The Duke's Downfall (16 page)

“Yes, as a matter of fact.” Charles’s grin twisted wryly. “I regret it took Boru knocking me senseless to make the point, but there you are. Any word of him, by the way?”

“I fear not.” The dowager sighed and reached for the teapot. “Much as I loathe the beast, I would give half of all I possess to have him back and see Betsy smile.”

So would I, Charles thought, but said sternly, “Don’t even think to intimate such a thing when the scoundrel comes seeking his reward.”

A knock at the saloon doors lifted Lady Clymore’s attention from the tea service. “Yes, Iddings?”

The butler came into the room and shut the doors.

“The Earl of Clymore is just arrived, my lady.”

“Speaking of scoundrels!” The countess glowered. “Is he come with or without a portmanteau?”

“Without, my lady.”

“Pity.” Lady Clymore sighed disappointedly.

“Does he have Boru with him?” Charles asked.

If Iddings felt any surprise at the question he did not show it. “No, Your Grace.”

“May I suggest you allow me to handle Clymore?” Charles said to the countess. “I may be able to determine if he is responsible for Boru’s disappearance.”

“Gladly,” Lady Clymore agreed, nodding to Iddings as she put down the pot and lifted her filled cup, “for I must own that he vexes me beyond reason.”

“My mother tells me you are the devil’s own at whist, my lady.” Charles leaned toward her on one elbow. “You play with a face the Sphinx itself would envy.”

“Does she?” the countess preened. “How kind.”

“I would ask you to consider yourself at the whist table,” he said in a low, confiding tone. “Trust there is a method to what may appear to be my madness.”

“Eh?” Lady Clymore blinked at him, but Charles pressed a finger to his lips and drew away from her. Shifting her gaze to the cup hovering beneath her chin, her ladyship eyed it a moment, then put it down, untouched, as Iddings announced the Earl of Clymore.

Not surprisingly, Charles disliked him on sight. All gilt hair and fastidious dress, he looked the type to be affronted by the sight of an urchin in Berkeley Square, for there was no other reason for his lordship to cane the boy.

“Good evening, Julian,” Lady Clymore said to him coolly. “Allow me to make you known to the Duke of Braxton.”

Clearly he’d heard the name, for his brows fairly leapt off his head. “Your Grace,” he said, with a stiff bow.

“Clymore.” Charles acknowledged him with a brief nod—and made up his mind that the hackney driver who’d absconded with Boru was in the employ of Julian Dameron. It fit, both emotionally and rationally, that a man who would beat a child on a public street wouldn’t hesitate to kidnap a dog. “Lady Clymore tells me you are newly arrived in town. Have you come on business or pleasure?”

“Mostly the former, Your Grace,” he replied, seating himself on the companion settee grudgingly indicated by her ladyship, “but the Countess Featherston has been kind enough to include me in her invitations for tomorrow evening.”

“I shall kill Clarissa,” Lady Clymore muttered under her breath.

Julian’s gaze cut briefly toward the countess, a thin smile not quite reaching his eyes. A memory of his father warning him never to sit down to cards with a man who smiled only with his mouth sprang to Charles’s mind and hardened his resolve to uncover the upstart earl as Boru’s kidnapper.

“What a happy coincidence,” he drawled mildly. “I shall be escorting Lady Clymore and Betsy to the same affair.”

Fortunately for Julian, he was squarely seated on the settee, else he might have toppled off it.

“Betsy?” he repeated in a shocked voice.

“I’m sure you know her. Fairish, fetching little chit about so high.” Charles lifted his right hand an inch or so above his head.

“Of course I know her. She’s my cousin,” Julian snapped affrontedly. “And her name is Elizabeth.”

“To you, perhaps.” Charles smiled benignly. “But then you are distant cousins, are you not?"

A sudden, bloodcurdling shriek and the drum of running feet echoed beyond the Blue Saloon. The crashing thud and excited, high-pitched barking that followed sent Charles and Julian racing for the closed doors and Lady Clymore struggling to her feet with her cane.

By half an arm’s length, Charles beat Julian to the doors and flung them open. The urchin boy, clad only in dripping small clothes, lay kicking and screaming on the foyer floor with Betsy clinging to his knees. The little brown terrier snapped at the butler, who was trying to catch the boy’s flailing arms, while a brawny footman with a towel hung about his neck tried to catch the dog.

“Elizabeth!” Julian thundered her name. “Get off the floor this instant!”

