His head felt like a billiard ball that had been slammed against wood and sent careening into a dark, musty cave. The inside of his mouth had the texture of fuzzy felted fabric and the taste of billiard cue chalk.

He was lying in a strange bed, fully clothed, which meant he hadn’t had a very good night at all. Most mornings after of this caliber he at least woke with a curvaceous female, or two, draped across him in lieu of clothing.

“Ah . . . sleeping beauty finally awakes,” a voice said from somewhere nearby. A gravelly, male voice.

West considered himself to be a hedonist, and a true hedonist would try any manner of pleasure at least once in a lifetime. Though West couldn’t remember anything about last night, pleasurable or otherwise.

He managed to pry one eyelid open. The man sitting in a chair near the fireplace was also fully clothed. West knew that handsome face. Lord Rafe Bentley. One of the only true friends West had left in this cesspool of a town. “Rafe. What are you doing here? Where are we?”

“My club. I’ve been waiting to make sure you’re alive. Now that I know you’ll survive your injuries, I’ll be leaving. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like. Ring for a bath. You could use one.”

“My injuries . . . ?” West tried to sit up and was stopped by a lancing pain in his ribs. Clutching his abdomen, he gritted his teeth and dragged himself to a seated position. “Who the devil kicked me? I don’t remember a thing.”

“I found you betting on billiards at The Devil’s Staircase. You were sloshed on cheap gin and picking fights with a fellow twice your size, so I knocked you senseless and hauled you here for safekeeping. The ribs weren’t me. That was the bruiser of a barkeep at the Staircase.”

West touched the large, painful bump on his temple gingerly. “With friends like you, eh?”

“It was for your own good. You were being a right knob and were liable to get yourself killed.”

“I can handle myself.”

“You know I’m not one to judge. I’ve had my days of dissipation and ruin, but you’re going arse over teakettle down the highway to hell. I count you as a friend and it’s my duty to tell you that you should slow down on the drink, the gambling, the outrageous bets, and whatever other illegal vices you indulge in that I don’t care to know about.”

“Or I could accelerate the pace and hasten my entry into that early grave I hear so much about.”

“The social Season begins in a few days.”

“Speaking of early graves.”

“You have obligations, both personal and political. You’re a duke.” Rafe stared down at him accusingly. “You’re eight-and-twenty. It’s time to stop wasting your life.”