“Arguing is what I do best, and it pays fucking well. Though not as well as being a duke.” Slinging an arm around my shoulder, he thickens a fake cockney patois. “And let me remind you, as the head of this family, you’re responsible for the bastard son.” He straightens. “In that respect, you’re wrong. I’m always after your wallet.”
“A little louder, Griffin. I believe there are people in the back of the room who didn’t quite hear.”
“Yes, your grace,” he murmurs with faux contrition. “But getting back to my earlier point, it looks like I won’t need to stay here tonight.”
“I wasn’t aware you were.” I wasn’t aware I’d extended the invitation to him. Not that it matters. The Belgravia townhouse is almost large enough to house a platoon of Griffins on short notice. I’d just prefer not to.
“It’s just such a ball ache getting to my chambers from my place, so I thought John could drop me there tomorrow.”
John being my driver. Griffin is just a poor boy who likes to avail himself of the comforts of the family he likes to deny.
“You’re in court tomorrow?” I eye the champagne glass in his hand, which I calculate to be at least the fourth, then remind myself my life and liberty aren’t in his hands.
“No, but I’m meeting a mate at a private club there. Or at least I was. But now I rather think that little morsel will be bringing me coffee in bed.” With his glass, he directs my attention to the other side of the room.
“I will not have you sniffing around the catering staff like a randy dog.”
“But I am a randy dog. Ask any of the women of my acquaintance. And by acquaintance, I mean—”
“Be that as it may, I do not need to read that headline in any of next week’s newspapers.”
“What headline is that?”
“Any headline including your name and the bi-line courtesy of a member of the catering crew.”
“I hardly think my sex life is the stuff of tabloid fodder.”
Maybe. Maybe not. But mine surely is. Newspaper attention is something I do not need. Something our family does not need. “It doesn’t matter,” I answer, changing tack. “They’re just young girls.”
“And I’m suddenly Methuselah, am I?” he says, his attention swinging back.
“You’re old enough to know better.”
“Just because you seem to have taken a vow of celibacy doesn’t mean I’m about to join you,” he answers disparagingly. “Isla said you’d turned into a crusty fucker since your birthday. Stepped out of your dirty thirties and into your no more naughty forties, have you?”
“Isla would’ve said no such thing.” Though I will be asking her just what she said quite soon. So much for family solidarity. If anything, turning forty had the opposite effect. For at least that day. Otherwise, yes, I am a forty-year-old man, a pillar of my community. An employer. A philanthropist. The head of a family that has a lineage going back to the Battle of Hastings. I am the voice of reason. Staid and sober. A duke, for fuck’s sake. I do not kiss strange women in public or feel them up in clubs.
Except on milestone birthdays.
“Our family—” I begin, curling my hands around my glass as I try very hard not to point my finger at him.
“Of which I’m just a fringe member.”
“Our family name does not need to be dragged through the mud.”
“Un-wad your knickers,” he mutters, “I already know her.”
“Who?” So not one of the catering crew or one of the elderly businessmen? George, my assistant, is far too good at his job to send out an invitation to any of Griff’s conquests. My eyes still scan the guests in the room, a room in the London townhouse that was once used as our ancestor’s ballroom. As patron of the charity this gathering is being held for, I could do without the embarrassment of any kind of histrionics.
“That tasty little morsel over there.” And with that, he swaggers across the room in the direction of a small group of matronly types. They seem more like sizeable meals than morsels and definitely not girls.
Each to their own, I suppose. Old, young, small, and tall, they all need loving, I’ve heard Griff intone on more than one occasion. His steps begin to slow as he holds his arms wide, his champagne glass dangling from the fingertips of his right hand. Keen to avoid knowledge of any part of his idiocy, I begin to turn away. My movement is barely realised as I register the distaste on those matrons’ expressions, quickly followed by their relief as Griffin makes a detour, seemingly following a petite brunette out of the room. My jaw tenses. Fuck, if it isn’t one of the catering crew he’s chasing, judging by her appearance. White blouse, black skirt, her hair tied back in a neat bun, the strings of an apron tied in a bow at her back.
I don’t know why I expected better of him. A case of hope over experience, I suppose as I watch him begin to pick up his pace, chasing someone who is, no doubt, completely unsuitable out of the room.
Fucking Griffin. He likes to maintain he’s not family, yet he behaves like the perfect parody of the aristocratic second son harassing the maids. Like his father and his grandfather before him. The frilly aprons the servers are wearing certainly lend themselves to the comparison. I make a mental note to remind George to ensure the catering company doesn’t use them again.
“Thank you,” I murmur as McCain, my butler, exchanges my champagne glass for a fresh one.
“Your grace?” he questions, his gaze following mine.
“The girl. I don’t suppose you know who she is?” I ask as something begins to tug at the edges of my consciousness, though what I’m not sure. I feel unsettled, and it’s more than just annoyance at Griffin’s behaviour.
“I can ask the duty manager, if you’d like.”
“No, that won’t be necessary.” I consider the champagne in my hand, trying to push away the feeling. Was there something about the shape of the server’s departing silhouette that seemed familiar? Or perhaps it was in the sway of her hips.
I stifle a sigh, pondering how with each passing day, that night seems less and less real. She seems less and less real. Of course, I didn’t imagine it, but I have perhaps embellished the experience. Gilded the rose, so to speak, because she couldn’t have been all that I imagined. Her eyes couldn’t have been as mischievous as they seemed, and she was just a brunette, not a woman whose hair reminded me of autumn fields. No, it can’t all have been real. And maybe that’s why she haunts me in my dreams, coming to me, whispering promises only to make me wake as hard as a steel post and alone.
“If it helps, I do know she sounds American.”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand like pins.
No. I’m being ridiculous.
It can’t be her. It can’t be Holland.
Can it?
Pushing the glass back to McCain, I follow my brother out of the room.
9
Holly
“Hey, have you seen Mo?” Stopping in front of a girl dressed in an identical outfit, I effectively block her passage going the opposite way.
“Probs out by the van,” Dana replies as she skirts around me, expertly balancing the tray of empty champagne flutes she’s carrying up the stairs.