Page 15 of To Tempt a Troubled Earl
When soft lips pressed against his a second time, Lando’s eyes flew open to be met by a pair of dazzling autumnal ones.
“Charles fretted about you, my lord.” Angel’s mouth caressed Lando’s. “As he lay dying. He was fearful you would grieve his loss in silence. And I promised that if ever our paths were to cross, I was to pass on his sorrow that you were not able to be by his side at the end.”
“And is bewitching me how he requested you do it?”
Mr Angel chuckled, low in his throat. A rather glorious sound. “I daresay not.”
Lando sought his mouth again, chasing that chuckle. “I am damned,” he whispered as he lost himself to the kiss.
“Then we shall be damned together,” returned a voice like warm silk.
Chapter Eight
THE ELEVENTH EARLof Rossingley woke late, still spreadeagled in the same awkward position in which he’d crashed across his bed at some godforsaken hour last night. His mouth felt like a repository for crushed dead flies, and when he attempted to extract his head from its wedged position between his mattress and his Louis XV chevet, his neck creaked alarmingly.
“Good afternoon, my lord,” said a breezy voice approximating his valet’s. It was distressingly grating. “Tea and a coddled egg? Or would you prefer to remove last night’s attire and bathe first?”
Lando’s swift reply was most unnoble. He lay, mewling, as Pritchard fussed around him, each brush of cloth, each trickle of water, each pad of softly shod foot on thick Aubusson ringing in his head as if a screech owl was nesting on his shoulder.
“I may have overcooked things last night, Pritchard,” he croaked after the pitiful whimpering failed to achieve the desired level of concern. “And my neck hurts.”
Bravely, Lando stretched it, this way and that, tempted to ask Pritchard to give it a rub but fearful the man’s touch might prove too vigorous for his fragile brain. Perhaps hanging himself over the side of the bed would help iron it out.
“I imagine, for a couple of seconds, those ancient torture rack thingies feel incredible, don’t you, Pritchard?” Lando prodded at his knobbly upper back.
“If only they didn’t leave a man too dead to appreciate it,” answered Pritchard, his tone dry as sand. He was used to Lando’s flights of fancy. “It’s their only fault, really.”
Lando groaned, wondering if death might be more pleasant than his current state of woe. But then he looked blearily down at his rumpled, ruined shirt from the evening before and suddenly remembered that kiss (or a misty, foxed version of it, anyhow). And what a kiss!
A giddy smile spread across his waxy features, and all thoughts of death vanished. Mr Angel had stolen his fob watch and then kissed him! What a delicious sleight of mouth, sleight of tongue, sleight of mind! Once more, his insides turned molten, nothing to do with the mound of syllabub and strong liquor marinating there but everything to do with that wonderful, extraordinary, heart-stopping kiss. Mixed with a not inconsiderable cool draught of relief that Mr Angel was, incredibly, of the lavender persuasion too. So, not a blackmailer after all, which would have been a terrible bore.
“Actually, an egg might be just the ticket.” Lando beamed at Pritchard as he scrambled to sit up against his pillows. “And then I fancy I shall spend the day here, resting.”Daydreamingof ebony hair and velvet ribbons and hazel eyes and…
A constipated look crossed Pritchard’s face. “That won’t be possible, my lord. Mr Robert Langford awaits you in the library. He is keen to hear how you fared at dinner with your young guest. A dreadfully tedious evening, I take it?”
“So tedious,” agreed Lando, careful not to catch his valet’s eye. “No wonder I availed myself of an uncommon amount of brandy. The only way one could endure it.”
“I can only imagine, my lord.” Tutting, Pritchard held up Lando’s ruined waistcoat. “An entire evening alone with a young man as singularly unattractive as Mr Angel.”
“My thoughts exactly. Send Robert up! And pass me my banyan. The rose silk one. I’ll conduct our meeting from here.”
Another pained expression. “He…ah…he thought you might say that and asked me to pass on his apologies. He said, and I quote, ‘inform his lordship that until he is sober and dressed in a fashion fit for a peer of the realm, his cake will be awaiting him in the library. And might be all gone if he isn’t smart about it.’”
Lando pouted. “Buggeration.”
*
STILL POUTING, LANDO, dressed in shirt sleeves and a ravishing aquamarine waistcoat paired with a peacock-patterned cravat swept into the library. Robert Langford, dressed in his plain grey riding coat, lounged in Lando’s favourite armchair, picking through a plate of iced fancies. If Robert selected Lando’s favourite of those, he might have a conniption. The coddled egg had defeated his tender stomach, so sugared almonds might be exactly what the doctor ordered.
“Why did you insist I meet you here, Robert? I should be abed.” He clutched his head as if it might fall off. “I have a terrible pounding at my temples. It must be the change in the weather.”
“Then you have my sympathies.” Robert smiled sweetly, reminiscent of Lando’s own, when he was in the mood for smiling. “Inglis informs me you were drunk as a wheelbarrow last night. Do you think the two things could possibly be connected in any way?”
As Lando collapsed into his comfy rosewood daybed, one arm flung across his brow, Robert took pity on him by placing a cup of tea in his other outstretched hand.
“Your visitor is perhaps a little more used to strong liquor than you.” Robert drank deeply.
Lando peeled open a bleary eye. “Have you come to gloat?”
