“Let me see that paper, then,” said Mr. Watson, the owner of the haberdashery, who along with his clerks had been watching the scene with wide-eyed interest. With a shrug the beefy attendant took the paper from Ophelia and handed it to the shop owner.
Putting on his spectacles, Watson scanned the paper and looked up apologetically at the women. “It does look official, Mrs. Grayson. Though I don’t think you look any madder than Miss Dauntry does.”
“See here, miss,” said the talkative attendant, “we’ve got our orders and if we don’t get back before too long we’re going to get in trouble. We’ll take good care of your friend.”
Even as he said the words, the other fellow had gone behind Ophelia, and by the time she turned, he’d already put her friend’s wrists in irons.
“Unhand me,” Maggie said, trying and failing to pull away. “This is absurd! My husband would never do this! Go see him if you don’t believe me!”
“Wait,” Ophelia said, alarmed at how quickly they’d got round her. “You can’t do this. It isn’t right!”
But the two men ignored her pleas and began marching Maggie toward the door, where a crowd of gawkers had gathered to watch the show.
“Why don’t you help me stop them?” Ophelia demanded to them. “Can’t you see she’s being taken against her will? That writ could be a forgery for all we know.”
“No offense, miss,” said a man dressed in a military uniform near the door, “I don’t know the two of you from Adam’s cat. Maybe this lady is insane. I’ve heard of Dr. Hayes and he’s a Harley Street specialist. Happens he knows what he’s talking about.”
Even as he said the words, Ophelia felt the hopelessness of her argument. These men didn’t know them. And clearly logic wouldn’t sway them.
As the men hauled Maggie toward the door, her friend cried out, “Find my notes, Ophelia. There must be something in them that will settle this.”
But even if she did find something in the notes, Ophelia knew that if she allowed the men to take Maggie it would be that much more difficult to get her away from them later.
Desperate, she grabbed hold of one of the kidnappers, and pulled with all her might. But to her frustration, he only flung her off like a giant swatting a fly. In fact, he threw her back with such force that she flew into a shelf where an elaborate display of ladies’ boots had been stacked, which tumbled down as she hit it. The heel of one boot caught her in the forehead.
“My notes,” Maggie called as the men shoved her through the door and out into the street beyond. “And contact George. He can’t have approved of this.”
Even as the shop clerks helped her to her feet Ophelia watched in frustration as the two men thrust Maggie into their waiting carriage and sped off.
* * *
Trent let out a grunt of exertion as he parried a thrust from his opponent’s foil. Lunging forward, he took advantage of George Grayson’s crow of excitement at putting Trent on the defensive to riposte and slip his weapon into the other man’s unguarded shoulder.
“A hit!” shouted one of the men who looked on as both Trent and Grayson lowered their swords and caught their breath. “Point to Trent!”
“That’s the end of the match, your grace,” said Bamford, Trent’s valet, who had also served as his batman during the war. “Not too shabby for a duke, if you don’t mind my saying so.”
Trent handed his foil to a waiting footman and, using his shirtsleeve, wiped the sweat from his brow. In normal circumstances, he knew such a gesture would be looked at askance by those who sought to call attention to his humble beginnings, but he knew his present company wouldn’t care one way or the other.
“He’s the best man with a saber I ever saw,” Grayson said without rancor, “duke or no.”
Never comfortable with praise, Trent pretended he hadn’t heard the other man’s words. Being good with a weapon of war had served him well on the Continent, but it wasn’t something that was valued in peacetime. And it was hardly the sort of thing he could boast about with his friends over a drink at the club.
Since Grayson had remained all but unconscious in Trent’s study for most of the evening the night before, Trent had simply had the footmen carry him into one of the many empty guest rooms in the town house. The Lords of Anarchy, intent on building back the sense of camaraderie that had been lost with yet another loss of leadership, had planned to gather the morning after Trent’s celebratory ball for some competitive swordplay.
Though the art of the sword fight had fallen out of favor of late, as sporting men, the club members were keen to partake of any activity that might let them prove their superiority to one another. Not to mention the fact that Trent had convinced the great Angelo to personally work with them over the course of the day. The younger members who were a bit too green to command the sword master’s attention in his own establishment were quite eager to meet the man himself in the relative privacy of Trent’s now-empty long gallery.
As he watched the next two opponents take their positions, Trent scanned the chamber he’d transformed into a fencing salon. Many of the men there had served with Trent as officers in the campaign to defeat Bonaparte. And though they had left the battlefield alive—some just barely—their time since the war had passed with varying degrees of success.
He’d already managed to convince many of them to join the Lords of Anarchy. It had been a bout of nostalgia for army days that had made him agree to take the position as president. The duties of the dukedom were challenging in their own way, but listening to his fellow peers drone on in the House of Lords was not nearly as satisfying as cheering on his fellow club members as they sped along a narrow lane in their curricles.
It had surprised him how much he enjoyed the feeling of the wind on his face and the challenge of handling the reins. He’d realized he’d not felt so alive since leaving Belgium.
