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Unfortunately, his valet wasn’t the merciful sort to allow him to rest in peace on the day his mother was to visit. The smell of coffee mitigated Lucas’s disgruntlement only a little, but it was enough to entice him to take a peek. He cracked one aching eye open. The morning sun streaming through his windows carved directly into his pounding head with the precision of a surgeon’s blade.
Lucas let out a stream of curses so foul they’d likely make a dockside whore cross herself and pray for his immortal soul.
His valet cheerfully went about his duties, behaving as if he hadn’t heard. “Coffee, my lord?” he murmured, wisely keeping his voice down.
“God, yes.” Dragging his legs from beneath the covers, he planted his feet on the rug and just sat there for a moment, willing the room to stop moving around him.
A steaming cup of what looked like tar appeared before him. He took it and proceeded to drink what had to be the strongest coffee he’d ever tasted.
His valet continued bustling around the room, laying out clothes. “A bath has been drawn if you’d—”
“Yes, yes,” Lucas cut in. He reeked of alcohol and sweat. His mother certainly couldn’t see him in such a state. “What time is it?”
“Half past ten, my lord.”
George’s hairy arse. He had only an hour and a half to make himself presentable and cognizant enough to handle conversing with his mother. Not that she wouldn’t necessarily expect him to have a hangover; his profligate lifestyle was her favorite subject of complaint.
Resigning himself to the discomfort, he levered himself up slowly off the bed, groaning with each subsequent step as fresh pain assaulted his cranium. As always after a night of excess, he vowed never again to imbibe so much alcohol. But he knew damned well it was a vow he’d never be able to keep as long as Diana lived within sight.
He had to get her out of his blood, and there was only one way to do it.
Although his desire for her was much stronger than any he’d previously experienced, this wasn’t the first time he’d wanted a particular woman to the point of distraction. It hadn’t happened in several years, but he remembered well enough what it was like. Until he knew everything there was to know about the woman and tasted pleasure with her, the thought of her would drive him mad with curiosity and want.
But within a few weeks of finally scratching that itch and sating his curiosity, he knew his attention would drift. No woman had ever held his interest for very long. It was the reason he’d never kept a mistress. Mistresses required a certain level of commitment not required by the occasional willing wench he availed himself of whenever his desire grew beyond his own ability to sate.
As he stepped into the tub and sank with a soft groan of pleasure into the warm water, he reflected on his current predicament.
For all his reputation, Lucas hadn’t really been with that many women. There were a few notables he’d given a good tumble in his first years on his own in London. He’d not disappointed them, and they’d done him the favor of bruiting about their pleasure in his company enough that he hadn’t had to do much to maintain his roguish reputation since. Which suited him just fine.
Because the truth was, women were trouble. His mother, for all he adored her and was actually looking forward to her visit today—not that he’d ever admit it to anyone but himself—had taught him that much. She’d fooled his father into thinking she was in love with him, when in fact she’d been in love with another, and he’d been nothing more than a means to an end. Learning the truth had made his father wretched for many years, and Lucas had vowed never to let that happen to him.
Marrying for love was an impetuous act that could only end in misery. He couldn’t blame women, really. Their hearts were by nature fickle, and their dependence on men for means and security made them mercenary. When he married, it would be a practical union made for the sake of duty, and it would be to someone who had no reason to deceive him into thinking otherwise.
That wasn’t to say his eventual bride wouldn’t be likable and attractive, of course. Just not enough to cause trouble. Not like Lady Diana Haversham. Just the thought of her made him wince with discomfort as the pressure in his head increased with the quickening of his pulse.
Again, he condemned the idiotic idea of drinking away his problems. It hadn’t helped. If anything, it had made it worse. All he’d been able to think about last night as he’d nursed a newly opened bottle of very expensive brandy was her and that damned music teacher.
How had such a man managed to make her love him? The soft-eyed look he’d seen her give the musician on the morning of the picnic had convinced him she did. Lucas denied wanting her to look at him in such a way, of course. Yes, he’d come to the conclusion that the transference of her affection was the only way to get her into his bed, but that didn’t mean he had to love her back.
It struck him that he ought to feel at least some guilt for planning to destroy what was clearly a happy arrangement, but he just couldn’t. He wanted her with a selfish desire that brooked no pity for his rival.
And what of her? If she gave him her heart, he’d only break it when he lost interest.
He couldn’t bring himself to feel guilty about that, either. If she foolishly decided to take her fickle heart back from her nimble pianist’s fingers and give it to someone else, well, that was her prerogative. She was a grown woman capable of making her own choices.
Even if they are bad ones. Again, the image of her adoring expression as she’d looked up at her lover assaulted him. Taking up a face cloth, he scrubbed at his scrunched eyelids in a vain attempt to scour the picture from his mind’s eye. He almost wished he had that bottle of brandy here with him to help stifle the memory and silence his nagging conscience.
Ultimately, the choice would be hers to make, not his. He was merely offering her an alternative, nothing more.
By the time his mother arrived, Lucas was feeling much more himself. Her pleasure in his new address was, as expected, expressed in no uncertain terms. He welcomed the rare praise. The immediacy of her subsequent inquiry as to when he expected to install a wife there, although also anticipated, was somewhat less welcome.
“I’m only just preparing to host my first ball,” he reasoned, offering her another scone, which was declined. “Give me some time to settle myself in the neighborhood.”
“A wife would help you do so with far greater efficiency,?
?? she shot back, glaring.
Lucas allowed himself a small laugh. “Yes, Mother. I know, but I’m not yet ready for a wife.”
