Along Came a Duke (4 page)

Small court that it was, for most of the other members of the club were giving them the cut direct. Not that either man cared.

“I beat Kipps!” Preston crowed. “No one thought my nags could take that fancy set of cattle Kipps has been prowsing on about, but I've been collecting vowels all night.” His hands swept drunkenly over the pile of notes before him.

Roxley reached in his jacket and plucked out a handful as well. “Rich as Midas, we are!”

“Damn near killed us doing it—” Preston began to explain.

“Pulled up short on a bunch of geese—” Roxley added.

“Goslings—” Preston corrected.

“Might as well have been a litter of pups,” the earl told Lord Henry, “but you know how your nephew is about a woeful pair of brown eyes. Gets him into trouble every time.”

“Roxley, I don't think geese have brown eyes,” Preston posed.

As the pair began to argue the point, Lord Henry lost his patience and temper. “Whatever possessed you to do something so foolhardy? You could have been killed. Not to mention you've beggared half of the
ton
. Ruined Kipps, I suspect.”

Roxley and Preston exchanged glances.

“Because we could,” Preston told him, roaring with laughter. Roxley joined in, and the pair of them brayed like jackasses.

“You are both pot valiant now,” Lord Henry said, shaking his head, “but tomorrow will be another story. Hen will have your head for this, Preston.”

Preston's reply was another dismissive wave of his hand.

“She'll not be naysaid this time,” Lord Henry continued. “She'll insist you take a bride, if only to spare us all from ruin.”

“Ruin? Hardly that, Henry.” Preston plucked his boots off the table and rose unsteadily to face his uncle. “Haven't you heard? I've come into a fortune tonight.”

Lord Henry shook his head. “Marriage it will be, whether you like it or not.”

“Not,” Preston proclaimed, wavering for a moment, and then flopping back into his seat. “I won't take a wife.”

“You're drunk,” his uncle complained.

“Utterly foxed,” Preston corrected, wagging a finger at him.

“I might get married,” Roxley said to no one in particular.

“You?” Preston laughed.

The earl nodded. “I have to imagine I've passed the perfect woman time and time again. If I were merely to open my eyes, I would discover her.”

“It might help if you stopped drinking and carousing,” Lord Henry advised, waving at one of the attendants to come clean up the litter of empty bottles.

“If I were you, Roxley,” Preston slurred, “I wouldn't open my eyes.”

Roxley laughed. “I think such a sentiment makes me romantic.”

Lord Henry's gaze rolled upward. “That is the last thing anyone would call you.”

“Rake,” Preston observed. “That might work.”

This time the earl shook his head and leaned forward to whisper. “No, that's Henry. Devilish rake if ever there was one.”

Preston smirked. “No, I think he's a scoundrel. Coming here and using that word when we're celebrating.”

“What word?” Roxley asked as he poured himself and Preston another round. He held up an empty glass for Lord Henry, who just shook his head.

“Marriage.”

Roxley shuddered. “You sound like my Aunt Essex.”

Lord Henry threw up his hands. “Preston, I am trying to tell you, you are ruined. Go home, sleep this off, and then come to your senses.” He turned and stormed off. Probably off to the dull, empty halls of Boodles. Good steaks, but the cellar wasn't as fine as White's.

Preston watched him leave with a wry glance. “Come to my senses, indeed! He's older than me—why doesn't he get married?”

“Exactly,” Roxley agreed. “Dip his toe in first. Test the waters for us.”

“However does one find a wife for such a dull, practical fellow?” Preston posed, leaning back in his chair and propping his boots back up on the table.

Roxley rubbed his chin. “Since neither of us is of a mind to set foot in Almack's, I don't think we'll ever find out.”

Just then, a gray-haired Corinthian came by. Lord Mouncey. Nay, Murrant. No, that wasn't it either. Preston tried to shake the man's name out of his brandy-soaked brain.

And he might not have had to worry about it if the fellow had just ambled right past. Yet that wasn't the case, for while the man did cast a shuddering glance at the state of Preston's muddy boots, it wasn't the lack of gloss that stopped the fastidious old dandy in his tracks.

