Page 6 of More or Less a Countess
“One thing’s changed,” Nick bit out. “I’m not Balfour anymore, Derrick. I’m Lord Dare now.”
But he shouldn’t be, and Derrick couldn’t help but flinch at the reminder. “Of course. I beg your pardon.”
Guilt stabbed at Nick’s chest, and he drew in a long breath to gather his composure. There was no sense in lashing out at Derrick. They’d been close friends at one time, and the man had been decent enough to invite him here tonight. And after all, it wasn’t as if Derrick were wrong. Nick might be Lord Dare now, but he was still the same useless rogue he’d been when Graham was alive.
It was depressing, how little things changed. Two years gone, and yet here he sat in a tight cravat and an even tighter coat, a tragedy of musical incompetence ringing in his ears, and it was as if no time had passed at all.
“How does Lady Westcott get on?” Lord Derrick asked, clearly eager to change the subject. “She doesn’t come out in company much anymore. I haven’t see her for months. I hope she’s well.”
“Oh, you needn’t concern yourself about Lady Westcott. She’s very well, and as impatient and demanding as she’s always been. She’s every inch the tyrant you remember.”
Not just any tyrant, either, but the tyrant who held Nick’s purse strings.
His aunt was the only family he had left, and Nick adored her, but that didn’t stop him from occasionally wishing he could wring her neck. She’d insisted he accept Derrick’s invitation tonight, no doubt because she hoped his old friend would magically persuade him that underneath his loathing for London was a burning desire to remain here forever.
If Nick had entertained a shred of hope himself, it had vanished as soon as he’d set foot in the dining room. The moment he laid eyes on Lord Derrick, he’d been overwhelmed with the same familiar despair that had made him flee London the first time. It should have comforted him to see his childhood friend, but it didn’t—it only made him feel Graham’s absence more keenly.
There was no going home, it seemed. Not for him.
Not surprising, really. He should have expected as much, and so should Lady Westcott. They were both a bit too old to believe in magic.
Lord Derrick chuckled. “Ah. Her ladyship is demanding you stay in London, is she?”
“For all the good it will do her, yes.” Nick had agreed to a six-week stay only, and he’d be damned if he’d stay a moment longer. “It’s November, for God’s sake. No one leaves Italy for England in November.”
He let out a regretful sigh as he thought of Catalina, the lush, dark-haired Italian mistress he’d just installed in his seaside villa. He’d hardly had a chance to lift her skirts before he’d been obliged to return to the damp, chilly grime of London.
“Unless their father happens to pass away in November, as yours did.”
This time there was a distinct note of censure in Lord Derrick’s voice, but Nick dismissed it with a shrug. His father had been trying to find a way to die for nearly three years now. That he’d finally accomplished it hardly seemed an occasion for mourning.
“Death is rather a good way to escape an English winter, isn’t it? Perhaps I should consider expiring of a consumption while I’m here, or a bilious cough, or some mysterious inflammation of the lungs. Whatever it is one dies of in England. Boredom, perhaps.”
“Oh, I’m certain you’ll find something here to amuse you, Dare. You’ve always been rather good at keeping yourself entertained, and London offers plenty of opportunities to indulge your vices.”
London, and Lord Derrick’s library, as it happened.
Ah, well. Everyone needed to excel at something, and Nick excelled at indulging himself.
He raised an eyebrow at Lady Uplands, who was seated on the other side of the drawing room, tracing a gloved finger over her swollen lips and eyeing him hungrily, much as she had the beef course at dinner.
Spectacular bosom still—not an inch of sag since he’d fondled it two years ago. But he’d explored it many times before, and a man needed variety. He couldn’t tup the same lady time and time again any more than he could read a single book over and over, or eat the same meal every time he sat down at table.
Besides, the encounter with Lady Uplands had depressed his spirits. The dark library, her skirts clenched in his fists, her heaving bosom—it was all too familiar. Just like everything else this evening, it made him feel as if he’d never left England at all.
Lady Uplands caught his gaze and darted the tip of her tongue across her top lip.
Nick covered his mouth with his hand to hide a yawn.
How subtle.
She might lick her lips all she liked, and his cock might twitch as hopefully asitliked, but it would be best if he resisted paying her a visit in Harley Street tonight. Even if he was tempted to while away a few hours with her, a dalliance with Lady Uplands wouldn’t improve his standing with his aunt. He’d already managed to drive Lady Westcott to the edge of her patience in the few short weeks since he’d returned to England, and Lady Uplands was just the kind of vice that would send his aunt hurtling over the edge.
Lady Westcott did not, alas, choose for him to spend the whole of every night engaged in debauchery, or the whole of every day asleep in his bedchamber, recovering from said debauchery. It was not, in her opinion, a proper use of the Earl of Dare’s time.
The chit at the pianoforte tortured the final notes out of Moore’s “The Minstrel Boy,” accepted the polite applause with a curtsy, and resumed her seat on the settee.
“I thought she’d never be done,” Derrick muttered. “I don’t know that I can sit and listen to another bout of ceaseless pounding—”
