Page 11 of The Wrong Rake
“I’m glad to hear it. What a blackguard. I am horrified.” Simon couldn’t help noticing that Adam hadn’t answered his first question. “Stewart!” he called out, turning his attention to the servant who’d returned from putting up Adam’s hat. “Would you settle my brother into the drawing room? I’ll need to go out for a short while.” To Adam, he said, “I don’t have that much ready money on hand. I’ll need to go to the bank, and I’m afraid I have a pressing engagement I must see to at the same time. Wait for me here for an hour?”
As he expected, Adam agreed instantly; the promise of money would keep him kicking his heels here for as long as Simon chose to leave him.
As Stewart conducted Adam past him to the stairs, Simon was able to sneak a glance down at his brother’s hands. Adam had given Stewart his gloves with his hat, thankfully. And his knuckles did show some slight discoloration.
If he really had hit Standish, it would show, despite Adam’s attempts to make it sound as if it wouldn’t—which made Simon believe he’d been lying about the identity of his attacker. He only wished he could be surprised.
Anyway, if Standish had done that damage to Adam’s face, his hands would be in far worse condition. It would be easy to prove.
He waited only for Stewart and Adam to disappear up the stairs, and then took his own hat and sallied forth, flagging down the first passing hack and giving the driver the name of Standish’s inn.
***
Harry bent down and peered into the shaving mirror hung over the washstand in his room, trying without much success to see enough of his neck to tie his cravat. A visit his mother had insisted he must make to his aunt, a high stickler who’d married a baronet and never let the rest of the family forget it, had been put off long enough. No doubt she’d have a litany of pungent remarks on Amelia’s social disaster, and Harry would be forced to nod along until he felt like a marionette.
The fact that he’d chosen this morning to call on her had nothing to do with his continued avoidance of Simon Beaumont and his beautiful, sinful mouth.
Nothing whatsoever.
But that mouth…what would Harry do, when he saw Beaumont again? Shove him up against the nearest wall, stammer out apologies, push him to his knees? His control seemed nonexistent where Beaumont was concerned. He’d kept himself in check through battles, through being issued nonsensical orders by superior officers with more gold braid than brains, through years of enforcing his will on his men, who were often hungry, unpaid, and disobedient.
But Beaumont stripped him of his reason, as no other man, nor even woman, had ever done.
It had to be something to do with that mouth. Or perhaps his eyes. Or his cultured, drawling voice. Or even, God help Harry, with Beaumont’s perfectly arranged clothing, that begged for a bit of mussing up.
A knock on the door made him jump, lose his grip on the edges of the cravat, and pull the incipient knot into a hopeless mess. Harry cursed, cleared his throat, and called out, “Yes?” as patiently as he could.
Not very, in short.
“A gentleman’s lookin’ for you,” chirped a female voice, likely belonging to the maid who’d brought Harry’s tea that morning. “A Mr. Beaufort, or something like.”
Harry’s heart stopped for a moment and then jittered into something approximating a normal rhythm, albeit much faster than it ought to have been. If he had only gone out a few minutes sooner…and yet the thought of seeing Beaumont again had him gritting his teeth against the ache of desire. Wrong, so very wrong, and perhaps he was a coward after all.
He closed his eyes, counted to five, and then said, “Put him in a private parlor, please. I’ll be down directly.”
“No parlors, sir! Both spoken for until after luncheon.”
He counted to ten this time.
Bloody buggering fuck. He couldn’t turn Beaumont away. That really would be the act of a coward.
“Send him up,” he said at last, and feverishly whipped the crumpled cravat from around his neck, flinging it into the corner of the room. Better to have none at all than that mess, to be improper rather than unfashionable.
Perdition was the definition of improper, and Beaumont presided over the place.
But he might very well laugh at a man with an incompetently tied neckcloth.
He hardly had time to at least straighten his waistcoat and brush his fingers through his hair before heavier steps than the maid’s sounded in the corridor and a quick rap rang out against the door.
When he opened it, Beaumont stood framed in the doorway, the picture of gentlemanly elegance: a perfectly brushed blue coat of superfine, a cravat tied in an ornate style Harry couldn’t even name with a sapphire pin stuck in the middle, tight pantaloons that made his legs appear even longer, and hair falling over his forehead in artless waves.
Harry wanted to shove him to his knees then and there.
“Come in,” he said instead, stepping back, attempting to ignore the aching of his cock and the thrill that went down all his limbs. “My apologies for my—I was in the act of dressing. And no private parlors were available, it seems. I felt it would be even more discourteous to make you wait downstairs than to receive you like this.”
“You have already made me wait two days to receive that call you promised,” Beaumont said as he stepped inside—and then stopped abruptly, biting his lip, his cheeks flushing rosy red.
Amidst his guilt and shame and turmoil, Harry couldn’t suppress a burst of pleasure—triumph, even, unworthy as it might be. Beaumont had thought of him. Beaumont had been waiting for him to return. And would he be blushing over admitting it, if his impatience had been all in aid of settling the matter between them as quickly as possible?
