Page 4 of The Wrong Rake
Standish’s huge hands opened and closed at his sides, as if they were eager to be around Simon’s lapels again—or perhaps his throat.
“This Banbury tale of a nearly identical brother and his posing as you—it’s absurd,” Standish spat. “I ought to call you out, and clearly you wish to avoid it.”
“Then why haven’t you?” Simon demanded, goaded beyond bearing, his own cheeks blushing to match Standish’s ruddy flush. “I’m no bloody coward, Standish! If you wish to meet me for my brother’s wrongdoing, which, I might add, you have not even thoroughly explained to me, then call me out and have done with it. I would have every right to call you out for your manhandling of me, in any case!”
He expected that to goad Standish in turn, to spur him to some rash action that would tip the scales from a dispute to a true brawl.
At least then, Simon might have a good excuse for shouting for the household to come to his aid.
To his shock, the fellow hesitated, bit his lip, and—took a step back.
“I cannot,” Standish muttered. “And I would be glad if you didn’t challenge me, either.”
Simon stared at him in something between disgust and disbelief, his chest constricting with barely suppressed rage, attempting to bubble up. “You admit to being a coward? After knocking me about like that, you confess—”
“Ask bloody Boney if I’m a coward!” Standish cried, eyes narrowing. “I’m not—fuck, Beaumont. I’d be nothing better than a murderer if I met you. No matter who issued the challenge, or the insult.”
For an instant, a red haze obscured Simon’s vision. A murderer. Meaning that Simon’s own abilities were so contemptible that—and then reason reasserted itself.Ask bloody Boney if I’m a coward. Standish was a soldier, then. Probably only very recently returned from the Continent—and who bloody well knew how long he’d served there. He could have been anywhere between a few years Simon’s junior and several years older; hard to tell, given the weathered tan of his face and neck.
Which ought itself to have been a clue. No man of Standish’s redheaded complexion could have become so brown beneath England’s gentler sun.
Older or younger, Standish could very well have been at war for ten years or more.
And if he had survived that, Simon would hardly be the one to end his life with a weapon.
To return home from years of strife and hardship and danger, to immediately be confronted with a family problem with no easy solution, and to then be faced with the choice of either ignoring the insult or killing a man and fleeing in ignominy away from the place he’d fought so hard to return to…
Though he rarely gave way to this sort of weakness, Simon’s heart gave a pang of sympathy.
Ugh. At least he need not show his softened feelings too obviously.
“I beg your pardon, although you called me a coward first, you’ll recall. Perhaps we might agree to solve our differences in another way.”
Standish let out a bark of a laugh. “Well, that’s handsome enough, I suppose.” He paused, sighed, and ran a hand through his brush of red hair, cut far shorter than was currently fashionable. “I don’t believe you, though. And perhaps calling you a liar isn’t much better than a coward. But it is a ridiculous tale, Beaumont. You can hardly expect me to swallow it without demur.”
Swallow it.
Those words rang in Simon’s ears, and his gaze flicked down to the front of Standish’s breeches.
Well. That was an idea, to be sure, though Standish no doubt had no intention of his words being twisted into such a meaning. It would certainly put paid to the theory that he, Simon Beaumont, who had never felt the slightest flicker of interest in a lady, had trifled with Standish’s cursed sister.
And if Simon were being quite honest with himself, his first glimpse of Standish in the doorway of the gaming parlor had given him a vivid mental image of himself on his knees, Standish’s hands tangled in his hair, and the man’s (he could only hope) proportionally large cock driving into his willing throat.
Other positions, and that cock thrusting into another part of him, also occurred to him.
Really, any of them would do.
“I can prove it to you,” he said at last, his voice husky and unfamiliar. “Prove to you, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that I am not the sort of man to pursue any lady whatsoever.”
Standish’s gaze sharpened. “Not the sort of man to—what you are insinuating is—hang it all, Beaumont, there are plenty of sorts of men who’d do both. And I hardly want to watch you—see—I don’t want proof!”
Simon’s spine stiffened, his heart giving a little skip as it often did when a challenge was posed to him. A great duelist he was not, but a coward? No, certainly not that, either. He simply showed his courage in other ways.
Perhaps Standish hadn’t meant it as a challenge.
Well, too bad for him. He’d change his tune when Simon’s hot mouth enveloped his cock.
He certainly wouldn’t be the first, although Simon hoped he wouldn’t also follow the usual pattern of attempting to land him a facer once he’d spent in Simon’s mouth.
