“Oh, sure,” Nick grumbled. “Ask him about his leg, but not my shoulder.”
James waved Nick’s past shoulder injury aside as he sat down beside him. “I shot you. So what?”
“While I was saving his life!” Nick said, pointing at Denys with his whisky glass. “You were trying to shoot him, and I jumped in and took the damn bullet. Stupidest thing I ever did.”
“I don’t know about that, Nick,” Stuart objected. “You’ve done many stupid things.”
“And he deserved it,” Denys added as he took the chair on Nick’s other side, next to Stuart. “Don’t feel any guilt, Pongo.”
James grinned. “I don’t. But I fully remember that I was actually taking a potshot at you, Somerton, for making off with my girl.”
“She flung herself at me in the most shameless way,” Denys said. “I couldn’t help myself.”
“I was there,” Stuart interjected, “and that is not how it was. She was actually chasing after me—”
This claim was immediately doused by a round of hearty derision, and a debate on the subject ensued, a debate interrupted without being resolved by the arrival of the last member of the party, Lord Featherstone.
“Sorry I’m late, gentlemen,” Jack said as he came in and closed the door behind him.
“Forgive us if we’re not surprised,” Denys said over his shoulder. “You’re always late.”
“Cut my line a bit of slack, would you? I had to come all the way from Paris, after all. I just got off the train from Dover twenty minutes ago.”
Jack circled the table as Stuart stood up to greet him. “Mauled by a lion were you?” he asked, and stuck out his hand. “You’ll do anything for a lark.”
“Damn straight. Want a drink?”
“Of course. You don’t think I came here for you, do you?”
Stuart poured him a whisky from the bottle on the table, and Jack took it. He then pulled out the empty chair to Stuart’s right and sat down.
“So, gentlemen,” Jack said as he sat down, “now that we’ve all welcomed the lion slayer home, what shall we do tonight? Dinner first, I assume? Then cards? Possibly a bit of slumming in the East End pubs? Or shall we find the prettiest dancing girls of London’s music halls and cart them off the stage?”
“None of those for me,” Nicholas said, and held up both hands, palms out. “I’m a happily married man.” He lowered his hands, then reached for his glass and lifted it. “With a baby on the way.”
This news was greeted with hearty congratulations and a toast.
“Nick may be out of it,” Jack said as he refilled his glass and passed the bottle, “but what about the rest of you?”
Caught by Jack’s inquiring eye, Stuart shook his head. “My wife and I have reconciled.” He could only hope it was true.
There was a momentary silence as all his friends stared at him in uncertainty. It was Jack who asked the question in all their minds. “And are you happy about it?”
“I am, actually, yes.” Whether he’d be able to make Edie happy or not was a whole different question. “And I’m happy to be home.”
“Well, all right, then.” Jack lifted his glass. “Here’s to the hunter, home from the hill.”
Glasses clinked together, were subsequently emptied, and the bottle went around again so they could be refilled.
“Still,” Jack went on, “what are the rest of us supposed to do? Happily married fellows are such tedious company.” He glanced at James and Denys. “Don’t tell me either of you have become ensnared?”
“Not I.” Denys lifted his drink. “Still quite the carefree bachelor.”
“As am I,” James added.
“Well, that relieves my mind. Later, we shall leave these two—” He paused, gesturing to Stuart and Nicholas. “And go off for a bit of fun, shall we?”
“You three can invade the brothels, taverns, and gaming clubs of London all you please some other time,” Stuart said. “But not tonight. I didn’t bring all of you here so you could carouse about town. Besides, London in August is deadly dull, so you shan’t be missing much.”
“So why are we here?” Jack gave him an impudent grin. “Other than to see your scars, hear all about the mauling, and be suitably impressed by how bravely you fought off the lions?”
Stuart took a drink. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“Stuff,” Jack said in disbelief. “It’s the perfect chance to brag, and you don’t want to talk about it? Why not?” He took a peek under the table. “Lions didn’t eat anything important, did they?”
