He tossed the empty bucket down, not particularly caring where it landed. It hit the statue’s base, making a dreadful, clanging racket that could probably have been heard all the way to the Seven Barrows. Hugh dumped in more paint. Chilcot, still pawing the ground, picked up the bucket handle with his teeth and, whickering, cantered once around the statue, the bucket swinging precariously and splashing paint all down the front of his elegant lace cravat and expensive waistcoat. Snorting and neighing, he pranced to a stop just beneath Gareth where, with the help of his cohorts, he managed to hook the bucket on the end of a long pole and push it up toward their leader.
It swayed back and forth near Gareth’s ear, threatening to tip its contents over the primped and powdered heads below. He snared it and loaded the brush up with more paint so he could apply a second coat to his masterpiece. “I can’t see a damned thing up here,” he said, pushing the brush up into the darkened cavern between the steed’s hind legs and hoping he’d found the right spot. “How the devil am I supposed to paint its balls if I can’t even see them? Fine mess we’ll be in if I paint its stomach instead!”
“Fine mess we’ll be in if your brother finds out who did this.”
“Bloody ’ell, Gareth, hurry up!”
Snickers, more laughter. The long-suffering king, silhouetted against the night sky, stared off across the high brows of the downs as though seeking the help of a sympathetic god. Divine intervention would not be forthcoming but ducal intervention very well might, and every one of the Den members knew it.
Gareth’s brother had a habit of turning up when he was least expected.
Or wanted.
“Finished!” Gareth announced. “I’m coming down now.”
“Did you get its prick, as well?”
“Oh, sod you, Perry!”
Tess called up, loudly, “Paintin’ its bollocks without doin’ its prick ain’t good enough, Lord Gareth!”
The bucket weaved close, swinging against the night sky. “Ouch!” Gareth cried as it smacked his ear, nearly knocking him from his perch. Angrily, he flicked more paint down on the hapless heads below. “Damn you, Hugh, watch it, would you?”
More laughter. Gareth, annoyed now and beginning to wish he really had gone home, leaned back against the rope, trying to find his footing. Was he getting too old for this nonsense? For some reason he couldn’t fathom, this was no longer even fun.
Moments later he was finished, tossing the paintbrush blindly over his shoulder, not caring where it landed.
Thump.
“Son of a bitch!”
“That’s it. I’m coming down as soon as I get the rope.”
He stood up on the narrow pedestal, one hand braced on the king’s thigh for balance as he tried to reach the noose, snugged tight just behind the horse’s left ear. Pain, faraway and detached, came from his rib, still a little raw. He ignored it.
“I can’t reach it. Somebody pass me up a stick or something, and I’ll try to slip it under the noose and off the head.”
“Could always burn it off,” Perry mused.
“Or make a halter out of it,” added Audlett.
“How ’bout if you—”
“Just get me a damned stick!” Gareth snapped, growing impatient with both his friends and the situation.
Cokeham roused himself and, on hands and knees, fell to rooting around in the grass, snuffling and making pig-like noises. “Oink, oink!”
Audlett belched.
Sir Hugh Rochester, baronet, expelled a loud puff of gas that came from regions much lower.
And the two women began singing drunkenly.
Oh, God help me. I think I need a new set of friends. Fed up with the lot of them, Gareth hoisted himself up so that he was sitting astride the horse just in front of the king. He drew his feet up beneath him and, holding onto the rope for balance, got to his feet, stretching his body full-length along the crest of the horse’s neck as he reached for the noose.
He couldn’t quite reach it.
Damn. He pulled himself forward another inch, his rib screaming in protest even through the haze of whiskey-induced numbness. Buttons popped off his coat. His shirt tore. Kicking for a foothold on either side of the horse’s neck, he found only empty space. He made a desperate grab for the noose. Missed. Far below him, the others began calling bets.
“Two guineas he won’t do it in the next thirty seconds!”
“I’ll up you to five pounds—”
“Oink, oink, ereeeeeeeeach!”
And then Gareth felt himself beginning to slide backward.
