Pride & Passion

The pressed news sheet across the table from him rolled down, and Black’s blue-green eyes peered out at him from beneath heavy brows. “He’s always tardy. Why are you surprised?”

“Because one would think that the matters we need to discuss would be a bit more important than his damned beauty sleep!”

Black had the nerve to grin before folding the paper and slapping it down onto his thigh.

“Damn him! Does Alynwick treat everything in his life with such indifference?”

“He informed me yesterday afternoon that he had planned to do a bit of reconnaissance work last night. Perhaps it was a late evening.”

Sussex snorted in indignation. “There can be nothing worth exploring at a ball that will aid us in our case to find Orpheus.”

“Oh, I would most certainly disagree with that.”

Sussex glanced up in time to watch the debauched and unshaven Marquis of Alynwick flop inelegantly into a leather club chair. “Coffee,” he groaned as the waiter approached the table. “God, yes. Nectar of the gods, isn’t it?” he said as the waiter poured his cup full of the black brew.

“Cream or sugar?”

“Just black, if you please.”

With a nod, the servant was on his way, leaving them alone.

“Devil of a headache, I take it, then?” Black asked as he raised his own cup to his lips.

“Devil? And a few more metaphors that aren’t fit for priggish ears.” He gave Sussex a meaningful glance. Apparently he was the prig. The thought bristled, especially when he thought of Lucy and her accusations that he was a cold, boring aristocrat with no fire in his soul. What did the bloody pair of them know, anyway? His breast was on fire for want of her, and his soul … it was filled with an unholy lust that would never be satiated. Lucy Ashton would never discover for herself the amount of passion he kept hidden beneath his proper facade.

“You’re late.” His coffee cup hit the table with more force than he intended, but damn it, he was in something of a mood today, and could not shake it. One would think that after being shut out of Lucy’s life for the past two weeks, one would be somewhat more civil. Yet as each day passed he was becoming increasingly more intolerable—and short-tempered.

Alynwick, he surmised, must be used to his outbursts, because he merely raised his dark eyebrow and made a grand show of leisurely sipping away at his coffee. “You have pent-up lust, Sussex. Get yourself a woman. You’ll be right as rain after it, I swear it.”

As usual, Alynwick’s answer to everything was sex.

“I have no need of your solicitation, Alynwick.”

“No?” the marquis said with a grin. “Come now, Sussex, you’re a healthy male, living like a monk. It can’t be healthy.”

He didn’t need any reminders that he hadn’t bedded in a woman in … good God, months! Almost a year, he reminded himself. When Lucy Ashton and her flamered hair had flitted past him, robbing him of breath, speech and rational thought. She’d been a compulsion to him ever since, and every woman he’d seen or met since paled against her.

“Well?” he asked irritably, when he could no longer stomach the marquis’s antics, or his pitiful one-sided longing for Lucy. “What did you find out on this supposed reconnaissance mission of yours?”

Alynwick shrugged and crossed his leg over his knee, while his fingers fiddled with a loose thread on his sleeve. “That the new Lady Larabie has the mouth of a pinched fish, and her bosom, which has been much touted, is nothing but the sham of a rather imaginative, yet very hardworking corset.”

Groaning in frustration, Sussex sent a pleading glance to Black in hopes the earl could knock some sense into Alynwick. Everything was such a damned jest with him. He cared for nothing but frivolities and women, and to hell with anything else.

“Really?” Black drawled. “A feigned bosom? Poor Larabie. To be drawn in and duped by an artfully arranged décolletage.”

“Hang Larabie, and bosoms,” Sussex snarled. Alynwick, with that devil’s twinkle in his eye, slunk deeper into his chair and stared at him.

“Bosoms, Sussex, are the sustenance of the world. How can you not be a devoted follower? I myself find I can be led quite merrily about by a fine pair of—”

“Alynwick …” he warned.

“Is this strange aversion of yours to the discussion of breasts in particular, or is it because the ravishing Lady Lucy has but a rather modest bosom?”

“You ass!” he hissed, and jumped up from his chair with his hand fisted, and his arm pulled back, ready to plant a facer on the marquis. Laughing, Alynwick held up his hands pleading with mock horror.

