The Trouble With Dukes

by Grace Burrowes

  Keswick was inviting confidences, such as Hamish hadn’t reposed in anybody, not even his beloved. Hamish could not entirely oblige.

  “Sir Fletcher is discrediting a rival, of course, and if you were in Spain, you know well what was said about me.”

  “I was there,” Keswick said, taking up a lean against the mantel. “Saw you snap that poor bastard’s neck. Saw the French start to fall back immediately thereafter. I’d been frequenting battlefields for years at that point, and observing that one death nearly had me retching in the bushes.”

  Keswick pushed away from the mantel, and Hamish thought this little frolic among the battle ghosts was over.

  Instead, Keswick took two steps closer. “I cannot imagine what that must have been like for you.”

  Hamish’s idiot, stupid, useless brain formed words, and his hopeless, floundering mouth pushed them into speech, though abruptly, ambushes lay on every hand.

  “I meant to shove the damned man aside, to get him the hell out of my way, but the bloody Frenchman wouldn’t move. I could see a half dozen of the French infantry closing in on my brother from behind, and Colin was oblivious to the danger, focused only on moving forward. I had to get to my brother’s side, or I’d be watching him die, not ten yards away.

  “And there was the Frenchman,” Hamish went on, more softly, “blocking my way. I put my hands on him, and then he was dead. I think he slipped. I never meant to kill him. I long to believe he slipped, and that his death was an accident.”

  Keswick’s gaze was unreadable in the gloom. “War is a series of accidents, either miraculous or tragic. That ground was so damned muddy we were all slipping, the horses were going down, the artillery couldn’t be moved into position quickly enough. Your accident, if that’s what it was, turned the tide of a battle that wasn’t going well at all for our side. That single death probably prevented many others on both sides, and yet, I feel you’re owed an apology.”

  Hamish had never asked an eyewitness what that tragic, violent moment had looked like to an observer, but Keswick’s recitation brought back memories.

  The screams of horses falling in the mud, the cursing of the infantry when the artillery couldn’t do its part as needed, the slippery frustration of boggy ground hampering an advance the French had been mortally determined to stop.

  Keswick didn’t offer a ready assurance that the worst moment of Hamish’s life had been an accident, but he offered a reminder of evidence supporting that conclusion.

  All of which Hamish would ponder when Megan was safe from Sir Fletcher. “Nobody owes me anything, Keswick—and you’ll not bring this up with Colin, ever—but you lot owe Megan Windham your escort. Sir Fletcher is spoiling to create scandal by calling somebody out, and if that somebody is me, I’ll have to choose between breaking my word to a lady and taking a bullet from a scoundrel.”

  Keswick wandered off to a comfortable reading chair. He produced a flask and offered it to Hamish.

  Well, yes. A restorative tot was in order after every ambush.

  “Are you that poor a marksman?” Keswick asked.

  His flask held a fine, smooth brandy. It wasn’t whisky, but it would do. “Compared to Sir Fletcher? Probably. I also promised the Baroness St. Clair I’d not fight any more duels. The baron is a formidable man, but his baroness puts even him to the blush.”

  “I’ve had the pleasure,” Keswick said, accepting his flask back. “Gave me considerable encouragement at the time, to think that if St. Clair could stumble into the arms of a good woman, there’s hope for the rest of us.”

  “He cheated my secrets from me,” Hamish said, something only St. Clair himself knew. “Drugged my drink, because he said it would have been too much trouble to torture the information out of me. I was supposed to be consoled by that.”

  “And guilt has tormented you since,” Keswick said. “Maybe that’s the greatest wound war inflicts—guilt for when we fight well, guilt for when we don’t. Guilt when we leave our loved ones at home, greater guilt when we leave comrades on the battlefield. Here’s to peace.”

  Keswick tipped the flask up, then passed it over to Hamish. Gentlemanly consideration meant Hamish took another nip.

  “To peace,” Hamish said, “but not for Sir Fletcher. You’ll keep an armed guard on Meggie?”

  “We always do. I’ll put her cousins on alert, though, while you do exactly what?”

