The Duke's Holiday (28 page)

She thanked the butler for her gloves and bonnet and headed
down the long hallway to make her exit, mentally preparing a list for the
journey.

A noise down one of the connecting corridors stopped her
progress. It was the sound of a child’s giggle, followed by the low, easy
laughter of a man.

She turned and her breath hitched, as it always did, at the
sight of Sebastian Sherbrook. She should have known he would have accompanied
the Viscount on his errand, since they were notoriously inseparable. He was
clad outrageously, as usual, in a robin’s egg blue silk jacket and yellow
waistcoat, his hands nearly hidden by the lace spilling from his sleeves, and his
fingers encrusted in jewels. A dozen or so ornate watch fobs criss-crossed his
chest. He was currently leaning forward and dangling one of them just out of
reach of one of the twin’s hands.

He looked ridiculous, but Lady Katherine suspected that he
knew this quite well. He dressed to excess because he lived to excess. His
cravat was in disarray, and his over-long ebony hair was brushed hastily back
from his face, which was shadowed by a beard and dark, cavernous circles under
his eyes, giving him a faintly bruised look. If Marlowe looked as if he’d not
slept in a week, Mr. Sherbrook looked as if he never slept at all.

Nevertheless, when he noticed her at the opposite end of
the corridor and turned those startling, jaded sapphire eyes onto her, his
smile fading into blank nothingness, Lady Katherine could not breathe. She
could not move.

He was the most beautiful creature she had ever seen.

They did not mix socially, obviously, and she could count
the number of times on one hand she had actually seen him in company. But she
remembered all of those times quite distinctly, remembered every detail of
these sightings, for reasons she dared not examine too closely.

She was married to his uncle, and it was no secret that the
two men were bitter enemies. She was, by default, then, also Mr. Sherbrook’s
enemy. And it was clear Mr. Sherbrook felt some personal animosity towards her
for her marriage to Manwaring. It was evident now in the way his mouth turned
down at the edges and his expression hardened to stone.

She did not like him either. He was even more detestable than
the Viscount Marlowe and was no doubt the reason the feckless Viscount was
always in trouble. He led his stupid, fat friend from one outrageous act to
another. Sherbrook was a Libertine, the worst rakehell in the country, and
though admittedly Lord Manwaring had few redeeming qualities himself, it was
not hard to figure out why the Marquess wanted nothing to do with his nephew.

However, no one could deny that Mr. Sherbrook was a
handsome man. More than that: beautiful, as only a woman had a right to be.
Clear, olive skin, large, depthless blue eyes, a tall, slender but powerful
figure, and a mouth made for sin. At least that was what her faster
acquaintances said about his mouth. All she could determine was that it was
large and full and dark red, and when she looked at it she felt quite strange deep
in her stomach.

No one had a right to such beauty, especially a rogue like
him.

No, she did not like him at all.

They stared at each other without moving or speaking. The
tension between them stretched very taut. Neither exchanged even the most
cursory of greetings. She gave him her haughtiest expression and arched one
eyebrow.

He let his watch fall to his side, and the twin snatched it
up and began to tug it, pulling the chain, and him along with it. As if snapped
out of a trance, he turned back to his game with the child and allowed her to
lead him from the corridor by his watch fob. He said something to the girl, and
they both broke down into peals of laughter that sounded very naughty.

Lady Katherine knew when she had been dismissed. She wasted
no time in departing the residence. As she settled into her landau and drove
towards her empty townhouse, she couldn’t decide whether the surprise of
encountering him or the surprise of seeing him play with the child as if he
were a normal person was the most disconcerting part of their meeting.

Both, she decided.

But she filed away their encounter with all the others,
certain details – the fall of his ebony hair, the buckles on his shoes,
the single dimple on his right cheek when he smiled at the child – and
the dead look in his brilliant eyes– all duly noted.

“WHAT
DO you mean,” the Viscount Marlowe blustered at his sister, “that
she
is going to Yorkshire to rescue the
Duke? What business of
her’s
is the
Duke?”

