Page 32 of My Rogue, My Ruin
Archer wanted to shake his father until his teeth rattled, but they were garnering enough curious stares through the paned glass already. He lowered his voice, his rage making his words shake. “Is your title the only thing you think about? Your esteemed place in society? These people you call friends? If they knew the truth about the family finances, do you think they would flock to you as they do?” He jerked a hand toward the massive balcony doors. “Yes, Father, you are a duke without a farthing to his name.”
His father stared at him, his mouth a thin, defiant line. They had had this same argument too many times to count. The estates were profitable after Archer’s many years of hard-won, and oftentimes risky, investments, yet his father was siphoning money. Archer was well familiar with the reasons. The duke’s excessive gambling and lush lifestyle had reached new heights. Add in the parade of weekly mistresses along with the requisite furs, jewels, and gowns, and Archer could practically see the scarlet money trail. Managing his family’s capricious incomes and keeping track of his father’s expensive proclivities had become a full-time job. It exhausted him, and right now he felt the weight of that all-consuming fatigue turning into something hazardous.
“What would you have me do?” the duke asked. “Stay at home, die an old man in my bed? Waste away?”
“No,” Archer said tiredly. “If Mother were alive…” He trailed off, not understanding why he was suddenly attacked by sentiment, or bringing up his mother in the first place. Between Briannon and his sister, he felt on edge and unexpectedly vulnerable.
“If your mother were alive,” the duke said, “she would want you to be married and happy. I saw you with that young chit earlier, the Findlay girl. She’s a bit thin in the hips, but she’ll be able to give you an heir. And her father is rich…rich enough to fill our dwindling coffers, as you say.”
“Is that all you think about?” Archer seethed. “Women and money?”
“That, my boy, is what you should be thinking about, instead of driving me mad with these questions regarding an illegitimate ward. Bed a woman—the Findlay girl if you are so inclined. Marry her.”
Archer drew his hand through his hair. “I do not want to marry her.”
His father grinned and smacked his lips. “It would be asinine to waste such a connection. If you’re adamantly against her, well then…perhaps I should have a go. You think she’ll have me?” Unmindful of the deadly expression on his son’s face, the duke nodded, slurring his words. “That will solve all our problems. Marriage is a damn bore, but I would do it if it meant you’d stop pestering me about finances. Yes, I would. She is a sight in that dress tonight, that she is.”
His father turned to peer through the glass panes of the balcony doors, his tongue still licking his lips as if he’d just been presented with a juicy cut of beef. Archer knew what he was looking for, however. No.Whomhe was looking for. Briannon.
“She would never have you,” he said, barely contained fury pulling his voice into a near whisper.
“Of course she would. She’s as silly as the rest of these chits, being paraded around the ballroom by their mamas, dreaming of landing a title for a son-in-law.” His father clapped him on the shoulder. “Can’t do better than a duke, now can they?”
Archer ground his teeth and clenched his fingers around his glass of whiskey. His vision pulsed. He rolled his shoulder and threw off his father’s fingers, which had started to dig into the fabric for purchase. The duke was too fogged by all the liquor he’d consumed to be able to hold up his own arm for more than a couple of seconds.
“You’re pathetic,” Archer said, before starting for the ballroom doors. He stopped, though. Insults had never gone far with the duke in the past. He seemed to care as much about his son’s reproaches as he did his “ward,” Eloise.
Archer turned back to find his father chuckling as he sipped his whiskey. Just as he’d supposed. The duke had already dismissed his son’s disapproval.
“You will stay a far step from Lady Briannon,” Archer warned.
Bradburne paused, his glass still at his lips. He finished off his drink in one fell swallow and tipped his glass at Archer. “And you, my boy, will either marry her, or stand aside and say nothing while I attend to the matter. There is no question Lady Dinsmore wants a match with the Bradburne dukedom, and it’s immaterial to me whose bed the girl ends up in.” His father hopped onto the balls of his feet as if getting ready for a jig. “Though I certainly wouldn’t loathe my husbandly duty of getting her with anotherlegitimateheir.”
Archer stood as rigid as steel, an image taking form in his head. That of a luscious, naked Briannon pinned underneath his gluttonous father. Once there, it burned his imagination as splashes of acid might. Archer held his breath, his disgust for his father so great and vast, everything else—the darkened balcony, the glittering ballroom beyond, the voices of the guests, and the stringed instruments churning out a reel—went quiet. They disappeared. And the only thing Archer could see was the perfect target of his father’s jaw.
He tossed his whiskey aside, the glass shattering on the balcony floor, and struck his target with swift precision. Bradburne’s head snapped back, his grunt of surprise muted by another shattering glass of whiskey. Had the duke not been stewed off his arse, he might have been able to right himself despite the blow. However, considering he was indeed well lit, he landed on the balcony stones like a stunned fish. He groaned and writhed, and almost instantly, Archer felt the sickening arrival of remorse.
“You bastard,” the duke hissed, attempting to sit up and lift himself from his humiliating position. Archer heard the tinkling of glass, and more shards scraping against the stone floor. His father sucked in a breath and swore again, cradling his hand. Blood, stained black in the moonlight, welled up in his palm.
Good. The pathetic son of a bitch deserved more than a single punch anyhow.
“I’m sure you wish I were,” Archer said, reaching for the white cravat at his neck. He yanked at the simple mail coach knot Porter had fussed so earnestly with earlier and unwound the starched linen, tossing the whole thing to his father, still seated on the balcony floor. It landed on his leg. “Had I been born a bastard, you could simply ignore me the way you do Eloise. You certainly wouldn’t have me to contend with.”
Bradburne snatched up the cravat and wrapped his bleeding hand. “You are no match for me, boy,” the duke spat, struggling to stand without slicing himself on the broken glass again.
The balcony doors flew open and a collective gasp of alarm fountained up behind Archer. Lady Rochester and Countess Mayfield rushed past, their voluminous skirts brushing Archer’s legs and hips as they parted around him, toward his father.
“What the devil has happened?” Lord Rochester boomed from the doors, and another burst of concerned voices closed in on the balcony.
Archer and Bradburne maintained their locked glare as the ladies twittered over the duke’s bleeding hand and the streak of blood dripping from his nose. Countess Mayfield eyed Archer, her lips bowing in curious amusement, while Lady Rochester flat out scowled in his direction.
“The Dancing Duke took a misstep,” Archer answered. “I fear he may be out of the game for the rest of the ball. Ladies.” He bowed to them before sweeping off the balcony and into the ballroom.
There were more gasps of surprise as he stalked the perimeter of the dance floor with his neck bared to every last delicate eye. Without his cravat, he could no longer remain in attendance. An unexpected boon, he figured, and he set a course for the exit. He kept his focus straight, refusing to search the crowds for a glimpse of Briannon and the dress that had induced his father into scheming his way into her bed. Archer would never allow that to happen.Never.
Briannon would never allow it, either. She had rejected Archer’s kiss. Why in the world would she accept the likes of Bradburne? Even without having to ask, he knew she wasn’t after a title. Or marriage, for that matter. She had told him herself that any union between them would be “ghastly.”
Then what was she after? Attention from a dangerous bandit? She’d worn the rubies for him. A thought that made Archer remember how they had rested on the soft curves of her décolletage. And that thought made him think of their kiss. Briannon had, for a good handful of moments, responded to his touch, his kiss, and hell, if she hadn’t turned into a winter morning the way she had, he might have lost control of himself. He may have even drawn Briannon down the balcony steps and into the seclusion of Lord Gainsbridge’s lawns.
