“Very,” Dylan agreed, pausing to look at him between a pair of tall marble statues. He lifted one eyebrow. “Well, out with it, man. Am I to know the identity of the lady fair?”
“Lady Sarah Monforth.”
His friend made a sound of disbelief, rolled his eyes, and moved around the statues to pause at a table of bronze and iron weapons. “You jest with me, Tremore. Tell me the truth.”
“Indeed, I am in earnest. However, she is in Paris until Candlemas, and I have not yet proposed, so I ask you to keep my confidence.”
“I am too dismayed to do otherwise. Why on earth would you, of all men, choose to chain yourself to a nitwit?”
“It is a highly desirable alliance.”
“No doubt. Her name was first on the list.” Dylan picked up a bronze knife and studied it for a moment, then placed it back on the table. “Knowing that you abhor the marriage state as much as I, my guess is that you do this strictly for the heir?”
Anthony was becoming irritated. He did not need the meddling of his friends in his affairs. “Do you have a point?”
Dylan looked up and met his gaze. “You will have to bed her,” he said, sounding appalled. “Lady Sarah is one of those beautiful women who haven’t a whit of sensuality.”
“Spoken like a true hedonist. I am making a sensible marriage.”
Dylan’s laughter ricocheted around the domed ceiling overhead. “God, Tremore, I wish I could be you. You are so controlled, so disciplined, so determined that all shall be as you will it. I suppose you have already informed God that you will require at least three sons to ensure the Tremore line?”
Anthony was accustomed to Dylan’s caustic wit, and he refused to be provoked. “It is good to see you, my friend.”
“And you as well, I confess it. We always manage a great deal of amusement whenever you are in town. What shall we do this time? We could go to Seven Dials and smoke opium. I did that a few days ago, and it was an indescribable experience. I shall be inspired to compose five new concertos because of it.”
Anthony knew Dylan probably had smoked opium in Seven Dials. It provided just the sort of danger Dylan craved. He was always doing things like that.
“Or perhaps we should invade the brothels, Tremore, since you have not been so wildly irrational as to fall in love with an actress or elope with the daughter of a chimneysweep since I last saw you. After all, you shall soon marry a woman as erotic as this creature here.” He gestured to the marble statue beside him. “So, shall we go a-whoring tonight?”
For a moment, Anthony was tempted. Perhaps an interlude with a London courtesan was just what he needed to rid himself of the tense, hungry need that raged through his body. After all, if he were skirt-smitten, a demirep could cure him in less than half an hour. “A delicious idea, Moore,” he admitted to his friend, “but I cannot. I have another engagement.”
“Do not be tiresome. I have been attempting to work on a new opera, and I have not had a woman for at least a week.”
Anthony’s hand touched the edge of the fresco laid out on the table and he lowered his face for a closer examination of the fruit bowl. He closed his eyes and caught a hint of gardenia scent. His fancy, he knew. “That long?” he asked, straightening away from the table.
“What is this other engagement you have? Monforth and his family are in residence in Hertfordshire, I believe, not here in London.” He paused as if considering possibilities, then he smiled. “Ah, the lovely Marguerite, I assume?”
Those words brought Anthony to his senses, for he realized he had not seen his mistress for over eight months. God, he hadn’t even thought about her.
“I am not seeing Marguerite,” he said, thinking perhaps he should, for that might return some semblance of order to his distracted mind, but it could not be tonight. “I am having members of the Antiquarian Society to dinner. We have business to discuss regarding the museum. Would you care to join us? I am certain they have never seen anything like you before. I will let you come if you promise not to do anything outrageous such as recite naughty limericks at table.”
Dylan shuddered. “Sit around drinking port with a group of dry, old archaeologists, and try to behave myself? I think not. I would rather be flogged in a public square or drink insipid lemonade with giggling girls at Almack’s.”
“You cannot. They banished you. Lady Amelia, two seasons ago. Remember?”
“Ah, yes, Lady Amelia. I had forgotten that.”
It was Dylan’s refusal to marry Lady Amelia Snowden after kissing her during a waltz in front of over a hundred people that had compelled Lady Jersey and the other grand dames of Almack’s to forbid him from entering that veritable institution for his entire lifetime. Dylan was not wont to weep over it.
“It was only because Lady Amelia slapped your face at once that her reputation was saved,” Anthony pointed out. “That kiss would have ruined her otherwise.”
“I told her to slap me. There was nothing for it. Everyone was staring at us.” Dylan straightened away from the statue and began walking toward the door, the edge of his cloak churning up glimpses of gold silk behind his boot heels. “If you will not come out and chase petticoats with me, I must fend for myself. I believe I shall go to the theater tonight. Abigail Williams is playing in The Rivals . I shall jump down from my box and carry her off the stage.”
“Really, Moore,” Anthony called after his friend, “do you not think you are taking this mad artist charade a bit too far?”
“Is it a charade?” Dylan asked, pausing in the doorway to look at him with an odd smile. “I often wonder. Call on me, Tremore, when you wish to do something amusing.”
Anthony watched his friend vanish through the doorway, and he shook his head. Dylan was a talented, brilliant man, but he seemed to be getting wilder with each passing month. He had not been the same since he’d taken that fall in Hyde Park three years before.
