Duke Du Jour

by Petie McCarty

  “It’s not all his fault. Lucilla Tartley put him up to it. She told him I was looking for him out in the garden. Told him I would play hard to get, but he should just keep at me.”

  “Damn her worthless soul! This is all my fault. I am sorry, Ari. “

  “Your fault?”

  “She said she would make me pay, and she did.”

  Ari felt cold all over. “Pay for what?”

  “For tossing her aside tonight. She tried to stop me when I went after you. I told her to take a hike.”

  “Take a hike?”

  “To go away,” he said.

  “You did?”

  “Yes.”

  “I did not believe you tonight when you told me you didn’t say all those things.”

  “And now?”

  She smiled, grabbed his lapels to tug him close, and pressed a light kiss to his cheek.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” He looked at her with so much tenderness, her heart ached.

  “You saved me from Bonegred,” she whispered and cupped his cheek.

  He nuzzled her palm. “If I had come back sooner, he would not have hurt your wrist.”

  “Why did you come back?”

  “I realized I could not let you go back to the ball and face the music alone.”

  “Face the—”

  He smiled at her. “Face your guests.”

  “I see.”

  He tugged her into his embrace and held her close. She did not hesitate. She wrapped her arms around his waist and laid her cheek against his chest. His heart beat with a sure steady rhythm, albeit a little fast.

  He rested his cheek on the top of her head. “We shall explain everything to your father together.”

  “Aren’t you worried you will be accused of compromising me?” she teased.

  He pulled back and gave her a strange look, but he only said, “No, Dexter will lend his support.”

  “Right.”

  The man was not worried in the least. He was the bloody Duke of Reston. Ari would have given anything to know what he would do if the guests had accused him of compromising her.

  “You saved me, and now we are even. All debts paid. Clean slate.”

  She tried to pull away, and her heart skipped a beat when he held her tight.

  “Think so, do you? I believe I owe you a good spanking.”

  She jerked back. “What?”

  “For risking your life pitching that statue head at the assassin. What the devil were you thinking?”

  “I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Precisely.”

  “I couldn’t let them hurt you,” she argued.

  “Nor could I.” He cupped her cheeks. “Seeing as how you’re already a bit disheveled,” he whispered and lowered his lips to hers.

  The kiss turned hot at first touch. Ari could feel the anger and relief bottled up inside her hero. She clutched his lapels and pulled him closer—closer still—having quickly learned the heady give and take involved in a real kiss. This one she controlled, stroking her tongue against his over and over, just as he had taught her. When she let him go for much-needed air, he looked as dizzy as she felt.

  “You drive me crazy.”

  “C-crazy?”

  “Ah, I fancy you a bit too much.”

  She loved how his voice sounded all raspy with desire. She had done that to him.

  “If I do not get you back inside now—”

  “Then what?” she taunted, feeling more sensual and womanly than she had ever felt in all her twenty-three years.

  “Minx.” He swept her up into his arms and started up the path.

  “Why are you carrying me?”

  “You twisted your ankle in the melee with the highwaymen,” he said with a grin.

  “Which explains my being disheveled?”

  “Precisely.”

  She laughed and gave his cheek a resounding smooch.

  ****

  Once Jared appeared on the terrace carrying Ari and claiming her ankle had been sprained, Wakefield settled the two of them in his library and hurried his remaining guests on their way. He called for tea, changed his mind, and poured them each a few fingers of his best French brandy. Comfortable on a settee, Ari reluctantly accepted her brandy and assured her father she was fine.

  Bullen stormed in shortly thereafter. “Where the devil have you been?” he demanded of Jared. “I have been searching all over for you. I heard there was a fight in the garden, and I was afraid the highwaymen had returned.”

  “They did.”

  “What?”

  “Easy, little brother,” Jared soothed.

  “Little brother?” Wakefield and Ari exclaimed in unison.

  “What the devil?” chimed in Dexter, as he strode into the room.

  “Why do you all act surprised? You knew he was my brother.”

  “Yes, but—” Ari hesitated.

