Never Dare a Duke

by Wendy Soliman

  Sapphire seemed responsive enough as Farrah steered her on a circuitous route past the house, fearful that Brin might be an early riser and see her making her escape. She would rather face censure after the event than try to explain why she felt the need to take matters into her own hands. He and Papa would never believe her more capable of handling Oscar and Mr Elton than they were and knew that actions spoke louder than words.

  She’d show them!

  Mud flew up from Sapphire’s hooves as she cantered the mare along a straight stretch of moorland, beyond which she had been assured by Brin’s groom that she would find Dunchideock. She slowed Sapphire as she approached the village and began to see why the groom had been confused by her desire to visit the place. The red sandstone church seemed to be the only building of note in the small village nestled on the north-eastern slope of the Haldon Hills.

  The few people she rode past so early in the morning sent her curious looks. She felt slightly uncomfortable, having assumed that the magnificent estate Mr Elton had described would be easy to find. She scanned the area beyond the village but could see no such establishment. Confused, she paused at the smithy and asked the blacksmith, who was busy doing something at his forge, if he could give her directions to the Elton residence. The man scratched his head and looked at her for a long time without responding.

  ‘It’s a large estate. The biggest in the area. You must know it,’ she said impatiently

  ‘Elton, you say.’ He scowled. ‘It’ll be the Manor House you’re looking for, but if they owes you money, don’t count on getting paid. And you can tell that bounder from me that I’ll not wait forever for settlement.’ He raised a hammer and brought it down with considerable force on the red hot horseshoe he’d just withdrawn from the fire, bending it into the required shape with a skill born of familiarity.

  Farrah thanked him and rode towards the house he had pointed to, situated just outside the village in less than two acres of ill-kempt grounds.

  ‘This cannot be right,’ she muttered as she turned Sapphire up the weed-strewn driveway. As she drew closer to the house, she saw just how derelict it actually was. But she had come this far, so she might as well make enquiries and see if these people could tell her where she needed to be.

  She dismounted, unsurprised when no grooms came running to take Sapphire. She tied her reins to a post that stood at a drunken angle, hoping that Sapphire would wait passively. If she tugged then the post would likely give way but glancing around, she couldn’t see anywhere more secure to leave the mare.

  Feeling windswept yet determined, Farrah straightened her shoulders and climbed the crumbling front steps. She rapped hard on the front door with the handle of her riding crop.

  And waited.

  She knocked three times and would have concluded that no one was at home, but for the fact that smoke belched from one chimney stack. Eventually she heard bolts being thrown back. The door was wrenched open and a footman in a dirty livery and a frown to match loomed before her.

  ‘I am here to see—’

  ‘If it’s the bailiffs,’ a drunken voice that she recognised as Mr Elton’s bellowed, ‘set the dogs on them.’

  ‘We don’t have any,’ the footman said, shrugging. ‘You sold ’em last week.’

  ‘Good heavens,’ Farrah said faintly.

  Mr Elton lurched into view behind the footman, in shirtsleeves and with what appeared to be red wine spilled liberally over his clothing. He was barefoot, his hair lank and tangled. His eyes were bloodshot and his complexion a patchwork of pimples and blotches. Clearly, he had not been to bed. Farrah had never been more shocked. Whatever else she thought of him, she had always considered Mr Elton to be the last word in sartorial splendour.

  He noticed Farrah and blinked like a myopic owl. ‘Miss Dorset.’ He dug the fingers of one hand into his thatch of dirty hair. The other, she belatedly noticed, held a half full goblet of wine. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

  ‘I have come to ask if you will have the goodness to stop trying to murder me,’ she said, sweeping past the astounded footman and into the room that Mr Elton had just emerged from. She found her brother there, apparently passed out in a drunken stupor.

  ‘Wake up, Os,’ Mr Elton said, dealing Oscar a kick in the shin. ‘We have a lady visitor.’

  Chapter Sixteen

  Brin rose early, wondering if Farrah had slept well and was on the road to recovery. She had appeared tired and distracted at dinner the previous evening, which is why he had insisted upon her retiring immediately the meal came to an end. He tried to think of a legitimate reason to send someone to enquire after her health but was prevented from putting that plan into action by the arrival of Harlow.

