An early reviewer sent me a private note about my latest villain, saying she had no redeeming qualities. I wrote back to agree. I really enjoy writing deep-dyed villains, people we can love to hate. Yes, I admire redeemable villains, too. I’ve read some wonderful stories where the villain in one book learns his or her lesson and is eventually given their own book. And somewhere between the two is a really nasty person who also visits his dear old granny on Sundays and is very fond of his cat, because human beings are complicated. So maybe my villains aren’t as bad as I paint them?

Perhaps I should give the villain in the following excerpt a cat? It’s from To Tame a Wild Rake, and should be self-explanatory. Oh, and, of course, if you have a villain you’d like to share, please add him or her in the comments.

The Beast was in a rage all the more potent for being suppressed as long as he had to be in front of customers. His men had searched all night, but the boy Tony was nowhere to be found, and no one admitted to seeing him.

The searchers brought back many reports about the intruders, and the two whores that had run off with them. They’d taken off on those odd shaped horses the Winshires bred. At first, the Beast had assumed Tony was in the carriage they had with them, but several reports insisted that the escaped females were the only occupants.

It couldn’t be doubted that the boy had gone out the window. The glass was broken and the door was still locked. But if the intruders helped him, why wasn’t he with them?

The guard said he’d not heard the breaking window. The guard was an idiot. He let himself be distracted and overwhelmed by Aldridge—a ton clothes horse, a pretty boy, an overbred mummy’s boy who had never done a lick of work in his life.

Aldridge. The Beast had hated him for two decades, ever since the youthful marquis had come between Wharton—as he was then—and Aldridge’s beautiful little brother. Lord Jonathan Grenford had been a new arrival at Eton, and Wharton’s fag. Wharton had so many plans. They would have been happy together, he just knew it. Gren—it had been Wharton that had given him that name—was a little jumpy, but Wharton was working on him, and he would have been happy in the end. Wharton would have taken care of him.

Then Aldridge had Gren assigned to another senior. Worse. He sent someone—a grown man—to growl threats in the dark, threats reinforced with a dagger to Wharton’s throat. Cowardly bastard.

He’d interfered, too, a decade later, sending his base-born brother to destroy Wharton’s fledging export business. And surely it was not coincidence that the man who cut off the supply of girls for that business was Aldridge’s cousin, another sodding peer.

Here he was again, sticking his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. Wharton had been looking for someone like Tony every since he lost the lovely Gren. The boy was a Grenford get, beyond a doubt, but all the Grenford males were so randy it could have been the father or either of the brothers. Or perhaps just a by-blow from an earlier generation.

Tony either didn’t know, or wasn’t saying.

No matter. He was unacknowledged, which meant the notoriously soft-hearted Aldridge didn’t know about him, which meant the Beast could have him without Aldridge’s interference. It was his reward for twenty years of suffering since Gren was taken from him.

Not the same thing, quite. Tony was a slum brat, not a refined lordling. But good food would put on some weight. Manners could be taught, and the bone structure, the colouring, even the voice, when he aped his betters… it was Gren come again.

The Beast sulked on his throne. He’d refrained from throwing things or screaming at people all night, lest he frighten those whose money was fast replenishing his coffers. Now the edge had gone off his temper, though he was likely to find it again if no one brought him news that allowed him to retrieve his property.

How did Aldridge come to find out about the boy? He came for Tony, the Beast was certain. He may have left with a couple of harlots, but light-heeled girls were ten a penny, and Aldridge was, in any case, too fastidious for brothels. He didn’t come for the girls.

The Winderfield chit, who was harbouring the boy, must have told him. The Beast glared at the stairs to the upper floor, where his sister reigned. This was her fault, too. She had assured him that Aldridge and the Winderfield female were at loggerheads.

He shouldn’t have trusted her, not after last year, when Aldridge’s mother put all her weight as a duchess behind another Winderfield female. Mind you, most of what followed was entirely the fault of the Winderfields, who dared to bring their foreign troops to attack him. And instead of objecting to such a clear breach of the law, that fat freak in Brighton deputed his own troops to support them!

That fiasco had ended with Wharton having to once agchange his name and start again, having lost several lieutenants and a reputation that had taken him years to build. For that, the Winderfields would pay.

Being no fool, the Beast had long ago realised the value of holding his assets and investments under another identity; one that had no connection with activities the law frowned on. Even so, building a new base had taken time, and he’d needed to shelve his plans for those who had opposed him.

No longer. The Winderfields had taken Tony out of the slums, away from the Beast, and then had come into his territory to steal the boyback. The Marquis of Aldridge had dared to invade his home, steal two of his harlots, and at least provide a distraction so Tony could escape. It was time for revenge.