The Most Dangerous Duke in London

by Madeline Hunter

  Langford glanced at the footman and the stack of money in front of him. “Excellent point.”

  Down below the crowd had much dispersed, but noise could still be heard from the field in which so many vehicles waited. Adam wondered if Clara and Althea had even been able to leave yet.

  He also wondered whether yesterday’s subterfuge would be repeated or if he should assume Clara would remain with her friend. Probably the latter. Since returning to Kengrove Abbey meant finding out the truth of that, he was in no hurry to leave.

  Nor were his two friends. Both were guests at the Oaks and of the Earl of Derby, after whom the race had been named. Derby had joined them and sat at the card bar for a while. The Duke of Clarence, who now had become heir to the crown with his brother George’s ascension, settled in for a longer visit. Others came and went. It reminded Adam of boxes at the theater, since other stands also hosted little parties.

  The stakes ran high. The wine and whiskey flowed. The men took to talking the way they might at their clubs. With a few raised eyebrows, the ladies left to seek more genteel company. Even Mrs. Harper disappeared. The footmen brought out cigars.

  Word must have spread that a fine time could be had at Brentworth’s stand, because more men entered. A group shoved the food down the serving table and used its end for better purposes. The footmen kept producing more bottles.

  “Luck is with you today, Stratton. You are up, what, two hundred?” Brentworth said.

  “Am I? I haven’t been counting.”

  “What ho, I like a man not noting his wins and losses. Mostly his losses,” the Duke of Clarence hooted. “Feel free to gamble with me anytime.”

  Langford had left for a while but now reclaimed his seat. “Your food far surpassed that in Portland’s stand. He did not even have champagne.”

  “Nor do I,” Brentworth said.

  “Hence my little search mission.”

  “You visited the enemy camp to see if the provisions were superior?” Adam asked. “That is disloyal of you.”

  “I had hoped for champagne. Just one glass. Brentworth here does not care for it, so we all must suffer.”

  Brentworth tipped a glass with far more power in it than mere champagne. “I cannot abide wine that sends bubbles up your nose.”

  “You never developed the taste. You missed out on it in your youth because your father was the consummate duke, just as you are now. My family, on the other hand, managed to procure champagne all during the war somehow.”

  “There was only one way to do that, somehow,” Adam said. “You have just admitted to buying smuggled goods, Langford.”

  “Someone had to. Otherwise the roads from Kent to London would have been covered with shipment boxes.”

  Brentworth shook his head. “We had plenty of champagne in our house during the war. My grandfather laid in a goodly amount when he saw the headwinds, so our cellar remained well stocked. While he was not the—how did you put it?—consummate duke, it is true my father did not hold with enriching smugglers. If you were not in your cups, you would not admit it was done by your family either. It sounds disloyal.”

  “Not as disloyal as the doings of some of your families, not mentioning any names, of course.” The voice inserting this observation came from behind them. Adam turned his head to see the Marquess of Rothborne hovering at his shoulder, looking down with a drunken smirk and moist eyes. Not a young man, the marquess had ruined his health long ago with drinking.

  “Excellent whiskey, Brentworth,” Rothborne said, waving his glass. “Scottish?”

  “Irish, and you have enjoyed it rather too well, I think.”

  “I heard you had the best, so here I am. Of course, no one told me about your company. I am a bit fussier than you are, I guess. I avoid sitting at a table with a man who only has his title because his father escaped judgment by blowing his brains out.”

  Rothborne chuckled at his own wit. Brentworth froze. Adam began deciding which friend to have as his second. No one at their table said anything. It seemed none of them breathed much either.

  “You are drunk, Rothborne,” Langford said. “Apologize, then sit and play. I am losing big, and fate decrees I stop for a spell.” He stood. “Here, use my chair. I can ruin my fortune another day.”

  “I’ll be damned before I sit next to him.”

  With an affable smile, Langford clasped Rothborne’s shoulder. He pressed hard, bringing his weight and strength to bear. “I insist you take my chair. Sit.”

  Rothborne’s body slammed into the chair. His face turned red. He slowly turned his head until his gaze met Adam’s, right beside him.

  “I am sure you want to apologize,” Brentworth said from Adam’s other side. He gestured to the footman to deal him another card. “Before this hand is finished would be wise. I doubt I can hold Stratton back longer than that.”

  “Apologize, hell.”

  Brentworth sighed and shook his head. “And this was such a pleasant day. Now it will end badly, and all because a drunken fool did not know to hold his tongue. I am sorry, Stratton. As host I feel responsible.”

  “It had to happen eventually. If not this drunken fool, then another one. I have grown somewhat accustomed to killing them.” He turned his gaze back on Rothborne and hoped this particular fool would come to his senses in the next two minutes.

  Langford bent low to speak in Rothborne’s ear. “Lest you are so far gone as to forget how this works, let me remind you. Stratton here must now call you out. Your pride will not let you stand down, even when in the morning you awake sober and realize you will die soon. It was not a small insult to his honor, and he was an expert shot by the time he was fifteen.”

  “I won’t die, he will, with more honor than his father at least.”

  Another tight silence claimed the men around the table. Adam noted that a few of the others in the stand watched now. Hell.

