Page 4 of Tall, Dark and December (The Rake Review #12)
CHAPTER FOUR
WHERE A LADY RECALLS WHAT DESIRE FEELS LIKE
H e was a mess. A grand, gorgeous mess.
One she’d been hired to clean up.
Penelope stood in the entryway of the warehouse’s sprawling main room, the box she’d brought for their lessons filling her arms. She’d agreed to this location without initial consideration of the fact that none of the items she needed for instruction would be housed in a working space. Place settings, cutlery, and the like. Hence, her arrival a day early to ensure they were prepared to start tomorrow.
Plus, she’d been too bloody curious to stay away another minute.
Her breath slowed as she sighted her erstwhile pupil leaning over a partially disassembled engine, a wrench in his hand as he adjusted a part. He was dressed more carelessly than any man she’d seen since her downfall, thin cotton stained with sweat clinging wonderfully to the straining muscles of his arms and shoulders. His midnight hair disheveled, his trousers rumpled and being held on his lean form by braces that cut a sharp, incongruent crease down the center of his back. Light blazed from an assortment of lamps and fixtures, a brilliant burst raining over him.
It was quite the presentation.
Pulling her attention away before she was too taken by the scene, Penelope lifted her gaze to the detailed sketches and calculations tacked to the wall, and the books tumbled around his feet, pencils jammed in the open folds as if the reader had taken flight during the browsing. The collection spoke of intellect and industry, passion and progress, a life being led without compromise.
For the first time in years, Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook seized temptation simply because…
…she wanted to.
Leaning against the scarred doorjamb, the sounds and scents of Weston Whitaker’s world flowed through her. In Limehouse, of all places, a realm she’d never seen and certainly never been invited to, this time purely due to commerce. The acrid odor of heated oil mixing with a salty brine straight off the Thames danced across her nose, the thrum of spinning cylinders and the soft burst of steam presenting a strangely calming murmur. In the distance, shouts from the dock and the bang of goods being unloaded whistled through gaps in the warehouse’s planks.
Nothing was as it should be here, and she’d be lying if she said she wanted it to be.
She shifted the box in her arms with a shiver of expectation, the penny in her skirt pocket warm against her thigh. Her life had become incredibly staid by design while the man across from her was more vibrant than a post-squall sunset—bursts of color like those she spilled across repurposed canvases in an effort to save her purse and calm her mind.
The moment spoke of revelation, one she couldn’t define.
Stretching to reach a section of the engine, Mr. Whitaker’s untucked shirttail rode high, revealing a sliver of skin above his waistband—a moment’s view, quickly lost. The leanness of his body wasn’t a surprise, nor was the sight of firm muscle at his hip. It was the contrast with Neville’s flaccid outline that had her sighing in regret.
And appreciation.
For a brief summer, she’d investigated the male form in all its glory. Shocking to some, perhaps, but she’d liked her research. Memories, new and old, swept past. She feared her spectacle lenses fogging from her rapid breaths if she didn’t calm herself.
Startled by a sound, Mr. Whitaker looked up as the wrench twisted in his hand. Muttering a curse, he let the tool slide free and brought his curled fist to his chest.
Then, she noticed the blood trailing down his wrist.
Penelope was across the room before either of them had time to utter a syllable. Placing her box atop a crate, she dug around until she came up with a napkin. Starched linen with her family’s initials embroidered in the corner, but it would do.
“It’s just a scratch,” he said, though he winced when he flexed his hand.
Rolling her eyes, she pointed to the barrel at his side. “Sit.”
Her firm tone prompted a flashing grin that only made him more attractive, she was vexed to note. Nonetheless, he complied, perching his bottom on the rusted iron rim, his hand cradled between his spread legs. “Do your worst, then, Penny, me gal.”
Sighing, she stepped gingerly over strips of leather, an errant nail, and various tools she had no name for. “Lady Penelope if you please.”
His penetrating gaze cut her way, taking her apart and putting her together again like one of his mechanisms as the seconds ticked away. “What if I don’t please? Has any Englishman in history ever been courageous enough to ask?”
Penelope held back a smile and didn’t risk laughter. He would take miles if she gave him an inch. “I don’t suppose you have medical supplies in this, um, office?”
He tilted his head, debating, searching for things she was sure she should hide. “My assistant keeps a flask in his desk. The beaten one in the corner, second drawer from the top.”
