Mad About the Duke (2 page)

Jack smiled. For such a thing sounded right as rain. But that wasn't the part that had him at sixes and sevens. “And then what?”

There was another pause.

“I met her.”
The way Parkerton said it, with a bit of awe and shock, stopped Jack.

He braced himself, for now they were getting to the part of the story that would have flummoxed anyone who knew Parkerton.

The part of all this that Parkerton had been mutter
ing about when he'd come wandering into the ducal town house like he was utterly foxed.

I've a new profession,
he'd said.

A profession? What the hell did that mean? He was a duke, for God's sake. Dukes didn't have professions. Save ordering about their miscreant relations.

Breathe,
Jack reminded himself.
You must have misheard him
. Parkerton was merely joking.

And that might have been reassuring if Parkerton ever joked. But point of fact, Parkerton never did.

The duke shifted in his chair and continued his outlandish tale. “I was attempting to take my leave—”

“Attempting?”

“It is quite a devilish matter when there is no one there to see one out. That ill-mannered Lucy Sterling just bolted out the door and left me. Alone!”

Jack eyed him again. “How hard is it to take one's leave from an empty room? You just get up and go.”

Parkerton looked at him askance, one regal dark brow tilted up.

Then Jack saw it from his brother's elevated perspective. Parkerton was always the first one to leave, with the exception of when Prinny or one of the royal dukes was about.

His poor brother, with all his lofty expectations, deserted in a strange house with no pomp, or fawning hostess or butler to parade him out the front door.

Why, it must have been a first for him. A day of firsts, Jack realized, glancing at the black-and-blue shiner ringing his eye.

“So you went to leave,” Jack prodded him.

Parkerton nodded. “And then it all sort of happened.” Jack waited, and finally his brother continued. “
She
came in. There was a bit of wind and her
hair was loose.” Parkerton's eyes sort of glazed over. “Such beautiful hair, Jack. And her cheeks were all flushed.”

“Blonde hair?”

“What?”

“Did the lady have blonde hair?”

“Yes, yes, of course.”

Elinor. The second Lady Standon,
Jack surmised.

“And then there was some sort of a hullabaloo about puppies.”

This is where Jack had gotten lost in the first telling.

Some nonsense about a greyhound.

“Her dog was having puppies, and she asked me to help.” Parkerton glanced up at Jack. “
Me
. She asked
me
to help.”

And why shouldn't Parkerton sound so incredulous? Poor, unwitting Lady Standon probably hadn't realized she was asking the Duke of Parkerton to be the midwife for her precious hound.

“I blame you!” Parkerton said, wagging a finger at Jack.

Now at least this was familiar. Jack had spent most of his adult life having Parkerton wag a finger at him and blame him for some mishap or misfortune.

“If I hadn't been wearing your jacket for my interview with that Lucy creature, none of this would have happened.”

“My apologies,” Jack offered automatically.

“No, no, it was actually quite fascinating.”

There was a boyish light to the duke's eyes that Jack had never seen. Which was why he was still wagering that his eldest brother had fallen over the edge. “You actually helped deliver the pups?”

“Yes. All on my own.”

Jack looked at his brother again. “You?”

The duke nodded. “Yes, me. I'll have you know I've done this before.”

Now it was Jack's turn to look askance as only a Tremont could. Really, Parkerton wanted him to believe that he'd been out in the stables whelping pups like a regular hand?

Preposterous.

“I have,” the duke said in a huff. “Well, I was naught but a lad the last time.”

Now they were getting to the truth of the matter.

“And I didn't so much help as watch,” he admitted. “Yet it all came back when I knelt down in that closet.”

This was where Jack's head started to pound. Parkerton kneeling down in a closet to help a dog have pups.

If his brother wasn't utterly foxed, Jack was determined to go find the nearest bottle and have a stiff drink.

Or two.

“The pups just kept coming out,” the duke said with an air of wonder.

