by Eloisa James
“A nobleman ought to at least make an effort,” Cedric said, entirely ignoring his question. “You represent the family, Duke—though God knows, you don’t bother to play the part, or even look it.”
Trent always used to be Jack to his twin, if to no one else—until their father died. Since he’d inherited the title, Cedric had addressed him only as Duke, the term uttered with obvious distaste.
Cedric scowled when he didn’t respond. “Forget the diamond. I had to catch you before you left for Wales. Lady Portmeadow has sent you no fewer than five missives regarding the East End Charity Hospital, and you haven’t paid her the courtesy of a response.”
“What does she want?” Trent bent over to pull off a boot. The letters must be in the stack that his secretary deemed personal—which he never bothered to open. Years ago, he and his twin had neatly divided the responsibilities of an English lord, and Cedric had appropriated all those involving social events—particularly those at which strong drink flowed like water.
“You never looked at them, did you?” Cedric asked with a sniff. “Did you even realize that you hosted tonight’s ball in honor of the hospital with her ladyship?”
Trent straightened, boot in hand. “What?”
“You know, two hosts, one party. She’s as stingy as they come, so she leapt at the idea. You paid for the champagne.”
“How did that come about, given that I know nothing of it?”
“I’m certain I told you weeks ago. Or perhaps I forgot. It was one of my more brilliant ideas, that you and Lady Portmeadow should share the expenses, if not the duties.”
Cedric pushed himself out of the chair and walked unsteadily to Trent’s dressing table, where he propped himself on one hand and leaned close to the mirror. “Now the ball is over, Lady Portmeadow would like you to release funds for the wing of the hospital. They’re going to break ground next week.”
Trent dropped the boot with the thump. “I’m building a hospital wing?”
“I’ve put a year into ensuring that hospital breaks ground. You didn’t really think that our family wouldn’t contribute, did you?” Cedric turned, a sardonic twist on his lips. “The Duke of Trent is building a wing on the hospital in memory of his oh-so-beloved parents. It’s only a few thousand pounds.”
“You have no right to promise thousands of pounds to anyone,” Trent stated.
“Lord Portmeadow,” his brother drawled, “is the head of that precious Committee on Standing Orders that you are always complaining about.”
An all-too-familiar frustration rose in Trent’s throat. After inheriting the dukedom seven years before, he’d succeeded in turning his impoverished ancestral estate into a flourishing concern that employed hundreds, but the one person he had been unable to master was his twin.
“You should be glad that your hoard is going to good use,” Cedric said, with a squinty-eyed smile. He was happiest when he managed to provoke Trent—and he knew exactly how to do it. He apparently devoted his sober hours to dreaming up new ways to force Trent to fall in with one of his schemes.
Trent picked up the dropped boot and tossed it in the general direction of the wall. Cedric was right: it was too late to withdraw his sponsorship without offending the lady and her husband, who was one of the most powerful men in the House of Lords.
More importantly, he had always meant to support the hospital, though he would have preferred to be consulted about his donation. That charity was the only thing Cedric had done in the last year other than order new coats and drink himself into a stupor.
God knew why his brother had taken on the task, but he had talked an impressive number of people into supporting the project.
“The wing is in memory of our parents?” Trent asked.
“Yes,” Cedric said, his voice taking on a false sweetness that Trent loathed. “I thought of specifying Mother, but I had the idea you might object.”
Trent didn’t answer. The late duchess had never pretended not to favor her younger son. And to despise her elder.
“The wing will be devoted to the care of impoverished orphans,” Cedric continued. “We are orphans, after all.”
“I scarcely think that we qualify as orphans, in that we were twenty when the duke and duchess died,” Trent said, tugging off his second boot.
“I for one am practically impoverished,” Cedric said.
“You have a tidy income, and the house in Berkeley Square,” Trent said, adding, “not to mention the fact that you are affianced to an heiress.” It was ridiculous to feel a twinge at the memory of Merry Pelford laughing about English fortune-hunters.
