“So do French brandy and Scottish whisky, yet you seem to embrace each with equal enthusiasm,” sneered Lumley.
Davenport finished off his champagne in one gulp. “That’s because drinking doesn’t take any mental effort.” Lifting the empty glass to the light, he added, “But then, you know that as well as I do.”
The marquess might be a sardonic sot, but at least he made no pretenses about who or what he was, thought John. And to his credit, he possessed a rather sharp wit.
“Arse,” replied Lumley, his nostrils flaring in anger. “Someday soon, someone is going to cut out that insolent tongue of yours and hand it to you on a platter.”
“Quite likely.” A quicksilver smile flickered in the shadows. “But it won’t be you.”
Sommers took
his friend by the arm and drew him back from the marquess. “I advise you to think carefully about what we have said, Wrexham. We, too, are not without influence. And I daresay ours is a good deal more powerful than yours.”
“Is that a threat, Your Grace?” asked John, matching the duke’s mild tone.
Sommers’s mouth curled up at the corners. “Merely a friendly word of warning.”
“You appear to be in danger of making some very unpleasant enemies,” observed Davenport as the other two men walked away.
“They are sadly mistaken if they think that I can be intimidated into going against what I believe is right.”
“A conscience is such a cursed nuisance,” drawled Davenport, flicking a mote of dust from his sleeve. “That’s why I don’t bother having one.”
“Go to the Devil,” growled John.
“Actually, I’m on my way to a delightful gaming hell and brothel named Satan’s Sanctuary. Care to join me?”
“Thank you, but no. I’ve been roasted over the coals enough for one evening.”
“Drat.” Olivia yanked out a snarled hairpin and dropped it on her dressing table. “Damn,” she added as several more flew free and bounced off the polished pearwood.
“Alice is a sweetheart, but she’s all thumbs when it comes to arranging hair,” commented Caro from the doorway. “Give me a corkscrew and a carving knife and I’d do a better job of it.”
“Shouldn’t you be in bed?” replied Olivia rather crossly. The evening’s entertainment had left her in a black humor. “I—ouch!”
Caro hurried over and unknotted the offending ribbon. “Why are you in such a vile mood? Don’t tell me that Sir Sidney showed you another one of his sonnets to Anna?”
“Nothing so dire as that.” She grimaced in the looking glass. “I’m simply tired of being forced to smile and simper to a crowd of cabbageheads.”
“Ha!” Caro crinkled her nose. “I doubt that you could ‘simper’ if you tried.”
“Poetic license.” Olivia slipped on her wrapper and shook out her hair. “Honestly, it’s a colossal waste of time.”
“Especially for someone who has once again left finishing her weekly essay until the last moment.”
“Did you have to remind me?” she asked glumly. “As if my night wasn’t bad enough already.”
Caro took a cross-legged seat on the bed. “It couldn’t have been worse than wandering around an empty house, wondering what sort of experiences you and Anna are having.”
“Don’t get carried away with your fantasies, Caro. Balls can be dreadfully dull.”
“I suppose.” But her sister didn’t sound convinced.
“I’m sorry you’re feeling bored.” Olivia sighed, wishing not for the first time that she could trade places with her more exuberant youngest sister. Caro craved Excitement and Emotion, while she, the stick-in the-mud rationalist of the family, was content with just the opposite. “Did you at least get some writing done?”
Caro flashed a mischievous grin. “Actually, that’s why I wanted to see you.” She took a piece of paper from her sleeve and held it out with a flourish. “It’s one of my better compositions, if I say so myself.”
Olivia read it over and laughed. “You have a flair for the dramatic, that’s for sure. I’m sure this missive will find an appreciative audience in young Prescott.”