“They have a way of doing that,” Jack said. “So after the puppies found their way into the world, what happened next?”

“She turned to me—”

“Lady Standon?”

“Yes, of course, Lady Standon,” Parkerton snapped. “It certainly wasn't the dog.”

Well, Jack hoped not. Though he might have found more comfort with the notion that his brother was conversing with greyhounds than what was coming next.

“Yes, yes, I realize that,” Jack said, nodding for him to continue.

And he did so. “Then Lady Standon asked me if I did much business for Hollindrake.”

The Duke of Hollindrake? Whatever did he have to do with all this?

Jack shuddered. He was never going to get this all straight to repeat it to his wife tonight. And Lord love her, Miranda adored details.

“So she thought you were Hollindrake's solicitor?” Jack asked.

“Worse, she thought I was some
cit,
” Parkerton declared. “Really, Jack, would it be such a hardship for you to get a decent tailor? This coat is barely presentable.” Parkerton held out his arm, encased in the sensible superfine black wool, like he was being embalmed in homespun.

Jack had insisted that Parkerton go over to visit Lucy wearing something less resplendent than his usual ducal finery—if only to get Lucy to listen to him. Lucy, the third Lady Standon, held a rather infamous disregard for pomp and social strictures.

“I don't think my tailor is the issue at hand,” Jack told his brother.

“Yes, well, Lady Standon assumed I was a business fellow or perhaps a solicitor that Hollindrake had sent over to straighten out Lucy's messy affairs.” Again there was the mandatory shudder when Parkerton mentioned the lady. “Really, is Clifton positive he is in love with that cheeky—”

“Parkerton,” Jack said, “get to the point.”

“The point is this is all Lucy Sterling's fault. If I hadn't had to go over in this disguise just to appeal to her democratic and plebeian sensibilities—”

“Parkerton, you went over there in disguise so you wouldn't end up embroiled in any further scandal. So every matron and London mama with a daughter to foist off wouldn't think that you, the Duke of Parkerton, was calling on the Standon widows because you were interested in marrying one of them.”

Ever since Hollindrake had dangled a bounty of a dowry for any fool willing to take one of the widows off his hands, the house on Brook Street had become a magnet for every fortune hunter and curious bachelor in London.

“Yes, I suppose that was a good idea a few hours ago, but that was before
she
walked in the door, mistook me for a
cit
and hired me.”

Jack felt the solid marble beneath his feet shift a bit. “She hired you?”

This is where his brother's tale got devilishly confusing.

“Yes,” the duke said, rubbing his temple as if his black eye wasn't the only thing giving him a megrim. “I told you that already.”

“Humor me and explain it again.”

Parkerton drew a deep breath. “Lady Standon hired me to find her a husband.”

“She wants you to procure her a husband?”

Parkerton nodded.

This is where, to Jack's benefit, being considered the most reckless of the Tremonts (heavens, most of Society still steered clear of “Mad” Jack Tremont), he could be excused for his response.

He roared with laughter.

For here before him sat the Duke of Parkerton, Society's newest matchmaker.

 

James Lambert St. Maur Thurstan Tremont, 9
^th
Duke of Parkerton, found nothing amusing about his situation.

Good heavens, he wasn't even too sure how he'd gotten into it.

He'd started his day as he always did, with Richards meticulously laying out his clothes for the day (the valet having first consulted Winston, the duke's secretary, as to His Grace's schedule), breaking his fast precisely at ten in the morning. It was a bit early for such things, by Society standards that is, but it was the duke's one idiosyncrasy.

And considering he came from a family of malcontents and blithe spirits, no one minded this one mild oddity.

Then, having dined and read the morning paper, he'd gone to White's to meet with Jack. Such discussions couldn't be held in the library or his study or even here in the Great Room. No, the duke always conducted such business at White's.

Now, hours later, for the life of him, he couldn't even remember what it was he'd intended to discuss with his youngest brother.

Oh, Arabella. Yes, that was it.