  Strategy mattered. Whatever else was true, Hamish must not underestimate Sir Fletcher again. He was desperate and cunning, and as Megan had said, would not play by any honorable rules. Another reason not to challenge him, or accept a challenge from him.

  “Megan tried to tell me to walk away.”

  “And yet, here you are, moving your infantry into place, disobeying orders, for which you’re also apparently notorious.”

  Hamish took the second armchair, a comfy place to ponder the rest of his life. “I didn’t disobey orders any more than anybody else did. My men mattered to me, and for a time my commanding officer was some marquess’s spare who cared more for gathering intelligence beneath the laundress’s skirts than for invading France.”

  “I suspected as much.”

  An oddly comfortable silence blossomed, such as soldiers frequently shared around a campfire. Somebody might recite a poem, somebody else sing an old song, the flask would make the rounds, until each man drifted away to dream of home, childhood, or a new pair of boots.

  “I could fight Sir Fletcher,” Hamish said softly. “I realize that now. I’m ready, willing, and able. I hadn’t been certain before.” How awful to know that he was battle-worthy again, and what a relief too. A relief he owed to Megan.

  “Pilkington would kill you, bat his handsome blue eyes, and claim he meant to delope,” Keswick said. “His titled English seconds would support that fairy tale, regardless of what I claimed to the contrary. Don’t turn your back on Pilkington. While he’s been spreading gossip about you, I’ve been collecting intelligence on him. He’s spoiled, mean, had a vile temper toward his own men, and flourishes his charm like a silk handkerchief before the debutantes and their mamas.”

  This entirely unnecessary warning warmed that part of Hamish that Megan’s attempted dismissal had left chilled and furious.

  “I’ll not turn my back on him—not again.” Hamish wouldn’t let the bastard take Megan to wife either. If scandal erupted, Megan’s family might deny Hamish his lady’s hand—until he could spirit her away to Scotland—but scandal was preferable to knowing Megan had been coerced into a marriage she loathed.

  “You don’t turn your back on anybody,” Keswick said. “I’m not complimenting your manners, Murdoch. This damned flask has somehow become empty.”

  Only Megan complimented his manners. “You need a bigger flask, and I need time.”

  Hamish passed over his own flask. Keswick had spent years soldiering. He’d be no stranger to the water of life.

  “Time to what? I can have a pigeon sent to Megan’s parents, if that would help.”

  A pigeon had brought England the first news of Wellington’s victory at Waterloo. “No pigeons, Keswick. Megan can summon her parents if she pleases to, but I need time, and waiting for Lord Anthony and his lady to return will mean Pilkington’s options are limited for the present.”

  Keswick took a respectable draught from the flask and passed it back. “I think I’ll return to the card room and find myself a hand or two of whist. If luck is with me, I’ll lighten Sir Fletcher’s pockets, which ought to keep him from partnering Megan on the dance floor for the next while. You still haven’t formed a plan, have you?”

  “I have much to consider when coming up with my strategy. Just as soon as you leave me in peace, I’ll be about it.”

  Keswick snorted, rose, and squeezed Hamish on the shoulder. “Lock the door after me, lest you be scandalized by a parade of couples seeking privacy. If Sir Fletcher is determined to cause talk, the sooner you devise a way to thwart him, the better. Talk travels like a scent
on the breeze, and this time of year, Mayfair is a veritable windstorm.”

  Hamish remained seated, though he wanted to find Megan and hie her away to Scotland. “Go lose your pin money just so your countess can console you on your losses. I’m apparently not without allies, for which any soldier knows to be grateful.”

  The double negative was a useful fig leaf when a man’s dignity was imperiled.

  “You’re not without allies, family, resources, and a good dose of soldierly cunning. My countess has declared that should you find favor with Megan, you’d do. On that warning, I’ll bid you good night.”

  Hamish rose to lock the door behind Keswick, for he did have much to ponder. He’d failed Megan—stealing the letters hadn’t been enough—and for that failure, he might lose the chance to marry her.

  He’d not fail her again.

  “How can a man knighted for bravery, the son of an earl, and one in possession of damning—if forged—evidence be brought to heel without risking scandal to my Meggie?”

