The Duke's Downfall (3 page)

“Your Grace,” Betsy said, with the barest hint of a curtsey.

“Your servant,” he replied coolly.

“What have you done to your coat?” the dowager asked.

“My coat?” The duke took his hand away from his jaw and peered at his sleeve. “Apparently, Lady Clymore, I’ve torn it.” The tone of his voice suggested he’d just noticed.

Which was, Betsy knew, as false as his befuddled frown. The flush staining her cheeks was genuine, however, and she ducked her chin to hide it. Toplofty the Duke of Braxton might be, yet he was also uncommonly kind to keep to himself the particulars of how his coat came to be torn.

“Come to town for the Little Season, are you?” the dowager inquired.

“No,” replied the duke, “for my brother Lesley’s wedding. And to consult with an acquaintance of mine at the British Museum on a matter of historical significance. Unfortunately he’s in Paris just now, examining Boney’s plunder on behalf of His Highness.”

“With any luck,” the countess remarked dryly, “your acquaintance will find something Prinny can readily turn into blunt.”

“Let us pray,” the duke agreed, a smile easing his tight jaw, which was already showing a faint bruise.

Leaning back on his hands with his torn sleeve, rumpled waistcoat, and mussed hair, he looked more boyish than before, which only served to make Betsy feel guiltier—and fire her curiosity. One moment Charles Earnshaw seemed as high in the instep as any duke in the realm, the next a complete chuckle-head. It simply did not fadge.

“I trust my granddaughter has made apologies for Boru,” the dowager said, giving Betsy a warning pinch on the elbow. “Horrid creature, but she’s quite devoted to him. I trust you are unhurt?”

“I seem to be, yes.”

“Then please give my regards to your mother.” Her ladyship smiled and closed a firm hand on Betsy’s arm. “And tell her I shall call upon her soon.”

“She’ll be delighted.”

“Then good day to you, Braxton.”

“Good day, Lady Clymore.” The duke’s gaze flicked ever so briefly over Betsy. “And to you, young lady.”

Despite the gallantry he’d shown her, Betsy felt a purely childish impulse to stick her tongue out at him. And she might have, if her grandmother hadn’t jerked her arm and marched her back to the phaeton, where George waited to assist them, and Boru, securely lashed to the far door by his lead, sat head down and shamefaced on the banquette.

“Granmama, how could you!”

“Keep your voice down or you will be tied and gagged beside him!” The dowager gave Betsy a none-too-gentle push into George’s hands.

The footman gave her an apologetic smile as he handed her up into the phaeton. Smiling back forgivingly, she plunked unhappily down beside Boru and looped a consoling arm about his neck.

The excitement done with, the crowd on the flagway began to mill and move away. Betsy thought she caught a glimpse of the boy and Scraps melting into the throng, but when she looked again, they were gone.

“We have scarce been in London a day,” her grandmother railed, as she climbed in beside her and sat down stiffly, “and already you’ve made a spectacle not only of ourselves but a duke! Thank God it was His Dottiness, for he’s hardly the sort to call Julian out to avenge his dignity. Most likely he will forget the entire incident within a quarter hour, still—”

“His Dottiness?” Betsy blurted.

The countess clapped one hand over her mouth, then warned, “You will forget I said that.”

“This instant,” Betsy lied earnestly. “Still, I should like to know why you call him that.”

“I do not—at least I have never done so before— yet Braxton has long been so called among the ton. Never to his face, of course. His mistaking Soho for Piccadilly is an excellent example of why.”

“But he was not mistaken, Granmama, for he knew perfectly well—”

“As I should have,” the dowager interrupted, “when you suggested bringing Boru along. How I let you cajole me into taking him abroad I cannot fathom, yet you’ll not get round me again. Henceforth, he will stay at home with George.”

The stubborn set of her grandmother’s mouth warned Betsy the subject was closed. For the moment, at least.

“I’m sorry, my darling,” she whispered to Boru, and laid her head against his warm shoulder.

Though his forgiving whine and affectionate nuzzle gave Betsy a pang of guilt, it also toughened her resolve. Boru loved her, Boru understood.

And Boru hated Julian Dameron.

