Marrying the Marquis

by Patricia Grasso

  “Running out of pin money with more than three weeks remaining in the month is an emergency of epic proportions,” Prince Rudolf teased her.

  Blaze ignored him.

  “How much do you need?” her father asked her, his tone long-suffering.

  “You should ask her the reason before opening your pockets,” Prince Rudolf said. “My children receive a monthly allowance and no more.”

  “If I agree to her request,” her father said, “then she will leave us to our business.” He shifted his gaze to her, saying, “How much do you need and why do you need it?”

  “I need enough money to buy a horse,” Blaze told him.

  “I gave you Pegasus,” he reminded her. “Purchasing a horse does not qualify as a life-or-death emergency.”

  “You don’t understand,” Blaze said. “Ross MacArthur plans to sell Juno to the knackers unless we buy her.”

  “MacArthur is sending a horse to the slaughterhouse?” Prince Lykos echoed in surprise.

  Blaze nodded. “Papa. I must save Juno. The marquis is selling her because he believes her barren.”

  “I commend your tender heart,” her father said, his tone softening, “but horse racing is a business. A barren mare does not contribute to the owner’s profit.”

  “Her Grace and you do not have children,” Blaze argued. “Will you be sending Her Grace to the knackers?”

  At that, the Kazanov princes shouted with laughter. Her father did not look pleased, but the corners of his lips twitched as if he wanted to laugh.

  “Going to the knackers is no laughing matter,” Blaze scolded the princes.

  The Kazanovs laughed even harder. Even her father chuckled.

  This negotiation was not succeeding. She needed another path to her goal. Tears. Though she disliked weeping in public, Blaze knew Juno was depending on her.

  Bowing her head, Blaze raised a hand to her eyes and willed herself to weep. Her bottom lips trembled when she thought about the kitten she’d been unable to save all those long years ago. That poor broken kitten reminded her of her mother’s death, which did send warm tears rolling down her cheeks.

  The masculine merriment ceased. A good sign.

  “I will send Ross a note.”

  Blaze looked at her father, an expression of misery etched across her face. “Thank you, Papa.” Her voice was an emotion-choked whisper. “I knew you would understand.”

  When she moved to stand, her father gestured her to sit. “How will you repay my generosity?”

  “I will refrain from baiting Her Grace,” she promised.

  Smothered chuckles erupted from the princes.

  “Will you marry the man of my choice?” her father asked her.

  Blaze paused for several moments, considering his words, and then stared straight into his eyes. “Let me answer this way,” she said. “Were you planning to learn this year’s winners from me?”

  The princes’ chuckles were no longer smothered. Their amusement was not helping her.

  Father and daughter stared at each other, and then he grinned. “You remind me of Aunt Bedelia.”

  “I take that as a compliment.” Blaze gave her father her sweetest smile. “You will pay MacArthur’s asking price without haggling?”

  “I will do what is necessary.”

  “Thank you, Papa, but I need one more tiny favor.”

  Blaze heard coughing on either side of her and knew the princes were laughing again. Her father’s expression said she was pressing her luck.

  “I want Juno mated with Zeus,” Blaze told him, and then blushed at her own frankness.

  “What?” the duke exclaimed, his tone incredulous. “In thoroughbred circles, we breed the best to the best. That means I cannot send my champion to the breeding barn for a barren mare.”

  Blaze leaned forward, ready to haggle for what she wanted. “I will pay for the stud service”—she blushed again—“with my winnings from The Craven next week.”

  Her father smiled, hopefully reminded of his beloved aunt Bedelia. “I agree to your terms, but if you lose, will you marry the man of my choice?”

  “Trust me, Papa,” she sidestepped his question. “Pegasus will win The Craven.”

  “I hope she does win,” her father said, “but do you agree to my terms?”

  “I agree.” No hesitation there.

  “You may now leave us to our business.”

  “I met the Duke of Kilchurn at MacArthur House,” Blaze said, standing to leave. “I wonder the reason he speaks with an accent, but you do not.”

