Page 29 of To Defend a Damaged Duke
His friend snorted.“Well, somebody’s got to put you straight.And if I’ve learned anything from all those years servicing men in the upstairs room at the Hart, it’s that you can’t suck a prick when yer gob’s twenty foot away from it.”
*
MUCH TO TOMMY’Schagrin, Sidney shadowed him into the gaming room, most likely to prevent a swerve into his study at the last moment.Tommy didn’t make for the duke’s party immediately, pausing to exchange pleasantries with Mr Bannister and then agreeing with the Earl of Horton and a chum on the predicted state of the turf at Newmarket’s coming Saturday meet.Invariably, however, his glance returned to Ashington, to the errant lock of hair falling over his forehead and catching the candlelight, to his long legs comfortably stretched out before him, to the large square hand resting on a thigh, to the heavy gold signet ring circling his smallest finger.
“Over you go, then,” murmured Sidney in Tommy’s ear.“Yer dribbling on the carpet.”
“Sidney?”Tommy nodded a greeting to another regular.“If that cluster of putrid cankers spreading along your prick don’t kill you first, I shall do it myself.Except even more slowly.Consider this a warning.”
With Sidney’s rumbling laugh ringing in his ears, Tommy made his way towards the duke, feeling like a damned debutante skirting the fringes of her first ball.
“Your Grace,” he said, with a slight bow.“Thank you for joining us this evening.”
Two glasses of brandy had brought an attractive flush to Ashington’s cheeks.“Mr L’Esquire.How do you do.”
At the duke’s obvious pleasure, Tommy experienced a sweet kick, low in his belly.Not too obvious, he hoped.Fortunately, Ashington was angled away from Lord Francis and his pals, now happily arguing over whether to open a game of loo or play another hand of baccarat.
“You have stayed away,” Tommy stated.Though his intonation suggested he was clarifying, he could swear on a heaped stack of bibles and every mother’s grave north of the Thames that this absolutely was the case.
“I…I, yes.I have been reluctant to intrude on your establishment lest it inconvenience you,” the duke admitted.“As a-a peer of high rank, I recognise it would be difficult for you to turn me away.I would dislike placing you in that awkward position.”
He brushed his hair from his high, pale forehead.An image tumbled through Tommy’s mind of his own hand sweeping it away, of placing his lips against the little crease where Ashington’s brows frequently pinched into a worried frown.
“It is no inconvenience,” he managed, guiding his thoughts back to where they needed to be.“I am rarely in the gaming rooms myself.”
“Oh.”
A pause stretched between them.Why did every conversation Tommy exchanged with this man feel like the push and pull of a dance?One which both were reluctant to lead?And why did he persist with this stiff, cold politesse when so many more pertinent questions filled his mind?Such as, when had the duke become so cautious?So scared of his own shadow?And why?And how awful timidity must feel, thrust into in such an august position.
“Your Grace,” Tommy began in a low voice, determined to confront the chasm yet again opening up between them.“You and I.I think it best that—”
Raised voices and a commotion at the door claimed his attention.Ashington jerked around at the fuss, then swore.From the stiffening of the man’s shoulders and the tightening of his fingers around his brandy balloon, Tommy didn’t need to turn to know who the newcomer must be.He didn’t need to hear the imperious, if not a little slurred, dismissal of Tommy’s footman, nor the raucous greeting of a fellow nob.Nor the shattering of crystal as his latest unruly guest staggered against a table.
“Clumsy fool,” Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons barked at a cowering Mickey.He cast his bleary gaze around the room until landing on his twin brother.
“Oh, God.”The duke cringed.“He’s…what if he…”
“My thoughts exactly,” Tommy murmured.“Though in this foxed state, I doubt anybody would believe a word of it.”
“That is small consolation, sir.Since your warning, I have dreaded this encounter.I have barely left my house.And now I’m petrified.”The duke bit his lip, shaking his head ashamedly.“I am a coward of the poorest rank, am I not?”
“Some might say wise.”
Another glass splintered on the floor, deliberately this time, it seemed.
“Your brother is a man of few morals, and, I fear, even fewer social graces.”
“Whoopsie!”Lyndon trilled, pleased with himself.Young Mickey had fled, so he clicked his fingers at Sidney, skulking by the window and looking murderous.“Hey, you!Man!Job for you.Over here.”
“Please excuse me a moment, Your Grace.I may have to intervene.”Tommy gritted his teeth.“Sidney does not care to be summoned like a street urchin, and he’s rather handy with his fists.A year in Newgate will do that to a man.”
Never pick a fight with a Rom, a redhead, or an Irish was Tommy’s motto.And growing up with a father boasting the blood of all three, it had served him well.Pale-skinned, black-eyed, and hot-minded, Sidney swore blue he’d never started a brawl, yet invariably managed to be the last man standing.And despite being drunk as a wheelbarrow, Lord Lyndon Fitzsimmons had the same half-crazed look in his eyes that Tommy recognised far too well.A look only matched by the one in Sidney’s, goading, tempting someone—anyone—to give him the smallest excuse for fisticuffs.
“Lyndon.”Ever the peacemaker, Lord Francis weaved through the tables towards his brother.“Jolly nice to see you.”
Perhaps, like Tommy, Francis had spotted Sidney flexing his meaty fingers.More likely, he’d recognised Lord Lyndon was spoiling for a fight and had picked the wrong opponent.“Do join us over here, nearer to the fire.Have a seat, take the weight off your feet.Thrash us at loo.”
“No.”Lord Lyndon folded his arms.“I’m going to stay here and supervise this brute as he picks up every last shard of shattered glass.”
