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Authors: Mia Marlowe

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BOOK: Touch of a Scoundrel (Touch of Seduction 3)
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C
HAPTER
12
W
hen Devon finally made it downstairs after his ablutions, he was met at the foot of the steps by his butler.
“Good morning, your lordship. One trusts you slept well.” It was Baxter’s standard morning greeting and did not require a response. The butler held a silver salver before him with a single card on it.
“Despite the earliness of the hour, Lord Northrop has come calling. He awaits your pleasure in the parlor,” Baxter said with an irritated sniff.
Devon suspected it upset his butler’s agenda when members of the aristocracy forgot the accepted hours for receiving guests and appeared willy-nilly at inopportune times.
“Shall one inform him that you are not at home?”
Baxter wasn’t proposing he tell a lie. Such a thing would be as far removed from that worthy servant’s righteous imagination as the outrageous idea of sitting down in his employers’ presence. “Not at home” might well mean “not receiving guests at this time” for any number of reasons, even if one was on the premises.
Or more sinisterly, it might signify “not at home” to the specific visitor. That carried almost as sharp a sting as a direct cut.
The convention was understood by all.
All but Northrop. If Lionel Norris, Marquess of Northrop, was told such a thing, he would roar through the house in any case in search of Devon. Northrop had no patience for anyone else’s schedule. Devon’s mercurial friend cared only that his own be disrupted as little as possible.
“No, I’ll see him,” Devon said. He hoped his friend wasn’t in search of another loan. Northrop was always light in the pockets and just as perpetually forgetful about repaying his debts.
He had been his frequent companion since their days at Oxford together. Northrop didn’t come into his title until much later, long after he had passed the age of majority. But when they were boys together, he understood how the weight of the peerage acquired early bore down on Devon and did his best to lighten matters. Even if their interests had diverged spectacularly since their school days, they still had a solid past as the foundation of their friendship. Loyalty was something upon which no man could put a price.
And Northrop was nothing if not doggedly faithful.
To his friends, at least. Devon knew better than to inquire too closely on that subject with respect to Northrop’s mistresses.
Devon found him sprawling on one of Lady Devonwood’s favorite wing chairs, a thigh slung over its brocade-covered arm. Northrop’s booted foot tapped out the rhythm of a tune only he could hear. His chin rested in his palm in an air of total boredom. His jacket and waistcoat were cut in the first stare of fashion, but the elegant fabric was so wrinkled it was obvious he’d passed the night in them. The top two buttons of Northrop’s shirt were undone. His collar was missing a stud, sticking out on one side at an odd angle.
A shock of dark hair fell over his forehead, nearly obscuring eyes that were blue as the surf off Brighton on a summer’s day. Northrop didn’t twitch so much as an eyelash when Devon entered with Baxter in his wake.
“Hullo, Dev,” Northrop slurred. “You’re unusually late to rise.”
“And you’re unusually early to call.”
“Not me. Haven’t been to bed yet. Why don’t you keep a dram of whisky in this blasted parlor?” Northrop shot an evil glare at Baxter. The whites of his eyes were shot through with tiny ribbons of red. He’d either been drinking all night or someone’s finger had poked him soundly in both sockets. “All that one would offer me is tea.”
He shuddered as if Baxter had suggested he drink hemlock.
Devon glanced at the ormolu clock on the mantel. Only half past ten. When Northrop was this deeply in his cups it was very hard to fish him out of them. Best thing to do was see him safely under the table with more spirits and let him sleep it off.
“Fetch some whisky, Baxter.” Devon turned back to his friend and took the other wing chair. “To what are we drinking this fine morning?”
“To heaven. To hell. To how many angels can dance on the bloody head of a bloody pin. What do I care?”
“Good.” Devon hitched a leg over the arm of the chair in conscious imitation of the marquess. Later he’d move his leg back down and Northrop would probably follow suit. He often used this technique to settle his friend. “I thought we might be drinking to your health and I’d hate to waste the whisky. Seems to me that’s a lost cause.”
