Vice Read Free

entered the library of his house on Albermarle Street.
    “To what do I owe this pleasure, Lucien?” the duke inquired in bland tones, although a flicker of disgust crossed his face. “Escaping your creditors? Or are you simply paying me a courtesy visit?”
    “Lud, such sarcasm, cousin.” Lucien Courtney rose to his feet and surveyed with a mocking insouciance his cousin and the man who’d entered close behind him. “Well, well, and if it isn’t our dear Reverend Courtney as well. What an embarrassment of relatives. How d’ye do, dear boy.”
    “Well enough,” the other man responded easily. He was soberly dressed in gray, with a plain white neck cloth, in startling contrast to the duke’s peacock-blue satin coat, with its gold flogged buttons and deep embroidered cuffs. But the physical resemblance to the duke was startling: thesame aquiline nose and deep-set gray eyes, the same thin, well-shaped mouth, the same cleft chin. However, there the resemblance ended. Whereas Quentin Courtney regarded the world and its vagaries with the gentle and genuine sympathy of a devout man of the cloth, his half brother Tarquin, the Duke of Redmayne, saw his fellow man through the sharp and disillusioned eyes of the cynic.
    “So what brings you to the fleshpots?” Lucien inquired with a sneer. “I thought you’d become an important official in some country bishop’s diocese.”
    “Canon of Melchester Cathedral,” Quentin said coolly. “I’m on my bishop’s business with the Archbishop of Canterbury at the moment.”
    “Oh, aren’t we rising far, fast, and holy,” Lucien declared with a curled lip. Quentin ignored the statement.
    “May I offer you some refreshment, Lucien?” Tarquin strolled to the decanters on the sideboard. “Oh, but I see you’ve already taken care of yourself” he added, noting the brandy goblet in the younger man’s hand. “You don’t think it’s a little early in the morning for cognac?”
    “Dear boy, I haven’t been to bed as yet,” Lucien said with a yawn. “Far as I’m concerned, this is a nightcap.” He put down the glass and strolled to the door, somewhat unsteadily. “You don’t object to putting me up for a few nights?”
    “How should I?” returned Tarquin with a sardonically raised eyebrow.
    “Fact is, my own house is under siege,” Lucien declared, leaning against the door and fumbling in his pocket for his snuffbox. “Damned creditors and bailiffs bangin’ at the door at all hours of the day and night. Man can’t get a decent night’s rest.”
    “And what are you going to sell to satisfy them this time?” the duke asked, pouring madeira for himself and his brother.
    “Have to be Edgecombe,” Lucien said, taking a pinch of snuff. He sighed with exaggerated heaviness. “Terriblething. But I can’t see what else to do … unless, of course, you could see your way to helpin’ a relative out.”
    His pale-brown eyes, burning in their deep sockets like the last embers of a dying fire, suddenly sharpened, and he regarded his cousin with sly knowledge. He smiled as he saw the telltale muscle twitch in Tarquin’s jaw as he fought to control his anger.
    “Well,” he said carelessly. “We’ll discuss it later … when I’ve had some sleep. Dinner, perhaps?”
    “Get out of here,” Tarquin said, turning his back.
    Lucien’s chuckle hung in the air as the door closed behind him.
    “There’s going to be little enough left of Edgecombe for poor Godfrey to inherit,” Quentin said, sipping his wine. “Since Lucien gained his majority a mere six months ago, he’s run through a fortune that would keep most men in luxury for a lifetime.”
    “I’ll not stand by and see him sell Edgecombe,” Tarquin stated almost without expression. “And neither will I stand by and see what remnants are left pass into the hands of Lucien’s pitiful cousin.”
    “I fail to see how you can stop it,” Quentin said in some surprise. “I know poor Godfrey has no more wits