Maximilian grimaced, and avoided nodding for the sake of his head. “I do not suppose he left me any laudanum? For the pain?”
“He did not.” Mallen opened his book and puffed his pipe, unperturbed. “One does not give laudanum to people with head injuries such as yours, my friend.”
Maximilian closed his eyes and muttered a curse. “How about some wine?”
“He made no comment regarding that, so I will presume that is not on his forbidden list. He did say you were to eat if you felt hungry.”
Maximilian thought about his queasy stomach and barely avoided shaking his head in negation “No. Not right now. Was the rabbit stew good?”
“I cannot tell you,” Mallen replied, his right brow arched. “Your illustrious stepmother declared that she would not eat such and ordered the cook to feed the rabbits to the hounds. I am sure the hounds thought they were delicious. Thus, in your absence, I was forced to dine in absolute silence, for neither of them spoke a word to me.”
“Where is the wine?”
“Why I do believe it is right here.” Edmund stood up and repeated the book and pipe placement. “I also will join you in a glass if I may.”
Walking to a sideboard, he poured rich red wine into glasses and returned bearing them full to the brim. Maximilian half-rose, wincing when his head protested, and pulled the pillows up in order to lean against them. He accepted his glass and sipped as Mallen fastidiously picked up his pipe and book again before sitting down.
“Your illustrious stepmother –”
“Stop calling her that.”
Mallen’s brow rose. “Then, dear boy, what should I call her?”
A rather unsavory word hovered at Maximilian’s lips, but even he would not call Augusta that, much less ask his friend to do so. “How about call her the Duchess as I do.”
“Very well then, the Duchess swept in earlier while you were still unconscious. I do not feel she came by to see for herself if you were going to be all right.”
“She would not. I would think she visited in the hopes she would find me dying.”
“What is it between you? She married your father when you were quite young, yet she has no motherly feelings for you. Nor do you regard her as your mother.”
Maximilian tried a shrug as he drank more wine, and his head bore it reasonably well. “I can barely recall it,” he said slowly, “I seem to remember she did care for me at first. Then after Wilmot was born, it changed.Shechanged. After that, she could barely tolerate me; thus I returned the favor.”
“Ah, well, nothing lost, I expect. Some high-born women do not have many maternal instincts.”
Maximilian grunted. “The only thing that matters to her is her position in society.”
“Not even her son?”
“She may have a bit of love for him somewhere in that stone she calls a heart,” Maximilian replied sourly. “But she keeps the poor boy so badly squashed under her thumb he cannot move.”
“Pity.”
“He never laughs, never smiles,” Maximilian added, “he is more repressed than a cloistered monk.”
“Again, that is surely a pity. For how can one get through life without some joy and laughter?”
The wine settled his outraged stomach, and even his head quieted a fraction. Deciding a change of subject was in order, Maximilian asked, “You will come to the ball she is planning, correct?”
“I would not miss it for the world, my dear chap. I am dying to meet the woman you are destined to marry.”
Maximilian’s mouth twisted until he caught the glimmer of ironic humor in Mallen’s grey eyes. “You are a rogue.”
“I have been called worse.” Mallen continued to drink his wine and watch Maximilian over the rim. “Sometimes I believed the names I am called are in truth compliments.”
“Yes, I have heard some of them,” Maximilian said dryly, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. “I would call them compliments as well.”
Between the heady wine on an empty stomach and his head, Maximilian soon grew drowsy. He and Mallen talked on for a time, but when Maximilian almost spilled the last bit of wine on the sheets, Mallen stood and took the glass from him.
