“Not truly.” Griffin’s expression turned from scornful to incredulous as he scoured Sebastian’s countenance. “Bast. You’re defending her like a man who’s smitten. Are you mad?”
How ironic that his friend had reached the selfsame conclusion as he. What was it about Daisy that undid him? His mouth curled into a grim, mirthless smile. “Likely.”
“Bed her then.” Griffin took a long pull of whisky. “Get her out of your blood. But you’d best sleep with a dagger under your bloody pillow.”
Sebastian finished the dregs of his second glass. By now, the stuff had finally begun to do its work, filling his veins with a calming languor. Drinking himself into a stupor seemed like a good course of action for the evening of his wedding day. Perhaps it would keep him from making any greater mistakes than those he’d already committed. “Griff?”
Griffin stared into the fire in the grate, seemingly mesmerized by the dancing flames. “Aye?” he grunted without looking up.
“Go to hell,” he said without heat.
His friend’s dark eyes met his, as he raised his glass for a mocking salute. “Already there, old chap.”
Though Griffin spoke the words casually, Sebastian knew his friend suffered from demons wrought by what he’d seen and done, just as they all had. Griffin had never been the same after returning from Paris. He had been a young, optimistic operative caught up in the siege and taken hostage by the French. When Sebastian and another spy had finally located and freed him, Griffin had resembled nothing so much as a beaten, emaciated corpse.
In the Special League, there was always a price to pay, and each member had paid their fair shares in pounds of flesh.
The heaviness of the moment settled into his bones. He searched for something flippant to say, some manner of distraction for them both. “Hell has some damn good whisky.”
Griffin grinned and downed the rest of his glass. “That is does. Care for a game of billiards?”
Sebastian finished his whisky as well. Had it been his second or his third? The fourth? Who gave a damn. He was getting soused tonight. It was the only panacea he had left. “Prepare to lose, my friend.”
ell. This gave new meaningto the tired old phrasedrunk as a lord. Though perhaps in this instance, it would be more apt to saydrunk as a duke.
Daisy stared at her bleary-eyed husband, who had just appeared as she wasen routeto her lonely breakfast. He wore the same trousers, coat, and waistcoat he’d left in the day before. He was rumpled, his hair disheveled, dark half-moons marring the flesh beneath his eyes. The undeniable scent of spirits perfumed the air.
“It seems I’ve arrived just in time,” he announced as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “Giles tells me you’re about to break your fast.”
She’d far prefer to break a vase. Over his arrogant noggin.
Her mouth tightened as she surveyed him further. How dare he, the cad? Where had he been? What had he been doing aside from plundering London’s whisky cache? Yesterday, she’d thought he resented having to marry her with such haste. She’d felt guilty at her part in the entire affair. Had known a keening despair at his taciturn demeanor. When he had left her alone, she had wanted very much for him to stay.
But he had attempted to brush her off with some feigned sense of honor and disappeared. What had he said?We need time to get to know each other.Ah yes, and her favorite:the unusual haste with which our nuptials took place has robbed from us the chance to court.
What nonsense. The only thing he’d been courting was a thorough sousing. How foolish of her to have known a moment of remorse for using him to escape her father’s clutches. The man before her—somehow still handsome even in his disgraceful state—didn’t deserve a drop of pity. Was he a drunkard, or had he found the prospect of wedding her so loathsome that he’d needed to find solace in a bottle? She had asked if he had ever hit a woman, but perhaps there was a more salient question she ought to have posed.
He stalked toward her when she maintained a frigid silence. “Haven’t you anything to say to me, wife?”
There, before the footmen waiting to dance attendance on a formal breakfast, she raked the duke’s person with undisguised disdain. “You’re sozzled.”
His brows crashed together. “And you’re impertinent. I assure you, I’m nothing of the sort.”
“You’re wearing yesterday’s attire.” She was so vexed with him that she didn’t care that it wasn’t done to speak her mind, and that it was decidedlyde tropto do so in front of servants.
He made a show of inspecting his person before meeting her gaze once more with an indolence she found particularly infuriating. “Since I’m wearing it now, I daresay it’s today’s attire.”
A closer look at his wrinkled coat and trousers suggested that he’d slept in them. She wasn’t sure why such an observation would bring her relief. If he’d spent the evening in the arms of a mistress, it was no concern of hers. Theirs wasn’t a love match. He didn’t even seem to like her. And for her part, she had only chosen him because she was desperate.
And because she enjoyed his kisses.
Daisy struck that aberrant thought from her mind.
The compulsion to remove herself from his presence was strong. How could she be affected by her inconvenient attraction to him when he had spent the entirety of their wedding night drinking himself to oblivion and committing Lord knew what manner of sins?
That was it. She needed to escape. “If you will excuse me, Your Grace, I fear I’ve lost my appetite. I’ll be retiring to my chamber for the remainder of the day.”
“No.” His expression was mulish.
