He never failed in his duties.
Never.
But this damned Honeywell business was cutting up his peace.
Montford couldn’t explain why it had unsettled him so much, or why he was presently sitting behind his desk in the library, staring vacantly into the fireplace, at ten o’clock at night. Yet the truth of the matter was that, loathe as he was to admit it, he had felt poised on the edge of a precipice ever since he had formally asked for Lady Araminta’s hand, and the Honeywell business had given him the final push.
Montford did not believe he had made a mistake regarding his choice of Duchess. He had carefully selected Araminta out of all of the eligible women in the Kingdom. No one had her impeccable bloodlines, her poise, or her tidiness. She seemed intelligent enough, so he did not have to worry about his offspring being lack-witted. And she did not natter on as most females did and had no bad habits, as far as he knew, that would annoy him overmuch. And even if she did, he owned seventeen residences, all of them big enough so that he never even had to see his wife if he so chose.
Oh, and Araminta was thought to be quite beautiful. He supposed he found her attractive enough in a purely theoretical way, rather in the way he found Grecian marbles attractive. But he took no great pleasure in her beauty and felt no stirrings of lust when he kissed her.
Which was precisely why he had chosen her, he supposed. It would not do for him to lust after his own wife. Or, God forbid, fall in love with her. Such a thing was the height of bourgeois. Not to mention thoroughly, utterly impossible for Montford. He did not love anyone.
He had done exactly what he was supposed to have done by courting Araminta. And it was inexplicable to him why he should now be at sixes and sevens. No, not inexplicable. Inconvenient to be bothered at this juncture in his life with this impossible restlessness.
He was a formal man. A cold man. He would not deny this. He was the living embodiment of an eight hundred year old duchy. He was Montford. But sometimes – not often, but sometimes (usually right after he’d tossed back a port or two and right before his given names began to sound good in his head) – he longed to be just a man with a simple name, not a title that conjured up ancestral ghosts, coats of arms, grand estates and duty, duty, duty.
But then he would quickly come to his senses. He could not very well shirk said duty simply because he was plagued by emotions and sentiments in his rare, weaker moments. Someone had to steer the helm, pay the bills, and run the country. Who else was going to do it? Sherbrook? Marlowe?
Now there was a laugh.
As if his thoughts had summoned up the devils in question, his butler knocked on the door and announced two visitors. Montford had no difficulty figuring out who they were, for the two men strode into the room on Stallings’ heels, as was their custom, before Stallings was able to get out their names. It had become something of a running joke, if such a thing existed under Montford’s roof. Stallings always tried to announce them properly, and Sherbrook and Marlowe always interrupted him before he could, one or the other of them slapping the old codger familiarly on the back and sending him on his way.
Which Marlowe did now with a sturdy thwack that made Stallings hop in place and yelp involuntarily.
“Steady on, old thing,” Marlowe drawled, dropping his considerable frame onto a chaise lounge by the fire, sending his evening hat tumbling over the side. “’Twas only a love pat. Fetch us some of them little sandwiches, will you, Stallings? And maybe them biscuits your little frog man makes down there, what with the little nick nacks in them. I’m famished.”
Marlowe was always famished.
And he never asked for permission to order food from Montford’s kitchens – food that Montford’s French chef, Pierre, was always offended to have to prepare. Marlowe’s favorites, sandwiches filled with “nick nacks”, and meat pies, did not qualify as worthy of Pierre’s talents.
“Very good, your lordship,” Stallings responded, recovering his gravitas and bowing out the door.
“What the blazes are you up to, Montford?” Sherbrook demanded, pulling off his elegant gloves before prowling over to the sideboard and pouring them a round of drinks. “Looked for you at White’s and Belmont’s do.”
Montford grunted, in no mood to explain himself.
“’T’was damned crush,” Marlowe added. “And a crushing bore. Me sister drug us there. I believe she is trying to turn us respectable.” Marlowe belched and scratched his arse, illustrating just how onerous a task her sister had set for herself. “Give us a tipple, Sherbrook.”
