Never Romance a Rake by Liz Carlyle

Author:Liz Carlyle
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 2008-09-04T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

In which Rothewell receives a great deal of Unwanted advice

The news of Baron Rothewell’s marriage was received with very little fanfare by those whom it reached that day. He was not well enough known in decent circles to create much of a stir, and within the indecent circles, he was to be mourned as a man who had likely surrendered to a scoundrel’s last refuge—marrying for money—and would doubtless return to his senses, and his old haunts, sooner rather than later. No one, however, could have predicted that “sooner” would mean the day after his wedding.

At the Satyr’s Club, Rothewell spent the early afternoon being entertained in one of the lounges by a nearly bare-bottomed lass named Periwinkle whose primary skill appeared to be—as the Duke of Warneham would later describe it to his wife—giggling and sipping the club’s cheap champagne whilst squirming about on Rothewell’s lap.

The duke looked around the tawdry room and felt his skin crawl. On the opposite end of the lounge, a pair of nightingales at the pianoforte were feigning refinement by singing a duet from a comic opera currently popular in the West End. A third was attempting to step through the dance which went with it, but having little success despite the crowd of men who cheered her on.

The establishment was a far cry from St. James’s bastions of upper-class masculinity, such as White’s Club. Here, the musty velvet draperies and poor lighting aside, one could plainly see the furniture was worn. The walls were hung with faded silk, and the carpets possessed several suspicious stains. The place reeked of sex and of sin—and of several less savory things. It was quite obviously designed for the sort of man who did not give a damn about ambience or class. The sort of man who preferred to sate his passions and drown his soul with life’s darker pleasures. A man like Rothewell.

“Thank you, no,” said Gareth when Periwinkle attempted to spread her assets around. “My wife would likely have my fingernails ripped out.”

This sentiment served merely to make Periwinkle laugh so hard some of the champagne went up her nose and she had to excuse herself.

“This really is perfectly disgusting,” Gareth complained to Rothewell, who had one arm slung carelessly along the back of the settee. “Half-naked girls dancing and singing—and the fully naked ones just a staircase away. Not to mention the whiff of opium I caught round by that back parlor.”

“Opium?” Languidly, Rothewell extracted a cheroot from its silver case.

“Oh, don’t come the innocent with me, Kieran!” Gareth snapped. “You cannot be at sea for as long as I was and not know the stench of that vile scourge. I did not know London had been so tainted by it.”

“Indeed?” Rothewell looked supremely bored.

“And in Limehouse, for God’s sake,” Gareth continued. “What kind of gentlemen come out here, anyway? I think, Kieran, that you should go home to your wife.”

Rothewell surveyed him from beneath heavily hooded eyes and drew on his cheroot. “You may be henpecked, old chap, but I don’t intend to be,” he finally replied.

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