Duke Du Jour

by Petie McCarty

  He stilled, then blinked.

  Inside on a bed of burgundy velvet lay a king’s ransom in jewels. Emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds winked back at him. Onyx and pearls quietly awaited his perusal. Some stones were in settings. Handfuls were loose stones awaiting a jeweler’s touch.

  Jared reached in and scooped out a handful of multi-colored stones. “Bloody hell,” he muttered.

  Bloody hell is right!” a voice thundered behind him.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jared jumped so hard, he almost fell over and went down on one knee. Bullen loomed over him, and a thunderous expression darkened his features.

  Jared eyed his brother’s clenched fist. “This is not what you think.”

  “What is not what I think?” Bullen sneered. “That you are not headed to Rundell & Bridge? That you did not come here for ready funds to feed your London lifestyle?” He cast a swift glance about the library. “I notice this house is rather well cared for. Nothing like the wreck Haverly has become.”

  Jared dropped the jewels back in the box and rose to his feet, not trusting his brother not to knock him over as angry as he was.

  “If you would just let me explain,” he tried.

  “What is there to explain?” Bullen raged. “Your tenants at Haverly are living hand to mouth while you take excellent care of your London townhouse and lifestyle. God forgive me, I thought you had changed.”

  A throat cleared at the door. “Not exactly.”

  Both men turned to find Jared’s butler observing their argument. The man was meticulously attired—black coat, trousers, and tie with nary a crease—and his bald head glistened like a cue ball. No less than two footmen and three maids tried to peek around the doorframe.

  Eager to divert Bullen from his angry tirade, Jared said, “What do you mean not exactly?”

  “Your creditors come regularly and ask for their bills to be paid,” the butler said with ill-disguised indignation, “and some have refused us deliveries. We have not been paid in several months.”

  “What?” Now, Jared was indignant. “Why did you not go to my solicitor, Mr.—”

  Great. He had no idea what his solicitor’s name was and had not thought to ask before now. He glanced at Bullen who recognized his quandary immediately and apparently took great satisfaction from his predicament.

  “Dammit! Give me a hand here,” Jared groused, low enough only Bullen could hear.

  His brother gave him a hard stare and by the looks of it, Jared had come up wanting. He was just about to come clean with the whole mess when Bullen said, “Ruffin. Mr. Gregory Ruffin.”

  “You forgot your solicitor’s name?” the butler asked incredulously.

  Jared had had enough of the man’s insolent tone. “That will be enough—” He stopped and raised brows to Bullen.

  “Dickman,” Bullen said with a glare at the butler.

  Well, that certainly fit.

  “You forgot my name?” Dickman exclaimed in outrage.

  Heddy DeMarr had been correct. His London butler was hoity-toity.

  “Your Grace,” Jared said, with all the ducal hauteur he could muster. “That should be, ‘You forgot my name, Your Grace?’ ”

  Dickman’s eyes glittered for an instant before he gave a solemn nod. “Yes, Your Grace.”

  “The duke sustained a mild head injury and suffers from amnesia,” Bullen said helpfully. At the blank stare from the servants, he added, “A temporary loss of memory. He has no doubt forgotten most or all of you…for the time being.”

  “He has forgotten us?” a footman gasped.

  “Thank the good Lord!” one of the housemaids muttered, and several others nodded.

  Bullen fought a grin, and Jared scowled at the maids who ducked their collective heads. Blast and damn! Had his ancestor debauched every woman he came across?

  One of the maids giggled, and Dickman rounded on her. “Pack your things, Miss Bodwick. You are hereby sacked.”

  “For what?” Jared barked. “Having a sense of humor?” He glanced over at the wide-eyed collection of housemaids. “Stay right where you are, Miss Bodwick…whichever one you are.”

  Two of the maids giggled but kept their heads bowed.

  “You have always given me full rein over the household staff, Your Grace,” Dickman said in a tone that could only be considered chastising.

  “I have changed. Now please take the servants and leave me in peace.”

