Riverton, startled to be dismissed so rudely, bowed and said his farewells with due haste.
“Amesbury, are you trying to make an enemy?” Thomas groaned as he took the viscount’s recently vacated seat.
Amesbury raised his brows. “Hardly. I need help and I don’t need Mr. Gossip King hearing.”
Thomas laughed. “You need help? What could you possibly need help with? I’m the one saddled with an American chit who enamored my brother in mere seconds. Just what I need is scandal under my own roof. I’m going to have to conduct nightly bed checks.”
Both his friends burst out laughing, and Thomas narrowed his eyes. “Laugh all you want. Someday I’ll be laughing at the two of you.”
Myles cleared his throat. “Seems you won’t have to wait long. While you and I were gallivanting around America, our good friend, Amesbury here, got himself betrothed.”
“You what?” Thomas blurted out as he leaned forward in his chair. “No, wait. Don’t tell me you fell for the oldest trick in the book. You got some shy, silly, innocent debutante alone in some desolate garden and caused a scandal? Forgive me, but how is that possible if the Season has not even begun?”
Amesbury leaned forward and growled at Thomas, actually growled. “No. It wasn’t a garden; we were out on a veranda. And it was last season. On the night you two supposed friends of mine deserted me. Remember?” He raked his hands through his hair. “Bloody bugger, I don’t know what came over me. One minute I was looking into her amber eyes, and the next thing I knew my lips were upon hers. And if that was not bad enough, when I pulled back, I blurted out the question. And she said ‘yes.’ Just like that. What am I going to do? I don’t want to marry her. We have been betrothed for nearly a year. Time is running out for me.”
“Will somebody tell me who she is?” Thomas demanded, his tone laced with humor.
Myles, who’d been listening, started chuckling until he laughed so hard his shoulders shook and his eyes watered. When Amesbury gave Myles a scathing look, Myles stopped laughing. “I’m sorry. I don’t mean to make fun. It’s just that, bloody hell, it scares me that it could have happened to any one of us. That being said, Wentworth, do you remember the season before last, there was this exquisite-looking debutante who was so shy she stuttered whenever a gentleman approached her? That or she blushed from the top of her head down to the swell of her breasts.”
Myles paused until Thomas nudged him on. “So, do tell. You just described any number of females.”
“Enough, enough, it is Lady Beth,” Amesbury spewed out.
“Ahhh,” Thomas smiled. “If you had said Lady Elizabeth, I would have asked ‘Elizabeth who?’ But Lady Beth, well . . . that explains it. She has always favored you.”
Amesbury looked positively ill.
Thomas signaled for more drink. It was good for him to worry about Amesbury’s problem instead of his own. As he focused on his friend, his mind instantly cleared of the fog plaguing him; his heart beat lighter and the brick lifted off his chest. He breathed in deeply. “She is a lovely girl, if I recall.”
“Yes, well...” Amesbury downed his drink in one swill. “She is. She is also ten and nine and pure.” He leaned closer to his friends and whispered. “It may come as a shock to you both, but I have never deflowered an innocent. The only sexual encounters I have ever had I paid for. What the deuce do I know about a virgin and her needs?”
Thomas almost felt sorry for his friend. “We will all face that dilemma eventually, unless one of us marries a widow or a light skirt of good breeding. When are the happy nuptials to take place?”
Amesbury groaned. “In four months. Please help me get out of this. I am desperate.”
Thomas glanced at Myles, who, unlike his usual smirking self, actually looked sad about his friend’s predicament. Obviously the disclosure had turned his mind to his French lady back in New Orleans. What a trio they made. One friend pined over a married lady an ocean away, another tried to shuck his responsibility to marry a perfectly acceptable young lady, and, he, a duke, was forced to deal with Miss Hamilton––an innocent he lusted after on a daily basis.
“You know what I think, Amesbury?” Thomas began. “I think Lady Beth is an exceptional choice for a bride, and you should resign yourself to your fate.”
“Easy for you to say. You’re not going to be leg-shackled in four months’ time,” Amesbury said as he frowned at the empty glass in his hand.
“Indeed I’m not. But you could think of yourself as lucky because Myles and I still have to find a bride amongst the debutantes that are left.” Thomas picked up his glass in a salute. “You have chosen the diamond among lesser gems.”