And the club had needed him. After the two past presidents had used their leadership positions to embroil the club in illegal activities and all forms of debauchery, the Lords of Anarchy needed to mend their reputation. Who better than a decorated veteran and a duke to do the job?
So far so good, Trent thought with satisfaction as he watched the sparring.
“A good match,” said Grayson, interrupting Trent’s thoughts.
Glancing over at the other man, Trent saw that he looked better than he had the night before.
“I wanted to thank you for allowing me to sleep it off here last night, your grace.” Grayson looked ill at ease, but sincere. “I would have been just as happy if you’d tossed me into a cab and sent me on my way, but I cannot deny that I was likely safer here in one of your guest chambers than I’d have been out there in the street. I made an ass of myself, and I’m damned sorry for it.”
Trent shrugged. “The least I could do. Though I think perhaps it’s your wife you should be making your apologies to. That was quite a row you two had.”
At the mention of Maggie, Grayson grimaced. “I don’t remember everything I said last night but I know I was unforgivably rude to her.” He shook his head slowly, as if doing so more vigorously would hurt him. “I wish I knew how best to handle her. Ever since she took up with that bloody newspaper, she’s been damn near impossible to control.”
“I rather thought one was supposed to control one’s horses rather than one’s wife,” Trent said mildly. He wondered if Ophelia’s complaints about Grayson last night had had basis in truth after all. “Perhaps you should just allow her to continue with it. If it is something she feels strongly about.”
“I don’t think I’d mind it so much if it didn’t seem as if that fellow Carrington were constantly nosing after her,” Grayson complained. “God knows she’s got little enough reason to spend her days being condescended to in my father’s house.”
“Can’t imagine that’s been easy,” Trent sympathized.
The man’s father, Sir Michael Grayson, was overbearing to say the least. Trent had heard that he’d objected vocife
rously to George’s marriage to Maggie despite her rather large dowry. Her father was a country squire with little pretensions to nobility and that wasn’t quite what the elder Grayson had wished for his son. And unfortunately, since their marriage the couple had been forced to live under Sir Michael’s roof.
“It isn’t,” Grayson said with a rueful smile. “But the small estate in Cornwall that he is letting us live in is still in disrepair and the refurbishment is taking longer than any of us intended. Maggie keeps busy with her writing, but I often find myself at loose ends. And one can only stand so many hours reading the papers at White’s.”
And it surely didn’t help matters that Maggie had become involved in the rather less than respectable newspaper business.
Having seen how the vultures of the press preyed upon the weak and vulnerable with his own father, Trent had little respect for the profession. Leonora, Freddy’s wife, wrote columns about ideas, but so-called reporters were obsessed with plastering the pages of the daily scandal sheets with rumor and innuendo. It was, in his opinion, a profession with little more dignity than the common rat catcher.
He’d hardly tell Grayson that, however. And from what Ophelia had said, Maggie Grayson seemed to have more in common with Leonora than the men who’d hounded his father.
“Which newspaper does your wife write for again?” he asked, thinking he’d find one and perhaps just see what it was Ophelia had been so passionate about last night.
“The Ladies’ Gazette,” said Grayson reluctantly. Though Trent noticed a hint of pride as he continued. “She writes about society goings-on and the like. It could be silly what with some of the things people get up to, but she always manages to make it entertaining. She’s got a way with words, my Maggie.”
Perhaps there was some hope for the couple after all, Trent reflected, hiding a smile. “If I happen upon a copy I’ll look for her column, then,” he said with a nod. “Not my usual style but I’m curious now.”
“I’ll send you one round,” said Grayson with a nod. “I might not trust that editor Carrington, but Maggie’s pieces in it are good.”
They were quiet for a moment as they turned their attention back to fencing.
“Marriage suits you then?” Trent said. It hadn’t seemed likely when the man was shouting at his bride, but now, he seemed like any other husband taking pride in his wife. “Despite your arguments?”
Though he’d just seen two of his closest friends marry ladies they were utterly besotted with, his own parents had been example enough of what could go wrong when two people with nothing in common were pressed into a match. His father had been a devil-may-care, spendthrift younger son of a duke, while his mother was a parsimonious Scot with a sharp mind and even sharper tongue. And when his father was involved in a scandal with the wife of a prominent general, both Trent and his mother had suffered the consequences.
What had been a distant, if amicable, marriage had turned into outright acrimony. And his father had died not too many years later in the bed of his latest mistress.
With that for an example, Trent considered it a miracle that he was even contemplating the institution at all. But he knew his duty to his family, even if his father had not. And he was quite certain he could manage the thing without bringing shame on the Trent name or any children who might be born of the union.
“Thinking about the state yourself, eh?” asked Grayson perceptively. “I have to admit that it’s not easy. Especially when your bride is as stubborn as mine. But Maggie and I rub along well enough together. When we’re not fighting about the paper, of course. And when we don’t there’s always the club.”
This last he said with a wink that let Trent know his friend wasn’t completely serious. He supposed that was part of the trouble with seeking advice from friends on the subject. Marriage, it seemed, was one of those journeys that one couldn’t quite understand until one was in one himself.
