Last Night with the Duke

by Amelia Grey

  This year had to be different for Griffin.

  “Your sisters might be at risk for pranks or mischief during the Season,” Hawk said.

  Griffin nodded. “I was made aware of the rumor last night.”

  Rath frowned. “And you didn’t think it important enough to find us and tell us about it?”

  “My first priority was to determine if the rumor was credible.”

  “And did you?”

  “Yes. I was on my way to St. James when I noticed the—” Griffin stopped, realizing he didn’t want to mention Miss Swift and his unscheduled stop at the employment agency to his friends. That was none of their concern. “As soon as I arrived back home, I was going to send a message asking that you both come over later today. Tell me what you heard and from whom.”

  “I was told Sir Welby overheard some gentlemen discussing the fact your sisters were making their debut,” Hawk said. “One of the men said something to the effect that the Rakes of St. James always get away with everything. They’ve never had to pay a price for their scandalous behavior years ago and it was time they did.”

  “Another said they needed to be brought down a peg or two and wouldn’t it be fitting if something happened to ruin one of the Duke of Griffin’s sisters’ first Season,” Rath finished for him.

  “That’s precisely what I heard,” Griffin mumbled under his breath, once again damning Miss Honora Truth for resurrecting their prank from the past. He had no doubt that her scandal sheet started this line of thinking when she reminded the whole of London about the wager that ruined the Season almost ten years ago.

  “Apparently someone thinks turnabout is the clever thing to do,” Rath added. “And your sisters are fair game now that they’re ready to make their debut in Society.”

  Griffin would move heaven and hell to see that didn’t happen. The twins had nothing to do with what the three of them did, and he would protect his sisters from this mischief at all cost.

  “I know Sir Welby is almost blind,” Hawk offered, “but I don’t understand him not recognizing any of the men. Not one. Seems unbelievable to me. He said it was late afternoon and the lamps hadn’t been lit.”

  “White’s doesn’t have the best of lighting even when they are,” Griffin added. “I talked with Sir Welby, and he assured me he wouldn’t recognize the blades again if they walked right in front of him.”

  “Do you think there’s the possibility that maybe he knows but doesn’t want to say?”

  Griffin looked at Rath. “That crossed my mind. He’s always been an honest, unassuming fellow, but at this point I’m not going to discount anyone.”

  “Surely he gave you more information than we have heard,” Hawk said. “Did he say how many men there were?”

  Griffin shook his head. “Maybe four or five. He couldn’t be sure. When he turned to look at them, they were laughing and leaving the table. Some other gentlemen were just entering the taproom. Apparently the two groups mingled together and all he saw was a blur. He had no idea how long they had been there or how deep they were into their cups.”

  “So he doesn’t know if they were serious or just talking to impress each other.”

  “No. But either way, I will treat this the same. I can’t take the chance it was the bottom of a brandy bottle talking and not a true penchant to get at me.”

  Rath’s dark brown eyes stared at Griffin as he asked, “So what are you going to do?”

  Miss Swift came easily to his mind, and an unexpected calmness settled over him. He liked the tilt of her chin when she questioned him, her softly rounded shoulders that moved so gently when she walked, and the determined set to her beautiful lips when she wasn’t speaking. The enticement she’d stirred inside him had stayed with him and made him want to think about her.

  Reluctantly, Griffin sobered. This wasn’t the place to think about the woman who had captured his attention by not trying. Trying? he thought with a silent chuckle. She not only didn’t try, she rebuffed him time and time again.

  He stared at his friends with determination and said, “I will keep my sisters safe.”

  “So do you think you should wait until next year for their debut?” Rath asked as he absentmindedly rubbed the condensation on the window with the knuckles of his gloved hand.

  “I considered that, and while I would like to, it wouldn’t be fair to them. It’s all they’ve talked about for more than two years. And if someone is planning revenge, then they would only have to wait as well.”

  “There’s probably any number of men who want to get even with us,” Rath said.

