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“No.”
“Feel better afterward?”
“Not at all.” He touched his eye again. Now that his head had stopped pounding so hard, he could perceive the tenderness there. “I look like hell, don’t I?”
August’s lips pursed. “You may want to stay in a while to avoid frightening the ladies. They’re accustomed to you looking handsome, not monstrous.”
Monstrous. He felt monstrous. Ashamed. He’d not be able to face the Duke and Duchess of Lockridge for months, perhaps years. God knew how many of his contemporaries had seen him on his drunken, fighting rampage last night. And Rosalind…
Rosalind.
He’d not be able to face her either. He’d have to stand aside all season and watch others court her. At some point he’d probably be expected, as a family friend, to attend her wedding to that respectable dull stick Lord Brittingham.
“I can’t stand being here,” he said, outlining his sore, swollen eye. “I’ve got to go.”
“We could go to Bath.” August shrugged. “The season’s near to starting but I’m not of a mind to swan around tea parties and balls. Or we could go to the country, to Oxfordshire. You could set up at Maitland Glen.”
Maitland Glen, a small, airy property belonging to his mother. The Glen would be an excellent place to hide away if it wasn’t so near the other families’ manors, places where he and Rosalind had interacted together through the years.
“No, I have to go somewhere farther. Somewhere that’s not England.”
“Another grand tour? Sounds fun, but I couldn’t go with you. I’ve got my seat in the House of Lords now, and I’ve promised my mother to help with her charities this summer.”
A grand tour to the Continent? That was something green, young gentlemen did. He was nearly thirty years old. As he sat stewing, aching, needing to do something desperate and big, the idea came to him. “India.”
“What?”
He looked at August, the thought of it already whirling to a conceivable plan. “I could go to India. Explore the cities, even visit the villages where my mother grew up.” His mother rarely spoke of India but he knew she’d lived there for an extended portion of her childhood. There were business interests he could embroil himself in to keep busy, and plenty of English citizens about if he began to pine for home. Which he doubted he would. “India would be a new experience. Exotic. Exciting.”
“It’s a far way, my friend.”
“Perhaps, but that’s what I need. A new climate, new vistas.” And no chance of running into Rosalind.
“What am I to do if you go to India?” August threw up his hands. “Wescott and Townsend are married now, and you’re going halfway across the world.”
“I don’t know. Go dance with some girls at balls, August. Their mamas like you far more than me.” It was time for his friend to move past his unrequited love for Felicity, just as Marlow would move past Rosalind when he had other things to think about. India. He imagined colorful cultures, bustling trade, and warm, fragrant air that felt nothing like London’s oppressive stultification.
There was a knock at the door. His valet, Pierre, entered the room when Marlow failed to respond.
“Good afternoon, my lord.” The haughty servant had a French accent Marlow suspected was exaggerated, if not altogether fake. Still, he kept him on for he was discreet to a fault and excellent in matters of style and grooming. “The butler has notified me that your parents have arrived to call upon you.”
“Damn it,” Marlow muttered. His butler would have sent any other callers away with delicate excuses, but his mother and father?
“They await your arrival in the parlor,” Pierre continued. Of course they did. “If you should like me to assist in your…”
His voice trailed off as he considered Marlow’s bruised visage and hungover state.
“In making you ready to join them,” he finally finished, “I should be happy to.”
“That’s what I pay you for,” Marlow huffed under his breath.
August took his leave while Pierre laid out clothes and then carefully shaved his mangled face. He could hear his friend exchanging niceties with his parents downstairs on his way out. The Lockridges must have told them about his bungled request to marry Rosalind. Would his humiliation never end?
He presented himself in the parlor a short time later, clean and dressed but still not quite together. His mother gasped when she saw his face. “George, what have you been up to?” She came to him, her distinctive amber eyes widened in dismay.
“Nothing good,” he admitted. He embraced her, looking over her shoulder at his father. He and the Earl of Warren were like enough to twins, people said, except his father was older, and of course, far less of a mess. He sat down with his parents, relieved when his butler appeared with refreshments. At least someone knew how to discharge their duties in a traditional, respectable way.
His mother stirred her tea while his father sat back in his chair, crossing one booted leg over the other. He regarded his son with a speculative tilt of his brows. “The Lockridges called upon us yesterday evening,” he began.
