Page 17 of Dukes for Dessert

David backed another step. “Very well, I’ll horsewhip myself instead. But I’ll do it in London. Good day, Miss Tierney.”

He grabbed the cap that had fallen to the wet grass and jammed it on his head, then turned his back and walked away.

Sophie wanted very much to run after him, wrap her arms around him, demand that he stay, beg him if she must. To behave like a needy and wanton woman, pleading for his touch.

If she did so, she suspected David would throw her off and keep marching. She’d have to watch him go, he so obviously regretting the kiss.

Sophie’s loneliness, hurt, and rage at Laurie for his nastiness, for his rejection, welled up until it burst. She’d been priding herself on keeping her emotions well hidden, but David’s kiss had loosened them, and her fury poured forth like a pent-up geyser.

“Blackguard!” she shouted. “Run away. Desert your friends. I don’t care.”

David turned, his anger just as high. “I am a blackguard. Tell your uncle I am gone.”

“Tell him yourself.” Sophie paused. “Do you mean you are leaving for London now?”

“On the moment.” David resumed his swift walk, heading across the fields to the road.

“Do you intend to march all the way there?” she yelled after him.

“To the train.” He gestured ahead of him. “In the village.”

“The village is that way.” Sophie pointed in the other direction.

“Damnation.” David glared where she indicated and began to stride on that course.

“What about your things?” Sophie cupped her hands around her mouth. “Or shall I have Uncle throw them out the window?”

“He can chuck away whatever he likes.” David didn’t slow, continuing his stride toward the village, out of her life.

“Go then,” she shouted. “I hope I never see you again, you horrible man!”

His only response was a wave.

David’s tall figure blurred into the landscape as Sophie’s eyes filled with hot tears. Her breath caught on a sob, and then she let the tears come, weeping until her body shook. There was none to see her cry but the sheep and the rabbits, and they didn’t seem to mind.

The Smoke. London was aptly named, David reflected as the train carried him past belching chimneys under a dark gray sky.

In February the town was full, the social and political season having well commenced. Men shouted at each other in the neo-Gothic Houses of Parliament, and hostesses sparred with politicians’ wives at soirees and supper balls that were as much about power as any debate in the Houses.

David at one time had reveled in the game. He’d been on his feet in Commons, shouting down his opposition during the day, seducing the opposition’s wives at night. David was a prime player, with his own circle of toadies, at the same time he was Hart Mackenzie’s right-hand man. He and Hart had torn up Town between them. Not much had happened in London without their knowledge and say-so.

Or so it had been. David knew his days of scheming with Hart as they consumed cigars and whisky in the presence of elegant and skilled ladies were past. Hart continued to harass his foes in the House of Lords as Duke of Kilmorgan but now went home to his wife and children to bask in domestic bliss.

Not that Hart’s wife wasn’t the grandest hostess in Britain. Her gatherings were designed not only to assist Hart with his machinations but also to delight and astonish. Eleanor’s parties were legendary.

David had been avoiding her gatherings lately, as he’d been avoiding everything else in his life.

He descended at Euston Station and took a hansom south and along the Strand to the Temple. In Middle Temple, in a tiny square called Essex Court, David rang the bell of a neat house. He had an appointment and was readily admitted.

Not long later, he sat in a comfortable chair sipping excellent whisky and facing a tall Scotsman with very fair hair and penetrating gray eyes.

“Doesn’t look good for you,” Sinclair McBride announced. “Griffin is raging about you all over London. His uncle is calling to have you detained in Newgate, though we have persuaded him that you are under house arrest in Shropshire.” Sinclair’s gaze sharpened. “Yet, here you are.”

“Things to see to.” David reclined lazily, sipping Mackenzie malt Hart and Ian supplied to Sinclair, as the man was now part of the family. “People to look up.”

“Your solicitor should be here—at all meetings you have with me,” Sinclair said firmly.

“Hated to bother the old chap. I keep him busy enough as it is. So, you will defend me? Even though your practice is mostly prosecution?”