Thrusting the napkin at him, she went to find his assistant’s liquor stash.
When she returned, he was holding the length of linen away from his body, nowhere near his injury. “You’re letting blood drip on the floor, Mr. Whitaker.”
He fluttered the napkin like a flag. “You want me to wrap this bit of stitched nonsense around a slice on my hand? The set probably cost more than my boots, and my boots are Hoby.”
Yanking the cloth from his grasp, she slapped it on his wound, and he sucked a sharp breath through his teeth. “Sorry,” she murmured, gentling her touch. When his eyes closed, she took the time to study him. It was easier without his startling gaze on her. He was handsome, more than. Too much. Young. Too young.
When his eyes opened, she refocused on her task. The whisky smelled divine, and she strived to catch this aroma instead of the teasingly piquant one encircling her pupil. Deciding it had been a long day, she lifted the flask to her lips and took a sip. While Mr. Whitaker choked on an amused snort, she wiped her lips with the back of her wrist, then concentrated on cleaning his. “It doesn’t need stitches. I’ve seen worse.”
“Have you, now?” he murmured, shifting forward on the barrel until his knee brushed her hip. The contact was a jagged point of heat, a reminder of how she’d embraced solitude in the past years—and this momentary weakness was the end result.
Cheeks firing, she nudged her spectacles high and dabbed the oozing wound, wondering at her bravado in being alone with The Rake Review’s latest sensation. She’d expected several workers to be there, yet only the gorgeous half-brother of a duke inhabited the space, a charming cad with a reputation as depraved as Mercer’s had once been. Although her driver was in the alley should she need him, minding the carriage so it wasn’t stripped of its velvet squabs. Not that anyone would suspect Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook of scandalous dealings. Aside from a random inappropriate offer, which every woman received on occasion, society left her alone. She wasn’t even sure Neville desired her in this way, hunger in his eyes and a quiver in his hands, things she’d made someone experience one long-ago summer.
He wanted an attractive heir, and the betting book at White’s likely said she presented the best chance of giving him one.
“It’s fine,” Mr. Whitaker said in his pleasantly level accent as he sought to remove his hand from her grasp. She got the sense he’d lost the conversation and was struggling to get back.
“There’s no need to risk infection because you didn’t take proper care.” He’d caught the tender web between his thumb and index finger with his wrench, a painful nook. “I don’t faint at the sight of blood, and I sew a straight stitch even through skin, believe it or not. When I was a girl, during my summers in Derbyshire, I often got assigned to doctoring domestics and, once, a goat that became tangled in wire fencing.”
“Derbyshire,” he repeated, doubtless having no idea where this was.
She glanced up, hit the intense lime green of his eyes, and glanced back. Sensation could slither through a person without being touched, she was learning. His scent wasn’t the only thing teasing her senses as heat was pouring off him in waves. He was broader than he appeared up close. More luminous, if that was possible. “It’s in the East Midlands of England, very picturesque. Rolling hills, countryside. Years ago, these memories, since the entailed estate was delivered to a distant cousin when my father passed.”
Mr. Whitaker lifted his hand away but immediately held up a finger— one moment —as he removed his cuff and rolled his sleeve to his elbow. His forearm was finely muscled and covered with a faint sheen of dark hair. He shrugged his shoulder before giving his hand back, another of those wholly masculine behaviors that captivated Penelope for no reason she could determine. Possibly because she’d lived with women her entire life, except for her father, and had never seen the makings of a man’s intimate habits.
“No paint on your fingers today, Colbrook,” he said, conveniently ignoring her comment about Derbyshire, a sensitive topic at best.
She turned to the box, rummaging until she came up with the remaining napkin while denying how charmed she was . Colbrook . With a wrenching motion, she ripped the length of linen down the center. “I don’t know what you’re referring to.”
He eyed her makeshift bandage with apprehension. “Oh, yes, you do. And at some point, you’ll tell me your little secret. I’m skilled at tense negotiations.”
She scoffed and stepped in, hip to knee, as near to a man as she’d been since her ruin. If the warm breaths leaving his lips were known to her, the scar cutting across the underside of his jaw visible at this distance, it didn’t have to make him more appealing. It simply didn’t. Wrapping his wrist tightly with the cloth, she tied the ends off with a neat knot and left him to his healing. Before she capped the flask, she took another dainty drink for courage. Americans were casual in all manner of things, weren’t they? What could this hurt?
