The following morning

“Newbury’s got his eye on a new one.”

Luhan opened one eye to look at his cousin Kai, who was sitting across from him, eating a pie-like substance that even from across the room smelled revolting. His head was pounding---too much champagne the night before---and he decided he liked the room better dark.

He closed his eye.

“I think he’s serious this time,” Kai said.

“He was serious the last three times,” Luhan replied, directing the comment to the insides of his eyelids.

“Hmm, yes,” came Kai’s voice. “Bad luck for him. Death, elopement, and what happened with the third?”

“Showed up at the altar with child.”

Kai chuckled. “Maybe he should have taken that one. At least he would have known she was fertile.”

“I suspect,” Luhan replied, shifting his position to better accommodate his long legs on the sofa, “that even I am preferable to some other man’s bastard.” He gave up on trying to find a comfortable position and heaved both legs over the arm, letting his feet dangle over the side. “Difficult though it is to imagine.”

He thought about his uncle for a few moments, then attempted to him from his mind. The Earl of Newbury always put him in a bad mood, and his head hurt enough already as it was. They’d always been at odds, uncle and nephew, but it hadn’t really mattered until a year and a half earlier, when Luhan’s cousin Geoffrey had died. As soon as it had become apparent that Geoffrey’s widow was not increasing, and that Luhan was the heir presumptive to the earldom, Newbury hurried himself off to London to search for a new bride, declaring that he would die before he allowed Luhan to inherit.

The earl, apparently, had not noticed the logistical inconsistencies of such a statement.

Luhan thus found himself in an odd and precarious position. If the earl could find a wife and sire another son---and, the Lord knew, he was trying---then Luhan was nothing but another of London’s fashionable yet untitled gentlemen. If, on the other hand, Newbury did not manage to reproduce, or worse managed only daughters, then Luhan would inherit four houses, heaps of money, and the eighth most ancient earldom in the land.

All of this meant that no one knew quite what to do with him. Was he the marriage mart’s grandest catch or just another fortune hunter? It was impossible to know.

It was all just too amusing. To Luhan’s mind, at least.

No one wanted to take a chance that he might not become the earl, and so he was invited everywhere, always an excellent circumstance for a man who liked good food, good music, and good conversation. The debutantes flittered and fluttered around him, providing endless entertainment. And as for the more mature ladies---the ones who were free to take their pleasure where they chose…

Well, more often than not, they chose him. That he was beautiful was a boon. That he was an excellent lover was delicious. That he might eventually become the Earl of Newbury…

That made him irresistible.

At present, however, with his aching head and queasy stomach, Luhan was feeling exceedingly resistible. Or if not that, then resistant. Aphrodite herself could descend from the ceiling, floating on a bloody clamshell, but for a few well-placed flowers, and he’d likely puke at her feet.

No, no, she ought to be completely . If he was going to prove the existence of a goddess, right here in this room, she was damned well going to be .

He’d still puke on her feet, though.

He yawned, shifting his weight a little more onto his left hip. He wondered if he might fall asleep. He had not slept well the night before (champagne) or the night before that (nothing in particular), and his cousin’s sofa was as good a spot as any. The room wasn’t so bright as long as he kept his eyes closed, and the only sound was Kai’s chewing.

The chewing.

It was remarkable how loud it sounded, now that he’d stopped to think on it.

Not to mention the stench. Meat pie. Who ate meat pie in front of someone in his condition?

Luhan let out a groan.

“Sorry?” Kai said.

“Your food,” Luhan grunted.

“Do you want some?”

“God no.”

Luhan kept his eyes closed but he could practically hear his cousin give a shrug. There would be no tender mercies tossed in his direction this morning.

So Newbury was panting after another brood-mare. Luhan supposed he shouldn’t be surprised. Hell he wasn’t surprised. It was just that---

It was just that---

Well, hell. He didn’t know what it was. But it wasn’t nothing.

“Who is it this time?” he asked, because it wasn’t as if he was completely uninterested.

There was a pause, presumable so that Kai could swallow his food, and then: “Vicker’s granddaughter.”

Luhan considered that. Lord Vickers had several granddaughters. Which made sense, as he and Lady Vickers had had something approaching fifteen children of their own. “Well, good for her,” he grunted.

“Have you seen her?” Kai asked.

“Have you?” Luhan countered. He’d arrived in town late for the season. If the girl was new this year, he wouldn’t know her.

“Country-bred, I’m told, and so fertile that birds sing when she draws near.”

Now that deserved an open eye. Two, as a matter of fact. “Birds,” Luhan repeated in a flat voice. “Really.”

“I thought it was a clever turn of phrase,” Kai said, a touch defensively.
With a small groan, Luhan heaved himself up into a sitting position that he’d been in before. “And how, if the young lady is the snow-white I’m sure Newbury insists upon, might one gauge her fecundity?”

Kai shrugged. “You can just tell. Her hips…” His hands made some sort of odd motion in the air, and his eyes began to acquire a glazed expression. “And her s…” At this he practically shuddered, and Luhan wouldn’t have been surprised if the poor buy started to drool.

“Control yourself, Kai,” Luhan said. “You are reclining on Taeyeon’s newly upholstered sofa, if you recall.”

Kai shot him a peevish look and went back to the food on his plate. They were sitting in the drawing room of Sir Baekhyun and Lady Taeyeon, where the two men could frequently be found. Kai was Baekhyun’s brother, and thus lived there. Luhan had come over for breakfast. Baekhyun’s cook had recently changed her recipe for coddled eggs, with delicious results. (More butter, Luhan suspected; everything tasted better with more butter.) He hadn’t missed a breakfast at La Casa de Valantine for a week.

Besides, he liked the company.

Baekhyun and Taeyeon---who, incidentally, were not Spanish; Luhan simply enjoyed saying “La Casa de Valantine”---were off in the country for a fortnight, presumably in an attempt to escape Luhan and Kai. The two men had immediately degenerated into their bachelor ways, sleeping past noon, bring luncheon into the drawing room, and hanging a dartboard on the back of the door to the second guest bedroom.

Luhan was currently ahead, fourteen games to three.

Sixteen games to one, actually. He’d felt sorry for Kai halfway through the tournament. And it had made things more interesting. It was harder to lose realistically than it was to win. But he’d managed. Kai hadn’t suspected a thing.

Game eighteen was to be held that evening. Luhan would be there, of course. Really, he’d all but moved in. He told himself it was because someone had to keep an eye on young Kai, but the truth was…

Luhan gave his head a mental shake. That was truth enough.

He yawned. Lord, he was tired. He didn’t know why he’d had so much to drink the night before. It had been ages since he’d done so. But he had gone to bed early, and then he couldn’t sleep, and then he got up, but he couldn’t write because---

No because. That had been damned irritating. He just couldn’t write. The words hadn’t been there even though he’d left his poor heroine hiding under a bed. With the hero in the bed. It was to be his most risqué scene yet. One would think it’d be easy, just from the novelty of it.

But no. Miss Spencer was still under the bed, and her Scotsman was still on it, and Luhan was no closer to the end of chapter twelve than he’d been last week.

After two hours of sitting at his desk staring at a blank sheet of paper, he’d finally given up. He couldn’t sleep and he couldn