  The darkened parlor had no answers, but Hamish did have one additional question, a query that had plagued him since Megan had told him of Sir Fletcher’s copies.

  Copying thirty-one letters, meticulously, in the author’s own hand, right down to perfecting a version of her signature, took a significant amount of time. A man of Sir Fletcher’s fundamentally indolent, self-important character would not normally make such an effort. A certain artistic ability was required to replicate a signature convincingly thirty-one times, and Sir Fletcher was no artist.

  So how and by whom had the letters been copied?

  Chapter Eighteen

  Colin had done the pretty for the past week, while Hamish had lurked in the gentlemen’s clubs, gone out on errands of his own, and generally broken the heart of a young lady whom Colin had hoped would be his brother’s salvation. When that young lady crossed paths with Colin in Hyde Park early one morning—nothing like a good gallop to chase the cobwebs from a fellow’s brain—he wanted to keep on galloping, all the way to the Highlands.

  “Lord Colin, good morning.”

  Colin’s horse snorted and puffed and acted like an idiot, while Miss Megan Windham controlled her chestnut mare easily.

  “Miss Megan, good day. Enjoy the park, and give my regards to your—”

  The lady twitched at the drape of her habit over her boot. Her gesture bore an air of patience, as if waiting for Colin to get through his prevarications.

  “How is he, Lord Colin?”

  He being Hamish, of course. “I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since the last ball, not to speak of.” Hamish ate breakfast long before the rest of the family, closeted himself with solicitors and bankers, and then disappeared into the clubs, most of which he’d only recently been admitted to.

  According to extended family gossip, he’d also consulted with a MacHugh cousin who was a publisher, another who made saddles, a third who ran a fishmonger’s stall in the Haymarket, and a fourth who owned a pub in Knightsbridge.

  “One worries about His Grace,” Miss Megan said. A hundred yards up the path, some gentleman on a sizable black gelding waited for her. Her groom tarried a respectful dozen yards back. Colin looked for Miss Anwen, but she apparently hadn’t ridden out with her sister.

  “I’ve been worrying about Hamish for years,” Colin replied. “It doesn’t do any good. Hamish will do as he pleases, and there’s no stopping him. If he has toyed with your affections, I can only apologize on his behalf, and tell you that’s not at all like him.”

  As much as Colin hated to see Miss Megan gazing at the door at one society gathering after another, he was equally troubled to have lost track of his older brother. London in springtime was probably Hamish’s idea of a nightmare, and yet, Colin had had such hopes.

  “Will you ride with me, Lord Colin? I’d like to put a few questions to you, and we have relative privacy.”

  She was a lady, Colin was a gentleman—or aspiring to become one—and he could not refuse her. He turned his gelding alongside the mare and prepared to dodge an awkward interrogation.

  “I will tell you what I can,” Colin said. “I won’t violate any confidences.” Not that Hamish confided in his siblings. Possibly in his horse, or their papa’s headstone, but never anything so trifling as a mere younger brother.

  “Tell me about growing up in Scotland,” Miss Megan said as her mare ambled along in the sun’s first rays. “Tell me about your home and your younger brothers.”

  On those topics, Colin could be effusive, and so he held forth for a good half hour, while the horses walked the bridle paths, the sun rose, and Megan’s escort kept them in sight at all times.

  “Hamish ought to be the one hacking out with you first thing in the day,” Colin said, some while later. “I don’t know what’s amiss with him, Miss Megan, but if I were to ask him, he’d snap and growl and tell me to buy a new pair of boots.”

  Maybe not boots, given the expenses Rhona and Edana had been running up lately.

  “He’s not been right since Spain, has he?”

  Abruptly, Colin realized that all the reminiscing about Perthshire and describing the family tree had been so much subterfuge on Megan Windham’s part. She’d been earning his trust, letting him maunder on as if his every word were her greatest delight. Like the bumbling idiot he often was, Colin had obliged her.

  “Hamish never wanted to go to war,” Colin said. “I know that, and I tried to talk him out of it. Leaving Scotland was like parting with a vital organ for him, but more and more of the local lads were joining up, and I’d seen as much of Perthshire as any young man needs to. I was mad to buy my colors, and there was nobody to stop me.”

