A diamond-and-emerald betrothal ring—returned to him by the lady he once loved.
A bruised and battered heart—mercilessly abused.
Wasted years in pursuit of a woman who would never care for him the way he cared for her—never to be regained.
That was all Tom, Viscount Sidmouth, had left from his disastrous attempt to win Nell, Lady Needham, from the husband she had sworn she no longer loved. The abridged version of their tragedy was that Nell still loved Needham, and the two of them were likely shagging like rabbits in the country. Meanwhile, he was stuck here, in London, staring at the shadows on the ceiling and listening to the din of vice coming from his neighbor’s home.
What a pathetic arse he was.
The hour was late, and Tom ought to be sleeping. Indeed, he would have been asleep by now, were it not for the noise emanating from the townhome next door to his. Raucous laughter was spilling from the windows. Music, too.
His bedchamber faced the damned ballroom of his inconsiderate new neighbor. Never, in all the years he had spent the Season in London had such a seemingly inconsequential fact of architecture mattered. Not until gouty old Lord Allesford had declared the London air a plague to his lungs. He had recently packed up his entire household and moved all to Nottinghamshire, leasing his handsome Grosvenor Square home to a disreputable baggage just arrived from the country.
A widow, he had learned from the dowager Lady Sterling, who insisted upon calling on him every Wednesday for tea. Tom rather thought she fancied him, though she was of an age with Grandmère.
A widow who had been throwing parties and causing mayhem ever since she had arrived with her ridiculous barking dog a fortnight ago. Yes, even her mutt caused disturbances, which was fitting. There had not been a single quiet moment since her arrival.
Tom despised her.
He despised her more than he loathed himself, and that was rather saying a lot.
Very well. Since he could not sleep, he may as well get soused. Drinking himself to oblivion was one of his few pleasures in life. He had told himself he would not touch a drop, but then Lady Endless Parties next door had done her damnedest to make certain her latest dissolute fête was as loud as possible.
Rising from the bed where he had been miserably tossing about in an effort to get some rest—a practice which had been compounded by the unmerciful, stifling heat of the evening—he sighed and donned a banyan. It was deuced hot in Town, even by late July’s standards. He was sweltering. A nice drink of claret ought to help.
Or port.
Or whisky.
Really, anything that would soften the sharp edges of his mind and drown the pain, at least for a few hours. Make him forget. Enable him to fall into his bed and sleep despite the heat and the agonizing realization Nell was lost to him for good coupled with the laughing and the squeals and the bloody horrible cacophony coming from Lady Wild Widow’s latest revelry.
Without bothering to take a candle or a lamp—the darkness suited him—he made his way downstairs to his study. He found his whisky and settled upon that, taking up the whole damned bottle. It was deuced stifling in his study as well. Drawn to the promise of the cool night air, he made his way to the doors on the opposite end of the room, which led to the small Somerton House gardens.
Clutching his bottle, he made his way outdoors. His bare feet traveled over the gravel path, taking him to his favorite bench just beneath the fountain of Aphrodite. It had been where he proposed to Nell and slid his ring on her finger.
A promise.
Promises were meant to be broken. All of them.
He settled himself on the bench, cursing Nell, cursing himself. Took a deep pull of whisky from the bottle. It burned. All the way down. Tom swallowed it wrong and grappled with the real possibility he was going to cast up his accounts. He sputtered, coughing some of it up onto the gravel at his feet.
Bloody hell, he was even rubbish at getting inebriated.
He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. No need for manners, was there? No need for anything, really. His nose ached, as if to taunt him. The damned thing—once straight as an arrow—had fused crooked, and it still throbbed on occasion. A parting gift from Nell’s husband.