Teasing Your Wicked Heart

CHAPTER 23

Anthony has risen from slumber late in the afternoon after he had enjoyed himself a glass too many of his aged whiskey the evening before. Thankfully, he wasn't suffering a blindingly stifling headache. He has come to appreciate the mild numbness that clouded his brain, momentarily giving him some peace as his valet affixed pristine clothing on his back.

He walked languidly towards the breakfast parlor, relishing the loud echoing footsteps within the silence of the halls. The advantage and disadvantage of rising late to break one's fast was this feeling of solitude and dining in isolation.

After taking a proper meal, he mused that he would have the energy to write an especially long letter to Mr. Collins to urge him to meet with him and relay whatever news he had already uncovered.

Anthony enjoyed his meal in silence, getting little of the sunlight that entered through the windows. He dabbed his mouth with a folded napkin, pausing with a distant look on his eyes as his hand moved on its own volition to stroke his chin, subtly assessing the clean shave given to him by his valet. Mr. Collins should have answers for him now. It's been a few weeks, or has it been months? Anthony wasn't sure how long he had been disconcerted, but it surely felt like an eternity.

Snapping out of his reverie, Anthony quickly stood and with wide purposeful strides moved to his study.

Just before reaching for the door jamb, Lady Killsworth intercepted him. She reminded him of tomorrow evenings' supper party, where unlike the other parties which he had snubbed, this required him of his presence, and necessitate him to be in especially good behavior.

He nodded and moved past her, surprised that she stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"Anthony, you must not take these things lightly." She warned him, blue orbs frozen as ice.

His mother was always determined to think the worst of him. "I assure you..."

"I know you kissed her." Her voice almost sounded like a threat. "I can see it in the way she moves around you. If you are the gentleman I raised you to be, you would cease your uncouth ministrations and leave her be." She swiftly withdrew her hand as Anthony tugged his arm away from her, feeling the burn of her words where her hand had been resting.

Anthony had never been moved to violence, especially in the presence of family. But he wanted to hit the wall next to his mother so damned much that his knuckles turned white on rolled fists. "I'm sure you don't know what you're talking about." Uncouth ministrations?

His mother rolled his eyes. "You may chase any tail you like, bed any willing woman, just allow Sarah Jane peace to evaluate her options in clarity. If she becomes a pariah, becomes shelved, what would become of her when the title is relinquished?"

Regret and resentment pooled in his belly, drowning his poor trembling heart. His mother was determination to make him to be the very worst of rakes. A rogue incapable of feeling, even when he had denied every accusation society has thrown at him. Would it kill his mother to save a little respect for him?

He was a scoundrel yes, but wasn't every gentleman in his youth eager for a wicked reputation if only to have legions of women to swoon over them?

"My lady," he drawled, emphasizing that his temper had reached his limit. "if her intention is to marry the dying Lord Holt, she would have been bloody engaged by now." Pausing for an indrawn breath, he continued, "I am not about to stay away unless she tells me herself."

Dismissively, he walked away from his mother, his anger dissolving into a cesspool of hurt and disappointment.

Anthony rounded a corner, forgetting that he was supposed to enter his study for today's agenda. His head hung low as thoughts of the past drifted in hazy images in his mind.