“Go away, Louie. I’m not to be disturbed,” he called and then promptly groaned at the misery he’d unleashed anew in his head. Swallowing another emission, he caught his head in his hands.
“Yes, yes. I’m aware of your preferences—”
“If you were aware of them, you’d not be jabbering on the other side of that door.”
“However, I thought I might urge you to rise for the day, because—”
“I cannot think of one damned reason why I should rise this day or any day,” he bellowed.
Silence from the hall and a ringing in his ears were the only answers. That ringing sent another wave of nausea roiling in his gut.
Good, you deserve it, you miserable bugger. Yelling at servants. This was who he’d become, then.
The doors exploded open with a force that sent bile into Luke’s throat. “I can give you at the very least three reasons why you should rise this day.”
That booming and all-too-familiar voice confirmed one truth—the good Lord hated him, after all.
The Earl of Maldavers shoved the door shut with a thunderous boom that merely confirmed that, in addition to God, his own father despised him, too. And why wouldn’t he? Luke was a miserable, starchy chap.
“Father,” he returned. The greeting, muffled by his blankets, was a rote form of politeness that had come from years of being the dutiful son. Reluctantly, he reached for the curtains.
He needn’t have bothered with those exertions.
His father ripped the fabric out of Luke’s hands and threw them wide, then stormed across the room.
“Don’t,” Luke croaked.
That plea didn’t so much as put a halt in the earl’s forward strides. He yanked open the drapes. Sunlight poured through, made all the more blindingly bright by the recent snowfall.
It was too much.
Retching, Luke fished around for the chamber pot and emptied the contents of his stomach into the nauseatingly cheerful porcelain piece.
“There, that is a good deal better, my boy.”
His father dangled a kerchief over the other side of the pot.
Wiping at his mouth, Luke collapsed onto his back. “Boy.” He dropped a hand across his eyes. It’d been twenty-eight years since he’d earned that moniker from his father. “I’d hardly call myself a boy,” he said with all the dryness he could muster.
“Well, given the way you’ve been conducting yourself these past weeks, I’d hardly call you a man, Lucas Holman.” His father snorted. “And certainly not a gentleman.” If displeasure had a sound, it would be that of his father’s cool, aristocratic tones all stretched out like the blanket of snow that had lined the London cobblestones last evening.
“Ah, because being a gentleman matters above all,” Luke said coolly.
“Yes. Yes, it does,” the earl said with a finality that declared any debate or discussion at an end.
Not long ago, fool that he was, Luke himself had been of a like opinion.
His father dragged over a chair. Flipping up his coattails, he settled himself onto the upholstered edge.
Devil be damned. It was to be a lecture, then.
Luke would have groaned if it wouldn’t have split his head in two all over again.
It’d been so very long since Luke had received a lecture, he’d very nearly missed the telltale signs—the my-boying, the deliberate seat upon a chair. Though, in fairness, the grand presence of the earl should have been all the indication Luke had required. Particularly given that his father should at this very moment be buried away in merry festivities for the holiday season.
Tick-tock-tick-tock-tick-tock.
His father took Luke’s chin in hand and studied him as if he were some scientific experiment to be figured out.
Luke squirmed as, just like that, he’d become the boy of seven who’d made a pirate’s map out of page twelve of his father’s winter crofts ledger.
He stole a look at the eight-day, provincial French grandfather clock. Tuesday, it was. “Don’t you have houseguests to entertain?”
“We did. We do. We will.”
Well, that was confounding and ominous, all at the same time. No more ominous, however, than that deliberate way his father tapped his chin.
“Well, it can’t be all three,” Luke said when no further words were forthcoming.
At that insolent retort, the earl’s red brows went shooting up.
But then, why wouldn’t his father be filled with anything other than absolute shock at having his words countered or gainsaid? As a rule, none had dared to do it. At least not as long as Luke had toddled upon this earth.
At last, his father let his hands fall to the casings of his puce satin trousers. “Actually, my boy, it can very easily be all three. You see, we did have a house full of company set to arrive on Monday when, imagine my horror, I received a note regarding my son’s antics throughout London.”
“I never took our servants for traitors.”
All the color bled from his father’s cheeks.
Traitors. “Forgive me, I forgot the mention of traitors is still a delicate topic in this household,” Luke said with a cool smile.
Alas, his father didn’t rise to the bait.
“Gossip columns.”
Luke furrowed his brow.
“Your name has been circulating. More specifically, your antics.”
“I’d hardly consider enjoying fine French brandy antics.”
“It is when you’re falling facedown on Bond Street,” his father rejoined without missing a beat.
“I was never facedown on Bond Street.” It had been somewhere around Curzon.
“Either way, people are gossiping, and your mother and I won’t let it stand.”
Ah, the poor earl and countess hadn’t learned from their other son’s public shame that when it came to fodder for the ton, they didn’t have the power that they did in every other aspect of their life. Luke closed his eyes and was very nearly drifting off.
His father tapped his face with his palm, bringing his eyes open.
“What in hell?”
His father dropped his voice to a whisper. “Allow me to help you, my boy. This isn’t where you sleep, but rather, where you ask our intentions.”
Warning bells went off…
Or mayhap that knocking at the back of his head was more a product of the bottle of brandy he’d downed.
“This is the ‘we do’ and ‘we will’ part,” his father went on, a glee in his tones that added to Luke’s rapidly spiraling unease.
“I don’t follow,” he said hoarsely.
“Given you smell like you bathed in brandy, I don’t expect you’re up to your usual tact.” Coming out of his chair for a second time, the earl marched over to the window. “You stink, Lucas Lannister Reeve Holman.” The words came muffled and slightly off-key from the way he pinched the bridge of his nose. His father unfastened the lock and brought the window up, letting in a sharp blast of cold. “There, that is better,” the earl said, as triumphant as if he’d dealt himself the winning hand in a game of hazard. “Now, where was I?”
“Leaving?”
His father took up the seat he’d abandoned next to Luke’s bed. “Trust me, I’d rather that more than you, my boy. The last place I care to spend my winters is in London.”