Northrop cast him a withering glance.
Baxter returned with two tumblers of amber liquid and served both gentlemen. Devon made to clink rims with Northrop, but his friend tipped up his glass and drained the contents in one swallow without waiting for a toast. Baxter raised his brows wordlessly and sidled from the room.
“You’re vexed over something,” Devon guessed.
Northrop lifted his empty glass in an equally empty toast. “High marks to you, Griffin. You were always the brightest of the three of us.”
He referred to the trio of friends who styled themselves the “Fallen Angels.” Devon, Lord Northrop, and Lord Kingsley had formed the unholy trinity while they were at Oxford. Tales of their bad behavior set the bar quite high for would-be scoundrels who hoped to follow their example. Devon and Kingsley had grown up since then. The jury was still out on Northrop.
Devon let his leg slide off the arm of the chair and sat upright.
“A regular Lucifer the Light-bearer in the flesh, that’s you.” Northrop eyed his glass as if considering whether or not to lick its sides for the last of the whisky, then laughed, raucously and belatedly, at his own wit. He slid his leg off the arm of the chair and let his boot hit the parlor floor with a resounding thud. “Of course, I’m vexed. I had to hear about it at White’s, for God’s sake, instead of from you. How could you keep this opportunity from me when you know damned well it could be the answer to all my money woes?”
Better stewardship would be the answer for his friend’s money woes, but Devon knew better than to suggest it. Northrop might not mind taking loans, but he was adamant about not taking advice.
“What the devil are you talking about?” Devon asked.
“That bleeding statue, of course, the Titty-sharing thing-gummy. What did you think?” The tumbler slipped from Northrop’s fingers and shattered on the polished hardwood. “Sorry about that. Deucedly clumsy of me.”
Devon waved away his apology. What was Sheridan crystal among friends? “How did you happen to hear about the Tetisheri statue?”
“I told you. I was at White’s and who should be there but your brother with an older gent. Thick as thieves, the pair of them, huddled over a thick journal, nattering away at something in a secretive manner.” Northrop leaned back into the tufted wing chair. “Well, nothing draws a crowd like a secret, you know.”
He looked hopefully at Devon’s whisky glass, but Devon didn’t see the need to ring for another one for his friend, even though he was certain Baxter lurked just on the other side of the doorjamb. If Northrop was already unable to keep a tumbler in his grasp, he’d be safely snoring soon.
“At any rate,” Northrop went on since no more whisky seemed to be in the offing, “pretty soon someone asks Theodore what’s the meaning of all those odd little squiggles and drawings in his book. Frankly, I suspected they had a stash of French postcards hidden in there, myself.”
Trust Northrop to hope for pictures of women in lewd positions and indecent states of undress. Northrop changed mistresses more often than some men changed their socks.
“Imagine my surprise when I find out there’s a treasure to tempt Midas hidden in the Egyptian sands. And it seems our Teddy’s got hold of the map, as it were.” Northrop pressed a fist to his breastbone to stifle a belch. He was less than successful. “Then I learn your brother’s all set to mount an expedition to recover the hoard.”
So much for keeping the statue a secret till Dr. Farnsworth was ready to present his scholarly paper on the subject at his mother’s house party.
“Trust me, the investigation is still in the preliminary stages,” Devon said. “No one should be contemplating an expedition yet.”
“Well, they are, and it was damned bad form of you not to let your friends sign on with the first subscription of investors.”
“Investors?”
“Yes, the way fellows were clamoring to be allowed to buy into the enterprise, I wouldn’t be surprised if Teddy’s already incorporated the damned thing and sold stock certificates. I certainly would have,” Northrop said, his speech as thick as his tongue. “I’d expect Theodore not to come to me with it. But you, Dev, what are you thinking to keep such a thing from your friends? If we split the expedition between you and me and Kingsley, we’ll be rich as Croesus when all’s said and done. Now, whatever they find, it’s likely to be divided so many ways, the riches will be like a trickle of water when it ought to have been a flood.” He shook his head. “Badly done, old son. Badly done.”
