it…even when you’re twenty-one and nowhere near ready. There’s no shame in giving in to it.’
‘Such an eloquent expert on finer feelings, aren’t you?’ Stephen ribbed him with a grin. ‘Hard to believe most of your intercourse with the fairer sex is so basic and carried out while you’re horizontal.’
‘Shut up, Stephen, you are drooling,’ Richard said, with a clap on the back for his sulking brother.
As they hit the marble-flagged hallway, Richard swung his brother about by the shoulder and studied him gravely. ‘Look, if you’re desperate for a little illicit entertainment, go ahead. But don’t expect me to arrange it for you, or clear up the mess when it all goes horribly wrong. Amelia might just decide that what’s sauce for the gander…’ He trailed off with an explicit raising of dark brows.
‘She wouldn’t dare!’ Stephen exploded, his face draining of colour. ‘Besides,’ he blustered as his older brother choked a laugh at the terror on his face, ‘she’d never know…I’d be discreet.’
‘Of course she’d know, you fool,’ Richard scoffed. ‘There’d be plenty of concerned ladies just itching to break the news. For her own good, of course. If you want a mistress, go and stand in the Upper Assembly rooms and look available. In five minutes you’ll be knee-deep in frustrated wives, impoverished widows…’ His long fingers tightened emphatically on his brother’s shoulder. ‘You’re both envied, you know. You’ve a good marriage: you love your wife and she adores you and that’s not easily found. It makes for a lot of green eyes and spiteful intentions. If you want to know the truth, I envy you.’
‘Good,’ Stephen said with slightly malicious relish. ‘I think our dear mama is under the impression it’s definitely time you were jealous no more.’
Sir Richard Du Quesne stopped dead and spun on his heel. ‘God, she’s not matchmaking again! Who’s here? Not the Petershams?’
Stephen swayed his fair head, blue eyes alight with merriment. ‘But of course not. We’re aiming so much higher, dear one, now you’re so much richer. Now you’ve added another million to the Du Quesne coffers, dear Mama scents a ducal connection…and as they were visiting in the neighbourhood…’
Stephen’s drawling teasing came to an abrupt halt and the laughter in his eyes was replaced by horrified entreaty. For no more than a second he watched his brother striding towards the double oaken doorway, an exceedingly loud and awful curse flying in his wake.
Scooting after him, Stephen grabbed at his elbow and started dragging him backwards. ‘If you disappear, so do I. I’ll go and stand in the Upper Assembly rooms; you see if I don’t. Mother will kill me if I let you escape!’
‘I will kill you if you do not let go of my arm,’ his brother sweetly informed him.
Stephen removed his hand and made a show of straightening the crumpled charcoal material of Richard’s sleeve. ‘Come on, Dickie,’ he wheedled. ‘Just smile and make them swoon a little.’ Richard’s grim countenance was unaltered. ‘Well, just tell them about your money; that’ll make them swoon a little.’
Richard tried to suppress a smile. He gazed at the rust watered-silk wall then back at his brother’s anxious face. ‘If I wasn’t so damned hungry, I’d be out of here.’ A tanned hand settled amicably on Stephen’s shoulder as they turned towards the dining room. ‘I suppose I should suck up a bit to his grace: I want the old bastard to grant me a lease on the land just east of the Tamar. There’s a fortune in that clay-slate; I’ll stake my life on it.’
‘Better suck up to his daughter, then. You know the way to a fond father’s heart is through his darling spinster offspring. And she is sweet on you, you know. You also know the old goat’s concerned for his pheasants and won’t let you disturb them with your noisy mining.’
‘There’s a fortune in copper there and I will have it some day. But don’t tell Ross,’ Richard laughed. ‘He’s convinced it’s on the Cornish side in granite. Fool! Sometimes he lets his Celtic pride get in the way of his common sense.’
‘Rival adventurers!’ Stephen proclaimed. ‘You’ll bring him in on the deal, in any case. Me too, I hope! I’ve a growing family to support.’
‘Make sure it’s just the one legitimate family to support,’ Richard told his brother, ‘and perhaps I’ll do that.’
Richard scowled at the ceiling. It was time he thought of marrying and producing an heir. A duke’s daughter was soft on him. She was attractive enough to bed. The fact that she irritated the hell out of him with her vanity and her vacuous giggling was of little consequence: once she was breeding they need have little to do with one another other than on formal family occasions. Apart from exercising a little more subtlety, his licentious lifestyle need not alter. If Penelope found herself a beau it would not unduly worry him so long as she was reciprocally discreet. He could afford to be generous: her father was sitting, he was sure, on one of the richest copper lodes ever. And he was determined to mine the area.
The two brothers exchanged a rueful grimace before fixing smiles and entering the dining room. Richard’s grin sugared for his mother as he saw her glower at him. Then he looked at the brunette, her face coyly concealed behind a fluttering fan. Brown eyes peeked at him over the top of ivory sticks. His teeth met but he bowed gallantly.
Damn you, David! he inwardly groaned as he thought of his best friend and his wedded bliss. He’d set a vexing precedent by marrying for love and being so nauseatingly happy and faithful. And he and David were too close…too alike…always had been since childhood.
Richard knew that aching void deep within David that only Victoria could fill sometimes yawned wide in him too. And the restlessness, the emptiness just wouldn’t go away no matter how hard it was ignored or crammed full of commerce or self-indulgent lust.
Think of the copper…and beating Ross to it, he encouraged himself as he proceeded into the room, with a wry, private smile. He pulled a chair close and sat beside his grace the Duke of Winstanley. ‘How are the pheasants?’ he asked gravely.
Chapter Three
‘What is for dinner today, Mrs Keene? Not bacon and carrots again, surely?’ Emma frowned and sniffed delicately at the wafting salty aroma.
‘Not at all, my dear.’ Her landlady shuffled into her room, apparently unruffled by this aspersion on her unvarying menus.
Emma’s tawny eyes brightened and she let her novel drop. She had been perched on the window seat for the past hour, hoping that perhaps Matthew might call again today to take her for a walk or a drive into the countryside. But it was nearly six o’clock and unlikely he would come now.
‘What is for dinner, then, Mrs Keene?’ Emma asked, her mouth watering in anticipation of some tempting mutton later.
‘Er…it’s hashed pork, my dearie. With a little herb and stock ‘n so on.’
‘Is it cured pork, Mrs Keene?’ Emma asked on a sigh.
‘I believe it is at that, Miss Worthington,’ Mrs Keene admitted with a jovial smile. ‘Now, I’ve got some good news. An’ I expect, ‘cos it is such a piece o’ luck for you that a busy soul like meself’s managed to put herself out on account of a nice young lady, that you’ll be insistin’ on showing me a small consideration for me pains. Now, not that it’s none o’ my concern, o’ course, but I know for a fact you’ve been scourin’ that Gazette for a position as would suit. Well, now—’ chubby hands were planted on fat hips ‘—what did I hear today from a friend wot’s been speakin’ to a lady’s maid?’ She inclined forward from the waist and beady eyes rolled between fleshy folds.
After a silent moment when Emma realised either she guessed, enquired, or never learned, she obligingly said, ‘I’ve no idea, Mrs Keene. What did you hear?’
With a flourish, a scrap of paper materialised