His voice, stinging like a whip with outrage and disapproval, brought instant silence from the boy and the terrier and obedience from Betsy. Snatching the cap that had slipped over her eyes off her head, she scrambled to her feet. Her skirts were streaked with wet spots, her sleeves rolled above the elbow. As her gaze shifted from Julian to Charles, her face scalded vermillion and her eyes lowered.

“Your Grace,” she murmured, sinking—or rather, cringing, Charles thought—into a miserable curtsey. “My lord.”

The boy took advantage of the billow her skirts made to grasp her hem, wrap it around himself, and cling to her legs. The little terrier whined and slinked beneath her petticoat. The servants froze like pillars.

“I must apologize for Elizabeth,” Julian said curtly to Charles. “She is usually not quite so ramshackle in her behavior.”

“Think nothing of it,” Charles replied, with a dismissive wave. “I am becoming quite used to it, I assure you, and her behavior is nothing of the kind. Lady Elizabeth is acquitted to be quite an Original among the ton.”

“I should think an Unusual or the veriest quiz would be more apt,” Julian said darkly, as he started toward Betsy. “I cannot think what possessed you to bring this filthy brat into the house, Elizabeth, but I shall tend to him once and for all.”

At that moment, Lady Clymore puffed her way painfully into the doorway beside Charles. “You will do nothing in my house, Dameron!”

“Must I remind you yet again, my lady,” Julian challenged, spinning angrily toward her on one heel, “that I am head of this family now?”

“You may remind me until you turn blue in the face,” Lady Clymore raged, shaking her cane at him, “but this is my house, upstart—entailed to me by my mother—and you have no claim here!”

While the dowager countess and the earl glared daggers at each other, Charles took quick stock of the situation. ‘Twas a powder keg, to be sure, made worse by his presence, for he had no doubt Clymore was laying it on thick for his benefit. The boy quaked in obvious terror against Betsy’s legs, despite the soothing hand his protectress laid upon his head. Charles spared a glance at Betsy, saw her free hand tighten into a fist against her skirts, and decided that grilling the Earl of Clymore about Boru would have to wait.

“Oh, bother, Lady Clymore.” He took her elbow in one hand, snatched the cane in the other, and tossed it to Julian. “Let him be done with it.”

He at least had the decency to flush to the roots of his gilt hair as he caught it. Otherwise, he stood staring mutely at Charles, his expression a mingle of anger, fury and humiliation.

“Go on, Clymore,” Charles urged him. “Finish the job. Beat the boy senseless.”

A pitiful mewl escaped the child. From the corner of his eye, Charles saw him lift his face pleadingly to Betsy. Her fingers stroked his hair reassuringly and she murmured something to him Charles couldn’t hear.

“You misunderstand, Your Grace,” Julian said tightly. “I caught the wretch begging before the gates this morning.”

“Beggary is not a crime, Clymore, it is an affliction. One which you apparently share.”

Julian stiffened. “I do not know what you mean."

“I do not refer to the state of your finances, though it is common enough knowledge in the clubs,” Charles lied, with an ease Teddy would have admired, for he hadn’t been near any of his clubs in days. “I refer to your beggared spirit and your behavior before the gates this morning.”

A fresh wash of color darkened Julian’s face to a near-purple hue. Charles waited, expecting a glove across the cheek at any second. The prospect sent his blood singing with a vigor that mere hours ago would have alarmed him, but now he relished it, along with the pulse starting in his head again.

Julian’s reaction was to clench Lady Clymore’s cane more tightly in both hands. “Is protecting your kinswomen from riffraff no longer the fashion, Your Grace?”

“Riffraff, my foot!” Betsy took a challenging step forward with the boy clinging to her skirts. “We saw you turn Claxton away. You were protecting what you mistakenly consider to be your claim here."

Julian swung angrily about to face her. “I will remind you for the last time that I am head of this family!”

“So you may be,” Betsy retorted, “but you have no power over me, for I choose not to grant you any.”

The pride and disdain ringing in her voice drew an admiring grin from Charles and a choking sound from Julian.

“You choose nothing without my permission,” he growled at her furiously.

“I’m afraid that’s not entirely true, Clymore,” Charles put in mildly, “for Betsy has chosen me.

Lady Clymore made a noise in her throat that was either dread or delight. Charles wasn’t sure which, but there was no mistaking the soundless gasp of horror that parted Betsy’s lips and widened her eyes, for it was a near twin to the expression on the earl’s face as he swung abruptly about, her ladyship’s cane slipping from his fingers and clattering to the floor. It was there for only a second, along with a flicker of something—perhaps panic, possibly rage, but more than likely desperation— that vanished when he squared his shoulders.