  “Rothborne, you give me no choice but—”

  “Apologize.” The Duke of Clarence, who had been watching with rapt attention, spat out the command. “Am I to explain that I sat here while a duke and a marquess arranged a duel? Stop being an ass, Rothborne.”

  “But I—”

  “I said apologize now, or I will have George call you to the palace like a schoolboy and send you down to the country. A few years’ rustication might do you good.”

  Rothborne looked miserable. His chin went down to his chest. He muttered something. Langford, still bending close, looked over at Adam and shrugged.

  “We cannot hear you,” the Duke of Clarence said. “You threw insults loudly enough. You can speak clearly now too.”

  “My apologies, Stratton. I am not myself today.” He barely got it out, his voice was so strangled.

  Langford released his hold on Rothborne’s shoulder but gave him a very hearty clap on his back that shook the man’s body. “Ah, there we are. Now, stay and play a round or two, so everyone can see what good friends we all are.”

  Rothborne played two rounds, then rose and staggered away. Langford retook his chair. His gaze met Adam’s in one meaningful exchange. Adam said nothing. He would thank both Langford and Brentworth later.

  “We appreciate your help,” Brentworth said to the royal duke.

  “Yes,” Adam said. “You spared me considerable unpleasantness.”

  “I couldn’t have him ruin a fine day when I am enjoying such good whiskey. Irish, you say?” He drank a swallow.

  “I will have a case sent to you,” Brentworth said.

  “No need, no need. My physician has me mostly drinking barley water these days. Although I would not mind some of that champagne your grandfather squirreled away, if any is left.”

  “Brentworth will tell me the vineyard and vintage, and I will have some sent from France,” Adam said.

  They played on. Adam stayed because to leave now would look bad. He joined in the camaraderie, but the close call with Rothborne weighed on him.

  There would be another fool eventually. Ev
en if by some miracle he cleared his father’s name, he doubted it would stop.

  Chapter Twenty

  Clara watched dusk fall, then the night gather outside the windows. She began to think Stratton would not return tonight.

  She had only herself to blame if that happened. She had given him no promise that she would come here as originally planned. When they parted, she was not sure that she should.

  Yet here she was, feeling less confident in her decision by the minute.

  He had been very kind at the race. Very charming. She did not doubt his apology was sincere. Time had cleared the worst of his mood, too. She still sensed that shadow and saw it in his eyes, but not with the intensity of the morning.

  Dangerous. She had forgotten that people said that about him. He had not seemed dangerous to her. Not in the ways the gossip meant. This morning, however, when he appeared in that clearing, that word fit all too well.

  Had he been there that day? Had he seen the result? She suspected he had. He had been lost to her, to the whole world, while he stared at that big rock. Lost to himself too.

  She looked around the chamber in which she lay. Althea had urged her not to come. If he needs you he will find you, she had said. Althea thought that like most men, Stratton would want to be alone if he lost a battle with himself.

  Althea had probably been correct.

  * * *

  Adam entered the house near midnight. It had been a hellish day. The only good thing had been seeing Clara. Their time at the race shone as a bright spot surrounded by storms. There was a painting in the gallery like that, a landscape of a cloudy day with beams of sunlight pouring out from the clouds, illuminating a few farms in the middle.

  Eventually, of course, the clouds would close in over those farms too.

  It had taken two months for someone to force a challenge out of him here in England. As expected, it had not been a man who bore any responsibility for what had happened years ago. Rothborne might have known what anyone of his station knew or heard in private gossip, but he was drunk so often that his voice had no influence, and his befuddled mind could never form an argument for action.

  He mounted the stairs. On impulse he approached the chamber Clara had used. In the moment before he opened the door, a soulful hope twisted in him. In the next instant it died. She was not there, of course. Why would she be? An apology did not absolve him of the cold way he had treated her this morning. He had not blamed her, not in words, not even in his mind, but she had seen what was in him and probably guessed that he did blame her family. Familiarity, even passion, does not change who we are.

  He walked to his apartment, grateful now that it had been totally changed so nothing of its previous occupant would haunt him. His manservant slept on a chair in the dressing room. He wanted no fawning servant imposing on him now. He jostled the fellow awake and sent him on his way. Then he shed his coats and sat down to pull off his boots.

  The second one hit the floor loudly. He stripped off his shirt.

  Another presence intruded on the space. He felt it before he looked. When he turned his head, he saw Clara at the threshold to the bedchamber, wrapped in a sheet. Her bare shoulder indicated she was naked underneath.

  She looked beautiful there, washed in the pale golden light from the small lamp. She seemed to be emerging from the shadows, barely visible but elegant and soft.

  “I thought you remained in Epsom,” he said.

  “I decided not to.”

  “I cannot imagine why.”

  Her brow puckered a little. “I am not sure I can either.”

  He reached out. “Come here. Leave the sheet.”

  She dropped the sheet and came to him, naked and beautiful. He drew her onto his lap facing him, so he could hold her against his chest. Her warmth soothed him. Contentment spread like a long, physical sigh.

  Her face nuzzled the crook of his neck. “Was I wrong? Did I make a mistake?”