“My God, you’re like a baited bear. Sit, you oaf, before you spill my coffee. I swear you’ve lost your sense of humor. This girl has all but sucked it out of you—well, not sucked per se—”

“Watch your tongue,” Sussex growled in a deep voice, “or I’ll pull it out of your mouth for you.”

“My, such a strong reaction. I see you’re still moonfaced over the girl. Disgusting what love does to a perfectly healthy and virile man. And what are you smiling about over there?” Alynwick asked, making Black’s grin vanish. “You’re no better, the way you’ve been barricaded in your town house with your new wife.”

“Mmm, yes, and if you dare say anything about my wife’s bosom, I will flatten you right here. Understood?”

“Good Lord, I’m surrounded by prigs.”

“You’ll be surrounded by a pool of blood—your own—if you don’t get on with it, Alynwick,” Sussex growled. He was in no mood for this type of banter before, and he certainly wasn’t now. How dare Alynwick have sized up Lucy, and found her lacking? Damn the man, she had a perfectly lovely bosom, and he should know, he’d spent months staring at it, and wondering how perfect her breasts were beneath her tight-fitting bodices, and if her nipples were coral or pale pink, and how they might tighten with the graze of his thumb, the tip of his tongue …

God, he was unraveling. The sooner he could quit the conversation, the better. Alynwick had always been a terrible influence on him.

“Once more, Alynwick. What was it you discovered?”

With a sigh, the marquis shoved away his irreverence, and fortified himself with another large gulp of hot coffee. Wincing at the bitterness, he set it down. “False bosom aside, Lady Larabie has a surprisingly naughty nature. Between heated kisses in the hall, she invited me to join her at a special Wednesday nightclub. Any guesses what it might be?”

Black pressed forward. “The hell she did!”

Alynwick grinned. “I keep telling you, Black, it’s the sweet, innocent-looking ones that are really hellcats in the bedroom. Yes. It’s true. The new Lady Larabie slips out on Wednesday evenings when her husband is gambling with his cronies. She’s been going to the House of Orpheus for weeks, and she’s offered to drag me along.”

“In exchange for what?” Sussex demanded.

Alynwick looked at him as though he were sporting two heads. “Dear me, your grace, has it really been that long?”

Sussex felt his face flame. “You do not need to sell your soul for this, Alynwick—we can get information about Orpheus in other ways.”

“Kind of you to think of my soul, Sussex, but I assure you, I sold the thing years ago. It was of no use to me. I gave it to the devil in a two-for-one bargain, my soul and conscience for a tidy little abode in his realm when I expire.”

To hear him say such things in such a cavalier tone chilled him to the core. Was there nothing Alynwick held sacred?

“So, you will carry on an affair with Lady Larabie in order to gain entrance into this mysterious House of Orpheus?”

“A little more than just an entrée, my friends. I intend to be introduced to this shadowy Orpheus, thanks to the lady’s generosity.”

Black sat back and studied the marquis. “And if Larabie takes it into his head to pursue his wife’s activities?”

Alynwick shrugged. “He won’t. We’re going to settle it tonight in a duel. I’ll need a second, of course, and then it will be all over and done, and his lordship can have his peace of mind that he has fought for his lady’s virtue. His honor will be placated, and he’ll be too arrogant to believe that the lady would continue to carry on with me behind his back. And then, every Wednesday night thereafter we will meet and I will try my damnedest to find out what I can about Orpheus, and how the devil he discovered anything about the Brethren Guardians.”

“You’re insane. A duel with Larabie? You’ll get yourself shot—and most likely killed,” he snapped. “Especially since you cannot seem to pass away a night without getting roaring drunk.”

“I do not need a cataloguing of my sins, Sussex. Believe me, I’m well aware of them all. Trust me. I know what I’m doing, and this plan will work. Lady Larabie is entirely indiscreet. I’ll have her spilling what she knows about the club and about Orpheus himself within a week. There is nothing else to be done. Wendell Knighton did not act alone in his attempt to steal the artifacts—there was someone else pulling the strings, feeding him information. We cannot just let it rest now the relics are safe and Knighton is dead.”