  “Aunt Bedelia decided I needed to sound English in order to move successfully through life.” The Duke of Inverary smiled at the memory. “Jamie and I took elocution lessons but tormented the tutor. Bedelia banished Jamie, and without an accomplice, I lost my taste for bad behavior.”

  A knock on the door drew their attention. Tinker walked into the office, announcing, “The Marquis of Basildon and Constable Black have arrived.”

  “Ask them to wait ten minutes,” the duke instructed his man. He looked at Blaze. “Run along and let me finish this meeting.”

  “You won’t forget about Juno?”

  “I doubt you will allow me to forget.”

  “Wager on my filly,” Blaze advised the princes. “You will win a fortune.”

  “How can you be certain?” Prince Rudolf asked her.

  “Pegasus told me.”

  Two miles west of Inverary House, shorter as the crow flies, Ross MacArthur lifted the satchel and left his bedchamber. He would return another day if he’d forgotten anything.

  Descending the stairs to the foyer, Ross set the satchel down beside three others. “I want these delivered to Rowley Lodge,” he instructed the majordomo, “and send someone to bring my horse around.”

  “Yes, my lord. Their Graces are expecting you in the drawing room.”

  Ross grimaced. He should have known his stepmother would delay his escape. “Thank ye, Dodger.”

  “You don’t look thankful,” Dodger drawled. “I can tell them I forgot to relay their message.”

  “I wouldna put ye in that position,” Ross said.

  “I have lied for you before,” the majordomo reminded him.

  “True, but we need to save lyin’ for emergencies.” Muttering to himself, Ross climbed the stairs and marched down the corridor to the drawing room.

  The scene was worse than he could have imagined. Though his sister’s twittering friends were missing, Dirk Stanley had arrived. He preferred the twitterers.

  “Here comes your son,” Celeste MacArthur told her husband. “Ross, sit on the settee beside Amanda. Perhaps the girls will entertain us on the pianoforte and the harp.”

  “I dinna have time for a concert.” Ross dropped onto the settee beside his stepsister and smiled a greeting.

  Amanda Stanley returned his smile. “Good to see you, Ross.” Blond and green-eyed like her mother, Amanda shared her brother’s angel face and could have posed for one of the masters.

  “How are ye, Poppet?” Ross teased his sister.

  “How are ye, Aged Sibling?” Mairi countered, a sparkle of merriment in her dark eyes.

  Dark-haired like him, Mairi MacArthur was petite and had inherited their mother’s fire instead of his own easy nature. Her pure Highland blood emboldened her unlike the shy blonde by his side.

  Dirk Stanley sat on the settee beside Mairi while he sat beside Amanda. Ross would bet his last shilling his stepmother was trying her hand at matchmaking. Celeste MacArthur had never accepted that he did not want to marry her daughter, a sweet twit who deferred to her mother in all matters.

  Ross always took himself to the Rowley Lodge lest Celeste engineer a compromising situation that would force him to marry Amanda. Perhaps he should warn Mairi to bolt her chamber door at night.

  “Dark and light make a pleasing picture,” Celeste was murmuring. “Don’t you think so, James?”

  “I suppose so,” the duke answered, sounding bored.

>   “Where are the missin’ twitterers?” Ross asked his sister.

  “We dropped them at their family estates,” Mairi answered.

  “Ross, help yourself to a cucumber sandwich,” Celeste said. “Shall I pour you tea?”

  “No tea.” Ross reached for a sandwich from the platter. He disliked cucumber sandwiches.

  Blaze Flambeau popped into his mind. The petite redhead would adore them. No meat, no poultry, no fish.

  “Dirk tells us you dined with the Inverarys last night,” Celeste remarked.

  His stepmother was fishing for information.

  Eating precluded conversation. Ross swallowed the last bit of cucumber sandwich and reached for another.

  He lifted his gaze to the portrait of his own mother with her dark eyes, so much like his sister. God, he missed her. If she’d lived, Celeste would not be sitting here playing at being a duchess.

  “Ross dear, you are hungry,” his stepmother said. “Stay for dinner.”

  “I’m meetin’ Douglas Gordon,” Ross said in a polite refusal.

  “The Inverarys are hosting the Jockey Club Ball this year,” Celeste told the younger women. “We met the poor Flambeau girl this afternoon.”

