Lord of Scoundrels - Loretta Chase [4]
When he was ten years old, the headmaster took him aside and told Sebastian his mother had died of a fever in the West Indies. Sebastian listened in stony silence, then went out and picked a fight with Wardell.
Wardell was two years older, twice his size and weight, and quick besides. But this time the monster inside Sebastian was cold, bitter fury, and he fought coldly, silently, and doggedly until he'd knocked his nemesis down and bloodied his nose.
Then, battered and bleeding himself, Sebastian swept a sneering gaze round the circle of onlookers.
"Anyone else?" he asked, though he could scarcely find breath for the words.
No one uttered a sound. When he turned to leave, they made way for him.
When Sebastian was halfway across the yard, Wardell's voice broke the strange silence.
"Well done, Blackmoor!" he shouted.
Sebastian stopped in his tracks and looked round. "Go to Hell!" he shouted back.
Then Wardell's cap flew into the air, accompanied by a cheer. In the next instant, scores of caps were flying, and everyone was cheering.
"Stupid sods," Sebastian muttered to himself. He doffed an imaginary hat— his own was trampled beyond redemption— and made a farcical, sweeping bow.
A moment later, he was surrounded by laughing boys, and in the next, he was hoisted onto Wardell's shoulders, and the more he verbally abused them, the better the idiots liked it.
He soon became Wardell's bosom bow. And then, of course, there was no hope for him.
* * *
Among all the hellions being thrashed and bullied toward manhood at Eton at the time, Wardell's circle was the worst. Along with the usual Etonian pranks and harassment of the hapless locals, they were gambling, smoking, and drinking themselves sick before they reached puberty. The wenching commenced promptly thereafter.
Sebastian was initiated into the erotic mysteries on his thirteenth birthday. Wardell and Mallory— the boy who'd advised privy dunking— primed Sebastian with gin, blindfolded him, dragged him hither and yon for an hour or more, then hauled him up a flight of stairs into a musty-smelling room. They stripped him naked and, after removing the blindfold, left, locking the door behind them.
The room contained one reeking oil lamp, a dirty straw mattress, and a very plump girl with golden ringlets, red cheeks, large blue eyes, and a nose no bigger than a button. She stared at Sebastian as though he were a dead rat.
He didn't have to guess why. Though he'd shot up two inches since his last birthday, he still looked like a hobgoblin.
"I won't do it," she said. Her mouth set mulishly. "Not for a hundred pounds."
Sebastian discovered that he did have some feelings left. If he hadn't, she couldn't have hurt them. His throat burned and he wanted to cry and he hated her for making him want to. She was a common, stupid little sow, and if she'd been a boy, he would have thrashed her to kingdom come.
But hiding his feelings had become a reflex by now.
"That's too bad," he said coolly. "It's my birthday, and I was feeling so good-humored that I was thinking of paying you ten shillings."
Sebastian knew Wardell had never paid a tart more than sixpence.
She gave Sebastian a sulky look which strayed down to his masculine article. And lingered there. That was enough to attract its attention. It promptly began to swell.
Her pouting lip quivered.
"I told you I was in a good humor," he said before she could laugh at him. "Ten and six, then. No more. If you don't like what I've got, I can always take it somewhere else."
"I 'spect I could close my eyes," she said.
He gave her a mocking smile. "Open or shut, it's all the same to me— but I'll 'spect my money's worth."
He got it, too, and she didn't shut her eyes, but made all the show of enthusiasm a fellow could wish.
There was a life lesson in it, Sebastian reflected later, and he grasped that lesson as quickly