While Adolphe might have concerned himself with Lady Huntleigh’s state of mind a few days ago, her wishes were irrelevant at this juncture. However, there was no need to encourage speculation.
“Another woman?”
“The bit of muslin who just left through the trees. I already knew you were no man of honor, but I am sure Bella—Lady Huntleigh—will be very interested to know.”
Adolphe tugged at the lower edge of his jacket, aligning it perpendicular to the placket of his trousers, “I have spoken to no other woman and if you are of a mind to call me out, Sir, I suggest you remember you have no claim to defend. I, on the other hand, can challenge you for your effrontery without impugning the lady’s honor at all.” He pulled his gloves from his pocket and gracefully pulled on the left, pointedly leaving the other hanging loosely in his right hand, ready to slap Nick with it in formal challenge.
Before Adolphe could even take a step forward, Wellbridge pulled his fist back and it flew into his face, knocking him flat on his back just off the path, the glove flying through the air and landing at the base of the tree he had been using as a bed. Adolphe didn’t even have time for outrage before the cochon spat in his face.
“I have no need of swords or pistols, you malevolent Frog. You seem to think me more gentleman than I am, so let me enlighten you, ‘mon ami.’ My boots have kicked men to shards in the worst slums in the world. I can kill and bury you before anyone knows you are gone.”
“Wellbridge!” Wellbridge’s head turned at the sound of half a dozen men and at least as many ladies coming down the path, allowing Adolphe to roll away onto his side and rise to his knees, glove and shirtfront covered in the blood spurting from his nose.
“I know it is tempting to knock a Frenchman on his derrière, but you will make a shambles of my party.”
Nick bowed as low as he could manage while short of breath, leaving Adolphe to stand under his own power or remain kneeling at his opponent’s feet.
“Your Majesty,” Wellbridge fawned before Prinny, the fat fool, “I apologize for the disruption, but I thought it comparatively more prudent than an illegal duel or outright murder.” Murder! As though a coward like Wellbridge had the stomach for murder. He had made it clear only moments ago, he would not even fight on the field of honor.
“A duel!” Prinny’s eyes glowed as Malbourne stood slowly, the right side of his face already swelling and surely bruised. “What quarrel is this? Have you come to fisticuffs over a woman? It must be a woman,” he said, turning to his companions, “for Wellbridge hardly raises his voice but to defend the deservedly downtrodden or a lady’s honor. I’ll place ten guineas on it. Anyone?” All of his companions backed away from a bet they couldn’t win.
Adolphe groaned internally at the gossip Prinny’s set—Wellbridge’s set, according to Michelle—would make of this. Fortunately, the miserable dog had a moment of good sense and made an excuse. “It is nothing, Sire. A disagreement gone awry after too much arrack-punch.”
On second thought, perhaps he could remove Wellbridge from the contest entirely. Adolphe shook his head, setting off more pain in his back teeth. “This is not so, Your Majesty. He has attacked with no grounds, and I insist he be arrested for breaking the king’s peace.”
Prinny laughed heartily. “It is my peace, Malbourne, and I decide when it is broken. Care to make a case, Wellbridge?”
“No, Sire, I would not. I would not besmirch the lady’s name.”
Prinny eyed Wellbridge with far too much interest. “I will have the story from you sooner or later, you know. Take yourself off, then. Whomever the young lady and whatever Malbourne has done, you’d be better off seeing to her than beating another peer half to death.” As though Wellbridge had any chance of stopping plans already in motion.
“And you, Sir,” the king said, turning to Adolphe, adding insult to injury by an admonition, “would do best to stay away from any woman under Wellbridge’s protection. Even I, with an army at my disposal, might remove myself from the duke’s company when his temper takes a pugilistic turn.”
Prinny held out his arm for Lady Conyngham, who had shrunk away from the conflict, knotted into a circle with the other ladies a few steps away. “My dear, shall we continue our promenade? I assure you,” Prinny glared at both men as they backed away in opposite directions, “there is no danger here.”
