With a groan, he reached for his breeches, which were lying on the floor. Keeping his head as still and steady as possible, he pulled them up his long legs, not bothering with the buttons, and stiffly made his way to the privacy screen. There had been a time when he’d bounded out of bed with energy in anticipation for the day even after an evening of drinking. That seemed decades ago. At seven and twenty, he shouldn’t be feeling so low. Even his back was sore, and he was too aware thathis complaints were those of a creaky old man whose only enjoyment was the blessed relief of emptying his bladder and a nap.
Yes, a nap. Just the thought of it made him almost giddy. Later today he’d have a nap—that was, if the commotion in the house ceased. The shouting was still going on. It always amazed him that as massive as Belvoir was, sound carried as if he lived in a cottage.
He set to cleaning his teeth, the tooth powder thick in his mouth until he rinsed it out. He popped in a mint lozenge that Gemma, Thurlowe’s talented wife, had concocted. Mars was beginning to believe himself as obsessed with her pastilles as he could be to opium, if given the chance... and the latter was the true reason he had dodged the happy couples’ entreaties to join them. Being around so much marital bliss would have broken his resolve not to indulge in the pipe.
And standing there in front of the mirror over his washstand, looking at his face sporting a growth of whiskers he wouldn’t let Nelson shave because his head had hurt too much, his wheat-colored hair in sleep-tossed disarray, and his eyes red-rimmed and tired, he knew hemustchange.
Mars just didn’t understand how matters had come to this. Life was passing him by. And the men he most respected and admired, his closest confidants, now focused on their wives.
They claimed they were in love with them.
Love.
Mars was a pragmatic man. Love turnedone into a fool. If his father had not been so “in love” with his wife, Eleanor, he wouldn’t have challenged Dervil—who also claimed he’d loved her.
For his part, Mars couldn’t stand the sight of his mother. He had refused to talk to Eleanor since the duel. Because of her, he had a low opinion of the fairer sex. He slept with them, had kept more than his share, but he never trusted them. Not one.
Except, standing behind the privacy screen of his well-appointed bedroom on an estate claimed to be one of the finest in the country, Mars realized a hard truth. He was lonely.
And he hated it. He detested feeling the way he did.
The terrible racket that had first woken him now sounded as if it was making its way up the stairs. Mars didn’t worry. He had servants to worry for him. His butler Gibson would handle the matter.
Whatheneeded to do was end his maudlin musings. God, he bored himself.
Mars leaned over the washbasin and poured what water remained in the pitcher over his head. The splash of cold helped. He straightened, letting his hair fly back, droplets of water splashing the screen behind him. He needed to start the morning right with tea and Port, a remedy Nelson always prepared when Mars was a bit under the weather. Then he would regain his equilibrium.
In fact, he was surprised his valet hadn’t already made an appearance. Nelson was usually right in the room the second he heard Mars stir. And Mars had done more than stir. He’d splashed water, he’d polished his teeth—
“Stay back. Don’t you dare touch me,” a woman’s voice commanded from the hallway. Apparently the commotion had reached this floor.
Gibson answered, “Youmustn’tdisturb the earl.”
She laughed at that statement, a short, bitter sound. “I can andI will.”
Her bitterness was familiar.
Curious, Mars dried his face and hands on a fresh linen towel and buttoned his breeches as he came out from behind the screen—just as something, like a fist or a body, hit his bedroom door. The handle twisted. The woman shouted, “Don’t touch me.”
Yes, he did know that voice.
Before he could puzzle it all out, the door flew open and Deb Millner, his last mistress, all but fell into the room. She righted herself after a few steps. Deb had always had good balance, even with her arms carrying a bundle of what looked to be blankets. She pushed back her fashionable chapeau, a plume-covered cocked hat that Mars had probably paid a small fortune for, and growled at his manservants to “Stay back” with the fierceness of an Amazon.
She needn’t have gone to the trouble. At the sight of their master standing in nothing save his breeches, the servants froze in almost a comical tableau. His valet was amongst them. No wonder Nelson hadn’t appeared with tea and Port.
“My lord, we shall remove her,” Gibson announced, sounding as if he was mortified an intruder had reached the inner sanctum, so to speak. He would have sent the servants forward save for Mars stopping him.
“Don’t bother. She is fine.”
“Are you certain, my lord?” the butler pressed.
“I am.”And he was. He wasn’t thrilled to see Deb, however she certainly was an antidote to boredom.
Gibson’s expression said he didn’t think it a wise idea, except he was too well trained to argue. After exchanging glances with Nelson, they and the footman all backed out into the hall.
“And close the door,” Deb ordered.
Gibson’s brows shot up in outrage. “My lord, is this safe—”
