Page 14 of The Marquess Wins a Wife
He did, rather. Perhaps a bittoowell. Willie had not seen her face, after all, evening last when he’d deliberately upset the tray. But Luke had, and it had sat uncomfortably with him even then. Even before she’d returned late in the night to clean up the remnants of his temper tantrum, carefully picking the broken crockery off of the floor and sponging up the bits of stew that had been meant forher, before she’d sacrificed it to him.
And he’d declined it—violently. The Talbots were in more dire straits than even he had guessed, and it sat ill with him to have strained their finances still further.
“What has happened here?” he asked of Willie, putting his fork at last to the eggs and lifting a bit to his mouth. “Anyone could see this was once a fine house.” It stillwouldbe, if the ravages of time and neglect hadn’t set in. It was caught twenty years in the past, whatever finery it once had boasted stripped or rotted away.
“Naught but the usual,” Willie said. “Family fallen on hard times. Ye shouldn’t trouble yerself over it, my lord. Yer kind never does.”
The caustic, insolent retort stung—for all of half a moment, before Luke was forced to acknowledge the truth of the words. He hadn’tcaredwhat inconveniences his presence might have forced upon the Talbots. Some things were simply his duefor his position in life, the station which had been his since birth. Or at least theyhadbeen, up until he’d been obliged to face the fact that the things he’d demanded simply had not been possible for the Talbots. Bacon for his breakfast, when they hadn’t even had it for theirs. Plum cake, for Christ’s sake.
“Presently,” Luke said, pressing one palm over his chest and telling himself that it was only the radiating pain of his healing wound that caused the sting that lingered there, “I occupy the master’s suite. Pray tell me—whereisthe master?”
“Away,” Willie rasped, that sneering scowl revealing more of his opinions of Papa Talbot than did the single word he had issued.
“And the mistress?”
“Dead these nine years past, God rest her soul.”
“And Miss Talbot isMissTalbot? That is—she has no husband?”
A scowl pulled at the corners of Willie’s mouth. “What gentleman wants a woman with three extra mouths to feed clinging to her skirts?” he snarled. “No, she’s got no husband. No dowry, neither. Fact is, my lord, Miss Lizzie and Miss Imogen don’t need the burden of yet another feckless arse tearing through their lives.”
Feckless arse, Luke mused. He supposed it was apt enough. Disrespectful, but apt. “It seems to me Miss Imogen could have spared herself a bit of trouble by choosing not to associate with Mr. Wycombe,” he said.
“It seems to me, my lord,” Willie said acidly, “that ye could have, as well.”
Touché. “I wouldn’t call Wycombe an associate,” Luke said. “More like a friend of a friend…of a friend. Third acquaintance twice removed at best.”
“We are the company we keep,” Willie said. “And yers speaks not well of ye, my lord.”
In fact, it was largely the other way around—Lukehad been the poor companion of late; it was likely only his title that kept him in invitations, given the swath he’d cut through London.
He had taken shameless advantage of the fact that society at large would offer him no censure, drowned himself in spirits and women and song—and not a bit of it had brought him so much as a sliver of peace or contentment. Instead he had simply fallen further and further into that vast well of debauchery.
Though his bucolic surroundings hadn’t a prayer of proving as diverting as the amusements of London, they were also…remarkably peaceful. He hadn’t seen a face yet that had reminded him in the least of London. He had gone long hours without once thinking of Celia. He hadsleptand had not found himself haunted by dreams and memories. And he hadn’t even had the convenient respite of brandy to dull his senses with the oblivion he had so often sought there at the bottom of the bottle.
In retrospect, probably at least a little of his persistent weakness was due to that fact. It was impossible to say how much of his tremors were due to lingering malaise, and how much were attributable to that affliction that tended to come upon him when he had gone too long without spirits. But for once, he thought he might have…come out the other side of them. Even if the desire for drink remained, theneedfor it had been somewhat curtailed.
Hatfield might as well have been another world entirely, and that—that wasworthsomething. Probably not much. Butsomething.
“At some point in the not-too-distant future,” he said to Willie, as he handed back the empty plate. “I’m going to need you to clarify some things for me.”
“And why ought I do that, my lord?” It came out a surly snarl, and Luke rolled his eyes.
“Because I have asked it of you,” he said. “As I plan on staying on a while, I shall need an assessment of exactly how dire the Talbots’ situation is.”
“Staying on?” Willie echoed, incredulity stretching his sagging features. “Ye can’t stay on. The minute ye can hold yer feet, I’ll chuck ye straight out of the house m’self.”
At that, Luke managed a fair approximation of a grin. “I think you’ll find, Willie, given the circumstances of my arrival here,” he said, and let the words linger in the air between them for a moment like a threat, “that I can do anything I damn well please.”
That jowly face pinched in, aggression flaring from the tight lips, the narrowed eyes. “If you think to threaten Miss Lizzie—”
“Isaidthat I am staying,” Luke interjected sharply. “What you make of my meaning is your responsibility. Now, I will have a razor and shaving soap—thisungrateful arseis of the mind to drag himself out of bed at last.”
Chapter Eight
His bloody highnesshad called down for a razor? Then Lizzie would give him the sharpest razor he’d ever had in his life and perhaps he would slice his fool neck open and save her the trouble. It had taken some time only to locate a blade—the razor that had once been Papa’s had been hidden away ages ago, since he was the only one who would have used it, given that Georgie was far too young to shave and Willie preferred to trim his beard with a pair of shears.
But the ornate design and the heavy silver handle made it expensive, and more to the point, it wasportable—which made it a prime target for Papa during his infrequent visits. She had unearthed it at last from where she had hidden it during Papa’s last visit, in the attic, beneath a number of dusty old linens which he would never have given a second glance.