“First of all,” Devon said testily, “you haven’t any money to invest.”
“I would if you loaned it to me.”
“Not a farthing.” Devon rose and pulled his friend to his feet. “Come, Northrop. Be serious. Do you really think I’d keep you from something I thought had a Chinaman’s chance of success? You’re drunk and you’re rambling. Let’s take a turn around the garden to clear your head and I’ll send you home in my barouche.”
Devon’s chest constricted at the thought of running into Emmaline in the garden after his erotic dream and just as deeply erotic bath. All he wanted was a few moments with her to prove to himself he wasn’t a mindless, rutting beast, but she’d been adroit at avoiding him.
Devon was counting on the fact that he had Lord Northrop with him to keep Emmaline from bolting when she saw him approach. He understood why she took pains to steer clear of private speech with him, but he chafed at not being able to talk with her at all. With his slightly tipsy friend in tow, Devon could force a conversation without seeming boorish.
“I guess you’re right. I do need some sleep,” Northrop said with a sigh, the wind spilling from his sails now that the hope of a quick, easy fortune had been squashed. “Damned if I’m not supposed to be at Lord Whitmore’s this evening for yet another tedious debutante ball.”
Devon frowned. “I think my family is committed to that occasion as well.”
“Then I’m sorry I roused you out of bed early. We’ll both need our rest to be ready for that. A fellow has to stay on his toes at those pesky things, lest he be entrapped by an enterprising miss.”
“I hate to break it to you, but most marriage-minded mammas have already warned their daughters off as far as you’re concerned,” Devon said as they walked companionably down the corridor. “You rarely have two coins to rub together. Your estate is mortgaged to the rafters and you’re like a hound to the scent for anything in skirts. You are, in a word,
ineligible,
despite your title.”
Northrop’s grin stretched pleasantly across his handsome face. “What makes you think I haven’t worked damned hard to be accorded that status?”
“In that case, my congratulations,” Devon said. “But don’t worry. I doubt you’re destined for perpetual bachelorhood. Perhaps a wealthy industrialist’s daughter with creaky knees and a case of the squints will want her papa to buy her a title one day.”
“Bite your tongue. A bundle of cash wrapped in a plain wife is not part of my plan. But it may well come to that if I don’t figure out how to stop the estate from leaking funds like a sieve.” Northrop shuddered at the thought, then sighed expressively. “Still, I am in the middle of my thirty-first year without a wife or child—that I know of, in any case—and, well, hang it all, a man begins to wonder sometimes what a little domesticity might be like.”
Devon figured that was the whisky talking. His friend had never shown the least interest in a permanent relationship with a woman before.
Northrop stopped beneath a painting of a young lady in a fetching yellow gown from an earlier century when it was no sin for the daring décolletage to proclaim her femininity, nearly to the nipples. “A singularly handsome woman that,” Northrop said as he admired the portrait, with special attention to her bosom. “Both of them.”
“Careful. That’s my great-grandmother Delphinia. It’s said my grandsire forsook a very profitable match with the daughter of a duke for the chance to marry that singularly handsome commoner. She had no fortune, nothing to commend her.” Except a bit of otherworldly ability Devon heartily wished had skipped over him in the Preston side of his lineage. In most grand homes, a maternal great-grandmother’s portrait would have been relegated to a distant chamber in an unused wing while patriarchal ancestors graced the public rooms. But Lady Devonwood was proud of Delphinia and the gift of touch she’d brought to the family. If only Devon didn’t find the ability more a curse than a gift he might agree with her. “It was love at first sight apparently.”
“With magnificent breasts like that, I shouldn’t wonder.” Northrop scoffed. “Still, one ought to call things what they are.
Lust
at first sight is more likely.”
“Good, so you don’t believe in it either,” Devon said.
BOOK: Touch of a Scoundrel (Touch of Seduction 3)
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