“Has anyone ever told you that you make a terrifying nurse, Colbrook? In addition, I fear you’ll be a foxed governess. Still, you’re full of contradictory surprises, and this tends to keep a man actively on his toes.”
“Governess,” she whispered and laughed, unable to contain it. Stepping back, she leaned her shoulder against a stack of crates piled higher than her head. If her fingertips were vibrating from unfamiliar contact, so be it. “I’m capable. That’s what scares people. Men, especially.”
Oh, Penelope.
She uttered a silent curse and dipped her head. Those sips of whisky had the truth spilling free.
He braced his hand on the lip of the barrel as he prepared to jettison himself off it. His trousers stretched over his flexing thighs, and his shoulders tensed. He was beautifully built, there was no question, and held a brilliant intellect, too. What a combination. Nothing like the cad who’d ruined her, either point. He would look astounding on canvas if she were a portraitist, which she was not. “I’m not scared,” he said as his boots hit the planked floor. “Even if you should be.”
“Why?” she asked, then understood she’d been caught in his trap. Blast it.
He crossed to pillage through her supplies. “Aren’t you supposed to have an elderly companion trailing along, surveilling for mischief?” Turning to her, his dark brow winged high. She’d seen the Duke of Mercer pull the very same move. “You brought dishes and flatware? And a day early, too.”
“We need these items to review proper dining etiquette. You asked that the lessons be held here, so I’m holding to our arrangement and preparing in advance.” Penelope edged the box away from him, stepping out of reach, although the trace of enchantment clinging to his skin strolled with her. “I’ve passed the point of needing a chaperone. I’m firmly ‘on the shelf’ if you’re familiar with the term. No one would suspect I’d engage in anything scandalous. It’s not beyond reproach so much as it is beyond contemplation.”
Whitaker slid a cool look her way. “Are they blind?”
It was the most cleverly veiled compliment she’d ever received.
She closed the box with a snap. “You’re too young to know any better.”
He paused, his lips parting and a slow breath sliding free. Had he assumed they were a similar age? “How old are you?”
“Whitaker,” she said, employing his surname if he planned to employ hers, “don’t ever, ever ask a woman that question. Or if she’s expecting, because she may simply be plump. Those are topics never to be broached.”
He spun a butter knife he’d somehow managed to sneak from the box between his fingers. The silver edge glinted in the light and off the healing burns on his hands. He looked like a magnificent criminal. “Was that my first lesson?”
She carried her supplies out of range of his scent and his heat and plunked them down on another spare crate. “I understand you had tea with the Duke of Mercer at his club.”
He laughed, a sound with an edge. “No secrets in this town, are there?”
“No, there are not,” she murmured in silken reply. That was his first lesson.
He tapped the knife on his engine as he circled it. The muted tings added to the curious mix of sounds, a pulsing vigor she was coming to appreciate. Except for children, she’d rarely seen a person who needed to move as much as Weston Whitaker did. Though his movements were swift elegance, beauty in motion. “I also bought new cravats you’ll be happy to hear.”
“Cravats?” She wasn’t sure what he meant, but nonetheless, he needed new everything .
He glanced up, waving the comment away. “I also made an appointment with the tailor you recommended in one of the multitude of notes you sent me this week. I had to pay double to get an upmarket rig in time for Mercer’s ball.”
She blinked, not having considered this point. “If Jonathan Meyer is too expensive, we can find another tailor adequate enough to suit. I shouldn’t have suggested the finest in London, perhaps. I merely wanted to give you the best chance at a stellar presentation. Dressing is in the details, you know. Don’t forget, you’ll also need a proper shave. Brixworth can help you prepare beforehand.”
“Your words are like poetry and a smack across the cheek all at once.” Whitaker trailed the dull edge of the knife along a curve in the metal, his emerald eyes dancing. A slight dent in his cheek that could almost be called a dimple slipped into view. “I employ the finest tailor in Philadelphia, but I guess it’s not fine enough. In any case, I have money for the English version of the best, Colbrook, more than some dukes and earls even. Most are forced to marry to save their legacies, right? It’s the backing to build an enterprise I’m seeking, a foundation for an industry . These are Astor dollars, not Whitaker ones.”
