Page 24 of To Defend a Damaged Duke
“I’ve taken the liberty of hurrying things along, Tommy,” the earl explained, sounding as if he was apologising for rushing an afternoon pot of tea before it had properly stewed.“The company here isn’t to my liking.And my dear Angel will be wondering where the devil I am if I don’t reappear soon.”
Good lord above.Blowing out an exasperated breath, Tommy shook his head.He stared at the blade hovering a hair’s breadth from the woman’s wildly beating pulse.“Which bit of ‘stand behind me and stay silent’ did you fail to grasp, Lordy?”
Rossingley beamed at him.“The entirety.”
“I preferred you during your melancholic era.”
With another grin, eliciting a short hiccupping squeal from Ma Duggan, Rossingley hitched the blade even closer, his arm winding tighter.“I daresay the lady of the house would agree with you, Tommy.If she could speak.”He raised his voice again.“And she would be able to—she would be able to speak freely if I didn’t have your lethal switchblade against her throat and a thirst to change the colour of this hideous carpet from green to red.”
“You’re bluffing,” she wheezed, eyes bulging with terror.“You wouldn’t dare.”
The knife hitched higher, and as the flattened blade flashed, a thin trickle of blood oozed from the tip.
“Oops.”Rossingley made a sound very much like a giggle.“Shall I do that again?Or maybe half an inch to the left this time?”
The door crashed wide.A white-faced Dickie Duggan charged through it, skidding to a halt at the sight of his mother in Rossingley’s grip.
“Get your filthy hands off her!”
“If it’s all the same to you, I shall remain as I am.We’re having such a lovely cuddle, aren’t we, Mrs Duggan?”Rossingley tutted.“Dear, oh dear, Dickie.Someone’s been a naughty boy.”
“Tommy,” Dickie beseeched, his ashen features slack and wobbling.“Tell this madman to stop.”
Tommy shook his head.He hadn’t clapped eyes on Dickie for years, and suffice to say, the man’s youthful good looks had gone the way of the original White Hart.Judging by his greyish complexion, he was no stranger to the laudanum bottle either.Tommy could have felled him with one blow, never mind a switchblade.
Wrapped around Dickie’s mother like a lover, Rossingley grinned wolfishly.If Dickie resembled a grubby ageing cherub, the earl was the devil incarnate, packaged as a daydream.
“Listening at doors, sir, is a fruitful pastime,” Rossingley drawled.“One I’m quite partial to myself.However, a word of warning.One will eventually overhear what one deserves.”He twisted the knife a little harder, piercing the soft flesh in a fresh spot.Ma Duggan looked on the verge of a dead faint.“Now, if you would be so kind, sir, I’d like you to explain why on God’s green earth you thought you might get away with blackmailing Tommy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.Let her go.”
“I told you not to drag Tommy into this,” Ma Duggan squawked.“I knew no good would come of sending that bloody note!”
Rossingley sighed, long and drawn out as though suddenly weary of the whole thing.His grip slackened a fraction.“Dickie, poppet,” he said.“May I call you Dickie?Or are you a Richard?”He cocked his head.“No, I don’t think you are.Another piece of advice, Dickie, and then I shall leave you at the mercy of maternal wrath.A mother’s wisdom may not be what youwantto hear, but is, more often than not, what a son needs to hear.”
And with that, he pushed Ma Duggan and her idiot son aside and, towing Tommy in his wake, sauntered from the room.
Chapter Twelve
A WEEK DRAGGEDby, and no blackmail request was forthcoming.An endless seven days passed, during which Benedict physically resembled the fourteenth Duke of Ashington and even managed to act in a manner befitting the fourteenth Duke of Ashington.In that regard, he was fortunate: his reputation for being a reserved, dreary sort of fellow set the expectations of others comfortingly low.As long as he laboured over his daily ducal affairs, sequestered in his second study, and showed an interest in his thoroughbreds, then he could probably declare a yearning desire to train as a hosier, open a shop on New Bond Street, and no one would pay heed.
When, following his recent day out at Tattersall’s, Francis expressed an interest in cheering on Ganymede racing in the Ashington colours at Epsom, Benedict agreed to tag along.Anything to divert from the draining, frozen panic constricting his lungs.
The expedition turned out to be well worth the effort.Proving that some good could be unearthed during even the worst of times, Ganymede cantered home in first place, Ashington black silks billowing out at least four lengths ahead of the rest.And Francis’s genial smile always made Benedict’s world a little less cold.
He comforted himself with those twin small mercies as his victorious horse was washed and rubbed down before being brought to where Benedict loitered inside the winner’s enclosure, awaiting the dreaded congratulations of all and sundry.As if he’d ridden the thing himself, as if his victory had nothing at all to do with having inherited more blunt than anyone else to throw at his damned hobby.He expressed as much to Francis after smiling at so many people his jaw ached.
“Oh, shush,” admonished his brother.“Plenty of rich folks about here boast stables at least as fine as yours.”He waved happily to a small group of well-wishers, nudging Benedict to do the same.“You are too modest regarding your accomplishments.”He gave his brother a sidelong glance.“Too modest about most things, come to that.”
“I have much to be modest about,” Benedict muttered, and he busied himself with an invisible knot in Ganymede’s sleek mane.If he involved himself in activity, then perhaps Ganymede’s army of devotees might keep their distance.It wasn’t that Benedict didn’tlikepeople; it was more a question of people not especially warming to him and him never knowing what to say to fill an awkward silence.
Francis did not share his problem, waving again, like a bloody daisy in the breeze, at another group.One of his chums beckoned him across.His brother really was awfully popular, blessed with Benedict’s portion of merry disposition as well as his own.As they petted Ganymede, side by side, Benedict felt increasingly akin to a raincloud shadowing the sun.He jerked his head in the direction of Francis’s friends.
“Go and join them,” he said.“Have some fun.The next race starts in twenty minutes.Place a wager on that promising three-year-old roan for me.The clay soil is perfect for him.”
Francis trotted off, his and his friends’ raucous laughter becoming fainter the farther they wandered from the winner’s enclosure.Blessedly alone, Benedict whispered soothing gibberish in his horse’s ear.He pondered how long he could get away with seeming to be occupied before someone was brave enough to engage him in conversation.
Tranquil as autumn leaves, Ganymede nosed at a pile of hay.Only half an hour earlier, he’d eaten up the two-mile steeplechase faster than a blizzard descending.Hard to believe looking at him now.No longer blowing and his legs wrapped in cooling poultices, the horse was oblivious to his admirers gathered in the parade ring.Briefly, Benedict rested his cheek against the creature’s damp shoulder, promised him he was his special pomegranate (amongst other similar nonsense), then listened to his heartbeat, now slowed to a placidlub dub.