  “But nothing. I have openly claimed him is all. Should have done that years ago.”

  Bullen broke into a smile, and Jared grinned back.

  “About damned time,” Wakefield added, and everyone laughed. Dexter and Bullen took seats, and the old earl poured brandy for them both. “Now, what is this about highwaymen?”

  Jared saw no reason to keep anything from Ariana’s father, so he started at the beginning with his suspicious accidents, followed with the highwaymen’s attack, and finished with the melee in the garden. He was careful to leave out the part about Seven knowing of a plan to go after Wellington. Hell, Ari and everyone present would think Jared knew.

  “Bloody hell!” Wakefield roared. “What were you thinking, Ariana? Charging into danger like that?”

  “Amen!” Jared stoutly agreed.

  “You would be dead if I hadn’t helped,” Ari reminded him.

  “Maybe, but I was close by,” Dexter volunteered, then frowned at Jared. “And what took you so long to get back to the manor? You barely arrived here ahead of me.”

  Jared and Ari locked gazes for a moment.

  “Better tell him,” she said. “Papa needs to know, too.”

  So he relayed Viscount Bonegred’s ugly little part in the evening theatrics. Just the retelling made him want to seek out her assailant for a well-deserved beating.

  “That bastard!” Wakefield stormed. “I will call him out.”

  “You will do no such thing,” Ariana said. “Jared took care of it. He scared Bonegred so badly, I doubt he will say a word to anyone or leave his estate for the rest of the season.”

  “Even so, maybe Dexter and I should pay him a visit tomorrow to remind him again,” Bullen said.

  “I have business in London tomorrow,” Dexter interjected, “after we interrogate those brigands tonight. Cochran should be coming to, right about now.”

  Bullen and Jared were already on their feet.

  “Where do you think you’re going, young lady?” Wakefield exclaimed, when Ari scrambled off the settee. “What about your ankle?”

  “We made that up about it being sprained, so the guests would not question my looking a little rumpled when we got back to the house.”

  “Oh, right.” He did not look reassured.

  “You are not leaving me behind,” she told Jared. “I knocked him out, and I have questions of my own for that blackguard.”

  Jared and Bullen neared the stables first and sprinted forward to grab a teetering Barker as he stumbled out the double doors, a hand clutched to his head. Bullen steadied him though the stable master continued to sway.

  “I’m sorry, m’lord,” Barker said to Wakefield, who had caught up to them. “Someone snuck up behind me and clubbed me in the ’ead. I come to just now, and both prisoners was gone.”

  “Dammit, man!” Dexter shouted. “We told you to be watchful.”

  “I was, m’lord. But the woman distracted me.”

  “What woman?” Jared asked impatiently.

  Barker turned to him. “I don’t knows her.”

  “Describe her.”


  The groom ran a nervous hand through his hair and winced when he hit the goose egg on his noggin. “Well, she had really nice—” He started to cup his hands in front of his chest.

  “We get the picture,” Jared said quickly, with a sideways glance at Ariana.

  She made a quite unladylike sound. “So, she had big breasts. I am not that naïve. Did you notice anything else, Barker?”

  He shot her an embarrassed look. “Not really, m’lady.”

  Dexter exchanged glances with Jared. “Maybe the woman was working with them. I need to go to London tomorrow and find the ringleader of these brigands. Find out what they are up to.”

  “Then I am coming with you.” No way would he let his friend risk his life alone, trying to rectify something illegal Seven might have done

  “But why do they want Jared dead?” Ari asked them.

  “That is what we have to find out,” Dexter said.

  Guilt kept Jared quiet. If the earl found out about the plot to go after Wellington, he would have some serious explaining to do, but in the meantime, he would do whatever necessary to defeat the assassins and ensure Dexter remained safe.

