Page 4 of The Duke of Desire
West waved his hand at Axbridge. “I can’t believe they invited you here.”
Axbridge laughed. “Me? My mistake, I should’ve called you by your new name, Duke of Desire.”
West accepted a glass from a footman and sipped the fiery liquid. “You should.Everyoneshould.” He suddenly thought of Miss Breckenridge uttering that name with those lush, red lips of hers and had to fight off a wave of…desire. Yes, it was a rather appropriate name.
The older man, a fellow called Fowler, who stood with Axbridge chuckled. “You have no shame, do you?”
West shrugged. “Should I?”
Fowler blinked. “Your reputation—”
“Is envy inducing, isn’t it?” Axbridge said, slapping Fowler on the back. “To be known as the greatest lover in England. I can think of far worse things.” He raised his glass to toast West.
West grinned as he raised his glass in answer. “Indeed.”
Fowler frowned. “I didn’t mean that part. I meant the part where you sleep with other men’s wives.”
“Ah yes, that part,” West drawled. “Trust me when I say that if I were to sleep withyourwife, you’d thank me.”
The other man’s jaw dipped just before he spun about and took himself off.
West squinted after him. “He might be too much of a prude for this party.”
Axbridge howled with laughter. “Perhaps. Wendover will work it out and weed him from the lot for next time.” He sipped his whiskey, his blue eyes dancing with mirth.
West turned his scrutiny to Axbridge. “Really, your reputation is far worse. You actually kill people, whereas I provide a service.”
Axbridge’s blond brows waggled. “By fucking other men’s wives.”
“Bymaking loveto other men’s wives. That’s the entire point. When our time together is finished, everyone is quite pleased with the outcome. When you deign to take a wife, I’d be more than willing to help her enjoy the marriage bed.”
Axbridge nearly choked on his whiskey. He coughed and sputtered, and West smacked him between the shoulder blades.
“My wife—should anyone be foolish enough to marry me—will not require help in that quarter, you jackanapes. I’ll provide all the pleasure she needs. In any case, you sleeping with my wife would require me to call you out, and I think we both know how that would end.” It wasn’t a boast but a statement of fact.
Axbridge was a crack shot who’d fought two duels, one of which had resulted in the maiming of his opponent, and the other, death. Axbridge had left England for a year after that.
“It’s been, what, two years since you dueled? Perhaps you’ve lost your edge.”
Axbridge laughed again. “Perhaps. Wendover has organized a shooting exhibition, so that will give me a chance to assert my skill.”
“Excellent. That will be quite the show.”
The marquess moved closer and lowered his voice. “Are you on the hunt? I already received a proposition from Lady Greaves in the drawing room earlier.”
West knew the countess well. He’d assisted her several years ago. He’d been a young man, maybe twenty-one, and she’d been more than ten years his senior. “She’s a bit long in the tooth, isn’t she?”
Axbridge gave him a sharp look. “She’s still quite striking.”
West supposed so. He had to admit that once he’d had an affair with a woman, he viewed her differently. She became a friend, someone he could no longer imagine having sexual relations with. There were no emotional attachments of any kind and certainly no desire to maintain the affair longer than necessary.
Some women claimed to fall desperately in love with him, but he assured them it wasn’t their brains talking, that their minds still loved their husbands. In the end, they always willingly returned to their spouses. There were no hard feelings, no regret, and all parties were universally satisfied. Especially the husbands. They now had wives who couldn’t wait to get them into bed.
It did, of course, take some effort with these gentlemen. Occasionally, West ran across a fellow like Fowler, who wouldn’t know how to make his wife come if someone held a pistol to his head. West instructed the wives in how to instruct them. And then he had a pointed conversation with the gent about how his life was about to change for the better. Nearly every single man had thanked him later.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Axbridge said. “Do you have an assignation planned for the party? Since you’re between liaisons, you’re free to dip your staff wherever you like.”
“That’s a bit vulgar, isn’t it?”