  “I am grateful you are here.” He caressed down her back and over her hips and the round swells of her bottom while she lay against him. Her breaths quickened in the musical way her arousal sounded.

  He should take her to bed and show his gratitude by giving her every pleasure she ever imagined. He should express his affection with slow lovemaking. Instead hard and desperate desire exploded in him,

  He lifted her to her knees and moved her to straddle him. He used his mouth on her breasts and stripped off his lower garments. She braced her arms against the chair back while he pushed her ruthlessly toward the abandon that would deny him nothing.

  He put his hand to her until she reached the edge, then watched as her release shattered her. Its tremors shook through her powerfully. Beautifully. While she dwelled within them, he wrapped her legs around his waist, stood, and carried her to the nearest wall. With thrust after furious thrust he exorcised the memories and resentments that haunted him.

  * * *

  “This is a very nice bed.” Clara made the observation well into the night. It was the first words spoken since the ones in the dressing room. Only now, a good hour after he had carried her to this bed and taken her a second time, had they both calmed enough for any conversation. This seemed a safe topic.

  “It is, isn’t it? Nice and big, so I feel appropriately ducal. It is all new. I was surprised by its appearance when I arrived.”

  Any number of responses came to mind, but each one of them led back to his father. So she said nothing.

  The bed in question looked disreputable right now. They lay under the sheet stripped away in the dressing room. It barely covered them, dragged here as it had been and thrown haphazardly. The maids would wonder what had happened. Then again, probably they would know.

  She lay against his chest, sated and, if truth be told, a little sore. She did not mind that. Her spirit had known what was in his while it happened. His releases had been about much more than carnal pleasure.

  “I almost had to challenge a man today,” he said. “A drunk, dim-witted fellow. He would not restrain himself. At least twenty men heard what he said, so I could not pretend I did not.”

  “Yet you did not challenge him.” She made a statement but sought reassurance. There was no guarantee the dim-witted fellow was not very good with a pistol.

  “Langford and Brentworth tried to intervene, but it was the Duke of Clarence who saved the day. Thank God he likes disobeying his physician by drinking Brentworth’s whiskey, or he might have left earlier.”

  “It is said he is called Silly Willy.” Her father had told her that. She left that part unsaid.

  “I know, but not by me after today.”

  They lay there in peaceful silence, both awake, his hand sliding up and down her back as if stroking out the rhythm of his thoughts.

  “He died there, in that clearing. But I think you guessed that.”

  His words broke through the night. Her breath caught.

  “It was one of his favorite places. He and my mother would go there. I think sometimes they bathed in that pool, not that I ever saw it.”

  She dared not speak. She would allow him to say whatever he wanted to say, although already her heart wept at what was coming.

  “He had been melancholic for months. I did not know all of it yet, but I knew enough because I had not been spared either. That day I suggested we go riding. It was my attempt to distract him. When he was not at the stables at the agreed-upon time, I knew. I just knew. So I went looking for him.”

  She closed her eyes to try and contain the anguish she felt for him.

  “He must have been sitting on that stone, but he had fallen beside it. It was what the ancient Romans did, to save their families and fortunes, when disfavor fell on them. To save their sons. I felt an unholy anger that day, mostly at him. I still do, which seems unfair.”

  “That anger is common when those we love leave us.” She knew this from her own experience, and she had not even lost her father in the manner he had.

  He pressed a kiss
to her crown. “I had not been there since that day. Until this morning. That was why—”

  “You do not have to explain.” She stretched and kissed him.

  He stroked his fingers through her hair and held her head to a deeper kiss, one heavy with emotion. Then he pulled the sheet over her shoulders and tucked her back under his arm.

  She rested there, drowsy now, her heart drenched with layers of emotion.

  “I did not have to explain,” he said. “But I wanted to.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Brentworth noticed Adam’s distraction. “I can see I am boring you.”

  “I am hearing every word. You just confided that you have a new mistress. I am waiting to learn her name but wondering if you plan to share it.”

  “I think not now. What the hell are you staring at? You look like a tiger eyeing his prey.” He turned his head to search the crowd in the ballroom. “Bad enough you talked me into attending. You know I dislike crushes like this, and Lady Prideux knows no restraint in her invitations. You could at least occupy me with conversation.”

  “I needed you here. He may cut me, but he will never cut you.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Hollsworth. Come with me.”

  Adam took three steps before realizing Brentworth had not followed. He looked back to see Brentworth’s severe face at its most ducal.

  “I am going nowhere,” Brentworth said. “Not unless you are forthright about why I am going wherever there is. And before you say a word, let me make as clear as a bell’s toll that I will not agree to be your second if you challenge Hollsworth. He is an old man, and a duel would be the same as cold-blooded murder.”

  “Do you think I am capable of that?”

  Brentworth sighed. “Of course not. It is just—” He sighed again. “Lead the way. Try not to force me to lose an old friend tonight. My father knew Hollsworth for decades.”

  “I do not think you will lose his friendship tonight.”

  “I was not referring to that particular friendship, Stratton.”

  Adam led the way through the crowd to the terrace doors. “It is damp tonight. Heavy fog. I do not think we will have much company.”