Stuart took a swallow of whisky, and broke the news. “Jones is dead.”
“What?” Jack’s question was a harsh whisper amid the dumbfounded silence of the others. Slowly, he straightened in his chair. “Your valet is dead? What happened? Was that the lions, too?”
“Yes.”
Jack sighed, raking a hand through his black hair. “Hell,” he muttered. “And here I am being flippant about it. Sorry, Stuart.”
The others added similar sentiments, but he waved aside sympathy. He found it impossible to bear. “Let’s talk of something else, shall we?” Before any of them could choose a topic, he veered the conversation to what he wanted to discuss.
“Gentlemen, as wonderful as it is to see all of you, a reunion isn’t why I’ve asked you here.” He paused to be sure he had their full attention before he went on, “I have something to discuss with you, and I want to do it before the bottle goes around again, for it’s quite a serious business.”
Glasses were set down, the bottle pushed aside at once. Stuart reached into the leather dispatch case, and retrieved the dossier on Van Hausen. He stood up, dropping the sheaf of papers in the center of the table, then he glanced one by one at the faces turned toward him.
“I want to ruin a man,” he said at last. “I want to humiliate him and destroy him. Thoroughly, completely, and without mercy.”
Again there was a moment of silence. Again, it was Jack who broke it.
“Lawd,” he drawled, tilting his chair back on two legs and grinning at Stuart, “this sounds just my sort of lark.”
Denys cleared his throat. “It goes without saying that the man in question deserves it, but can you tell us why?”
“The gist, yes, but not the details. And I assure you it is a matter of honor. And justice.”
James sat back, looking up at him. “The courts can’t touch him, I assume?”
“No. He’s American, a Knickerbocker, with a very rich, very powerful father.”
“Pfft.” Jack’s sound of derision waved aside such trifles.
“Gentlemen,” Stuart said, flattening his palms on the table, looking down at the sheaf of papers, “I would do this alone, but I can’t. I need your help.” He looked up, his gaze moving around the table to the faces of his closest friends, friends he’d had since boyhood. “We are all Eton men.”
The other four nodded with understanding, but this time it was Nicholas who spoke first. “There’s no more to be said. What do you want us to do?”
Chapter 20
“ARE YOU SURE?” Joanna turned away from the entrance to the train car and looked at Edie. Beneath her straw boater, her beautiful face showed a twinge of uncertainty. Her brown eyes darted sideways, rather as an animal might look about, seeking escape. “I think I should wait until Stuart comes back.”
“You can’t,” Edie told her for perhaps the tenth time. “The first day of term at Willowbank is Monday. That leaves you only two days to settle in. And I don’t know exactly when Stuart is coming home.”
“A week, you told me Reeves said. It’s been ten days since he left. I’m sure he’ll be back soon, maybe even today. I should wait. I didn’t have the chance to say good-bye to him before he left.”
The train whistle blew, indicating departure was imminent, an
d Edie caught her sister’s shoulders. “I’m sure Stuart will understand why you didn’t say good-bye. Now, you simply must board, dearest. You’ll see us both in three weeks.”
“How do I know that? You might leave him. You said you might, when he first came home.”
She thought of how she’d been when she said that, and she couldn’t help being a bit amazed at how a fortnight could change a person’s whole perspective about life. “I’m not leaving him.”
“Do you promise?”
“I promise.” She planted a kiss on each of her sister’s cheeks and started to turn the girl around, but when Joanna still resisted, she sighed and dropped her hands, planting them on her hips. “Joanna Arlene Jewell, have I ever broken a promise to you before?”
Joanna shrugged her shoulders, looked around the train platform, and shifted her feet. “No.”
“Well, there you are, then. Your first day out is in three weeks, and Stuart and I will both be there to visit you.”
“You’ll bring Snuffles, too?”
“Him, too,” she promised.