“Well said, old man,” seconded Sebastian, who had skulked
inside the drawing room, only to overhear Elaine’s convoluted explanation for
Lady Manwaring’s upcoming trip to Yorkshire. Sebastian didn’t much care what
Montford had gotten himself into with these Honeywell chits, but he cared
greatly that Lady Ice had taken it upon herself to interfere in Montford’s
affairs. She’d drag Montford back by his nose and have him leg-shackled to her
dreadful sister before the week’s end. That was unacceptable.

Egad, just glimpsing Lady Ice in the hallway had been
enough to make Sebastian seek out the Earl’s sideboard forthwith and pour
himself a generous snifter of port. She was the second to last person on earth
Sebastian liked encountering. She left him with a queer pang in his stomach and
a horrible taste in his mouth.

He reclined on the most comfortable seat in the drawing
room, sipping his port and watching Marlowe and Elaine bicker in an effort to
banish the image of Lady Manwaring’s face from his mind.

“Montford demanded
I
ride
up there forthwith to deal with these Honeywell people. Such an idea is absurd,
in my condition,” Elaine said, touching her stomach.

Marlowe, thunderous a second before, looked at his sister
askance. “You’re not – again?”

“I am,” Elaine answered.

“Weren’t it just a week ago you dropped your last brat?”
Marlowe demanded.

“It was two months ago. God, Evvy, keep up, will you?”

“I would, ‘cept it’s so very hard. Don’t see how Brinderley
manages it, D’you, Sherbrook?”

“Didn’t know he had it in ‘em,” Sebastian drawled.

“Well, he does manage quite well in … that arena. Quite,”
Elaine said firmly. Then she blushed, realizing what she’d said.

Marlowe blushed as well and looked slightly ill, obviously
forming an unwanted visual image of his brother-in-law “managing” with his
wife, much like Sebastian was.

Sebastian set aside his snifter. And he thought he’d felt
nauseated before.

“Devil take it, what were we talking about?” Marlowe
thundered.

“Montford. Yorkshire. Honeywells,” Sebastian prompted.

“Oh, yes. Don’t know what the blazes is happening up there,
but to call upon that woman to intercede on your behalf…”

“Come now, Evvy, she is to be Montford’s sister, and
Araminta, who is accompanying her, his wife.”

“Araminta!
She’s
going? Bloody hell, Lanie! We are trying to
stop
this wedding from happening, not hasten it. Why not send up a bloody firing
squad to finish him off? ‘Twould be kinder.”

“I will pretend you did not just liken the marriage state
with an execution. Nor will I believe you dare insult one of my dearest friends
to my face. You know how fond I am of Katie. She is rather … aloof, I’ll grant
you, and can come off as dour and moralistic and –” She broke off when
she realized her endorsement of her friend had not come out quite right. “She
is
not
a bad person,” she insisted
after they snorted. “Despite being married to your mortal enemy. Though what
he
has done besides being thoroughly
boring and old I do not know.”

Marlowe and Sebastian stared at their shoes and did not provide
any enlightenment on this last point.

“Nevertheless, your bosom beau Montford needs a chaperone.
Katherine is willing to be that chaperone. What’s the hue and cry?”

Marlowe looked to Sherbrook for guidance, but receiving
nothing but a shrug, he shrugged as well. “Demmed if I know. Just don’t like
the smell of this one. What d’ya think, Sherry?”

Sebastian studied his fingernails. “If My Lady Aunt thinks
to run up to Yorkshire to meddle in Montford’s affairs, she is free to do so.”

Marlowe looked deflated by Sebastian’s lack of enthusiasm.

“However,” Sebastian continued, locking eyes on his friend
over his nails, his lips curling in his sliest smile, “so are we.”

It took a moment for this to sink in. When it did, Marlowe
laughed gustily and slapped his knee. “For a moment, Sherry, I doubted you. But
only for a moment.”

IN WHICH THE
DUKE’S HOLIDAY TAKES AN UNEXPECTED DETOUR

AT
FIRST, he thought he was on a sea voyage, the room around him tilting and
heaving like a ship in a squall. He’d been at sea before when he’d been obliged
to cross the Channel for the Congress of Vienna. He’d tried to block out the
memory of that experience, however, as it had been quite miserable. He’d never
found his sea legs. In fact, after returning from Calais a wasted, nervous
wreck, he’d vowed to never set foot on a boat again.

