The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires (38 page)

After Maximilian changed into clothes more befitting a duke, he stood staring out
at the garden, his throat tight and his hands clenched. There was one person who might
shed light on the subject—the Cale family physician. Assuming he was still alive,
he would surely know if Mother had ever had syphilis . . . and more important,
when
she and Father had contracted it.

So before Maximilian went courting, it might be good to have all the facts straight
in his mind.

It took him only a few hours to hunt the man down. The doctor was nearly ninety and
his memory faulty, but he had kept copious notes on his patients, and he was perfectly
happy to show them to the man whose family had practically made him rich.

And there, buried in the notes, was a reference to Mother’s bout of the “pox”—almost
exactly nine months before Peter’s birth. Then Max went through the rest and found
the notation of the first signs that Father had the “pox.” It had apparently been
more virulent than Mother’s. And it had come
after
Mother’s.

He left the doctor’s home in a turmoil of emotion. All these years, he’d had everything
wrong. He had planned every detail of his future, basing it on a monumental lie. Perhaps
it was time he stopped trying to predict the future. Perhaps it was time he embraced
the present.

Or rather, perhaps it was time he embraced the one woman who made the present livable.
The one woman who’d never wavered in her faith in him.

The only woman he could ever love.

Victor was right—he was a damned fool if he didn’t at least attempt to convince her
to marry him, no matter what she thought was “best” for both of them.

With that decision made, he headed off for Manton’s Investigations. When he arrived
there, the place looked eerily quiet. Odd—it was only eight o’clock.

He knocked at the door. When no one answered, he kept knocking louder until the door
opened. Manton’s odd butler stood there glaring at him while tying on a voluminous
cloak.

“Would you inform your mistress that I wish to speak with her?” Maximilian said.

“You certainly took your sweet time getting here, didn’t you, Your Grace?”

Maximilian blinked. “What are you talking about?”

“Miss Bonnaud sent a desperate message to you hours ago.”

His heart leaped. She’d changed her mind? She’d actually asked him to come to her?
“I haven’t been home for hours. So if you’d just announce me—”

“She’s not here,” Mr. Shaw said with a sniff, obviously not yet ready to forgive him
for his negligence, “and I am late for rehearsal.”

As the butler hurried down the front steps, Maximilian kept pace with him. “Where
is she?”

“Not that it’s any of
your
concern, Your Grace, but
after she and Mr. Manton tried unsuccessfully to get Mr. Bonnaud out of gaol—”

“What the devil? How did he end up
there
?”

Shaw eyed him askance. “Rathmoor had him seized before they could even leave the ship.
Apparently Mr. Manton unknowingly led him there, since that scoundrel Mr. Hucker intercepted
a note from Miss Bonnaud that was supposed to warn Mr. Manton off. It seems Mr. Hucker
has been watching the place.”

“Holy God,” Maximilian said as the full reality of that crashed down on him. “After
Hucker lost us in France, he must have come back here to resume his spying until he
could find us.”

Shaw trotted along the road. “Mr. Manton spent the afternoon attempting to convince
Sir Jackson Pinter, his friend in the magistrate’s office, to release Mr. Bonnaud,
but that didn’t work.”

Maximilian’s heart pounded. “No, Pinter isn’t the sort to bend the law for someone
who broke it, even Manton’s half brother. Besides, Bonnaud did steal a horse and sell
it. The facts are irrefutable, from what I understand.”

“Then ‘the law shall bruise him,’ I’m afraid.” When Maximilian eyed him oddly, he
added, “It’s Shakespeare.”

“It’s not helping. So if they weren’t successful at Bow Street, where are they now?”

“Gone to Rathmoor’s to beg his lenience.” Shaw frowned and picked up his pace. “There
is no point in that. ‘For pity is the virtue of the law, / And none
but tyrants use it cruelly.’ Rathmoor is most assuredly a tyrant.”

“Then tell me where I can find him,” Maximilian snapped. “I am not going to let Tristan
Bonnaud hang.”