Sherbrook obliged by placing a snifter of port in Marlowe’s outstretched paw. He put one in front of Montford as well. Montford took a reluctant sip, one eye glued on Marlowe’s precarious hold on his glass. As Marlowe settled his rump more snugly into the chaise, port sloshed over his fingers and down his sleeve.
Montford rolled his eyes and wondered not for the first time how it came to be that his two best friends were perhaps the slovenliest pair of malingerers in the country.
At least Marlowe was, with his rumpled clothes, slight paunch, shaggy black mane, and permanent state of intoxication. Sherbrook was a bit harder to categorize. He was always smartly enough turned out…
All right, so Sherbrook was a bit of a man-milliner, as evidenced by his current attire. He was at the moment wearing a pink waistcoat embroidered with silver thread and a matching coat cut to his elegant form like a second skin, Brussels lace spilling out of the sleeves. All of his fingers were encircled with bejeweled rings, and not one, not two, but … five? watch fobs and gold chains criss-crossed his abdomen. He wore the encrustation of lace and gold and jewels with a lackadaisical elegance no other English gentleman had yet matched, though they had tried.
And he always managed to convey the impression from his dashed off cravat and carefully mussed hair of having tumbled out of bed. The ladies were mad for Sherbrook.
Less so for Marlowe, who had the ruddy complexion and slightly bloated abdomen of a dedicated sot. He cared nothing for his wardrobe, and would as soon – and often did – go out in public in his dressing gown and a pair of sandals he had acquired on a trip to Greece, his toes hanging out for the entire world to see. Marlowe prized comfort above all else.
But it was universally agreed by both sexes that the gentlemen in question were the worst libertines in England. Worse than Byron and his cronies, who were mere featherweights in comparison. The pair of them had failed out of Cambridge, and after a Particular Incident involving Sherbrook’s contemptible uncle and Marlowe’s fist (which was referenced among the three friends as a deed better left unexplained), the pair, with Montford’s help, promptly bought commissions in the army, and gambled, wenched, and brawled their way through Spain and Portugal.
After they were simultaneously injured at Badajoz and decamped to London as War Heroes, no gaming hell, racetrack, brothel, or any other den of iniquity had been spared their attentions. They only occasionally set their unwilling Hessians in respectable venues, having been dragged there by Montford or Marlowe’s long-suffering sister, the Countess of Brinderley.
Despite their reputations, Marlowe and Sherbrook were beloved by the ton, which didn’t surprise Montford, since he knew they were the source of society’s juiciest gossip. Marlowe was sought after for his genial, slightly inebriated good humor and his instinctive knowledge of horseflesh. And the ladies collectively swooned at Sherbrook’s feet, as he was regarded as the Singlemost Beautiful Man in London.
This was according to the Times.
That same publication had often wondered over Montford’s unerring association with the two rogues, as His Grace was – also according to the Times – a Pillar of Moral and Sartorial Rectitude and a Creature Not Quite Flesh and Blood. Montford was equally baffled over his friendship, but it had been the case that ever since their days at Harrow, he, Sherbrook, and Marlowe had been inseparable. He supposed he was cast rather in the role of older brother, extricating the two of them from various scrap
es, urging caution at the gaming tables and exhorting them to please, for the love of God, make sure the wench is clean before you stick it there. That sort of thing.
When he’d migrated to London after Cambridge (he had not flunked out), Marlowe and Sherbrook had greeted him with open arms, and had urged him to “cut a dash” with them. Which meant gaming, wenching, and racing his way through the Season. But while his best friends had become the Worst Libertines in London, somehow he had not qualified for such a lofty sobriquet.
After all, someone had to keep a level head in order to rescue Marlowe and Sherbrook from the worst of their excesses, scare off whoever it was spoiling for a fight with them, and carry them to their beds when they lost the ability to stand.
Montford was Montford, and that was precisely Montford’s problem at the moment, as he sat behind his desk, sipping his port and bleakly watching his friends loaf about the room, feeling as if his head might explode at any moment.
Stallings returned bearing a tea tray laden with sandwiches and biscuits. Marlowe was roused from his dozing long enough to make short shrift of the food, then fell back against the chaise lounge, closed his eyes, and took up his port. In that order.
