Griffin pushed himself off the desk before the other man could utter a word and strode out the door.
IT WAS VERY, very late at night, and Thomas squinted as he propped himself up with one hand on the doorjamb while he used the other to pound on the door. It was the second time he’d knocked, and he stepped back to squint up at the town house. This was the correct house all right, he wasn’t likely to ever forget it. Which meant the jade was either not answering him or, worse, was visiting one of her many young paramours. If she was, he’d—
The door opened abruptly to reveal a large, menacing manservant he’d not met before.
Thomas scowled. “Where is she?”
The manservant began to close the door.
Thomas set his shoulder against the door, shoving hard. But his footing wasn’t as firm as he thought it. Suddenly he found himself on his arse—the second time today—and red washed over his vision. He was the Marquess of Mandeville, damn it! His life wasn’t supposed to be like this.
There was a flurry of movement at the door, and then Lavinia was bending over him in a purple wrap, her outrageously red hair about her shoulders. In dishabille, without the artful application of her paint pots, she looked every year of her age. And yet when he stared up at her, he thought her the most beautiful woman in the world.
“What has happened to you?” she cried.
“I love you,” he said thickly.
She rolled her eyes. “You’re drunk. Hutchinson, help me get him inside.”
Thomas began to protest the help of the manservant, but as his legs did appear to be a bit wobbly, it really seemed a moot point. A few minutes more and he was ensconced in her sitting room on the yellow settee.
“I’ve always liked this settee,” he said, patting the cushion beside him. He gave her a seductive look. “Some of my best memories took place here.”
She sighed, which was not how he remembered her responding to his seductive looks in the past. “Why aren’t you at your fiancée’s house, Thomas?”
“Not my fiancée anymore,” he said, sounding petulant even to his own ears.
Her delicate eyebrows rose. “I thought you’d signed the marriage papers?”
“She fucked Griffin.”
Lavinia merely looked at him, her arms folded beneath her magnificent bosom.
He shook his head irritably, glancing about the room. “Fucked him under my own nose. Jus’ like Anne. Whores, all of ’em.”
She moved slightly at the second use of the crude verb. “You know I dislike such language, Thomas.”
“Sorry.” He laid his head in his hands, for it had begun to spin slowly.
“What happened to your face?” she asked softly.
“Griffin.” He laughed, feeling his nose. It was large and lumpy and no doubt broken, but at the moment he hardly felt it. “He attacked me, if you’ll credit it. After seducing my fiancée, he hit me. Should call him out.”
“Did you deserve it?”
He shrugged guiltily. “I hit her. Lady Hero. I’ve never before struck a woman in my life.”
“Then it does sound like you deserved it,” Lavinia said briskly. She bent to examine him. “Even so, your nose looks quite painful.”
He looked at her slyly. “You always cared for me, Lavinia.”
“Not anymore.”
He frowned. She could at least pretend a sentimental affection. “Lavinia…”
She sighed. “You need cold water for that nose.”
She moved to the sitting room door, and he watched her longingly as she called for the hulking butler and asked for cold water and a cloth. Her wrap was a deep amethyst that hugged her luscious bottom. He noticed that her slippers were worn, though, the embroidery tattered. She should have new slippers, ones with jeweled heels. He’d give her jeweled slippers and much, much more if only she came back to him. He closed his eyes a moment.
When next he opened them, Lavinia was beside him with a basin of water. She draped a cold cloth over his nose.
“Ouch.” Thomas winced.
“Hold still,” she said.
He watched her as she leaned over him, her brows knit.
“Why did you leave me?” he asked.
“You know why.”
“No, but really,” he said somewhat indistinctly. He needed the question answered right this moment. “Why?”
“Because,” she said as she lifted away the cloth and rewetted it. “You decided it was time to marry. You asked Lady Hero to be your wife.”
“But why leave me?” he asked stubbornly. “You know I could’ve kept you in luxury for the rest of your life.”
“The rest of my life?” Her brown eyes met his, and he couldn’t read the emotion that lay within them.
“Yes,” he said, suddenly sober. “For forever. I would not take any other mistress. I would’ve been true to only you.”
“And to your wife, you mean.” The strange spell that had been between them broke. She shook her head. “I’d not take well to being a kept woman, I’m afraid, Thomas.”
“I can’t marry you, damn you,” he snarled.
He knew he wasn’t charming anymore. Wasn’t anything but ugly, but he couldn’t prevaricate. The emotion welled up in him too strongly.
“I know you can’t marry me,” she said, sounding almost bored. “But that doesn’t mean I can’t marry some other gentleman.”
His head jerked back, the blow more painful than his brother’s fist. “You will not!”
She raised her eyebrows. “Whyever not? You have no claim on me.”
“Damn you,” he hissed. He threw aside the silly cloth and grabbed her close. “Damn you!”
And he kissed her with all the desperation of a man with a torn and bloodied heart.
She tore her mouth away even as he delved beneath the amethyst silk wrapper. “This won’t solve anything, Thomas.”
“Might not,” he grunted as he licked her neck. “But it sure as hell will make me feel better.”
“Oh, Thomas,” she sighed, and since that didn’t sound like a rejection of any sort, he went ahead and did what he’d been wanting to do for months now.
Make love to Lavinia.
GRIFFIN WAS DOZING in one of his brother’s chairs when the front door of Mandeville House opened and closed. He jerked awake, rubbing at his face groggily.
He’d tried Thomas’s house the night before—after seeing the Duke of Wakefield—but Thomas had been out. When it was clear that his brother wasn’t returning home any time soon, Griffin had decamped to St. Giles.