Page 90 of The Lord Meets His Lady

Twenty-one

Wetness trickled down his cheek. Marcus slapped his jaw, day-old whiskers abrading his palm. He yanked the bedsheet higher, seeking sleep’s fog.

“Did you know the Athenians rose before sunrise to hear their tragedies?” A voice reached through the fog. Samuel.

“Is that because getting up with the sun is a tragedy?”

Samuel’s chuckle rumbled overhead. “No. Because a new day is the answer after a dark night of the soul.” He paused. “Or something like that.”

“Reading with Adam again,” he mumbled against the sheet. Marcus burrowed deeper, but another drop hit his head. And another. Water. “Please tell me you’re not holding a bucket of water over my head.”

“It’s not a bucket.”

Marcus knocked back the sheet. His friend stood over him, a dark specter in a black frock coat, the washstand’s pewter pitcher in hand.

“You can stop now. I’m getting up.”

“Good. I’d douse you, but in deference to your housekeeper, I’ll not drench the bed. She’d be the one to clean it up.”

“Don’t be so sure of that,” Marcus mumbled, pushing back the counterpane to plant both feet on the floor.

Samuel walked to the washstand. “I see you slept in your clothes.”

“It was late when Genevieve and I returned.”

His friend set the pitcher down with care. “Genevieve, is it?”

“We are married.”

Marcus scrubbed his face and finger combed his hair. After his bride’s shocking exit, he’d crawled under the covers, seeking sleep. Explaining himself didn’t top his list of things to do this morning, but Samuel picked up a hair ribbon off the floor.

“I thought the plan was to deposit her with family in Coldstream, safely away from here.”

“You mean safely away from me,” Marcus said, shucking yesterday’s shirt and waistcoat. He’d don a new shirt but wear the same rumpled breeches and stockings he’d slept in.

Aromas of sex lingered. There was no denying it. Despite last night’s enticing bed sport, sleep hadn’t been good. Clothes bound a body, leaving residue of an old day.

Or was his discomfort the result of an inglorious end to glorious sex?

He stuck a foot in his boot. “She would’ve stayed in Coldstream,” he explained. “Except that her grandmother died months ago. We visited the grave.” Shivering at being shirtless, he tugged the boot over his knee. “I couldn’t leave her. Not after learning bad news.”

“And you, being the perfect gentlemen, offered consolation.”

Marcus jammed on his other boot, wanting to laugh at the absurdity. It shouldn’t sting that his friend thought the worst of him. Everyone counted him a wastrel.

If Samuel only knew how the night had played out…how Miss Genevieve Turner-cum-Lady Bowles hadused himforher consolation. She’d taken her pleasure and stood naked as the day she was born, reducing last night to a bedtime romp before leaving him. His new wife had cut him at the knees. He sprang off the bed, itching to defend himself, but his lips clamped shut.

Genevieve deserved better.

“My conduct is none of your concern.” He snatched a clean shirt from his chest of drawers and slipped it over his head. So Samuel painted him a scoundrel. Better he was besmirched than her.

His friend stalked to the doorway, shaking his head. “You might say differently in an hour.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Chin up, Marcus tied his cravat. Stomach growling and weary from poor sleep, his body demanded that he answer nature’s call, among other needs. He didn’t have patience for cryptic quips.

“It means you’d better be ready to defend your actions…more precisely the woman in question. A man has traveled far to get her.”

Marcus slipped on his coat. “Herr Wolf.” The fierce Prussian had been furthest from his thoughts.