  “Come along, you.” Dickman motioned Bullen out with a supercilious nod of his bald head.

  That did it. Jared had had enough.

  “Dickman!” he roared. “Your purview does not extend to my brother. He stays with me.”

  The servants only stared in amazement. All were wise enough to keep their mouths shut. Not so Dickman.

  “Your brother?” he exclaimed. “You must have forgotten, Your Grace. He is only one of your country stable boys.”

  Bullen took a step forward, but Jared stayed him with a hand.

  “And you, Dickman, are now unemployed,” Jared said. “You have crossed the line for the last time. Now you can go pack your things. Consider yourself sacked.”

  “You cannot fire me, Your Grace. You need me. I run this house.”

  “Not. Any. Longer.” Jared growled each word. “One more word out of you and you go without a reference.”

  With an ominous glare, Dickman whirled on his heels and stalked out. No one said a word until his heavy footsteps sounded on the servants’ back stairs.

  “I suppose I have forgotten how disrespectful London butlers can be,” Jared told the agog servants still rooted in the open doorway.

  One footman said, “Ye ain’t forgotten, Yer Grace. Only Dickman talks like that. He got worse when ye went off to Waterloo. Acted like the king around ’ere, he did. Like this was his own house.”

  “Hush, Bucky!” one of the maids hissed from beneath her bowed head. “Ye’ll get us all sacked.”

  “No one is going to be sacked. And you will all be paid whatever wages are owed you as soon as I get to my solicitor. Work hard, and you can stay as long as you like.”

  Five faces beamed from the doorway. More faces had collected out in the hall.

  “Who is the head footman?”

  “That would be me—Bucky—Yer Grace.”

  “Bucky, you are now the butler. Give these folks assignments, please, and leave us in peace.”

  “Yes, Yer Grace!” Bucky gushed. “Thank ye, Yer Grace.” The new butler grabbed for the door to close it.

  “Oh, and Bucky?”

  “Yessir?”

  “Tell the servants that if anyone asks, you have not seen me or my brother Bullen. We are on a mission of sorts. You will be safer if everyone thinks we are not here.”

  Bucky’s eyes went wide. “Yessir, Yer Grace. Don’t ye worry, sir. We will protect ye real good.” Every head in the hall nodded.

  The door shut firmly behind Bucky, and a cheer could be heard out in the hall.

  “Nicely done,” Bullen said grudgingly. “You make me think you have changed, and then you go and do something like—” He glared at the strongbox on the floor.

  “I would say I have earned the right to an explanation at least, by firing Dickman. Will you listen?”

  Bullen gave him a curt nod.

  “Six kept a journal.”

  Bullen did not bat an eyelash.

  “You already knew that, did you not?”

  His brother gave him another curt nod.

  “Had you seen it?”

  Another nod.

  “Read it?”

  “Parts.” Bullen looked unrepentant.

  Jared ought not be surprised. His brother had been running Haverly for three years, no doubt from the confines of Six’s library there.

  “Then you know he mentioned a private journal and a private stash, in case his solicitor robbed him blind.”

  Another nod and a glare.

  “I came here this morning to find both.” />
  Just a glare.

  “To pay off all Haverly’s debts and now I suppose, the London debts as well. Though I was not aware of them until just now.”

  Bullen stilled.

  Jared crossed his arms over his chest. “I am a little hurt you thought I wanted to…What did you call it? Drink and wench it away?”

  Bullen’s lips twitched, then a slow smile lifted the corners of his mouth. The smile continued to stretch to a grin. “My apologies, Your Grace.”

  Jared laughed. “The devil take you. Well, you abandoned Dexter in his efforts to hire Bow Street Runners, just so you could come keep me from spending Six’s savings, did you?”

  Bullen shrugged. “What do I know about hiring Bow Street Runners?”

  “Well, after we have finished here, I have an idea how we can find out more about our Frenchman.”

  Bullen’s brows went on point.

  “We are going to clean up and visit the Senior.”

  “What is that? One of your gaming hells?”

