Page 68 of A Deal With a Notorious Devil
“That’s not the point,” Rafe said. “One doesn’t go to a club for the quality of the spirits.”
“Apparently not.”
Rafe smothered an inelegant sound beneath his palm. “It seems Phoebe’s holding up her end of your bargain,” he said. “You should be grateful you’re here at all—and instead you’re denigrating the quality of the brandy.”
He was right, of course, though that knowledge did not improve the taste of the liquor. Chris had not, in fact, expected Laurence to meet with success in his attempt to gain him admittance to his club—and had not been much inclined to pull any strings still within his grasp to ensure it. But it seemed between Laurence and the viscount, the Beaumonts, and the many and various Toogood husbands, they’d cobbled together enough sway to do it.
Or at least no other members, whatever reservations they might have had, had dared to blackball him outright.
“Thought you’d prefer a more casual introduction to society,”Rafe said. “Instead of a dinner party, at which you might allow yourself to be goaded into violence. The strictures are somewhat relaxed here, where only men are permitted.”
Chris supposed he was right there, too. There had been little opportunity for anything else, given that he’d spent the better part of a month recovering from a gunshot wound. Brooks had imparted to him that Phoebe had received several invitations to various events in the meantime—though fewer, perhaps, than she might have received had she married someone more socially acceptable—but he had sent her regrets to each of them.
“Stop bloody slouching,” Rafe instructed. “You look like you’re attempting to sink through your seat.”
Hell. Easier said than done when there were at least a dozen pairs of eyes trained upon him, as if a feral animal had been let loose within the club. “What is one meant to do at a gentleman’s club?” he asked, pitching his voice low. He’d experience enough with gaming hells, where men gambled and drank to excess and occasionally, if the mood struck, took the company of one of the whores who prowled the halls to an upstairs room for a bit of a slap and tickle. But the raucous atmosphere of a gaming hell was a far cry from the muted conversation trickling around them, and ladies weren’t permitted within—not even prostitutes to provide pleasure to the gentlemen present.
Rafe shrugged. “Drink,” he said. “Converse with one’s peers. Read in the library, if it suits one’s interests.” He paused. Reflected. “I think there’s a card room somewhere.”
Bloody boring, then. Out of the corner of his eye, Chris watched a gentleman at a neighboring table flick the page of a newspaper.
“Mostly,” Rafe said, “I expect men come here to escape their wives.”
“Why?”
“Haven’t the faintest,” Rafe said. “Don’t come often, myself.But every gentleman has got a club. It’s the done thing.” He gave a nonchalant shrug. “Clubs are meant to be a refuge from the home,” he said, “for gentlemen who find the company of their wives growing tedious, I suppose.”
“Don’t, I beg you, tell me you find my sister’s companytedious.”
“Of course not,” Rafe said. “Which is why I spend little time here. But if you find Phoebe’s company tedious—”
“I don’t.”
“I mean to say, it must be strange, sharing your home with a woman after so many years of bachelorhood.”
It wasn’t. Or at least, it wasn’t as strange as he had thought it would be. “Phoebe’s a friend, after a fashion,” he said. “I have no need to escape her.” She wasn’t intrusive in the way that some were. Her company did not grate upon his nerves. In fact—
In fact, he’d found himself seeking her out more often than not. He was surprised she’d not accused him of malingering when he’d come to her in the library complaining of the pain in his side and insisting that she read to him and scratch her fingers through his hair as he liked.
Most especially because hehadbeen malingering. It had seemed the safest way to play upon her sympathies and to get what he wanted of her.
“Ah,” Rafe said. “You see, that’s just it. I have little use for a club as a social thing, since I have got Emma for that. My wife is my closest friend.” He rolled his eyes as Chris tossed and offended glare across the table. “I value your friendship, such as it is,” he said. “But for all our years of friendship, I have never once felt a desire to share a bed with you. So Emma has knocked you down a rung upon that ladder.”
Thank God for that, at least. Chris took a furtive glance about, and pitched his voice to a murmur to ensure he wouldn’t be overheard. “I meant to speak to Em today,” he said. “Phoebe’sbeen a bit overwrought about that incident some weeks past.”
“Incident?” Rafe asked, arching one brow. “You mean to say, the one in which you were shot?”
“Concerned her, she said,” Chris sighed.
“You don’t say.” Rafe’s bland tone suggested some measure of exasperation. “I’ve no idea why she might be a touch unsettled that her husband came inches away from death.”
Chris ground his teeth together. “Suffice it to say,” he gritted out, “I’ve taken measures that ought to relieve…er, let’s say the worst of the antipathy in which the general public holds me. Probably won’t be making friends of them, but at least I ought to have fewer enemies than once I had.”
“Then what is the problem?”
“I’ve been made aware that a man came round my office some time ago. Said he’d been sent by a man called Russell. I wanted to know if Em had heard anything on that front.” Chris finished off the last of his brandy and set the empty glass aside. “The man himself isn’t known to me,” he said. “But the most recent boy I brought to Em—”
“Ah,” said Rafe. “Martin.”
