“Finished?” his master asked, opening his heavy-lidded eyes.
Derwent jumped, horrified to find that his hand had paused in midair, thinking about the travails of marriage. Goddesses, that was how Brinkley had described Holbrook’s young wards. He sniffed. Goddess is as goddess does, and no woman could do well enough for the master. He patted Felton around the chin with a soft towel.
Lucius stood up and began tying a neckcloth in deft folds. “I’m considering skipping the Silchester races,” he told Derwent. “Under the circumstances.”
“Precisely!” Derwent agreed. “The circumstances will be difficult indeed for the poor Duke of Holbrook. We would do better to leave immediately. I shan’t unpack your bags, sir.”
Lucius threw him an amused look. “I’m not in the market for a wife,” he said gently. “I consider myself able to resist the charms of Rafe’s wards for a night or two.”
“I would never venture to comment,” Derwent said with an air of studied carelessness, as he helped Lucius shrug into an evening coat of superfine wool.
“Good,” Lucius said. But then he relented. “Still, I thought it kind to divert you from such wholly unpleasant and unnecessary thoughts, Derwent.”
“Very kind,” the valet said with dignity, opening the door. “Extremely so.”
“I am quite certain,” Lucius added, “that should I become ensnared in the parson’s mousetrap someday, it will not be due to the presence of a few inexperienced Scottish lasses left without friends and family and thrust on the kindness of poor Rafe.”
“Without a doubt, sir,” Derwent said. His left eye was twitching like murder.
His master peered at him. “Are you quite all right? Your eyebrow appears to be developing a life of its own.”
“Yes, sir. I am quite all right.” And Mr. Felton left, for all the world like a lamb to the slaughter.
Derwent went over to the mirror and picked up the silver bowl of spent shaving water. But his attention was caught by his own appearance in the glass. His eye was twitching something mortal; the price of being a sensitive soul, as his mother always said. But his mustache was so fine as to draw attention away from any particular element of his face. It swept out from his mouth and ended in an innovation all Derwent’s own: a waxed spade shape on either side.
Alas, Lucius Felton was resolutely conservative when it came to dress. No mustache. No facial hair whatsoever, as a matter of fact. The most he would allow his valet to do was to sleek his thick blond hair back from his face in a style that was most severe.
Derwent sighed. It was his fate to be an artiste in the service of a man with no sense of fashion.
And now, possibly, Felton would take a wife. Wives meant the end of pleasant jaunts hither and yon, as the race season dictated. Domestic life! It was enough to drive a man to tears.
Lucius strolled after Brinkley into the dining room, hoping against hope that Rafe wouldn’t see fit to place him next to Lady Clarice. The very idea of Clarice Maitland made the hair stand on the back of his neck.
He found Rafe seated at the head of the table, looking much the same as usual. His neckcloth was tied in a careless knot, his hair stood straight up in the back, and there was a glass of brandy in his hand.But the rest of the table—Lucius almost stopped flat in his tracks. Derwent had said Rafe’s wards were not unattractive? Not unattractive? A woman with hair of a deep golden color looked up and smiled at him…and the smile was enough to make him bolt the room. And there was a dark-haired, dark-eyed one, with the expression of a passionate saint, one of those early virgin martyr types whose face burns with emotion. He just caught himself from stepping backward.
“Lucius!” Rafe called, beckoning to him.
He walked over, calculating how soon he could leave. It was a good thing that Derwent did not plan to unpack his valises. The last place he wanted to be was amidst a nest of marriage-minded young ladies: he had enough of that on his rare appearances during the season. “I am very sorry to disrupt you, under the circumstances,” he told Rafe. “I would not have intruded.”
Now that he was closer, Rafe didn’t look precisely the same as usual. For one thing, he appeared to be sober, rather than jug-bitten. And for another, there was a faint but distinct look of panic in his eye. The man would never escape without marrying one of these women, although the poor old duffer was so slow on the uptake when it came to women that he had probably only just discovered that fact.
“I’m extremely pleased to see you,” Rafe said. There was no doubt he was sincere: of course, drowning men always hoped a friend would throw them a rope. Or, in this case, Lucius had to suppose a wedding ring would offer the desired salvation.
Rafe turned to the young woman seated to his left. “Miss Essex, may I present an old friend of mine, Mr. Felton?”
Miss Essex was presumably the eldest of Rafe’s four new wards. Lucius hadn’t seen her at first. She was not in the least like that sensual, glowing sister down the table, nor like the black-haired passionate one. Oh, she was beautiful: brandy brown hair, cheekbones that the harshest sunlight couldn’t diminish. But it was her eyes, tip-tilted at the edges, serious, intelligent, dark, and sweet in her gaze…
She was smiling at him, and he was standing like a lummox without speaking. He bowed. “Miss Essex.”
“How very nice to meet you,” she said, holding out a hand. The ruffle at her wrist had been darned; at least Derwent’s information about the girls’ lack of dowries was correct, even if his assessment of their marketability certainly was not.
“I am truly sorry to hear of your father’s death,” Lucius said. “I met Lord Brydone a time or two and found him a gallant and merry-hearted gentleman.”
To his horror, Miss Essex’s eyes took on a little glimmer. “We are—” She paused. “Papa was an excellent rider.”
“Lucius, do have a seat. Brinkley has laid a place next to Miss Essex,” Rafe said. “I shall introduce you to everyone else after the meal.”
“I shall take it quite amiss if you do not personally greet me before seating yourself,” Lady Clarice thrilled from the other side of the table. “Dear Mr. Felton, how are you?” She held out her hand with a positive smirk of greeting.
Lucius gritted his teeth and walked around the table, kissing a hand that was thrust in his face with arch command.
Sure enough, Lady Clarice launched into her favorite topic without waiting for breath. “I met your dearest mother at the Temple Stairs just the other evening,” she said, watching him like a hawk from behind her fluttering eyelashes. “We were both on our way to that production of All for Love everyone has been talking about. It was utterly lackluster, not that it signifies. But the poor woman, how Mrs. Felton has aged—so thin, so melancholy, so pale! Perhaps you have visited her recently?” Her voice trailed off suggestively, even though she knew perfectly well that hell would freeze over before he darkened his parents’ door.
Lucius bowed again, saying nothing. If his mother was pale, it must have been from an attack of distemper.
But the loathed Lady Clarice wasn’t done yet. She grabbed his hand and clung to it. “From what I hear, Mrs. Felton hardly leaves her bed. If only I could impress upon you the grief that assails a mother’s heart when her child strays from her side…the anguish is like no other!”