“YOU KNOW, NEVVIE, you keep barging in here and one day I’m going to be shocked into an apoplexy, and it will be on your head,” Sir Willard said, pulling off his nightcap. The same young maid who’d been warming his bed the first time Perry had “visited” him in his chamber grabbed the nightcap and held it against her ample breasts as she ran for the dressing room. Perry just stood there, staring at his uncle. “And look at you. Been out all night, haven’t you? Dressed in the dark, too. Hair all which way, and that’s a morning beard or I miss my guess.” Sir Willard pointed at Perry’s jacket. “That’s ruined, you know. God, son, you’re a disgrace to the name.” “Oh, I doubt that, Willie. I think you bear off the palm with that one,” Perry said, locating a decanter on a table in the corner and pouring himself three fingers of Burgundy. He downed the liquid, then returned to the bed to glare at his uncle. “How long were you going to wait before you told me?”
