A Season of Ruin

by Anna Bradley

Chapter Twenty-one

  As far as the ladies at the Slippery Eel went, she was one of the prettier ones. Dark hair. Clear white skin. Eyes? Robyn hadn’t any idea, but it didn’t matter. She had all the requisite parts—large breasts overflowing a flimsy gown, full lips, and from what he could tell by the feel of her against his lap, a shapely arse.

  She’d do as well as the next for what he had in mind. A quick servicing; necessary, yes, but about as satisfying as cleaning one’s teeth or polishing one’s boots. He looked forward to it with about as much enthusiasm.

  “You don’t look happy, Sutherland.” Archie poured a few fingers of whiskey into a glass and held it out to Robyn. “Perhaps you need another drink.”

  Robyn didn’t reach for the glass. “What would you have me do, Archie? Dance a jig? I’m happy enough.”

  Archie raised his glass to the doxy. “Not nearly as happy as you should be for a man with such a lovely and accommodating lady in his lap.”

  The woman giggled, then leaned across Robyn, snatched the glass from Archie, and held it playfully against Robyn’s lips. “Here you are, pet. Have a little nip. This’ll cheer you up.”

  Robyn jerked his head aside, ignoring the woman’s pout. “No, thank you. I don’t want any.”

  Archie took the glass from the girl and placed it carefully on the table. “Ah. Here’s the question of the season, Sutherland. What the hell do you want?”

  I want to touch you . . . now. Please, Robyn.

  “What difference does it make? I can’t have it, so there’s an end to the discussion.”

  To Robyn’s irritation, Archie laughed. “You sound like you did when we were lads, teasing Alec for some toy or treat. You’ve not been thwarted in your desires much since then. Good for you, isn’t it, to want something you can’t have?”

  If only it were a toy or a treat, or something equally meaningless. If only it were as simple a matter as want and desire, but neither word did justice to what he felt for Lily. He’d need an entirely new language to describe this want, so deep it had become a part of him.

  It wasn’t just her body he wanted, though God knew he burned for her with a desire so intense, it scorched him. No, he wanted her. In the cruelest bit of irony imaginable, he wanted her so much, he’d been unable to take her last night.

  Robyn Sutherland, the wickedest rake in London, unable to take a women who’d lain under him, trembling with desire. A woman he wanted more than any other. The only woman he wanted. She’d cried out for him, and he’d sent her off to bed as pure as he’d found her.

  Or nearly so.

  It was awful, this new kind of want. It had nothing to do with him and everything to do with Lily. He wanted her to be happy—to have whatever she wanted, even if what she wanted was Atherton.

  Even if what she wanted wasn’t him.

  Archie swallowed the whiskey he’d poured for Robyn. “Can’t imagine what it is you want that’s proved so elusive.”

  She’d be engaged by the time he saw her again. Was doubtless engaged even now, and the whole family celebrating the betrothal.

  Robyn picked up the empty glass and held it out to Archie. He wouldn’t be going home anytime soon, so he may as well get sotted. “No, I don’t suppose you can.”

  Archie poured some whiskey in the glass and handed it back to the doxy. She took it, and this time when she held it to Robyn’s lips, he drank obediently. “There you go, pet—drink up.”

  “You can have your pick of the ladies here at the Eel.” Archie spread his arms wide and whiskey sloshed over his glass onto the carpet. “You could have had Miss Bannister, as well. She wanted you—she only settled for me after you wandered off.”

  “Is she everything I thought she’d be, then?” Robyn asked without interest, hoping to change the subject.

  Archie grinned. “And more. Very satisfactory, indeed, which leads me to ask once again, what is it you want, Sutherland? You don’t want Louise Bannister, and you don’t appear to want this charming young thing on your lap.” Archie tilted his glass toward the doxy in another sloppy toast. “So what, or whom, do you want?”

  Lily’s arms twined around his neck, her breathless sighs; her hot mouth pressed against his bare chest, white breasts tipped with the sweetest nipples he’d ever seen, hard and eager under his tongue . . .

  I want you. Harder. Faster. Show me how to touch you.