Trent should be happy about his twin’s betrothal; it meant Cedric would finally establish his own household. A few years ago, Trent had deeded him a townhouse that had belonged to an aunt, but Cedric had declined to leave Cavendish Square. He liked playing the duke too much.
For example, he had taken the ducal town coach to Lady Portmeadow’s ball, leaving Trent to make his way in a curricle. But Cedric would have to buy his own carriage now. Hell, he would have to buy his own engagement ring; the ducal diamond felt as if it were burning a hole in Trent’s pocket.
“You never said what you think of my fiancée,” Cedric said. “I know she’s American, but Merry’s mother was one of Lord Merrick’s daughters.”
“Merrick?”
“A Hertfordshire baron who fled to Boston after winning a duel in which he killed his opponent. Not the most desirable connection, but she’s apparently as rich as Croesus, so who cares? I’ve put our solicitor on to an assessment of the money. I’ll be damned if I marry a pig in the poke. I want every penny documented before I see her in church.”
“Why the solicitor?” Trent asked. “Didn’t Miss Pelford’s father provide you the details when he gave permission?”
“Gave permission? As if an American would quibble with his daughter marrying a lord? The man’s dead, in any case, and an uncle is managing her supposed fortune.”
Cedric dropped back into the armchair. “I’m just not convinced she’s good enough to become my wife. What does she contribute besides filthy lucre? She’s a Yankee, and no one would describe her as a diamond of the first water. She’s a long Meg, for one thing. Feel as if I’m dancing with a man.”
Trent had a sudden vision of Merry’s luscious figure, and his fist curled instinctively. It wasn’t his business.
“I’m the son of a duke. She’s from one of best families over there, but is that really such a distinction?” Cedric’s mouth twisted. “I heard a rumor that her uncle made a fortune inventing some sort of barnyard geegaw. If that’s the case, I’m definitely selling myself short.”
Their mother had always reasoned that since the entire estate would one day be Trent’s, he must learn to be generous to his brother. No matter what Cedric had wanted, he had got: on one notable birthday, even the tin soldiers that had been meant for Trent.
As a consequence, Cedric had grown up viewing life as a competition in which he, owner of the lesser title, was always deserving of more.
“You know best,” Trent said.
“Now I think about it, I’m too young to marry,” his brother said moodily, pulling a flask from inside his coat and taking a swallow. “Perhaps when we’re thirty. You haven’t even considered the question of an heir, have you? You wouldn’t be the first to have a cod instead of a cock.”
Bloody hell. Cedric must have already drunk a bottle of brandy. He was deemed throughout polite society to have exquisite manners, but when he was drunk, his conversation veered between crass and vicious.
One would suppose Trent could have helped his brother stop drinking, but no. He had emptied the wine cellars that had been started by the first duke. He had stopped drinking himself. He had cut off Cedric’s allowance. He had reasoned with him, and wrestled with him, and given him ultimatums.
Nothing had made the slightest difference.
“Maybe if I wait, I can find a grocer’s daughter,” Cedric said now, with a
bark of laughter that had nothing to do with humor. “Don’t you love that idea? A grocer’s daughter becoming a lady.”
“In fact, I had the same thought you did,” Trent said. “I, too, intend to marry by the end of the season.”
“Just how are you planning to meet the lady?” Cedric inquired. “Are eligible misses to be found in the slate mines these days?”
“It’s only April,” Trent said, shrugging. “There’s time after I return from Wales.”
“It’ll be easy enough, since you don’t need a dowry. It’s only poor bastards like myself who have to sell our bodies and our titles to the highest bidder in order to keep bread on the table. I suppose I might as well stick with the heiress I’ve got.”
Trent pulled his shirt on again. In this mood, Cedric could blather on for hours, remaining on the knife edge of inebriation before passing out. “I’m going to find something to eat,” Trent said, heading toward the door. “Would you like to join me?”