  “You were young, Lord Colin. We haven’t much sense when we’re young.”

  She spoke as if she—a perfect lady from a perfect family—had blundered badly at some point, which wasn’t possible.

  “Hamish did not want me to go,” Colin said, the words twisting a knife of guilt in his conscience. “I concocted stirring speeches about patriotism, and the Corsican monster, and doing my part, but the truth is, I don’t care a bit for whichever George we’re stuck with on the throne. Never have, which makes me a scoundrel, I suppose. I simply wanted adventure, new sights, new faces, and some glory of my own.”

  Other riders were coming toward them, a pair of fellows whom Colin recognized as more perfectly turned-out Windhams—still no Miss Anwen. Both men rode fine horseflesh, and while the smiles they aimed at Megan were affectionate, Colin rated only a scowling tip of the hat.

  As it should be, because the wrong MacHugh was keeping the lady company.

  “Did you find new sights, new adventure, and a bit of glory of your own?” Miss Megan asked when she and Colin had resumed their progress down the path.

  Colin gave her question some thought, because this was not a woman to be dismissed with casual gallantries. Without her glasses, she wasn’t scrutinizing his expression, but she’d hear insincerity in his voice.

  “I made wonderful friends, saw parts of the world a Scottish lad wouldn’t have seen otherwise, and I fought well. I enjoyed most of army life, and I can say that honestly.”

  “Then Hamish is doubtless pleased for you, and your happiness means the world to him. Maybe you ought to be pleased for yourself?”

  “How can I be pleased for myself, when I see my brother—” Colin couldn’t speak as bluntly before a lady as he’d like to. Hamish was mucking up this courtship of Miss Megan, disappointing hostesses, aggravating Eddie and Ronnie, and generally fouling up the works.

  And Colin didn’t know how to intervene, didn’t know how to be the good brother Hamish had so often been to every one of his siblings.

  Was this how Hamish felt, when Colin got into scrape after scrape? Helpless, inadequate, frustrated, and nearly choking on the need to help and be useful?

  “Are we letting the horses rest?” Miss Megan had brought her mare to a halt, and why Colin’s gelding had stopped in the middle o
f the path, he did not know.

  “Walk on, you,” Colin muttered, and the beast complied. “I need to have a wee chat with my brother. Set him straight on a few things.”

  “Not on my behalf,” Miss Megan said. “I esteem Murdoch greatly, and wouldn’t have you troubling him on my account. I did have one more question for you, Lord Colin.”

  Colin wanted badly to canter off in the direction of his brother’s house, hunt Hamish down, and thank him. Not the grudging thanks of a young man toward the fellow who’d spared him the risk and stupidity of a few duels, but a brother’s sincere thanks for a life saved, many times over.

  “I think that fellow on yonder gelding might be ready to escort you home, Miss Megan.”

  “Keswick enjoys his privacy,” Miss Megan said. “He’s a conscientious escort, but it’s not as if I’m prone to tumbling from the saddle. Not lately. The question I have for you is one I can put to you alone, and I hope you’ll answer honestly.”

  Unease uncoiled in Colin’s gut. “Hamish killed an unarmed man, Miss Megan. It was in the heat of battle, one among many other deaths, and that’s all you need to know. Hamish was a good ten yards off my flank so I didn’t see it. He told me he was growing desperate because the line wasn’t advancing and the rain had started up again. He needs to leave it on the battlefield, a necessary violence on the way to an equally necessary victory.”

  Miss Megan waved a gloved hand and readjusted her whip. “I know all about that, Lord Colin. Strangled a man with his bare hands, or broke his neck, possibly both. Beyond awful for all concerned, and certainly regrettable. I do not pretend to understand what goes on in the midst of battle. I want to know what happened when Hamish was ambushed. I think that’s the worse memory, and yet, he can barely allude to it. Won’t you tell me what happened?”

  She knew all about that awful day in Spain? Only Hamish himself could have told her, and yet, here she was, wanting to know more.