It Happened One Autumn (Wallflowers #2)(24)

“What of her husband’s reaction?” Marcus asked, focusing at once on practical considerations. “Is it likely that he’ll retaliate?”

St. Vincent’s look of disgust deepened. “I doubt it, as he’s twice her age and hasn’t touched his wife in years. He’s not likely to risk challenging me for the sake of her so-called honor. As long as she kept the thing quiet to spare him being labeled as a cuckold, he would have let her do as she pleased. But instead she’s done everything possible to advertise her indiscretion, the little fool.”

Simon Hunt stared at the viscount with calm inquiry. “I find it interesting,” he said softly, “that you refer to the affair as her indiscretion rather than yours.”

“It was,” St. Vincent said emphatically. The lamplight played lovingly over the clever angles of his face. “I was discreet, and she was not.” He shook his head with a world-weary sigh. “I should never have let her seduce me.”

“She seduced you?” Marcus asked skeptically.

“I swear by all I hold sacred…” St. Vincent paused. “Wait. Since nothing is sacred to me, let me rephrase that. You’ll just have to believe me when I say that she was the instigator of the affair. She dropped hints left and right, she began to appear everywhere I went, and she sent messages begging me to visit any time I chose, assuring me that she lived separately from her husband. I didn’t even want her—I knew before I touched her that it was going to be a crashing bore. But it got to the point at which it was bad form to keep refusing her, and so I went to her residence, and she met me na**d in the entrance hall. What was I supposed to do?”

“Leave?” Gideon Shaw suggested with a slight smile, staring at the viscount as if he were an entertaining occupant of the Royal Menagerie.

“I should have,” came St. Vincent’s glum acknowledgment. “But I’ve never been able to reject a woman who wants a tumble. And it had been a damned long time since I’d bedded anyone, at least a week, and I was—”

“A week is a long time to go without bedding someone?” Marcus interrupted, one brow arching.

“Are you going to claim that it’s not?”

“St. Vincent, if a man has time to bed a woman more than once a week, he clearly doesn’t have enough to do. There are any number of responsibilities that should keep you sufficiently occupied in lieu of…” Marcus paused, considering the exact phrase he wanted. “Sexual congress.” A pronounced silence greeted his words. Glancing at Shaw, Marcus noticed his brother-in-law’s sudden preoccupation with knocking just the right amount of ash from his cigar into a crystal dish, and he frowned. “You’re a busy man, Shaw, with business concerns on two continents. Obviously you agree with my statement.”

Shaw smiled slightly. “My lord, since my ‘sexual congress’ is limited exclusively to my wife, who happens to be your sister, I believe I’ll have the good sense to keep my mouth shut.”

St. Vincent smiled lazily. “It’s a shame for a thing like good sense to get in the way of an interesting conversation.” His gaze switched to Simon Hunt, who wore a slight frown. “Hunt, you may as well render your opinion. How often should a man make love to a woman? Is more than once a week a case for unpardonable gluttony?”

Hunt threw Marcus a vaguely apologetic glance. “Much as I hesitate to agree with St. Vincent…”

Marcus scowled as he insisted, “It is a well-known fact that sexual over-indulgence is bad for the health, just as with excessive eating and drinking—”

“You’ve just described my perfect evening, Westcliff,” St. Vincent murmured with a grin, and returned his attention to Hunt. “How often do you and your wife—”

“The goings-on in my bedroom are not open for discussion,” Hunt said firmly.

“But you lie with her more than once a week?” St. Vincent pressed.

“Hell, yes,” Hunt muttered.

“And well you should, with a woman as beautiful as Mrs. Hunt,” St. Vincent said smoothly, and laughed at the warning glance that Hunt flashed him. “Oh, don’t glower—your wife is the last woman on earth whom I would have any designs on. I have no desire to be pummeled to a fare-thee-well beneath the weight of your ham-sized fists. And happily married women have never held any appeal for me—not when unhappily married ones are so much easier.” He looked back at Marcus. “It seems that you are alone in your opinion, Westcliff. The values of hard work and self-discipline are no match for a warm female body in one’s bed.”

Marcus frowned. “There are more important things.”

“Such as?” St. Vincent inquired with the exaggerated patience of a rebellious lad being subjected to an unwanted lecture from his decrepit grandfather. “I suppose you’ll say something like ‘social progress’? Tell me, Westcliff…” His gaze turned sly. “If the devil proposed a bargain to you that all the starving orphans in England would be well-fed from now on, but in return you would never be able to lie with a woman again, which would you choose? The orphans, or your own gratification?”

“I never answer hypothetical questions.”

St. Vincent laughed. “As I thought. Bad luck for the orphans, it seems.”

“I didn’t say—” Marcus began, and stopped impatiently. “Never mind. My guests are waiting. You are welcome to continue this wholly pointless conversation in here, or you may accompany me to the public receiving rooms.”