  Chapter Twelve

  Jared, Dexter, and Bullen were down at the stables when dawn’s first magenta streaks colored the sky. Bullen had insisted on coming with Jared, and the three had spent the night at Wakefield Manor—albeit in a wing at the opposite end of the manor from Ariana—to get an early start. The old earl joined them to say his goodbyes, trailed by a young stable boy with his cap pulled low on his head. Grooms had brought Jared’s stallion Hammer out to the manor shortly before dawn, after Jared had sent a late missive to Haverly the evening before. Bullen and Dexter were to ride a couple of Wakefield’s prized geldings.

  The big wolfhound was sitting on Jared’s boot, ready to go. Bullen looked down at him and then at Jared. “You’re bringing the dog with us?”

  “Not by choice, but he doesn’t listen to me. I order him to stay, then I turn around and he’s right there.”

  Bullen laughed. “He will be good extra protection.”

  “I wish I was going with you,” Wakefield told the men. “Nothing I like better than a good mystery.”

  “You are welcome to accompany us, Lord Wakefield,” Dexter offered.

  Jared fought back a glower. He was in a hurry to locate and subdue the assassins. The aging earl would slow them down.

  “I avoid going to Town unless it is an absolute emergency,” Wakefield said. “I detest the filth, the smoke, and especially the interminable social gatherings.”

  “We don’t have time for any socializing,” Jared said.

  “Speak for yourself,” Dexter said. “I fully intend to visit my clubs. Perfect places for gathering the information we seek.”

  “Yes, yes,” the elder earl agreed, “but I am not going. I’m sending my young stable lad with you though, and I would like you to deliver him safely to my sister Felicity, Viscountess Morton, in Mayfair. He is a good boy and will not be any trouble.” The older man winked at an incredulous Jared.

  “Absolutely not!” he stormed. “We do not have time to babysit some adolescent lad. We intend to do some hard riding.”

  What sounded ominously like a growl erupted from the boy. “I don’t need a babysitter, and I am certainly not an adolescent!”

  The jaws of all three men gaped in unison at Wakefield and the lad. Whether from the shock of the stable boy smarting off to his betters or the fact the boy’s voice sounded like a girl’s, Jared could not be sure. He snatched the cap from the lad’s head for a better look, and a riot of red-gold curls tumbled down.

  “By all that is holy—” He stared dumbfounded, as did Dexter and Bullen, neither of whom had comment.

  The lad was no lad.

  “Give me back my cap,” Ariana demanded and made a swipe for it, but Jared held the cap high out of her reach.

  Wakefield chuckled. “Fooled you, didn’t she?”

  “What is this? Some kind of joke?”

  The old earl sobered instantly. “No joke. It is the only way to get her to London safely. She and I discussed it at length last night, and we decided this was the best way.”

  “The hell it is!” Jared fumed. “No way! It’s not safe. She will slow us down.”

  “No, she won’t.” Bullen finally spoke up. “She sits her mare Medusa better than most of the men in the county. She has ridden every day since you first taught her.”

  Taught her? Damned Seven.

  “Well, it’s not safe for her on the road with us. She has no chaperone.”

  “A lad has no need of a chaperone, and she is far safer on the road with the three of you, than she is here,” Wakefield argued back. “You forget, Reston, those two highwaymen are loose again, and they know she can identify them as attempted murderers. They have snuck onto my property already once. What if they do it again, and I am not close by to defend her? Would you have me lock up Ariana? I want her away from Wakefield until those two are caught or killed.”

  Jared stared. The earl made a sound argument. God in heaven, what if those scoundrels had made off with Ariana? He would be insane with worry—and rage.

  He felt the cap ripped from his grasp and realized too late he had lowered his arm where Ari could reach it. She stomped into the stables and returned a few minutes later astride a beautiful pale gray mare, cap back on and curls tucked beneath. The scowl she wore could scare the dead into place.

  “Just get my daughter safely to London and drop her off at my sister Felicity’s townhouse. Please?”

  Jared hesitated for a moment, then nodded once.

  “Young lady, you send me word the moment you arrive, so I won’t worry,” the earl ordered Ariana.

