Chapter Nineteen
N O.
NO.
NO.
IT rang through Wesley’s ears. No matter how much he drank, he couldn’t drown those two tenacious bastards. N, the wily sod couldn’t decide which way he was going up or down, so he couldn’t be caught. And O, the spurious cad. Just a giant hole. One that Wesley felt he was sinking into. How could two sneaky little letters pack such a blow? His sternum hurt. Why did his sternum hurt?
No. No. No. He reviled the word, especially when he heard it blast from her lips. It was one of the most powerful words in the English language. It was the word he should have said when Samuel asked him if he wanted to go out carousing after the ball. It was the word he should have said when the second bottle of whiskey was cracked open. It was the word he should have said when the Betting Buddies started a game of piquet. Thank God he had the presence of mind to say it when the buxom wench came and offered for him.
That was the only part of the evening he knew he wouldn’t regret. He had said no. And then he had said yes to a few more drinks. Thus, him cradling his head on the table.
Samuel and James were still swapping coins over another card game. White’s was crowded, as if all the gentlemen from the ball had trickled over to the club after the festivities but before heading home. He only hoped that none of them wanted to have a chitchat. He was in no mood to make small talk. Large talk. Or any kind of medium talk.
After Boudicca had left the four of them on the terrace, he hadn’t said much. Other than to accept their invitation to go out, so long as there would be drinking, he was in. The gambling had been a nice bonus, well, actually, it had been a slight drain on his cash, but the game was worth it. If only to be distracted for a short time.
If he went home, he knew what would greet him. His bed. Which he’d been avoiding. But even a restless sleep on the settee meant dreams. And his dreams meant Boudicca. He did not want to dream of her tonight. Better to avoid that for as long as possible. So he sat in his club in an awkward predicament. He neither wanted to be alone with his thoughts, nor did he want to talk.
“This isn’t like you, Wesley,” Christopher sank into the seat beside him where he had been temporarily observing the room.
“Saxby, really, now isn’t the time for chastisement,” Wesley mumbled.
“What would I be chastising you about?”
“Drinking. Betting. To name a couple.” Wesley lifted his head enough to peer out through bleary eyes.
Chris raised his glass in mockery. “No judgment here. Perchance, what betting are you referring to though? The piquet? Or…”
“Or.” Wesley declared.
“Well, in that case…yes, it seems you’re rather bollocks deep in that one.”
“Thanks for letting me know, you dolt.”
“Pleasure.”
Wesley dropped his head to the table, missing his forearm. Thwack!
“She’d probably say that you deserved that.”
“She would, wouldn’t she?” Wesley chuckled.
“How are you planning to get her back?”
“I’m not.”
“Really? The great Duke of Baskim is rolling over and accepting defeat over one measly little setback?”
“I wouldn’t call it measly.”
“And you would call it…?”
“Rather devastating, really.”
“Hmmm…” Chris hummed loudly enough for Wesley to be more than a little irked.
“What, pray tell, are you humming so obnoxiously about?”
“Just never heard you refer to something as devastating before. Might you be alluding to the state of your heart?”
At that Wesley’s head whipped up. Which, in hindsight, was a terrible miscalculation of his control on his balance. His head sloshed to one side, pulling him nearly off the chair, and then in an overcorrection, he swung it the opposite direction, nearly colliding with Chris’ chest.
“Wait, just a minute.” He held up a finger. Or two, he wasn’t sure. “I’m not drinking for…lost love.” He sputtered. “I’m drinking because I lost the bet.”
“Right.”
“I despise losing.”
“Right.”
“I’m a competitor.”
“You don’t have to tell me that.”
“And I’ll not rest until I win.”
“I completely agree.”
“Speaking of which, I’ve got to get home now and abed. Tomorrow I must continue my training. I still have a fencing tournament to win.”
“Of course you do,” Chris just nodded.
The cursed knave was at the height of his patronizing, but all Wesley could say in return was the startlingly eloquent, “I do.”
To which Chris reached the apex of his sarcasm, “Right.”
Was he going to sit there all night and listen to this scapegrace? Or was he going to do something about his situation? Wesley was not the kind to drink his sorrows away. What sorrows? He was not the kind to lament and wallow in anguish. He was a man of action. And just because one gorgeous blonde-haired-rapier-wielding intoxicating gel had…had…had gotten under his skin (a little), did not mean he would succumb to disheartenment.
What was he if he was not a worthy competitor? He still had a goal to reach. Forget Boudicca and her tempting lips and full breasts. She could have her secret gymnasium of glory. He had more important things to do. To be. To have. He had to win.
Wesley stood up. Slowly. “Now,”—he bowed, and in his most mockingest of tones, chirped—“be a dear and show me the way out, you lout.”
Wesley didn’t make it more than a few steps without Chris’ help. In fact, James ended up under one of his armpits, and Chris under the other. Samuel, of course, laughing behind them all the way home.
Once at his residence, they handed him over to the butler and some footmen with the profound parting words that no man heeded, “Don’t do anything stupid.”
