Page 19

Aston didn’t alter his stony countenance.

His grandfather knew Aston’s feelings about an arranged marriage.

The bowels of hell would freeze first.

Werner cleared his throat. “If you are generous, I might be persuaded to tell you who your lucky bride-to-be is and when Grandfather plans for your nuptials to take place.”

Never.

That was probably the important matter that Grandfather had demanded Aston put in an appearance for. Over his dead body.

“As I’ve repeatedly told you, Werner, I’m not the least inclined to be generous.”

Not when the tosspot across from him had no appreciation or concept of what it meant to make one’s own way in the world. Aston had never had a valet. Not even when he lived under Grandfather’s roof. He’d always preferred to do things for himself.

Werner scowled, then slumped back into his chair, his chin on a fist, resigned that no help would be forthcoming from Aston. “I thought not, but it was worth a try.”

“And neither am I marrying anyone that old reprobate chooses,” Aston vowed. “I owe him nothing.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Werner said sullenly. “Alas, it’s far too late for that. Dear Grandpapa owns me body and soul, and he dashed well knows it.”

A sneer skewing one side of his mouth, Werner lifted his shoulder in an I-don’t-give-a-tinker’s-curse insolence. It was pure artificial bravado on his part.

“Are ye both wantin’ a refill then?” Marnie asked, holding up a pitcher.

“Not for me,” Aston declined.

Werner pushed his mug across the table. “I do.”

Ogling the tavern wench’s full bosom as she refilled his tankard, Werner flicked the ruffle on her primrose yellow sleeve with his forefinger. “Up for a little fun, love?”

She eyed him with the same contempt one would a large cockroach crawling across one’s dinner plate before she slid her regard to Aston. “It depends on who I’d be having fun with, guv,” she said with a husky purr. “Him…or you?”

A blatant invitation if Aston had ever heard one. He hid his smirk behind the rim of his mug.

Werner’s face contorted into a child’s peevish glower. “Be gone with you, insolent wench. You’re probably diseased anyway.”

“Ye’ll never know.” The barmaid winked at Aston. “I bet yer bollocks are so wee, ye need a hand lens to find them.”

With that insult, she sashayed away, swinging her generous hips.

“Trollop,” Werner mumbled sourly into his cup.

“I thought you were particularly fond of trollops. Harlots. Bit o’ muslins. Strump—”

“Shut up, Aston,” Werner growled, then ducked his head when a pair of gentlemen sauntered by the window he was seated next to.

Did Werner owe them money too?

Likely, given how he was skulking like a beaten dog.

Crossing his ankle over his knee, Aston draped his arm over the back of his chair and regarded his cousin. He’d lost weight to the point of gauntness. He’d always been pale, but now his skin held a sickly greenish-ash tone.

“You don’t look well, Werner. You should see a physician. I would help pay for that.”

“I have,” his cousin snapped. “He prescribed an elixir that sent me to the privy every ten minutes, bloody quack.”

“See another then. I don’t think you are well.”