“You’re even less fun than usual,” Sebastian said fondly, perching on the edge of the desk and molesting the box full of quills, knocking it out of its parallel alignment with the desk edge.
Montford gritted his teeth and tried to ignore Sebastian’s deliberate goad. Sebastian knew precisely how much he was bothering him. They’d roomed together at Harrow, after all. “Some of us have important business to attend to, Sherbrook,” he muttered.
“Last time I checked, the House of Lords was recessed.”
“Last time I checked, I had a dukedom to manage,” Montford retorted.
“You have old Stevenage for that.” Sebastian craned his neck around the room. “Where is your shadow? Don’t tell me you pack him up in one of your drawers at the end of the day.”
Marlowe, who had begun to drowse with his snifter of port balanced precariously on his burgeoning gut, started awake. “Drawers?” he blustered, looking wildly around the room, only just catching his port before it sloshed onto the upholstery. “Never wear the blasted things. Chafe like the devil, what,” he declared before dropping back into his stupor.
Sebastian grimaced. “Didn’t need to know that.” He turned back to Montford, who was trying very hard not to visualize what Marlowe was not wearing beneath his extremely snug breeches. “I do hope you allow Stevenage out of this room sometimes,” Sebastian continued playfully.
“Clearly I do, as he’s not here,” he sniffed.
“I am speechless.” Sebastian paused, took up one of the feathers, and began twirling it in his fingers. “Well, what have you done with him?”
“He’s in Yorkshire on business.”
“You don’t sound very sure of that.”
“I’ve not heard from him in a fortnight.”
He must have sounded strange, because Sebastian dropped the quill into his lap and blinked in surprise. “You’re really worried, aren’t you?”
“It’s very unlike him not to keep me informed.”
“Yes, one would expect an itemized accounting of every minute of his trip,” he said dryly. “This is Stevenage we’re talking about. A man even more meticulous than you. And where in blazes did you send him? Yorkshire? Nothing but bloody sheep in Yorkshire last time I checked.”
“I sent him to sort out some business on one of my estates.”
“Aren’t we vague tonight. As you have so many damned estates, it would help if you were more specific.”
Montford did not want to be more specific. He knew exactly how Sebastian would react if he brought up Honeywell. God knew how Sebastian had ferreted out the story of the Montfords and the Honeywells. God knew how Sebastian came to know most of the things he did. One wouldn’t suspect from glancing at the self-avowed model of indolence currently perched on the edge of his desk that behind that bored, cynical face dwelled a very acute thinking organ. Sebastian was quick. Quicker than Montford had ever been. And he had the memory of an elephant.
Especially in regards to matters pertaining to the pursuit of pleasure.
Like Honeywell Ale.
“What are you hiding?” Sebastian asked, eyes narrowing.
Damn. He supposed Sebastian would find out eventually. “Alyosius Honeywell is dead.”
“Honeywell … wouldn’t mind one, if you have one on hand,” Marlowe murmured, roused by the possibility of more beverages.
“Gads, Marlowe, you sot. He said Honeywell is dead!” Sebastian exclaimed, rising from the desk.
Marlowe’s florid face went white as a sheet. He jumped to his feet in a flash – faster than Montford had seen him move in years – and this time he was so distraught he forgot about his port. The glass tumbled down his gut and landed on the Persian carpet.
The sound that emerged from Montford’s throat was not a whimper, but it was damned close.
Marlowe blotted the front of his stained waistcoat to no real effect and bent over to retrieve his snifter. “Awful sorry, Montford,” he muttered.
“Don’t worry. I’ll buy a new one,” he said through his gritted teeth, feeling a headache come on.
“Yes, well …” Marlowe drifted off and furrowed his brow in an obvious attempt to recover his train of thought. It came back in a horrible rush. “Honeywell’s dead!” he blustered with a passion Montford would have appreciated in his apology about the carpet. “Don’t tell me the brewery has folded! I don’t think I could bear it.”
“Of course the brewery’s not going to fold,” Sebastian scoffed. He turned to Montford, looking a bit apprehensive himself. “It’s not, is it?”
