He plumped down on the stool Sophie had deserted, his large brown hands tidily sorting the backgammon pieces. Patrick finally looked up to find Quill’s cool gaze on him.

Quill had always been blessed with iron restraint, even when they were all boys at school, suffering the indignities of communal life. Patrick would erupt into feverish anger, jumping on his twin brother, Alex, and trying desperately to pound his head into the floor; Quill expressed himself by spare words.

Now he leaned his head back against the deep brown leather and closed his eyes. When he spoke his voice lacked all innuendo.

“Don’t I remember Braddon taking another of your women—a redhaired actress?”

“Arabella Calhoun. He still has her. She’s been his mistress since last summer.” Patrick’s hard eyes skimmed the calm surface of Quill’s impenetrable face. “Lady Sophie,” he added savagely, “was never ‘one of my women.’ She turned me down flat.”

At that, Quill’s eyes opened. “You did the pretty?”

In the face of Quill’s amused gaze, Patrick’s mouth finally relaxed, quirked up.

“Quite a shock,” he admitted.

“Yes, after all those women chasing you in the past year …” Quill waved a lazy hand. “Peter keeps me abreast of the London gossip. Since your brother married, what, a year or two ago, you’ve become something of a society darling, wouldn’t you say?”

“No.”

“Fleeing from the attentions of marriageable mamas, having made yourself too vulgarly rich for words over in India,” Quill added wickedly.

“Shall we play?”

“Dished up by the lovely Sophie York! I must ask Mother to invite her to tea.”

“She’ll be busy in the near future,” Patrick said, his voice indifferent. “I expect they’re out there now, accepting congratulations.”

Quill paused. “Gone that far, has it?”

“Quite. She’s no fool, Quill,” said Patrick, inadvertently quoting Sophie’s own self-assessment. “She’s gone for the title.”

“Unfortunately, Braddon is a muttonhead. He’ll drive her insane within a month.” Quill’s deep-set eyes watched his childhood friend with seeming carelessness.

“Shall we play?” Patrick repeated, his voice roughly impatient.

“Right.”

Through thick walnut doors, the faint ebb and roar of a ton party continued. But the library quieted to the pinking sting of dice hitting a highly polished surface. A marble bust of Shakespeare looked down silently on the men’s bent heads.

After the third game, Patrick suddenly broke the web cast by Quill’s calm presence and the flicking firelight.

He looked at Quill, his face lit with self-mockery. “Should I go congratulate the happy couple?”

Quill’s hooded eyes betrayed nothing. Finally he drawled, “I shall go to bed. You’ve worn me out with your emotions.” He pulled himself to his feet and then paused, leaning on the high back of the leather armchair.

“I’m glad you made it back from the Orient, Patrick.”

“I’m sorry about that damned horse.”

Quill chuckled. “It was my riding that did it. I shall see you soon, I hope.”

They left the library together, one man’s body a fluid symphony of muscled grace, masked only slightly by the skin-tight pantaloons of a London gentleman. The other man’s body was equally muscled, but the muscles knotted and pulled, refusing to obey their master’s commands. Iron self-control moved Quill across the Persian carpet toward the welcome shaded recesses of a curtained bed; controlled passion moved Patrick in the other direction, toward the sun-shot wanton curls of a woman whom he desired with a ferocity that disgusted him.