Page 85 of As the Devil Dares

“Do we need an excuse to drop in on our brother?” Quinn shoved himself out of the chair and held out his own glass for a pour.

“Yes.” Especially today, the second worst day of his life. With a grimace, he refilled Quinn’s glass. “Does Mother know you’re here?”

He jerked a thumb toward the front stairs. “She’s up with Annabelle right now, helping her get settled.”

“You brought your wives to London?” Robert glanced across the room at Sebastian, surprised that he’d allow his wife to travel. “In Miranda’s condition?”

“He didn’t,” Quinn answered for him. When Robert pulled the bottle away, Quinn gestured for him to keep filling his glass.

“She’s still in Islingham,” Sebastian explained.

Quinn grinned. “Which is why Seb’s in London.”

Sebastian interjected with a hand going to his heart, “I love my wife.” He defended himself smoothly enough for Robert to suspect that he’d been practicing his answer all the way from Lincolnshire. “She is the light of my life, and not a day goes by that I don’t thank God for her.” Then he blew out a long-suffering sigh and reached for his own glass of cognac as he admitted, “But this pregnancy is going to kill me. She’s laughing one moment, bursting into tears the next—and the food she’s been craving…” He shook his head, a bewildered expression gripping his features. “Who eats salt-cured ham with sweet cream at three in the morning, for God’s sake?”

Robert cast him a knowing look. “So you fled Lincolnshire.”

“Like a scared rabbit,” Quinn laughed.

Sebastian slid a murderous glance at Quinton that only made him grin more broadly, then explained, “I’m here to collect Josephine and bring her home for Miranda’s confinement. And it’s a good thing I arrived when I did, too.” He lined up the cue for his second shot. “There was some misunderstanding among the servants. They thought they’d all been given the night off.”

Robert tensed.

“I said it couldn’t possibly be true,” he continued wryly with forced bafflement. “After all, why would my younger brother clear out the staff from my town house—”

“And his current bachelor’s residence,” Quinn interjected.

“Getting rid of all possible witnesses—”

“If he didn’t have plans to do anything scandalous—”

“Like spend the night with a woman,” Sebastian finished, no amusement on his face as he sank the second ball.

Robert replaced the bottle into the cabinet and dropped into the nearest chair. At times like these, he dearly wished he were an only child.

“I’m not spending the night with a woman,” he corrected. Not a lie, now that Mariah most likely never wanted to be alone with him again.

“I don’t believe him.” Quinn looped his arm over Sebastian’s shoulders and gestured at Robert with his glass. “Do you?”

Sebastian swept his gaze over him from head to boots. “No.”

“He’s lying.”

“Like a rug.”

“Like a lying rug.”

Robert rolled his eyes as a headache began to pound at the base of his skull. Not this. Not them. Not today of all days.

Sebastian laid his cue stick across the table, then leaned back against the railing and stared at Robert with that imperious expression he’d perfected since becoming duke. “You’re a bachelor and entitled to partake, but this isn’t the place to entertain mistresses or widows.”

“I’m not,” he snapped. His brother was unknowingly poking at a raw wound.

Not believing him, Sebastian arched a warning brow at Robert. “As long as it’s not some actress or singer determined to separate you from your blunt.”

“No one’s separating me from anything,” he half growled at their prying.

“Or trap you into marriage.”