“My lord?” Anna cocked her head and wanted to stomp her foot. The earl in a playful mood was more bothersome than the earl in a grouchy mood, but at least he wasn’t kissing her.
He held up her right glove, twirling it by a finger, and he wasn’t going to give it back, she knew, unless she
“Thank you,” she said, teeth not quite clenched. She walked over to him, and held out her hand, but wasn’t at all prepared for him to take her hand in his, bring it to his lips, then slap the glove down lightly into her palm.
“You are welcome.” He snagged a third muffin from the bread box and went out the back door, whistling some complicated theme by Herr Mozart that Lord Valentine had been practicing for hours earlier in the week.
Leaving Anna staring at the glove—the gauntlet?—the earl had just tossed down into her hand.
“Good morning, Brother!”
Westhaven turned in the saddle to see Valentine drawing his horse alongside Pericles.
“Dare I hope that you, like I, are coming home after a night on the town?” Val asked.
“Hardly.” The earl smiled at his brother as they turned up the alley toward the mews. “I’ve been exercising this fine lad and taking the morning air. I also ran into Dev, who seems to be thriving.”
“He is becoming a much healthier creature, our brother,” Val said, grinning. “He has this great, strapping ‘cook/housekeeper’ living with him. Keeps his appetites appeased, or so he says. But before we reach the confines of your domicile, you should be warned old Quimbey was at the Pleasure House last night, and he said His Grace is going to be calling on you to discuss the fact that your equipage was seen in the vicinity of Fairly’s brother yesterday.”
“So you might ply his piano the whole night through,” Westhaven said, frowning mightily at his brother. Val grinned back at him and shook his head, and Westhaven felt some of his pleasure in the day evaporating in the hot morning air. “Then what is our story?”
“You have parted from Elise, as is known to all, so we hardly need concoct a story, do we?”
“Valentine.” Westhaven frowned. “You know what His Grace will conclude.”
“Yes, he will,” Val said as he dismounted. “And the louder I protest to the contrary, the more firmly he’d believe it.”
Westhaven swung down and patted Pericles’s neck. “Next time, you’re walking to any assignation you have with any piece of furniture housed in a brothel.”
They remained silent until they were in the kitchen, having used the back terrace to enter the house. Val went immediately to the bread box and fished out a muffin. “You want one?”
“I’ve already had three. Some lemonade, or tea?”
“Mix them,” Val said, getting butter from the larder. “Half of each. There’s cold tea in the dry sink.”
“My little brother, ever the eccentric. Will you join me for breakfast?” Westhaven prepared his brother’s drink as directed then poured a measure of lemonade for himself.
“Too tired.” Val shook his head. “I kept an eye on things at the Pleasure House until the wee hours then found myself fascinated with a theme that closely resembles the opening to Mozart’s symphony in G minor. When His Grace comes to call, I will be abed, sleeping off my night of sin with Herr Mozart. You will please inform Papa of this, and with a straight face.”
His Grace presented himself in due course, with appropriate pomp and circumstance, while Val slept on in ignorant bliss above stairs. The footman minding the door, cousin to John, knew enough to announce such an important personage, and did so, interrupting the earl and Mr. Tolliver as they were wrapping up a productive morning.
“Show His Grace in,” the earl said, excusing Tolliver and deciding not to deal with his father in a parlor, when the library was likely cooler and had no windows facing the street. Volume seemed to work as well as brilliance when negotiating with his father, but sheer ruthlessness worked best of all.
“Your Grace.” The earl rose and bowed deferentially. “A pleasure as always, though unexpected. I hope you fare well?”
“Unexpected.” His Grace snorted, but he was in a good mood, his blue eyes gleeful. “I’ll tell you what’s unexpected is finding you at a bordello. Bit beneath you, don’t you think? And at two of the clock on a broiling afternoon! Ah, youth.”
“And how is Her Grace?” the earl asked, going to the sideboard. “Brandy, whiskey?”
“Don’t mind if I have a tot,” the duke said. “Damned hot out, and that’s a fact. Your mother thrives as always in my excellent and devoted care. Your dear sisters are off to Morelands with her, and I was hoping to find your brother here so I might dispatch him there, as well.”
The earl handed the duke his drink, declining to drink spirits himself at such an early hour.
The duke sipped regally at his liquor. “I suppose if Valentine were about, I’d be hearing his infernal racket. Not bad.” He lifted his glass. “Not half bad, after all.”
Mrs. Seaton’s words returned to the earl as he watched his father sipping casually at some of the best whiskey ever distilled: You fail to offer a civil greeting upon seeing a person first thing in the day… You can’t be bothered to look a person in the eye when you offer your rare word of thanks or encouragement…
And it hit him like a blow to the chest that as much as he didn’t want to be the next Duke of Moreland, he very especially did not want to turn into another version of
“If I see Val,” Westhaven said, “I will tell him the ladies are seeking his company at Morelands.”
“Hah.” The duke set aside his empty glass. “His mother and sisters, you mean. They’re about the only ladies he has truck with these days.”
“Not so,” the earl said. “He is much in demand as an escort and considered very good company by many.”
The duke heaved a martyr’s sigh. “Your brother is a mincing fop, but word is you at least had him in hand at Fairly’s whorehouse. Have to ask, how you’d do it?”
Now that was rare, for the duke to ask a question to which he sought an answer. Westhaven considered his reply carefully.
“I had heard Fairly has an excellent new Broadwood on the premises, which, in fact, he does.” A truth, as far as it went.
“So all I have to do,” the duke said with sudden inspiration, “is find some well-bred filly of a musical nature, and we can get him leg-shackled?”
“It might be worth considering, but I’d be subtle about it, ask him to escort Her Grace to musicales, for example. He won’t come to the bridle if he sees your hand in things.”
“Damned stubborn,” His Grace pronounced. “Just like his mama. A bit more to wet the whistle, if you please.” Westhaven brought the decanter to where his father sat on the leather couch, and poured half a measure into the glass. On closer inspection, the heat was taking a toll on His Grace. His ruddy complexion looked more florid than usual, and his breathing seemed a trifle labored.
“Speaking of stubbornness,” the earl said when he’d put the decanter back on the sideboard, “I no longer have an association with the fair Elise.”
“What?” His Grace frowned. “You’ve lost your taste for the little blonde?”
“I wouldn’t say I’ve lost my taste for the little blonde, so much as I’ve never had a taste for my privacy being invaded nor fancied the Moreland title going to somebody who lacks a drop of Windham blood.”
“What are you blathering on about, Westhaven? I rather liked your Elise. Seemed a practical woman, if you know what I mean.”
“Meaning she took your bribe, or your dare,” the earl concluded. “Then she turned around and offered her favors elsewhere, to at least one other tall, green-eyed lordling that I know of, and perhaps several others, as well.”
“She’s a bit of a strumpet, Westhaven, though passably discreet. What would you expect?” The duke finished his drink with a satisfied smack of his lips.
“She’s Renfrew’s intended, if your baiting inspired her to get with child, Your Grace,” the earl replied. “You put her up to trying to get a child, and the only way she could do that was to pass somebody else’s off as mine.”
“Good God, Westhaven.” The duke rose, looking pained. “You aren’t telling me you can’t bed a damned woman, are you?”
