Abstinence.

It didn't even sound comfortable.

Alasdair Reginald Cynster, widely known, with good reason, as Lucifer, pushed the word from his mind with a disgusted snort and concentrated on turning his pair of highbred blacks down a narrow lane. The lane led south, toward the coast; Colyton, his destination, lay along it.

Around him, early summer clasped the countryside in a benevolent embrace. Breezes rippled the corn; swallows rode the currents high above, black darts against the blue sky. Thick hedges bordered the lane; from the box seat of his curricle, Lucifer could only just see over them. Not that there was anything to see in this quiet rural backwater.

That left him with his thoughts. Holding the blacks to a slow but steady pace along the winding lane, he considered the unwelcome proposition of having to survive without the type of feminine company to which he was accustomed. It wasn't a pleasant prospect, but he'd rather suffer that torture than risk succumbing to the Cynster curse.

It wasn't a curse to be trifled with-it had already claimed five of his nearest male relatives, all the other members of the notorious group that had, for so many years, lorded it over the ton. The Bar Cynster had cut swaths through the ranks of London's ladies, leaving them languishing, exhausted in their wake. They'd been daring, devilish, invincible-until, one by one, the curse had caught them. Now he was the last one free-unshackled, unwed, and unrepentant. He had nothing against marriage per se, but the unfortunate fact-the crux of the curse-was that Cynsters did not simply marry. They married ladies they loved.

The very concept made him shudder. Its implied vulnerability was something he would never willingly accept.