“I say there, Preston, is that today's paper under your boot?”

Preston leaned forward and eyed it. “It is, Lord Mulancy.” That was it, Mulancy! There, he wasn't
that
foxed.

“Might I borrow it? Baldwin mentioned an advertisement for a fine batch of fillies coming in from the countryside this week. Want to get the particulars.”

Preston tugged his boots off the table once more and handed over the paper. But before he went to hoist the muddy Hessians back up, he stilled. Whatever had Mulancy said? . . .
an advertisement for a fine batch of fillies
. . . “That's it!”

Roxley's head bobbed up, having dozed off during the lull in conversation. “What's it?” He blinked owlishly at his surroundings and looked ready to doze off again.

“Oh, wake up,” Preston said, giving his boon companion a hard shake. “That's how we find Henry a wife. We advertise for one.”

And this time when he waved the attendant over, he ordered not only another bottle of brandy, but pen and ink.

“P
reston, this is absolutely unacceptable!” Lady Juniper, the former Lady Henrietta Seldon, declared as her nephew came into the Red Room a few days later. “You cannot continue to use London society as your personal circus.”

Despite Hen's best efforts to sound severe and forbidding, Preston didn't appear the least bit affronted by his aunt's scold. Rather, he laughed as he came into the room which served as her favorite place to take tea.

Lady Juniper turned to her twin brother. “Henry, help me out.”

Lord Henry got to his feet, tucked his hands behind his back and began to pace across the carpet. “Hen is right. You must rein in these impulsive bouts of scandalous behavior and start behaving with some decorum—”

“Decorum?” Preston shuddered. He glanced over at his relation, who was a walking advertisement for the notion—from the perfectly respectable cut of his coat to the carefully tied and knotted cravat. No grand waterfall of linen, no intricate
Trone d'Amour
that would make him the envy of every Corinthian, just a steady Mailcoach that lent an elegant, orderly air to Henry's expensive, yet simple, ensemble.

“Yes, decorum,” his uncle repeated, eyeing his nephew's interest and striking at it like the finest of batsmen. “Decorum is the new order.”

“Truly, decorum is the new order?” Preston asked. “Shall we have this room redone so we can be a bit less ostentatious?”

The Red Room could only be described as the height of extravagance—gilt and red velvet and gleaming mahogany. Thick Turkish carpets and silk coverings on furnishings. A tea urn—no simple pot but a great towering silver urn, complete with cherubs and a dragon at the top—stood grandly at the end of the long table.

He shot a glance over at his aunt, Lady Juniper—it was Juniper, wasn't it? Or was it Michaels? Taking a moment, Preston did a momentary tally. No, Michaels had been her second husband. So it was indeed Juniper.

Like her mother before her, Lady Henrietta had the unwitting fate of picking husbands who turned around and cocked up their toes.

And like her brother, she was done up in the latest stare. Though all in black, for Lord Juniper had only been gone for six months. Nor did the suggestion of redecorating her beloved parlor seem to redirect her attentions. Rather Hen looked anything but diverted. Not in the least.

“Decorum!” Henry repeated.

“Grandfather must be rolling over in his grave to hear that word uttered in this house,” Preston replied.

“Well, perhaps it is about time the Seldons adopted the notion,” Lord Henry countered, wagging his finger at his nephew.

Once Henry got going, there was little one could do to stop him. Not even when one was a duke.

So Preston settled back in his chair and folded his arms across his chest and did his best to appear both interested and conscious.

Not an easy feat when Henry was on one of his tears.

“Times are changing,” Lord Henry rattled on. “We can no longer afford the negligent airs and misadventures that have marked—”

The duke stopped listening, for he knew exactly how this tirade was going to continue. Yes, yes.
The misadventures that have marked this family for eight generations. Eight generations of dalliances and revelry and scandals that have constantly put us at the very fringes of society and the King's good graces. . .

Preston knew it by heart. He'd heard it enough times since his grandfather had died five years earlier to recite it verbatim.

But of late, it had become nearly a daily harangue. Mayhap it was time to send Lord Henry on some emergency review of the ducal holdings in Ireland.