  ‘I’ve asked around, but no one knows of anyone called Elton living locally,’ he said.

  ‘I thought not, otherwise I’d have recognised the name.’

  Harlow sniffed. ‘Doesn’t mean he ain’t here. It just means he’s of no consequence.’

  Brin conceded the point with an abrupt nod. ‘Then how the devil do we find him?’

  ‘Shouldn’t be too hard. I’ll send a few people out, asking questions. Making it clear that you need to speak to the cove.’

  ‘Do that.’

  Brin looked up when Walker tapped at the door. ‘Excuse the intrusion, your grace,’ he said, when Brin invited him to enter, ‘but I thought you would be interested to know that Miss Dorset asked for the loan of a mare early this morning.’

  ‘She’s gone out riding?’ Brin scowled. ‘Alone? After everything that’s happened and when she’s still recovering from a vicious attack?’ Brin shook his head, lost for words. He had thought her many things, but mindlessly irresponsible was not one of them.

  ‘She asked for directions to Dunchideock.’

  ‘Dunchideock?’ Brin and Harlow exchanged a bemused glance. ‘What the devil would she want to go there for?’

  ‘Elton,’ Harlow said. ‘It must be. But how does she know where to—’

  ‘She did start to say something about knowing where they would be,’ Brin said, tapping his teeth, ‘but someone interrupted her. I meant to ask her what she’d been intending to say, but I got distracted.’ By those damned compelling eyes of hers. ‘Right, come on, Harlow. We’d best go and save her.’

  Brin clicked his fingers at the slumbering Shadow, who jumped up, his tail wagging. They strode out into the stable yard and were mounted and trotting away again within minutes. They rode fast into Dunchideock without saying a word and stopped the first person they saw when they arrived, asking if a lady on a dun mare had ridden through. They were referred to the smithy, where the blacksmith told Brin what directions she had asked for.

  ‘Damned den of iniquity,’ he said. ‘Not sure why a respectable young woman would want to set foot in the place, but there you have it.’

  Brin raised a brow. ‘Yet you didn’t stop her?’

  The smith sniffed. ‘Not my place. She seemed to know where she wanted to go.’

  Brin would have liked a more fulsome explanation about the goings on in Elton’s abode but didn’t have the time to spend on idle speculation. He thanked the man and he and Harlow headed for the rundown house they had been directed to.

  ‘No wonder you didn’t know the man’s name if this is how he lives,’ Harlow said, turning up his nose at the neglected fields surrounding the ramshackle building.

  ‘There’s her horse,’ Brin said, pointing to the mare tethered at the foot of the entrance steps.

  They dismounted, tied their own mounts at the side of the house where the low limbs of an oak tree provided a stronger tethering post. Brin and Harlow then negotiated the crumbling steps. Without bothering to knock, Brin turned the handle on the once-imposing but now badly cracked front door. It swung inwards and he strode through it, pushing past a dishevelled footman who simply shrugged and left them to it.

  ‘Out of my way!’ Brin growled, even though the footman hadn’t shown the least inclination to
prevent them going wherever they liked. He reached for the handle to the drawing room door and thrust it open.

  *

  Farrah wrinkled her nose at the smell of stale wine and unwashed bodies. She took in the disreputable state of the furniture in a shabby drawing room with peeling wallpaper and a crumbling ceiling with an air of disdain. How could her fastidious brother have fallen so low? She looked for somewhere to sit and settled for a hardbacked chair, the seat of which appeared to have remained relatively unstained. She was aware of Oscar waking and blinking at her as if she was some sort of apparition. Elton, a mocking little smile playing about his crusty lips, watched her taking in her surroundings and didn’t feel the need to apologise, either for where Farrah had found herself or for the fact that he and Oscar appeared to be roaring drunk.

  Farrah seated herself, attempting to give off an air of calm authority, even though her heart was racing and she was beginning to wonder if she had done the right thing in coming here. There was a strong sense of malice behind Elton’s teasing smile, and she suddenly felt afraid of him. She straightened her shoulders, aware that it would be a grave miscalculation if she permitted her misgivings to show.

