“How’s that head of yours, boy?” the baron asked as Whit made his way into the room.
He bit back the instinctive need to retaliate for being called “boy” and took a seat in front of the desk, letting his back slouch and his legs stretch out before him. He hoped it made him look appropriately slothful.
“Still attached to my shoulders, I’m afraid. How was the hunt?”
The baron heaved out a grunt. “Damn poachers. Man can’t find game on his own land anymore.”
“Damn shame,” Whit agreed and congratulated himself for not smiling.
“Don’t suspect you came in here to discuss hunting, Thurston.”
“I didn’t, in fact. I came to discuss your niece.”
“Mirabelle?” The baron scowled. “What the devil for? Seems you’d have enough of her at Haldon.”
“I do, which is why I’m discussing her now.” He made himself fidget with his cravat. “I realize she’s family, Eppersly, but can’t the chit stay in her room for a day or two?”
“Heard you two don’t get on.”
“She’s a bloody nuisance. And she…” He cast a nervous look at the open door before leaning over to whisper across the desk. “She talks to my mother. A man can’t very well enjoy himself around a woman who gossips regularly with his mother, can he?”
The baron twisted his lips. “Can’t, now you mention it. I’ll see she stays in her room.”
Whit didn’t have to feign his relief, though the gratitude was for show. “It’s appreciated. My father always said you were a sensible man.”
The baron nodded as if he had reason to believe that comment was anything other than the lie it was. “Pity he’s not still here. No need to worry yourself over his censure.”
“No need at all.”
“He went well in the end, though. Had a wager with some of the others, how each of us would go. Won a hundred pounds on your father. The others figured he’d die of the pox.”
“Cuckolding you, was he?”
The baron blinked once, then threw his head back to roar and snort with laughter.
“Your father’s son!” he managed when the greatest part of his mirth had passed. “Had a tongue as sharp as yours.”
“Yes, I recall,” Whit muttered, and managed, just barely, to keep the sanguine expression of a slightly amused, but mostly bored young man on his face.
“We’ll make a proper man of you yet.”
“I look forward to the instruction.” As he might, he thought ruefully, a cannonball to the head.
Twenty-one
For Whit, dinner was no more pleasant that night than it had been the night before, but it was markedly less tense for him with Mirabelle safely tucked away in her room.
The men drank themselves half stupid in the space of an hour and wholly stupid a quarter hour after that. So it was with great relief that he saw the last of them drag themselves off to bed before the clock struck eleven.
He swayed and tottered himself as he made his way out of the dining room, but that was for the benefit of the staff.
“Where’z the baron?” he demanded of one of the footmen as he lurched into the hallway. “Good man, the baron. Good man. Where’d he go?”
“To bed…my lord,” the footman replied, sidestepping Whit’s tottering form. “All the guests have gone to bed.”
“To bed! Already? Night’s young.” He gave a forced hiccup. “And they mocked me. Ah, well. Old men. What’s to do? That is…what’s a man…Never mind.”
“Very good, my lord.”
“Where’z my room, then?”
The footman let out a hefty sigh, gripped Whit’s arm and hauled him up the stairs and down the hall. Because he was only willing to take the ruse so far, Whit fished out the key from his pocket himself.
“Got it. Got it. Not a bleeding infant,” he muttered.
“If you’re set then, I’m for my own bed.”
Whit forced the key into the lock after a few bumbling tries, and waved a hand at the footman. “Off you go.”
He didn’t need to turn his head to know the man rolled his eyes before leaving. Couldn’t blame him, really, though a decent footman would have made certain a guest had made it to his bed without first tripping over his own feet and cracking his head open on a piece of furniture.
He listened. The sound of the footman’s steps dimmed and then disappeared up the third-floor stairwell. By the haggard look on the man’s face, Whit suspected he’d told the truth—he was for bed.
It must be an exhausting job, he thought, as he stepped into his room for a candle and stepped back out again, to put up with the likes of the baron and his guests. Then again, the staff didn’t do much besides, as far as he could tell. Plenty of time to rest between the drunken mayhem.
He made the brief trip to Mirabelle’s room and stopped. For a few long minutes, he simply stood outside her door considering, weighing, arguing, and otherwise working himself into a fine temper.
She had every right to participate. He had every right to keep her safe.
He should keep his word and knock.