“Oh yeah, guuuuuuuurrrrl, I’m lovin’ me some of that.”
I started laughing.
When I stopped, even if she was smiling, her eyes were serious.
“He’s scared. He’ll come around.”
“He doesn’t strike me as a guy who gets scared.”
“For some folks, the most terrifying thing of all is the possibility of finding love and happiness.”
“I’m not sure he’s that either.”
“His mother died, honey, and his sister. Ansley told me they were both lost to him by the time he was eleven years old. You will be the next great, important woman in his life. If it was me, I’d find you terrifying.”
Holy shit.
I hadn’t thought of that.
“You are wise, my glorious momma.”
“Lady Corliss knows all.”
I started laughing again.
This time, Mom did it with me.
Chapter Fifteen
Shadows
Loren
“I think the score now, brother, is twelve to ten, sadly in your favor, but I’m gaining,” Marlow noted.
Loren flinched as the physician pierced the skin of his side with a needle.
He then took in Marlow, his friend’s eye already swelling so badly, it was nearly swollen shut, but the purpling had long since begun. Although he’d cursorily scrubbed his face, both of his nostrils were rimmed with dried blood. And a deep cut rent his upper lip.
Loren felt some heat at his jaw where he’d taken a glancing blow, but that was it.
Outside the gash at his side that came from a dagger.
Thus, Loren asked, “How is that tallied, my friend?”
Marlow also flinched as he crossed his arms on his chest, which he would do, as he’d taken some body blows (correction, that heat at Loren’s jaw wasn’t it, they’d both taken body blows, however, they weren’t visible, so they didn’t count).
Marlow did this saying, “I’m not on my back in my bed.”
Loren sighed, as with that, he had no choice but to concede the point.
Marlow ceased ribbing when he stated low, “Winnow Dupont is going to be a problem.”
Loren nodded once and agreed by stating the obvious, “Winnow Dupont is already a problem.”
He was about to say more when his bedroom door opened.
Marlow twisted at the waist to peer behind him, making enough room for Loren to see his father strolling in, face set in granite.
Bloody hell.
Ansley stepped to the side.
And there was Satrine, the hood of a cloak over her head, its folds resting enchantingly on her shoulders, the rest of the cloak’s black velvet a sheet all the way down to the floor.
He sat up abruptly, grimaced, and the physician hissed, “Remain still!”
Ansley and Satrine came to a halt at the end of his bed.
His fiancée’s eyes were aimed at the doctor’s work.
His father’s eyes were aimed at him.
“Tell me you did not call her,” Loren growled to his sire.
“After your return this eve, it occurred to me that your understanding of the fact your actions reverberate through the minds and emotions of the ones who love you was not quite being absorbed. Therefore, I’ve sought reinforcements.”
He gritted his teeth, forced himself to stop doing that even as the needle again pierced his flesh, he felt the pull join the two slashed sides together, and he turned his attention to Satrine.
“Darling,” he called.
She lifted her gaze from these ministrations to him.
“What happened?” she inquired.
He was about to say it was nothing, but he was thwarted again.
This time by Marlow.
“We were at a bordello, see.”
He whipped his head to his brother and bit, “Marlow.”
Marlow didn’t even look at him.
“We were having a whisky. Little did we know that some weeks past, when Lore was spending some time at another bordello…”
He sat up further and clipped, “Marlow, quiet.”
“Your grace, remain still,” the physician snapped.
Marlow continued to ignore Loren.
“…he’d brought himself a little trouble. He did this with intent. He has a friend who also attended that same establishment, a favorite of his, and became embroiled in a game they like to play there, which is more fittingly referred to as blackmail.”
“Brother, silence,” Loren ordered, again to no avail.
“As such, this friend also lost the woman he loved and was imminently going to marry. Our man here”—Marlow tossed a hand to Loren—“felt something needed to be done about it, and this he did. They were not best pleased he intervened in their regular swindle, and this evening, the mastermind behind it sent some men to share her displeasure. Alas, the marquess has a terrible habit of leaving some jobs undone, especially when the villain is of our fairer sex, and we suffered for that oversight this night. Though, I will take this moment to point out, Lore suffered more than me.”
Wordlessly, Satrine was regarding Marlow as he spoke, and she didn’t stop when he ceased, therefore, Loren called her again.
“Satrine, my darling, please wait for me downstairs. Once the doctor has completed his work, I’ll get decent and join you.”
Now Satrine’s eyes came to him as he spoke, and they didn’t leave when he was finished.