Page 12 of Measure of a Man

He unloaded in a hot splash across the pamphlet.

Damn.

He rested his head against the bedpost, his breath ragged. He caught his reflection in the mirror, his chest and neck had gone pink. Stumbling over to the bureau, he soaked a towel and mopped the spend from his hands and prick.

Having tidied himself up, he cast the pamphlets under his pillow. James could probably get down to Bolton Street if he was quick. Virtue rang the bell; and if James was surprised to find himself urgently dispatched for a pamphlet on the merits of a meatless diet in prize fighters, he said not a thing. Virtue watched him go from the window and then looked at the mantel clock. In less than four hours, he’d lose his closest friend.

CHAPTER 5

Dinner was a terse affair. Neither man ate much or said much. The smell of his usual club fare of boiled fowl with oyster sauce had churned his gut, when he normally would scoff the lot. Well, at least he hadn’t been shot on sight. Virtue tossed his crumpled napkin on to the table, giving up the pretence he could get through the meal.

He leaned his elbow on the table and grumpily waited for his uncommunicative dining partner to finish his pudding.

Exeter’s face was a study in blankness. All night he’d smiled blandly at Virtue’s stilted attempts at conversation. He’d inclined his head to acknowledge those who greeted him. But behind his eyes, he might as well have been in Calais.

All avenues of conversation that either had attempted deftly avoided Miss Maria Douglas and the tailor shop. It was proving damned hard to talk around the one thing that he very much wanted to talk about. At one point, in desperation, he’d even broached the topic of meat-free diets. Exeter had looked faintly nonplussed, eyes widening as each of Virtue’s non sequiturs were more boring than the last.

It reminded him of dinners as a child. Helpless in his desire to perform for his father, to be seen as a young man of sense and learning, but knowing with each scathing rejoinder his father sent his way, he would never be anything more than ‘a dolt’. The memory was so fresh, he half expected Exeter to scold him too. ‘If only you’d listened to your school master as much you do the farrier.’

But he’d found his audience in Exeter. Exeter always enjoyed his prattle.

Or he had.

He startled as Exeter’s hand clasped his knee under the table.

“Huh?” was the only excellence his tongue managed to muster.

He looked up. First meeting Exeter’s concerned expression, and then the obvious cause of his concern. Sir Vincent and Toby Le Stedman had arrived, flanked by a couple of clubland ne’er-do-wells. He smirked when Virtue noticed him. Exeter’s hand withdrew as he turned to look over his shoulder.

Sir Vincent crossed the room to them. “So, come on then, fellows? Who is it?” he boomed. “Which of you has the biggest pipe down their trousers?”

Virtue shuttered his eyes in frustration. What on earth had possessed them to put the bet in White’s Club’s betting book.

“Me.” Exeter was all smiles and ease around the other men. “Not much in it though. Same length so we had to go by girth in the end. And, no doubt, we’re both much bigger than yours.”

“Ah poor Virtue, my dear fellow.” Le Stedman steadied himself against the arm on Virtue’s chair as he stopped by on his way to the card tables. “Smaller than Exeter? That must make you very small indeed,” He pulled an ‘alas!’ face and wandered off. Arse.

Sir Vincent, also slightly worse for wear, was still ploughing on talking to Exeter, “Good job you’re not the Lord of Perth or the papers would be calling you the Lord of Girth from now on.”

“They could call me that as it is. I don’t mind it being announced. Rather damned useful not to have to explain to a lady, that it is rather large. Puts them off somewhat. If you came to collect on the result, Mr Dibden, the tailor, left the measurements at the desk.”

Out of sight, Virtue’s hand fisted in the tablecloth. Exeter had been thinking of a woman after all. But he couldn’t see how Exeter’s thickness could put anyone off. Not him. The thought of it inside him, stretching him. He’d do anything to experience that. He was brave enough. A sensation he’d never felt before but had read about and imagined. An ache that he wanted filled by his best friend and knew would never happen.

Exeter blandly met his eyes and then looked past him. Anxiety threatened to ruin Virtue right there at the table.

He knows about me. He knows.

“You’re looking rather glum over there, Virtue. What’s the matter? The old Lord of Girth covering up for you, is he, ey? Nothing but a minnow in your trousers?”

“You can take Dibden’s word for it or you can feel it if you like,’ he offered back colourlessly. Virtue knew how to deal with bullies, throw it back to them and be brazen. Virtue lounged back in his chair, widening his legs in a louche invitation. Albeit, he wasn’t in buckskin breeches, but the length of his cock as it pressed against the taut fabric was clear to anyone that cared to measure his worth. He hoped it wiped the grin from that arse of a man.

Sir Vincent merely cackled. “Only if my Lord insists. But one really ought to check in case someone’s valet rolled a stocking up and shoved it down there.”

“Sounds like you’d know more about that than I— Christ!” Virtue choked off as Sir Vincent shot out a meaty paw to grope him. “At least call on my mother first. Let her know we’re courting. But don’t be too surprised if she says her son could do better than a baronet; in plain truth she can be a frightful snob.”

“No less than a Duke for our Virtue and his dear mama,” Exeter said dryly.

“Oh, I’d take a Lord.” He breathed in sharply as Sir Vincent got a little too free with his hands. “Careful now.”