ChapterOne
Cambridge 1816
Books be damned and women with them.
Andrew Mallet lay on a narrow bed while Harley—former batman, loyal servant, insolent bastard—massaged the twisted muscles of his back with ruthless determination.Through a door Andrew could see his friend, Jamie Heyworth, slouched in the battered leather of a well-worn chair, oblivious to the exquisite Tudor roses and honeybees carved in the finely waxed walnut mantel that crowned Andrew’s study.
He ignored Jamie’s drunken stupor, eyes focused with angry resentment on two small books resting innocently on his worktable.In a room filled with books, two more should have had little impact.Andrew, however, one-time soldier and would-be scholar, couldn’t just leave them at the bookseller’s.The walk there inflicted wrenching agony on his back and hip, and he immediately regretted it.
“What you need is a woman.Warm your bed and serve a better table.”Jamie’s voice managed to sound emphatic even though he slurred his words.Andrew ignored him.
A woman?Hardly.His bookstore foray had thrust him into an ugly scene.He tried not to think about the woman who had set the bookseller off.Her pretense of scholarship set the old misogynist off on a rant.The damned bookseller behaved like a pretentious fool.
“Watching that brute of yours manipulate your back isn’t my idea of an evening’s entertainment, Mallet, I must say,” Jamie rambled on.
“Perhaps you should find someone else to visit.”Andrew turned his face into the bedding and let soft linens muffle his words.
Jamie heard him anyway.“Unkind.You know I worry about you.A woman.One would do this household no end of good.”
“You think my injuries don’t provide me with enough discomfort?You want to inflict a woman on me as well?What I need is work.”He groaned in response to one of Harley’s more vigorous movements.
“Work?What is the point in that?You’re a nabob.The army left you well enough off.I can see where keeping your father’s little house has some appeal, even if it is too cramped in here for company, but damn it, Andrew, you could afford a proper staff.That ham-handed ruffian is no one’s idea of a proper anything.”
Harley cast him a baleful look, finished his ministrations, and left the room with a basin full of towels.
“Are you angry because Harley left you for me?You liked him well enough as your batman in Portugal.”Andrew rolled onto his side, faced his visitor, and flashed his odd, lopsided grin.
“True enough.He would’ve left me for you sooner, though, if you were in camp more often.Too busy running the hills with the partisans to stay for long.He preferred your pretty face.”
“Ah, Jamie, you malign me.He preferred my abstemious habits.”Andrew ignored the reference to his face and watched his companion fill his glass again.Jamie was four or five rounds in.
“You weren’t so abs...abst...”A loud belch punctuated his sentence.“Abstemious about women.And they all liked your pretty face.That’s for certain.Remember Colonel Stafford’s wife?A beauty, that one.”Jamie Heyworth flashed a grin full of pure wickedness as only he could, drunk or sober.
“Not my fault!”Andrew took the teasing with good humor.Jamie’s habitual conversation bristled with sharp needling but never with cruelty.Andrew swung his feet around, sat up, and stuffed his shirt into his trousers.“I explained that to you before.She bribed poor Corporal Collins, who kept my things, to get into my bed.I tossed her out.”
“Didn’t hurt your reputation none.The great, dark, mysterious Major Mallet, all the more interesting for being so difficult to catch.What happened to the corporal?”
“Stripped of his rank—back to private.Back to the infantry.Don’t know after that.”An uncomfortable silence followed that remark.Both men knew well what the infantry endured in the last years of the war.
“Still, a proper gentleman needs a proper staff to run a proper household.Glad I’m going back to London tomorrow where it is civilized.”
“Where you can bunk in with Glenaire, you mean.”
“Of course!”A swift wink punctuated Jamie’s words.“Keeps a fine cellar, our Richard does.He can afford me.Rich as Croesus is the Marquess.”He raised a glass in mock salute.
Andrew cringed.He once held Richard Hayden, the Marquess of Glenaire, as one of his closest friends, bound by school ties and shared adventure.Jamie had no idea what had caused the rift between them, and Andrew didn’t plan to enlighten him.
“Rich as Croesus,” Jamie repeated, “And generous to his friends.”He downed the contents of the glass and poured another.
Glenaire remained loyal in his way, but Andrew didn’t plan to let him or any member of the Hayden family interfere with his life again.Glenaire’s entire clan had made Andrew’s life a misery, particularly the Hayden he encountered in Groghan’s bookshop that afternoon, Glenaire’s sister.
Jamie mumbled into his glass, less coherent by the minute.
Andrew brooded against the doorjamb, staring at sparks flying up his chimney.He’d earned his peace after eleven bloody years and intended to enjoy it without interference.
“I’ve had my fill of the damned Haydens,” he snarled, “and I’m not about to tolerate interference from Richard.”
Jamie ignored him.“Still, a wife would do you good.Don’t look like you wish me to the devil!Mistress then.Clean you up a bit.”