  That got his attention.

  Ross snapped his black gaze to his stepmother. “Why do you call her poor?”

  “Red hair and freckles are quite unfashionable,” she answered.

  “Red hair?” Mairi exclaimed.

  “Freckles?” Amanda echoed.

  The stepsisters looked at each other and burst into giggles.

  “Laughing at the less fortunate is unseemly,” Celeste told them, but the giggling continued.

  “Blaze Flambeau is not less fortunate,” Ross insisted.

  Dirk Stanley bobbed his head in agreement. “Miss Flambeau is quite lovely.”

  Celeste looked at Ross. “You realize that she and her sisters were born on the wrong side of the blanket?”

  “Dinna repeat old scandals,” the duke interjected.

  “Inverary acknowledged his daughters,” Ross told his stepmother, and reached for another cucumber sandwich.

  Celeste gave him a haughty smile. “Even His Grace cannot erase Society’s memory of Gabrielle Flambeau’s suicide.”

  Ross choked on a bit of cucumber and coughed. “Her mother committed suicide?”

  “Inverary buried the slut on his estate because consecrated ground was forbidden,” Celeste added.

  “Damn ye, Celeste, enough.” The Duke of Kilchurn poured himself a whisky and gulped it down in one swig. “Gabrielle Flambeau was a countess and the mother of my best friend’s daughters. Her death devastated Inverary, and I dinna want anyone”—the duke looked at each of them in turn—“anyone discussin’ her tragic ending.”

  “Mairi and Amanda, do not gossip about this with your friends,” Celeste ordered them.

  Did his stepmother actually believe she could drop a bit of juicy gossip and the girls would never whisper it to their friends? At first opportunity, he would send the Duchess of Inverary a warning note that Celeste was spreading gossip. Even his stepmother feared Roxanne Campbell.

  “In his younger days, Magnus Campbell was never known for controlling his desires,” Celeste was saying to his father. “I heard Prince Rudolf Kazanov is Inverary’s natural son.”

  “You heard correctly, Your Grace.”

  Everyone whirled toward the doorway. Prince Lykos Kazanov was standing there. Dodger looked ashen, mortified that the prince had overheard a slur on his family.

  A pleasant smile pasted on his face, Prince Lykos sauntered across the drawing room. The coldness in his gaze belied the smile on his lips.

  “Cousin Rudolf is an acknowledged Kazanov prince,” Lykos told Celeste, “and, with all due respect, I urge your tongue to discretion.”

  The duchess’s mottled complexion mirrored her discomfort. “I do apologize,” she said. “Ross, make the introductions.”

  “Lykos, I present my father, the Duke of Kilchurn,” Ross said, and then purposely omitted his stepmother. “Here are my sister Mairi and stepsister Amanda. Ye met Dirk last night at Inverary’s.”

  “That must have been an interesting dinner,” Celeste remarked. “Will you take tea with us?”

  Prince Lykos assumed a disappointed expression. “I am expected elsewhere. Another time, perhaps?” Without waiting for a reply, he turned to Ross, “I would like a private word, my lord.”

  Ross nodded. “I was just leavin’.”

  Prince Lykos looked at Mairi and Amanda. “You must promise me a dance at the Jockey Club Ball.”

  Both girls bobbed their heads.

  Ross ushered Lykos out of the drawing room. Descending the stairs to the foyer, Ross said, “I apologize for Celeste.”

  “With eight brothers and three sisters,” Lykos replied, “I know how difficult a man’s family can be.”

  “Eight brothers and three sisters? That’s a healthy family.”

  “You would use the word miraculous if you knew my mother.”

  “What can I do for ye?” Ross asked, as they reached the foyer.

  “I would purchase a horse,” the prince answered.

  “I’m leavin’ for the Rowley Lodge,” Ross told him. “Let’s set an hour to meet here tomorrow, and I’ll show ye my stock.”

  “You misunderstand me,” Lykos said. “I want to purchase Juno.”

  “Dodger, did ye send my bags to the Rowley Lodge?” Ross asked the majordomo, stalling his answer.