  “Oooh!” the doxy squealed. She shifted on his lap to fit her generous arse more tightly against his burgeoning erection. “He does want me, don’t you, pet? Come on, then, love—take me upstairs.”

  Robyn hadn’t the heart to tell her the promising swell she felt had nothing to do with her, but neither did he want to join her in one of the private chambers upstairs. He couldn’t tup some doxy whose name he didn’t recall when he could still feel Lily arching against him—could still hear her cries as she came on his hand.

  Dear God. Was he to become a monk, then? He didn’t relish that prospect, but for the first time in his life, he couldn’t simply replace one woman with another.

  How many nights had he spent in the Slippery Eel with a glass of whiskey on the table before him and a doxy in his lap? He looked from one end of the room to the other. The scene was utterly familiar. The same red tufted settees with the same half-clad women draped over them, the same eager gentlemen and the same drunken laughter. He’d spent countless nights in this room, each of them indistinguishable from the last.

  But it wasn’t the same, because he wasn’t the same, and he couldn’t stand to sit here another minute as if tonight were just like any other night he’d spent at the Slippery Eel. Everything had changed. To try and go back to how it had been before was impossible, like trying to put spilt whiskey back into a glass.

  He had to get out of here.

  Robyn tried to disentangle the doxy’s arms from around his neck. “I don’t think so. Not tonight.”

  Archie gave a wise nod. “I think, my dear, our friend here has been crossed in love.”

  The doxy resisted Robyn’s efforts to free himself from her grip. She clung to him like an octopus, her tentacles wrapped with determination around his neck. “Aww, come on then, pet. A fine young handsome buck like you? I’ll do you right.”

  Robyn rose from the settee with the doxy still in his arms.

  She gave an excited squeal. “That’s it, pet—you won’t even remember her name after Nellie’s done with you.”

  If brute force couldn’t get her off his lap, perhaps gravity could. Robyn walked around the table, leaned over Archie, who was still seated on the settee, and dumped the woman into his lap.

  The doxy’s squeal of anticipation turned to a shrill protest, and Archie didn’t look any happier than she did. “Sutherland, what the devil—”

  Robyn didn’t linger to hear the rest of Archie’s harangue. He was out the door before the doxy regained her feet, but once he stood alone on the street outside, he realized he hadn’t anywhere to go. He couldn’t go home yet.

  He’d try to be happy for Lily tomorrow. But not tonight.

  The door to the Eel slammed behind him and Archie joined him on the street. “Bloody hell, Sutherland—” he began, but the look on Robyn’s face must have surprised him into reconsidering his words, for he paused, cleared his throat, and then asked easily, “Where to, then?”

  Robyn shrugged. “No idea.”

  “Shall we just walk until an amusement presents itself?”

  Robyn shrugged again. He didn’t care much what they did, as long as they avoided Mayfair. If he saw Atherton, he’d likely slam his fist into the man’s smug face. “I suppose.”

  They hadn’t made it more than four blocks when a commotion outside one of the gaming hells caught their attention.

  “Ah,” said Archie. “I do love London. Always a brawl or some other amusement to be had.” He jerked his chin in the di
rection of the hell across the street, where a riotous crowd of aristocrats and common rabble stood together, all drunk, shouting and laughing over some antics taking place within. “Shall we?”

  In Robyn’s current mood, a riot seemed just the thing. “By all means.”

  They crossed the street and stopped at the entrance to the hell. A rough-looking man with a hat pulled low over his face leaned against the door.

  “What’s all the fuss, my good man?” Archie asked him.

  The man spat on the ground at his feet. “Some bleedin’ cove inside losing all his blunt at the tables. Foxed, he is. Other coves is tryin’ to drag ’im away afore he’s cleaned out.”

  “Sounds like a typical night in Merry Old London. You don’t suppose it’s Pelkey?” Archie asked, turning to Robyn.

  “Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

  Archie began to push his way good-naturedly through the crowd. “Step aside, gents.”

  Robyn shoved a few sweaty, gin-soaked revelers to the side and made his way into the hell. He half hoped one of them might shove him back, but even the more dangerous-looking patrons seemed to prefer to steer clear of him tonight.

