The arrogant man still believed she would be his mistress.
She snorted indelicately, unhooking her skirts and letting them fall. The Duke of Whitby was doomed to be disappointed.
CHAPTER 12
“Why are you so bloody happy this morning, Whit?” King asked grimly from the other side of a mountain of Bayonne ham and poached eggs.
“One might also beg the question of why you are so hungry this morning,” he returned to his friend with a cheerful smile before he took a bite of his own bacon. “It looks as if you’re eating for three.”
King pinned him with an icy glare. “Pray, don’t be defensive just because you’re wearing country tweed paired with a waistcoat that would have better served as a maiden aunt’s drawers.”
“A truly crushing insult, old chap,” he praised, unaffected by King’s slur against his attire.
He raised his demitasse of coffee in salute.
King wasn’t appreciative of his praise, however. His friend’s eyebrows snapped together. “Riverdale, check to see if Whitby is feverish.”
Riverdale glanced in Rhys’s direction and shuddered. “Christ no. I’m not touching him. For all I know, he’s contagious.”
Rhys chuckled. “Where the devil is Richford this morning? Surely he ought to be on the receiving end of some of your mockery. I rather miss his scowl.”
Their friend was, once again, conspicuously absent. Rhys might have been more troubled by Richford’s unusual behavior if he weren’t so damned pleased with how his courtship of Miranda was proceeding. Because that was how he was thinking of his slow and steady campaign to woo her into becoming his mistress. He hadn’t bedded her last night. Instead, he had taken himself in hand and gone to sleep, then risen in the morning with a cockstand of steel only to tug himself to completion again.
Not sufficient, of course, but a man needed to remove the poison, and at the moment, he was—surprisingly enough—more interested in taking care of Miranda than himself. A novel experience, that.
“I haven’t seen Richford since yesterday,” King said. “He’s probably off somewhere growling at his blonde goddess.”
“Blonde goddess?” Rhys repeated, curious. “Is this the mystery woman Richford has been chasing about?”
“We reckon it is,” Riverdale confirmed. “King made one of his elixirs last night after you disappeared. Richford drank half of it himself, the selfish arse. And then he started carrying on about a goddess he couldn’t touch or some such rot. Something about her being a Gorgon who would make his cock fall off.”
“Christ.” Rhys shuddered. “No talk of Richford’s cock at breakfast, if you please. I don’t want to have to vomit my eggs. I have a delicate constitution.”
“It’s possible he was delirious,” King added with a shrug. “I added a bit too much of a particular ingredient that tends to have such properties.”
Rhys shook his head. “I don’t even want to ask.”
King grinned. “Then perhaps it’s best you don’t, old chap.”
“Right.” He concentrated on the task of finishing a rasher of bacon.
“Where were you, last night, Whit?” Riverdale asked slyly. “You slipped away just after dinner.”
Fortunately, none of the other club members was seated near enough at the massive table to overhear the conversation. Rhys had no wish to leave Miranda vulnerable to becoming fodder for gossip again.
“I wasn’t aware I needed to ask your permission to conduct my private affairs,” he drawled.
“Private affairs?” Riverdale repeated. “Ah.”
“It would seem Richford is not the only one among us who has found a goddess,” King quipped, cutting into his Bayonne ham. “One can only hope that your particular goddess is not as dangerously capable as his.”
“Quite,” Rhys said, grateful his friend hadn’t mentioned cocks falling off again.
How terribly grim.
And there was nothing at all grim about today. Because Miranda was almost precisely where he wanted her. She had yet to agree to become his mistress, but he was reasonably confident that in one more night, perhaps two, he would have her concession. She couldn’t resist him.
The feeling was mutual, of course.
