He preferred to live his life in a fog of whisky-induced stupor and licentiousness. Presently, there were no whores about, but that could be rectified at any moment with but a note from the famed Duke of Whitley and the proper amount of coin.
Yes, a whore did sound like just the thing, now that he thought on it. Before his butler could respond, he raised an imperious finger into the air, jabbing the darkness. “Nicholson, have a carriage sent round for Mrs. Nulty, if you please. Send along a note making it clear she is to bring her friends Madame Laurier and Mrs. Reeves, as well.”
The golden-haired Mrs. Nulty, the raven-tressed Madame Laurier, and the redhead Mrs. Reeves. His cock stirred in his breeches despite the substantial amount of whiskey he’d consumed. Ah, yes. The perfect trifecta. He’d had them before, but never all at once. Why not begin with Madame Laurier sucking his—
“Ahem, Your Grace.” His butler had the temerity to interrupt the bawdy bent of Crispin’s thoughts.
His gaze, having flitted into the ethers of his dismal study, the better to entertain his fantasies, now snapped back to the servant. Two Nicholsons stared at him with twin disapproval until his eyes at last began to function properly and the twain met as one. “Why the devil do you linger, Nicholson? Send for my companions at once.”
“I would, Your Grace,” began the servant he was about to sack for insubordination, “but earlier this morning, you advised you wished to interview Miss Turnbow yourself, and as she has arrived and has been awaiting you for the last half hour, I thought—”
“I do not pay you to think,” he snapped, biting off the remainder of the servant’s words. He wanted his distraction. Needed his distraction. Now. Already, his hands had begun to tremble, a weakness he despised. “And precisely who the hell is Miss Turnbow?”
“The gentlewoman who wishes to become Lady Constance and Lady Honora’s governess, Your Grace.”
Ah, hell.
His innocent sisters.
The burden left to him by his sainted brother Phillip, who had, of all things, choked on a beef ragout whilst disguised. According to Nicholson, his brother had consumed half a bottle of blue ruin in the better part of an hour and then commenced his final supper.
Crispin had seen years of duty on the Peninsula, had faced scores of enemy soldiers. Infantrymen, guerilla soldiers, cannonades. Musket fire and the hell of dead and wounded men. He had infiltrated enemy lines with the ease of a mosquito. But his brother, the heir, the duke, the-larger-than-life hero, had met his end with one bite of a dish that—judging from Crispin’s experience with the chef’s dubious capabilities—likely had not even been edible.
Yet another person who had died when he ought to have lived.
Whilst Crispin continued in his purgatory-of-a-life, with only cunny and liquor to soothe him. It all seemed so horridly unfair. Not a day passed where he didn’t wish he had been slaughtered by El Corazón Oscuro in Spain instead of Morgan.
But he had defied the devil and all the odds against him, and here he was, cupshot, reasonably randy, with his bloody butler staring him down. Why the hell was Nicholson looming like a corpse risen from the dead, his expression frozen with haughty disapproval that not even a seasoned domestic like him could suppress?
“What is it again, Nicholson? I am, as you can plainly see, quite occupied at the moment. I wholeheartedly dislike disruption of any sort. It is grievously disquieting to the constitution, you understand. If you will not fetch me the quim I require, then leave.” He sent the servant an evil grin, enjoying keeping the stodgy bastard at attention. His depravities shocked the stoic domestic, that much Crispin knew, but he also understood frankness disturbed him in an almost equal measure.
“Miss Turnbow,” the much-aggrieved fellow intoned. “If Your Grace wishes to conduct the interview as planned, I shall have the green salon readied and you may join her there at your leisure.”
Yes, that would all be very tidy and proper, wouldn’t it? But Crispin was not proper. Decidedly not tidy. Indeed, he did not give a good damn about anything other than burying himself in pleasure so he could forget the past. Except for his sisters, devil take it.
He loved the minxes, and his duty to them took precedence over his need to quiet the monsters festering within his soul. Which meant he needed to interview the would-be governess. They had already run off… how many had it been? Three? Four?
But as much as he loved them, he still had no intention of curtailing his lifestyle. His lifestyle was unconventional, he knew. Shocking to some. Appalling to others. He had long ago ceased to care about small-minded genuflections to societal whims. Facing death each day and witnessing the barbarities he’d seen had a way of changing a man forever.
“Not the green salon,” he decided, gainsaying his butler. “Bring her here, if you please.”
Nicholson looked, for the briefest moment, as if he had swallowed a slug. He hastened to school his features back into a semblance of calm, politic imperturbability.
“Would you care for me to tie back the window dressings, Your Grace?” he asked with just enough pointed suggestion to make Crispin aware the darkness of the room was a thing to be remarked upon.
A thing which Crispin ought not to do.
A sign of his weakness.
A sign that, while he bore no scars from his years at war save the bullet nick on his upper left arm and the sabre slash on his thigh, he was nevertheless wounded on the inside. Less than whole. Scarred, cut up, bitter, and ugly.
“Leave the curtains as they are,” he ordered curtly, irritated already.
Why did everyone insist upon gainsaying him? He was the duke, and though it was a hollow title he had never wanted, it was his. It bloody well ought to mean something.
“Do you require a lamp be lit, Your Grace?” Nicholson asked, his tone solicitous.
Crispin gritted his teeth. “I require nothing, sir. Fetch the girl. I have needs to attend this evening, and none of them can be satisfied until this interminable interview with Miss Torncrow is concluded.”
