“The men in Scepter aren’t just criminals,” Clayton explained. “This is an organization unlike any that has ever operated on English soil. They are amassing money and power at an alarming rate, and they’re using coercion to gather secrets about people and government offices at all levels. In the hands of a criminal organization, there’s no telling how they’d use that information to leverage their power—money, political favors, an eagerness by the authorities to overlook their illegal activities. They’re operating in secret. Except for the late Earl of Hartsham, we haven’t been able to identify any of their members. We have no idea who they are or what their endgame is, but they are dangerous, unconscionable men who are willing to do anything to garner more power for themselves.”
“Evil,” Pearce succinctly described, the single word jarring them all.
Marcus added somberly, “They are a threat to crown and country, to our very lives and liberties as Englishmen. A threat that we must stop.” He slid his gaze from man to man, assessing each for a readiness to fight. “Those of you gathered here with me are the best men that His Majesty’s army has ever produced, and in our souls, we will always be soldiers. I say we band together and use our skills to shut down Scepter and to help those in need, wherever they might be, no matter the threat.”
The men’s eyes glinted at his proposition and the purposefulness such an endeavor would bring back into their lives.
Marcus crossed to a mahogany desk, opened the center drawer, and withdrew a fistful of keys. “Those of you who choose to accept this new mission will surely be put to the test.” He tossed a key to each man. “Those of you who don’t will still be welcome here, without judgment. First and foremost, this place is meant to be a sanctuary.”
He strode toward the door, to leave them to explore the building and to return himself to the arms of the woman he loved.
“But you are all expected to keep your silence about this place, pledge your loyalty to one another, and uphold our oath.”
As he strode from the room, he pointed to the large shield hanging over the door and the words carved there—The Armory, Where Evil Fears to Tread.
Read on for a glimpse of A Duke Too Far by Jane Ashford
Coming to Sourcebooks Casablanca April 2020
One
Kneeling on the floor in the doorway of a bedchamber in his decaying pile of a house, Peter whittled at a sliver of wood. The panels of the door had shrunk, and the latch no longer caught properly, which allowed the door to drift open at the slightest breeze. As if a ghostly presence was slipping inside, Peter thought, though they had no known ghosts at Alberdene. Perhaps the place was too dilapidated even for the departed.
Still, the errant door would be disconcerting for a guest, should he ever have any. He slipped the small slat into a narrow cavity to the left of the latch, wiggling it to fit. This third time, it did, pushing the latch out a bit. He tried it. The door closed properly now, and held. He shook it to make certain, opened it, shut it, opened again. The slat showed no sign of movement. Yes. He’d done it.
Peter savored this tiny triumph. He liked working with his hands, and in recent months he’d been overcome by an impulse to repair, going so far as to assemble a personal tool kit from various sources about the estate. His crumbling home provided endless opportunities to indulge himself. Besides latches that wouldn’t close, there were doors that stuck, cracked windowpanes, loose floorboards that creaked and tripped up the unwary, stair treads that could not be trusted, and chairs that threatened to collapse when sat upon. And these were just in the modern, habitable wing of Alberdene. The older parts of the place had much bigger problems, too large for him to tackle, though he was learning to lay brick, to the amusement of the local stonemason. Still, it was satisfying to do what he could—to mend a small hurt in the midst of so many defects he could do nothing about.
Conway, one of Alberdene’s two aged footmen, appeared around a corner and walked slowly up the corridor toward him. Most of the household staff had been in service here since his father’s time, or even his grandfather’s. All of them except the cook and her helper were decades older than Peter and had known him since he was born. They didn’t hesitate to express their disapproval when he offended their sense of what was proper, though they did it silently, for the most part. It was more like having a houseful of aged relatives than servants, Peter thought as he rose from his knees. “Yes, I know you don’t like to see me doing carpentry work, Conway. There’s no need to hover and scowl.”
The old footman didn’t deign to reply, though he eyed his master’s toolbox with disdain.
“I learned my skills at school, you know,” said Peter. “The one Papa chose.” Rather than send him to Eton or Harrow or Winchester, with other scions of noble families, his father had put him in the hands of an old Welshman with eccentric educational theories. “I think he expected me to come back as some sort of wizard,” he muttered. His father had specialized in forlorn hopes.