  ‘Farrah. What the devil are you doing here?’ Oscar seemed disorientated and at least as dishevelled as Elton. The sight disgusted her.

  ‘That question is becoming tiresome,’ she said impatiently. ‘But since you insist upon knowing, I came to ask you to stop trying to kill me.’

  She had the satisfaction of seeing the two of them exchange a glance that was far from innocent.

  ‘Don’t talk rot,’ Oscar said dismissively, groaning at the effort it took him to focus his bleary eyes upon her. He ran a hand through his hair, reached for his wine goblet and found it empty. He cursed, staggered to his feet and poured the dregs of an open bottle into the cup, swallowing it down in one. ‘Damn, my head hurts! I could do without hysterical females coming here talking my ears off at such an ungodly hour.’

  ‘Then don’t insult my intelligence,’ Farrah replied evenly. ‘Your friend Pritchard is not a very competent assassin. And don’t bother to pretend that you didn’t send him. I remember that he came to the house in Hampshire once or twice when Papa was away, even though I had forgotten his name.’

  This time they both looked downright terrified, and neither seemed capable of speech. Farrah forged ahead whilst she had the upper hand.

  ‘It was idiotic of you to send him to kill me on the Duke of Exeter’s estate. Do you really think that a man of such stature would write it off as an attack by a poacher?’ She shook her head. ‘Clearly you did think so, which confirms your stupidity. Or desperation,’ she added, sparing a scathing glance for the room. ‘However, Pritchard failed not once but twice, thus making it evident that I must be his target. We were at a loss to know why, but once Papa told us of your dispute with him, the rest become obvious.’

  ‘Papa?’ Oscar turned a scornful look in her direction but the effect was spoiled when he stumbled and almost fell flat on his face. A litany of curses spilled from his lips. ‘The perfect little daughter who could never do anything wrong. I, on the other hand, could never do anything to please the old fool. Whatever I did, you would have done it better, faster and more willingly.’

  ‘Stop whining,’ Farrah said, flapping a hand. ‘I cannot abide self-pity. I most likely would have eclipsed you simply because anything I do, I prefer to do it well. Otherwise, what’s the point?’ She fixed Oscar with a quelling glance. ‘I looked up to you, Oscar, although seeing you fallen so low, it’s hard for me now to imagine why. I did everything I could to make you notice me and take an interest in my affairs. But all I ever felt was resentment without knowing what I had done to earn it. It seems you were jealous of my closeness to Papa all along. You’re actually rather pathetic, when all’s said and done.’

  ‘If you are so sure we’re intent upon killing you, why come here alone?’ Elton asked, placing a reassuring hand on Oscar’s shoulder.

  ‘Because despite all your faults I don’t want either of you tangling with the duke. Obviously, he now has a vested interest in this business, and you can be sure that he wouldn’t let you off with a warning. Just leave me alone, Oscar,’ she said wearily. ‘That’s all I want. I have never intentionally done anything to displease you. Quite the reverse, but you have never liked me and now you want to get your hands on my inheritance. Well, you can’t have it. The duke and Papa know all about your machinations and if anything happens to me, you will both be arrested and convicted of murder. The duke has sufficient authority to make that happen, no matter how well you cover your tracks. Never doubt it.’

  ‘Once you leave here, the duke will lose all interest in you,’ Elton said. ‘Not that we are admitting to your ridiculous accusations, of course, but don’t assume you have more influence over a man of that stature than you actually do. You are not that attractive. He could do a great deal better.’

  ‘Father is an old man with outdated views,’ Oscar said, fixing Farrah with a look of unmitigated dislike. ‘He will not live forever.’

  ‘He’s changed his will. You won’t inherit if anything happens to him.’

  She could see the gleaming speculation in her brother’s eyes and felt suddenly afraid. She knew he must be thinking that if they both died, he would get it all.

  ‘Forget it, Oscar. You are not clever enough to get away with it, especially since Papa has taken precautions and left instructions with his solicitors in the event that anything happens to him.’ She had made that part up, and she could see that they didn’t believe her, but she clung to the belief that they wouldn’t harm her; not here and now. They couldn’t be sure that she hadn’t told some one where she was going.

