Dukes Are Forever

by Anna Harrington

  “So terrible…the marquess…dying like that…”

  The snippets of conversation wafted up to him as he reached the lobby. Hmm…a dying marquess. So that was what caused such flapping among the hens and dandies tonight. Must have been fresh news about the Marquess of Dunwich. The old man had taken to bed a few days ago with the same fever that claimed both his son and grandson and left the title without an heir apparent, and the entire ton buzzed with speculation over what would become of the estate and who would inherent if he died. Without a clear line of inheritance, the title and fortune would be swept up in an aristocratic cockfight as cousins of all kinds emerged from the woodwork to claim it. Based on the titillated anxiousness floating through the crowd, the old goat must have finally given up the ghost.

  He nodded at the Earl of St. James and his mother as he passed, doing his best to catch the eye of Lady Sydney Rowland standing next to them, but failing, blast it. The young widow was beautiful and quality—exactly the kind of woman he preferred—but Baroness Rowland showed no interest. Pity. So he grinned at her anyway and moved on toward the door.

  “Have you heard?” The quiet question was aimed directly at him as he passed a man whose name Grey couldn’t remember, some friend of Thomas Matteson’s from university.

  Grey paused just a moment to nod at the man. “I’ve heard. Terrible shame.” Then moved on through the crush, ignoring the completely aghast look on the man’s face that he should care so little about the marquess.

  If he cared anything about tonight’s gossip, it was only because Alistair Crenshaw, now-dead Marquess of Dunwich, was distantly related to the Matteson family through the marriage of Thomas’s sister Emily. But ironically, Emily’s own husband died just a few months ago, and any hope her parents had that the title would be united into the Duke of Chatham’s line was now as dead as her husband.

  He neared the door, longing for the quiet and coolness outside.

  “Such a shock—the marquess was so young.”

  He stopped instantly, his head snapping up. A young marquess?

  The man who uttered that news stood only a few feet away at the center of a group of bejeweled ladies and gentlemen, holding their interest with his retelling of the gossip and reveling at being the center of attention. He paused to let the information sink in and parceled out the news bit by bit to greatest effect.

  Grey forced a lazy half smile that belied the rising unease inside him as he sauntered over to the group. “What young marquess?”

  “Why, Chesney.” The man blinked, surprised that anyone in the opera house could possibly not have heard the news by now. “Thomas Matteson. Shot in the avenue tonight, just at sunset. No one knows—”

  Thomas. Grey ran for the street.

  When he reached Chatham House, the townhome was ablaze with lamps and candles. Two saddle horses stood tied in the front, along with the massive black carriage marked with the Duke of Strathmore’s coat of arms.

  A cold knot of dread clenched his chest as he raced up the front steps of the stone portico and pounded on the door with his fist.

  Jensen, the Chatham butler, opened the door and looked out solemnly, his round face drawn and his gray brows knitted, but he did not move back to let Grey pass.

  “The house is closed tonight, Major,” Jensen told him grimly. “Please return tomorrow.”

  When he tried to close the door, Grey shoved his shoulder against it and pushed his way inside, forcing the butler to stumble backward to make way for him.

  Had it been any other night, he never would have caused such an uproar, and he would have returned the next day as asked, just to keep peace in Thomas’s household. But not tonight. There were few houses in Mayfair where he was allowed admittance through the front door, and he was not going to let some pompous, arrogant butler keep him from this one. Not tonight.

  “Where is Chesney?” Grey demanded. “Is he here?”

  Jensen’s face drew into a troubled scowl. “Major, please! The house is closed, upon order of His Gr—”

  “Jensen.” A deep voice from the upstairs landing cut through the scuffle. “Let him pass.”

  The butler glanced up at the Duke of Strathmore, and with an aggravated humph! beneath his breath at having his authority undermined, he bowed and backed away to let Grey into the house.

  Grey raised his eyes grimly as he raced up the curving marble stairs toward Edward Westover. “Thomas?”

  “He’s here,” Edward informed him solemnly, keeping his voice low so they wouldn’t be overheard by Jensen or the other servants. “The surgeons are with him.”

  Grey’s hand gripped the banister tightly to steady himself. “He’s still alive?”

  “Barely.”

  “What happened?” he choked out, relief flooding through him.

  With a glance down at Jensen, still lingering in the foyer, Edward indicated toward the nearby library with a look.

  Grey followed him inside the room and accepted the glass of scotch the duke poured from a bottle on the table just inside the door, the half-filled glass beside it telling him that Edward had already sought out his own liquid strength.

  As he raised the glass to his mouth, he tried to hide the shaking of his hands. “Was it the French?” His voice was quiet so that only Edward could hear. “Was he discovered?”

  Edward and Grey were two of a handful of people who knew that the young marquess had continued to dedicate himself to his country after the war by signing on to work with the War Office, continuing the country’s effort against the French in secret. If the French had discovered he was serving as a spy, they might have attempted an assassination.