Conway’s lips turned down further. “A visitor has arrived, Your Grace,” he said.
Peter was startled. He wasn’t expecting anyone. He couldn’t recall when Alberdene had last had guests. And passing travelers were exceedingly rare here at the western edge of Shropshire. “Somebody who’s lost his way on the road?”
“No, Your Grace.” Conway held out a visiting card. “He has a post chaise and all.”
Peter took it and read. “The Earl of Macklin!” He scanned the words again with a mixture of astonishment and delight. In the six months since that unusual dinner in London, he and the earl had corresponded a bit. Peter had greatly enjoyed the letters, but Macklin had given no hint that he meant to visit Shropshire. Yet here was his card. Peter brushed the dust from the knees of his buckskin breeches and reached for his old blue coat, conscious that his ensemble did not even approach fashionable. Due to its origins, his shirt had a fall of lace at the neck. Well, he had nothing much better to change into. This would have to do. He picked up his tool case.
“You won’t receive an earl carrying that,” said Conway, aghast.
“Well, I won’t if you will take it for me.”
“Of course, Your Grace.”
“And put it where it belongs. Not in some forgotten cupboard.” Peter’s tools had gone astray more than once, as if Conway thought he could end the duke’s plebeian endeavors by hiding the implements.
“Yes, Your Grace,” replied the footman stoically.
Peter found Macklin in the main reception room of the modern wing—the one chamber at Alberdene that nearly met the standard of a ducal residence. Behind the earl stood a man who was clearly his valet and a lad of perhaps fifteen. “How good to see you,” said Peter, striding forward to offer his hand.
“And surprising, I know,” said Macklin, shaking it. “I would have written, but I wasn’t certain of my plans until just lately. And since I was on my way south, I thought I would visit.”
“You’re most welcome.” Peter was pleased to see him, though Alberdene was hardly on the way to anywhere.
“Your letters made me curious about the place.”
“I must warn you that I can’t entertain in the style to which you are undoubtedly accustomed. We’re rather ramshackle here. Though I do have a good cook.”
“Much can be endured for a fine dinner,” replied the older man with a smile.
Peter remembered how ill he’d been at the last meal they’d shared, in London. “Please sit down. And excuse me for a moment while I just see about…” He left the sentence hanging. No need to list the items that must be checked on. And the earl would soon learn that the bellpulls didn’t work. Peter hadn’t been able to trace what had gone wrong with the wires.
He found the entire staff of Alberdene in the cavernous kitchen, clustered around a long wooden table and clearly agitated by the appearance of a noble visitor. Conway and his fellow footman, Evan, were lined
up on one side as if to support each other. Rose and Tess, the middle-aged housemaids, stood nearer Mrs. Anselm, the cook. The latter’s young helper, Gwen, lurked behind them.
The butler of Peter’s youth had died when he was away at school, and his father had never replaced him. Peter had tried to hire a housekeeper, but several very competent women who’d applied had walked once through the house and declined the position. Mrs. Anselm now wielded a kind of loose general authority, because no one else wanted it. “Lord Macklin will be with us for…a while,” Peter said. He hadn’t thought to ask how long Macklin meant to stay. Surely a few days, at least? “Have we a room that will do? He has his valet with him and a lad who will also need quarters.”
Conway muttered something disparaging about a grand lord’s valet. Peter ignored it.
“The blue bedchamber, I expect,” said Mrs. Anselm.
“Curtains are threadbare,” said Tess.
“Yes, but that fireplace doesn’t smoke,” replied the cook. “The boy can have the room across. We’ll see to the linens.”
“They’ve all been patched,” said Rose. “What’s an earl going to think?”
Suspecting that Macklin wouldn’t be surprised, having seen the state of Alberdene, Peter left them to prepare and returned to his guest.
Macklin made no complaints about his accommodation. Of course he would be too polite to do so, Peter thought as they sat down to dinner that evening. Fortunately, Mrs. Anselm had conjured a tempting spread out of next to nowhere. She might never ask him what he would like to eat, or pay any heed if he tried to express a preference, but every dish she provided was delicious.
