Rules to Catch a Devilish Duke (26 page)

“And what of the tenth Duke of Greaves?”

Milly’s expression cleared. “Oh, he has a temper, and a way of knowing things that sometimes gives me the shivers, but from when he was a lad till now, I have never felt afraid to be in a room with him.” The servant smiled, patting Sophia on the shoulder. “Now I don’t gossip about my employers, or there are some tales I could tell you.”

For someone who didn’t carry tales, Milly was certainly generous with her information. Sophia smiled back at her. “I am grateful for your discretion.”

And she needed to find a way to broach the subject of Christmas gifts for his very loyal servants with Adam. She had more than a hunch that the man who noticed everything had no idea how much he was appreciated here. As for her, she knew her fate. It was just a matter of putting off thinking about it for as long as possible. And Adam was very good at distracting her from that.

*   *   *

Adam looked at the list he’d compiled. Thirteen names of thirteen young ladies. All of them were between eighteen and twenty-five years of age, all of impeccable lineage, and all considered to be somewhere in the range of pretty to stunningly lovely. And all of them eager to be the next Duchess of Greaves.

One by one he gazed at the names, considered the various ladies in question, and then drew a thick black line of ink across the letters. Sylvia Hart’s voice cut through him like a nail across glass. Lady Julia Greyson of the much praised blue eyes had the wits of a pigeon. Rebecca Hart was petty and grasping.

Finally only two names remained. Helena Prentiss had a calm demeanor and was known to be a superb hostess. And Lady Caroline Emery was lovely and had a firm grasp on both what would be expected of a duchess and what sort of husband he was likely to be. He preferred that no one have any illusions when this was nothing more than a business agreement. Slowly he drew a line through Miss Prentiss’s name, as well.

At the sound of a quiet knock, he lifted his head. “Who is it?”

“Mrs. Brooks, Your Grace.”

“Come in. And shut the door behind you.”

The housekeeper complied, standing nearly at attention in front of his desk. Beginning to fear that she wasn’t breathing, he gestured for her to sit in one of the pair of chairs facing him across the polished mahogany.

“You gave away the ribbon?” he asked, when she continued to sit in silence.

“I did, Your Grace. Miss Sophia is a generous-hearted young lady.”

He’d noticed days ago that Sophia had won over his servants, but the extent to which she’d earned their loyalty continued to surprise him. “And you still aren’t going to tell me why she was set on giving it away?”

“Not unless you order me to do so, Your Grace. I’ll say it’s about Christmas, but no more.”

“Very well. Thank you.” He lowered his head and went back to do a last assessment of his matrimonial choice. After all the time he’d spent delaying the inevitable, he’d expected the decision to be more difficult. As it was, he mostly wanted to put the paper into a drawer and go find Sophia for a game of cards.

Mrs. Brooks didn’t move.

Stifling a sigh, Adam put down his quill. “Is there something else?”

“Yes, Your Grace. I—if it pleases you, I don’t want to be like that fellow they killed when he ran from Marathon.”

“The messenger?” he supplied. “No one killed him. He dropped dead after running for twenty or so miles.” An edge of uneasiness brushed him. “As the messenger, you are perfectly safe, Mrs. Brooks. What did you wish to tell me?”

“Oh, dear,” she muttered, looking down at her hands as she twisted them in her lap. “You wanted to be notified if anyone spoke … ill to Miss Sophia, or if—”

“What happened?” he asked, all humor fleeing.

When the housekeeper looked up at him again, she swallowed hard. “Mr. Burroughs went to see her in her room, and—”

Adam shot to his feet. If Burroughs had charmed his way into Sophia’s bed, he was a dead man. If he’d touched her, he was a dead man. The anger curling into him was hot, clean, and palpable.

Abruptly he caught sight of the white-faced servant cowering in the chair across the desk from him. Choking back his fury, he very slowly seated himself again. Considering that he’d just promised the blasted woman that nothing would happen to the messenger, he needed to calm the devil down. “You were saying?” he managed.

She cleared her throat. Twice. He could practically count the number of his heartbeats that stretched between when he’d spoken and when she opened her mouth again.

