The Devilish Montague Read Free

idea after I’ve cleared my head.” To hell with doctor’s orders. He’d ridden sedately earlier, but at the moment, he needed a bruising fight or a punishing ride.
    “You’ll leave without telling your family farewell?” Nick lifted his golden-brown eyebrows skeptically.
    Damn and blast. If he bade them farewell, they’d flutter and protest and ultimately wouldn’t let him leave at all. But sneaking away wasn’t an option. Setting down his glass, he stalked out. Agreeing to this house party had been a huge mistake. Only the presence of Castlereagh had tempted him out of his usual lairs.
    To compound his annoyance, his father was waiting for him at the bottom of the stairs. As much as Blake’s overprotective family nettled him, he could not return their benevolence with disrespect. It irritated him that they did not recognize he was a grown man of nearly thirty, but he could not change his parents. Nor, he privately conceded, would he wish to.
    “Your mother and I would like to speak with you,” the baron said affably, catching his son’s elbow and steering him toward the ladies’ parlor.
    “I will not become a vicar,” Blake warned, anticipating a much-argued subject.
    Portly, balding, and half a head shorter than his youngest son, the baron did not respond to this opening volley. “I’ve had a bit of good luck at the tables. Your mother and I have discussed this for some months, and we thought perhaps we could put the prize to good use.”
    Blake had long since given up hope that his superstitious mother would allow money to pass into his hand. She was violently opposed to his joining the army, which is what she knew he would do if he could afford an officer’s colors. She had wished for her youngest son to stay in Shropshire as a rural vicar and marry a local girl to provide her with more grandchildren to dandle on her knee. Blake’s bachelor freedom in London was a severe disappointment to her. His penchant for sport horrified her.
    “Mother.” Entering the parlor, he greeted Lady Montague with a nod, noting that even his unmarried sister, Frances, had been excluded from this tête-à-tête. Seeing his spinster sister matched with some respectable bachelor was the presumed reason they had attended the house party.
    With resignation, Blake prepared himself for the onslaught of pleas to cease his careless existence and knuckle down to family duty.
    “Oh, you’re limping!” Lady Montague cried. “Your leg must still be hurting. Sit, sit, why aren’t you in bed by now?” His mother gestured at the cushion beside her on the love seat.
    Blake waited for his father to take the big chair beside the fireplace, then leaned a hip against a writing desk and crossed his arms. His chances of escape were better if he did not make himself comfortable.
    “It is not even midnight, and my leg will heal better if I stand,” he said in answer to his mother’s admonishments. “I’ll be leaving in the morning, so I trust you’ll enjoy the rest of the house party.”
    “Oh, no, no, you cannot leave yet!” Lady Montague cried. “You must hear us out, then stay. There might be dancing! Are you set on breaking my heart?”
    Having heard this plaintive cry since childhood, Blake managed to withstand it. “I hardly believe dancing appropriate on one good leg,” he said dryly.
    “Oh, dear, of course not, but we have had the most interesting conversation with Lady Belden. You must meet—”
    “Perhaps we should explain our intent first,” the baron suggested with good humor. He clasped his hands across the waistcoat straining over his belly and regarded his son with the fondness that always made Blake feel like a guilty child. “I cannot enjoy watching your mother fret over your well-being. Since being tossed from Oxford over the contretemps with the dean, you’ve been involved in three duels that I know of, nearly broken your neck racing horses across country, fought against some of the toughest pugilists