Too much hurt.
Too much danger entirely.
Charlotte ran helter-skelter out of his room and back to the safety of her bedchamber.
CHAPTER 26
Wolfgang woke late the nextmorning and bear-headed, as if he were emerging battered from his den after a winter of sleeping rough. His body ached, his blood felt like poison, and his head was filled with such a black, noxious fog that he couldn’t make out his own thoughts, let alone string them together. Worse, something nagged at him, something just out of reach.
He could remember the prince’s smugness, and also… it seemed improbable, but had Lysander sprouted four extra arms and wrestled him on the stairs? But there was something else, something…
Breast-shaped?
He shook his head and grunted, “Breakfast,” at his valet as he yanked on his shirt and buckskins.
“What was that, Your Grace?” Grimsby appeared beside him with a selection of starched cravats folded over his arm.
Wolfgang grabbed one and made a hasty mess of tying it, ignoring Grimsby’s wince. “Have I missed breakfast?”
“No, Your Grace. This morning it’s downstairs—”
“Christ, I must look far gone indeed if you think I can’t find the dining room.” Wolfgang shrugged into his jacket and tromped toward the door, each step hurting his teeth.
Grimsby, that fiend, only grinned. “You look like Death himself, Your Grace. And this morning, the others are—”
Wolfgang didn’t stay to listen, which was why he found himself staring stupidly around the empty dining room, trying to make sense of the abandoned plates and the hastily-pushed-back chairs.
“They moved to the back terrace, Your Grace,” said a young footman who was clearing away pots of marmalade.
“Coffee. Please. Where can I find it?”
“The coffee’s outside as well, Your Grace.”
Wolfgang lugged himself down the hall and outside onto the terrace, where the sunshine bounced so merrily off Clare’s yellow limestone walls that Wolfgang could only conclude it was taunting him. The peal of feminine laughter that greeted him felt like an axe to the head.
The ladies went abruptly silent when they spotted him. The dowager, Lady Skeffington, and all four Skeffington girls lifted their faces to him, each looking either guilty or aggrieved. Only Charlotte kept her eyes averted, and something about her profile made him once again think of… breasts?
Wolfgang growled low in his throat, disgusted with himself and also with the strong sense of longing that almost brought him to his knees before Charlotte’s chair. What in God’s name waswrongwith him this morning?
He slumped over to a chair in the deep shade, trying to ignore the howling in his head. Also the fractured memories of… a ruffly pink cloud? Finally, he tried to ignore the mischief afoot, because not even pain could blind him to the fact that the dowager, Lady Skeffington, and Miss Alexandra were each trying their hardest to conceal something in their lap.
God spare me from intrigue, thought Wolfgang. A man with a bad head had no business investigating anything, except perhaps the complicated question of how best to fill his belly.
Toast?
Not substantial enough.
Eggs?
The thought made him queasy.
But a gentle helping of potato might—
“Iwant to see,” Georgiana said from farther down the table. “It’s not fair that all of you are looking and you won’t letmehave a turn!”
“A turn at what?” Lysander, who loathed rising before noon, slunk out onto the terrace and blinked into the sun. When he caught sight of Wolfgang, he shouted, “HULLO, BROTHER! WELL MET THIS MORNING!”
Wolfgang winced. “God’s teeth, man, have pity!”
