Page 47 of A Portrait of Love

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Simon had been drinking since the evening before, which had been his last night at the inn.

“My Da says this is your last night, my lord,” Lily had said when she’d thumped down his pint, spilling a good third of it onto the table.

Simon couldn’t help noticing that her expression had not been one of regret.

He frowned at the memory of the hostile barmaid and raised the glass of port to his mouth, tipping it back all the way. Thanks to his brother and Miss Keyes, The George was no longer a hospitable place for him to spend either his days, or his nights.

Oh, Simon. Blaming your infatuation on a poor woman who did nothing to deserve your oafish attentions?

He grimaced at the too-accurate observation.

His fixation on Honey Keyes was more than a little unfortunate, not to mention unfair to the woman. He would have liked to blame his behavior on Wyndham, but his brother was in the right when it came to ordering Simon to leave the artist alone.

Still, he could blame his brother for taking advantage of that bloody letter Simon had written when he’d thought he was dying.

The superior voice in his head had no response for that.

Simon finished the few drops left in his glass and glanced around at the table of men. Nobody was speaking to him or paying him any mind, which was just the way he liked it. When he set down his glass it made an overloud clunk on the polished wood, drawing glances from several guests.

Simon didn’t care. Instead, he looked around for the port decanter.

It was at the end of the table, next to his brother.

The duke was staring at him in a way that should have left nothing but a smoking black hole in his chair. Simon grinned at him and gave a mock salute.

Although it had only been a scant twenty or so minutes after the women had left the dinner table, the duke stood. “Shall we join the ladies?”

Most of the port glasses at the table still had liquid in them, but nobody demurred. Wyndham was the Duke of Plimpton, after all. Except for five exceptions, most of the guests were nothing more than country gentry, thrilled to have caught the attention of such an august personage.

Simon rose to follow the other men.

“Simon. A moment, if you please.” Wyndham’s quiet words should have frozen the port in its heavy crystal decanter and filled the room with an icy fog.

Simon heaved a sigh and plopped back down into his chair.

“Close the doors,” the duke ordered the two footmen who were always present outside any room Wyndham occupied.

The duke turned his attention to Simon once they were alone. “You are drunk.”

Simon looked up at his brother’s uncharacteristically blunt words and grinned. “As sharp as ever, old man.”

“You are not just shaming me, Simon. You are shaming our mother.”

Simon recalled a glance the duchess had given him just before dinner, when he’d arrived in the drawing room where all the guests had assembled. The duchess had, for once, looked older than her years.

He ignored the embarrassment that roiled in his belly. Instead, he sneered at his brother. “Well, she has you to thank for that, doesn’t she, your grace?”

“This behavior is beneath you.”

Simon lurched to his feet and jabbed a finger in his brother’s direction. “And it is beneath you to have invited Lady Rosamond and Lady Margaret and the other two whose names I can’t recall, dangling them in front of me like so many worms on hooks.” He shoved a hand through his hair, barely resisting ripping it out by the roots. “Christ, Wyndham—those are girls. Is Margaret even eighteen?”

“All four young ladies are of impeccable birth and the perfect age,” Wyndham said through clenched jaws. “And her name is Rosalind, not Rosamond. Because you have refused to consider a Season in London, I must now bring candidates here.”

“Listen to yourself: Suitable candidates! Do you think you’re delivering some speech in bloody Lords?” he snarled. “I don’t care if you line the table with naked virgins, Wyndham, I’ll not marry any woman of your choosing. I’m not your damned blood stock, to be bred when and to whom you please.” He reached down and grabbed the half-empty drink of the man who’d been sitting beside him, threw the contents down his throat, and then hurled the glass at the massive mirror that hung over the equally massive fireplace.

The detonation was surprisingly loud and the sound of shattering glass must have been heard even rooms away.