Cursing, he dug both knees against the cold stone neck—and kept sliding. Scrambling madly, he made another grab for the rope and had just snared it when Chilcot cried, “Bloody ’ell, Gareth, someone’s coming up the road! Crawley must’ve called in the constable or something!”
“Damnation!”
It all happened at once. Cokeham abandoned both the ground and his pig-impersonations and fled, howling, into the night. Chilcot grabbed the bucket of paint, tossed it into a ditch, and took flight himself, running like a hare over the downs. Perry dashed toward a nearby tithe barn, the two tipsy women collapsed, giggling, against the base of the statue, and Hugh and Audlett scattered, one for the village, the other stumbling after Cokeham and yelling for all he was worth. One by one, his friends all deserted him—leaving Gareth stretched full-length atop the horse’s stone neck with the rope in one hand and his feet sliding mercilessly down toward Henry’s loins.
And then he heard it. Hoof beats, coming toward him from off in the darkness. Unhurried, steady, like the grim reaper coming from Hades knowing it had all the time in the world.
Gareth let his cheek drop against the statue’s cold neck and swore, knowing who it was even before the rider, astride a savage beast whose hide was as black as the sky above, materialized from out of the night.
The horseman halted just below the statue and did not even bother to look up.
“Party’s over. You may come down now, Gareth.”
It was his brother. The Duke of Blackheath.
Morning. Or rather, early afternoon.
Gareth awoke to the sound of a cuckoo outside his window.
He dragged open his eyes and saw his bed curtains revolving in a slow circle around him. Comfortably enmeshed in the stuporous daze that always followed a night of heavy drinking, he watched their heavy folds, their crimson tassels, until the slow, lazy spinning began to overwhelm him and his stomach churned with sudden nausea. He groaned, his head pounding with each beat of his pulse, his mouth dry, stale, and sour. All to be expected after a night out with the Den of Debauchery, of course. But this morning, more than just his head hurt. In fact, every muscle in his body ached. He cursed and pulled the coverlet up over his eyes, trying to shut out the daylight, trying to remember what he had done last night.
Cuck-koo. Cuck-koo. Cuck-koo.
He put his fingers to his temples, straining his mind to remember.
Purple bollocks.
Ah yes, he remembered now. Or partly, at least. Something about a statue, and painting its balls purple.
And Lucien, spoiling everything.
Gareth pulled the counterpane from his eyes and gingerly sat up in bed. Faint light glowed through a crack in the bed hangings and he squinted against it, unwilling—unable—to face even this meager taste of morning. The devil, he felt awful. Groaning, he brushed from the pillow a small twig that had fallen out of his hair sometime during the night. Ah, yes. Now he remembered why his muscles ached. When Lucien had arrived, Gareth had tumbled off the statue, a victim of that damned Irish whiskey Chilcot had brought. Priceless stuff, that. He didn’t even remember hitting the ground. And he certainly didn’t remember the ride back to the Castle, though Lucien must have slung him across Armageddon’s back and carted him all the way home.
He knuckled his eyes and ran a hand over his hair. Part of it was still caught in its queue, part of it was pasted to his neck by mud, and the rest hung in
limp, heavy swatches over his eyes. As he loosened a patch of dried mud just behind his ear, a sprinkling of chalky white dirt sifted down onto the bed linens. Even the gentle tug of his fingers against his scalp hurt, magnifying his hangover.
“Oh hell,” he said, giving the bell pull a single yank. Then he held his head in his hands and groaned, in very real pain, as the bath was brought in and filled. Ellison, his valet, stood waiting to assist him.
“If I may help, my lord?”
Gareth stared down at himself. He was still dressed in last night’s finery—or what was left of it. His fine lawn shirt was stiff with dried mud and missing several buttons. His breeches were minus one knee buckle, and a large rip showed the skin beneath. His coat, which his tailor had delivered only last week, was hopelessly crushed, probably ruined. ’Sdeath, he was even still wearing his shoes.
Good old Lucien. Tossing him into bed without even removing his shoes, let alone his clothes.
Anger beat behind his eyes. He swung his feet from the bed and was promptly sick, managing to grab the chamber pot just in time.
