And unfortunately forgot the damned brandy he’d not wanted to begin with.
The snifter tipped, spilling the deuced talk drink onto Argyll’s April report.
Argyll flew to his feet with a force that sent his chair tumbling with a violent clatter. “Christ!” Doing a quick sweep for the nearest fabric to save his work, and finding none, he snatched his shirt off. Nerves raw, Argyl slapped the lawn fabric onto the puddle atop his books. “Damn it all to hell!” he raged.
Bloody hell. Bloody hell. Agitation whipping through. His nerves were scraped raw.
“I’ve known you since Eton, Argyll.”
“I’m aware,” he snapped.
“And I don’t recall you ever with this level of…frustration.”
Yes, because he’d been bedding beauties since his dear departed papa brought Argyll his first conquest, as the debauched fellow called it. This level of frustration wasn’t the sort a quick fuck would fix.Because there is only one woman whom you want this night, the devil taunted Argyll with the truth he’d fought fully forming. Randy as a lad, and painfully erect since he’d coaxed Daria’s first orgasm, Argyll could haveseen to matters quick. The wanton ladies on the club floors who paid for the privilege of sinning, those hot patrons who’d do anything he asked, and assuage this infernal ache that would not relent.
Cursedly, one delicate slip of a lady—a bloody virgin, at that—had seized his thoughts, and he could not claw her free of his mind.
Out of his mind, indeed.
Argyll, the sinner. The man for whom sex was just sex. Currency. Appetite. Control.
Bloody laughable.
Ludicrous.
Impossible.
With a feral growl, he pounded his shirt into his books over and over.
“Might I suggest something?”
DuMond’s voice cut through the turmoil consuming Argyll. The haze lifted from his gaze, leaving behind a stark, damning clarity.
“What?” he snarled.
“Go bed your wife,” DuMond said bluntly.
The floor tilted under him. “It is not about my…” Wife. I have a wife. “My…” At that, a wife he was actively lusting after. It was provincial. It was beneath him in every way.
“Wife?”
Argyll swung his focus to DuMond. “Hmm?”
“I believe the word you’re searching for is ‘wife.’”
Argyll’s jaw flexed. “It is not about…about…” Daria. The intrepid warrior who had gone toe-to-toe with St. John in his defense. And Argyll—a man wholly undeserving of it. “Her.”
“I’m sure it is not.” DuMond reclined, a study in maddening calm; Argyll had never hated him more than in this moment.“Either way, my point is that you desire your wife and would be best served—”
“Not another word!” A dull flush sparked in his chest and climbed his neck. “Aren’t you on duty this evening?” Damn it all to hell, why had he torn off his damned shirt? He snatched it up and wrestled his way back into the sopping, wrinkled mess of fabric.
DuMond finally took the cue and stood. “Indeed. The floors are quieter than usual tonight, and Kilburn suggested I pay you a visit.”
“Oh, I bet he did.” His damned brother-in-law had always hated him. Argyll had maneuvered a match between Raina and the former assassin. Were the pair nauseatingly happy together? Entirely so. Had that earned him even a scrap of goodwill from his new business partner? Not an inch.
DuMond nearly took himself off.
Nearly.
