Page 32 of A Duke But No Gentleman (Masters of Seduction #1)

Chapter Eighteen

Tristan expected to spend half the night searching for Norgrave, but it had only taken three stops and a bribe to one of his servants to discover the man’s whereabouts.

He had rented several rooms at his favorite club, the Acropolis, where he indulged in forbidden pleasures and satiated some of his more perverse appetites.

His name and another bribe granted him entry into the private club.

While he was not a member, over the years, he and Norgrave had ended many evenings at the Acropolis.

When he was younger, the lavish decadence of the establishment and the willing participants encouraged him to explore the darker side of his nature.

It had been intoxicating and addictive, so much so, that he began to distance himself from this particular vice, while Norgrave had only been drawn deeper into this world.

No one paid attention to him as he climbed the stairs.

Norgrave had selected one of the finest rooms in the establishment.

He had told the proprietor that he was celebrating and had asked for three companions for the evening.

Tristan did not have to deduce the reasons for his former friend’s good mood.

Tristan used the spare key the proprietor had given him to unlock the door to the chamber.

Music filled the air. The marquess was indeed in high spirits.

He had hired musicians who were playing a lively tune.

A large table had been carried in and it was heavily laden with food and bottles of wine.

The food and drink encouraged other patrons to join the festivities.

Tristan counted at least eight females in various states of undress.

There were four men in the room, too, but he did not recognize any of them.

A bare-breasted blonde weaved toward him. “’Allo, stranger! My, you are a handsome one,” she said, offering him a drunken leer. “The bed is already occupied, but I know of an alcove.”

The woman had consumed too much wine to be reasonable. Tristan removed her curious hand from the front of his breeches and gallantly kissed it so she would not be offended. “I have some other business I must attend to first, why don’t you wait for me in the alcove?”

Her eyes were mere slits. With luck, she would fall asleep and forget all about him. “It will cost ye, but you will not regret it.”

“I rarely do,” he murmured, but the drunken temptress was already staggering away to do his bidding.

Tristan headed for the double doors that would open into the bedchamber.

He opened one of the doors and stepped inside.

Fully naked, Norgrave was standing next to the bed with his back to the door.

Although he could see only glimpses of her, the marquess was not alone.

He had positioned a woman facedown on the mattress.

The energetic, rhythmic thrust of the man’s hips did not deter Tristan from entering the room and shutting the door.

Wearing only a thin chemise, another woman was reclining on the long sofa while her female companion’s dark head was nestled between her thighs.

She glanced back and smiled at Tristan’s approach. “My lord, you did not tell us that you’ve invited your friend.”

Norgrave’s head snapped in his direction. Without slowing his pace, he said, “Blackbern, I was not aware that you had returned. Join us!”

It wasn’t the marquess’s lack of modesty that disturbed Tristan, it was the glimpse of the ugly cut on his face that was disquieting.

He thought of the blood on Imogene and the bed, the wound on her hand.

She had not accepted Norgrave’s abuse meekly, and he had not walked away unscathed.

A surgeon had stitched up the deep sections of the gash.

The side of his face was swollen and discolored, and an infection might spare him the trouble of murdering the coldhearted scoundrel.

His former friend grunted and his shoulders rippled and bowed as he spilled his seed into the woman.

It was not the first time that he considered Norgrave arrogant and reckless.

Tristan wondered how many bastards the man had sired.

The thought that Imogene might be carrying the marquess’s child fueled his fury.

Norgrave slapped his lover on her arse and she cried out in surprise before she crawled to the other side of the bed to avoid another slap. “Be a dear, and get my friend a drink. He prefers brandy.”

“I did not come to drink with you,” Tristan said, his gaze shifting to the two women on the sofa. “Perhaps we should speak privately.”

“Why? I have no secrets.” The marquess slipped his hand into the sleeve of a red silk banyan with blue flowers and worked his other arm into the other.

He did not bother to fasten the buttons down the front.

Tristan glanced down at the man’s turgid cock with a raised brow.

The man’s confidence was something he once envied, but now he felt nothing but disgust.

