Page 109

Aye, they did. Alistair nodded.

His friend took a deep breath and stepped back, straightening his shoulders and holding Thorne’s hat before him as if it were a shield. A wall of propriety once more firm between employer and employee, butler and duke.

“Very good, milord, Your Grace. I shall have tea brought to the parlor at once.”

“We’re waiting on two more,” Thorne pointed out hopefully. “Send them our way when they arrive, aye?”

Hiro bowed, then intoned, “At once, milord.”

He was overdoing it a bit, and Alistair had to grin as he jerked his chin for Thorne to follow him to the parlor.

Olivia was waiting for them, and as he entered the room, she turned from where she was staring out over the front street, a smile on her face.

And as always, his body reacted—viscerally—to her joy. As if her smile was entirely for him. Perhaps it was, Alistair reflected, as she crossed the room to take his hand. Perhaps it was.

Hauling her up against his side, he turned them both to Thorne. The other man bowed.

“Duchess, so good to see ye looking well. Yer husband says ye’re to blame for his recent batch of loquaciousness.”

“Yes,” she teased impishly, peeking up at him even as she pinched his side. “Entirely to blame. Completely loquacious.”

“Fooking brilliant!” squawked Hamish, from the other side of the room.

Alistair sighed. Oh good, the bird’s here.

He released Olivia and crossed the room, snapping his fingers at the parrot and gesturing. The damned thing seemed to take great joy in avoiding him, however, and jumped up on a small table, screeching “Invite the footman!” until Alistair managed finally to catch him.

Hamish settled atop his forearm as Alistair straightened with as much dignity as he could muster. Holding the bird in front of him he marched toward the door, ignoring the way Olivia giggled and Thorne smiled.

“Thank you, husband,” she called out. “We don’t need his commentary during this discussion. Although,” she confided in an aside to Thorne, “my idea is ‘fooking brilliant’ if I may say.”

As Thorne made a little choking noise, Alistair turned to glare at his wife. Not for her language, but for her assumption this plan was anything but morally ambiguous madness.

Since he was looking in their direction, he narrowly missed being brained by the door as it swung open. Hamish, in even more danger, squawked and flapped his wings as if determined to escape this new danger. Alistair, however, clamped down on him and met the eyes of a scarred monster of a man wearing what seemed to be a permanent scowl.

“Who in the fooking hell is this?” the stranger growled.

“His Grace, the Duke of Effinghell,” intoned Hiro, his eyes dancing with amusement. “And Hamish. Your Grace, the Duke of Lickwick. Your Grace, His Grace, Her Grace, Her Grace. Also Thorne.”

“Gracious.” The woman on Lickwick’s arm was pretty, in a refined sort of way. She was trying hard not to smile, and now offered a little nod. “Oh dear, this will get confusing fast, if we do not dispel with formalities. I am Georgia, and this is my husband, Demon.”

“Dinnae want to be a poof-nuggety duke anyhow,” the scarred man at her side mumbled. “Good to meet ye Effinghell. Now I can tell ye in person to stop writing me all that boffle-headed nonsense.”

His wife—Georgia—offered a kind smile. “He really is concerned about the plight of the working class, but has no interest in speaking for them in Lords.”

“Or speaking anywhere,” her husband grumbled. “Bad enough I’m here, aye?”

Stiffly, Alistair nodded and made a show of extracting Hamish from his arm and passing him off to Hiro.

“Shite ye naughty thing!” the bird squawked, startling the Duchess of Lickwick.

Hiro murmured an apology, then scolded Hamish. “Behave.”

“Jabber jabber, shut yer gobholes,” the bird tossed back at him.

From across the room, Thorne called out, “Tea perhaps, and rescue us from the beast, Hiro?”

The butler wisely refrained from saying anything else, and bowed his way out the door.