“Your family is notable in the Colonies, then? We can weave this information into the narrative I plan to diplomatically share before the duke’s ball. Whispers are better than newsprint for communication.” That was lesson number two .
His smile vanished, and the air throbbed with tension. “My family is decidedly un remarkable, Colbrook. My mother passed when I was eight, and my stepfather was worthless, meaning there are no auspicious stories to tell.”
“I didn’t—” Penelope stumbled when she rarely stumbled. “That is—”
“Let’s start the torture sessions since you’re here, and you’ve brought the trappings of polite society with you. I don’t know one fork from another, and this lack has surely been keeping me from living a full life. First, though, I have a minor errand. Five minutes, and I’ll be back.” This said, he was off, loping across the warehouse floor and, from the sound of a door opening and closing, marching into the alley out back.
Penelope’s shoulders slumped. His expression had taken a deep dive as he’d erected walls between them in the span of two breaths. She’d been callous without meaning to be. At every turn, she’d made assumptions about him that weren’t true.
He wasn’t frivolous. He wasn’t heartless, hostile, or oblivious.
He was clever and talented, ambitious and…
Vulnerable . Amidst such a robust bearing, a brilliant mind, a distinctly handsome visage, his eyes were filled with sadness. She suspected heartache was the reason he was pushing his brother away when it was clear Mercer desired a relationship.
Penelope brought the napkin she still held to her face and pressed her nose into it. Closing her eyes, she breathed his tantalizing scent deep. Weston Whitaker’s face swam before her as his contradictions twisted her belly into a knot. Her heart gave a scolding knock as a thrum of fascination battled for prominence above her always steady reason. Her curiosity made sense, of course. She liked solving problems, she liked helping people, but this man wasn’t her problem. His journey to restore his family and find his fortune wasn’t hers to resolve. She merely needed to keep him from making a cake of himself in polite society, end of story.
He was her client. Not a friend, not an enemy. If she kept his penny on her bedside table, that was her secret.
Her heart settled into its normal, solitary state.
Weston Whitaker was nothing to her, actually. Like the rest.
West enjoyed throwing his tutor off-balance.
Because Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook sure as hell threw him off his.
“This is your cat,” she said from her crouched position by his desk, her lovely amber eyes round as disks behind her shimmering spectacle lenses. “You gave her a name and everything. Like a true pet.”
He loved that Penny’s eyes changed from the color of whisky to dark peat, shifting with her mood. The feline she couldn’t seem to believe he’d given a home, an opportunist minx he’d decided to call Elizabeth after President James Monroe’s wife, snaked between her legs.
The name was a slice of home he’d sneaked into England.
The Colonies , he thought, and laughed softly into his fist. These damn Brits think they own the world.
Penelope glanced up at the sound, ready to challenge his teasing. He didn’t mean anything by it, but he had a feeling she’d taken more than her share from those who did. The scandal Brixworth had mentioned, something West had chosen not to investigate further. Searching for the identity of the Belle was enough intrigue for one lifetime.
“Lazy creature sleeps on the bed in the loft I have for nights I stay over. Haven’t you ever had a pet?” he asked from the rickety chair he inhabited in his untidy office, a squat room off the main space he’d taken as his own. They’d relocated here after she decided he couldn’t listen while fiddling with his engine, and that their mission, of critical importance, required his full attention. Finally, after minutes of his fidgeting and losing track of their lesson, she’d left the room and come back with a sack of cookies she stated were called scones.
This is how he found himself eating silly-named snacks on a December afternoon while a beautiful woman puzzled over him. It was plain to see from the charming fold between her finely arched brows, as she reviewed appropriate topics of conversation over dinner, that she didn’t know what to make of him.
As for West, he was wrapped up in trying to feed her captivation—against his better judgment. But such was a man’s purpose in life.
He’d never had a woman interested in him, even professionally, who fought it so hard.
“Oh, pets, no,” she said and gave Elizabeth a tentative caress from ear to tail. “My father was allergic, and my mother against the idea completely. Animals were unsanitary, in her opinion. Though Isabella and I always wanted a dog.” Then she shrugged, erasing her desires as if this was simply the way of it. “I don’t know why we haven’t gotten one now that they’re gone. My sister is full of mischief and disappears for long periods of time. Maybe something to take care of would keep her home where she belongs.”
