Indulgence 2: One Glimpse (4 page)

“You should have that seen to right away,” the duchess insisted. “My housekeeper will be able to assist you.”

“Think nothing of it, Your Grace,” Sam replied, wrapping the linen more tightly around his throbbing hand. “I will take my leave and thank you for a fine breakfast, if I may.”

Henry touched his shoulder. “Sam, there was glass—”

“I am fine!” Sam turned fierce eyes on Henry, causing him to flinch and take a step back. He must know how his concern was unwanted, unappreciated. Surely he must know how just being in the same room with him hurt like hell.

“Yes. Never mind Shaw, Your Grace,” Evers drawled. “He has a terrible history of clumsiness. Why, he once tripped over a footstool at White’s and nearly broke his own nose.”

Lord Richard, who knew firsthand the real particulars of that story, glared at Evers with his hard black eyes, but Evers was too drunk to acknowledge the warning.

“I see,” the duchess said, plainly uncomfortable. She gave the group a forced smile. “You will pardon me while I see to fetching my housekeeper. Sir, you must allow my staff to see to your hand.” Quickly, and no doubt thankfully, she turned and glided away.

“Perhaps we should begin feeding brandy to French spies,” Julian suggested, lifting his patrician nose in Evers’s direction. “It appears to have a great effect in making people talk when they shouldn’t.”

Evers sneered at Julian, then turned right back to Sam. His eyes were a little glassy, but like most consummate drunks, he spoke without slurring his words. “Can’t blame clumsiness for being afraid of the dark, though, can you, Shaw? That church cellar back at school was
awfully
dark, wasn’t it?”

Henry sucked in a breath as if startled, and that was when Sam could take no more. He burst forward, shoving Evers out of his way as he made his escape. He did not run, but he was sure they could all see his rage. He had to leave before he caused himself and his sister serious damage. Later, if questioned, he could just blame his outburst on his hand, say he was in terrible pain. Yes, that would do. It would be one more story to make him look like a clumsy fool. What was one more, after all?

Reaching the hall, he went in search of a back door. He refused to wait on the front step for his carriage to be called, a standing tableau for people to gawk at. He would just find his carriage in the alley and have a footman send his apologies to his sister. She would be able to find a ride home with one of her friends. He was too angry to be good company with her anyway.

As he turned down a narrower hallway that, he hoped, would lead to some exit, his mind raced over the things he should have done and should have said. Oh, yes, Sam was very clever and cutting in his imagination, but when the moment of action came, his mind always failed him.

“Oof! Pardon me.”

Sam heard the words just as he ran headlong into a sculpted wall of linen and silk. He braced his hands to keep from toppling forward, and strong hands did the same against his shoulders. He stumbled back, a snarling rebuff ready on his lips, when he looked up to meet the copper-flecked eyes of Lord John Darnish.

“Apologies, my lord.” Sam’s throat went dry.

“It’s of no concern. If you’re looking for the privy, it’s just around that way. Ah.” Darnish looked down to the front of his once immaculate ivory waistcoat, now smeared with a bloody palm print.

“Oh, God.” Sam groaned. Of course. Of course!

“Think nothing of it,” Darnish muttered, though the tight press of his lips betrayed his irritation. He pulled a handkerchief from his sleeve but dropped his hand futilely.

“I-I’m sorry,” Sam stammered, then felt even more foolish for that. What a pathetic, bumbling idiot he must seem. Having just slammed his hand into Darnish’s torso, the pain was becoming intense enough to make him ill.

Darnish looked at Sam’s hand, wrapped in a linen that was quite soaked through, and his irritation vanished. “Good Lord, man. You must have that seen to immediately.”

“Yes,” Sam muttered. “I do apologize again.”

“It’s nothing. Just a waistcoat.” Darnish smiled and opened his arms in a gesture to the ruined garment, not to mention to one of the finest figures Sam had ever seen. Broad, muscled shoulders and a flat, tapering torso that probably held not a pinch of fat. If Sam knew who the man’s tailor was, he would send him a gift basket with a note of thanks for his labors.

Darnish continued. “I’ll leave you to it then. Smith, is it?”

Sam sputtered, and his cheeks grew hot.
He doesn’t even know my name. The same clubs, the same social functions for years, and he doesn’t even know my name.

