Page 2 of Dukes for Dessert

Time to tip his hat and walk away. Except David couldn’t find his hat. Blast it all, he hated to lose it—it was a fine piece of headgear.

He heard another bellow, and damned if Griffin wasn’t coming at him again.

How the devil had he let himself be talked into this duel, of all things?

He’d been drunk, that was how. Drunk, weary, and bored, and decided shooting at Griffin would be good fun. But now he was aching and wanted to go home.

David sidestepped as Griffin lunged at him, got the man in a headlock and tidily flipped him onto his back. He’d learned that move from Hart Mackenzie—after Hart had done it to him.

Griffin cursed and howled. Griffin’s friends, cretins, the lot of them, decided David was being unfair, and as one, they threw themselves at him. David went down in a scrum, blows landing on his face, back, arms, his ribs creaking as boots connected with his side.

Above the shouting and swearing came the shrill, piercing whistles of Peelers with arrests on their minds.

The men jerked upright and then dispersed, bolting into the mists. Even Pickering and the older gentleman deserted David, leaving him to the mad rush of dark-suited, helmeted men who pounded toward him.

A muscular arm hauled David to his feet. “You’re under arrest, sir,” the bobby told him cheerfully. “Causing a disturbance and discharging a firearm.”

“If you’ll note, constable, my firearm wasn’t discharged,” David began, but the words slurred into nothing as the constable closed a metal cuff around his wrist.

As jails went, it was not too bad, David decided. The lockup on Marylebone Road consisted of one small room where the arrests of the night waited for the magistrate’s decisions in the morning. David had commandeered a place by the wall, bribing the inhabitants to not steal every piece of clothing on his body by parting with all the coins in his purse. His watch would be next. A man with only one eye kept that eye on it.

The place stank and was filthy, the bodies of sleeping men heaped on the floor. Vermin scratched in dark corners. But at least there was a window, high above, that let them know the sun had fully risen.

Any request that word be taken to David’s solicitor, his valet, his very good friend the Duke of Kilmorgan—or even a random person in the street—had been ignored. The constables who’d dragged him from the park had pushed David in with the other arrests of the night and left him. Now here he lay.

Did the bottom of the slope feel like this?

David’s head pounded, his throat was on fire, and his stomach roiled. All he wanted was more whisky to soothe the pain. That and a soft bed, a beautiful woman, and perhaps a cigar.

No, the thought of smoke brought on more nausea. He’d leave the cigar until he felt better.

The door creaked. “Mr. Fleming!” The turnkey bellowed the name without interest.

David climbed painfully to his feet. “Here I am, my good fellow. Have you brought my breakfast?”

A few of the inmates guffawed. “Aye, fetch me a mess of bangers and a bucket of coffee,” one croaked.

The turnkey ignored them, his balefulness all for David. “Come on, you.”

A bit early to see the magistrate, David mused, though perhaps the man wanted to make a start on his cases for the day. Thieves of apples, handkerchiefs, and children’s clothes; ladies selling favors; and David.

He followed the turnkey through a dank passage to a larger room that was empty but for a table and chair. A burly constable joined them and pushed David into the seat.

“Thank you, sir,” David said to the turnkey. “Kind of you to show me to my parlor.”

“Shut it,” the constable said as the turnkey growled and left them. “When the Super comes, you be respectful.”

“Superintendent, is he?” David said. “My, I am moving in high circles now.”

The constable hit him. A blow across the mouth, not hard enough to draw blood, but enough to make David’s head rock back. “I said, shut it.”

David heaved an aggrieved sigh. He held up his hands as the constable bunched his fist again, and made the motion of turning a key over his lips.

The door opened once more to admit a tall man. David’s first instinct was to rise, because the gentleman who entered was one of distinction, but the constable’s warning glare kept him to his seat.

Hazel eyes in a hard face met David’s, hair that was just touched with red glinted in the bad light. He had the height, the build, and the manner of Hart Mackenzie, the Duke of Kilmorgan, but he wasn’t Hart. It was his half-brother, Detective Superintendent Lloyd Fellows.

David relaxed in relief until he saw the frost in Fellows’s gaze.