Conway ladled soup into Peter’s waiting bowl, releasing a wonderful aroma on a wisp of steam. Peter picked up his spoon.
“That is good!” said the lad Tom as they all tasted.
Peter didn’t know quite what to make of him. Tom apparently had no last name, which made it vanishingly unlikely that he was related to the earl. He’d argued that he should eat in the kitchen, then given in with a shrug when Macklin said, “Not this time.” He had a pleasant, homely face and an engaging manner. Macklin treated him as one might a young nephew. Peter let the matter go. No doubt he would learn more with time.
“Alberdene is quite venerable, I believe,” said the earl.
“First established in the eleven hundreds,” replied Peter. “Normans subduing the Welsh Marches, you know. And then added onto in a slipshod way. I think of the place as rather like a dragon lying along the ridge. The head is the ruined Norman tower on the high point, and the tail is the modern wing where we are now. With a mass of muddled masonry in between.” Once he’d said the whole thing out loud, he wondered if it sounded odd.
“Dragon, I like that,” said Tom. He’d finished his soup in record time.
Peter picked up a knife to carve the roast chicken. “I say ‘modern,’” he added. “But this bit was built a hundred years ago.” He stopped himself from warning them again about the amenities. Or lack thereof. They’d seen by now. He served the chicken, offered sauce. They ate, and Peter enjoyed the company at table even more than the food. He’d had more than enough of dining alone.
A bat swooped under the stone archway and into the dining room, veering this way and that in the breed’s characteristic erratic flight. It looked like a bit of black cloth jerked this way and that by an invisible puppeteer.
Peter set down his fork and lifted a moldering implement that was routinely set beside his plate at meals, an open wooden paddle strung with a grid of sheep’s gut. With a practiced eye, he gauged the creature’s trajectory, and when it passed close to him, he reached up and gave it a sharp rap. The bat fell to the floor.
Peter turned back to find his guests staring at him. They glanced at the recumbent bat, then back at him. Peter felt a flush spread over his cheeks. This was what came of the sort of upbringing he’d been given. And of living alone for too long. He’d become a dashed eccentric. What must Macklin, one of society’s leading lights, think of him? “Ah,” he said. “Er, sorry. It’s a…technique I developed…for dealing with the bats.”
Tom laughed in such an easy way that Peter silently blessed him. He set the paddle on the floor and gave Macklin a rueful smile.
For his part, Arthur had been wondering why there was an ancient bit of wood sitting beside his host’s plate on the dinner table. Here was the answer.
“They fly in now and then,” said Compton, looking embarrassed. “No one can find any holes in the roof, and yet there are always bats. I was trying to track them down when I found this paddle in an attic, years ago. Used for tennis in the Tudor courts, you know. No good for any sort of game now, but it works on the bats.”
Arthur watched one of the aged footmen bend laboriously and pick up the bat with a napkin from the sideboard. He wrapped it as if he’d often performed this service.
“Is it dead?” asked Tom.
“No, just stunned,” said Compton. “I can’t bring myself to kill them. We put them out on the battlements.”
The footman sighed audibly.
“And I know they probably fly right back in,” said his master. “But even so.”
“Reckon I couldn’t kill them either,” said Tom.
The footman carried the small bundle out of the room.
The young duke was an interesting fellow, Arthur thought, as they returned to the well-cooked meal. He’d thought him shy and anxious at the dinner in London, but Compton showed no sign of those traits now. A bit odd undoubtedly, but intelligent and amiable. Kind also. He oughtn’t to be living alone in this huge, silent house. Arthur would have to see if there was anything that could be done about that.
A Duke Too Far
On sale April 2020!
About the Author
Anna Harrington is an award-winning author of Regency romance. She writes spicy historicals with alpha heroes and independent heroines, layers of emotion, and lots of sizzle. Anna was nominated for a RITA in 2017 for her title How I Married a Marquess, and her debut, Dukes Are Forever, won the 2016 Maggie Award for Best Historical Romance. A lover of all things chocolate and coffee, when she’s not hard at work writing her next book or planning her next series, Anna loves to fly airplanes, go ballroom dancing, or tend her roses. She is a terrible cook who hopes to one day use her oven for something other than shoe storage.
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