Page 5 of The Scottish Duke
“You should have won the damn medal, especially since it means so much to you.”
He turned his head to see Thomas standing there. “That’s not a criterion, Uncle.”
“Well, maybe you shouldn’t have anything to do with those idiots at all. You should take up hunting. Your father was a great hunter.”
“I have no intention of taking up hunting, either.”
Maybe he’d have a few more of those whiskeys after all.
“Why are you wasting time talking to me?” Alex asked. “Aren’t there any available wives around you could seduce?”
His uncle had the same black hair as his father’s. Thomas’s eyes, a crystal blue similar to the eighth Duke of Kinross, were often red, the only indication that the night before had been spent in debauchery. Lately, over the past few years, his face had begun showing signs of dissolution, the clean-cut jaw sagging with the first sign of jowls. His cheeks and nose were often pink. But the charm was still there, evident in the twinkling of bloodshot eyes and the smile that so effortlessly graced his mouth.
“People are watching you, Alex.”
“People are always watching me, Uncle.”
“You’re not acting yourself,” Thomas said.
“Just how the hell am I supposed to be acting?”
“Like a host, not a petulant child.”
He smiled at his uncle. He knew that Thomas didn’t give a flying farthing how he acted. His mother had probably sent his uncle over to lecture him.
Alex allowed his gaze to travel over the crowd, noticing that more than a few of the women were looking in their direction. Even the woman with the pompadour had turned to glance at him, her gaze finally still.
He got a jolt from that look, as if she’d somehow absorbed the power of lightning and was transmitting it to him. Moments passed and he held her gaze. The whiskey in his glass was forgotten. His annoying uncle became invisible, the cautionary words he was speaking inaudible.
He knew her. Or maybe he just wished to know her.
“Are you listening to me, Alex?”
“No,” he said. “I’m not.”
With some difficulty, he turned his attention back to his father’s brother. Thomas had been a surprise to his grandmother, the story went. Born some twenty years after his older brother, Thomas had been only ten years old when Alex arrived and altered his future.
Had Thomas resented his future being altered?
How strange that he didn’t know and, until this moment, hadn’t cared to ask. Still, Thomas bore one of the family’s lesser titles, the Earl of Montrassey. Because he was also Alex’s heir, he was considered a Master by Scottish law, but thank heavens no one had to address him in that manner. The Church of Scotland would have had a fit.
“I was given to understand that I was in contention for the award,” Alex said now. “I think someone leaked my findings to Simons.”
“What does it matter, Alex?”
“It matters, Uncle, because it’s three years of my life. It’s work I did. It’s my ideas that were stolen, my research.”
“You’re the Duke of Kinross. You’ve got better things to do than going around the county coating people’s fingers with soot.”
“I appreciate your sentiments,” he said, pushing the words out with some difficulty. He added another hard-won smile, hoping Thomas would go back to finding a bed partner for tonight.
The woman in gold stared at him, her brown eyes sweeping down his body.
Was it the whiskey warming him or her gaze?
He took another glass from the footman, nodded his thanks and drank half of it in one swallow.
She smiled slightly, a worldly expression, one that told him she had noted his anger. If she couldn’t understand it, at least she recognized it. No one else had.
