Page 15 of My Cruel Duke

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The cold night air was exactly what Rhysand needed. A cold bath would have been more sufficient, but he could not for the life of him spend one more second in the house withherin there, all heated up. It had taken all his restraint not to lay her flat on the table and bury himself inside her until she shouted his name.

Hell and damnation!

The short journey toWhite’sdid enough to clear his mind off hiswife. His wife.

The familiar stench of smoke and whiskey welcomed him, and an exasperated sigh escaped his lips. He had not been in the gentlemen’s club in months as he had planned to focus on his revenge plan against Wilson Hislop. How ironic that it was his enemy’s daughter that sent him back to it.

The room was packed with people, as usual, most in different stages of drunkenness. A young man approached him, and he stilled, watching as the insolent man placed his hands on his shoulders and smiled. He was thoroughly drunk. He pushed the man aside but stared at him in longing.

“I see now how right people are to call you the cruel Duke! You are indeed cruel, terrible, and unfeeling!”

He had heard people refer to him as the cruel duke countless times before. He was not sure at what point in time the Ton addressed him as that. No, he knew; it had been shortly after his family was massacred when they spread rumors that an insane little boy had killed his family, but he had not minded it. That was, of course, until Penelope did. For some reason, she said the word with such contempt as though she had never experienced cruelty before. Before him.

It is one of the reasons I offered to help her. She is a naive woman with an impudent tongue. A dangerous combination.

He seated himself in the next empty chair he sighted and nailed his elbows to the old wooden table. A footman approached him with a small smile. Tired lines marred his face, but his smile stayed intact, receptive even. Just like his wife’s.

What in the devil was he thinking about?

“What can I get you, Your Grace?” his voice was rough.

“Whiskey.”

“Anything more with it?” It was an innocent question, but it somehow made him mad. If he wanted something to go with his whiskey, he would ask for it. He held back his foul tongue. The footman was not the cause of his frustration, and it would be a waste to exchange words with him when he was merely doing his job. He shook his head, and he disappeared into the crowd of people.

The footman must have noticed the turmoil in his eyes, for when he returned, with him was a bottle of whiskey and a glass. He served it on the table and left quickly. Truly, a glass would not have sufficed. Two glasses in, and Penelope’s angry eyes stared at him from his mind’s eye. He sighed.

She was full of raw emotion and passion. He knew more than anyone that a woman like her deserved to be loved properly. Deeply. She was too pure and full of light to be tainted by a dark and broken man like him. He could give her pleasure, but that was all he could offer. A dark void lounged where his heart was supposed to be, rendering him incapable of an emotion other than fury. One could not give what they did not have.

“Your Grace?” A masculine voice called out. Lazily, Rhysand raised his head to the man who stood at his table.

“I suspected you were the one. I had to come to check for myself.” Another jolly person. Lord Angleton. “May I join you?” The lean man asked but sat down without a response from Rhysand. His brows drew into a frown. All he wanted was a little time to himself, but it seemed that was a luxury.

“Fancy seeing you here.” The smiling marquess leaned closer.

“Likewise.”

“I gather you are not in a great mood.”

If he knows that, why is he still seated?

“A gentleman should never drink alone.”

Rhysand raised a perfect brow.

“It is something my father used to say.”

His father must have had a knack for evading other’s privacy.

“Sounds like a sweet man.” If Lord Angleton picked up the sarcasm, he did not comment on it.

Philip Keats, Marquess of Angleton, was a man of many trades who had been Rhysand’s friend when they were little boys. That little time when he had a family: a father, a mother, a sister. Before the calamity that changed his life occurred. Rhysand liked Philip and would always urge his parents to let them play together. Rhysand was not the same as he was all those years ago, but for some divine reason, Philip saw him as the same and always tried to make small talk.

His green eyes peered at him in the little light in the club.

“Tell me, what brings you here?”