But he would have to simply grit his teeth and choose someone soon. Because he wasn’t getting any younger. And he wanted to secure the succession before his cousin Waldo got too comfortable in his position as the heir.
“It’s not all bad,” Grayson said, mistaking Trent’s silence for trepidation. “And being a duke you’ll have your pick of the lot, won’t you? So you’ll be able to make your own decision without the kind of parental input I had to endure.”
“Was your father not happy with your choice then?” Trent was momentarily distracted from his own matrimonial intentions. He’d heard Sir Michael was ambitious. And he could imagine that having his only son marry a lady journalist hadn’t made the man entirely happy.
“Not at all,” Grayson responded with a scowl. “But once we were married there was nothing he could do about it. But he cut up rough at first. If we’d not already consummated the thing, I suspect he’d have demanded an annulment.”
Trent blanched. He supposed he should be grateful that he was the head of the family and could make his own decisions without fear of an overbearing parent attempting to gainsay those decisions.
“But it’s all water under the bridge,” Grayson assured him. “And now we’re all together in the same house and get along without too much fuss.”
“And will there be fuss about what happened last night?”
Grayson winced. “I hope not. I expect I will have to throw myself on Maggie’s mercy and hope she will forgive me. I’m afraid I embarrassed the entire family last night, but most especially my wife.”
With no experience of handling irate wives, Trent let the man’s words hang in the air. He rather expected it would take a great deal of effort for Grayson to smooth last night’s events over.
Better Grayson than him, he thought with a shudder.
They lapsed into companionable silence to watch the next pair of fencers cross swords. Though Trent couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something dark lurking beneath Grayson’s assurances.
A moment later, however, Trent felt a presence behind him. Brow raised, he turned to see the butler, Wolfe. Leading him away from his guests into a side parlor, he waited to see what had the man in such a huff.
“I beg your pardon, your grace,” the regal man said with stiff dignity, “but there is a … person at the front door who insists on seeing you. I tried to send her to the tradesman’s entrance, but she assures me that the two of you are acquainted. And that she is a lady, though she has no maid.”
Trent reached to take the card Wolfe extended.
Miss Ophelia Dauntry.
What the devil?
Surely she wasn’t here to rip up at Grayson on her friend’s behalf again. It was bad enough she’d risked her reputation by doing it the night before. But really, though his mother was in residence, it was still not quite the done thing for her to call upon him at his home.
Still, if she’d bucked convention enough to call upon a single gentleman at his home, then she must have reason enough. Recalling that business with the Countess of Mainwaring and the Lords of Anarchy a few weeks ago, he strode down the gallery toward the staircase. It might very well be that there was some emergency that had prompted Miss Dauntry’s unexpected visit.
“Where did you put her, Wolfe?” he asked the butler, who hurried along behind him.
“I … that is to say…” The butler stuttered as he tried to keep up with his master. “I left her on the doorstep.”
Reaching the bottom of the grand staircase, Trent turned and glared at him. “What do you mean you left her on the doorstep? Is that how you treat a guest?”
Wolfe swallowed, then recalling his own elevated status, he stood up straight. “She might have been anyone, your grace. And you have not seen what a state she is in. I am not in the habit of admitting just anyone into this house. It would not be fitting.”
“What’s not fitting is you leaving my acquaintance on the front stoop like a country beggar,” Trent snapped. “Go about your business. And have Mrs. Pierce send some tea and biscuits to the front drawing ro
om.”
He didn’t know much about entertaining ladies, but if his time with Ophelia’s friends Mrs. Freddy Lisle and the Countess of Mainwaring was any indication, they consumed lots of tea and biscuits.
Wrenching open the front door himself, he blinked to adjust his eyes to the sunlight and saw Miss Ophelia Dauntry was indeed standing there.
Or perhaps swaying there would be a better turn of phrase.
“Your grace,” she said, lowering her handkerchief from where she’d been dabbing at her forehead. “I apologize for the intrusion, but…”
And he realized several things simultaneously.
First, that she did indeed look disheveled. Her gown was dusty and torn on the sleeve, and her hat, which must once have been quite pretty, was crushed and hanging down her back by the ribbons.
Next, that she was swaying because she was, in no uncertain terms, about to succumb to a very splendid faint.
And third, and most disturbing of all, the reason she had been dabbing at her forehead was that there was quite a large cut there, which was bleeding profusely. As he well knew head wounds were apt to do.
All of these things flitted through his mind even as he watched the intrepid Miss Ophelia Dauntry begin to crumple.
Then he did what any gentleman worth his salt would do.
He caught her.
Three
Ophelia returned to awareness slowly. Inhaling the delicious scent of bay rum, she snuggled in a moment before she realized there was something very wrong with this situation.
Her memory of that morning’s contretemps came flooding back, and just as her eyes flew open she realized she was clasped against a hard, sweaty, male chest.
Desperate to get away, she cried out, “No!” and shoved both hands against her captor. Recalling a lesson in fighting off an attacker from a male cousin, she twisted in the hopes of getting her legs low enough to kick him in between the legs, but the man who held her proved too strong.
“Be still,” he said, wrestling to regain control of her. “Miss Dauntry, be still.”
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