No, his mind wasn’t on the game.
Neville’s mind was clouded, not just by ever-present concern for his brother, but by his feelings toward a certain lady. He wanted—for very different reasons—to shake them both. Almost, in fact, as much as he wanted to shelter them from harm.
Or, perhaps, the reasons weren’t so different, after all.
Millicent, his brother, and, for that matter, his mother, too, all shared a tendency to rashness, an outspoken nature, and an unshakable belief in their own opinions. And, right now, a mutual dislike of him.
Nothing worse than he deserved, perhaps.
If he’d just been able to keep away from Millicent, none of this might have happened.
Some women, he remembered his father saying,are seductive Delilahs. Stay away from them.
His father had always spoken with repugnant loathing of the gentler sex. Why, with such a disdain, he’d chosen to marry a stylish duke’s daughter who, could never have met his father’s shy and retiring ideal, had always been a mystery. His father had been as sober and serious as his mother was, even now, outspoken and ruled by sentiment.
Neville had always believed himself to be more like his father, but now he had to wonder if, like his mother, his passions ran deeply. Tonight, he’d struggled to contain his protective rage. And that wasn’t the first time Millie had driven him to the edge.
Was Millicent Wainwright aDelilah?
Shewasalluring,fascinating.
She took joy in poking at his pride. But she was also quick to laugh, full of unexpected insight, and as devoted to her sisters as he was to his brother. And he couldn’t imagine that she’d use feminine wiles to bring a man to harm.
Then again, if, like his brother John, she came under the wrong influence…
A rowdy chorus sounded from the streets. Neville strained to make out the words. The drunken men were not, as he first thought, singing a bawdy pub song, but chanting a children’s rhyme.
“Boys, me boys, Come out to play/ The moon doth shine as bright as day/ Leave your supper, and leave your sleep/ And come with your playfellows into the street.”
He frowned.
They’d chanted the first line incorrectly, and yet the twisted words sounded familiar.
Suddenly, he remembered where he’d heard this version—Willard had once used it to taunt Asquith, back at school. Alarm spread through his body. He leaned up against the glass, searching the street for the source.
All he could make out was the rear flap of a young man’s coat, a man on the fringes of a group that gathered just beyond his field of vision.
Beneath the coat, the young man wore knee breeches, a clear sign he and his companions, like Neville and his, had just comefrom the Assembly at Almack’s. These days, no town buck worth his salt would be caught in breeches for any other reason.
“Boys, me boys, Come out to play…”
His chill deepened. He glanced back at Asquith.
Asquith, at least, was too deep in concentration over his cards to have heard. And Blackwell and Daughtry, too, had failed to notice the disturbance.
Not that the rhyme would mean anything to them.
“I’ll be right back,” Neville said, heading for the door.
Neville grabbed his coat on a ready peg hidden inside the paneling in Blackwell’s entry, just one example of the many conveniences the man was so fond of installing in his home. In a thrice, Neville was down the steps, still stuffing his arms into his sleeves as he rushed through the cold night air.
“And he’s here!” The buck who spoke had wide, astonished eyes. “Willard, you’re a genius!”
Genius, my foot.
Neville searched the crowd for the rogue. He didn’t dare insult the pack’s leader aloud…not with all his puppies standing guard.
Drunk puppies, too.