Puck, yet another victim of their dear actress mother’s intense admiration for William Shakespeare, replied, lifting his head and squinting through the long, dark blond hair that fell across his face as he commenced staring intently at a brass figurine depicting a scantily clad goddess with six—no, eight—oddly extended and bent arms. At least he probably hoped that was it, because if there were, in reality, only two arms, then he was as drunk as any lord had been in the history of lords. “Twice as drunk as a … a what’s it called? Three wheels, place to pile things. Dirt, stones. Turnips. Wait, wait, I’ll figure it out. Oh, right. A wheelbarrow? That’s it, drunk as a wheelbarrow.”
Beau stared at the half-empty wine bottle he held upright against his chest as he lay sprawled on the matching couch in the drawing room, realizing that he no longer possessed any urge to relieve it of the remainder of its contents. Not if he was still drunk enough to be asking his irreverent and weak-brained brother for answers to anything. Besides, his stomach was beginning to protest, threatening to throw back what had already been deposited in it.
“Still the half-wit, aren’t you, Puck? Wheelbarrows don’t drink. Stands to reason. They don’t have mouths. Remember old Sutcliffe? He once said he was drunk as David’s sow. Don’t know any Davids, do you? One with a sow, remember, that’s the important part. Not enough to know a David. Has to be a sow in there somewhere.”
“David Carney is married to a sow,” Puck said, grinning. “Says so all the time. I’ve seen her, and he’s right. Are we still drunk, do you think? Shouldn’t be, not seeing as it’s light outside those bloody windows over there, and the mantel clock just struck twelve while you were talking sows. Or that might have been eleven. I may have lost count. Or perhaps we’re dead?”
“The way my head is beginning to pound, that might be best, but I don’t think so. Now, back to the point. I’m drunk, you’re drunk. We’re drunk as bastards, surely. But are we as drunk as lords? Can bastards be as drunk as lords?”
“You going to start prattling on again about bastards and lords? Thought we’d done with that by the time we’d cracked the third bottle. Bastards, I have found, can’t be anything as lords,” Puck said, cautiously levering himself upward far enough to swivel about and sit facing his brother. He pushed his hands straight back through his nearly shoulder-length hair, so that he could tuck it behind his ears. “See my ribbon anywhere? It’ll all just keep falling in my eyes otherwise.”
“I could ring for somebody to fetch Sidney. The man owns a scissors, which is more than I can say for your valet.”
“Blasphemy! The ladies would never forgive me. My hair is a necessary part of my considerable charms, don’t you know. If I am to be Puck, then I shall be Puck. Mischievous. A sprite, a magical woodland creature.”
“And none too bright.”
“Ha! So you say. But still, much better-looking and virile, and definitely more amusing. Every maiden’s dream, although I’ve not much time for maidens. They demand so much wooing, and once you’ve finally got them into bed they don’t know what they’re doing. By and large, a dreadful waste of time.”
Beau had also sat up and placed the wine bottle on the floor, next to the table positioned between the pair of couches, so that he could better rub at his aching head. “Is that it? Are you done now? Because there are times I think you’ll never truly grow up. I left and you were a child, and I came back to find you older, yet no wiser.”
Puck merely shrugged, clearly not taking offense at his brother’s words, as a less confrontational fellow would be difficult to locate within the confines of England. “You long for acceptance where there is no acceptance. Brother Jack would spit in the eye of anyone who dared to call him respectable. And I? I applaud myself for my complete indifference to it all. I have more money than any ten men with rich appetites would ever need, thanks to our guilt-ridden father. I have been educated and dressed up and taught to be mannerly, and there is nothing left for me to aspire to than to be happy with my lot. Which, brother mine, I am. Besides, you and Jack are deadly serious enough for all of us. Some one of us should have some fun. You look like hell, by the way. I must remember to give up strong spirits before I reach your age.”
At last, Beau smiled. “You’re only four years my junior, and at thirty I’m far from tottering about with one foot hovering over a grave.” But then he stabbed his fingers through his own thick shock of sun-streaked blond hair. “Although, at the moment, I might consider it. I don’t remember the last time I felt like this. You’re a bad influence, little brother. One might even say noxious. When do you return to France?”
“Hustling me back out the door only a few days after I’ve come through it, and after only a single night’s celebration of my return to the bosom of my wretched family? Papa keeps this great pile for all of us, you know. Why, I might just decide to take up permanent residence in London. Wouldn’t that be fine? Just the two of us, rattling around here together, driving the neighbors batty to know that there are now two Blackthorn bastards in residence rather than just the one. Never be all three, considering Black Jack won’t come within ten miles of the place.”
Beau attempted to straighten his badly wilted cravat. “Oh, he’s been here. Haughty, grumpy, scowling and bloody sarcastic. Don’t wish him back, if you don’t mind. Neither of us would like it.”
“He would have made a fine Marquess, aside from the fact that you’d be first in line. And if our dearest mother had deigned to marry our doting papa. There is still that one other niggling small detail.”
“Jack wouldn’t take legitimacy if someone were to hand it to him on a platter. He likes being an outlaw.”
Puck raised one finely arched eyebrow. “You mean that figuratively, don’t you? Outlaw?”
“God, I hope so. Sometimes, though, I wonder. He lives damn well for a man who refuses our father’s largesse. I’d reject it, as well, if it weren’t for the fact that I do my best to earn my keep, running all of the Blackthorn estates while you fiddle and Jack scowls.”
“Yes, I admit it. I much prefer to gad about, spending every groat I get and enjoying myself to the top of my bent, and feel totally unrepentant about any of it.”
“You’ll grow up one of these days. We all do, one way or another.” Beau got to his feet, deciding he could not stand himself one moment longer if he didn’t immediately hunt out Sidney and demand a hot tub to rid him of the stink of a night of dedicated drinking with Puck.
“He’s lucky with the cards? The dice?” Puck persisted, also getting to his feet, triumphantly holding up the black riband he then employed to tie back his hair.
“I don’t know. I don’t ask. Jack was never one for inviting intimacies. Now come along, baby brother. We need a bath and a bed, the both of us.”
“You might. I’m thinking lovely thoughts about a mess of eggs and some of those fine sausages we had yesterday morning.”
Beau’s stomach rolled over. “I remember when I could do that, drink all night and wake clearheaded and ravenous in the morning. You’re right, Puck. Thirty is old.”
“Now you’re just trying to frighten me. Ho, what’s that? Was that the knocker? Am I about to meet one of your London friends?”
“Acquaintances, Puck. I have no need of friends.”
“Now that is truly sad,” his brother said, shaking his head. “You had friends, surely, during the war?”
“That
