Instantly serious, both men found their respective drinks and chairs in time to see a rather disheveled looking man in his midfifties enter through the French doors. Alex estimated him to be of average height and build, with muscular arms but a slightly rounded belly that spoke of overindulgence and too much time sitting in clubs and card halls.
Whit made the introductions, while Loudor shrugged off his coat and loosened his cravat. “Don’t mind, do you? Had a devil of a time just now. Accident outside Hyde Park. Some nasty business with a fruit vendor. Traffic backed up for blocks and my driver tremendously stupid. I missed Miss Everton at the docks and had to come all the way back here. Perfectly horrid way to spend the afternoon.”
Loudor poured himself a drink and dispensed with half the glass in one long and rather loud swallow. Alex half expected him to smack his lips and wipe them across the back of his sleeve. He couldn’t help noticing that Loudor had not yet asked after the welfare of his cousin.
“Chit’s upstairs is she? Heard she took a bit of a tumble.”
That, Alex decided, did not count. He cleared his throat in an effort to hide his annoyance. “Miss Everton’s carriage lost a wheel on the way here. Whit and I were fortunate enough to be nearby and able to offer some assistance.”
“Awful good of you. In your debt….” Loudor waved the remainder of the sentence away with a flourish of his hand, polished off his drink, then poured another. “Both in town for the season?”
“We are,” Alex answered in a tone he hoped sounded casual. Really, the man was an ass. “The country can get a bit dull this time of year with everyone in London. I believe Whit has some family business that will keep him in town for at least several weeks.”
“Quite so,” Whit replied.
“Nothing serious, I hope?”
“Not at all. Just an annoying tangle of paperwork. Shouldn’t take too much effort actually, but I intend to drag it out as long as possible. I mean to spend an appalling amount of time at the clubs and races.”
“That’s the spirit.” Loudor toasted Whit’s entirely fabricated speech with another long drink. “But what of the rest of London’s attractions?”
Alex shrugged. “Certainly duty requires attendance to some of the more staid events. Wouldn’t care to insult the wives of our old school chums.”
“Or my mother,” Whit offered.
“Or your mother’s friends,” finished Alex with a genuine wince.
Loudor chuckled—an oddly tittering sort of sound that tore at Alex’s nerves. “Not looking to be leg shackled then?”
Since his mission was to woo Miss Everton, Alex’s immediate inclination was to reply that he was indeed on the lookout for a Duchess of Rockeforte, but something in the way Loudor had asked the question gave him pause. The man looked too concerned, too hopeful by half, and Alex went with his instincts.
“I’m determined to remain a bachelor for several more years at the very least, and Whit has decided to postpone matrimonial bliss until the age of four-and-thirty.”
Loudor turned to Whit, looking well pleased. “An excellent decision. Why relinquish freedom while you’re still young enough to enjoy it, eh? Chose the age of forty myself. Now I keep the wife and heir tucked neatly away up north.”
Alex smothered a smile. Whit had never voiced such an absurd notion. He seemed to be enjoying the interchange with Loudor, however…nodding his head sagely and stroking his chin. “Forty you say? I had considered that myself. A sound age. Young enough to sire an heir but old enough to have sowed one’s share of wild oats. I settled for four-and-thirty with the thought that it might take a couple of years to find a suitable wife, but now that you mention it…. Hell, this is a damnably odd conversation to be having in a front parlor. What say you we retire to White’s?”
By three o’clock the next morning Alex and Whit had deposited a very drunk Lord Loudor back at his town house and were proceeding soberly through the streets of London in a hired hack.
Whit chuckled softly and turned to his friend. “Four-and-thirty? Where on earth did you come up with that?”
“It is the age I once chose for my own foray into matrimony.” Alex shrugged. “Seemed reasonable at the time.”
“When was that?”
“We were twenty. I was in love with that opera singer.”
Whit thought about that for a moment before his eyes lit up. “Marian! I had quite forgotten about her.”
“She’d be sorely disappointed to hear it. She was besotted with you, you know.”
“Was she really? I hadn’t realized…. A shame, she was a lovely girl. What ever became of her?”
“Married a wealthy tradesman some years back, I believe.”
“Good for her.”
“Hmm.” Alex’s mind wasn’t on the lovely Marian but on the mission, and Whit, and the fact that he’d prefer to have the latter completely removed from the former.