  Hawk nodded.

  “Sir Welby was certain none of the older bachelors were in the group,” Griffin added. “Though his eyesight has failed him, he feels sure he would have recognized the voices of men who’d been around White’s for years.”

  “It looks as if there are some things we can assume,” Rath offered. “That at least one or more of them had a sister who made her debut the year we made the wager.”

  “Or possibly a cousin or daughter,” Hawk added. “And there is the possibility that these fellows are jackanapes who simply want to be a part of mischief much like we used to do.”

  “All could be true,” Griffin agreed. “And if brothers, they could be younger or older brothers.”

  “We know there were twelve young ladies making their debut when we sent the notes, but I’m not sure I can recall all their names.”

  “I’m certain I don’t,” Rath admitted. “Between the three of us we should be able to come up with most of them and with some reasonable possibilities of who might be plotting this retribution too.”

  “If we don’t, you’ll have no way of knowing who is seriously interested in pursuing one of the twins to make a match and who would only be out to ruin her reputation or her Season.”

  Rath inhaled loudly, deeply. “Lady Sara and Lady Vera had nothing to do with what we did.”

  “That doesn’t matter to whomever is planning this,” Griffin said. “I’m sure they look at it as their sisters, cousins, or daughters were innocent too when we pulled our foolish prank. It’s been said that a man will wait forever to exact his revenge.”

  Rath and Hawk looked at Griffin but stayed quiet. They knew what he said was true.

  Hawk slowly drummed his fingers on his knee. “I thought there might come a day when we could actually live down that foolish time in our lives.”

  “It’s not likely to happen now that Miss Honora Truth has decided that bringing it up would make the sales of her gossip sheet soar to the skies,” Rath muttered with a fierceness.

  “Why didn’t we think about the fact that our sisters were going to grow up and become young ladies one day?” Hawk asked.

  “That’s right,” Rath said to Hawk. “You have a younger sister too.”

  “She’ll make her debut next year.”

  Griffin, Hawk, and Rath hadn’t been dubbed the Rakes of St. James because of the work they did for the church, but Griffin could only answer for himself. From the time he left his studies and the strict environment of Oxford, he’d only been interested in whatever gave him pleasure. All else be damned. He had all the money and women he wanted, and he went through plenty of both. At the time, the future never entered his mind.

  “I know what the two of you are thinking.” Rath’s gaze swept from Hawk’s to Griffin’s. “And you’re right. I have no sister and the wager was my idea.”

  “We all agreed to do it,” Griffin stated without hesitation. “None of us is any more or less to blame.”

  “He’s right,” Hawk said. “We were all too foolish to think of others at the time.”

  “Too young, too arrogant, and too wealthy for our own good,” Griffin finished.

  “The way this story has lived far past most scandals is still a mystery to me,” Rath complained.

  “It didn’t help that the gossip sheets decided to revisit it just as my sisters came of age.”

  “Damnation, how old were
we? Eighteen? Possibly nineteen. There’s not a father, brother, or cousin out there who didn’t do stupid things when they were that young.”

  “But most of them didn’t get caught in the middle of their mischief,” Hawk reminded him. “We did.”

  “It’s not like we laid a hand on any of the young ladies. Or that there was any real harm done. When all was said and done the only thing we did was prove that every young lady, no matter how good or how poor her prospects for a match are, no matter how lovely or unpleasant or how shy or companionable she is, wants a secret admirer.”

  “And is willing to meet him—in secret,” Hawk added. “I supposed their fathers and brothers didn’t like knowing that.”

  Rath blew out a disgruntled sigh. “No, but we accomplished what we set out to do. Prove that whoever wrote that drivel about how a gentleman woos a lady was wrong.”

  Hawk brushed the rain droplets off the sleeve of his coat. “There is no use in our rehashing that. We can’t change the past.” He looked at Griffin. “What do you want us to do now to help?”

  Griffin gave them a rueful smile. “I’ve been waiting for one of you to ask that all-important question.”

