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Whose overloud laugh boomed from the front parlour.
Relieved, confused and a touch angry to have suffered thinking the worst, Samuel stepped around the butler with a nod and went to the parlour doorway.
His mother sat in her customary place on the central sofa, serving tea to Richard and a thin blonde woman whose overpainted features and low, fitted red silk gown spoke of the theatre and his brother’s weakness for French actresses.
In Samuel’s gut, anger started to win out.
Standing in the doorway, he bowed and mustered a smile.
“Mother, you sent for me?”
She looked past her guest and Richard.
“Samuel, dear, do join us. Richard said it’s a matter of the utmost importance. He said I must summon you immediately.”
Definitely anger.
Samuel pressed his mouth into a firm line and aimed a glare at his older brother, who’d been attempting to locate him for nearly a week. Not that Samuel considered repeated messages summoning him to various disreputable locations at ridiculous hours of the night to be true attempts. Obviously, rather than set foot in any of the respectable places where Samuel might be found on any given day, Richard had fallen back on the one summons he knew would never be ignored.
Richard stood, appearing immune to Samuel’s glare.
“Actually, Mother, I’d like to speak with my little brother alone, in my office.”
“Assuming you recall where to find it,” Samuel muttered, for all management of the family holdings fell squarely on him. Richard couldn’t be troubled with such banality.
His barb elicited a quick grin, then Richard turned to the painted harlot he’d brought to their mother’s parlour.
“Babette, sweetheart, keep Mother company.”
“Oui, of a certainty, mon amour.”
Samuel backed from the parlour doorway to shed his outerwear. He handed everything to the still waiting butler with an apologetic look, and went down the hall in the direction of the office. He could hear the steady tap of Richard’s stride following, but didn’t turn back or slow. Samuel wondered if he should peel off another layer, down to his waistcoat and shirtsleeves. Already, anger heated him past comfort. He strode into the office, across the ivory and sage Axminster carpet, and swung around to face the door. He forwent taking the seat behind the elegant desk, though heaven knew he spent more hours there in a week than Richard had in his lifetime. Arms folded across his chest, shoulders straining his dark, sober coat, Samuel waited.
Richard strode in, arms swinging loose by his sides. The golden threads in his embroidered poppy orange waistcoat gleamed in the daylight that streamed between the curtains.
“Now, don’t go starting off peeved with me, Sammy.”
“You exploited our mother to draw me here. Do you know what I thought? I assumed she’d summoned me home to tell me you were dead, or worse.”
Richard chuckled as he crossed to the sideboard.
“So you hurried home in excitement?”
He opened a crystal decanter, sniffed, and dumped a glassful into a tumbler.
“I hurried home worried sick, to find you perfectly hale and one of your lightskirts drinking from Mother’s second-best service.”
Richard knocked back a third of the glass.
“Mother loves it when I bring home interesting women. It adds some spark to a terribly mundane life.” He downed another swig, turning to face Samuel. “I don’t know how she manages to survive the boredom of her existence, poor old dear.”
“Boredom? Mother is the granddaughter of an Earl and the niece of a Viscount. She attends events almost nightly. She calls on friends and they on her. She hosts dinners. Not that you would know.”
“Aye, and why should I? She has you for all of that. You’re as boring as she is.” Richard took a final swig. “I take it she was correct as to your whereabouts? The Muses again?”
Samuel gave a curt nod.
“You and your books. You’d get on with that new Duchess of Aspen.”