  She smiled, leaned down from her mount, and bussed her father’s cheek. Before Jared could get a foot in his stirrup, she put her heels to the mare and galloped down the entrance drive. Laughing, Dexter and Bullen vaulted aboard their mounts and took off after her. Harry ran with them—the traitor.

  “It’s the only way,” Wakefield told Jared quietly. “It’s not safe for her here, and there’s no time to find a chaperone. I considered all the possibilities, and there is no one I trust with her safety, and her reputation, more than you three.

  Jared sighed and mounted Hammer, then raced to catch up.

  ****

  The four had ridden hard until sundown when Dexter guided them to a coaching inn he frequented often on trips to his country estate Grasslawn. As Wakefield promised, Ariana had not slowed them down. She had even been pleasant company—for Dexter and Bullen. Jared, she was not speaking to, and he hated how much that bothered him.

  He had started to apologize to her three or four times but backed off at the last second, unwilling to choke on his oversized pride in front of Dexter and Bullen. The two would no doubt get a good laugh if Ariana forced him to grovel. Now, he questioned the wisdom of protecting his ego. Even Bullen and Dexter had begun ignoring him when he refused to approach Ariana.

  Only Harry had acknowledged him at their rare stops to rest both horses and dog. Dammit, he already had enough to worry about in this ill-begotten historical foray. Thoughts of Seven had pestered him throughout the day. His assassin the evening before had been certain he delivered a kill shot to Seven on the continent. Was Seven well and truly dead? If so, what would happen to Haverly and his tenants? Who would inherit the dukedom? Who produced Eight?

  Jared had never concerned himself with the welfare of others, for he had never had anyone to protect and serve. His estate manager, Everston, took care of all Jared’s employees in the twenty-first century and required nothing more from Jared than signatures on checks and approvals on renovations or expansions.

  He couldn’t afford to miss any opportunity that might present itself to return to the future, but neither did he wish to leave without ensuring the future of Bullen, Haverly, and even Ariana. Hell, she had saved his life. He owed her. Now, it was too late for apologies. They had arrived a
t the inn.

  The foursome reined in at the inn yard and waited for a hostler to take their horses. When one did not appear, Jared said, “Ari and I will go in and secure our rooms and order a meal. Meet us inside after the horses are taken care of.” He put a hand on the wolfhound’s head. “Harry, go with Bullen.”

  Much to Jared’s irritation, Dexter and Bullen and even Harry looked to Ariana for confirmation of his suggestion. She glowered at Jared but dismounted and started for the inn. Jared had no choice but to hustle to catch her.

  “You should wait for me,” he complained.

  “Why?” she countered, staring straight ahead.

  “Oh, maybe because a stable lad doesn’t go about securing rooms for his betters.”

  She stumbled a step and kept going though she slowed near the inn door to remain a step behind Jared as was proper. He glanced around before entering, but the yard was deserted save for Bullen and Dexter.

  “Hard as it may be, try to remember you’re a stable boy.”

  She gave a curt nod for assent.

  He sighed and decided to apologize at his first opportunity, or the chit may never speak to him again.

  The inn appeared to be a moderate establishment. A fresh coat of white paint covered the exterior walls with a contrasting blue paint on the shutters. A sign that read Oakwood Inn and Tavern hung from a post near the front door. The inn also had a rear door and stairwell Jared had noticed when they rode in. He didn’t like having two access points to the upstairs rooms, but that could not be helped. They would just have to compensate.

  Jared swept open the heavy oak entrance door and stepped inside, cringing as he let the door go and hoping Ariana caught it in time. He couldn’t even afford a glance back. No duke would give so much attention to a servant at the bottom of the pecking order.

  Two doorways opened off the small foyer. The stairs to the second floor lay straight ahead. The single door to the right was closed and probably led to a private dining room, judging by the voices they could hear behind the door—which did not bode well for Jared’s party being able to dine without unwanted attention.

  The double doors to the left stood wide open and led to the inn’s tavern, which had a bar in the rear. Jared headed straight for the bar, unwilling to leave Ari alone in the foyer even for a few minutes. He assumed she would follow if he said nothing. That was his first mistake.