West polished off his cookie in two bites, then dusted sugar from his fingertips. Unfortunately, watching Penny stroke his cat bald was having an unwelcome effect. Her gentle but efficient ministrations to his injured hand had deepened into sexual tension the longer she touched him. Tension he was familiar with even if she wasn’t. His cock shifted in awareness, pressing against his drawers. Not good.
Grabbing another scone, blueberry this time, he tore into it. A gust off the river rippled through the room, sending a golden, candlelit flutter over his tutor and his cat. Penny leaned into the draft, a slight move that molded silk against her legs. The gown was simple, high-necked, lots of buttons and ties, a shade not far from a ripe banana, and it blazed in the glow. Her profile, smiling at Elizabeth, lessons forgotten, wound a spring inside him near to bursting. She was kind. Misunderstood. A nurturer, as his mother had been. A guarded gaze, watchful, likely not far from his. Intelligent, more so than a woman needed to be in a world that didn’t care for it.
He trusted himself in this assessment; he was a damned good judge of character.
His secret, never to be revealed? He found her as delicious as her scones.
A troubling predicament because he didn’t need the distraction. Appreciating a beautiful woman was one thing, starting to like her another. Emelia was an ocean away, far from body and mind. A woman he had a steady friendship with that tumbled into intimacy on occasion. No rules had been broken over the earl’s daughter. Could he help it if he’d dreamed about her two nights ago, a passion-filled series waking him in the dead of night and leading to a stronger release than any he’d had by his own hand in months?
He flicked crumbs from his palms with a hushed oath. It was the damned spectacles.
In the dream, she’d been wearing nothing else.
A supple snore from the depths of the room had them turning, laughing, thankfully easing the knot inside his chest and the tinge of heat in the air. His second surprise of the day for Lady Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook.
Penny shook out her skirt and rose to her feet. “You didn’t have to find a chaperone, though I appreciate the gesture. No one knows I’m here, and even if they did, my activities are unremarked upon.”
Turning his chair around, West straddled it, folding his arms along the top rail. His restlessness was getting acute, and it seemed as if his lessons weren’t over yet. “Her grandson is a dockhand I met last week. She was a seamstress, but her eyesight isn’t the best anymore, and she’s been looking for work. I thought it might be advisable, given the circumstances, to employ her for our lessons. Although I told her we were starting tomorrow.”
Penny’s lenses shimmered. “This seems benevolent charity,” she whispered with a glance thrown to the old woman draped in a woolen shawl and sleeping soundly on a crate in the corner, “disguised as good business.”
He shook his head, his injured hand flexing around the spindles. “Don’t ascribe kindness where it isn’t warranted, Colbrook. I’m as ruthless as they come.”
“Of course, you are,” she agreed, sounding like she believed her judgment more than his. Crossing to his desk, she leaned her hip against it and hefted the tome they’d been discussing before taking a break to pet felines in her arms. His very own copy of Debrett’s , a gift from his erstwhile valet with pages marked he needed to review. “Let’s begin the introduction to titles before we end today’s session, then we’ll go into more detail tomorrow. You did very well with place settings.”
West threw a longing glance at the empty cookie bag. Titles .
Penny crossed her ankles, giving him the faintest view of slippers a shade darker than her gown. She was slender as a reed, the top of her head not reaching his chin should he decide to take her splendid face in his hands and kiss her.
West groaned loudly enough to be heard.
“This is important, Whitaker.” Her fingers did an impatient skip along the book’s leather spine. “You’ll need to know your earls from your viscounts if you want their money. And the proper address of their wives. Not all the aristocracy is destitute, you see, and society holds firm on nomenclature.”
“Elitists, that’s what you are,” he said and rounded his shoulders in a bruising stretch.
Her glance hit him, and held, before dancing away. Her split-second hesitation wasn’t lost on him, nor was the faint flush on her cheeks. Or her teeth sneaking out to charmingly catch hold of her lower lip.
Like a leaden weight, he let the suspicion sink deep.
It appeared he wasn’t the only one attracted, God help them both.
As if she’d heard his silent acknowledgement, his tutor cleared her throat and pressed a slender fingertip to the page. “Let’s start with your brother. He occupies six paragraphs in Debrett’s , quite an accomplishment.”