  Archie pointed at a crowd of men around the hazard table. “There.”

  Robyn watched as the dice tumbled down the baize and hit the wall, followed by a roar of either glee or commiseration from the onlookers. He couldn’t see who threw the dice, but they continued to roll at an alarming rate, as if the man who tossed them was determined to lose a fortune.

  “I doubt it’s Pelkey,” Robyn said. “He doesn’t do anything that quickly.”

  Archie grinned. “No. Let’s see who it is, then. Perhaps we can help his friends get the poor bastard out the door.”

  They set to pushing and shoving at bodies again until they cleared a space at the end of the hazard table. The man who threw the dice had his head down as he watched them skitter across the baize. Robyn caught a glimpse of fair hair, then the dice hit the wall, the man raised his head, and Robyn’s eyes locked on his face.

  He froze. Jesus . . .

  Next to him Archie drew a sharp breath, “Good Lord! Isn’t that . . .”

  Atherton.

  Robyn stared, speechless. Questions buzzed through his brain like a swarm of insects, each indistinguishable from the next, except for one.

  If Atherton was here, then where in the world was Lily?

  Archie stood stuttering beside him, still trying to piece it together. “Atherton! But—but he doesn’t gamble. Does he? I thought the man was a model of restraint and rectitude.”

  Robyn hadn’t thought so—he’d known there had to be something unsavory about Atherton. But gaming? He’d never heard even a breath of gossip about Atherton having a fondness for the tables. Though if the man stayed away from the fashionable gaming houses and only frequented the hells, he could hide it easily enough, at least for a time.

  He watched Atherton gather the dice tightly into his fist to prepare for another throw, but Robyn didn’t intend to stand by and watch while Atherton lost his family’s fortune at hazard. He turned away before the dice could hit the table.

  He needed to get to Lily. Now.

  He heard an angry shout behind him. He paid it no mind, but shoved back through the mass of sticky male bodies. He’d gained the street when he heard another shout, Archie this time, a warning, but before Robyn could turn, a heavy weight slammed into his back. He pitched forward and his forehead met the street with a hard crack. He tried to move, to rise to his knees, but whatever had hit him remained on top of him, preventing him. Hard fingers clawed into his hair and jerked his head back, but before his attacker could slam his skull into the street a second time, the heavy weight was jerked off Robyn’s back.

  “Bleedin’ ’ell. That’s not right, that’s not,” said a disgusted voice.

  A second later Robyn was able to rise to his knees. Something warm trickled into his eyes. He reached up to brush it away, then looked down in astonishment to find his hand covered in blood.

  An explosion of vile curses erupted next to his ear, then Robyn felt a hand slide under his arm to help him back to his feet.

  Archie.

  “Robyn. Christ, that looks bad,” Archie said in an unsteady voice. He pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and pressed it into Robyn’s hand. “Hold it against the gash.”

  Gash? What gash?

  He hadn’t time to ask before Archie rounded furiously on someone who stood behind them. “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

  “I’ll tells you what he did,” said the same disgusted voice Robyn had heard before. It was the man with the cap he and Archie had spoken to before they entered the hell. “He knocked this swell to the ground when ’is back was turned, he did. I thought you nobs fought gentleman-like, but that weren’t sporting, were it?”

  “Not sporting at all,” Archie replied in a dangerous voice.

  Robyn, still dazed from the blow to his head, turned to see whom Archie was glaring at.

  Atherton stood on the street, his chest heaving. His blue eyes, filled with rage, were fixed on Robyn.

  Atherton had knocked him to the ground?

  “You’re behind it, aren’t you, Sutherland?” Atherton snarled. He lunged toward Robyn again but his two friends held him back, each with a hand on his arm. Robyn didn’t recognize one of them, but the other was Adrian Brougham, Lord Stafford, a friend of Atherton’s and a decent enough fellow.

  “Stafford?” Robyn bit out.

  The young man shook his head. “Apologies, Sutherland. He’s . . . not on form tonight. Can you just let it go?”

  Robyn could. Not out of any consideration for Atherton, but because he’d now become desperate to get to Lily, and he didn’t want to be delayed by Atherton’s temper tantrum.

