to summon images of Satan. His brutal father, labeled the Vile Viscount as credit for a lifetime of gross misbehavior. His uncle, “Dicker” Cave, ravisher of any vulnerable girl to cross his path.
    He had expected to wear the albatross of the ultimate blot on the family’s dirty escutcheon—Mad Marcus Cave, lunatic murderer of Sweet Mary Wilmott—but not in any personal way. Not in women’s fearful eyes and men’s protective anger.
    God.
    No wonder his younger brother, Frank, had been rejected as a suitor.
    Frank was a lieutenant in the navy, and he’d fallen in love with his admiral’s daughter. Admiral Sir Plunkett Dynnevor had warned him off. Not for being a mere lieutenant, but for being a Cave.
    Darien had been outraged and had set out on this campaign to prove respectability. But now he understood. If he’d had a daughter, he’d not allow her to be tied to the Cave name for life.
    Yet he’d forced Lady Theodosia into that, he thought as he gathered in some winnings, leaving one guinea counter in play.
    The lady wouldn’t be a Cave for life, however, and a gilded Debenham would survive a brush with muck with little harm. Perhaps, judging by their battle of wills, she might even gain a frisson of illicit pleasure from it.
    He’d met that type before and they’d often proved rewarding….
    He pulled his mind back to cool analysis.
    What would she do? That was the only important point. Would he win the gamble he’d taken tonight, acting on impulse as he so rarely did?
    She might be even now complaining of his behavior. No matter how grateful the Debenham family was for his testimony, they’d not embrace a man who had assaulted their daughter. Instead of allies, they would become enemies.
    It could even lead to a duel, and the obvious champion was her brother.
    Dare Debenham had been changed by his experiences, but if he’d been shattered, he’d mended into a stronger person. The facile glitter had burned away to reveal true steel.
    Not a man Darien would choose as an enemy, and definitely not one he wanted to face in a duel, if only because he was damn tired of death. In any case, this was not a