“Why would I bumfuzzle you, yournabs?”
He laughed. Which hurt. So he winced and held his aching head. “Christ, Davy. The correct word isbamboozle. Do me a favor, eh? Do not go about sayingbumfuzzle. It sounds…hell…never mind.”
The lad tugged on his forelock. “Aye, yournabs.”
“What was it you came here for, Davy?” he asked, because half of him was certain the lad had appeared with the sole purpose of vexing him and playing his games.
“I was worried about you.” Davy hung his head, kicking his scuffed boots on the carpets. “Not every day you almost kick the bucket.”
As if Demon required the reminder. “I appreciate your concern, but I ain’t dead yet, as you can see. Anything else, Davy?”
“New Pup shat on the floor again, sir,” the lad announced.
“Damnation,” he ground out. “Where?”
“Kitchens,” Davy replied, as if in song.
“Are you bloodysinging?” he demanded, feeling cantankerous as a bull.
Davy blinked. “No, yournabs. Mayhap a bit, on account of you not being a dustman and all.”
“Stop calling me yournabs,” he commanded. “I ain’t a lord. And I ain’t dead yet, so you can stop referring to what happened yesterday. I was at the wrong place at the wrong time, but I am here. That is all that need concern you now.”
And never had he been more aware of the fact that he was not a lord than during the time he had spent with Mira. To be calledyournabsnow held a different meaning than it once had done. Because it had become a ceaseless reminder of what he was not and what he could never be. A reminder that whilst she cared enough to spend the night with him, she had left in haste by the morning light and she had failed to appear or send word in all the hours since.
But what had he expected from her? A proposal of marriage?Mother of all saints, the blow he had taken to the head had addled his wits more than he had realized. It had rendered him fuckingmaudlin.
Demon did not like it.
“Apologies, sir,” Davy said, cutting through his thoughts once more. “Thought you’d want to know Chef is threatening to leave if we can’t get New Pup to stop the grubshite in ’is kitchens.”
“I told you, lad, his name isn’t New Pup.”
The feminine voice carrying from the hall was unmistakably Demon’s half sister, Genevieve, the new Marchioness of Sundenbury. She breezed over the threshold, clad in her customary trousers, coat, and cravat, looking nothing like the fine lady she had become.
The one who was fooling all polite London as she took it by storm.
Demon shot to his feet out of respect for his beloved sibling before casting a glare at Davy. “Go on and clean up after the pup, lad. Tell chef New Pup will be kept from the kitchens until he learns to behave.”
“His name is Lancelot,” Gen groused.
“Fancy name for a fancy lady,” Davy and Demon said at once.
Hell.
It was as if the lad were a reflection of himself at a younger age. Demon had seen it before. It was one of the reasons why he held the lad to such high standards and punished him thoroughly when he was in need of correction. But never so clearly as this moment.
They stared at each other, both bemused.
“Here now,” Gen said, chuckling. “Are you sure Davy isn’t your whelp?”
Not a chance of that. He had only spent his seed inside one woman to whom he was not wed.Hell.That was hardly a matter of pride, was it?
“I take care when I am with a woman,” he growled, hating himself for the lie. Although, in fairness, he alwayshadtaken exacting care. Until Mira. “Not that this is a topic of discussion for a lady.”
“Good thing I ain’t a lady.”
But Genwasa lady now, and Demon and Gen both knew it, even if Davy and the rest of the people in their employ were not privy to her secret. There was a difference in her. Not just that she had fallen in love with her husband the marquess—that was plain enough to see, and almost all Demon’s half siblings had already fallen prey to the parson’s mousetrap. Nothing new there. But what was new about Gen was the way she carried herself. There was a softness there which was new, a nod to elegance, which had been absent before. She was devoted to Sundenbury. Hopelessly in love.