The damned bird was still going at it outside. Cuck-koo. Cuck-koo. Cuck-koo, with only a second’s pause between each call.
“Ohh-h-h-h shut up!” Gareth stumbled to his feet, digging his fists into his eye sockets as Ellison helped him out of his ruined clothes. “Just shut up!”
But it was not the cuckoo, a quarter mile away and singing from some tree on the downs, that was setting his teeth on edge. It was Lucien. Lucien, who always interfered. Lucien, who didn’t know how to have fun, didn’t want to have fun, and forbade others to have fun. Lucien—the all-powerful, all-controlling, Duke of Blackheath. Gareth stepped into the tub and sank into the hot water. How much better it would have been if Charles had been the firstborn, he thought sullenly. He would have made a far more pleasant duke, just as Lucien, with his autocratic ways, would’ve made the better soldier.
Charles, at least, had been capable of having fun.
And Lucien would never have got himself killed.
Sadness knifed through Gareth’s normally light heart as he bent his head and let Ellison soap and rinse his hair. His brother had been only a year older than himself, his friend, his confidante, his ally—and the standard by which Gareth had always been judged. He’d been the one with whom to climb trees and race horses, to follow to Eton, to Oxford, and back again to Blackheath Castle. Like himself, Charles had grown restless. He’d been home from University for only two months before buying himself a commission in the army and leaving the castle forever.
Best not to think about Charles. All the missing him in the world wouldn’t bring him back.
And then Gareth remembered Juliet Paige.
The beautiful woman who had won Charles’s heart. Who had won Charles’s request for her hand. Who, as Gareth sat here stewing in the after-effects of his own debauchery, mothered Charles’s own child.
Put one foot wrong, Gareth, and I warn you: The girl goes.
Cold dread washed over him. Lucien.
He swore and lunged from the bath.
Chapter Nine
Pausing just long enough to grab some money, Gareth charged down the stairs, his hair wet, his fresh shirt clinging to his still-damp body, his unbuttoned waistcoat flapping open beneath his frock of pale blue superfine.
He met Andrew on the way up.
“Gareth! Thank God you’re up and about. I was just coming to get you—”
“What is it?”
“Lucien, the bastard! He’s sent her away!”
“Damn it, Andrew, why the hell didn’t you come get me earlier?!”
Andrew vaulted down the stairs after him. “I just learned of it this second! Nerissa went to Miss Paige’s room and found her gone, and one of the servants told her Lucien sent her packing back to Boston on the morning stage! You’ve got to find her, Gareth, before it’s too late!”
I’ll kill him, Gareth vowed, striding angrily through the Gold Parlour, the Red Drawing Room, the Tapestry Room and toward the Great Hall. “Where is he?”
“Outside, on the west lawn.”
The report of a pistol cracked the mid-morning quiet. Then another. Andrew didn’t need to say anything more, for there was only one thing that Lucien ever used the west lawn for.
Dueling practice.
Another pistol shot banged out in the distance.
Gareth saw a footman standing rigidly near the door, pretending not to notice the drama unfolding beneath his nose. “Gallagher? Send word to the stables. I need Crusader saddled immediately.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And get a message to Lord Brookhampton, telling him to summon the Den and have them waiting for me on the green in twenty minutes. Move, man!”
Another footman came running with Gareth’s tricorn and surtout. Ellison was there with his sword. Gareth buckled it on and, his top boots ringing against the stone flooring of the Great Hall, strode out the door. Down the drive. Over the bridge that spanned the moat, through the gatehouse, and across the west lawn. There, a solitary figure in black stood with his back toward him, a pistol in his hand. A whipcord was hooked to the duke’s breeches at one end and attached to a pistol wired into the hand of a wooden dummy at the other; as Lucien stepped back, the whipcord triggered the dummy’s pistol to fire at him. It was the supreme test of one’s ability to stand firm and unmoving while a pistol was fired at you, and it was an exercise that the Duke of Blackheath, one of the deadliest duelists in the land, practiced at least once a week.
