“Leave?” Gideon Shaw suggested with a slight smile, staring at the viscount as if he were an entertaining occupant of the Royal Menagerie.

“I should have,” came St. Vincent’s glum acknowledgment. “But I’ve never been able to reject a woman who wants a tumble. And it had been a damned long time since I’d bedded anyone, at least a week, and I was—”

“A week is a long time to go without bedding someone?” Marcus interrupted, one brow arching.

“Are you going to claim that it’s not?”

“St. Vincent, if a man has time to bed a woman more than once a week, he clearly doesn’t have enough to do. There are any number of responsibilities that should keep you sufficiently occupied in lieu of…” Marcus paused, considering the exact phrase he wanted. “Sexual congress.” A pronounced silence greeted his words. Glancing at Shaw, Marcus noticed his brother-in-law’s sudden preoccupation with knocking just the right amount of ash from his cigar into a crystal dish, and he frowned. “You’re a busy man, Shaw, with business concerns on two continents. Obviously you agree with my statement.”

Shaw smiled slightly. “My lord, since my ‘sexual congress’ is limited exclusively to my wife, who happens to be your sister, I believe I’ll have the good sense to keep my mouth shut.”

St. Vincent smiled lazily. “It’s a shame for a thing like good sense to get in the way of an interesting conversation.” His gaze switched to Simon Hunt, who wore a slight frown. “Hunt, you may as well render your opinion. How often should a man make love to a woman? Is more than once a week a case for unpardonable gluttony?”

Hunt threw Marcus a vaguely apologetic glance. “Much as I hesitate to agree with St. Vincent…”

Marcus scowled as he insisted, “It is a well-known fact that sexual over-indulgence is bad for the health, just as with excessive eating and drinking—”

“You’ve just described my perfect evening, Westcliff,” St. Vincent murmured with a grin, and returned his attention to Hunt. “How often do you and your wife—”

“The goings-on in my bedroom are not open for discussion,” Hunt said firmly.

“But you lie with her more than once a week?” St. Vincent pressed.

“Hell, yes,” Hunt muttered.

“And well you should, with a woman as beautiful as Mrs. Hunt,” St. Vincent said smoothly, and laughed at the warning glance that Hunt flashed him. “Oh, don’t glower—your wife is the last woman on earth whom I would have any designs on. I have no desire to be pummeled to a fare-thee-well beneath the weight of your ham-sized fists. And happily married women have never held any appeal for me—not when unhappily married ones are so much easier.” He looked back at Marcus. “It seems that you are alone in your opinion, Westcliff. The values of hard work and self-discipline are no match for a warm female body in one’s bed.”

Marcus frowned. “There are more important things.”

“Such as?” St. Vincent inquired with the exaggerated patience of a rebellious lad being subjected to an unwanted lecture from his decrepit grandfather. “I suppose you’ll say something like ‘social progress’? Tell me, Westcliff…” His gaze turned sly. “If the devil proposed a bargain to you that all the starving orphans in England would be well-fed from now on, but in return you would never be able to lie with a woman again, which would you choose? The orphans, or your own gratification?”

“I never answer hypothetical questions.”

St. Vincent laughed. “As I thought. Bad luck for the orphans, it seems.”

“I didn’t say—” Marcus began, and stopped impatiently. “Never mind. My guests are waiting. You are welcome to continue this wholly pointless conversation in here, or you may accompany me to the public receiving rooms.”

“I’ll go with you,” Hunt said at once, unfolding his long body from the chair. “My wife will be looking for me.”

“So will mine,” Shaw said agreeably, rising also.

St. Vincent shot Marcus a glance of bright mischief. “God spare me from ever letting a woman put a ring through my nose—and worse, appearing so bloody pleased about it.”

It was a sentiment that Marcus happened to agree with.

However, as the four men strolled negligently away from the study, Marcus couldn’t help but reflect on the curious fact that Simon Hunt, who, aside from St. Vincent, had been the most dedicated bachelor Marcus had ever known, seemed unexpectedly content in the chains of marriage. Knowing more than anyone how tightly Hunt had clung to his freedom, and the scant number of positive relationships that he’d ever had with women, Marcus had been astonished by Hunt’s willingness to surrender his autonomy. And to a woman like Annabelle, who at first had seemed little more than a shallow, self-absorbed husband hunter. But it had eventually become clear that an unusual degree of devotion existed between the pair, and Marcus had been forced to concede that Hunt had chosen well for himself.

“No regrets?” he murmured to Hunt as they strode down the hall, while Shaw and St. Vincent followed at a more leisurely pace.

Hunt glanced at him with a questioning smile. He was a big, dark-haired man, with the same sense of uncompromising masculinity and the same avid interest in hunting and sportsmanship that Marcus possessed. “About what?”

“Being led around by the nose by your wife.”