Chapter 22
Nick was trying to read another letter from his estate manager at Rathemore, confirming the house had been closed and his important possessions delivered to Wellstone by one of Huntleigh’s ships. The manager would be pensioned, though still young enough to find another position, so Nick needed to write a character to send on the next mail coach. An additional concern, he could not allow the man to take action against Nick’s tenants, as the letter placed blame on them for Nick’s decision to shutter the estate, eliminate the man’s position, and ignore the threat of rebellion on his property until the military forced him to act.
However, Nick was having a very hard time paying attention to his tasks.
Never, since Nick had been a randy boy whose younger sister spied on him with any young lady he singled out, had he so wanted to throw a woman over his knee and spank her into submission. He had no idea from whence the unwelcome impulse stemmed. For Heaven’s sake, he didn’t even like submissive women. And it didn’t bear considering what Bella would do to him with a knife if he tried.
But this situation was ridiculous. In the space of a quarter-hour, he had saved a woman from degradation, fought publicly for her honor, averted criminal charges for dueling—or outright murder—and kept her name from social devastation, all without drawing too much of a crowd and keeping the details from her husband and the king for almost three days, an eon, by the measure of gossip among the ton. Nick was the hero in this story in every respect. Or rather, he should be.
One would think a woman thus safeguarded would offer her appreciation, her gratitude, perhaps an invitation to tea or a polite note or a “thank you, Wellbridge,” not a shrewish curtain lecture. The next time she said, “You had no reason to run after him; you might have been killed,” or “I can fight my own battles, if you please,” he truly would instigate corporal punishment.
She had asked him to keep the secret, having finally convinced Charlotte she had been frightened, not hurt, by a footpad, but the trade-off Nick demanded was taking Bella’s protection upon himself, using every inch of the access Huntleigh had given him to their house, grounds, and family life. He invited himself for every meal, played backgammon or discussed politics with Huntleigh late into the night, appeared early in the morning to re-pot plants with her in the hothouse or accompany her to the shops or deliver clothes to Huntleigh’s church that she had sewn for the poor.
It was hardly on Nick’s head that when Huntleigh saw the duke on edge, it sharpened his protective instincts. Or that Bella declared herself not-at-home to Charlotte, and had Watts deny her the house. Or that Firthley had expressed his concern to Bella’s husband in Lady Firthley’s stead.
Nick, by contrast, had steadfastly maintained the fiction that he and Malbourne had simply finally come to blows in their progressively more contentious battle for Bella’s favor.
He held no culpability for the half a dozen courtiers and half a dozen ladies walking with Prinny and his latest mistress at the masked ball, who had watched Nick level Malbourne with a fist to the jaw. Malbourne’s mask had been knocked away, and Nick had left his off entirely, but if he were any other man, hundreds of guests might have seen the fight, and as a matter of honor, either he or Malbourne would now be dead, the other on the way to the gallows.
Nor was it his fault that Huntleigh’s fatherly demands for an explanation could no longer be safely ignored, or that Prinny summoned Nick for a game of piquet and every hand wagered, “The story of Malbourne’s bruises at Vauxhall,” until he won.
In both cases, Nick had said the barest minimum he could without breaking her confidence, but he ha
d been speaking to very intelligent men who could add two and two, both of whom rang a peal over his head for keeping the secret.
“You buffle-headed pile of cow dung! You dared keep this from me—your sovereign—when you are aware I concern myself with her safety? No, Wellbridge, you need not try to explain. Only consider how quickly I can have you gaoled should you keep such a thing from me again!”
“You bacon-brained lout! You dared keep this from me—her husband—when you are aware how concerned I am for her safety? No, Sirrah, you need not try to explain. Only consider how quickly I can have her removed from London and your questionable company should you keep such a thing from me again!”
Nick had tried to side with Bella, but in truth, he agreed with the others: he should have been more forceful from the start, insisting she involve her husband, at least. Maybe then, he wouldn’t be subject to either their contempt or her absurd female insanity.
After three days of her snappish comments about over-protecting her, he had finally barked, “Shall I stand aside, then, and let Malbourne do whatever he likes next time? Shall I truss you and leave you in Dover for his delectation?”