Preston perked up at the notion, that is until he recalled that he'd already done that once before—last fall, to be exact. He glanced over at his uncle, who was still sermonizing on and on with no hint of an end in sight.

No, Preston couldn't hope that such a ruse would work twice.

Especially since Henry now knew there were no ducal holdings in Ireland.

“—honor, respectability, nobility on your part and in the eyes of the influential members of our society and we may, and I emphasize ‘may,' regain what we have lost.” Thankfully, Lord Henry paused to draw a breath, as did Preston.

Respectability? Honor?

Some would argue those were traits the Seldons had never possessed, though it wasn't an argument Preston was in the mood to broach with Henry. Not today.

Now Hen wasn't above a bit of scandal now and then. Look at the fuss she'd kicked up when she'd married her second husband. So he flashed a grin in her direction hoping upon hope she would save him.

But no luck there. His aunt looked as dour as Henry sounded. And as prosy. Worse, if he wasn't mistaken, the slip of paper she was plucking from her reticule had all the appearances of a list.

Which could only mean one thing.

Oh, dear God, this is an ambush,
he realized all too late, struggling to get to his feet.

“Sit, Christopher,” Aunt Hen ordered.

And Preston did. When she used that tone and resorted to his Christian name—not “Preston” or “Your Grace”—it was always best to do as Hen advised. He'd learned that early in life.

Lady Juniper glanced over at her brother. “You as well, Henry. Your pacing about is giving me a megrim and I daresay will give Christopher a bout of hives.”

Lord Henry retook his place on the sofa and took the offered cup. “It is high time that—”

Preston cut his uncle off mid-scold. “I won't discuss this.”

“You need to stop causing scandals,” Lord Henry continued as if Preston was still in short-coats. “This ruinous situation with poor Kipps has brought us all down.”

Kipps? This was all because of his race with Kipps? “Will blow over,” the duke averred, even as an odd breeze ruffled at the back of his neck, sending the hairs there standing on end.

No, it won't.

He did his level best to ignore that niggling frisson of doubt. That voice of reason that had little or no place in his life.

He was the Duke of Preston after all.

“Kipps is utterly ruined,” Hen said plainly. “It is a wretched disgrace.”

“His difficulties are hardly my concern,” Preston told them, trying to sound as coldhearted as he could muster, but once again his conscience got the better of him.

You knew better and still. . .

“It is most decidedly a matter of our concern when all of society blames you—and us in turn—for his ruin,” Hen shot back.

Who needed a conscience when one had Hen in their life?

She paused for a moment, which unfortunately allowed Henry to leap right in. “Good God, Preston, you haven't just ruined that poor lad; now his family hasn't a feather to fly with, and everyone blames us.”

Preston shifted in his chair. He'd certainly thought something had been amiss last night when he'd gone to White's—he'd been snubbed by more than one member, which wasn't so unusual given his reputation—yet it had been easily forgotten once Roxley had come along and they'd spent a companionable evening drinking and playing cards.

“If Kipps was so far in the River Tick,” Preston told them, “then he had no business making such large wagers. He's a foolish cub.” He waved them off and turned his attention to the tea tray.

“You took advantage of poor Kipps, Preston,” Hen said, her brows furrowed into an angry, disapproving line. “He trusted you. You took him under your wing.”

Preston glanced away. He rather liked Kipps. The young earl was an affable fellow and always up for a lark. Certainly, he'd never meant to lead Kipps astray . . .

“You nearly got that poor boy killed!” Hen said, her finger wagging. “Making such an indecent wager and then racing all that distance. What did you think would happen? He had to reach London before you. Instead, he crashed his carriage, nearly broke his neck, and now he's got everyone calling in vowels he can't afford.”

“Then I won't call in what he owes me,” Preston told them. Not that he had planned on doing so—after all, it had been nothing but a grand caper. Glancing at his aunt and uncle, he doubted they would call it such. “I'll pay off his debts.”

“Out to ruin his pride as well, eh, Preston?” Henry said, letting out an exasperated breath. “Besides, have you looked at your own pockets of late? You haven't the ready blunt. One more of these romps of yours and we will all be in the same straits as poor Kipps.”