Chapter Three

It did indeed take less than a quarter hour for Charles Earnshaw to wipe all recollection of the behemoth hound, his mistress, and her termagant grandmother from his mind. It took, in fact, less than five minutes, all the time required by the coachman, Fletcher, to have them under way again, and for Charles to lose himself once more in his book.

The loss was only partial, however, for the cacophony of city sounds drifting through the open window made it difficult to concentrate. He far preferred to keep himself at Braxton Hall, where the peace and solitude of the countryside made it possible to immerse himself totally in his scholarly pursuits.

To him, London was an irritant, an unrelenting distraction, a terrible temptation he longed to, but dared not indulge, for the Earnshaw family tree leaned heavily toward excess. Early on Charles had recognized the tendency in himself and realized he must choose; he could be a bon vivant or he could be a scholar, but he couldn’t be both.

He’d chosen the latter without regret. Except upon days such as this, he thought, as he lifted his head from his book to gaze out the carriage window. On days this fine, the splash of sunlight upon the carriages and horses crowding the streets, the busy throngs moving briskly along the flagways, the smells and sights of the vibrant city made him wish— “‘Ere we are then, Yer Grace. Piccadilly at last.”

Fletcher’s jovial announcement and the creak of the carriage door as he opened it startled Charles out of his reverie in time to save his book from sliding off his lap. Setting it aside on the banquette, he leaned forward to read the address over the coachman’s head: No. 187.

“Why the devil have you brought me to Hatchard’s?” he asked, and then remembered. “Oh—never mind, Fletcher.”

Charles straightened and began fishing in his pockets. That he’d given his coachman this direction and then promptly forgot doing so was not out of character for him, but his inability to find the scrap of paper upon which he’d written the titles of the books on Roman antiquities given him by Simpson’s colleague at the museum was. He searched three times through his pockets, then gave up with an exasperated glance at Fletcher.

“Did I, by any chance, give you a folded bit of paper?”

“No, Yer Grace. Y’did not.”

“Damn and blast, I’ve lost it then!” Charles slapped his left hand on his knee, which drew his attention to his torn sleeve and the cuff creeping over his hand. “And I think I know how,” he muttered, then said aloud, “To my mother’s house, Fletcher. I can hardly return to the museum like this.”

Not that any of the ton would think it strange to see him striding blithely about with a rip as wide as the Serpentine in his sleeve, but Charles felt he’d done enough for one day to perpetuate the myth of His Dottiness. It had been a near thing with Lady Clymore’s granddaughter, but no real harm had been done beyond the clout she’d given him with her reticule. As he raised his hand to rub his jaw, he decided the chit was, without a doubt, the most lethal female he’d ever met.

Every bit as dangerous as her monstrous pet, yet there’d been that initial keen spark in her violet eyes that Charles had taken for intelligence. He knew now that it was menace. Capricious and most likely unintentional, but menace none the less.

Disappointing but fortuitous, otherwise she might very well have caught his slip. The countess hadn’t, he was sure. But the incident was a warning, a reminder that he must constantly be on his guard, for the longer he stayed in London, the stronger the temptations would become.

Yet it made no sense to repair to the hall only to return within a fortnight for Lesley’s wedding. And there was the matter of the coin, which had brought him to town much earlier than planned, and which could not be dealt with until Simpson returned from Paris. Charles thought about it a moment and decided he would stay. Not for the sake of convenience, but to test his resolve and self-discipline.

Though he was putting up at her house as he always did when in London, he needn’t worry about his mother. It had been at least two Seasons since she’d even thought to throw a marriageable miss at his head, and she presently had Lesley’s wedding to occupy her. Content that at last he’d convinced his mother and the rest of the ton that he really was somewhat dotty, Charles smiled as he recalled the first time he’d heard the sometimes apt—but nonetheless odious—His Dottiness whispered in his wake as he’d passed through White’s.

He’d been outraged, but on the verge of calling out the offending wit, it occurred to him that perhaps this was the answer to a prayer. His ducal responsibilities took far too much time away from his studies, and the endless plague of invitations and females upon his person—not only his mother but other matrons of the ton determined to marry their daughters to a duke, any duke—left him feeling like a hunted animal. What better way, he’d decided, to put them all off his trail?