One of these days you’re going to kill yourself, Gareth thought furiously, and it won’t be soon enough for me.
He marched across the velvety smooth carpet of lawn. Lucien had reloaded the dummy’s pistol. He took aim at the dummy and stepped back at the same time he fired, and a ball whizzed past his shoulder, past Gareth’s neck and tore a chunk of bark from one of the copper beeches that lined the moat.
Gareth strode straight up to Lucien, seized his shoulder and spun him roughly around on his heel. The pistol went flying from the dummy’s wooden hand.
“I beg your pardon,” Lucien said, raising his brows at Gareth’s open display of hostility.
“Where is she?”
The duke turned back to his target and calmly reloaded his pistol. “Probably halfway to Newbury by now, I should think,” he said, mildly. “Do go away, dear boy. This is no sport for children like yourself, and I wouldn’t want you to get hurt.”
The condescending remark cut deep. Gareth marched around to face his brother. They were of equal height, equal build, and almost of equal weight, and his blue eyes blazed into Lucien’s black ones as he seized the duke’s perfect white cravat and yanked him close.
Lucien’s eyes went cold, and he reached up and caught Gareth’s wrist in an iron grip of his own. All civility vanished. “Don’t push me,” the duke warned, menacingly. “I’ve had all I can take of your childish pranks and degenerate friends.”
“You dare call me a child?”
“Yes, and I will continue to do so as long as you continue to act like one. You are lazy, feckless, dissolute, useless. You are an embarrassment to this family—especially to me. When you grow up and learn the meaning of responsibility, Gareth, perhaps I shall treat you with the respect I did your brother.”
“How dare you talk to me of responsibility when you banish an innocent young woman to fend for herself, and she with a six-month-old baby who happens to be your niece! You’re a cold-hearted, callous, unfeeling bastard!”
The duke pushed him away, lifting his chin as he repaired the damage to his cravat. “She was handsomely paid. She has more than enough money to get back to those godforsaken colonies from which she came, more than enough to see herself and her bastard babe in comfort for the rest of her life. She is no concern of yours.”
Bastard babe. Gareth pulled back and sent his fist crashing into Lucien’s jaw with a force that nearly took his brother’s head off. The duke staggered backward, his
hand going to his bloodied mouth, but he did not fall. Lucien never fell. And in that moment Gareth had never hated him more.
“I’m going to find her,” Gareth vowed, as Lucien, coldly watching him, took out a handkerchief and dabbed at his mouth. “And when I do, I’m going to marry her, take care of her and that baby as Charles should have done—as it’s our duty to do. Then I dare you to call me a child and her little baby a bastard!”
He spun on his heel and marched back across the lawn.
“Gareth!”
He kept walking.
“Gareth!”
He swung up on Crusader and thundered away.
Fred Crawley, landlord of the Speckled Hen Inn, was just lugging a cask of ale up from his cellar when the Wild One and his Den of Debauchery came charging up on their fancy horses.
“Aye, I saw ’er,” he grunted, in reply to their frantic queries. “Bought a ticket for London, she did. Ye missed ’er by no more’n two, maybe three hours.” He looked up at the group of rakehells, letting his disgust for them show on his face. Crawley was not inclined to exhibit his usual good humor to the scapegraces. He could see the statue’s glaring purple bollocks from where he stood, and he wasn’t altogether thrilled with the view his paying guests had from the dining room window—though admittedly, were he two or three decades younger, he might’ve found the incident as hilarious as did most of his neighbors.
“Come on, Gareth, we’re wasting time!” cried Neil Chilcot, already turning his horse. “The more we delay, the harder it’ll be to find her!”
“Wait, Chilcot.” The Wild One put out a hand in restraint. “Was she upset?” he asked, his face shadowed by his tricorn and his blue eyes troubled.
“The devil if I know. But yer friend’s roight. If ye want to catch ’er, ye’d best be off. I ain’t got time to sit ’ere ’avin’ a chin wag with ye, I got work to do.”
“Such insolence!” exclaimed Lord Brookhampton, raising his pale brows. “Really, Crawley, have you no respect for your betters?”
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