Author’s Notes: Well, things are turning exciting. ^_~
Tarrington lurched in, indeed clutching a handful of the primroses that Lady Mary had planted all along the gates of the House. Seeing Evelyn, he gave a comically awkward bow.
“Well, fuck me sideways! If it isn’t dear old Tarr,” drawled Evelyn in an insolent tone that Stuart had not heard since last year. “I thought I told you to go home and sleep it off.”
It was obvious that Tarrington had, indeed, not yet slept a wink, having spent the entire night in drunken revelry in a gaming hell somewhere as was his usual practice during the Season. He stood there, disheveled and swaying slightly, clutching that damned bunch of primroses that he must have clumsily ripped off from the stem. Blinking, he took in the still figures of Worthington and the Hartnell brothers.
“Gents,” he slurred out as way of greeting. “I hope I’ve not intruded—”
“You are, most assuredly intruding, sir,” returned Worth quite pleasantly, a stiff smile fixed on his face. “Now, if you can be so good as to state your business and be gone...”
Tarrington turned a beseeching eye upon Evelyn.
“We’ve been trying to reach you for ages yet you won’t receive any of us, your old friends. On behalf of myself and others, I implore you to come to your senses, Helston,” he blurted out, launching straight to the point. “Give us all a chance!”
Evelyn shook his head, his eyes mocking. “Friends?! What rot! You have done much to fuel the scandal sheets with all the absurd rumors you and Avonlea had been gleefully spreading about me in my absence, the lurid and false details of which are fit to grace the pages of a fantastical smut novel. Friends, indeed! And now you’d deign to show your face to me and present yourself as a suitor? I could puke! By the way, I will thank you to leave my mother’s flower beds alone. I’ve always known of you were cheap but I must say, to be presenting me with primroses plucked from my own garden is quite a new low.”
Tarrington did not seem to hear him; instead, he flung a hand out toward Stuart’s direction. “What is all this, then? I mean, why the rushed engagement?” he cried. “You’ve only just got back to London, after all!”
Why Stuart Hartnell? He did not have to say. It was quite obvious what he meant.
“You will watch your words,” began Evelyn, his tone low and dangerous. “You’re talking to a man engaged to be married—”
Stuart spoke at last: “You will remove yourself immediately, sir. Or else face the consequences.”
Tarrington looked at him askance. “Really?” he scoffed. “What consequences would those be, Hartnell?”
“Rapier or pistol. Your choice,” said Stuart, his voice deadly calm even as everyone turned sharply to stare at him in astonishment.
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