  Leaning forward, Rath rested his elbows on his legs, stared at Griffin with his dark intense eyes, and said, “Tell us what it is you want and consider it done.”

  “That’s exactly what I wanted to hear,” Griffin said. “You can marry Lady Sara, and you, Hawk, can marry Lady Vera.”

  “Wait,” Rath said, holding up his hands and leaning back against the seat cushion again. His gaze swept from Hawk’s to Griffin’s. “That’s not what I had in mind.”

  Of course not, Griffin thought.

  “Me either,” Hawk immediately agreed while shifting his tall frame in the small seat. “You know we can’t do that.”

  Griffin deliberately hesitated and searched the eyes of his friends. It wasn’t often he had the opportunity to see these two men squirm like worms in hot ashes. He wanted a few moments to savor their worried reaction before asking, “Why not?”

  “It would be like marrying our own sisters,” Rath argued, running his hand through his long black hair again.

  “You know they adore both of you.” Griffin continued with his ruse. “And would marry either one of you tomorrow if you’d only ask. It would solve the problem quickly and effortlessly. No one would dare try anything if they were engaged to the two of you. And, I might add, they bring a very handsome dowry with them.”

  “Lady Sara and Lady Vera are beautiful,” Hawk said, rolling his shoulders and shifting uncomfortably once again. “They will be without question the most sought after young ladies the ton has to offer this year.”

  “And they are truly sweet, desirable, and all the rest.” Rath paused. “But I won’t go into the rest since they are your sisters.”

  “That’s best, Rath,” Hawk chimed in quickly. “All you need to know, Griffin, is that we can’t marry them.”

  “So when you said you’d be willing to do anything, you didn’t actually mean ‘anything’?”

  “No, no,” Rath defended firmly. “That’s not true. We did and we still do. But you have to agree that we would not be saving them by marriage to us.”

  “We would not make good husbands for your sisters,” Hawk added. “And you know it.”

  Griffin did know. So he chuckled and said, “You two are such cowards, but you’re right. I don’t want the two of you marrying my sisters. You don’t deserve them.” He laughed again when he saw relief wash down their faces.

  “When it comes to thinking about marriage,” Rath said with an amused smirk, “I willingly admit that it scares the hell out of me to think of a wife to protect and one day having a son like me. However, though I dislike attending all the balls of the Season, I will this year so that I can help you keep watch over Lady Sara and Lady Vera and make sure they come to no harm.”

  “I think we all feel that way about the parties. There’s so blasted many of them,” Hawk grumbled. “And while I have no desire to attend all of the parties either, I will. I’ll do all I can to facilitate getting to the bottom of whoever is behind this foolish notion of ruining Lady Sara and Lady Vera’s Season.”

  “That’s really all I wanted to hear,” Griffin said with a nod. “I’m hoping in the light of day with clearer heads, the bucks decided they really don’t want to take on three dukes. Join me at St. James for a drink. We’ll put our memories to the test to come up with a list of possibilities of who might want to engage in this ill-conceived plot.”

  His friends agreed and soon left the carriage. When the door shut behind them, Griffin reached up and knocked twice on the roof, signaling his driver to proceed. He then relaxed against the seat and allowed his thoughts to drift back to the past.

  Being the firstborn and only son of a duke, his parents celebrated him the day he was born and never stopped. If he wanted it, it was given to him. If he wanted to do it, he was allowed. If he didn’t want to do it, he wasn’t forced to. The only thing his father required of him was that he respect and learn how to manage the entailed property of the dukedom. That had been a relatively easy accomplishment.

  But when his father died and Griffin became duke, instead of treasuring and respecting the title, he abused it and chased only what he desired, and then voraciously indulged in it. Drinking, gambling, and ladies of the night were the cravings of his heart.

  The beginning of that wasteland of extravagant behavior was what led to the catastrophic wager that stunned all in Society and still haunted him and his friends.

  It all started because of a book: A Proper Gentleman’s Guide to Wooing the Perfect Lady.

