“They were more interested in each other’s cunnies than in ought else,” he said coldly. “It would behoove you to findladieswho take pleasure in cock rather than quim, old friend.”
“Forgive me.” Duncan handed him his glass, solemn-faced. “You never took exception to multiple ladies entertaining you at one time in the past.”
He accepted his glass and tossed back the entire content, swallowing with a complete disregard for the burn or the fact he had likely already consumed more than enough. Miss Governess and her mobcap and her ridiculous fichu mocked him. “Go to hell, Duncan.”
He extended his glass.
His friend refilled it.
“Is something amiss, Whitley?” Duncan asked.
“Yes. Everything is bloody well amiss.” He sneered. All the words he wished to say clamored for his tongue, but he would not forget that despite their friendship, he and Duncan came from vastly disparate circumstances. And though Kirkwood had never shown an inclination toward either vice or treachery, Crispin had learned to trust no one. “War devils.”
As explanations went, it would have to suffice. Nor was it a lie, for the demons of his past haunted him each day. His days as a soldier were why he could not sleep unaided by drink or exhaustion. Memories of the last time he’d seen his best friend, about to face a more horrific fate than Crispin could fathom, made his hands shake and his gut clench.
He had seen what horrors the guerillas could visit upon a body.
“Not woman troubles, then?”
Was the man a soothsayer now as well as a peddler of vice? Duncan’s query, too close to the truth, jolted him from the darkness that threatened to consume him. “Why the devil do you ask?”
And why did Miss Turnbow’s lush skin taste like every sin he longed to commit? Here he sat, half-disguised, drinking whisky and declining willing wenches, taunted by the sweet scent of jasmine and the fanciful notion of flaming tendrils of hair unfurled on his pillow. Pathetic, really. It was just as well his prick was broken for everyone buther.
“I sent you ten of my loveliest new additions, and you refused to bed even one of them,” Duncan observed, sipping his whisky with both greater aplomb and prudence than Crispin.
Damn.The governess was rendering him maudlin. Perhaps he ought to bed one of Duncan’s bloodyladiesjust to remove the poison of lust from his blood and empty his ballocks. But the thought made his prick wilt faster than a plucked daisy in the July sun.
He tossed back the dregs of his second glass and stalked away from Duncan’s keen eyes. “Damnation.”
“More whisky?” came the wry query.
Crispin spun on his heel and paced back, holding his glass out like an offering. “Preposterous Enquiries and Other Gemsby Duncan Kirkwood.”
Grinning, Duncan offered his refill with a flourish. “I never fancied myself a scribbler, but I would not mind seeing my name on a spine, particularly if it would rankle dearest Papa.”
Crispin took another hearty sip.Yes, this was just the thing.In no time at all, he’d be feeling right as rain, ready to collapse upon the bed and sink himself into oblivion, where he could no longer be troubled by the governess and her luscious body and curious predilection for wandering about in his study under the cover of darkness.
“Has the old bastard threatened you with legal action again?” he asked, spurred as much by curiosity as he was the need to divert attention from himself.
“Who is she?” Duncan evaded, his grin fading. He did not often speak of the duke who had sired him. The enmity he possessed for Amberly was obvious, but aside from the occasional reference and the name of his hell, he revealed little.
The whisky glasses had begun to do their work, bathing Crispin’s mind in a comforting glow. “The new governess,” he admitted, his grip on his glass and his jaw both tightening simultaneously.
His friend raised a brow. “Much as I hate to say this Whitley, if the governess is the woman you wish to bed, why do you tarry here?”
Why indeed?It was easier, for one thing. Safer, too. Here, he could not be interrupted by duty or importuned by sisters he had never wished to be responsible for. He had not wanted the title, damn it. Had not even wished to return to England. Or to live, for that matter. Guilt was a festering internal wound to rival that caused by any bullet or saber.
“It is a valid question, Kirkwood,” he admitted. “Would you believe the answer is honor?”
Duncan cocked his head. “Have you any left?”
“Precious little,” he grumbled, taking one more sip of whisky. “The feeble remnants of which dwindle with each passing moment.”
His friend gave him a half-smile, approaching him and taking the glass from his hands with ease. “Get some rest, Whitley. Then go home on the morrow. Tup the governess if you must. Above all,sleep. You look like something Beelzebub raked up from the coals.”
Tup the governess.
If only he could.