She responded, “I removed myself without incident and would do again,” which was as close as she had come to admitting Malbourne had done anything untoward, almost enough to send Nick and a loaded pistol to find the French worm and the rock under which he’d slithered.
To avoid another round of self-recrimination about leaving the louse alive, he attempted to bring himself back to the question of Rathemore. Having dipped his pen into the India ink, he found himself drawing curlie-wurlies on the parchment, like a schoolboy daydreaming about a farm girl he might tup behind a hedgerow.
Ridiculous! This was utterly ridiculous! His obvious heroism had been discounted by everyone, especially Bella, and he would simply not stand for it! Hands on the edge of the desk, preparing to stand and tell Blakeley to have the carriage brought around, instead, he slumped forward, forehead dropping onto the paper, ink thankfully dry.
He had no defense against the guilt at breaking the spirit of his promise to her, the treachery of keeping the secret from her husband. There was no way to contain the ferocious anger at Malbourne, resignation and resentment about Prinny’s interference, apprehension about what the gossip was going to mean to all concerned.
There was no precedent for the depths of emotion coursing through him the past three days. If he had just killed and buried the Frog when he had the chance, perhaps all of this pent-up frustration would be gone. His entire life might be back to normal. No more worry about Prinny meting out punishment, no more remorse about misusing Lord Huntleigh’s friendship, no more disturbing thoughts of all the ways Lady Huntleigh should be offering her appreciation.
His head shot up like Punch yanked by Judy. Oh, dearest Lord in Heaven, his sister was right.
“Well, of course you can’t stand Malbourne touching her, Nicky. You’re in love with her. It’s plain as day,” she had expounded at her unbearable musicale. “And long past time, brother dear.”
“I simply hold her in high esteem,” he had replied stiffly. “I should not like to see her demeaned by his advances.”
“Demeaned, is it?” Allie had asked archly. “So, you are concerned only for her reputation?”
“And her… her… person. He is a reprobate.”
“Well, yes, of course, everyone knows that, but his morality is beside the point. Yours, however, is entirely in question. Not only because you are also a reprobate, but more importantly, you tell colossal lies to your own sister.”
Not a woman on Earth dragged growling and snarls from him as well as Lady Allison Nockham.
“I have said not one false word. You are preposterous, and I’ll not discuss it any further.”
By the Gods, Allie was going to be insufferable.
Jerking his hand at a knock on the door, Nick nearly spilled his coffee when Blakeley entered.
“Your Grace,” Blakeley’s voice was tight, and his lips drawn, “Lady Huntleigh to see you.”
The coffee sloshed over his cuff after all. “Alone?”
“Yes, Sir.” Blakeley’s opinion of this impropriety was evident on his stony face, and Nick agreed entirely. The past three days, her presence had become more unnerving by the hour.
When Huntleigh had declared the night before he would dine alone with his wife, the pronouncement grave as an epitaph, Nick had been relieved the secret was out without Nick having to entirely break his promise to Bella. He wasn’t, however, particularly optimistic about her seeing the fine distinctions.
“Your Grace, Lady Huntleigh? If you’d like, I can tell her you are not receiving.”
Nick thought very seriously about doing just that, but it would be nothing more than cowardice. She was driving him mad, but was a lady and deserved some level of deference.
“No, Blakeley. Please show her into the drawing room, and I will be there directly.”
“She is in the library, Your Grace, as you have indicated such a preference for personal meetings, though I can move her should you choose.”
“No. No, the library is fine.” Perhaps she could be distracted by discussion of some novel or another. Or perhaps he could.
He put on his new, bottle-green superfine jacket, pleased he had worn it this morning, even with no expectation of Bella’s visit. Though the tailor said it set off his eyes to perfection, it made him peevish to set such store by the depiction; he had never before been vain.
Since he had met Lady Huntleigh, however, the obsequious little man could sell him anything by describing how it set off his powerful shoulders, or eyes green as jade, or tresses of gold. No, that wasn’t quite true. When the man said ‘tresses,’ Nick had thrown him out.
