Page 2 of Never a Duke
Ned tapped his top hat onto his head. “You’re jealous because I have a mystery to solve.” He tilted the hat an inch to the left, a nod to his bachelor status.
“I fear for your life and you insult me. Take the dog. The lads are walking him for me.”
“The lads are doubtless spoiling the beast rotten and neglecting their duties.” Bickering with Stephen was an old habit though no longer the pleasure it had once been.
Stephen held his forearm to his brow. “Not neglecting their duties! Heaven forefend small boys should get some fresh air on a fine day. Clap me in irons for corrupting the morals of a lot of budding thieves and pickpockets! Summon the beadle!”
Ned extracted another monogrammed handkerchief from a desk drawer and folded it into his pocket. “They aren’t budding thieves or pickpockets anymore. Will I see you at supper tomorrow?”
Once a month, Ned endured supper with Stephen and his ducal brother at their club. The agenda was a combination of bank business and family tattle, though Ned had only a small ownership interest in the bank, and wasn’t family in any biological sense.
“Her Grace will fret if her menfolk neglect their monthly supper,” Stephen said, pushing to his feet. “I could go to the park in your place, Neddy.”
“The note was sent specifically to me.” Why? By whom? A lady fallen on hard times could have had Ned quietly call upon her at home, a service conscientious bankers routinely performed for valued customers.
Stephen took up his second walking stick. “Abigail says you need a wife.”
“As it happens, she’s right.”
Dark brows rose. “You admit that holy matrimony would enhance your happiness?”
Stephen apparently intended to see personally that Ned took the dratted dog to the park.
“I admit that I am of age and of independent means. The next move up the ladder of respectability is to make an advantageous match.”
They quit the office, though Stephen’s limitations meant their progress down the carpeted corridor was decorous.
“You make marriage sound like a step in the quadrille of social advancement,” Stephen said. “That’s not how it’s supposed to be. And stop dawdling. My latest knee brace is the best of the lot so far, but I think ball bearings will improve it further still.”
Stephen strode ahead, and Ned wanted to swat him with his walking stick. For as long as they’d known each other—well over a decade—Stephen had been troubled by a bad knee. He still used two canes, but his recent creation of braces for the knee meant he also moved more freely and suffered much less pain.
These developments were cause for general rejoicing, though Ned was honest enough with himself to admit to some resentment as well. One advantage he’d always had over Stephen was nimbleness. Petty, to look for ways to put himself above another man, but Ned had been a boy when he’d met the Wentworths, a convicted felon awaiting transportation.
Advantages and disadvantages could be the difference between life and death, and that was not a lesson Ned would ever forget.
“I’ll have the lads deliver Hercules to you before dark,” Ned said, for it was bank policy that the boys were in their dormitory by sunset. Their presence on bank premises protected the property, and denying the boys access to the streets after dark protected them too.
The better to entertain them, they were also subjected to two hours of lessons after supper. Since Ned had instituted that routine, he’d had much less trouble with boys sneaking out at night. That the lessons always ended with the tutor reading a rousing story or myth was merest coincidence.
“Will Arthurdo, Neddy?” Stephen asked, as they emerged from the bank’s side entrance.
Edward.My name is Edward Wentworth.Ned had had another name before being taken up for thievery as a child. A name he never spoke aloud.
“Time will tell,” he said, pulling on his gloves. “Artie is canny, has a memory that won’t quit, and has the knack of making the other lads laugh. I hope he stays.”
Ned hoped they all stayed, though too often, they didn’t. Achieving respectability was a long, hard, lonely climb, with many perils and endless temptations to lead a fellow astray.
One of the older messengers brought Hercules over from a patch of shade on the street corner.
“Watch out for our Neddy,” Lord Stephen instructed the dog. “He goes to rescue a damsel in distress.”
Or to put a silly woman in her place. Ned had little patience with spoiled society women, though he would always be polite to them. The terse note, though, had piqued his curiosity. He did not need money, he did not need another riding horse, or even a commodious home. His material wants were met to a degree that would have staggered his younger self.
So what could a wellborn lady have that would make troubling on her behalf worth Ned’s while? He gathered up the dog’s leash, bowed a farewell to Lord Stephen, and strode off for the park.
When he arrived, he was reminded of Burns’s admonition about the best-laid plans, for on the third bench along the bank of the Serpentine sat none other than Lady Rosalind Kinwood in all her prim, tidy glory.
She was a stranger to distress unless she was instigating it, and she was the furthest thing from a damsel. Her devotion to various causes was both articulate and unwavering. Her ladyship of course occupied the one bench in all of London she should not occupy at the one hour when Ned needed her to be elsewhere.