So what the devil was he doing on one now?

He tried to raise his head, but this was a serious mistake.
Bright sunlight barraged his face through a slit in a wall. His head felt the approximate
weight of an anvil, upon which a very well-endowed blacksmith had merrily
hammered for days and days.

His berth lurched to one side, and he clutched beneath him
for purchase, his hands encountering rough wood planks and a bit of coarse
canvas cloth that had a suspiciously foul odor. Then the ship, or whatever he
was on, hit a large rock or maybe even a whale, throwing his entire body a few
inches in the air. He landed with a thud.

He thought he heard a woman’s laughter, but that could have
just been the squawking of a gull.

The ship encountered another whale, and he was thrown up in
the air again. He crashed back down, every inch of his body in pain, his
stomach roiling. His mouth felt like it was stuffed with cotton, his brain felt
smashed. Something thudded against the planks, the vibrations causing his head
to throb, then rolled against his side. It was heavy and persistent. He
thrashed about with his arms and tried to push it away, but it would not budge.
Something was trying to crush him.

He squinted one eye open in an effort to get his bearings.
Slowly, by increments, his eye adjusted to the blinding light pouring over him.
He had expected to find a ceiling, but instead he was staring at a dingy, tan
expanse of canvas hovering a few feet above him. Part of the canvas had become
unknotted, revealing a bright patch of grey-blue sky.

He turned his head, which swam dizzily, and faced his
attacker. It was a large wooden barrel. It must have been jostled loose from
its moorings by the terrible storm. Though how a barrel had landed in his
berth, and how it could be storming even though the sky was blue, were
mysteries to him.

It hurt to think too hard.

He shut his eye and tried to breathe evenly so as not to be
sick. This was impossible, though. It was a matter of when, not if, he lost the
contents of his stomach. He couldn’t very well lose them in his current
location, however. He needed to find a chamber pot, or at the very least a
bucket. He made himself sit up, his head brushing the canvas above him, his
stomach in his throat. He made for the slit he’d seen in the canvas on all
fours, and as he did so, he wondered what had happened to him.

His hands were filthy, and so were his sleeves. The lace at
his cuffs was torn and soiled, and the buttons on his wrists of his jacket were
missing. Had he been kidnapped by pirates? Was he himself a pirate?

No, no, he was the Duke of Montford. The signet ring
glaring up at him from underneath a layer of dried mud reminded him of this.

He fumbled his way to the slit in the awning and threw it
back. He expected to be on the deck of a ship, but instead he found himself
thrust up against a wooden railing, watching a dusty country road fly by him in
reverse. He leaned over and spotted a large wooden wheel spinning and creaking,
round and round, in the ruts of the road. He clutched his head with one hand,
and his guts with the other.

He was on a wagon.

It was even worse than he’d thought. His stomach heaved,
and he cast up his accounts all over the wooden wheel.

Several moments later, he sat back against the railing,
wiping his mouth with his tattered sleeve, squeezing his eyes shut, and trying
to recall what had led him to this horrible fate.

The last thing he could see in his mind’s eye was watching
Miss Honeywell drop a red flag and smirk at him. After that, everything was a
blur. He’d raced in that damned contest. He might have won, he wasn’t sure. And
he might or might not have been attacked by a white poodle. He’d been very,
very,
very
drunk. In fact, he might
still be drunk.

And he had been abducted. He would never have voluntarily
climbed into a wagon – an even worse conveyance than a well-sprung
carriage for someone with his condition – no matter how drunk he was.

His unwarranted mirth died a quick death as his stomach
lurched again. He turned over the side and hacked up the vilest concoction of
stomach acid, Honeywell Ale, and whatever disgustingly crude food he’d devoured
while in his drunken stupor. Whatever it was, it was unrecognizable as it
painted the roadside.

Then he heard voices murmuring on the breeze, somewhere at
the front of the wagon. One of the voices was female and familiar. It cut
across his throbbing head like the crash of the blacksmith’s hammer against
iron.