Of course, he was home, what stupid could he really do? He wasn’t about to make his way over to her house just before dawn, lift her brocade counterpane, and climb into her warm bed with her. He recalled her sounds. Her silky locks. The way his fingers wanted to get lost in them. He could smell her soft rose scent. How had he never named her scent until now? The fragrance was inebriating. He shouldn’t have had to drink a drop tonight. He could have just conjured her scent and lost his senses to her. And her in her bed.
No, that bed was for…
Ugh. He groaned.
He did not want to say the words. If it wasn’t him in her bed, eventually it would be another…man. He ground his teeth in frustration. His normally rigid spine was hunched over as the footmen aided his ascent up the stairs.
To his bedchambers. The dreaded den of dreams. Though not to his bed. He fell asleep on the settee.
Delaying the inevitable, he slowly shirked out of his clothing and then laid to rest with his most useless prayer to date. Please don’t let me dream of her.
*
Leading up to the tournament, Wesley had trained every day. Hard. Servants that were otherwise content to be in his employ steered clear of him. They took turns bringing him trays of food and reassured each other that his growling would pass. Surely, a man with a calm demeanor (until this week) would not turn into a permanent monster. Surely, the smashed vase out of anger was a onetime occurrence. Surely, he would not be so demanding as to have nine flavors of ice provided at a random dinner, again. Surely.
The worst of it befell Wesley’s poor valet though. The first day he had shaved Wesley, he had missed a hair on his chin. Wesley shouted obscenities. The second day, his valet had paid extra attention to the chin area and had missed a couple of hairs under Wesley’s jawline. More obscenities and water on the floor. The next time the valet came to shave he had a slight tremble to his hand, and fate of all fates, had nicked his volcanic employer. The vulgarities lasted an hour. Wesley hadn’t ceased his mutterings until breakfast forced him to stuff food into his mouth. And even then he had grumbled a couple of times. The fourth day the valet’s hand trembled so badly that Wesley took the damn razor from him and attended to his own face. The valet had winced, but the grimace was followed by an obvious sigh of relief.
“If you can’t get it right, I’ll do it myself,” Wesley had said. “Or I’ll find someone who can.” The valet was loyal though, as were they all to their master. And the decision to ride it out had been unanimous among Wesley’s staff. He knew this because he had overheard a couple of them discussing His Grace’s foul temper of late . Their grumbling only led to more grumbling from him. It would pass, though. As soon as he won this damn fencing tournament and bested Samuel. That’s what he needed right now. He needed a win. He needed to sleep in his own damn bed.
He needed a breakthrough. A breakthrough from the fencing match in his head. Only two thoughts playing tag in his mind. No. And Don’t come home until you win. A more formidable tag-team foe he had yet to encounter: the woman he now sought and the father he had once fought.
The fencing match in his head was hopeless, so he turned his thoughts to more controllable events. The tournament was to last two days. The first day had played out so that the best of the best would make it to day two. A fencer had to score thirty points to pass round one. There were matches all day long for each fencer to achieve their high score.
Only eight men had made it to day two. Day two was set up in pools. If Wesley won his first round, he would likely be up against Lord Tamely, the cheater. Since the poor sod Tamely was up against first was new, he probably didn’t know to watch for Tamely’s tricks. Samuel would win his pool, and then Wesley and Samuel would meet in the finals.
It was day two, and the auditorium was full of male spectators, most of them were betting on the winners of each pool and the overall winner of the tournament. Much money would exchange hands. He breathed in the scent of sweaty men. Manly men. Sweaty, manly men doing manly activities. No women allowed. No rose-scented (or otherwise-scented) females here. This was where he needed to be, if the tight churning in his gut was any indication.
The matches for day two were timed for a single audience, which meant everyone was able to see every fencer. As predicted, Wesley and Samuel both won their first matches. Also as predicted, Lord Tamely won his match. With cheating. The crowd had booed, but nothing was done. Wesley pitied his opponent though. Without the cheating, he was sure to have won. There was something about his movements, a flare, a dexterity he had rarely seen the likes of. The only thing to be done in a match against Tamely was to eschew his signature trip and strike more.
Anyone who had witnessed the first tournament would be privy to Tamely’s move. Or at least the gossip surrounding it. His matchup must have been from outside of London not to have heard or seen it. He didn’t seem the type to not be able to deflect such a simple move if he had the foreknowledge of it.
But Wesley shook the odd thoughts from his mind. They were not pertinent to his own imminent win.
The time had come for the final match. The match for the win . Wesley hadn’t been able to execute Boudicca’s signature move, just as she had forewarned him, but he had learned quite a few maneuvers from her that he knew would catch Samuel off guard.
Within a minute of stepping onto the piste, Wesley knew the win was his. The first lunge, attack, low inside. It was too easy.
After that first point, Samuel asked nonchalantly, “Who have you been training with?”
The question made Wesley consider that perhaps his body had picked up more from Boudicca than he had originally thought.
The referee made the calls to reposition and commence, and Wesley was about to advance-lunge when his mask fell from his face. What atrocious timing. Damn mask. He had a match to win. He didn’t need to deal with this.
He moved to continue the match, but the referee raised his hands.
Immediately, the bout was paused while the referee insisted that Wesley return to the change room to retrieve his other mask.
When he made his way down the corridor though, he must have opened the wrong door because instead of finding it empty, he discovered the most peculiar sight. But more peculiar than the sight was the scent that greeted him. Roses.