Page 74 of Sloth: The Fallen Earl
“Oh, absolutely not,” her son said. “I’m not having this discussion with Mother…Mama here,” he swiftly amended. “This isn’t a talk for ladies present. This is men’s conversation.”
Wait a moment. Maybe he’d been entirely wrong about the reason for this discussion after all. Surely they were not discussingthat.
“Oh, rest assured. I’m entirely different than all other ladies. I am not a woman. I’m your mother. Isn’t that what you’ve said before?” Katherine batted her eyes not so innocently at her son, who surely regretted having uttered that at some point in his life.
The Duke of Bainbridge cut in to the back-and-forth between mother and son. “Your mother stays.” That ducal command had everyone instantly seated, Wakefield included. Their peculiar quartet sat in a circle, all looking at one another. Then suddenly, all eyes went to Wakefield. He resisted the urge to squirm. Never more did he regret not reading a piece of correspondence in his life.
“Why don’t I begin?” Bainbridge said for the group.
Thank God.
“Wakefield, why don’t you lead the way?”
“Oh, shite.”
“Now, did that really constitute…” Bainbridge began.
Wakefield made a clearing sound with his throat. “Ahem.” Katherine gave him a pointed look. He met his sister’s stare with a sheepish one of his own.
“Benedict,” she mouthed. Then he saw in her eyes the moment she registered that he didn’t have any bloody clue as to what he was doing here. “Why don’t I get us started?” Katherine saved him from utter humiliation. “The reason we’ve asked you to speak with your uncle and have him speak with you…”
“Isn’t it really speaking withusif I’m not alone with Uncle Benedict?”
Fair question, lad, he thought to himself.
Katherine continued as though her son hadn’t spoken. “Given the reports we’ve received…”
“Can’t we call it gossip?” Frost shot back. “That is, unless you’ve hired a private investigator.”
Wakefield dissolved into a paroxysm of choking. Katherine jumped up, but he waved her away. “Well, it is not as though you make any attempt to hide your bad behavior. You are at Oxford. You are the future Duke of Bainbridge.” Katherine’s eyes grew sad. “You are my son.”
“All of these can be true, Mother,” he said. “All of these can be true, Mama,” Frost said softly.
They were tones Wakefield recognized all too well. They were the ones reserved by rogues and rakes to appease some distraught lady.
The anger glinting in Bainbridge’s eyes indicated he too had seen it. “My son thinks nothing of carousing, drinking, and going about with loose women.” That blunt, cold statement broke allthe way through Frost’s charade. This time, Bainbridge was all too happy to take control of the discussion.
The marquess’s scowl returned. “Every gentleman does it. It’s called sowing your oats, Mother and Father.”
“No, they don’t. Your father did not.”
“Yes, yes. It’s because he fell in love, first with one woman and then you.”
Bainbridge didn’t so much as flinch.
Katherine gasped. “Frost! You continue to disappoint me.”
“I know I disappoint you,” Frost shouted. “I’m not the paragon Father was and is, and I’m not the optimistic, hopeful person you are, Mother. I’m my own person and I don’t believe that at age eighteen, I could know a bloody thing about love. But I do know I can celebrate my youth along with the rest of the fellows my age.”
“You may take your father as the only saint, but he’s not, my boy,” Katherine riposted. “For a model on how to be conduct yourself as student and young gentleman, you need look no further than—”
No. Don’t say it.
“Your Uncle Benedict,” his sister finished.
Oh, hell.
Three pairs of gazes landed on Wakefield.