It had been so damnably easy, he marveled that he hadn’t thought of it before. His single-mindedness and preoccupation with his studies resulted in a natural forgetfulness that had started the ton calling him His Dottiness in the first place. All he’d had to do was play that up from time to time, and the wags and gabblemongers had seen to the rest.

So kind of them, really, and so clever of Charles. He smiled again, congratulating himself on his cunning as the carriage rolled to a stop in front of his mother’s Bond Street mansion and Fletcher opened the door. Then, as the coachman placed the steps, a gust of wind sent the note Charles had written himself at the museum skittering up from the floor.

Where, he thought irritably as he plucked it out of the air, it must have fallen when he’d been attacked by the hound from hell. He couldn’t recall the beast’s name, but decided Cerberus suited it quite well, even though it lacked the three heads possessed by the mythological dog that guards the mouth of hell. Unless one considered the heads belonging to its mistress and her grandmother.

Smiling at the analogy, Charles alighted his carriage, mounted the steps to the house, and retired to the library, kindly ceded him by his mother for the length of his stay in town. There, safe from temptation, he spent an uninterrupted several days tinkering with this invention, ruminating on that scientific thesis. Quite happily, he thought, until the afternoon when Denham, the butler, rapped on the door.

“Your Grace,” he said, once he’d been granted admission, “as she was leaving just now, Her Grace asked me to remind you not to forget to eat.”

Charles blinked, startled and caught short. The only flaw in His Dottiness was the occasional moment such as this. Had something his alter ego set into motion slipped his mind or had he genuinely forgotten to dine? Charles tried, but simply could not recall, and was forced to ask cautiously of Denham, “Have I?”

“No, Your Grace, which I told Her Grace. She was quite pleased to hear it.”

“Oh, good.” He sighed relievedly. “Well, thank you, Denham.”

The butler bowed and turned to leave, but Charles called him back. “Denham, did my mother take her leave from her morning room?”

“Yes, Your Grace.”

“Why, then, did she not inquire of me as she passed by?”

“I wouldn’t know, Your Grace, other than Her Grace was in something of a hurry. She has been at sixes and sevens since she misplaced her engagement book.”

How odd. Charles had never known his mother to mislay so much as a hairbrush. “Do you know her direction?”

“Not precisely, Your Grace. Nor did Her Grace, though she believed she had an appointment with her modiste.”

Stranger still, thought Charles.

That evening, when he entered the dining room for supper, there was only one place set at the head of the elegantly appointed table and only Denham waiting to attend him.

“My mother?” he inquired.

“Her Grace is dining with Lord and Lady Hampton, Your Grace.”

Charles blinked at him. “Who?”

“The Lady Amanda’s parents, Your Grace.”

“Oh, the Gilbertsons, of course. Wedding plans, I assume.”

“I believe so, Your Grace.”

Charles sat down and sighed. He was used to dining alone, for he always did at the hail (unless some member of the family was in residence), but in town he was used to company. He thought briefly of calling for his carriage and taking supper at his club, but decided that would be stretching temptation to its limits. Instead he sent Denham to the library for the book he’d been reading, and with it propped open against the candelabra in front of him, felt somewhat less abandoned.

His spirits lifted further, when, on his way back to the library, he encountered his youngest brother, Teddy, dashing down the main staircase into the marble-floored foyer.

“Halfling!” Charles called happily. “There you are!”

“There I was,” Teddy returned, grinning and tugging on his coat as he downed the last few steps, “for I’m late to the Parkinsons’ ball honoring Lesley and Amanda.”

“Are you?” Charles asked mildly, noting his black evening dress and the flush in his cheeks. “Mother will be joining you there after the theater, I trust.”

“Why, yes,” Teddy replied cheerfully, turning toward a gilt-framed mirror hung near the door to fluff his cravat.

“Ted-dy.” Charles made two pointed syllables of his name. “Mother is dining with the Gilbertsons.”

The boy cringed guiltily in the glass, but recovered almost instantly and heeled about to face Charles. “Are you quite sure? Her engagement book has gone missing, you know.”

“I have it straight from Denham.” Charles crossed his arms and glowered. “And while we re on it, you little scamp, what do you know about the disappearance of Mother’s engagement book?”