“For God’s sake,” his brother said with disgust, “would you just ring the bloody bell the way every other man of our station does? The servants have nothing to do until you ask them to put together a plate of food.”
The knife boy slept in the kitchen. If the bell rang, the boy would awake the butler, who would dress hastily and rouse the cook, Mrs. Button, who would rouse the housekeeper, in order to get the keys to the pantry. A kitchen maid would get out of bed to get the banked fire back up—and two hours later, a splendid supper would appear on a tray, brought by a footman who was half awake, but dressed in livery.
“I only want bread and cheese,” Trent stated. “I’ll walk you to your room.”
“As if I needed a bloody escort,” his brother said, lurching to his feet. “I can find my own bloody chamber.”
They walked down the corridor while Cedric muttered about bread and cheese, which—according to him—no one above the rank of a tapster would eat unless stranded in a snowstorm. “And perhaps not even then. A refined palate needs to be coddled. Assaulting it with bitter flavors and coarse grains will leave it unsuited to appreciate delicate flavors.”
He sounded so earnest that Trent grunted some sort of response.
“It’s the difference between sipping wine from crystal and throwing back beer from a redware mug in the pub.”
Trent had no idea what redware was. But a pub? He loved a dark pub and a hearty ale. Which just went to show that somehow he and his brother had got mixed up in the womb: he had the title but plebeian tastes, whereas Cedric had all the polish and gentility that signaled the bluest of aristocratic blood.
Once his brother wandered into his chamber, Trent headed down the backstairs to the kitchens.
Mrs. Button, bless her heart, knew what he liked, and had left out a loaf of crusty bread, a slab of sharp cheddar, and a jar of her best tomato pickle.
He sat at the kitchen table and ate, listening to the even breathing of the knife boy curled in the corner of the warm room.
In the last few years, Cedric had lost a respectable fortune playing vingt-et-un, and been expelled from divinity school after he’d shot off the Bishop of Winchester’s miter at fifty paces. He was an excellent marksman and hadn’t harmed the bishop, but that didn’t excuse the escapade; he might have taken the man’s head off.
On the basis of that skill, Trent had purchased a commission for him in the Queen’s Regiment of Light Dragoons—a waste of money, for within the year Cedric was unceremoniously discharged for drunkenness and sent home.
That led Trent to thinking about what it would be like once Cedric married and moved to another house.
He reckoned it would be heaven.
Pure heaven.
But . . . not if Cedric’s wife was Miss Merry Pelford, American from Boston.
Chapter Six
Trent woke the next morning with a devil of a headache and an even worse temper. Merry Pelford was in love with his brother.
The end.
Full stop.
It was just as well he was going to Wales. For one thing, he shouldn’t think of her as “Merry,” although she had given her permission. She belonged to his brother, and he had to stop thinking of her altogether.
“The traveling coach has been made ready, Your Grace,” his valet informed him, as Trent was toweling himself off after bathing.
He nodded. “Tell Woods I’ve one errand in London first, and I’ll go from there to the Holyhead Road. No need to tire the horses with London streets; I’ll take a hackney.” He’d like to be off for Llanberis immediately, but there was one pressing item that he had to see to on his way out of the city.
Lord Malmsbury had a freehold apartment in the Albany, which Trent knew about because he’d tried in vain to interest his brother into moving into one of the sumptuous gentlemen’s apartments.
Trent had a vague idea that Malmsbury was in demand as a single gentleman. He was a doughy fellow who was all smiles, flattery, and pale eyes, just the sort whom Trent had no time for, the kind who made up the numbers at a dinner party and could be counted on to dance with one’s wallflower second cousin.
And who took a fondle of the girl’s rump as payment, apparently.
It wasn’t long before the hackney drew up in front of the Albany. He told the driver to keep the horses standing, as he wouldn’t be more than ten minutes, if that.
Cedric always complained that Trent had no manners, but Trent reckoned he had just enough. Since he was polite, he waited until Lord Malmsbury’s man left the room before he pulled off his coat.