West yawned, his mind straying to mathematical calculations. They were off on mass distribution, leading to a flywheel with an uneven rotation. A critical issue to resolve as this regulated motion of the entire system. “The fifth Duke of Mercer, Viscount Wimble, Baron Easley, because every gent needs three. The ducal title dating from 1642. Ancestral homes in Somerset and Devon. A duchess who is interested in botany, of all things. The last part, the only remarkable thing about him.”
Penny frowned, her adorable pleat creeping between her brows. “You’ve already read this.”
He yanked on his bandage, which was holding up nicely, tucking a tattered end into the main fold. The wound stung, but he’d certainly had worse. “Brix noted the key passages, so I gave it a quick skim the other night before bed. It did the trick. I was out like a snuffed wick. That book is better than laudanum.”
Her lovely lips parted, and by damn , did he crave covering them with his own. He wanted her shocked expression to be propelled by other reasons entirely. “You reviewed this once and remembered everything?”
West rocked forward in his chair. “Who would read that drivel twice ?”
“Goodness,” she murmured, glancing at the page.
Uh-oh , he thought as a familiar sensation radiated through him. Scenes from his childhood and being bullied for his unusual abilities. “I recall things when I read them. It’s—” He dragged his chin across his shoulder, unable to define the skill. He only knew he found it helpful in his line of business. He wouldn’t add that his mind had caused problems until he learned to hide it. Until he grew into a body and a face that brought attention he used to divert the rest.
“Duke, marquess, earl, viscount, baron, in order of rank,” he added, a tad showy, but he’d already unmasked himself, so why not? It had been ages since he’d done anything to impress a soul. “Not including the courtesy titles, because again, what man doesn’t need five. I also reviewed every investor I’m hoping to meet, though I could use some help with when to use lord versus a surname and such. At home, we tend to go with first names from the start.”
“Let me make another list,” Penny whispered and leaned over the desk, rooting about for paper and a quill.
Stop , he started to say but didn’t.
He couldn’t hold to his seat as she located the exact letter he wished she hadn’t. When there was nothing to hide, nothing he’d done wrong.
Nonetheless, apprehension danced along his spine.
When he reached her, West slipped Emelia’s missive from her hand and tossed it aside. Grabbing a folio and quill, he placed them beside her. “Ink is on the shelf, Colbrook.”
With a sly smile, she nodded to the desk. “What a comely scent those pages were emitting, Whitaker. I would bet on roses if I were to wager.”
The urge to kiss the smirk from her face took hold of him like a fever. Behind her lenses, her eyes were golden bursts shot through with threads of amber. A dusting of freckles he’d never noticed before—very orderly, like the owner—marched across the bridge of her nose. He didn’t allow his gaze to again lower to the breasts straining against her bodice, an image he planned to bring forth later this eve.
His cock was getting used to visions of her as a matter of startling fact.
“I can’t guess what you’re thinking,” she whispered, her words calm, though her smile was luminous.
Probably for the best , he decided, wondering if Penelope Anstruther-Colbrook recognized flirtation when it smacked her in the face. “She came to me,” he said, a completely unexpected admission.
Baffled, Penny glanced at Emelia’s letter.
“I’m referring to Lady P and that cursed Rake Review ,” he said and nudged Emelia’s spirit out of sight, which only served to launch the aroma of roses into the air. “The other, well, she’s a friend.”
Penny’s lips twitched, her skepticism evident. “A friend who sprays her notes with perfume before dispatching them across an ocean is a wondrous friend, indeed. As to Lady P, do you always say yes when a woman comes calling?”
There was no way to win a discussion he shouldn’t have started, so West took the easy way out. “Only if the right one asks.”
Her smile dipped. She obviously didn’t like this answer.
“It’s none of my business who you cavort with,” Penny said and gathered his book of nobility close to her chest, extinguishing a view he’d already committed to memory. “You only make our job harder as we work to secure your acceptance.”
He didn’t follow her as she gathered up her things and quit the room. He’d have one of the junior engineers shadow her conveyance until it entered a safer borough.
With an oath, West yanked Emelia’s letter from beneath the pile and gave it an irritated sniff as the low rumblings of a working warehouse returned to his consciousness. It was none of Lady Penelope’s business who he cavorted with, a genteel word for fucked.
None at all.
So, why did it feel like it was?