He leaned forward and kissed her cheek. “Excellent choice. I am quite a catch, you know.”
His grin told her he was making a sally. But she did not doubt there were any number of ladies who would count themselves fortunate to become the next Countess of Anglesey. She, however, was not one of them.
“It is settled, then,” she said, summoning a wan smile. “If you will excuse me, my lord? I am desperately in need of a nap.”
“Of course, my dear. I will settle some details with Wycombe and leave you to your rest.” He stepped back and bowed in princely fashion, and then, the Earl of Anglesey, wickedly handsome rake, and her future husband, took his leave.
CHAPTER6
“You do notneedto marry her, you know.”
Seated opposite his close friend Grey, the Marquess of Greymoor, at the Black Souls club, Zachary raised his glass of wine in salute. “You would not be the first person to advise me thus. However, if I were to abandon Lady Isolde now, I would have a rather irate Wycombe descending upon me, and while I do think I could trounce his arse in a fair fight, I’m not too keen on trying.”
Grey grinned wryly. “Taking up the cudgels is one way to end a friendship.”
“I like Wycombe. We have been chums for years. You see?” Zachary forked up a bite ofsole au gratin, savoring the richness of the truffles and butter, cut with the tart, citrus acidity of lemon.
Damn, the chef at this club was good. Clubs with a certainéclat, catering to wealthy lords, had never held appeal to him. He would have felt guilty, but the Black Souls was not the sort of establishment Horatio ever would have patronized. It was owned by a self-made businessman, Elijah Decker, and it had not been in existence for the past millennium, serving only the highest echelons of society the way Horatio’s club had been.
“I do think Wycombe would forgive you the slight.” Grey took a sip of his wine. “Eventually. It isn’t as if Lady Isolde’s heart would be forever dashed to bits if you cried off, or some such feminine rot.”
“Apparently Lady Isolde’s heart has already been forever dashed by another,” he said, the reminder of Arthur Penhurst ruining his enthusiasm for the meal before him.
There was something about the thought of Izzy longing after the skinny charlatan who had thrown her over for a pile of American money that made him want to take up the cudgels indeed. And smash his fist into that pile of horse dung’s overly large nose.
“Well, in that, the two of you make a pair,” Grey drawled.
The veiled reference to Beatrice made him stiffen. One evening, in the wake of Horatio’s and Philip’s sudden deaths, he had managed to get himself thoroughly soused and tell Grey the sordid past he shared with his brother’s widow.
“Indecent of you to remind me of that stupid night,” he grumbled. “I said far too much.”
“You know your secrets are safe with me. Christ knows I’ve enough of my own.”
Grey was damned loyal, and that was one of the reasons he was a close and trusted friend. There was no question of that.
He inclined his head. “I do know that, yes.”
Grey took another healthy sip of wine. “All I am saying, old chap, is that you should not shackle yourself to Lady Isolde for life because you want to make the widowed Lady Anglesey jealous using the new Lady Anglesey. You created a scandal at my mother’s ball—one she is unlikely to forgive me for, though she’s already forgiven the role you played in it—but the memory of society is deuced short. They will move on to the next bit of gossip and forget about what they saw and heard.”
Zachary winced. “I am sorry about your mother.”
Grey raised a brow. “The dragon is happy her ball is being bandied about on so many wagging tongues. She is already after me to host another next month. I’ve told her no, of course. One a year is all I can bear.” He shuddered.
“I love your mother as if she were my own,” Zachary said, and he meant those words.
His own mother had been an invalid with precious little time or energy for her three sons. By the time Zachary had been born into the world, she had been so weakened, he had nearly killed her. For the rest of his life, she had been pale and feeble and chronically ill. She had died when he had been a lad.
Lady Greymoor, overbearing and haughty and domineering though she was, had taken Zachary under her wing when he had been a mere mister with a reputation as black as his soul. A good heart lurked beneath her steely façade.
“And she loves you like a son,” Grey agreed, raising his glass in recognition. “More than she loves me, or so I suspect some days.”
“Never.” The marchioness loved Grey fiercely and unequivocally. “She wants to rule you because she thinks she knows what is best, and the two of you butt heads like sheep. Whereas I, as a devil-may-care who is not sprung from her womb, am only the recipient of gentle, motherly guidance.”
“Christ.” Grey winced. “Do me a favor and never again speak of my mother’s womb.”
He laughed, and damn it, he had not been doing enough of that lately, in the wake of his brothers’ deaths and inheriting the title and all its myriad responsibilities. He needed to find more humor in life, in the world. More distraction that was not merely a willing cunny or an excellent bottle of wine.
“Forgive me, old chap,” he said, grinning.