“Your Grace?” Malmsbury stuttered, as Trent tossed the coat onto a chair.
Trent strode forward, caught the rogue by his neck cloth, and slammed him against the wall. “I gather that you amuse yourself by touching young ladies in ways unbecoming to a gentleman.”
“Never!” Malmsbury gasped.
“You never groped a woman, let’s say, at Lady Portmeadow’s ball last night?”
The man’s eyes shifted; Merry was right about him. Trent slammed him against the wall once more.
Malmsbury said something unintelligible, but then, it’s hard to make yourself clear when your air is cut off.
“You’re developing quite a reputation for pinching young women, you disgusting bucket of lard,” Trent stated. He let Malmsbury drop to the ground.
Things got no better once the man found his voice; he started spluttering something about how Elisabeth Debbledon was no better than she should be. Debbledon? Trent knew of his advances upon Merry and the swooning Miss Cernay. Miss Debbledon made it three ladies in one night . . . at least.
Trent’s fist smashed into Malmsbury’s jaw, spinning the man about and sending him into the wall with a thud. Trent leaned in. “If you ever again touch any lady—no, any woman—who isn’t your wife, you may expect another visit from me.”
“I don’t have a wife!” Malmsbury squealed, clutching his jaw, where a red patch signaled a bruise to come.
“Then you have no one to grope, have you?”
Somewhere in the back of his mind, Trent was surprised by the way he was responding to the idea that this scoundrel had touched Merry.
But mostly he was enjoying himself.
“If I even see you within ten yards of Miss Pelford, I’ll find you and I’ll touch you, Malmsbury. After which, you’ll be singing soprano, if you understand me. Men never touch ladies without permission.” He bared his teeth like a feral dog. “I shouldn’t have to teach you that lesson.”
“I won’t touch her,” Malmsbury blubbered. “I won’t touch her. I never touched her.”
“Good,” Trent stated, pulling down the cuffs of his linen shirt. He retrieved his coat and shrugged it back on. If he adhered to Cedric’s ideas of fashion, he would never have been able to land a punch like that, because his coat would have been too tight to remove without a valet’s help.
Malmsbury had his hand cupped over his jaw and was taking in sobbing gasps. A young maid entered with a tray holding glasses an
d a decanter and stopped, mouth hanging open.
“I don’t have time for a drink,” Trent said as he passed her. “But thank you nonetheless.”
He paused at the door, and looked back at Malmsbury. “If I ever hear that a woman has been pinched on the ballroom floor or anywhere else, I shall know whom to look for.”
“I haven’t.” His voice came out in a ragged whine. “Damme, you’ve broken my jaw!”
The maidservant didn’t say a word, but the satisfaction on her face was unmistakable.
Trent couldn’t think of any real reason to tell Merry about what had just happened, but he found himself directing the hackney to the Pelford residence in Portman Square anyway.
He had the idea that Mrs. Pelford had been affronted by his manner the night before. The sight of Merry on his brother’s arm had been a blow; he’d barely stopped himself from ripping her away. But he refused to play out some childish competition with his brother.
He would stop by the Pelfords and clarify to everyone concerned that he was very happy that Cedric had found such a lovely woman to marry. He might as well inform his future sister-in-law that Malmsbury would never again offer her the smallest affront.
What’s more, he had made up his mind that Merry must take back the ring. For one thing, the estate was thriving and he could easily afford to buy his future wife a brand-new ring.
And for another, Cedric was indisputably right. The late duchess had adored her younger son, and she would have been happy to see her ring on Cedric’s wife’s finger.
His mother’s blatant partiality had caused him some pain during his childhood, but from this distance, he had decided that her favoritism had been a positive thing. It taught him early not to be dependent on a woman.
That lesson would enable him to use rational criteria to choose a wife. Obviously, he had responded so strongly to Merry because it was time to marry; he and Cedric were once again in tandem.