He laughed with grim humor.

Who else had he expected?

He began to crawl forward, hoping he’d have the strength to
wring Astrid Honeywell’s neck when he found her. At last, he managed to reach
the front of the wagon bed and could make out the outlines of Miss Honeywell
and a driver on the other side of the awning. The driver was chuckling at
something Miss Honeywell was saying, and it took a moment for Montford to make
out what it was. When he did, he began to grow extremely worried.

“ …
young fellow from
Kent/ Whose anatomy was quite bent/ When he thrust to go in/ He got stuck on
her shin/ Back home to his wife he was sent.
”

“Ach, Miss Astrid!” cried the driver through his laughter.
“That was too naughty! You mustn’t say such things!”

“I was only quoting. ‘Twas not I who said it, but the Duke
himself. And admit it, you’re amused.”

“Aye, but I shouldna be.”

Montford managed to part the canvas. He peered out at the
driver’s seat, upon which Miss Honeywell sat with one of her stable hands. She
looked bright-eyed and entirely too chipper for his liking, twirling her bonnet
around in one of her hands, her corkscrew hair rustling in the breeze. She was
wearing a white muslin gown sprigged with orange flowers, and an orange-colored
pelisse, which clashed painfully with her hair. He felt like sicking up just
looking at her.

He felt like sicking up at the bit of verse she’d just
shared with the driver. It was irritatingly familiar. The kind of codswallop
Marlowe was fond of belting out when in his cups. Montford had a horrible
suspicion Miss Honeywell was not lying when she said she’d been quoting him. He
did not remember reciting the limerick, but then again, he did not remember a
great deal of the previous day.

“Oh, God, oh, God,” he groaned, clutching his aching head.
He must have spoken too loudly, for he heard Miss Honeywell shriek and felt the
wagon lurch to a standstill. He wasn’t expecting the movement, so he was unable
to stop himself from flying forward, out of the wagon bed, and across the
driver’s seat. His nose became intimately acquainted with Miss Honeywell’s
boots.

“What are you
doing
here?” Miss Honeywell shrieked somewhere above him, the sound ricocheting
through his skull like a gunshot. He groaned and tried to right himself, but he
only succeeded in turning his head enough to glimpse Miss Honeywell’s face
peering down at him from above. She was upside down.

“What am
I
doing
here?” he rasped. “I’ve been abducted, that’s what.”

Miss Honeywell looked aghast, her cheeks suffused with red,
her hair popping out of its pins.

He floundered at her feet for several long, painful
seconds, until finally the driver hauled him upright by the shoulders. He
managed to put his arse, which had been thrust inelegantly in Miss Honeywell’s
face for some time, on the seat where it belonged. Though his victory was short-lived.
His stomach somersaulted dangerously.

“Abducted?” Miss Honeywell was screeching next to him.
“Stuff! How dare you accuse me of … abduction!”

He cringed and covered his ears with his hands. “Damnation,
woman, don’t scream at me!” he whispered.

“I’m not screaming!” she yelled.

He clutched his temple and groaned.

“I did not kidnap you, Montford,” she said, moderating her
tone slightly. “That’s the most ludicrous thing I have ever heard. You are the
last person on earth I ever want to see again! You’re supposed to be on the
road back to London. Or at the very least suffering mightily back at the
castle.”

“I
am
suffering
mightily,” he informed her.

“Good. No less than you deserve after the …
spectacle
you made of yourself
yesterday.”

He moaned. He did not want to know what he had done.
Snatches of memory here and there were returning to him. The limerick had
jarred something loose inside. He seemed to remember having recited quite a lot
of them last night.

He eyed Miss Honeywell out of the edges of his fingers. She
was facing the road, her arms folded underneath her breasts. She looked quite
cross. She wrinkled her nose. “And you stink to high heaven, Montford. You
smell like the brewery. And dirty stockings.”

“Thank you for that valuable insight. Now, if you shall
turn this conveyance around, I should like to return to the castle.”

 
“Not bloody
likely.”

“What?”

“I said, not bloody likely. The castle’s twenty miles back
that way,” she said, pointing her finger behind them.