  Edward shook his head. “A footpad.” He splashed more scotch into his glass and took a long swallow. “He’d been visiting me at Strathmore House and was on his way home when a man shot him two streets from here. A groom heard the report and found the man rifling through Thomas’s pockets as he lay bleeding on the footpath.”

  “How badly is he wounded?” Grey steeled himself.

  Edward hesitated. “Gut shot.”

  Christ. Grey leaned against the wall, the air rushing from him, and he squeezed his eyes shut. Not Thomas. Not after they’d stared down death together in Spain, to be killed two streets from his own home.

  “The surgeons are operating now.” Edward paused, studying the amber liquid in his glass. “But he’s lost a lot of blood. Thank God that groom came upon him when he did, or he would have bled out right there.”

  “The carriage,” Grey forced out, trying to clear the swirling fear and fury fogging his mind. “You brought the duchess with you.”

  Edward nodded. “Jensen sent a messenger to the house. When she heard, she insisted on coming with me to attend the surgeons.”

  “Is that wise in her condition?”

  Edward’s lips pressed together grimly at the reminder that his wife was expecting their first child. “You try stopping her when she’s set her mind on something.”

  Taking careful breaths, concentrating on the air filling his lungs, Grey tried to steady himself, but his heart kept pounding harder, his stomach roiling painfully. Gut shot…Thomas was alive, but he’d be dead by dawn.

  “Damnation!” Edward slammed down the crystal tumbler so hard the liquid splashed onto the table. Sucking in a harsh breath, he rubbed at his forehead. “I sent him away tonight. Kate asked him to stay with us for dinner, but I wanted an evening alone with her.” Guilt stiffened his shoulders. “If I hadn’t—if I had just invited him to stay, or offered another drink…”

  “It wasn’t your fault, Colonel.” Grey knew Edward had kept Thomas alive in Spain, saving his life at least a half dozen times, and as he had then, he felt responsible for him now.

  “I know,” he agreed quietly, “but it damned well feels like it.” He reached for his glass again. “I’ve sent for his parents. The duke and duchess are at Stonewall Abbey,” he continued in that same emotionless, duty-bound way Grey remembered from the Peninsula, when Ed
ward had been responsible for all their lives.

  “He has a sister up north, near York…Emily,” Grey reminded him, an image flashing through his mind from several years back of a stick of a girl with big ears and blond braids who had adored her brother. “We need to send for her, too.”

  Edward nodded grimly, both men knowing the harsh reality of the news, which wouldn’t reach his sister for days, and by then, Thomas would already be dead and past whatever comfort she could give. “I’ve hired Bow Street to track down the shooter and ordered Jensen to close the house to visitors. There’s nothing else to do but wait.”

  Grey stared at him. Edward was only three years older than him in age, but at that moment, the former colonel looked as if he’d aged decades under the strain of once again being responsible for Thomas’s life.

  But since that day in San Cristobal when Thomas saved his wounded leg from the field surgeons, Grey felt just as responsible as Edward for overseeing Thomas’s life, and if necessary, his death. And he’d be damned if he did nothing more tonight than pace the floor and wait for his best friend to die.

  Downing the rest of the scotch, he shoved himself away from the wall and charged toward the door.

  “Where are you going?”

  “To find the man who did this.” He glanced over his shoulder at Edward as he strode from the room, his calm outward appearance belying the white-hot fury burning inside him.

  Edward followed him. “Let Bow Street take care of this. They have access to Mayfair.”

  “I have better contacts. I’ll have my men in the streets within an hour—”

  “Grey.” Edward put his hand on his arm as they reached the stairs and repeated meaningfully, “Bow Street has access to Mayfair.”

  Grey clenched his jaw, knowing the unspoken meaning beneath Edward’s comment. The Bow Street men would be allowed into any house in Mayfair if they said they were there to investigate the marquess’s shooting, allowed complete access to all the household staffs and all the buildings. He and his War Office men wouldn’t be allowed past the front door.

  It was another reminder that he would never belong to English society. No matter how hard he worked or how far he moved up in rank, he would always be an outsider, and the truth of that had never been more brutal than at that moment, when being an outsider made it impossible to help Thomas.

  “I will find that man,” Grey repeated, jerking his arm away from Edward’s grasp. “I might not have the same access to Mayfair as a Bow Street runner or a blue blood,” he said coldly, noting the narrowing of the duke’s eyes, “but I also have nothing to lose. And if Thomas dies, I’ll make that bastard regret the day he was born.”

  Without a backward glance, he charged down the stairs and through the front door, slamming it closed behind him.

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  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Welcome

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  A Preview of ALONG CAME A ROGUE

  Fall in Love with Forever Romance

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2015 by Anna Harrington

  Excerpt from Along Came a Rogue copyright © 2015 by Anna Harrington

  Cover design by Christine Foltzer

  Cover art by Chris Cocozza

  Custom lettering by Ron Zinn

  Cover copyright © 2015 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  First ebook edition: November 2015

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  ISBN 978-1-4555-3402-9

  E3