“We must speak privately, Your Grace, for I fear you have been misled.”

“You have been misled, Clymore, by your own arrogance in thinking any person of breeding would allow you to force Lady Elizabeth to marry you just to save your sinking ship.”

“You are misled again, Your Grace.” A gleam of perspiration, despite the evening frost gathering in whorls on the foyer windows, gleamed on Julian’s upper lip. “I hold Lady Eliz—er, Betsy, in the highest regard, and she—”

“Loathes the sight of you,” Betsy cut in icily.

Lady Clymore clapped a hand to her brow and sagged against the doorframe. Julian, however, rounded on Betsy.

“Clymore.” The voice that had moved Teddy to prayer spun him back to Charles. “Now you have a choice. Either wish your cousin happy—or accept the loan of my glove.”

Betsy went pale, bit her lip, and clung to the boy. Lady Clymore’s hand shot from her brow to her mouth. The servants flinched, and the Earl of Clymore, his face nearly as white as Betsy’s, shook violently with suppressed fury for a long moment.

“I wish you happy,” he said at last between gritted teeth, then wheeled away to collect his hat, his stick, and his gloves. “I bid you all good evening.”

With a curt bow, Julian made for the door. Iddings bestirred himself to open it and shut it behind him. Then he collected her ladyship’s cane and returned it to her.

“Have you run mad, Braxton?” She rounded incredulously on Charles. “I thought the plan was to ascertain Dameron’s involvement in Boru’s disappearance, not to infuriate him and drive him beyond reason.”

“It still is, my lady.” Glimpsing Betsy staring woodenly at him, he stepped past the countess to reach the window and lift the drapery in time to see Julian ascend a hackney waiting just outside the gates.

When the coach rolled away, Charles moved hastily to the door with Lady Clymore’s cane tapping behind him. Over his shoulder, he saw Betsy kneel to wrap the towel handed her by the footman around the boy, then rise to trail curiously but hesitantly behind her grandmother. Charles opened the door, plucked a handkerchief from his pocket, and waved it thrice in an arc above his head.

A moment later, another hackney rolled into view.

“What the devil—?” her ladyship muttered.

Smiling slyly, Charles tucked his handkerchief in his waistcoat. “Clymore is not the only one with a jarvey in his employ.”

When the hackney drew parallel with the gates, Teddy’s head popped out the window. “We’re on him, Chas!” he shouted, the broad grin on his face gleaming in the flicker of the sidelamps.

At the ring of his voice across the courtyard, the driver, heavily swathed in dark greatcoat and pulled-down hat, turned in his box and thumped Lord Theodore on the head with the handle of his whip.

“My, my.” Lady Clymore clucked admiringly.

“Wherever did you find such an excellent coachman?”

“My brother Lesley.” Charles watched Teddy rub his head and duck inside the hackney. Then he shut the door and moved to the window with the countess for a last glimpse of the coach bowling smartly but discreetly away in pursuit of Julian. “Member of the Four-in-Hand Club.”

“Stout-looking whip,” Lady Clymore observed. “Tell me Lord Lesley intends to thrash Boru’s whereabouts out of Dameron and I shall be the happiest of females.”

Charles laughed, but Betsy did not. Standing a step or so behind her grandmother, her hands clasped at her back, her gaze grave, almost reproachful, she looked the somberest of females. She also looked among the loveliest with damp tendrils of hair curling about her ears. When she realized Charles was looking at her, she glanced at the floor.

“A delightful thought, but excessively bad form, I fear.” Reluctantly he shifted his gaze from Betsy to the countess. “Lesley and Teddy will h aunt Dameron and his rooms, follow wherever he goes, intercept any messages he might send or might be sent to him, until such time as Boru is safely returned to Berkeley Square.”

Betsy raised just her eyes to his face. “Thank you, Your Grace. You are truly wonderful.”

Charles didn’t feel wonderful. He felt guilty and woefully undeserving of the gratitude shimmering in her gaze. “I would be honored if you would call me Charles,” he said gently.

But Betsy only bit, her lip and ducked her head again.

“As to that”—Lady Clymore thumped her cane against the floor and drew herself regally straight— “you do us a great honor and a gallant service by offering for Betsy. Once Dameron has taken himself and his odious attentions elsewhere, I shall not hold you to it, Braxton.”