AllFreeNovel
Share Us
CHAPTER ONE
Hangovers were an inevitable consequence of rakedom.
By slow degrees, Ethan Somersworth woke, reality making his stomach pitch. Or perhaps the rolling of his insides was actually the rocking of the carriage. His mouth felt as though it had been stuffed with cotton and his head throbbed something fierce.
He brought a heavy hand to his aching temple, attempting to scrub away the cobwebs that clouded his thoughts. Cracking open his eyelids, he was pleased to note the carriage he rode in was his own, not someone else’s, and that he was alone.
On more than one occasion, he’d woken to find himself in a strange place and in the company of an unfamiliar woman. Which he’d likely enjoyed in the moment—he usually couldn’t remember—but then had to go through the tedious and painful exercise of extricating himself from the lady’s company while still suffering the aftereffects of alcohol.
Attempting to sit up, he felt his stomach give a violent pitch, so he lay back down on the bench seat. The mystery of where he traveled would have to wait until the roiling of his stomach calmed.
Would they reach an inn soon? Food might help, but even as he considered the notion of eating, sourness filled his belly and he groaned.
He was a man prone to overindulgence. That was the benefit of having been an earl from the tender age of four. People rarely said no to him, and expected even less. Drinking, gaming, women: they were at his disposal.
The only person who ever questioned him was his uncle, earl by proxy during Ethan’s childhood, his uncle had done a fantastic job of counteracting the world’s permissive nature. Nothing that Ethan had ever done had been good enough for him.
One might argue that all his uncle’s disapproval from a young age had caused Ethan’s bad behavior, but he didn’t like to give his uncle credit for anything. Not even that.
He let out an audible groan as a memory finally penetrated the fog of his mind. His uncle, sitting in Ethan’s study last night when Ethan had arrived home from the gaming hell he owned, Hell’s Corner, stiff and straight, eyeing his nephew with staunch disapproval while occupying Ethan’s favorite chair. With a hard jaw and a perpetual frown, he’d sipped Ethan’s whiskey and managed to look down his nose at his nephew as he lounged and Ethan stood in the doorway. “If it isn’t my errant nephew, finally home from another night of debauchery.”
“If it isn’t my disapproving uncle,” he’d quipped back, used to the games, “here to lay judgment upon me once again.”
“If I disapprove, it’s because you encourage it with you wastrel life. If your father could see you.”
They were already starting with that, were they? Ethan’s entire life, he’d heard if your father only knew what a disappointment his only son had become. It made Ethan want to hit things. And then drink away his pain.
But as he couldn’t indulge in the first, he’d crossed to the bachelor’s chest and started on the second, pouring himself a double.
“What do you want, Uncle?”
“For you to attend the Whitmores’ ball with me in two days’ time.”
Ethan had blinked in surprise, turning so quickly, he sloshed his whiskey. “A ball. Why?”
“There is a certain lady I’d like for you to meet.”
Ethan’s lip had curled in distaste. It wasn’t that he didn’t like women. He liked them a great deal. Tall, short, rounded, or thin… He had a particular affection for petite brunettes, but he didn’t like to discriminate. It was rude.
But the lady his uncle had chosen would not suit Ethan, of that he was certain. She’d likely be perfect and proper and not attractive to him at all. “Another girl?”
“You know your time is running out. Your thirtieth birthday is in six short months.”
Ethan swallowed down his drink in one large gulp. That damned clause his father had put in the guardianship had been hanging over his head like Damocles’s sword his entire adult life. “I could be engaged by the end of the week if I wished.”
“Then why don’t you?” his uncle had fired back, his face hardening in anger. “No one would like to cease having these infernal discussions more than myself.”
“Then stop having them. You don’t have to do anything. You choose to enforce the guardianship, not me.”
“And watch my brother’s only son destroy our family’s legacy?” His uncle had risen then. “You’re coming to the ball.”
“I can’t,” he said, pouring himself another large drink, not wishing to tell his uncle several key points of information. One, the money that his uncle was threatening to take over was nearly all spent, and two, Ethan had used a good portion of what was left of the fortune to purchase a gaming hell. What little he still had would be used to buy several more.
Those clubs would replenish the money he’d spent, but since he’d earned that money himself, his uncle couldn’t take it. Then he’d be free to remain unwed and carefree for the rest of his life. “I’ve promised my very dear friend that I would check on his brother and his brother’s new wife in Upton Falls.”
“The trip can wait—”
“It cannot. There’s an emergency that needs attending.”