Norgrave plucked the glass of brandy from the woman’s hands as she walked by him. “Well, if you don’t want the brandy, then I will claim it.”

Whether it was intentional or not, his double entendre spurred Tristan into action. His fist connected with the man’s jaw, sending him backward and into the fireplace mantel. He heard the three women cry out in surprise and alarm, and there was movement behind him.

Norgrave’s pained expression relaxed into speculation as he rubbed his sore jaw. “Leave us.”

The women hastily slipped out of the bedchamber, but neither of the two men observed their departure.

“You’re bleeding,” Tristan said dispassionately. He walked over to the table and picked up a linen napkin that had been discarded. He tossed it at the marquess. “That is a nasty gash.”

“Would you believe I cut myself shaving without a mirror?” Norgrave pressed the cloth to his cheek.

Tristan lunged and seized the loose cloth flaps of the open banyan. He slammed Norgrave against the mantel. “You must have been astounded when Imogene fought back. It’s a pity she didn’t cut your throat, though there is a certain justice to her marring your handsome face, don’t you think?”

Tristan tightened his hold and pulled him closer so he could pivot the marquess away from the fireplace. He sent him careening into a table.

Norgrave toppled over the table and spun around to confront him. “Have you lost your head? Whatever the lady told you is a lie.”

“I know about the message you sent Imogene. Duplicating my handwriting was simple enough. You knew it was the only way Imogene would agree to meet you. What you didn’t count on was that she replied to the note she thought I had written to her.”

A dry chuckle rumbled in Norgrave’s throat.

“Did you actually see the note that she claimed I wrote in your handwriting? You have it all wrong, my friend. Imogene is making fools out of us both. I regret telling you this since you are fond of the minx. Nevertheless, the lady invited me to join her at your mother’s house.

If she wrote you, she did so with the deliberate intention of pitting us against each other. ”

He stalked toward his former friend. “I went to the house and found her, you filthy piece of excrement. You cannot lie your way out of this.”

Norgrave picked up a vase and wildly swung it at Tristan’s head. It missed breaking over his skull, but it struck him in the shoulder. The vase broke on impact, and he felt one of the sharp edges slice into his shoulder. With a roar, he collided into the marquess and they both fell to the floor.

For a few minutes it was a balanced battle with no clear victor.

However, the man who always prided himself in abiding by the rules was no longer interested in playing fair.

He grabbed Norgrave by the testicles and twisted.

The man bleated like a wounded goat, too blinded by the pain to even roll away.

Tristan drove his elbow into the man’s stomach. He wanted to beat the man to death with his bare hands. He managed to hit him again, before the man kicked him away.

Norgrave staggered to his feet and sneered. “I never knew you were such a dirty fighter, Tristan. Shouldn’t you be issuing a formal challenge and demanding that I choose my seconds?”

“No challenge,” Tristan rasped, his collarbone throbbing from the blow. “You have no honor to defend. I suppose I will have to be satisfied with beating you bloody.”

Norgrave landed a brutal punch, and Tristan’s vision dimmed at the edges.

He grabbed for the banyan, and gravity caused them to fall.

The marquess landed on top, and he took advantage of his position.

Tristan twisted his head to evade the man’s fists, but he took several blows to the face and shoulder.

From the corner of his eye, he espied a small shard from the shattered vase within reach and he grabbed it.

The piece was too fragile to be lethal, but the shallow cuts across Norgrave’s abdomen gained him his freedom.

“Enough!” the marquess barked, his hand lifted in surrender.

Tristan could not claim a clear victory.

Both of them were gasping for breath and bleeding from numerous cuts.

His face was already beginning to swell from the other man’s punches.

Fortunately, the marquess looked worse. The gash on his face was bleeding noticeably.

He would need a surgeon’s needle again before the night’s end.

“I need to know why.”

“Why what?”

“That damn wager, Norgrave,” Tristan shouted. “What angered you more—the notion that I was no longer interested in playing your bloody games and saw you for the manipulative bastard that you are, or that Imogene picked me instead of you?”

“If I were you, I would question the lady’s loyalty. Did she tell you about our time together?” he softly taunted.