West remained seated as night porters, table waiters and club members milled around the table. He felt trapped, and surrounded, and very alone. Severin, who liked nothing better than to be in a place where interesting things were happening, was having a grand time. He regarded Kingston with a touch of awe, which was understandable. The duke looked thoroughly at home in this legendary place, even a bit godlike, with that inhumanly perfect face and beautifully tailored clothes and that stunning self-possession.
Keeping hold of Larson as if he were a disobedient puppy, Kingston berated him quietly. “After the hours I just spent with you, providing excellent advice, this is the result? You decide to start shooting guests in my club? You, my boy, have been a dismal waste of an evening. Now you’re going to cool your heels in a jail cell, and I’ll decide in the morning what’s to be done with you.” He released Larson to the care of one of the hulking night porters, who ushered him away expediently. Turning to West, the duke surveyed him with a quicksilver glance, and shook his head. “You look as though you’d been pulled backward through a hedgerow. Have you no standards, coming to my club dressed like that? For the wrinkles in your coat alone, I ought to have you thrown into a cell next to Larson’s.”
“I tried to have him spruced up,” Severin volunteered, “but he wouldn’t.”
“A bit late for sprucing,” Kingston commented, still looking at West. “At this point I would recommend fumigation.” He turned to another night porter. “Escort Mr. Ravenel up to my private apartments, where it seems I’ll be giving counsel to yet another of my daughter’s tormented suitors. This must be a penance for my misspent youth.”`
“I don’t want your counsel,” West snapped.
“Then you should have gone to someone else’s club.”
West sent an accusing glare at Severin, who shrugged slightly.
Struggling up from his chair, West growled, “I’m leaving. And if anyone tries to stop me, I’ll knock them flat.”
Kingston seemed rather less than impressed. “Ravenel, I’m sure when you’re sober, well-rested and well-nourished, you can give a good account of yourself. At the moment, however, you are none of those things. I have a dozen night porters working here tonight, all of whom have been trained in how to manage unruly patrons. Go upstairs, my lad. You could do worse than to spend a few minutes basking in the sunshine of my accumulated wisdom.” Stepping closer to the porter, the duke gave him a number of quiet instructions, one of them sounding suspiciously like, “Make sure he’s clean before he’s allowed on the furniture.”
West decided to go with the porter, who identified himself as Niall. There wasn’t really a choice, and he couldn’t come up with an alternate plan. He felt slightly weak and foggy, and his head was filled with an on-and-off rushing noise, like the blasts of air that swept a train platform when a train was hurtling past. God, he was tired. He wouldn’t mind listening to a long lecture from the duke, or anyone, as long as he could do it while sitting.
As they all began to leave the club room, Severin appeared somewhat forlorn. “What about me?” he asked. “Is everyone just going to leave me here?”
The duke turned to him, arching a brow. “It would seem so. Is there anything you need?”
Severin pondered the question with a frown. “No,” he finally said, and heaved a sigh. “I have everything in the world.”
West lifted his hand in a gesture of farewell and followed Niall. The porter was dressed in a uniform, some kind of rich matte cloth in a shade of blue so dark it looked black. No gilt or fancy trim, save for a thin black braided trim on the lapels of the coat, and on the collar and cuffs of the white shirt. Very discreet and simple, tailored for ease of movement. It looked like a uniform for killing people.
They went through an inconspicuous doorway and up a narrow, dark staircase. Niall opened a door at the top, and they went through some ornately decorated vestibule with a ceiling of painted angels and clouds. Another door opened into a set of beautiful serene rooms, gold and white, with pale blue water-silk paper on the walls, and carpets in soft, subdued colors.
West went to the nearest chair and sat heavily. The upholstery was soft and velvety. It was so quiet up here—how could it be this quiet with the clamor of nighttime London just outside the window, and a damned club downstairs?
Wordlessly Niall brought him a glass of water, which West didn’t want at first. After he took a sip, however, a voracious thirst overcame him, and he gulped it down without stopping. Niall took the glass, went to refill it, and came back with a small powder packet. “Bicarbonate compound, sir?”
“Why not?” West muttered. He unfolded the packet, tilted his head back to dump the powder on the back of his tongue, and washed it down.
As he lifted his head, he saw a painting on the wall, in a carved and gilded frame. It was a luminous portrait of the Duchess with her children when they were still young. The group was arranged on the settee, with Ivo, still an infant, on his mother’s lap. Gabriel, Raphael and Seraphina were seated on either side of her, while Phoebe leaned over the back of the settee. Her face was close to her mother’s, her expression tender and slightly mischievous, as if she were about to tell her a secret or make her laugh. He had seen that look on her face, with her own children. And with him.
The longer West stared at the painting, the worse he felt inside, inner demons jabbing at his heart with spears. He wanted to leave, yet he was no more capable of exiting that chair than if he’d been chained to it.
The duke’s lean form came to the doorway, and he regarded West speculatively.