  Oscar ran a hand through his hair and yawned. He looked terrible until his gaze fell upon Elton, at which point his expression softened and realisation dawned for Farrah. She understood now why he had thrown away his opportunities and argued so violently with Papa.

  ‘That’s why you really disagreed with Papa,’ she said slowly. ‘It was nothing to do with the quality of your work, which I dare say wasn’t up to scratch, no matter how ardently he hoped it would improve if he exercised patience. No.’ She shook her head. ‘He discovered the true nature of your relationship with Elton and was disgusted by it.’

  Oscar placed a proprietary hand on Elton’s thigh. ‘Father is a narrow-minded bigot.’

  ‘It didn’t ring true that he would disown you for running up gambling debts, however often you did it,’ Farrah said slowly. ‘He probably begged you to give Elton up and take a wife, but you couldn’t do it. When you ran out of funds you came up with the bright idea of marrying me, the obliging little sister, off to Elton so that you could get your grasping hands on my inheritance and I could move into your grand family estate.’ She gave the dilapidated room another scathing look. ‘But for once I didn’t oblige you, Oscar. That’s when you got desperate.’

  ‘Don’t worry, you wouldn’t have lived here for long.’ Elton sent her an evil smile. ‘The moment I got my hands on your inheritance, I would have had no further use for you. You would have discovered that I preferred your brother and run home to papa with your tail between your legs. He wouldn’t have been able to do anything about it, since in the eyes of the world I would have been the innocent, deserted husband. It was the ideal solution to our problems but you wouldn’t go along with it, damn you!’ Elton’s body vibrated with suppressed anger.

  ‘Papa would have been obliged to constantly pay you to keep you from creating a scandal because I had left you.’ Farrah sent him a quelling look. ‘Well, just so that you know, it wouldn’t have worked. I wouldn’t have cared a fig what people said about me, you see, and I would have refused to allow Papa to support your debauchery, so don’t feel too disappointed that your machinations came to naught.’ She stood, her head held high. ‘Well, I have said my piece. You have been caught out and must look elsewhere for an easy fortune. Good day, Oscar. I doubt whether w
e shall meet again.’

  ‘Where the hell do you think you’re going?’ Oscar grabbed her arm and shook her like a rag doll, his eyes blazing with rage. ‘It would almost be worth swinging for you,’ he growled.

  ‘She came alone,’ Elton said, peering out the grimy window and presumably seeing her horse tethered in solitary splendour. ‘Horses are unpredictable beasts. Who’s to say that she wasn’t thrown and broke her neck?’

  ‘Happens all the time,’ Oscar agreed smugly.

  ‘No one could possibly pin that one on us.’

  ‘But what would be the point?’ Farrah asked, attempting to keep the tremor out of her voice. ‘Ah, of course. If it’s an accident, Oscar will inherit.’

  ‘You see,’ Oscar replied with an evil smile. ‘The old man was right about her. She is quick on the uptake.’

  Perdition, she could see that they meant what they said. They were both resentful and vindictive—to say nothing of severely in need of her money. But Farrah was damned if she would be their victim. They were both bigger and stronger than she was, but they were also drunk as lords, bleary-eyed, dull-witted and unsteady on their feet. She needed to do something, create a distraction of some sort, so that she could get out of this room. They couldn’t run after her in stockinged feet and she doubted whether their one and only slovenly servant would bother to give chase and be a party to murder.

  Oscar still had her forearm in a surprisingly strong grip, given his debilitated condition. Farrah wilted against him, pretending to swoon, and heard her brother give a vile little laugh.

  ‘This is almost too easy,’ he said.

  His grip relaxed slightly and Farrah seized the opportunity, bringing her knee up with all the force she could muster between his legs. He howled and released his grasp, only for Elton to lunge for her. She stuck out a foot and he tumbled headlong over it with a yelp and a satisfying crack as his face hit the ground.

  Farrah didn’t hesitate to see what damage she’d done. Oscar was already recovering and was looking at her with murder in her eyes. She turned and fled for the door, only to collide with what felt like a brick wall. Damnation, there was someone else other than the footman in the house! All the fight went out of her and she sagged in defeat. A strong pair of hands grasped her shoulders and gently shook her.