top volume as they hacked at pieces of beef and knocked tankards together. There were more fashionable chophouses, places where well-to-do men dined with informal dignity, but that was precisely why Noel had selected the Flea and Firkin for tonight.
The tavern owner sidled up beside him, frowning with worry. “Certain I can’t help you with those, my lord?”
“Almost there,” Noel said easily. “Besides, this way I look the hero to my friends.”
He left the tavern owner behind and finally reached the settle, then thunked the tankards down onto the table. “Refreshments, miscreants.”
McCameron grabbed his drink, and Holloway—wearing the annoyingly pleased countenance of a man newly married—did the same.
Noel dropped to his seat, his limbs loosening. “Now we can get to the business of revelry.” He drank deeply from his tankard. He needed this, to be out with his friends, so he could keep himself from brooding over Lady Whitfield’s rejection. It wasn’t precisely a rebuff, but here he was, with his friends, rather than warming her bed.
He had to think of something else besides Lady Whitfield lying abed. “Meant to tell you, Holloway, your benefactor, Lady Farris, is at the Bazaar.”
“Grace and I were ridiculously fortunate in finding a patron as progressive as she,” Holloway said, then added gravely, “So I expect you to see to her comfort and security.”
“Put your lance down, Sir Readsalot. The lady attends to herself, and quite admirably. Same applies to all the women of the Bazaar.”
“Look at the way he lights up whenever he mentions women.” McCameron nudged Holloway with his elbow. “Rotherby, you made us think you attended that thing out of the pure goodness of your ducal heart.”
“I’ll never tell anyone to think less of me. Besides, there’s only three ladies, so that hardly constitutes me running rampant at a girls’ finishing school.”
“Who are the ladies at the Bazaar?” Holloway asked.
“Lady Farris, Lady Haighe, and Lady Whitfield.” His heart thumped as he said her name.
“Whitfield?” McCameron lifted a brow. “I’ve not heard of her.”
“Nor I,” Holloway said, and added meditatively, “though if she doesn’t haunt the scientific library and hasn’t authored a monograph on societal structures, it’s unlikely that I’d hear of her.”
“A widow. Youngish. Her late husband was a baronet. Sir Brantley Whitfield. Turns out she’s the woman I saw on Bond Street.”
McCameron stared at Noel, his gaze incisive. “Hm.”
“Have a care with your elbow,” Holloway exclaimed when McCameron nudged him again.
“What?” Noel demanded. “What does that hm mean? And stop prodding Holloway in the pancreas.”
“I’m no physician, but I think he’s hitting my liver,” Holloway murmured.
“You’re never laconic when describing women,” McCameron said. “And the way you talked about your unknown Bond Street beauty, you sounded partway besotted with her. Now you’re just barking out terse descriptors, which leads me to believe she’s truly got you infatuated.”
“For God’s sake, McCameron, we’re not at Eton anymore.” Noel rolled his eyes.
“Hold a moment—did she refuse you?” McCameron sounded half horrified, half delighted. At Noel’s silence, McCameron exclaimed, “Oho! The impossible has happened. You asked a woman to go to bed with you and she actually said no.”
“Is that how it’s done in the ton? You simply request sex from a potential partner?” Holloway pulled a notebook from his pocket and frowned as he wrote in it. “You never mentioned anything like that when you were teaching me how to be a rake.”
Noel grunted. “Because that’s not how it works. There’s such a thing as wooing. Like the way you pretended to woo Lady Grace.”
“I was actually wooing her.” Holloway grinned. “But you’re prevaricating. You asked this Lady Whitfield to have sex with you.”
“I didn’t amble over to her, waggle my eyebrows, and point at my crotch.”
“But you did proposition her,” McCameron said doggedly. “And we can infer from your presence at the Flea and Firkin at”—he glanced at his timepiece—"eleven twenty-seven in the evening that she declined your proposition. Else you would be enjoying each other’s company at this very moment.”
“She didn’t say no. She said go slow. Two very different meanings. So . . . I’m going slowly.” It was novel for him, but there was a kind of delight in this back-and-forth with Lady Whitfield. It filled his body with hot, eager energy. In a short time, he’d come to adore the strength of her will—she’d given him a justifiable setting down only that morning when he’d unilaterally decided everyone would go to Catton’s, and she refused to heap him with flattery, or accept his practiced flirtation.