Rollo jumped with a little squeak of shock.He clapped his hand over his mouth so another didn’t escape.
“Make a decision, boy.I don’t care what.Just stop standing there like a bloody simpleton.”
Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons, Rollo presumed.Pritchard hadn’t been wrong about the ill temper.
“My lord,” he responded, voice quivering.
“Eh?”The man gave a vulgar sniff.“Speak up.”
Rollo dug his fingertips into his palms and gritted his teeth.To beat a retreat now would look rather like cowardice.He was the son of a distinguished earl, for heaven’s sake!A Duchamps-Avery, no less.Time to begin acting like one.
“My lord,” he tried again, a fraction clearer.
In place of acknowledgement, Lord Lyndon brought the tumbler to his mouth and drank deeply.
“My lord,” Rollo repeated.Much better.“Good evening to you.I’m…”
“Rossingley’s pup.”The words spilled over one another, thickened with whatever was in the glass.“Welcome to purgatory, pup.”
Unsteadily, Lord Lyndon replaced the tumbler on the armrest, then lifted a child’s wooden bow from his lap.Rollo watched, with mounting alarm, as Fitzsimmons plucked a slender arrow from a heap piled next to him.Fumbling, he notched it in the gut string, raised it vaguely level with his eye, pulled back, and fired.Thwish!A pewter toy soldier leaped into the air.Tumbling from the mantelpiece, it clattered to the floor and skidded to an ignoble death against the log basket.
Lord Lyndon emitted a satisfied belch.“And another loyal man fallen.”
“Um…jolly good shot,” remarked Rollo.Because what else could he say?
The next shot went wide, the arrow pinging into the plaster wall of the chimney breast before skittering to the floor.As did the next, issuing the remaining members of the battalion a reprieve, but at the cost of a small glass ornament.
“Oh!”yelped Rollo as a shard landed on his coat.He sprang back.“I say!Are…are you—”
A fourth arrow was clumsily notched.Hurriedly, Rollo retreated a few paces, unfamiliar uncertainty stealing his voice.That one was on target, as was the fifth.By the sixth, Rollo’s apprehension had turned to puzzlement with a hint of annoyance.He didn’t care for wanton destruction.Had Lord Lyndon forgotten he wasn’t alone?
Yes, it seemed, because a second later, he lurched to his feet.At first, as he staggered over to the fireplace, Rollo assumed it was to pick up the fallen debris.Instead, Fitzsimmons ignored the crunching underfoot, widened his stance, and, after some rummaging around behind the fall of his breeches, proceeded to release a fountain of piss into the hearth.
Mortified, Rollo stared down at his feet, the sizzling of hot coals filling his ears and discomfort burning his cheeks.He was no angel himself, but this lord behaved like a heathen!
As a puff of black smoke spiralled out of the fireplace, Lord Lyndon turned to study Rollo from over his shoulder.“Care for some brandy, pup?”He waved in the general direction of a collection of decanters.“I take my liquor neat.One needs it, living here.”
God, yes.The entire bottle.“No, but thank you, my lord.Sadly, I was not born into this world with a taste for hard spirits.”
“No man ever was.”Fitzsimmons belched.“But this world drives a man to it.You should persevere.There’s no sound like the plop of brandy in a glass.And no feeling like that first powerful violent impact when it hits the mark below.”
“I’ll…um…take your word for it.”
Rollo’s hot gaze flickered up to where the uncouth lord still merrily voided his bladder into the fireplace.His linen-shirted back was broader than the duke’s.He had a coarser shape all round, more muscled, like the form of a man who worked the land.The shirt clung to him, tighter than it should, as if it used to fit properly, as if he hadn’t always been this way.Though, as Rollo’s expert eye tracked down to his solid arse and thighs, he wagered the lord would still cut a fine figure in theton.He’d have to improve his manners first, obviously, and do something with the wild, unruly mane of hair hanging in long coppery flames down his back.A decent cut would be a start.
Finished at last, the lord shook himself.Thankfully, he was safely tucked away when he turned to examine Rollo properly.
“Cat got your tongue, pup?”
“Well…yes.I’m…yes.”
That Lord Lyndon and the duke were twins was evident, despite the contrasting hair and manners.But where the Duke of Ashington’s dark eyes were warm and kind, verging on timid, his brother held Rollo trapped in two black, arrogant pools.
Fitzsimmons shrugged.“Your father always has enough to say for himself.”
That was true, at least, and those mocking words inspired Rollo to a few of his own.
“He certainly does, my lord.Papa is never afraid to speak in the name of honesty and self-dignity against boorish and ungentlemanly behaviour and…and sheer bad form.”
