Page 2 of Portrait of a Lady
“The stories of Ben’s scar are purposely vague for a reason,” offered Hugh from where he lounged on a sofa with one of the whores sleeping upon his chest. “The truth is whatever you want it to be, because in the end it does not matter where the scar came from. Your questions about it only pushes him to spin yarn after yarn until you’re left in a tangle.”
It wasn’t so philosophical as all that, but Benedict did not bother to correct Hugh—an artist with paint smudges staining his fingernails whom one could always count upon to over-think matters. Wavy, black hair fell about his head in a tumble, his dark eyes glazed from too much brandy and too little sleep. When he wasn’t reveling with their set, he spent hours painting, drawing, sculpting...putting into practice what he learned in his sessions at the Royal Academy.
“It isn’t that, Hugh,” David quipped, tearing his rapt gaze away from the whores in his lap, who’d begun kissing and pawing at one another. “The answer is simple, really. Benedict is an ass...end of story.”
“What do you think, Aubrey?” Hugh asked, flitting his gaze to their fifth and final companion.
Aubrey sat near the hearth in an armchair matching David’s, his dark-as-night skin gleaming in the light of the fire. His companion for the night knelt on the floor between his knees, her head rested upon his thigh. Tall and broad-shouldered, his whisky-brown eyes darted to Hugh, a smirk curving his full lips.
“I agree with David’s assessment. Ben is an ass.”
The men erupted into laughter, the sound filling the room and mingling with the tinkling giggles of the whores. Staring up at the portrait of the viscount, Benedict sneered. The man would have foamed at the mouth if he knew Benedict was tarnishing the family’s town residence by filling it with Haymarket strumpets and the sorts of friends he would designate as beneath him. An artist, a blackamoor tradesman, a dissolute gambler, a gentry rake from a crumbling estate, and a gambler so heavily in debt the shops had ceased offering him credit until they’d been paid.
But these men were his friends, the only people he’d ever been able to depend on...the only ones he liked in a city filled with hypocritical snakes. He raised his decanter in silent toast to them, and to the camaraderie he’d managed to find despite his father’s insistence he was unworthy of anyone’s regard.
He wished the viscount did happen to visit while they were all in residence with him. He hoped the rage his father felt at the depths Benedict had reached in order to taint the family name choked him to death.
Sometime later,when the whores had been sent off with filled pockets and the last drop of brandy consumed, the men remained in the drawing room. Strewn about as haphazardly as discarded scraps of clothing, they lay basking in the afterglow of a most magnificent night of revelry. Slouched in his loveseat with one foot propped on a low table, Benedict closed his eyes and waited for sleep to claim him. The room spun far too precariously for him to attempt rising to find his bed, so he would be content to submit to insentience right where he sat. His companions would follow suit, as was their custom following a night of drink and depravity. Tomorrow afternoon they would stumble—bleary-eyed and suffering the effects of over-imbibing—across the square to Gunter’s, where they would overindulge in confections just as they had with women and spirits.
Dominick’s voice broke through the silence, pulling Benedict back from the brink of near sleep.
“Well, old chaps...I must say it has been a pleasure, but this might be the last time I am able to spend a night in your company for a while.”
Benedict pried one heavy eyelid open and studied his friend, who stared dismally into the fire.
“Whas-that?” he mumbled, forcing his other eye open.
“Not this again,” David grumbled. “Nick, there is no need for dramatics.”
“Except there is,” Dominick insisted. “After years of threatening to stop paying my creditors and cease funding my allowance, my father has cut me off completely. Can you believe it? The old miser won’t give me so much as a ha’penny.”
This came as no surprise to anyone, as Dominick—the third son of an earl—had developed a reputation for lavish spending and a penchant for daring bets made over games of chance. Cards, Hazard, horse races, even the betting books in various gentlemen’s clubs. If there was money to be won or lost, Nick could almost always be found placing his own wager. That he lost more than he won did not seem to deter him. In truth, it only drove him to take more chances and dig himself in deeper, determined that all it would take wasonebig win.
“Surely that does not mean you must cease joining us for our evenings out,” Aubrey cut in, giving Dominick an incredulous look.
“It does if it means he’ll start holding his hand out for sovereigns when he can’t afford to pay his whore,” Hugh muttered from where he lay with one arm thrown over his closed eyes. “The devil if I will be the one to front him the blunt. I can scarcely afford to feed myself these days.”
“Have you had no recent commissions?” Benedict asked.
Hugh lifted the arm and peered at him with mournful eyes. “Not a single one, and I’ve stretched the profit from my last piece as far as it will go. I’ll be almost as bad off as Nick before long.”
Dominick sniffed and raised his aristocratic chin an inch. “Never would I be so bad off as toworkfor a living. Honestly, Hugh, you’re the son of an earl, too. Have some dignity.”
“Fourthson of an earl,” Hugh groused.
At the same time Aubrey muttered, “Says the man who doesn’t have a sixpence to scratch with.”
Dominick glowered at Aubrey, while David laughed and Benedict studied them all with a thoughtful gaze. He hadn’t realized it until now, but all five of them had fallen onto financial hardship as of late. Nick might be the worst off, but Hugh’s family had disowned him for his desire to pursue art as a vocation rather than just a hobby. Aubrey was supporting his young niece with a dwindling income from trading in fabrics, so he was barely keeping afloat. David stood poised to inherit a failing estate with none of the benefits of a title or wealth to go with it, and Benedict...well, he’d had more money than he’d known what to do with until a few bad investments had bled him dry. Now, he kept his head above water by winning his bare-knuckle brawls, because he’d be damned if he would go crawling to the viscount to ask for a single shilling. Despite being entitled to an allowance, he’d never asked for one and his father had never offered.
“Working for a living is preferable to languishing to death in debtor’s prison,” Aubrey pointed out. “Best you think of some way to secure your own funds, and quickly.”
David issued a dry snort. “And just what sort of work could a man like Nick—who’s never even had to tie his own cravat—secure, I ask you?”
“There is always the clergy,” Benedict quipped.
“Clergymen are so horridly dull,” Dominick mused. “I’d rather die.”
“You could beg your father to purchase a commission for you,” Hugh offered.
