Page 20 of To Defend a Damaged Duke
“Both of us.”Tommy glared at him.“His…His Grace has suffered enough for the natural instincts he was born with.He can no more help them than you or I.I would be furious on anyone’s behalf.”
“Do keep on telling yourself that, darling.I so enjoy a good yarn.”
“I don’t even know him anymore!”Tommy spluttered.“Why should I want to trouble myself for him?Why am I pacing the floor every minute of the day bloodyfrettingabout him?”
“Because,” explained Rossingley as if patiently elucidating to a small child, “a long time ago, that distressed handsome duke opened up a pocket of sunshine in your heart.And you in his.And even someone as boneheaded as you has noticed that in the intervening years, neither of you has stumbled across anyone else who has managed to do the same.”A loud crunching followed this pronouncement.“When you know, you know.And now, your mate is in danger.Your body is sensing it and reacting accordingly, even if your head is taking a while to catch up.”
Mate?Tommy wasn’t a bloody sailor, nor a lone wolf.“Poppycock,” he declared.
Placidly, Rossingley nodded.“There are cocks involved, Tommy, I’ll grant you that.”He rolled his sweet wrapper into a tight ball.“Are you going to sit here all day, wasting your breath and denying the undeniable, or go out and find this fiend determined to bring you both down?”
Rossingley was far too clever to ask questions he didn’t already know the answers to.Tommy pushed his chair back, then stood and hefted on his greatcoat.
“His Grace’s reticule might be overflowing with smelling salts at the idea of extortion, but if this fiend thinks Tommy Squire is going to lie back and quiver like a virgin bride on her wedding night whilst they destroy his business and reputation, they can damned well think again.”
“Oh my.”The earl flapped his hand again.“Even better than a duke in danger.Continue clenching your fists like that, darling, and I may succumb to a fit of the vapours myself.What do you plan to do?”
“Track them down, scare the living daylights out of them, and make them regret their mother had ever given them breath.”He held up a finger as the earl began flapping again.“And do not, at this juncture, Lordy, invoke your juices again.”
Tommy gathered up his ledger, snapped it shut, then locked it in the desk drawer.“Are you in the mood for a trip down memory lane, Lordy?”
He prayed Rossingley would answer in the affirmative.For all his fighting talk, revisiting his past life made Tommy queasy.Moral support from a devout and unaffected friend would make it all the more tolerable.
With a beatific smile, Rossingley palmed another barley sugar.“Gadzooks, darling.I thought you’d never ask.”
*
“ISN’T THE WHITEHart nothing but a sad pile of cinders, these days?”queried Rossingley as the carriage trundled through the less salubrious parts of town.
Tommy threw him a humourless smile.“Yes, it burned down in 1816.”
In general, he avoided these parts of the stews like the pox; they stirred up too many traumatic memories.And too much heartache.Yet, thanks to his soft heart and a damnedduke in distress, here he was again.“A lit candle became caught up in a tussle between a feisty young molly named Fox and a foxed madge who should have known better than to short-change him.”
Tommy grimaced as he stared out of the window.Charred remains of three men had been unearthed from the rubble: a sixteen-year-old regimental drummer, a grocer with premises on New Road (who went by the name Miss Sweet Lips), and an ordained minister with whom Tommy had occasionally shared a bed.History did not remember them with kindness.
With Tommy’s soft heart still oscillating between shedding tears for the three unfortunates and clenching in trepidation, the earl’s ostentatious carriage drew to a halt on the corner of Vere Street.He forced himself to look at the land, now derelict, upon which the thriving White Hart once stood.
“We’re here,” Tommy said unnecessarily, working his tongue around his dry mouth.And then, because Lordy missed nothing, “How the devil does this pile of rubble still reduce me to a damp, shaky sack of fear?”
The earl peered up at their destination—the forlorn building adjacent—seemingly unoccupied and thereby drawing as little attention to its true purpose as possible.“I suggest you try to focus on remembering the good times,” he murmured, finding Tommy’s hand and giving it a squeeze.“Though I’m sure they were few and far between.”
Images of the Duke of Ashington flooded Tommy’s mind, but as he was then—a long-limbed, laughing raven-haired youth.That youth was deeply buried now if the severe duke’s haunted, miserable demeanour on his last visit was anything to go by.He’d seemed uncertain and afraid.Alone.A person I once held more dearly in my heart than anyone else.
Tommy returned the squeeze.“Perhaps that’s why, in my memory, they were all the sweeter.”
“Perhaps,” agreed Rossingley, turning his attention back to the window.“Or perhaps you and he were written in the stars.”
“And then written to part dramatically and never the twain meet again,” said Tommy drily.“Destiny is a vicious mistress, is she not?”He jerked his chin towards the door.“Shall we?”
Few people were about at this time of the morning, either toiling elsewhere, trying to scavenge enough blunt to put food on the table, or in their cots sleeping off the excesses of the night before.If the clacking wheels of the hoity-toity carriage hadn’t roused them from their pits and set window drapes twitching, the earl’s costume, a headache-inducing lavender, certainly would.
Though capable in a fight, Tommy’s preferred tactic was to avoid them altogether.Given there were plenty to be had in these parts, and he’d been embroiled in enough to last several lifetimes, he’d had the foresight to bring burly Sidney along.Up above them on the driver’s bench, Tommy heard him pointing out what was left of the ruined White Hart to the earl’s groom.
Rossingley gave Tommy’s hand another squeeze.“Are we using the element of surprise?Is our devious plan to creep up on them?”
Full of enthusiasm—and possibly one barley sugar too many—he’d chattered non-stop since they’d set off.No wonder his long-suffering valet usually demanded to sit up top with the groom.Nonetheless, Tommy had been grateful for the distraction.
“Hardly,” he answered.“A crested coach and four rather trumpets one’s arrival in these parts.”