James shook his head, scattering that matter to a distant corner. His daughter's situation paled in comparison to this…this imbroglio he suddenly found himself in.

No, it was more than that. Why, it bordered on a scandal. He could be excused for not calling it what it was, for he'd never been in one before.

Not that he didn't know what one was. Good God, he was the head of the Tremont family. It was
like living in the eye of a constant maelstrom of scandal.

But never had he brought those winds home to roost by his own accord, by his own misfortune.

Glancing over at Jack, who was still braying like a jackass, James sent his brother his most quelling glance.

And like everything else on this most upside-down day, his scornful regard did nothing to stop his brother's loud guffaws.

“I see nothing amusing about this,” James declared.

“You wouldn't,” Jack replied, having managed to at least get himself straightened up, though his lips still twitched traitorously. He tugged at his coat and did his best to appear concerned.

He failed utterly.

“What do you expect me to do?” Jack said, retaking his post beside the mantel. “Start making lists of likely gentlemen for the lady? I think that would be more Winston's territory than mine. He's more of a list man.”

James's gaze swung up at the thought of having to ask his only too formal and proper secretary to come up with a list of likely and respectable London bachelors.

Good God, poor Winston would probably quit in horror. “I don't need
that
sort of help. I need to extract myself from this…this…”

“Scandal?” Jack suggested, rocking back on his heels. “Disgrace, dishonor, impropriety…” He paused, then snapped his fingers. “Ah! And my personal favorite—
black stain
.”

His brother needn't enjoy this so much. But then
again, hadn't he, the duke, used those same words over the years to describe Jack's various escapades?

“I prefer ‘
situation,
'” James corrected.

At this, Jack smiled. His brother would. He'd wiggled his way out of more scandals and “situations” than the family annals could record. “Yes, well your
situation
is quite the
situation,
isn't it?”

Really, did he have to grin so? Even if it was a
situation,
deserving of italics and emphasis.

But unlike what Jack outwardly saw as James's problem, there was an entirely different aspect to this mess.

Her. Lady Standon. Elinor.

James reached up and rubbed his chest. For suddenly it had begun to tighten and pound.

As it had the moment he'd clapped eyes on her.

“Agreed. I am in a bit of a muddle,” James acquiesced, shaking off his private musings, “but now is the time to get me out of it.”

Because he wasn't looking for a lady in his life. Not a flirtation. Not a mistress. And certainly not a wife.

He was past all that. At least that was what he'd told himself up until half past two this very afternoon. He knew the exact moment when he'd spied her, for there had been a clock on the mantel in the parlor.

And for some reason it seemed important to remember that very moment.

Jack took a step back. “Why didn't you just correct her, explain who you were and leave?”

Yes, his brother would have to point out the obvious route of escape after the fire had gutted the building.

And while it would be easy to blame his own rat
tled senses—for he had taken a good chop to the head today—there was a very good explanation for why he hadn't done just that, why he hadn't just turned on one heel and left, as would have been expected of the Duke of Parkerton.

Because of her. That hair. Those eyes. It wasn't like there weren't enough dewy blondes about. Why, some years they were as persistent and as prevalent as narcissus in the spring.

No, it was because of her.
Elinor.

Lady Standon, he corrected himself. She'd come breezily in through the doorway and gazed at him and he'd felt himself transfixed, changed, utterly and completely.

And he could have sworn he'd seen a spark in her eyes as well, at least that was until she'd gathered her wits about her and noticed his coat.

Well, no, not his coat precisely but Jack's coat. The one he'd borrowed to be inconspicuous.

So much for that.

And definitely not so inconspicuous with her. This glorious Elinor. With her soft blonde hair, and those eyes. Those cornflower blue eyes.

Until, that is, she'd looked down her nose at him.

Him?! The Duke of Parkerton.

He glanced up and found Jack staring at him with an expression that was reminiscent of their father, the 8
^th
duke, all full of worry and an air of responsibility.