  Jared snorted. “Still do not trust me, do you? Oh, never mind. The Senior is the United Service Club at the Pall Mall, a gentlemen’s club for senior officers in the army.”

  “How do you know of this place?” Bullen wanted to know. “Are you a member?”

  I sure as hell hope so.

  Jared knew of the Senior, or rather the United Service Club, because his father’s investment firm had handled the 1978 sale of the old building to the Institute of Directors, the IoD. He remembered because one of his father’s favorite stories was the stipulation in the sale’s closing documents that the IoD had to retain all the original fixtures and fittings of “the old girl.” Though today said fixtures would be almost brand new.

  “I am a senior officer in the army, am I not?”

  “Were.”

  “All right, were.”

  “What will we find there?” Bullen asked, looking interested.

  “Army veterans who may know where we can find other veterans from my dragoons unit, who just might have an idea why there is a target on my back.”

  “Good thinking…for once.”

  “Now come check this stash with me. See if we have enough to at least settle all our debts. Then we shall go through the house and select some paintings and silver to sell to get that barley crop going you want so bad.

  Bullen had gone still again.

  “What?”

  His brother was staring at the journal Jared had left on the side table. The edge of the parchment peeked out from beneath the back cover. “That the private journal?”

  “Um, yes.”

  “Mind if I have a look?”

  So much for keeping things from him. The man had a right to know he supposed. Jared nodded. As he had guessed he would since the journal back at Haverly had mentioned the parchment, Bullen went right for it. Pulled it free and surveyed the note.

  “Giovanni Alexander Langley,” Jared said. “Should I start calling you Giovanni?”

  “Not if you want to stay on your feet.” Bullen carefully tucked the parchment inside the back cover and set the journal on the table. “At least, I know my real name now,” was all he said.

  Jared waited, had no idea what to say. I am sorry? You deserve better?

  As though he had not just read the only existing letter he would ever see from his real mother, Bullen said, “You know people will gossip if you start selling off your valuables. They will say the Duke of Reston has pockets to let.”

  Jared wanted to roar with anger on behalf of his brother, but if this was the way Bullen wanted to play it, then he would go along.

  “Evidently the duke does, so it won’t really be gossip, will it?”

  ****

  Two hours later, both dressed in some of Seven’s Town clothes, Jared and Bullen had deposited Six’s stash with Mr. Gregory Ruffin at Ruffin and Blount—to be used to pay all Jared’s Haverly and London employees’ back wages first, pay off all creditors for outstanding debts at Haverly and debts here in London, and deposit any remaining funds in Jared’s account, in that order—and proceeded on to the Senior.

  “Who do we look for?” Bullen asked, as they handed off their mounts to club grooms.

  “Members of the Eleventh Light Dragoons regiment,” Jared said.

  “You remember?” Bullen looked incredulous.

  Dash it.

  He could not admit to his brother that one of Duke Six’s few journal entries regarding Seven had mentioned his son’s regiment by name. He had always found it odd that Six had never written his son’s name as Jared, only Seven.

  “It just popped in my head. All our talk of the military, I suppose.”

  Bullen’s eyes narrowed. “Right.”

  “Wish me luck,” Jared muttered and blustered his way past the porter at the front door after he tossed out both ducal title and his major commission in the light dragoons.

  The ducal title must have won that battle for the porter and concierge Your Grace-ed him to death before he could even ask if any members from his old regimental squadron frequented the club. The porter and concierge recognized his squadron immediately.

  “Wellington’s communiqué riders,” the concierge had said and seemed impressed, then he added, “I do not recall seeing any of your unit recently, however.”

  The porter nodded his assent. As Jared and Bullen turned to leave, a footman stepped forward. “Pardon me, Yer Grace,” he said with a respectful bow. “I overheard ye ask about yer fellow officers. I believe one was in last week. A Major Duncan Thorpe from Wellington’s riders. The major comes in every so often for a glass of port. He keeps to hisself mostly.”

  “Thank you,” Jared said, then turned back to the chagrined concierge—with all his ducal hauteur at the ready—and asked, “I assume you keep address records on all your members?”

