Jo Beverley - [Malloren] Read Online Free

lost all taste for this sort of thing. He wondered if his brother was feeling the same way.
    When they arrived at Malloren House, he couldn’t stop himself following Rothgar up and into his handsome suite of rooms. He knew common sense and a host of excellent servants would take care of him, but he had to follow. Rothgar raised his brows, but didn’t throw him out as he stripped off his ruined shirt. There were, in truth, only small cuts and scratches. The worst was the slash across the shoulder, and that wasn’t deep.
    Bryght began to get his brain back. “So,” he said, “do you think that was one rash man, or a plot?”
    Stripped down to drawers, his brother was washing. “If it was a plot, I assume they will try again. It will be informative to see how.”
    “Again? Plague take it, you can’t just wait for the next attack.”
    “How do you suggest I prevent it? Nor would I wish to. I prefer to have any murderous enemy flushed out of cover and dealt with.” Rothgar toweled dry and issued crisp commands about bandages and clothes. “You take an interest in mathematics. One point tells us nothing. Three should pin down the source.”
    “Next time it might be poison, or a pistol in the dark.”
    His brother sat so his barber could dress the wound on his shoulder. “I do my best to guard against such things.”
    “Even so—”
    “Heaven save me from newly hatched family men!” Rothgarturned sharply toward him. “It can be the only explanation for all this fussing. Nothing is particularly changed, Bryght. Except you.”
    The barber patiently shifted to work from the new angle.
    To hell with it, Bryght thought. He’d have the discussion he’d been seeking. “My circumstances
have
changed,” he said, passing the ruby signet back to his brother. “Having found domestic comfort, I quake at the prospect of having to take up your responsibilities.”
    “I will do my best to spare you that fate until you are far too old to care.”
    “Can you spare Francis, too?”
    He was referring to his son. For a telling pause, Rothgar concentrated on sliding the ring back onto his right hand, then on flexing his bandaged shoulder and nodding his approval. At a murmur from the barber, he turned again and the man began to shave him.
    Bryght’s jaw tensed. The issue here was marriage—Rothgar’s marriage and siring of a son and heir—and his brother was warning him off. Because Rothgar’s mother had gone mad, he had resolved not to continue that tainted blood in the line. It had always been understood that Bryght or one of his brothers, sons of a different mother, would produce future generations of Mallorens.
    The subject was forbidden, but Bryght couldn’t take the warning this time. As soon as the barber put down the razor and began to wipe away traces of soap, he demanded, “Well?”
    Rothgar rose to put on the shirt and breeches offered by junior valets. “Perhaps one day high rank and power will be your son’s delight.”
    “And if it isn’t?”
    “He will, I assume, be trained to do his duty anyway.” The exquisitely embroidered gray silk waistcoat came next, and a valet set to fastening the long line of chased silver buttons.
    Bryght was sweating as if he was in fact engaged in a duel.
    He had long accepted his place as Rothgar’s heir. Growing up the son of a marquess, he had willy-nilly learned a great deal about the business, and Rothgar had insisted that helearn more. Though unwilling, he was capable of taking up the burden if necessary.
    When he had married last year, he’d accepted that his eldest son would one day inherit the marquisate. Now, however, that theoretical heir was a nine-month-old child with copper curls and a beloved smile. Francis, whom Bryght and Portia wanted to grow up free to explore the whole of this exciting modern world. How was Francis to shape a life of his own, yet be ready to take on awesome responsibilities tomorrow, or next year, or forty years from now?
    Or