Page 2 of A Scandalous Kind of Duke

“Don’t you have people to do that for you?” Hadrian asked, pausing his prowling just long enough to watch Leo pry a plank off the crate and toss it aside. “You have staff in there—” He waved at the doorway to the main office of the Dammerton Foundation, where the director and two clerks were pretending to ignore their employer rampaging through the box room with a crowbar and no coat. “Shouldn’t they be in here working up a sweat instead of you?”

“I never work up a sweat,” Leo said absently. “Sweating is for horses and gamblers, and I am neither. Besides…” He spun the crowbar in his hand. “Nothing like tearing open crates full of decorative objects to work off a mood.”

“Most men work off a mood by boxing. Only you would chooseunboxing. What’s with the mood?”

“Odd day, I suppose.”

He levered up the second plank. With his bare hand, he ripped it off and dropped it onto the floor beside its friend. The crowbar soon clattered down beside them.

“And I have people to do things I don’t enjoy doing myself,” he added. “Opening boxes is something I enjoy very much.”

Packing straw frothed up out of the newly opened crate, just begging him to plunge in his hands and uncover the treasure within. Leo rolled up his sleeves, slowly,slowly—anticipation was to be savored like an aged scotch—then in he dived, fingers venturing through the prickly straw to identify the prize: intricately carved wood. He eased the item out and raised it, reverently, hopefully. It was a bookend, beautifully weighted, scrolls and curlicues carved from gleaming walnut.

“Pretty,” Hadrian said, obviously humoring him.

Leo deflated with a sigh. “It’s skillfully carved, but the design is ordinary. Uninspired. Unremarkable.”

Remarkable—that was what he craved. A decorative object that made his breath hitch and his eyes linger, that made his insides ripple with excitement and his imagination spark to life.

Such finds seemed to be rare these days, though he supposed they had always been few and far between. He used to hunt down the treasures himself, inspecting goods at markets and fairs across Britain, talking to locals, following clues—to a hut where a former soldier carved whimsical figurines, to a cottage where a widow embroidered birds that seemed to fly off the cushions, to the backroom of a print shop where the blind son of a bookseller tinkered with ornate clocks.

Now the treasures came to him. Word had spread of the Dammerton Foundation and, uninvited, artisans had taken to sending samples in the hope of securing a grant. Leo admired their initiative, but it wasn’t the same.

He nestled the bookend back in the straw with a pang of regret. Its maker had packed their hopes in there too. A grant from the Dammerton Foundation could make all the difference to a workshop. If only he could do more.

Once more his limbs tensed with the restlessness, the agitation, thesomethingthat had plagued him ever since that morning’s meeting about his finances.

Ever since his decision.

Leo straightened and waved the crowbar at the remaining crates. They seemed to perk up at his attention, like ladies at an assembly with a shortage of men.

“There should be an inventory on the table,” he said to Hadrian, who was peering out the window.

“Hmm?”

Turning, Hadrian scrubbed a hand over his closely cropped hair. Daylight stumbled over the scar twisting his lower lip, which Leo still wasn’t used to. It was good to have his friend back in London after nearly a decade at the embassy in Vienna, but time had changed him. Once earnest and studious, Hadrian Bell had acquired a cynical, watchful air.

Well, time did tend to change a person. Leo was certainly no longer the same as when he last saw his friend.

“Inventory,” Leo repeated, gesturing at the papers on the table. “Should say where these crates came from.”

Hadrian shuffled through the pages. “What does the inventory look like?”

“It’s a list. It’ll look as dull and vexing as every other infernal list.”

“There are four lists here.”

“Of course there are,” Leo muttered. “The bloody things pop up like mushrooms.”

Leo hired people to organize his life, and they punished him for it with countless lists. Countless to him, anyway. His clerks probably counted them eagerly, giggling while they dreamed up more of the wretched things.

Hadrian scanned a page. “This list is not an inventory, but an accounting of the costs of expanding the Dammerton Foundation and whether you can afford it.” He looked up. “Apparently, you cannot afford it. You’re not broke, are you?”

Leo levered the crowbar under the top of another crate. Nails tore through wood with a satisfying crunch. “No. But I need a large lump sum to expand the Foundation, and they tell me I have a big hole where the money should be.”

“Too many pretty waistcoats?”

“Too many divorces. I gave Erika back her dowry. It was a very substantial sum, as my man of affairs reminded me with a tear in his eye.”

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