“He—Burroughs—asked if Sophia wouldn’t like to be kept by him. When she refused, he said she would end up on the streets as a whore. Not in those exact words, but I heard it all, and it wasn’t pleasant, Your Grace. I would have gone in and stopped him, but until that last venom he spat at her, she was giving better than she got. I got … caught up in listening to her.”

That, he understood. For a moment Adam concentrated on the last sentence or two his housekeeper had uttered. Sophia’s past and the nature of men told him that she’d been propositioned before, and
her
nature told him that she would no doubt have some very direct responses to those same men. But Burroughs had a nasty streak. He’d on occasion appreciated its bite.

“Thank you, Mrs. Brooks. I’ll see to it.”

She put out a hand. “But Your Grace! Sophia will know I’ve been talking to you, and she’ll never trust me again.” Tears began streaming down her plump cheeks. “That poor girl! I would never—”

Slamming the flat of his hands on the surface of his desk, he stood again. “I’ll see to it, Mrs. Brooks,” he repeated more forcefully. “You needn’t worry about you and Miss White.”

“Oh. Oh. Thank you, Your Grace. I do apologize, Your Grace. It’s just that—”

“That will be all, Mrs. Brooks. Go down to the kitchen and have some tea. Calm yourself.”

Moving with more speed than he’d thought she could manage, the housekeeper stood and darted out his door, slamming it shut again with more force than he would generally have found tolerable in a servant. Adam bowed his head, staying where he was for a long moment while he weighed what he wanted to do against the wisest course of action.

Things had definitely changed, if he was hesitating to act out of consideration for a housekeeper and a redheaded slip of a girl who’d been promised to a vicar. What he wanted to do was simple: he wanted to beat Aubrey Burroughs into a bloody pulp. Of course he also wanted to beat Mr. Loines into a bloody pulp, and he’d never even met the man. What he
should
do, however, was more difficult to discern.

He stalked to the door and yanked on the bellpull hanging on the wall there. Half a minute later, Udgell knocked at the door, and he pulled it open. “Find Keating Blackwood and bring him here,” Adam said, and closed the door again before the butler could acknowledge the order.

Burroughs and he were friends. They had been for years. Eight years or so earlier, the two of them and Oliver Warren had been the closest of friends. Shortly after the debacle with Oliver, Adam and Burroughs had begun drifting apart, as well. In a sense, Aubrey Burroughs was a remnant of an old life that Adam had mostly discarded once he’d realized it wasn’t going in the direction he wanted. Once he’d realized how closely he’d begun following in his unlamented father’s footsteps.

“What?” Keating said, pushing open the door and stepping inside.

“I need a word with you,” Adam returned stiffly, closing the door before he stalked to the office window and back again.

“Get on with it, then. Camille and Sophia are eating all the roasted chestnuts.”

Adam faced him. “Sophia is with you?”

Lifting an eyebrow, Keating dropped into a chair. “They’re nearly inseparable, if you haven’t noticed. Not that I mind; I owe Sophia a great deal, and Cammy’s suffered a scarcity of friends.” His expression cooling, he sat forward a little. “What’s wrong? You look like you want to hit something again.”

Though he would rather have kept pacing, that wasn’t helping anything. Adam sat on the arm of the chair beside Keating. “Did Sophia look upset about anything?”

“Now that you’ve made me consider it, I suppose she was a little … subdued, but with what she has coming in her direction, I’d be subdued, as well.”

She was subdued. Burroughs
had
hurt her. Adam therefore meant to hurt him. “Was Burroughs present?” he pressed, unable to help the growl in his voice when he said his former friend’s name.

Rather than answering, Keating folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not saying anything else until you tell me why you’re holding this unpleasant little inquisition.”

Including anyone else in his plans, in his decisions, had never appealed to Adam. But whether he wanted to acknowledge it or not, he’d called in Keating for a reason. He trusted Blackwood. “I need your silence about what I’m about to say.”

Keating nodded. “You have it.”

His friend hadn’t hesitated. No conditions, no favors to be collected at a later date. Blackwood had his own demons to contend with, but there was a forthright honesty about him and what he’d done that Adam had always admired. Those were some of the same qualities he admired about Sophia, now that he considered it.

“Secondhand, I just learned that Burroughs asked Sophia to be his mistress. When she declined, he said some rather nasty things to her, the gist of which was that she would die whoring herself in the street. The fact that her actual future is only marginally more tolerable is, I believe, beside the point.”