  “Yes, my lord.”

  “And did someone bring my horse around?”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Ross ushered Lykos outside, his mind a jumble of thoughts. Fingers of jealousy curled around his chest, their grip tightening. His only real competition, the prince had somehow spoken to Blaze this afternoon and learned about Juno. Did the Russian think to impress her by purchasing the mare?

  “I canna sell ye Juno,” Ross refused the prince’s request.

  “You have received a previous offer?” Lykos looked dismayed. Apparently, few people dared to refuse a prince.

  Ross smiled and shrugged. “I’ll let ye know if the deal falls through.”

  “May I ask the identity of the new owner?” Lykos asked him.

  “Ye can ask,” Ross replied, “but I willna reveal his name.”

  “Damn, I need to think of another gift for Miss Flambeau,” Lykos said.

  “Dinna ye think a prospective suitor’s gift should be impersonal,” Ross suggested. “She would probably appreciate pretty lace handkerchiefs.”

  “We Russians do things differently,” Lykos said, “but I will follow your suggestion. Will you be joining us at Inverary’s tomorrow?”

  Ross managed a smile. “I wouldna miss tea with Blaze for all the rubles in Russia.”

  Raven Flambeau walked down the stairs to her father’s second-floor office. She knew the reason for her summons and didn’t need to rely on her psychic ability.

  Constable Amadeus Black and Alexander Blake had arrived earlier and closeted themselves in her father’s office to discuss the jockey’s murder. They needed her psychic ability to help the investigation. Fortunately, the constable was less of a skeptic than her betrothed.

  Raven paused outside the closed office door. She knew this meeting would temporarily change her relationship with Alexander, the man she’d known and loved her entire life.

  Holding her left hand up, Raven stared at her engagement ring, a rare star ruby surrounded by diamonds. Legend said the star ruby would darken to warn its owner of impending danger. Either the legend was nonsense, or she had never been endangered.

  Raven tapped on the door and then entered before getting her father’s permission. He had sent for her, after all. She smiled at the three men waiting for her.

  More than six feet tall, Constable Amadeus Black cut an imposing figure in his customary conservative black. A legend in London, the constable enjoyed a fierce reputation for catching the most cunning crimin
als.

  “Good afternoon,” Raven greeted them. “A pleasure to see you again, Constable Black.”

  “The pleasure is mine,” Amadeus Black said, and gestured to the chair beside his.

  “Hello, Brat.” Alexander smiled, softening his teasing. “We require your special ability to generate clues.”

  “Do you now believe in my psychic ability?”

  “I place my faith in logic,” Alexander answered, “but I do not disbelieve the possibility of such things.”

  “We are making progress,” Raven said, “and you are not a lost cause.”

  “I’m relieved to know there’s hope for me.” Alexander leaned close and, lifting her hand to his lips, asked, “Do you always need the last word?”

  She gave him a flirtatious smile. “Yes.”

  Alexander grinned at her.

  “I hate to interrupt,” the Duke of Inverary said, “but Charlie will not rest in peace until we discover his murderer.”

  “And others could be endangered.” Constable Black held a brown leather wallet and a gold ring. “Charlie was carrying these possessions at the time of his death.”

  “Notice the Campbell boar’s head insignia on the ring,” the Duke of Inverary said. “I gave him the ring after he won me the Triple Crown.”

  “I need to know if the murder happened during the commission of a robbery,” the constable said, “or if the villain’s intention was murder.”

  Raven inspected the wallet and the ring without touching. “Was there money in the wallet?”

  “Are you using logic?” Alexander asked her.

  Raven gave him a sidelong smile. “Bad habits are contagious.”

  The constable’s lips quirked into a smile. “The wallet was empty when the locals found the body.”

  “Charlie’s death was deliberate,” Raven said. “A robber would have taken the gold ring, not merely the money. Whoever killed Charlie wanted us to believe the crime was a random robbery.”

  “On the other hand, unloading a distinctive ring would be difficult,” the constable said.

  “Perhaps.” Raven shifted her gaze to her father. “Papa, I will sit alone near the hearth for this reading.”

  “You never needed to sit alone before,” Alexander said.