“Smith. Yes.” The words came out as a nervous laugh.

“Think nothing of the waistcoat, really,” Darnish added, though he looked at Sam curiously. “I was looking for an excuse to leave early, and now I have it.”

“I have my excuse too, as you see.” Sam raised his throbbing hand. His pained smile was so bitter it was like acid in his throat.

“It would be hard to match that one.” Darnish chuckled. “Desperation and extreme measures, eh?”

“Right. Excuse me, if you will. Have to see to this.” Sam slinked away, his throat and eyes aching as he did. He hoped Darnish was not watching him as he walked away, but he was too much of a coward to look back and see.

How wonderful. A perfect end to a miserable day. He could just imagine Darnish shaking his head and laughing at the strange nobody he had just met. The surly, dull, short little
nothing
he had just met.

Pathetic.

On the side street beyond the garden, Sam found his carriage and coachman near the end of the line and glared at the man when he had the nerve to stare openly at Sam’s bloody hand. As soon as he was tucked into the carriage and it began to sway away, the tears welled behind his closed eyes.

* * * *

“SHAW?”

“YES. SAMUEL Shaw. Lady Crowl is his sister, I think,” came the laughing reply.

John Darnish scowled as his friend, Michael Sills, collapsed into a fit of laughter. He was seated on the opposite bench in John’s closed town carriage, his grin as wide as it had been half the morning. In fact, everyone had seemed to be damned pleased with themselves, and now John knew why.

“So you thought it was amusing for me to stand there asking what happened with
Mr. Smith,
when all along you knew it was Sir Samuel Shaw? I was unaware that my friends enjoyed making a fool of me.” John turned his eyes to the window.

“A fool of you? No, no, you don’t see the joke at all.” Michael crossed his legs, clad in the tight buff trousers that were the current fashion. “Any amusement to be had was on Shaw, I assure you. You know
everyone
, Darny, so not knowing his name was just too much.” He shrugged.

“Too much amusement?” John submitted. He was not at all pleased to discover that he had unwittingly participated in humiliating someone.
Further
humiliating someone, for he had heard all about the little incident involving Evers and the broken glass. Elliot Evers was a pompous ass who got far too much enjoyment from the discomfort of others, and it was only worse when he was in his cups.

“In the future, be so good as to exclude me from such childish displays. I don’t even know the man,” John said. Thinking back on it, he was certain he had
seen
Shaw around town but had never spoken to him. He probably just moved in different circles, had different interests. A pity, too, since he boasted some of the finest green eyes John had ever seen.

“Relax, Darny. If you’re feeling guilty, don’t bother. Everyone knows that Shaw is a moody old curmudgeon, more likely to snap at a man than say hello. Don’t worry yourself.”

“Moody
old
curmudgeon? If he is more than six and twenty, I’ll eat this glove.”

“True, and you make my point even all the more. He’s stodgy and dismissive long before he’s of an age for it. He looks at everyone sideways, like some little sneak, and I hear he’s vicious in business dealings. Must be, to have as much money as he does. I tell you, it’s not right for a mere baronet to be so fat in the purse. There are plenty of peers who can’t boast half of what he’s got.”

Like yourself, Michael?
John didn’t utter the thought, thank goodness. Michael had a rather generous allowance from his viscount brother, but every farthing disappeared either at the gambling tables or into the palm of some whore. It was a sore point with the man.

“There’s a mill Thursday night, set to be a good one, even if the fighters are unknowns,” Michael said, dropping the subject of Shaw like a piece of lint from his coat. “Plan to go?”

“I may,” John replied, “if nothing else comes up.”

“If the little wife gives you permission?” Michael chuckled.

John turned his head sharply but remembered to cool his response just in time. “Lily is no clinger, as you well know. And she hardly keeps me from going wherever I wish.”

“I don’t doubt it. What I’m saying is that you
don’t wish
.” He laughed again. “As for her being your mistress rather than wife, well, that’s just sophistry, isn’t it?”