  Twenty minutes later, he and Bullen were on their way to an address on Duke Street in the west end of town, though the major was not at home. Residents at the modest lodging directed the two of them to Ware’s Tavern in Piccadilly where they were told Thorpe often took his meals since the tavern owner and employees were all ex-military.

  Arriving at the tavern midafternoon, they handed off their horses to a hostler, and Bullen started for the door. Jared put a hand out to stop him.

  “Do you remember why I decided to enlist in the military? For I do not.” Jared had long wondered if Seven had signed on to escape his creditors and selfishly hated the thought of cowardice in his lineage.

  Bullen looked thoughtful for a moment. “You went on a binge just before you left and ended up at Harrison’s, though you did not remember how you got there. Harrison sent for me the next morning to bring you home since you were somewhat the worse for wear. On the way back to Haverly, you vowed to gain back the respect of your tenants and the villagers.” His brother sighed. “I don’t know for sure, but I had thought—or at least I had hoped—you were finally concerned about having wasted so much of the family fortune.”

  Now Jared sighed. “Meanwhile, there was a whole fortune in that townhouse waiting to be unearthed to save my tenants.”

  “The question is, would you have used the funds for that, had you found the stash?”

  “Right.” Jared was good and tired of taking the hits for Seven.

  ****

  From the moment Jared and Bullen had entered Ware’s tavern, they could tell not only the workers but the patrons were all ex-military, though no one wore a uniform. The men had a certain regimented bearing about them. All present warily eyed the two newcomers. Jared made his way to the bar at the rear of the tavern and quietly asked the bartender if a Major Thorpe was present.

  “Why?” the man demanded, making no attempt to be polite.

  “I served with him on the continent and wish to pay my respects.”

  A gentleman rose from his table in a nearby corner so fast, he turned his chair over. His size, equal to Jared’s height and weight, now mitigated by ashen features, he looked
as though a ghost had inquired about him.

  “Reston? Is it really you?”

  “Thorpe?” He strode to the table.

  “Dear God, it is you.” The man stumbled forward and to Jared’s surprise, grabbed him in a hard hug. “I thought you were dead.”

  “Yes, well, keep your voice down.”

  Thorpe gaped at him.

  Jared pulled out two chairs at his table. “Mind if my brother and I join you?”

  “Brother? But you don’t have—”

  “It’s a long story.”

  Thorpe eyed Bullen. “Of course. Please sit.” He righted his own chair and took a seat after the brothers, then waved a tavern maid over with two more mugs of ale. “I cannot believe this. I was sick about your death. Felt I should have somehow prevented it.”

  “That is why we’re here,” Jared said. “I am searching for answers, and I apologize for my lack of introductions. This is my brother, Bullen. He is assisting me.”

  Thorpe extended a hand. “Duncan Thorpe.” He stared curiously at Bullen. “Reston never mentioned—”

  “Yes, I know. A lot has changed of late,” Bullen told him.

  “You see, I had an accident,” Jared added.

  Thorpe snorted. “You were shot. That was no accident.”

  “No, I mean afterward.” He had to be careful here. He could not afford to have Thorpe look too close or start trouble. “I hit my head in a fall and have lost a portion of my memory.”

  The major looked shocked.

  “Mostly people he does not remember,” Bullen added helpfully. “The doctor expects his full memory to return eventually.”

  “But you remembered me?” Thorpe looked pleased.

  “Actually, no. You stood up when I mentioned your name, and that was dead giveaway.”

  “Right.” The major deflated. “So, you don’t remember me.”

  “I’m sorry, but no. However, I am hoping your answers to my questions will prod my memory.”

  “Of course, anything I can do to help. I am just so bloody glad you’re alive.”

  “Me, too. But someone is still trying to kill me.” Jared was careful to keep his voice low enough only Thorpe and Bullen could hear him.

  “What? Again?”

  “What do you mean again?” Jared asked quickly. “Were you there the first time? I mean, near me during the Battle of Waterloo?”