For a long moment Keating sat very still. That gave Adam time to remember that until he’d met Camille, Keating had spent much of the past six years drinking and brawling. That could be useful, except that if anyone was going to hit Burroughs, it was going to be him.

“I have a question,” Keating finally said in a low voice.

“I’m listening.”

“What is Sophia to you?”

That stopped him. “What? What kind of question is that? I just told you that someone insulted your wife’s dearest friend.”

“And I’d like to know whether you’ve done the same thing.”

That old, molten heat began rising deep in his gut. “Explain yourself,” he murmured.

“No. You explain
your
self.”

Evidently unconditional support only went so far. “I may have mentioned that I could remove any monetary burdens she might ever have,” he conceded grudgingly. “When she declined, she also told me her circumstances. I did not call her names because of her background. I did not insult her over her choice of livelihood. When I
did
insult her, she cracked me in the head with a snowball.”

As he spoke, that roiling rage subsided a little. Even thoughts of Sophia had the effect of lighting his soul just a little.

“You invited her to sell herself to you.”

He might have found some balance, but if anything Keating sounded even angrier. “I wouldn’t have put it quite that way, and it was more of a suggestion than an invitation, but yes. It’s nothing new, Keating. And for some women it offers them a way to keep their nice homes and their nice jewels and their nice dress—”

Keating hit him. Sitting on the arm of the chair as he was, Adam went backward into the seat. With a growl he rolled onto his feet. His first instinct was to strike back. Hard. Again, though, he needed Keating. If Blackwood was dead, he couldn’t help. So instead of swinging, Adam clenched his fist into the back of the chair. “I’ll excuse that,” he said very evenly, tasting blood from a cut lip, “because I’m glad she has a protector. Do it again, and I won’t be so generous.”

“Do whatever the hell you like. Camille and Sophia and I are leaving.”

“No you’re not.”

“You expect me to remain here while you proposition my friend and allow other men to do the same? She wanted a pleasant damned holiday, Greaves. Not to have her host make things even worse for her. You’re a bastard, and I’m done with you.”

With a curse Adam strode up to block the door. “I did it once, Keating. Weeks ago. Since then, Sophia and I have been … We’re friends.”

“Ha.”

“Don’t ‘ha’ at me. I’ve been spending the nights in her room for the past week. Whatever is between us, we’re in agreement about.” More or less, anyway. Precisely what was between them, he couldn’t define. He wasn’t certain he wanted to; that would dredge up more questions he couldn’t possibly answer. “We both know what Hennessy has set out for her, but she still has a few weeks to do as she pleases.”

“Oh, so now you’ve ruined her, which I’m certain will make her life in Cornwall much easier. You had to know that no good could possibly come of you gadding about. Isn’t there someone closer to your own rank you could play with?”

That was enough of that.
“Excuse me, but didn’t you steal your cousin’s fiancée from a church? In the middle of the wedding? Don’t you dare lecture me about my behavior. If Sophia is content with this, then so am I.”

Keating paced back and forth in front of the desk. “Very well. If I can’t hit you, then I’m going to hit Burroughs.”

“No, you can’t hit Burroughs. If Sophia realizes that I know what transpired, she’ll know that someone told me. I … gave my word that I would keep that person’s confidence.”

Oh, good God. What the devil was wrong with him? Everyone knew that when he wanted something accomplished, he saw to it. The means and method were secondary. And yet he’d assured Mrs. Brooks that the messenger wouldn’t be punished. Beyond that, he was quite aware that Sophia liked the housekeeper, and he wasn’t going to be the reason she lost another member of her small, odd circle of friends.

“Then why am I here?”

“To keep
me
from hitting Burroughs. And to favor me with some advice about how I can be rid of him without making Sophia suspicious.”

Keating narrowed his eyes. “A shame Burroughs wasn’t the one to fall into the river.”

“It’s early days yet. Anything could happen.”

TWELVE

Adam took his customary seat at the head of the dining room table, noting that Sophia sat between Keating and the mostly harmless Francis Henning. Good. Burroughs, on the other hand, had moved to the far end of the table close by Eustace. Whether he’d moved simply to distance himself from Sophia, or to signal some sort of alliance with the pointy-nosed brigade, Adam didn’t know. But he meant to discover the answer.