  Before he could assure Stafford he’d forget the whole matter, however, Atherton wrenched free of his friends’ grip and lunged for Robyn again. “I had her right where I wanted her, and then you got to her, didn’t you, Sutherland? You made her change her mind!”

  He grabbed Robyn by the throat, but this time Robyn saw him coming and he was ready. He slammed his fists under Atherton’s elbows and Atherton’s hands dropped away from his neck. Before he could recover, Robyn smashed a fist into his face. Blood spurted from Atherton’s nose and splattered all over Robyn’s white cravat.

  Damn, it was satisfying to feel Atherton’s nose crumple under his fist.

  The blow should have laid Atherton flat, but he was like a man possessed. He swung a fist at Robyn, aiming for his eye, but he missed and the blow glanced off Robyn’s jaw.

  Archie, Stafford, and Atherton’s other friend stood by, but none of them tried to stop it now, for it had gone from a brawl to a matter of honor. Most of the men who’d gathered to watch Atherton lose his fortune had followed him out of the hell, now eager to see him lose a tooth, or worse.

  “He’s a big ’un, that one,” said one of them, nodding at Robyn. “Looks a bit dicked in the nob, too. I’ll take a wager on ’im.”

  A shout went up as men scrambled to lay wagers on the outcome of the fight. The noise swelled to life around him, but Robyn paid no attention. The blood from the gash on his head flowed steadily into his eyes now, obscuring his vision, but he ignored it, his gaze focused on Atherton.

  Atherton circled, waiting for an opening. “You said something to her, Sutherland. I know you did. I saw the way you looked at her. You said something to her to make her refuse me.”

  Robyn dropped his fists in astonishment. “She refused you?”

  Right there, in the midst of a brawl, blood streaming down his face, Robyn smiled.

  That smile seemed to infuriate Atherton, who took immediate advantage of Robyn’s inattention and landed a blow to his ribs that made Robyn’s breath seize in his lungs. “You know damn well she did, fo
r you talked her into it. Want her money for yourself, no doubt.”

  Robyn coughed some air into his abused lungs and let out a wheezing laugh. “Atherton, you bloody fool. She doesn’t have two farthings to rub together.”

  Atherton took a wild swing at Robyn’s face, but his fist flew wide. “You’re the fool, Sutherland. Do you imagine Lady Chase hasn’t dowered her precious granddaughter? Who do you think will inherit all the Chase money when she dies, if not Miss Somerset and her sisters?”

  All the blood rushed to Robyn’s head then. His ears roared with it. He thought of Lily, so beautiful in every way. Atherton had come so close to having that perfect creature for his own, and all this time he’d wanted Lily for her money?

  When Robyn thought how close she’d come to marrying the bastard, he wanted to pummel Atherton to the ground and keep pummeling him until he became indistinguishable from the street under their feet.

  Archie appeared equally incensed. “You greedy bastard. What need have you for any woman’s money? Isn’t your own fortune enough for you?”

  “It’s gone,” Stafford said quietly. “His entire fortune’s been lost at the hazard table.”

  The heiresses . . . it made such perfect sense, Robyn was stunned he hadn’t worked it out before now. Atherton had spent most of the season on the heels of one heiress after another because he’d emptied the family coffers.

  The roar in Robyn’s ears became deafening. “You’d have dragged her into disgrace along with you, wouldn’t you, Atherton? Thank God she came to her senses before she agreed to marry you. She deserves far, far better.”

  “Better? What, Millicent Chase’s daughter? I think not. Why else would I choose to court her? She’d be lucky to have me, penniless or not. Though she is delicious, I’ll grant you that. I confess I regret I won’t get the chance to toss up her skirts.”

  A red haze clouded Robyn’s vision. He was going to kill Atherton.

  He lunged forward with a snarl and seized the neck of Atherton’s coat. “Don’t ever talk about touching her again.”

  Robyn’s voice had gone soft and deadly, but Atherton was too incensed to hear the menace there. Instead of heeding it, he plunged forward. “Perhaps it’s just as well she did refuse me, for you’ve no doubt already had her.”