Page 61 of Once Upon a Midnight Dream

Merrivale chuckled at his own jest as he wrinkled his nose as if sniffing fresh manure or rotted fish.

“Zounds man, if I had your means, I assuredly would not soil my hands or sully my reputation by engaging in menial service.” Merrivale’s lip curled upward in derision. “Where is your pride?”

The viscount was such an elitist that it was a wonder the man deemed to wipe his own bum.

As for Layton’s pride, much of the overrated emotion had vanished when his wife had tried to kill him and then ran off with one of his closest friends.

Lilly narrowed her eyes, annoyed sparks shooting from the chocolate irises at Merrivale’s string of insults.

What was worse, the self-important coxcomb had no idea how offensive he was.

She curled her fingers around a bronze inkwell as if considering whether to lob it at Merrivale’s head.

Layton did not blame her.

“It is all a matter of perspective, is it not?” Layton shrugged and cleared his throat, eager to turn the focus from himself until he spoke with Lilly about his regained memory.

And that he was most certainly not married.

Not anymore.

In fact, he was a widower.

A pulse of excitement tunneled through him.

He was free to court Lilly.

At one time, Merrivale’s insensitive prattling would have raised Layton’s ire, but today, the barbs bounced off before they could prick him.

“I thought you were living abroad, Merrivale.” Layton cupped his nape when what he wanted to do was rub his throbbing temples. “I seem to remember Leonidas mentioning he had seen you during his travels. In Morocco, I believe?”

Merrivale’s jollity dissipated, and bleakness etched his features.

“My father died a few months ago,” he said. “Alas, my life as a wanderer has ended, and I must take up the viscountcies’ mantle with all its duties and encumbrances.”

While Merrivale had always relished the privileges afforded to a peer’s only son, the rapscallion had shirked any responsibilities with a remarkable astuteness.

Until now.

Peculiar, this sudden attentiveness to duty.

Almost as if something beyond self-interest motivated the chap.

That would be a first.

“My sincere condolences, Merrivale.”

One of eight siblings, Layton could not fathom the loneliness an only child experienced when his remaining parent died.

Folding her hands, Lilly murmured, “Mine as well, your lordship.”

As if he had forgotten she existed, Merrivale glanced over his shoulder toward her. “Yes, and unlike my sire, I take the title seriously.”

Since when?

Merrivale had rarely returned to England after his tour of the continent, preferring to whore and gamble his way across Europe and beyond. This sudden commitment to the viscountcy smelled to high heaven.

Something was too smoky by far.