Beams? No, that wasn’t right.
Damn it, someone had made off with his valet, his pillows, and his green silk bed hangings, and now there were beams where beams had never been before.
Either that, or . . . he blinked again.
Wherewashe? Not in his bedchamber, that was certain. Good Lord, had he fallen asleep in Selina’s dressing room? That would explain the red-eyed demoness and the stab wound to his neck, but no, he distinctly recalled leaving her townhouse last night and directing Knapp to take him to Park Lane.
Right, that was it. He was in Basingstoke’s study.
He must have fallen asleep in the chair. He struggled onto his knees and heaved himself up. His coat, cravat, and waistcoat were tangled in a crumpled ball at the foot of a nearby chaise where he must have tossed them last night, but he hadn’t had the good sense to toss himself down on top of them, and now his neck and back were screaming in agony.
He needed a bath, a cup of tea, and his bed, but there was only the dimmest glow of light coming from the glass doors behind Basingstoke’s desk. The house was silent, with even the servants still abed. It couldn’t be later than four or five in the morning, then.
An instant later, the mantel clock chimed four times, confirming it.
Well, then. Unless he wished to roust Basingstoke’s servants from their beds and demand a carriage—a course of action that would endear him to precisely no one—he’d have to content himself for now with the chaise and a glass of Basingstoke’s very good brandy. Not quite the thing, drinking brandy in the wee hours, but it would pass the time, and help take the sting out of his neck.
He rose and stumbled across the room, muttering curses under his breath, fetched a glass from the sideboard, and shifted Basingstoke’s crystal liquor decanters about until he found the brandy. After a fortifying sip he turned to make his way back to the chaise, but paused when he reached Basingstoke’s desk.
A half-finished letter lay on top of it, and four or five pages of crumpled paper were scattered on the floor beneath it, dark blots of ink staining the pages.
Ah, yes. Miss Thorne. How could he have forgotten Miss Prudence Thorne?
He never forgot a pretty face, and not many ladies in London could lay claim to Miss Thorne’s dainty little nose, the soft, pretty curve of her chin, the wide, hazel eyes, and the unusual golden-brown shade of her hair that put him in mind of warmed honey.
There was only one lady in all of England with that hair and those eyes, but for all the sweet softness of her face, she had the devil’s own disposition.
There was no forgettingher, that was certain.
Miss Prudence Thorne. The daughter of Major Thomas Thorne, who’d lost a hefty sum of money to him at Lord Hastings’s ball last season. Miss Prudence Thorne, dear friend of the Duchess of Basingstoke, and evidently her guest in London, and likely for the shooting party that would take place at Basingstoke’s country house early next week.
Miss Prudence Thorne, who despised him with the heat of a thousand suns.
Teasing her had been the only pleasant part of his evening. Alas, he hadn’t succeeded in provoking her into a passion, though it had been a near thing, that fiery temper of hers simmering just underneath the surface, the faint red flush of it tinting her white skin.
Really, the lady did herself no favors by keeping such a tight rein on herself. It would be glorious when her control finally snapped. He only hoped he’d be there to witness it.
Rather a fetching creature all around, Miss Thorne.
She made no secret of the fact that she loathed him, of course, but so far, her disgust had been of the quiet, implacable kind. For all her other innumerable flaws, Miss Thorne was not a tantrum thrower. She hadn’t thrown anything at all, and though he knew her tongue was layered with barbs, the lady had limited herself to pinched lips and icy stares.
Unlike Selina, who could take a lesson in self-control from Miss Thorne, but then there was really no comparing the two ladies. Selina never experienced a single emotion that wasn’t motivated by selfishness, greed, or spite. Even her hatred of him was a product of jealousy and wounded pride.
Miss Thorne, though . . . well, perhaps he’d earned her dislike.
Despite what the gossips whispered about him behind his back, hedidhave a conscience. He simply didn’t pay much attention to its squawking. But he had experienced a twinge or two of regret over that wager with Major Thorne last season. He wasn’t much given to self-reflection, but it had niggled at him, like a flea burrowing under his skin.
It hadn’t been quite right, that wager. He’d been out of sorts that night, bored and antsy at once. Balls during the season always made him so, with all those predatory gazes crawling over him, the marriage-minded mamas sizing him up as a potential husband for their simpering daughters, measuring and weighing him as if he were a cut of beef.
It was all Hasting’s fault, really. If his bloody ball hadn’t been such a deadly bore, Jasper would never have had to resort to the cardroom in the first place. He preferred to limit his wagering to White’s, or to St. James’s gaming hells. If he’d been at one of his usual haunts, like the Pidgeon Hole or Mrs. Leach’s, he wouldn’t have sat down to cards with Major Thorne at all. It didn’t take much to deduce that the major wasn’t accustomed to wagering.
He didn’t usually trifle with gentlemen who didn’t have money to lose. It wasn’t sporting.
But he hadn’t been in a sporting mood that night, and in the end, he’d taken some thousand pounds or so off the man. Or had it been more than that? The devil of it was, he’d made up his mind to forgive the debt, which was really rather generous of him—heroic, even. Major Thorne was dreadful at cards, yes, but he was a fine old gentleman, and Jasper wasn’t in the habit of ruining fine old gentlemen.
But his fits of heroism were fleeting things, and he’d forgotten all about the blasted wager until he’d received a bank draft from Thorne, paying all but five hundred pounds of the debt, with his vowels for the remainder.
Was that why Miss Thorne had appeared in London so suddenly? Had her father sent her here to negotiate the repayment of the remainder of the debt? She hadn’t had the air of a lady who intended to beg a favor from him—quite the contrary—but neither did he believe she’d come all the way from Wiltshire of all places just to visit the Duchess of Basingstoke.
