If you haven’t read LORD OF SCOUNDRELS by Loretta Chase then I must urge you to rectify that as soon as possible because everyone should read this book at least three times in their life and everyone should know and love Sebastian Ballister otherwise known as Dain.

Dain was not one of those dashing, handsome heroes that we all know and love. No, Sebastian is not handsome at all…and yet, he was super sexy. They said he looked like Beezlebub. I don’t know what Beezlebub looks like but it doesn’t sound handsome AT ALL. Dain grew up being hated by his father. His father was disgusted with him because of all of his sons, Dain was the ugliest and he was the only one that lived. When Dain was of age, he was sent to school where he was picked on so he developed an air of nonchalance, put up a front around everyone and he took over this devil may care attitude and it totally worked for him. He developed a reputation of a scoundrel. He partied too hard, he made enemies and he didn’t give a shit.

The man that everyone knew Dain to be had a side to him that truly captivated me. He was funny, caring and intensely sweet even when he was spitting mad at his heroine, Jessica. The arguments that went on between these two had me in fits of giggles and if you ask me, I thought that Dain was the most sexiest clodpole I had ever met.

This scene is one that always makes me smile, it’s so Dain.

“Ah, you were confident I’d come,” he said. “Because you are irresistible.”

“I hope I’m not so suicidal as to wish to be irresistible to you.” She fanned herself. “The simple fact is that there seems to be a farce in progress, of which we are the principals. I am prepared to take reasonable measures to help put an end to it. You set the tongues wagging with the scene in the coffee shop, but I will admit that I provided provocation,” she added quickly, before he could retort. “I will also admit that the gossip might have died down if I hadn’t burst into your house and annoyed you.” Her color rose. “As to what happened afterward, no one saw, apparently, which makes it irrelevant to the problem at hand.”

He noted that she was gripping her fan tightly and that her bosom was rising and falling with a rapidity indicative of agitation.

He smiled. “You did not behave, at the time, as though it were irrelevant. On the contrary—”

“Dain, I kissed you,” she said evenly. “I see no reason to make an issue of it. It was not the first time you’ve ever been kissed and it won’t be the last.”

“Good heavens, Miss Trent, you are not threatening to do it again?” He widened his eyes in mock horror.

She let out a sigh. “I knew it was too much to hope you would be reasonable.”

“What a woman means by a ‘reasonable’ man is one she can manage,” he said. “You are correct, Miss Trent. It is too much to hope. I hear someone sawing at a violin. A waltz, or an approximation thereof, appears to be in the offing.”

“So it does,” she said tightly. “Then we shall dance,” he said. “No, we shan’t,” she said. “I had saved two dances because… Well, it doesn’t matter. I already have a partner for this one.”

“Certainly. Me.”

She held up her fan in front of his face, to display the masculine scribbling upon the sticks. “Look carefully,” she said. “Do you see ‘Beelzebub’ written there?”

“I’m not shortsighted,” he said, extracting the fan from her tense fingers. “You needn’t hold it so close.

Ah, yes, is this the one?” He pointed to a stick. “Rouvier?”

“Yes,” she said, looking past him. “Here he comes.”

Dain turned. A Frenchman was warily approaching, his countenance pale. Dain fanned himself. The man paused. Smiling, Dain pressed thumb and forefinger to the stick with “Rouvier” written on it. It snapped.

Rouvier went away.

Dain turned back to Miss Trent and, still smil-ing, broke each stick, one by one. Then he thrust the demolished fan into the fern pot. He held out his hand. “My dance, I believe.”

It was a primitive display, Jessica told herself. On the scale of social development it was about one notch above hitting her over the head with a club and dragging her away by her hair.

Only Dain could get away with it, just as only he could clear the field of rivals simply by telling them, without the smallest self-consciousness or subtlety, to go away.

Things like that scene are only part of the reason why Dain is the Hero of the Month. Here’s the other part:

He went to work with speedy efficiency on the other glove. “I must be besotted,” he said evenly. “I have the imbecilic idea that you’re the prettiest girl I’ve ever seen. Except for your coiffure,” he added, with a disgusted glance at the coils and plumes and pearls. “That is ghastly.”

She scowled. “Your romantic effusions leave me breathless.”

He lifted her hand and pressed his mouth to her wrist.

“Sono il tuo schiavo,” he murmured.

He felt the jump of her pulse against his lips. “It means, ‘I am your slave,’” he translated, as she snatched her hand away. “Carissima. Dearest.”

She swallowed. “I think you had better stick to English.”

“But Italian is so moving,” he said. “Ti ho voluto dal primo momento die ti vedi.”

I’ve wanted you from the first moment I saw you.

“Mi tormenti ancora.”

You’ve tormented me ever since.

He went on telling her, in words she couldn’t understand, all he’d thought and felt. And while he talked,watching her eyes soften and hearing her breath quicken, he swiftly removed his own gloves.

“Oh, don’t,” she breathed.

He leaned in closer, still speaking the language that seemed to mesmerize her.

“You shouldn’t use masculine wiles,” she said in a choked voice. She touched his sleeve. “What have I done that’s so unforgivable?”

You made me want you, he told her in his mother’s language. You’ve made me heartsick, lonely. You’ve made me crave what I vowed I would never need, never seek.

She must have heard the rage and frustration throbbing beneath the longing words, but she didn’t recoil or try to escape. And when he wrapped his arms about her, she only caught her breath, and let it out on a sigh, and he tasted that sigh when his mouth closed over hers.

*sigh*

If you guys aren’t acquainted with the Marquess of Dain then I sincerely hope that you will rectify that because he is a huge draw to read the book. The book is fantastically written and you can find numerous reviews for LORD OF SCOUNDRELS here and here.

And here’s who I think would make a great Sebastian…what do you think?

LORD OF SCOUNDRELS is available from Avon. You can buy it here or here in e-format.

(Holly is butting in to say: OMG I LOVE DAIN! But even more? I loved Jessica. If you haven’t read this book RUN, don’t walk RUN, to the bookstore and pick it up. Like now.)