Page 5 of A Deal with a Rake (Wicked Widows’ League #35)

T avish exhaled several times, his hands covering his face. It had been five days since he’d walked out on his fight and the bare-knuckle championship. Five days since his brother informed him that he was the Duke of Summerset.

Bloody fecking hell .

This couldn’t be real. He was no duke. He was a fighter; that’s all he’d ever wanted to be. Since he was a boy, fighting had called to him. He wasn’t meant for drawing rooms and whatever the hell else they did in Mayfair.

His father had often laughed when someone mentioned that he was the heir to a dukedom.

Surely Summerset had sons, hadn’t he? The last he’d heard from his mother was that his father’s cousin had married a young chit a few years back.

No doubt she’d birthed some unfortunate looking child in the years they were married.

“We will go directly to the solicitor, Mr. Hughes, at once,” Declan announced from his seat across from Tavish in the expensive coach.

In the years since he’d last seen his younger brother, the other man had not changed much at all. He still had the same air of superiority he was born with. One would think he was the eldest of the six children, but that curse had befallen Tavish alone.

“I still haven’t decide if I want to be a fecking duke or not,” Tavish spit out as he sat back in the hired coach his brother had rented to forcibly bring them from Scotland to London.

“As I told you, you don’t have a choice, brother. We’ll lose everything. The club, the townhouse, everything,” Declan reminded him as the coach began the last leg of their journey to London.

Only a few more hours before his life changed completely. He chuckled to himself. Days ago, all Tavish cared about was getting revenge on The Butcher for killing Hammer. Now he was a damn duke? There had to be some sort of mistake.

Except, he knew there was no mistaking the connection between his family and the Summerset dukedom. It had always floated over them like a foreboding omen, reminding them that they were a part of the aristocracy and not the rogue Irishmen their father raised them to be.

As a child in Ireland, Tavish had not known of the family connection. He had no idea that his grandfather was the third son of a duke or that son after first born son had died from illness, war, or accident.

“Da never wanted the dukedom, so why should I?” he shouted, his anger taking over him. “I will fecking decide after I see Ma?—”

“Really?” Declan threw up his hands, glaring at Tavish. “Now you care about Ma? After being gone for five years with barely a letter. I should’ve known that you’d run away from your responsibility, like always?—”

Tavish threw a quick right hook, catching his brother in the jaw. “Don’t you fecking tell me about my responsibilities! I was never meant to be a damn gentleman’s club owner, and I’m not meant to be damn duke.”

Declan rubbed his jaw, his blue eyes wide. “Did you ever think that taking the dukedom from the very family that shunned Da would be the sweetest revenge Da could ever have?”

“Feck off! You and I both know that Da didn’t give a shit about revenge. The only thing he ever cared about was us and Ma.” Their father was a lot of things, but above all, he was a loving husband and father.

Growing up, Tavish heard horror stories of fathers who beat their families or had all together abandoned them, leaving them to starve or live on the street. Not Flynn O’Brien. He’d cared for his family above everything else in the world.

“Like it or not, you’re the fecking Duke of Summerset. Da died in debt. Becoming the duke is the only way to save our family. So I suggest we go to the fecking solicitor’s first.” Declan flexed his jaw. “Did you have to hit me?”

“Aye. I’ll keep hitting ya as long as you keep acting high and mighty.

I’m not you. I wasn’t meant to be respectable.

I’m a fighter!” Opening and closing his hand, Tavish peered down at his bruised knuckles.

He and his brothers spent most of their childhood fighting each other to bloody stumps, until their father threw them all into a ring.

Tavish was the only one of the five boys who took pure joy in fighting.

It gave him an outlet for all the anger that coursed through his veins since the moment he was born.

He’d never fit in anywhere, not even at home amongst his lively brood of brothers, his sister, and his cousin, Caitrin.

His little sister came long after he was already traveling the world, so he focused on becoming the best bare-knuckle boxer.

And he had nearly done it, until his damn brother came and ruined it all.

Throwing his head back against the weathered black leather seats, he tried not to think about his da. When they last parted, Tavish had thought he’d have all the time in the world to make things right between them.

