A Wild Night's Bride (The Devil DeVere #1)(16)

Ned just grunted. If he couldn’t lose himself in the arms of the one woman he actually wanted, he would drown in a bottle instead.

***

“What the devil? Is he dead? Who is it, Malden?”

“Bedamned if I know, but I think I saw him earlier with DeVere.” The second unfamiliar voice seemed to be attached to the buckled shoe that prodded him in the gut.

Ned groaned.

“Good. Not dead then. Though the poor blighter will likely wish he was soon enough!”

Their laughter rang in his aching head as sharply as a hammer striking an anvil. He tried to move, but his body was too heavy, as if his limbs were weighted with lead or nailed to the ground. His lids fluttered, but the faces above him were unfocused and distorted beyond all recognition.

“Chambers? Ned?” said a third voice he recognized as Freddie Howard, the Earl of Carlisle. “What do you know, Fox, ‘tis our old chum, Ned Chambers.”

“S’pose we can’t just leave him here like this. Shall we take pity on the man?”

“He’s a friend of yours?” asked the first voice. “Then we certainly shan’t leave the poor wretch in the gutter. Let us convey him to Carlton House. ‘Tis only across the square.”

“Are you certain, Your Highness?”

Your Highness?

“Aye. And send for DeVere.”

Ned felt himself lifted, suspended between them as if in a sling. He tried to protest, but only a garbled noise emerged, his mouth unable to form any coherent words. Abandoning the attempt, he gave himself over to oblivion.





CHAPTER SEVEN




Within the hour, DeVere burst into Carlton House where the prince and his coterie, Lords Malden, Carlisle, and Charles Fox, lounged over open bottles and playing cards.

“Five hundred guineas,” said DeVere.

“What?” Fox looked startled. “What the devil are you about, DeVere?”

“I’m prepared to drop five hundred guineas for any of you sods who can come up with a challenge I can’t win. Indeed, let’s make it more interesting—one thousand guineas.”

“Let me get this straight,” Fox said, scratching beneath his wig and setting it askew. “You have come here to propose a wager on some yet unnamed wager?”

DeVere cocked his head with a grin. “I suppose you might say that.”

“And are prepared to drop a thousand? Just like that?” Fox snapped his fingers.

“Precisely,” DeVere said, throwing himself into an empty chair.

“Are you drunk or mad?” Carlisle asked.

“Neither. I’m bored.”

“After a night spent rutting with everything that moves?” Carlisle raised his glass. “I salute you, DeVere.”

At the mention of his friend’s name, Ned raised his head from a mound of satin pillows. DeVere regarded him with a mocking grin. Pulling himself into a sitting position, Ned grimaced as if he’d just suffered the rack. “Where am I?”

“You are at Carlton House,” answered the Prince of Wales. “My new residence.”

“Damme, but ol’ Ned may not be such a dull dog, after all, though he’s demonstrated a pitifully diminished tolerance for drink.” DeVere laughed. “What think you, my sweet?”

***

Ned’s gaze swept the room, settling on the object of his sudden and inexplicable obsession. She approached the chaise longue where he lay with a tentative step. Ned had known her for a beauty, but in this setting, she seemed a veritable angel. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

He read genuine concern in her eyes, or was it pity? What did she see now but a pathetically weak man laid low by drink? He despised himself at that moment. “Never better,” he lied. “Like the proverbial dog’s bollocks.”

A round and ruddy-faced young man barely more than a youth peered into his face. “Yet, I daresay, a bit green about the gills. Shall I have a physician dispatched?”

“Pray, don’t trouble yourself, Your Highness,” DeVere answered for him. “A hair of the rabid dog that bit him should quite do the trick. Care for some kava tea, Ned?” DeVere smirked.

“How did I get here?” Ned asked, still feeling disoriented and decidedly queasy.

“Does it really matter, Ned?” DeVere dismissed the question and turned back to Fox.

***

Phoebe was glad she had retained her domino as she meandered the room, admiring the grand masters and fingering various objets d’art. The Prince of Wales at only one-and-twenty was already a connoisseur, a collector of rare and beautiful things. It was said he had already spent twice what had been allocated to renovate Carlton House, and he was far from finished.

This was, however, the last place she wanted to be—in the prince’s presence. She didn’t know if she was more hurt or relieved that he hadn’t recognized her. Still, she dared not reveal her face for fear of what might be said. She’d suffered enough humiliation at his hand—lost her position, her reputation, her hopes of a husband and family. He’d cast her aside without a second thought. She had only come here out of concern for Ned. When DeVere had received that frustratingly cryptic message about finding him in a gutter, she feared he had been assaulted...or worse. Now reassured of his well-being, she was sorely tempted to slink away and hope that DeVere might call on her again.