CHAPTER XI

                                    

                                          


                          


                          
"Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman." 
                          
–Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
                          


                          
Louis was disappointed to find Harry elusive after their night in the woods. The Duke said he had fallen ill, though Louis only heard him sniffle once. He spent all day in the library with Sir Clarence, refusing to hunt pheasant and join the men in the parlour room that evening for music and cards.   
                          
This put Louis in bad temper. And when Louis was in bad temper he drank. And drank. And drank. 
                          
He woke up the next morning with a bottle of brandy in his arms and Roy's boot in his face. They had fallen asleep on the divan in the games room. He was reminded of their time at Eton when the prefects locked them out of the dormitory for missing curfew and they passed out in the courtyard under the school's statue of Henry IV.   
                          
William was curled up on the floor beside him. Devoted as he was, the footman refused to leave his master's side until his mood improved. 
                          
There was a clacking sound on the other side of the room that gave him a shattering headache. 
                          
"Enough with that infernal racket!"
                          
It was Frederick and Lady Calder playing billiards.  
                          
"Good morning, your grace." Eleanor swished over in a grey day dress and ruffled his hair. 
                          
"Morning! Woman, you know I don't rise a minute before noon!"
                          
Frederick held his cue stick over his shoulder. "We thought you might fancy a game."
                          
"What I fancy is tea with the Duke of Somerset. Where is he?"
                          
The Viscount bent over the table and lined up his shot. "Where do you think? He's gone to church with your dreadful cousin." 
                          
"On a Wednesday? Whatever for?"
                          
"It's Thursday. And you know what Catholics are like. He's probably flagellating himself before the cross."
                          
Louis groaned and swayed on his feet, his mind muddy as a swamp from the brandy. William was quick to catch him. He put an arm around the footman's shoulder to steady himself.
                          
"No one romanticizes human misery like the Catholics," Frederick pontificated with his bony white finger in the air. "They're spectacularly morbid." 
                          
Eleanor tucked a loose strand of hair into her chignon and sank the red ball for three points. 
                          
"Dash it!" Frederick cursed. 
                          
Roy yawned with a growl and stretched his oversized limbs, making him big as a bear. "Shall I have a go at you next?" 
                          
He grabbed a cue stick, but the moment he attempted to play, Frederick flung himself on the billiards table, boyishly drawing up one knee, his brassy blonde tresses splayed out on the green felt. 
                          
"I'll leave you boys to it," said Lady Calder with a wry smile.
                          
Eleanor had been Louis' betrothed since birth. Their mothers made the match. The pair became fast friends as children and never objected to the arrangement. Eleanor was a puckish girl and the only playmate that could keep up with him. She understood and accepted Louis' nature. Most men assumed women craved love but Louis knew that what women truly craved was freedom. A life with Louis meant that Eleanor would have security, wealth and position in society with none of the shackles that marriage imposed on a woman. She was free to indulge her hobbies, travel at her leisure and take as many lovers as she liked.