Joanna still looked doubtful. “Will you be all right? You’ll have no one for company until Stuart comes back.”
“I’ll manage.” Edie caught sight of the steam issuing from the engines, and thankfully, when she put her arms on Joanna’s shoulders this time, the girl actually allowed herself to be turned around.
But as Joanna stepped up onto the train car, she had to add over her shoulder, “Are you sure? It’s an awfully big house.”
“I’m sure, darling. Now, go aboard. Mrs. Simmons is waiting for you.”
Joanna boarded the train at last. But just like last time, she opened the first window she could and kept talking. “I’m going to school if I have to, but if you leave Stuart and run away, I’m telling him where you are. I don’t usually tattle, and I know I told you I’m on your side, and I am, honestly! But I promised him before he left that if you ran away, I would tell him where you went.”
“What? When was this?”
“At dinner, when you ate in your room. He told me he was going away for a while.”
Edie pounced on that. “Oh, so you did have the chance to say good-bye?”
“Never mind that now,” Joanna said impatiently, waving one white-gloved hand in the air. “He told me he was going back to London straightaway, and when I asked him why, he said it was business. But he also said the two of you had quarreled, and that you might seem unhappy and that I shouldn’t talk about it or ask you any questions, but that I should try to cheer you up and look after you. And he wanted to be back before I left for school, but he didn’t know for certain if he would, and that’s when he made me promise to tell him where you went if you did go running off. He said he wasn’t about to let you leave him just because he did something stupid.”
“He said that?” Edie groaned, for it confirmed exactly what she’d feared ever since his departure.
“Yes, so—”
The whistle blew again, the train jerked, and Joanna reached up to curve her hands over the edge of the open window sash to stay upright. Holding on to it, she stuck her head out the window. “So don’t you run away, Edie, or I’ll tell him where you are.” Joanna started to cry. “I swear I will.”
Edie was close to crying, too, but she held it back for Joanna’s sake. “I’m not going anywhere,” she shouted, hoping her sister could hear over the huffing steam engines. “I promise.”
She waited until her sister’s head vanished from view before she started to cry, but she didn’t turn away as she had last time. Instead, she stayed on the platform until the train was completely out of sight. After all, with Joanna, one could never be too sure.
“NO, I WANT Stuart’s portrait to the right of mine, Henry,” she said to the footman up high on the ladder in the portrait gallery. “To the right.”
Beside her, Wellesley gave a little cough. “The Dowager Duchess always had the duke’s portrait to the left of hers, Your Grace.”
Here we go again, Edie thought. Why did even rearranging a few pictures in the portrait gallery have to be a battle?
“I’m sure the Eighth Duke looked splendid on the left,” she said. “But I want the Ninth Duke’s portrait to the right of mine.”
He sighed, the sigh of the long-suffering British butler forced to deal with an American duchess who didn’t know the way things were supposed to be. “Yes, Your Grace. It’s just that on the right is not the way we’re accustomed to having it at Highclyffe.”
“Quite so,” she said, just as she always said it, pleasantly firm. “But—”
“Your Grace!”
The interruption had Edie turning as Reeves came bounding through the open doors at the end of the long gallery and halted. “He’s back,” she said, gasping for breath. “The duke has returned. He came to your room straightaway, looking for you. I suggested he wait there, and I came in search.”
Edie started across the gallery at a walk, but by the time she reached her maid’s side, she was running. “My room?”
Reeves nodded, and Edie started to run out, but then, she stopped. “Wellesley, His Grace’s gift?”
The butler looked over at her, his face impassive. “I followed your instructions exactly, Your Grace.”
She nodded and turned toward the door. “I’ll believe that when I see it,” she murmured, walked out of the gallery, then stopped and leaned back in the doorway. “On the right, Wellesley,” she reminded, and departed as his heavy sigh echoed along the gallery.
She ran down the corridor to the stairs, took the steps up two at a time, and turned down the corridor to the family bedrooms, but before she reached her own, she knew she had to stop, take a moment, prepare.