Montford shrugged, and because he couldn’t stand it another second, he marched over to the spill, armed with a handkerchief, and began to blot up the port on the carpet. “Honeywell had no male heir. The property reverts back to the dukedom,” he said.
“But you won’t … surely you won’t shut it down,” Marlowe cried. “Montford! You wouldn’t be so cruel!”
“Alyosius Honeywell died a year ago. Clearly someone is still producing that swill you call ale. You are in no danger of dying of thirst.”
“Oh,” said Marlowe, who, seeing that the crisis had been averted, shrugged and returned to his seat – after pouring himself a new glass of port.
“Oh,” echoed Sherbrook, who furrowed his brow. “A year, you say. How peculiar. It’s not like you to let a detail like that go, Montford.”
“I didn’t. I didn’t know he was dead until two weeks ago.”
Sherbrook cocked an eyebrow. “Indeed. I wager that one has been sticking in your craw.”
“You have no idea.”
“So what are you going to do?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“You aren’t going to shut down the brewery, are you?” Sherbrook asked, pitching his voice so as not to distress the slumbering Marlowe again.
“It is hardly profitable.”
Sherbrook shook his head and threw up his hands in exasperation. “That’s everything to you, isn’t it? Profit?”
“Not everything. But damned near close.” Someone had to keep his two friends in beverages and meat pies.
“At least you’re honest.”
“See here, Sherbrook, you know how the Montfords despise the Honeywells.”
“May I point out you’ve never even met a Honeywell?”
“Yes, well, be that as it may, Rylestone is my responsibility, and I will be damned before I let it continue to be so grossly mismanaged. The tenants must be starving, considering what I’ve seen of the returns on the estate.”
“But the ale! Montford, it’s the best ale in the Kingdom!” Sherbrook wheedled, the plight of the tenants completely beside the point, as far as he was concerned.
Montford sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I honestly don’t know what I’ll do. With Stevenage out of touch, I am fe
eling … disjointed.”
Sebastian nodded his head decisively. “What you need is a good holiday.”
Montford snorted. A holiday indeed. “Dukes do not take holidays.”
Sebastian gave him an arch look. “Really, Montford. You can be so tiresome sometimes. You’re a mortal man, same as the rest of us. And if you ask me, you need to loosen that cravat of yours a little before you strangle on it.”
“Hear, hear,” Marlowe seconded, apparently more alert to the proceedings than his posture indicated.
“I didn’t ask you,” he growled. “Or you,” he added in Marlowe’s direction.
Sebastian rolled his eyes.
“Besides, there’s no time for a … holiday, what with the wedding in a month,” Montford finished.
Sherbrook’s face darkened, as it always did when the subject of Montford’s upcoming nuptials was mentioned. “That’s another thing, Monty. Lady Araminta? Are you quite sure?”
“Of course I’m quite sure. She’ll make the perfect Duchess.”
Sherbrook shuddered. “Aye, if Duchesses were carved out of stone and encased in ice. Lady Araminta is a cold-blooded, heartless, self centered Bath miss.”
Montford took no offense at Sherbrook’s words. He accepted Sherbrook’s opinion on the matter of his fiancée and family, because it happened to be his own. “I thought that was her sister,” he said dryly.
Sherbrook’s eyes narrowed. “What? Lady Katherine? My beloved Auntie?” He snorted. “You’re right. Ten times worse than her sister. Never have I met such utter conceit, such utter frigidness…”
“I was unaware you had conversed with her,” Montford interposed.
Sherbrook stopped up short, looking extremely put out. “Well, I haven’t, but I have met her. We’ve been introduced.” As if that explained it.
Montford was the one to roll his eyes this time.
Sherbrook began to pace in front of the fireplace. “The Carlisle sisters are the most high-in-the-instep, vapid, insipid, frigid, paragons to have ever lived.” He turned on Montford, fists clenched. “She makes me want to take her by the shoulders and shake some life into her. And if I didn’t fear that I would turn to stone merely by touching her, I would …”
The Duke's Holiday Page 3