Declan let out a weary sigh that Tavish could feel seeping through his own bones. “You were a fighter, but now we need you to be a duke or everything that Da worked for will be lost.” His brother bent forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “Is that what you want? For us to lose everything?”

Tavish had no words, no witty remark or timed insult.

He remembered his father fighting to provide for his growing family, saving every shilling to relocate them to London for a better life.

Those first years, they all had worked in the gentleman’s club in some compacity—cleaning, washing glasses, serving.

They did it all. It was a family business.

His father had spent years becoming his own man so that his children would have a legacy outside of the Summerset dukedom. Now that legacy depended on Tavish becoming the very same duke that his da despised

Bloody hell! This was a disaster.

“Fine, I’ll go to the solicitor first.” Tavish said, finally realizing that he had no choice.

There was nothing else for him to do, but to give up fighting. For his family, he would, for his mother, he’d give up his very life.

“Good.” Declan exhaled, and for the first time since he arrived, Tavish could tell that his brother was worried.

“How the feck am I supposed to be a duke and go to balls?” He laughed at the thought of ever being seen as a respectable gentleman.

He’d lived most of his life in a boxing ring, running away from respectability. It was the one thing his da wanted for all of his children, and the main reason the last time they spoke ended in anger.

“You’re the head of this family. All you have to do is claim the dukedom and remove Summerset’s widow.” He shrugged, like kicking a widow out of her home was nothing. “She’s still living in the townhouse like she owns it,” his brother spit out in disgust.

“How do you know the widow isn’t carrying Summerset’s child? She’s young, isn’t she?” Tavish asked, not knowing anything about the woman who married his father’s elderly cousin.

What sort of woman would marry a man such as Summerset?

From what Tavish could remember, the man was a fiend, an old hateful bastard who hated the O’Briens with every fiber of his being.

So much so that he’d tried to prevent Tavish’s father from opening the gentleman’s club when they first arrived in London.

“It’s been six months. If she was with child, we would know by now. She is not. Besides, there would be questions of the child being the legitimate heir.” His brother sat up.

“What the hell does that mean?” Tavish asked. If the current duchess was with child, surely that would free him from any responsibility.

That would leave his family’s financial problems to be solved, but he had funds saved from years of fighting.

“It means that rumors about the duchess having affairs with her staff as well as other members of society have been circulating since Summerset died,” his brother said, chuckling lightly.

“Who could blame her really? He was an ugly old bastard. She’s beautiful to be sure.

Any man would fall at her feet of course, but she does not have the best of dispositions. ”

That was comical. Tavish didn’t have a particularly pleasant disposition himself.

It was hard for him to believe that a lady of the ton would be unpleasant at all.

They were all the same—spoiled, entitled princesses who wanted nothing but a husband to provide for them for the rest of their lives.

Surely, this duchess was the same as every other lady in Mayfair.

“I suppose the dukedom will provide for her now that he’s gone?” he asked, wondering how rich exactly the Summerset dukedom was.

It was a rarity for a dukedom to be overflowing with funds. There were plenty of aristocrats who loved drinking, gambling, and whoring as much as commoners. It was shocking that Summerset was not such a man.

“Summerset, the old bastard, only left her two hundred pounds a year?—”

“Fecking hell! I made more than that as a fighter. How can anyone survive off of that?” He wondered for the third time what type of woman married such a bastard.

“It doesn’t matter. She is not your responsibility. You just need her to leave. What happens to the duchess is no concern to our family.”

The words were harsh, even for his brother, but it did not sit well with Tavish to dispose of the current duchess like she was nothing. Leaving her with only two hundred pounds a year while his own family reaped the benefits of the Summerset fortune.

Tavish closed his eyes and welcomed the sweet escape of sleep. He’d worry about the dukedom, the widow, and his family once he was in London. Until then, he would enjoy what remained of his own freedom.

Florentia stood facing the eager footman, Thomas, whose eyes trailed down her form.

She was draped in her dressing gown, readying herself for the day when he entered, wide eyed and expectant.

He’d become increasingly attached to her in the short time that they had been involved. Like Montague, he was a dismal lover.