John pursed his lips in the irritated yet tolerant pose he had learned to perfect whenever his mistress was mentioned. The whole ton knew that Lord John Darnish had committed the ultimate foolish sin of falling in love with his mistress, Lily. He bought her presents constantly, often mentioned her in polite conversation as if he had forgotten she was a fallen woman, and it was known that he even had a daughter by her and spent a fine bit of coin hiring all the best tutors and nurses for her. The whole world
knew
he was smitten.

And once upon a time, the whole world
knew
the Earth was flat.

“Please,” John replied with a teasing smile. “Don’t give me another display of your foolish jealousy. I’ll never tire of the sweet thing, so you can forget about moving in on my territory some day.”

“Bah!” Michael waved his hand in mock disgust. This was an old back and forth for them. “You really are smitten, aren’t you? Damn it all, but a man like you keeping to one woman? Not natural, I tell you. Anyway, if you do decide on the mill, let me know before luncheon the day of.”

John was tempted to correct his friend and remind him that he still had his occasional encounters with whores and various loose women. It rankled John that he went through so much trouble and expense to set up those occasions, and make certain people noticed them, if they were just going to be ignored. Maybe he would stop bothering.

“I will,” John assured him.

“So I take it your plans for the night have you south of Mayfair,” Michael said, referring to the area in which John kept a house for Lily.

“Yes, they do.” John grinned. “I am on my way there as we speak.”

Michael rolled his eyes with amusement, which was precisely the reaction John hoped for. He had to be ever vigilant, after all, had to always make certain that those around him saw what he wanted them to see.

John was not lying when he said he was on his way to see Lily, and after letting Michael off near White’s with another suggestive grin, he ordered his coachman to head south. He knew Lily would be at home, as she rarely went out except to visit her dressmaker or the lending library. Unlike other mistresses in London, Lily did not cut a dash among the demireps. She did not flit around Hyde Park in bright dresses, nor drive her own curricle and laugh when proper ladies refused to look at her. She would have been mortified by such behavior

Poor creature.

His coach deposited him before a modest, yet respectable-looking white townhouse with black, wrought-iron fencing, and brass fixtures on the door. He knocked once and was admitted by the housekeeper, a portly woman in her fifties who cast a suspicious eye on anything male, except John.

“Your Lordship.” The old woman beamed. “Miss Lily be expectin’ you, ‘acourse. Just in the parlor, she is.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” he said almost with deference. He enjoyed the way it made the old girl’s cheeks flush with pleasure. “Is Sophie with her?”

“Yes, m’lord. I can call ’er nurse to come fetch ’er, if ye like.”

“No need. I’ve come to see them both.” He handed over his hat and cane and opened the door to the parlor himself. Despite his many offers for more servants, Lily continued to insist they were unneeded. A part of him was glad for her refusal. The fewer people admitted to their closed association, the better.

As soon as he shut the door behind him, a little porcelain doll with blonde curls and blue eyes came bouncing toward him.

“Papa! You came to visit me,” she gushed as she wrapped her little four-year-old arms around his leg.

John laughed and picked her up like a bag of feathers. She was wearing the new blue taffeta dress he had ordered for her but a few days ago, and he was pleased to see it.

“Now, don’t topple the poor man over, Sophie,” came a soft alto voice. “He came to see you, not to be squashed.”

Sophie giggled. “Papa is too big to be squashed, Mama. Why, it would take a…a element. Like we saw at the zoo.”

“Oh, you mean an elephant? Like this?” He put his hand under his nose and moved it up and down like an elephant’s trunk.

“Yes!” Sophie cried. “Just like that. I liked seeing the elephant, but I think he looked sad.”

John placed her back on her feet and held her little hand as they moved to the sofa. Lily occupied the chair opposite, a heap of embroidery folded in her lap. The image struck him as it always did. She looked so proper, so matronly, so perfectly respectable. She deserved more than this.

“Hello, my dear,” he said, genuinely pleased to see her. “Did you visit the flower market this morning?”

Having little else to do, Lily sometimes conducted errands that most ladies delegated to their servants. He had thought the question innocent enough, what with Sophie being present, but Lily’s lips tightened and she nodded her reply.

She asked him about the wedding and the breakfast, and conversation moved along the dull, polite lines that one reserved for strangers and the presence of children, but something in her manner told him that she was not feeling nearly as light as she was trying to sound.