Shaw halted. “Do you have a plan to prevent it?”

Maximilian thought for a moment, and a smile spread over his face. “I believe I do.
But I’ll need help in pulling it off.”

Shaw sighed heavily. “I suppose they can do without me at rehearsal for one night.”
With a flourish of his long cloak, he walked back toward where Maximilian’s carriage
sat waiting in front of Manton’s Investigations. “I do hope your plan is sufficient
to free Mr. Bonnaud.”

“I believe it will be. Here is what I need you to do . . .”

L
ISETTE PACED THE
substantial parlor in George’s town house. She turned to Dom and asked, “Do you think
George has really gone out? Or is he just pretending to be gone to make us stew?”

Dom crossed his arms over his chest. “Knowing George, it’s the latter.”

“Then we should search the house for him and hold him down until he agrees to withdraw
his claim of thievery against Tristan,” she bit out.

“So he can have us charged with attempted murder or some such nonsense? We’re lucky
he failed at having us charged with harboring a fugitive this morning. If he’d had
Tristan seized at Manton’s Investigations, or if the captain hadn’t been good enough
to claim we had just boarded the ship, we’d be sitting in gaol with Tristan right
now.”

Lisette sighed. Dom had a point. “But what’s to stop him from claiming that we stole
something from him after we leave here?”

“The fact that we have nothing in our pockets?” Dom quipped.

She glared at him.

“I know, it’s no time to joke. Pinter is doing his best to see what legal recourse
we have, but the truth is, right now George holds all the cards. So if our sitting
here awaiting his leisure gives him some petty satisfaction, then sit here we will.”

“You know George will never relent. Why should he?” she said despairingly. “I’m trying
to hold on to the hope that Max will respond to my note, but that hope gets smaller
by the moment.”

“He may yet. Don’t count him out.”

Dropping into a chair beside Dom, she shook her head. “I dare say the minute he was
back in his fine town house, he thought better of ever offering for me.”

“You can’t blame him if he did. You turned him down. Most men don’t take that well,
but a duke? Might as well shoot him in the arse.”

“I always knew he would break my heart in the end,” she said softly.

Dom cast her a searching glance. “It has been my experience, dear girl, that if one
goes into a thing certain of the outcome, one does everything in one’s power to ensure
that outcome.”

She tipped up her chin. “What are you saying? That I brought this on myself?”

“No. I’m saying that you need to stop thinking of yourself as Claudine’s illegitimate
daughter, doomed to
follow in her footsteps. You can do whatever you set your mind to. Especially if you
can learn to see yourself the way we do—as a vibrant, beautiful woman with a great
deal to offer any man.”

Was Dom right? Had she done her best to scuttle any chance she had with Max? Had she
wrapped her heart in so much protective wool that it no longer had air to breathe?

“Excuse me,” came a feminine voice from the doorway, “but are you here to call on
someone? I heard talking and . . .”

The voice trailed off as Dom rose. “Jane?” he said hoarsely. Then he stiffened. “Forgive
me, Miss Vernon. I forgot that you might be here.”

Lisette leaped up from her chair, too. Jane Vernon was cousin to George’s wife. She
had also once been Dom’s fiancée. Until Dom had ended up penniless.

The pretty young woman paled. “Good evening, Mr. Manton. I had no idea . . . I was
unaware . . .” She looked at Lisette, and that seemed to help her master herself.
“I didn’t realize that you two were waiting. We’re at dinner upstairs. I don’t know
why the butler didn’t send you up.”

Dom eyed her askance. “Come now, Miss Vernon, you’re no fool,” he clipped out. “You
know perfectly well why the butler didn’t send us up.”

Jane steadied her shoulders, then stared at him. “I see that you haven’t changed at
all, Mr. Manton. No polite niceties for a clever fellow like you.” She cast Lisette
a half smile. “I will fetch George. I assume that he’s the one you’ve come to call
upon?”