  He blew out a huffed laugh and watched his breath chill in the frosty air of the coach.

  Griffin never doubted they’d rightly deserved the “Rakes of St. James” name. They had no boundaries and no discipline. Week after week they attended card parties that were littered with willing women and overflowing with brandy and anything else they desired. They wagered and gambled continuously for weeks on end, winning prized horses, estates, and fortunes—losing a little along the way too.

  In the evenings they’d make their rounds to the Season’s dinner parties and balls. They would dance, charm, and woo all the innocent young ladies, making them think they could be tamed, or caught. But none of the rakes had any intentions of making a match. They only wanted to hone their skills with mistresses, cards, and dice. As soon as they left the gatherings of innocent ladies of Polite Society, they spent the rest of the night and most of the next day in a gambling hell on the east side of Bond Street.

  Now, Griffin was restless. No, it was more than that. He was bored. Bored with cards, dice, racing, shooting, and hunting. All of it. He was even bored with the parade of beautiful women that seemed to have no end.

  In truth, he couldn’t remember half of the things he’d been accused of that Season because he’d kept his face in a bottle of brandy, port, or a tankard of ale. His eyes were always blurred and his head had kept a constant pounding. Thankfully they didn’t think, drink, or behave like that anymore.

  He couldn’t say he missed those days. He didn’t. Somehow they’d all three managed to live through the debauchery, though they hadn’t lived it down as he’d hoped. Miss Honora Truth’s Weekly Scandal Sheet had seen to that by being the first to stir up the past again.

  At various times, they’d all tried to find out who wrote that column about the wager. Each one of them had failed miserably. They had finally concluded the writer must be one of the older, trusted employees at the publishing company that concocted the drivel. The owner, who’d made it quite clear he would take the writer’s identity to his grave, used the made-up name so no one could find out who the real author was. Griffin had long since ceased reading or caring what was written about him, though it was a very different story now that his sisters were mentioned.

  There were things he and his friends did in the early years that were far worse than that
wager, but no one had found out about those. And it was a good thing no one had, or Miss Truth would be writing about that too.

  One drunken night, they’d decided that they should each select a young lady, find a way to slip into her bedroom without her or anyone else in her house knowing about it, and bring back something to prove he had been there—a monogramed hairbrush, a bow, a ribbon, or a reticule they would all be able to recognize as belonging to the young lady. They were all such reckless, heartless rakes at the time. It was never to harm or to seduce the young lady. It was only to test their skills of getting in and out of the room without anyone knowing.

  Griffin stretched out his booted feet and leaned against the cushion as his thoughts took him back to that fateful night that earned him and his friends the name “Rakes of St. James.” They had been laughing at the ridiculous suggestions in A Proper Gentleman’s Guide to Wooing the Perfect Lady.

  On the list of things a proper gentleman should never do was to send a young lady a love note signed Your Secret Admirer. That’s all Griffin and his friends needed to read. If they were told they shouldn’t do something, it was a given they would.

  Rath’s idea was to send a secret-admirer note to all the unmarried ladies of the ton. Griffin and Hawk had readily agreed to the lark. Over another bottle of brandy they’d decided there were too many ladies and it would be far too much work. In the end they sent secret-admirer letters only to the young ladies who were making their debut Season. There were twelve. That was more manageable.

  And turning it into a wager would make the prank more interesting. They each put in one hundred pounds. The one who had the most young ladies show up for the assignation with their secret admirer would win the money.

  It was so easy—until it was over. Their success that night ended up being their downfall.

  In the letter to his four, Griffin had asked them to meet him by the fountain in the back garden of the Grand Hall. Rath had told his four to meet him on the south portico, and Hawk had instructed his to meet him by the pavilion. Much to their astonishment, all twelve young ladies showed up to meet her secret admirer. But no admirer showed. Just four ladies at each place who eventually started talking to each other as young ladies were predisposed to do. It was then they realized they had been duped.