The cheek!
Once he and the other rotter with him came within shouting distance, she let fly. “You’ve got some brass, Rhys Osborne, inviting me here to…to…what? Bear witness to your carousing? Noble deed, my arse!”
“Tilly, Tilly, Tilly,” he said—pleaded. “It’s not what it looks like.”
Mouth clamped shut, she exhaled through her nose and crossed her arms over her chest and waited, her foot tapping the cobblestones.
He waved a hand toward the fellow beside him. “I would like to introduce you to the Right Honorable Viscount Whitmore.”
Rhys didn’t sound drunk as a piper, she would give him that.
The lord beside him—Viscount Whitmore—gave a wobbly bow that listed to the left. “A lady such as thy lovely self can call me Whitty.” He rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “Everyone does, anyway.”
Tilly saw a few things at once.
It was this lord who was three sheets to the wind, not Rhys.
And she liked this Whitty.
Oh, he possessed the look of an absolute waster, but he had kind eyes.
Her umbrage fell away. She still didn’t know what this night was about, but she was intrigued. “And you can call me Tilly.” She added on a laugh, “Everyone does.”
Rhys searched her eyes for the split of a second, long enough for her to know what he was looking for. She offered a smile, just for him. And what passed behind his eyes could’ve been taken for none other than relief.
Whitty in the middle, they set off down Piccadilly.
“Do you know, Lady Tilly,” said Whitty, a slight slur to his words, “that Lord Rhys here—I call him Ossie, by the way—is me oldest friend in the world?”
“Is that so?”
“Aye, it is.” He was nodding a touch too adamantly for the maintenance of his balance. It was a good thing she and Rhys had hooked their arms through his on either side. “Thirteen years old at Eton.” Now, his head was shaking from side to side. “A dead lonely age to toss a boy to the Arctic winds of boarding school. Oh, how I missed Nanny.” He drew suddenly inward, then as suddenly brightened. “As you may have gathered by now, I’m a chap who likes a convivial gathering. None of this darkened-brow, romantic bosh for us. Am I right, Ossie?”
“Right you are, Whitty.”
“Can’t be arsed a whit for that rubbish. Why not just have fun? So, one night that first year, I reckoned I could sneak out of Hawtrey House and find my way to the nearest public house. And who did I meet at the gate at the end of the drive doing the exact same thing?” A boisterous guffaw sprang from his gut. “This waster,” he said with great affection.
Rhys snorted.
His dimples gifted a glimpse of the daring boy he once was.
“Except,” continued Whitty, “this waster had already been sneaking out every night for a fortnight.” Again, came his jolly roll of laughter. “You see, at the age of thirteen, Rhys already stood at six feet and was the tallest boy in our year. Me?” He snorted wetly. “I was the same age and half his size. To look at us side by side, the hard of seeing could’ve taken us for father and son.”
Rhys shook his head on a wry chuckle. “Didn’t we try it once?”
Whitty’s face brightened. “By gads, we did! And it worked.”
“Until you edged up to the bartop and demanded a jigger of whisky with your glass of milk.”
Both men roared with laughter, and Tilly couldn’t help joining in.
It wasn’t until Rhys guided them onto a quiet street that Whitty took note of his surroundings. His brow crinkled with befuddlement. “Ain’t Brooks’s the other way?”
“We’re going to my flat on Bennet Street,” said Rhys.
Tilly felt her eyebrows lift. That was news to her. Though she did like the idea of seeing how he lived.
Whitty’s brow furrowed as he gave this surprising information a penetrative think. His brow, at last, released. “As long as there’s whisky.”