He adjusted the yellow waistcoat that matched his tresses, then tugged his sleeves over the tiny white lawn ruffles that stiffened his cuffs. Looking into the gilt-framed mirror above the fireplace, he re-tied his queue with a green silk riband, then straightened the Mathematical knot Blakeley could achieve with a cravat in mere minutes, but Nick couldn’t if he tied knots around his neck until he choked to death.
“Your Grace?” Blakeley prompted him politely. “Would you like me to have tea sent to the library whilst you prepare yourself?”
Nick tugged at his lapels. “No, Blakeley, I’m ready now. And no tea. I can’t imagine she will want to stay that long.”
He could barely make himself turn from the mirror, but remembered something he had meant to address at least a week ago. Anything to keep from stepping out of his study.
“I have been meaning to tell you. The Viceroy will visit London soon, and most likely, I will entertain him here, for the first time as Wellbridge. If true to form, he will be most pleased with a generous kitchen, a discerning selection of schnapps, and a respite from people trying to make an impression.”
“I remember His Excellency’s tastes quite well. Dalrymple House shall provide immaculate respite.”
Blakeley rubbed his hands together, clearly anticipating the chance to entertain his royal former employer. Nick could hardly fault him. Acting as butler at Dalrymple House and factotum to Nick Northope required not nearly the level of ceremony and grandeur as serving princes.
“If anyone can ensure that, Blakeley, it is you. I merely wished to mention that if Cook has not added the new staff we discussed, she will want to do so at the earliest opportunity. It will not do to be caught shorthanded when the king’s younger brother comes to call.”
“It will please you to know, Your Grace, Mrs. Blanchard has already hired a new kitchen maid and scullery maid, both experienced with good references. Both will be paid far more than they are worth, per your usual requirements.” Nick wasn’t sure how Blakeley’s nose could stretch so high with his neck so stiff. “You have no need to concern yourself with the particulars of the kitchen staff.”
He clapped the butler on the shoulder in an entirely too-familiar way, taking recompense for the impli
cation he was too free with his own household budget, much of which paid Blakeley an exorbitant wage. “Quite right. I’ve proven uncivilized again, haven’t I?”
Blakeley’s posture loosened just slightly as he inclined his head. “This is your home, Your Grace. Should you wish to be uncivilized, your staff will muddle through. I do hope, however, you will allow me to shield them from your more radical sentiments. Purely to maintain order, you understand.”
“Of course,” Nick laughed ironically. “They mustn’t get ideas above their stations before the Viceroy’s visit.”
“Nor after, Your Grace. Will you see Lady Huntleigh now, Sir?”
“Lead on.”
He followed the butler down the hall to the library, where she was waiting quietly in a corner, almost hiding behind a red-gold pelisse that made the flame in her hair glint in the light of the honey-scented beeswax candles. She had removed the coat, holding it like a shield, arms crossed, shoulders hunched in the position she took up on occasions when she wished to become wallpaper.
Nick nearly drooled at the high-waisted, décolleté, curvaceous dress he had never before seen: heavy pomegranate satin under loose-weave gold muslin with gold tapestry trim and long, sheer, gathered net sleeves, just a bit too low-cut, a bit too formal, a bit too ephemeral for mid-afternoon. The dress fell to her perfect ankle above her red satin slippers, the dancing shoes hardly sturdy enough to walk on the street. Her reticule was gold, trimmed with red ribbons. She looked like gold inlaid into rubies set in gold.
He had told himself he wouldn’t put up with her yelling again, but he might put up with anything if the reward were removing this particular gown. Soon.
He gave himself a mental shake, recalling seemingly endless anger directed at him for risking gaol, if not hanging, in her defense. But even before Vauxhall, she had returned seven bouquets of flowers and four books, including a rare signed copy of Mary Tighe’s Psyche, not to mention enough of his own poetry to fill another volume. She had danced with Malbourne right in front of him, thirteen times on six different occasions, all but giving Nick the cut direct.
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