One he was currently losing.
“She was a duchess,” Nando said glibly. “Her friend may have been a countess, however. Lady Such-and-Sundry, if I’m not mistaken.”
Maxim slid a finger between his cravat and his throat, creating an incremental space that seemed somehow vital for continued breathing. “You were carrying on exactly as I supposed you would be this evening, then.”
“Where are all the servants?” Nando frowned as he looked about, sounding perplexed. “My hat and greatcoat are dreadfully sodden.”
“They’re abed,” Maxim growled, trying not to feel irritated with his brother and failing. “It is half past three in the morning.”
“Is it?” His brother tossed his top hat away as if it were an insult, the felt brim and crown traveling end over end to land with a damp thud some feet away. “Ye gods. London ladies keep disreputable hours.”
Oh, to be as carefree as Nando, with his head of blond curls and his sea-blue eyes that forever had the ladies swooning. Nando seducing whomever he wished. Nando flitting about at night without a care as to kingdoms or thrones or alliances or exiled princes or revolutions.
Or beautiful, gray-gazed ladies-in-waiting who were forbidden.
Maxim tapped his foot and crossed his arms over his chest, pinning his brother with an unimpressed stare. “Indeed.”
“Hmm,” Nando hummed, shucking his greatcoat and sending a fresh flurry of water to the floor. “Whatever happened to the carpets?”
“They were ruined,” he said simply, thinking it best not to trouble his younger brother with the entire truth.
The blood had proven too difficult to remove from the woolen rugs covering the polished wood. In the end, they’d been rolled up, neatly concealing the body within.
“Ruined how?” Nando countered, surprising Maxim with his persistence and curiosity both.
“It hardly signifies.” Maxim waved his hand dismissively.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
But his brother’s eyes narrowed, dropping to Maxim’s restless foot. “Something has happened.”
Yes, something damned well had.Somethinghad been an enemy infiltrating the haven of the town house he had leased for this infernal betrothal announcement. An announcement he was only making to further his goal of securing peace and prosperity for his kingdom and his people.
“It has been dealt with,” he said simply. “You should go to bed.”
Nando raised a lone, dark brow. “And leave you alone in this state? I think not, brother.”
In this state.
Maxim clenched his jaw and rolled his shoulders at the words, the implication. The unspoken acknowledgment that something was inherently wrong with him. He supposed he should be grateful that Nando hadn’t uttered the word that truly incited him to abject rage—madness.
“I’ll remind you that I am your king,” he said sternly.
But despite his proclamation, he still couldn’t stop tapping his damned foot. Because when the fits came, his body was not his own. It was as if it belonged to another.
“You are my brother first,” Nando said, throwing his soaked greatcoat in the same direction as his abandoned hat.
It landed with a heavy thud on the newly revealed parquet.
Maxim stared at the coat and hat, noting a small smear of red on the wall that had been missed by his assiduous servants in their earlier efforts at cleaning. Shooting a man was so blasted messy. Tomorrow, he would see the last trace of what had happened upon his return from visiting Lady Tansy removed. For tonight, he couldn’t stomach wiping the blood from the plaster himself for fear of the effect it might have upon him.
He hated blood, a fact which had never bothered the gossips who had claimed he’d smeared the blood of his enemies on his face in battle.
Hated its hot slipperiness. Hated its metallic scent, the taste of it in his mouth. The splatter of it on his face and hands in the midst of a battle. His own soldiers’ life source…
His stomach clenched violently.
Tap. Tap. Tap.