This was important, and she had to get it right, for she’d gotten it so wrong last time they were together. She felt a sudden jolt of panic, but it wasn’t the sort of panic she’d always felt in the past. This wasn’t fear, this was just being nervous as hell.
Edie stood there in the corridor for several minutes, breathing deeply, striving to remember composure. She had to stay calm, explain fully, and most of all, she had to keep back tears, or she’d never get the words out at all. Finally, she took the last few steps and entered her room.
He was standing in front of her writing desk, looking out the window.
“You’re home. Reeves said a week, but it’s been longer than that—” She broke off, for he hadn’t turned around as she’d spoken, and something in the rigid stillness of his body sent a shimmer of worry through her. “Stuart?”
His fingers tapped the surface of her desk. “Keating sent you the separation agreement, I see.”
Edie glanced at her desk, where the document lay in plain view. Heavens, she’d forgotten all about it. “Yes, it came in the post while you were gone. But—”
His head moved, bringing his face into profile, but he didn’t turn around. “Forgive me for invading your privacy. I came up to look for you when I arrived, and Reeves suggested I wait here while she went to find you. I didn’t mean to pry. I just walked to the window, and here it was. It wasn’t that I meant to read your correspondence.”
“Of course not. I haven’t even—”
“Do you want me to sign it, Edie?” He turned toward her, but with his back to the window, the bright glare behind him made it difficult for her to read his expression. “Because I will, if that’s what you want. It’s been more than the ten days we agreed on,” he said before she could answer. “You haven’t kissed me, so you’ve won the bet. And I know that trying to hold on to you by force would only cause you more pain, and I would die before I would do that.”
“But Stuart, I don’t want—”
“Remember when you asked me what happened to Jones, and I didn’t tell you? I think perhaps I ought to tell you now.”
She frowned, take
n aback, not only by the change of subject but also by his reflective voice and somber mood. She shivered a little. “All right.”
“We got a spot of work moving cattle from the train yard in Nairobi to a farm south of the Ngong Hills,” he said after a moment. “In terms of distance, it’s not that far, but it’s a three-day journey. Five hundred head of cattle aren’t exactly easy to move, not through lion country. It was our second night out. The men had made the fires as usual, and I checked them myself, as I always do. But at least one of them must have gone out. Who knows why? That’s Africa for you. One minute everything’s right as rain, and the next . . .” He paused and bent his head. “The next, your valet is dead, and you’re watching men dig your grave.”
“What happened?”
“Lions attacked the herd. One of them attacked Jones, and killed him.” He looked up, but he didn’t look at her. “I saw it. I saw her spring, I saw him go down, but I was out of shot and there was no time to reload. I used my whip to force her off, but—” His voice broke, and he stopped.
She couldn’t stand not being able to look into his eyes. She started across the room. “But?” she prompted as she approached.
“But it was too late. He was already dead. He valeted me from the time I was sixteen, Edie. He followed me anywhere I wanted to go. He—”
His voice broke again, and again he stopped.
She halted in front of him, her heart aching for him, for she knew all about self-condemnation. “It was not your fault. That is the sort of thing that might happen to anyone in the bush, surely.”
“Charming, you once called me,” he said, once again veering to a different topic. “Shall I tell you why I seem that way? I figured out before I was ten years old that I’d never be loved by my own family, so I was damned well going to be loved by everybody else. By the time I was twenty, there wasn’t a girl I wanted that I couldn’t win, or a man I couldn’t befriend, or a game I didn’t know how to play. There wasn’t a problem I wouldn’t find a way to solve. I’ve always had the devil’s own luck, and it made me such a cocky bastard. Hell, look at us. When I met you, my family was stone-broke, creditors were about to take everything, and then you came along and tossed all your money right into my lap. Pure luck, that.” He made a wry face. “Is it any wonder Cecil hates my guts?”
How to Lose a Duke in Ten Days Page 28