Page 6 of The Notorious Dashing Viscount
Clayton knew from portraits and his own hazy memory that he resembled his mother, and probably Uncle Henley, too. He had thick dark hair, so brown as to almost be black, and a pair of shockingly bright jade-green eyes, set in a square, handsome face. His collection of features was the sort of thing one might see in a Romantic painting, or perhaps engraved in marble.
Either way, Clayton knew he was handsome, and was rather proud of it. His father might have kept his mother from him for all those years, but he couldn’t change the fact that her face lived on in her son.
Smiling grimly, Clayton turned away from the mirror, and ploughed on through the crowd.
A grating, high-pitched voice caught his attention.
“Now, here it is – fifty pounds to anybody who can melt the heart of the infamous Ice Queen! You cannot do it, I wager.”
Clayton paused at that, peering at the knot of men to his left.
They were the usual crowd – rakes, gamblers, second and third sons who longed to be noticed by their fathers, even for the wrong reasons. The men were all deep in their cups and were listening and laughing with the man that Clayton disliked most in all the world.
Excepting, of course, his father.
Mr. Simon Dudley came from trade and hated the fact. Clayton had once joked that the chip on his shoulder was so deepthat it was a wonder his arm did not fall clean off, and perhaps that was where their animosity had started.
Simon was thirty years old, taller than Clayton but not as handsome, with pale skin and a petulant mouth with a desperate love of gossip and scandal. He was rumoured to have killed a man in a duel and had never forgiven Clayton for revealing that rumour to have been started by none other than Simon himself.
He’d lingered too long. Simon glanced his way, and his eyes narrowed.
“Ah, Lord Henley. What a pleasure. Will you drink with us?”
“I’d love to, but no, I have other engagements.”
Simon snorted. “What engagements?”
Clayton smiled winningly. “I am engaged to drink elsewhere. Anywhere else, really.”
That won him a few titters. Simon scowled.
“Well, well, you heard my wager. What do you say? Could you melt the Ice Queen’s heart? You must know her. A pretty enough girl. Rich, with excellent family. Three Seasons have come and gone and she’s turned down every single suitor who came her way. And there were plenty, might I add, most of them entirely eligible. Turned them down firmly, may I add. It’s odd, is it not?”
“I’m not sure how it concerns me,” Clayton drawled, affecting boredom. “The lady’s business is her own.”
“What about the fifty pounds, though?”
“I don’t know about you, Simon, but I do not require fifty pounds to make my fortune.”
Simon pursed his lips, tilting his head. “You don’t accept my wager, then?”
“I certainly do not.” Clayton craned his neck, trying to spot an acquaintance – any acquaintance, really. He couldn’t exactly cut Simon in the middle of White’s. There were rules, after all. It was a gentleman’s club.
Simon drew in a breath. “Oh. Oh. I see what it is.”
“Do you really?”
“Ye-es, I do. You’re afraid that the great Lord Henley, with his great charm, would be refused by a chit of a girl.”
Clayton scowled. “There are dozens of women who would marry me at a word. I don’t mean to brag, Simon, but I have conquests aplenty. Why on earth should I bother with a woman who doesn’t want me?”
Simon leaned forward, grinning, elbows resting on the wooden counter in front of him. There was a puddle of spilled brandy there, and it soaked into the elbow of his jacket. He didn’t seem to notice.
“Why? Well, because I say you cannot do it, of course. I say you are all talk and no action.”
The chatter had died down in the club, to Clayton’s chagrin. More people were listening, mostly because it was Simon and Clayton – famous enemies – who was going head-to-head.
“This may shock you, my dear sir, but I don’t care for your opinion any more than I do the Ice Queen’s. I imagine that if I applied myself, I should be able to attract her attention, but why would I want to do that?”
