Page 7 of Whiskers and Wiles

Waldorf left, feeling a bit sorry for his uncle. He didn’t truly like the man, but he didn’t wish any ill on him either. Swithin was his beloved, late mother’s brother, and for her sake, he wanted to help the man get his way.

Part of that mission meant rushing to inform some of his fellows in the Badger Society about the astounding turn of events.

The Badger Society had existed for ages, long before Waldorf was born, let alone before he joined. It was highly secretive, especially when it came to who had founded the society—Waldorf’s money was on Cromwell himself—and about who was currently the leader of the society. As with many secret societies, it was all about symbols and codes. The unfashionable whiskers were just one symbol. The black and white handkerchief he carried with him was another.

The Badger Society had its headquarters in a small building that masqueraded as a hotel on the north side of Hyde Park. That was where Waldorf intended to go straight away, to inform his brothers in the group of the startling new development. But before he could so much as collect his hat, cane, and jacket from the footman in the embassy’s front hall, he ran straight into his father, Lord Gerald Godwin, Duke of Amesbury.

“Ah. Waldorf. There you are,” his father said, shuffling forward from the side parlor where he’d evidently been waiting.

Waldorf huffed out a breath, then turned to his father with a tight smile. “Father,” he said, putting on his coat in the hope it would signal to his father that he had more important things to do.

“Freddy, fetch my coat as well,” his father asked the footman. “It appears as though my son is going out for some air, and I will join him.”

Waldorf clenched his jaw. “I have business, Father.”

His father shrugged. “Lovely. I’ll accompany you on your business and we can discuss mine.”

“Your business?” Waldorf asked, dreading what that might be.

He didn’t receive his answer until his father’s coat had been fetched, and until he’d been helped into it by the footman. There was nothing to do at that point but to leave the embassy at his father’s side.

“Now,” Lord Gerald said as the two of them walked down the embassy’s stairs and headed toward Hyde Park at a much slower pace than Waldorf would have liked. He was relying on his cane more and more of late, which made Waldorf wonder if his father’s assertions that he was nearing the end of his life were actually true after all. “Tell me what you think of your brother and your cousin’s new wives.”

Waldorf scowled. He had half a mind to pick up his pace and leave his father behind. The only problem with that was that if his father truly was growing feeble, he would be a complete louse for abandoning him. The man wasn’t asking for his opinion about his kinsmen’s wives either. He was asking why Waldorf had made so little progress finding a wife of his own.

The answer to that question was bitterly obvious.

“I like them well enough,” he said gruffly. He nodded to a gentleman on the other side of the street with whiskers as big as his own, assuming he was a member of the Badgers. Not all of the Badgers knew each other, but that was part of the nature of the secret society.

“They have friends, you know,” his father went on.

“Yes, I assume that all women have friends,” Waldorf grumbled.

“You misunderstand,” his father said as they crossed the street into Hyde Park proper. “Cedric’s and Alden’s wives have friends whom you know.”

Waldorf sighed and rubbed his free hand over his face. “We have discussed this before, Father,” he said. “Lady Katherine is a shrew who wronged me. That our paths have recently begun to cross again is of no consequence.”

“You were an impetuous, young arse,” Lord Gerald barked, startling a pair of young ladies promenading through the park as he did. “You stupidly took the word of a coward and believed a good woman was false. You’ve spent the last twenty years of your life suffering from your pride because of it.”

Waldorf paused and pivoted to face his father. “I’ve spent the last twenty years of my life in service to Britannia,” he growled in a low voice, conscious of who might overhear. “Are you not pleased with that?”

“Yes, very pleased,” Lord Gerald said. “And now I want you to right the wrongs of the past and marry the woman you should have married all along.” He sniffed and added, “You should be a grandfather by now. I should be a great-grandfather. And I would be too, if not for the curse.”

Waldorf huffed impatiently. The bloody Curse of Godwin Castle. It was the reason his father now had a bee in his bonnet about forcing his sons and nephews to marry. It was the reason Cedric and Alden were both wed now, both with babies on the way as well.

“I do not believe in the curse, Father,” Waldorf insisted.

“Blasphemy!” his father gasped, very much the way Lord Jeremy had balked at the idea of Mercian women returning to goddess worship. “The curse is real.”

“It is not,” Waldorf said. “If it were, greater calamities would have befallen me by now.”

“Great calamitieshavebefallen you,” Lord Gerald insisted. “Though if you ask me, those were all your own damn fault.”

“I’ve had enough of this, Father,” Waldorf said, turning away and walking on. “I have very important business to attend to.I do not have time to debate an imaginary curse that brings misfortune to our family. It is silly. Curses do not exist. Nothing bad is going to happen to me if?—”

Waldorf stopped dead, blinking at the specter that had just appeared before him. In his haste to get away from his father, he’d charged on and nearly barreled headlong into Lady Kat herself.

Two

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