Turning to Winterbourne, he met a smug expression. “Who the bloody hell is Lily?”
“Ah, sweet Lily,” the chap mused. “All thanks to me…again. Thought I might change my name to Lord Cupid.” The smug expression became smugger. “No one – well except me – is impervious toamour, even Rainham. In fact, the taller you are, the harder you fall on your arse.” He raised a brow in perusal. “Have you grown loftier in my absence?”
Glowering seemed to have no effect on the irritating marquess, so fixing his hat and donning his cloak, Rakecombe opened the door. “After you…Moth.”
Winterbourne’s face fell to a scowl.
Their leader always assigned meticulously considered code names to his men and the unfortunate marquess had been saddled with a flying lepidopterous insect.
Mind you, Rakecombe’s own wasn’t much better.
As they strode from Whitehall, he nonchalantly asked the question that had been nagging him. “What do you know of young Lord Sherburn? Any vices?”
Deliberately not catching the eye of the man matching his stride, he marched faster and city folk shot out of the way like billiard balls.
“Pleasant chap. Nothing out of the ordinary. Why?”
“No reason,” he asserted coldly. That tone ended conversations without fail.
“Not a cherry-lipped Miss Quinlan reason, by any chance? He’s courting her, I understand.”
Rakecombe turned into busy Pall Mall. Surely that would be an end to it. A buxom matron in green shuffled across his path and he veered, causing her to totter in his wake.
“She asked after you, last year,” continued the annoying bugger. “Worried about you.”
What should he say to that? He’d spent the past summer in France, even missing his friend Kelmarsh’s wedding, but on his return, he’d purposefully stayed away from that Irish lure, reminding himself once more of the dangers of becoming too close to others.
Miss Quinlan hadn’t been the first to be hurt by his carelessness, and he would ensure it never happened again.
He ploughed directly through the middle of a group of young bucks blocking the pavement, might have trodden on someone’s foot, but no one complained.
“Sherburn will suit her,” Winterbourne wittered. “Nice fellow.”
Would the man not shut his bloody bonebox? This wasn’t some intimate tête-à-tête. “Bah,” he found himself declaring. “He is a stripling.”
“I agree his taste for pastel waistcoats is a mite disconcerting but–”
“And an unfledged greenhorn. Who else has shown an interest?” He twisted to see Winterbourne raise a dark brow, so he merely stared down imperiously, marching on. “I feel a certain concern after her rescue, ’tis all.”
Andconcernwas all he would allow – the memory of his own dear Gwen would ensure that. He would protect Miss Quinlan from himself even if it meant his misery…and her disgust.
“Hmm, concern, eh?” The marquess winked. Bloody winked. Perhaps he should just stab the rogue with his cane and give all the widows a well-earned rest.
“Who else?” he repeated.
A mother plucked her son from the pavement as it became obvious the duke’s velocity was not going to slow for a meandering tot.
“Well, there’s Cambourne,” Winterbourne said, ticking off his fingers and avoiding a purple ostrich plume from an ornately embellished hat.
“Lecher,” Rakecombe snarled.
“Wilson.”
“Gambler.”
“Tythmore.”
“Skinflint.”