Lisette nodded. “Thank you.”

As soon as Jane had left, Lisette whirled on Dom. “You didn’t have to be nasty to
her.”

“I wasn’t being nasty. I was being truthful.”

Seeing Jane had obviously upset the generally even-tempered Dom. Lisette’s eyes narrowed.
Wasn’t that interesting?

A knock came at the front door, startling them both. The butler hurried to open it,
and a tall figure brushed past him into the hallway. “Thank you, my good man,” said
an arrogant voice she recognized only too well. “Please inform the Viscount Rathmoor
that the Duke of Lyons is here to speak with him.”

Lisette froze, caught entirely off guard, as the butler practically knocked Max over
with his bowing and scraping.

Max had come! He’d done it for Tristan, of course, because that was the sort of man
he was—a man of honor and character. But perhaps a little of it was done for
her
?

Her blood began to pound, and she tried not to hope too much. But it was difficult
when Max was standing there in the flesh, proving that he hadn’t forgotten her—or
her family—at all.

The butler got a sudden panicked look on his face as he apparently realized that the
entrance parlor was filled, and that perhaps he shouldn’t put the duke in with such
low creatures as the estranged brother of the viscount and their illegitimate sister.

But while he was still floundering, Max looked over
into the parlor and caught sight of them. “Ah, I see my friends made it here before
me. I’ll just join them, thank you.”

The butler stammered, “V-very good, Your Grace,” and practically vaulted up the stairs.

“Well, that should bring George down in a flash,” Dom muttered to her.

Max strode up to them with an urgent look on his face. “I take it you have not spoken
to your brother yet?”

She shook her head, unable to do more than stare at him.

“Good. Then the two of you must allow me to handle this. Do you think Hucker is around?”

“Probably,” Dom said. “He’s never far. Why?”

“Because if he recognizes me as Mr. Kale, it will only help the plan Shaw and I have
cooked up.”

“Shaw?” Lisette said. “
Our
Shaw?”

“Yes. Good man, that. Though a little odd.”

She didn’t know whether to agree or laugh hysterically. “Do you really think you can
get Tristan freed, Your Grace?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Not if you keep calling me that, dearling. What happened to
‘Max’?”

He’d called her
dearling
. Tears stung her eyes. “I wasn’t sure if Max was still around,” she said, fighting
a smile. “You were being so dukely just now.”

“Well, being dukely is apparently what I do best, according to a certain tart-tongued
female.”

George appeared in the entrance to the parlor.

“Don’t worry, my love. Everything will be all right,” he murmured.

My love?
Oh, dear, he was making it difficult for her to hold fast to her resolve not to marry
him.

With her blood pounding in her ears, she watched as Max turned to greet her half brother.
“Good evening, Rathmoor.”

George eyed him warily. “Have we met, Your Grace?”

“No, I don’t believe we have.” Max’s tone chilled. “Though I’ve heard a great deal
about you from my friends here.”

The blood drained from George’s face. “Friends?” he squeaked.

“Yes. They tell me that you’ve arrested a man who is in my employ.”

As Lisette stifled a gasp, George scowled. “Tristan Bonnaud is in Your Grace’s employ.”

“Indeed he is. I hired him and Miss Bonnaud and Mr. Manton to find my lost cousin
and return him to the arms of his loving family. They succeeded admirably. Victor
Cale, the man who was the reason for their being on that ship you boarded, is now
ensconced in my town house.”

Lisette could scarcely contain her excitement. What a brilliant scheme! And it helped
that he could use his title like a bludgeon when necessary.

He was quite dukely as he stared George down. “I only regret I was not there when
you arrived to carry off Mr. Bonnaud. My cousin is recovering from a nasty
bout of pneumonia, so I had to get him into a doctor’s care immediately. If I had
known that you were going to show up and arrest my best investigator, the man who
is primarily responsible—”

“You’re saying you
hired
Tristan, a known fugitive, to find your cousin,” George put in, a vein throbbing
in his temple.