“Twenty miles?
Twenty
miles
?” he shrieked, then grimaced, as his voice had split open his head
anew.

“Mebbe we should, Miss Astrid,” the driver interjected,
looking worried. “If’n His Grace be wanting to return.”

Montford gave the man a gracious nod – or as near to
one he could manage in his present state. “Thank you–”

“Nonsense,” Miss Honeywell said contemptuously. “We are but
ten miles from Hawes. I’ll not be put off concluding our business because the
Duke decided to pass out in our wagon.”

“I did not decide to pass out in this … I would never
choose to pass out in a moving conveyance. Someone put me here!”

“Well, it wasn’t me!” Miss Honeywell cried. “Not after the
way you behaved last night …” She bit off anything else she had been about to
reveal, and her face went from merely being red to something closer to purple.

Montford had a sinking suspicion that he should be
remembering something quite important right about now. But his mind was a
blank. He didn’t want to ask, but he had to. “ What did I do?”

“You mean you don’t remember?” she asked, her eyes popping
from her head.

“I don’t remember a blasted thing. Except being attacked by
a white dog. Was I attacked by a white dog?”

She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind, which was not
far from the truth. “You must be thinking of Aunt Anabel’s wig. You knocked it
off when you kissed her.”

Now
he was
definitely going to be sick. “I … what?”

Miss Honeywell beamed at him, seeing his discomfort. “You
kissed Aunt Anabel. On the lips. In front of the entire village.”

The driver coughed into his hand to muffle his laughter.
Montford groaned. “I didn’t.”

“You did!” she insisted, looking triumphant.

He shook his head in misery and tried to focus. His
immediate goal was to avoid being sick all over his boots. He had that under
control, as the wagon was momentarily stopped. Of secondary importance was
finding his way back to the castle and out of Miss Honeywell’s sights forever.
She may not have put him in the wagon, but she was to blame nonetheless. He
couldn’t be near her. She made him do crazy things. Like running in drunken
races and kissing old women. Indeed, he was beginning to wonder if London would
be far enough away from her.

He wouldn’t begin to imagine the sleepless nights ahead
when she invaded London. Even if he didn’t see her, he would
know
she was there, at the Countess’,
with her mismatched eyes and goading tongue, plaguing him. As she plagued him
now, sitting next to him, holding her nose as if
he
offended
her
.

He couldn’t bear the twenty miles back to the castle. Never
mind his queasy stomach. The thought of enduring her company was enough to make
him want to scream. Which he would have done, had he not suspected that such an
act would make his aching head explode.

He didn’t think he could even bear ten miles to Hawes.
Whatever
that
was. But ten was better
than twenty, and perhaps he could purchase a horse there. He needed a horse
anyway, which was the reason he’d come to the damned festival in the first
place.

“Ten miles. I can do ten miles,” he muttered to himself,
clutching the seat.

Miss Honeywell snorted. “Do you hear that, Charlie?
His Majesty
can bear our poor company
for ten miles. Though how he’ll feel about the thirty miles back to Rylestone
is another story.”

“I’ll purchase a horse in Hawes. Not riding back in this,”
he said, indicating the wagon with a vague pass of his hand. “That’s for damned
bloody sure.”

“Well, good, because we don’t desire your company any more
than you desire ours.” Miss Honeywell sniffed haughtily, then signaled for
Charlie to continue, but the driver hesitated.

“Mebbe we
should
turn round,” Charlie suggested nervously, looking rather pale.

“NO!” they both cried simultaneously.

Charlie grimaced, then reluctantly whipped the drays into
motion.

Montford gripped the edge of the seat until his knuckles
were white, willing his stomach to calm down. But the combination of his motion
sickness and his hangover was quite hard to overcome. A few moments later, he
could feel his face turning from gray to green. He sprang into motion, clawing
his way over Miss Honeywell’s lap, crushing her with his body. She fell off her
perch, swearing at him and smacking his head. He was too busy scrambling to the
railing and leaning over the road to give her much notice. His shoulders
heaved, his breath choked, and the most incredible hacking noise issued from
his throat as he cast up his accounts.