“I didn’t just have a brother. I had a shiny archetype of everything virtuous, honorable, and untainted. My father used to write me weekly letters detailing every one of Bertram’s triumphs. When Bertram died in that horse riding accident my father lost the will to live.” West tried to pull himself upright but the sharp pain in his ribs stopped him. “It should have been me, Rafe. I should have died young, not Bertram.”
Rafe thumped his walking stick on the floor. “Enough! Don’t you have a gaggle of sisters to escort to balls? You’ll have to go sober long enough to fulfill your brotherly duties.”
“Geese form a gaggle. Finches form a charm. I believe the collective noun for my sisters is a ‘haunting.’ Or perhaps, like hippopotamuses, a ‘bloat.’ I do love those girls.” He managed to haul himself upright and swing his legs out of bed. “But the sheer number of them and the staggering grandiosity of their millinery and seamstress bills is enough to drive a duke to drink. Maybe they should be a ‘banditry’ of sisters. Got any tipple in this room?”
“Not a drop. Have some coffee.” He waved a cup at him. “It’ll wake you up.”
“I don’t want to be alert. I prefer a cloudy state of inebriation that gathers to a thick, impenetrable fog by nightfall.”
Rafe shook his head sadly. “You’ve a sharp mind and a good heart buried somewhere under that tough shell of depravity.”
“Lecturing me on the evils of strong spirits. Next you’ll be raising your quizzing glass and telling me to do my duty and marry a girl of good birth and good upbringing. I don’t need another aunt.” West stumbled over to the cheval glass.
Dark stubble on his square jaw. Blood matted in his blond hair. A bluish bruise on his cheekbone that nearly matched his eyes. He tilted his head. The raised bump on his temple was a shade best described as rotting aubergine.
“My sisters aren’t going to be pleased aboutthese scrapes and bruises.” He splashed cold water from the basin on his face. “Maybe you’d agree to escort them to the first ball in my—”
“Are you seriously suggesting such a harebrained idea? I’m not a fit escort for innocent debutantes. And if you’re scheming about marrying me off to one of them, you’re wasting your breath.”
“God no.” West flicked cold water at Rafe. “I know too much about you. All of it bad.”
“Not as bad as you.”
The two men were both tall and kept themselves in fine trim, though Rafe used a cane and walked with a pronounced limp after a perilous encounter with a gang of French smugglers. The two of them attracted plenty of female attention wherever they went, but both were damaged goods, in more ways than one.
“Only thought you might dance with them.” West dabbed at the dried blood in his hair with a wet cloth. “Make them seem in demand. Blanche has been out for some time now. She keeps a stiff upper lip, but I can tell she’s near frantic with worry.”
Rafe lifted his ebony walking stick. “I’m not the most graceful of dancers these days.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re brother to a duke and a reformed rake. There was a time when you would have joined the drunken melee instead of shutting it down. I miss the old Rafe.”
“Staring death in the face will make a man reevaluate his priorities.”
“What happened on that ship?” His friend had never divulged how he received his injury.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
“And I don’t want to talk about the social Season. I’d rather face a ship full of unwashed and armed-to-the-teeth smugglers than a ballroom full of rose-scented, marriage-minded debutantes.”
“It’s not as bad as all that.”
“I don’t see you attending balls.”
“And you never will.”
“I only subject myself to such indignities for the sake of my sisters. I promised our mother before she died that I’d see all five of them safely wed, and so I will. The twins, Belinda and Betsy, make their debuts this year. I don’t have to worry about the youngest, Birdie, for several years yet.”
“Thankfully, I have but one sister and she’s happily married. I’m the charity project my mother is scheming about. She won’t rest until she finds me a respectable wife.”
“No respectable young lady will have anything to do with either of us, even though you’ve reformed more than I ever will.”
“I’m taking an extended journey to France and Switzerland with a departure date that coincides most fortuitously with the first ball of the Season.”
“Lucky you.”
“I have to finalize my travel arrangements. I’ll tell the club to put everything on my account before I leave.”
“In that case, send up some champagne and cigars. And a bottle of aged Scotch whisky.”