His Grace of Osmonde by Frances Hodgson Burnett

When he went home my lord sate late over his books before he went to his chamber, yet he read but little, finding his mood disturbed by thoughts which passed through it in his despite. His blood had grown hot at the coffee-house, and though 'twas by no means the first time it had heated when he heard the heartless and coarse talk of woman which it was the habit of most men of the day to indulge in, he realised that it had never so boiled as when he listened to the brutal and significant swagger of Sir John Oxon. His youth and beauty and cruel, confident air had made it seem devilish in its suggestion of what his past almost boyish years might have held of pitiless pleasures and pitiless indifference to the consequences, which, while they were added triumphs to him, were ruin and despair to their victims.

"The laugh in his blue eye was damnable," Roxholm murmured. "Twas as if there was no help for her or any other poor creature whom he chose to pursue. The base unfairness of it! He is equipped with the whole armament -- of lures, of lies, of knowledge, and devilish skill. There are women, 'tis true, who are his equals; but those who are not -- those who are ignorant and whose hearts he wins, as 'twould be easy for him to win any woman's who believed his wooing face and voice -- Nay, 'twould be as dastardly as if an impregnable fortress should open all its batteries upon a little child who played before it. And he stands laughing among his mocking crew -- triumphing, boasting -- in cold blood -- of what he plans to do months to come. Fate grant he may not come near me often. Some day I should break his devil's neck."