Page 9 of Duke with a Debt (Wicked Dukes Society #2)

CHAPTER 9

“ I s Lord Wesley at home, Fleetwood?” Stuart asked his long-suffering butler, just narrowly refraining from adding because if he isn’t, I’m going to hunt him down and throttle him myself .

“I do believe that his Lordship is at home and yet abed,” Fleetwood confirmed.

“Excellent.” He nodded. “Thank you, that will be all.”

Stuart moved from his study in his butler’s wake, on a mission to roll his arsehole brother out of bed if necessary. Because he was running out of time to have a discussion with Wesley about his impending marriage.

One more day until he was a married man. And he could scarcely wait. Not for the marriage itself, but for the consummation of the wedding. For Rosamund in his bed, in his arms. For the chance to finish what they had begun in Brandon’s carriage and carried into Rosamund’s sitting room at her cavernous town house.

He hadn’t intended to trap Rosamund into a hasty wedding. But as it happened, the timing was nothing short of providential. He would have the funds to pay his blackmailer, and he wouldn’t have to go to his friends and beg them to loan him funds. His pride was spared. His secret would remain a secret. And perhaps—just perhaps—he could move forward with his life.

His life with Rosamund.

The notion filled him—still—with a deep and abiding sense of ease. A rightness that had been conspicuously absent from his life for far too long. A rightness that faded somewhat as he ascended the stairs to his brother’s bedroom. Like it or not—and he wasn’t entirely sure he had finished persuading Rosamund before her mother’s untimely interruption—she was going to live with him here at his town house. Which meant he needed to at last have the conversation he had been dreading with Wesley.

He stopped before his brother’s door and rapped on it. No answer. Stuart knocked again, more firmly this time. An inhuman-sounding groan, muffled and scarcely audible, greeted him.

“Wesley,” he tried, knocking more insistently. “It’s your brother.”

“Go to hell, brother. I’m trying to sleep.”

His patience grew thin, so he opened the door and stalked into the darkened room. It was damned difficult to see in the dim light with the curtains pulled tightly over the windows. Stuart tripped over something soft—likely garments his brother had shed when he had arrived from his latest round of vices.

“What are you doing in my bedroom?” Wesley growled.

The room smelled of spirits, smoke, and clothes in wont of laundering, tinged with sweat. Stuart had to swallow to keep from gagging and remember to breathe through his mouth.

“I need to speak with you.”

“Speak with me when I’ve finished sleeping,” his brother complained.

Stuart ignored him, stalking across the room to throw open the curtains and allow some much-needed light to stream into the chamber, illuminating its sad state. Garments were strewn everywhere—trousers thrown haphazardly about, stained shirts crumpled on the floor. Bottles, some empty and others partially full, cluttered nearly every surface. There was a bottle of laudanum at his brother’s bedside, which caught Stuart’s attention.

“Now I see why you haven’t allowed the chambermaid entrance,” he muttered, glaring at his brother, who was lying unrepentantly in his mussed bed, his eyes bloodshot and his hair standing on end. “Laudanum now, Wesley?”

He plucked the bottle from the table at his brother’s bedside, sickened at the evidence all around him of Wesley’s excesses, but most particularly troubled by the laudanum.

“It is my medicine,” his brother snapped. “Give that back to me. I need it.”

“What you need is to get your arse out of bed so that I can have a conversation with you.”

“I don’t want to talk to you. Get out of my room.”

His brother’s expression was mulish.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Stuart told him calmly in return, narrowly resisting the urge to toss the bottle of laudanum headlong into the fire at the opposite end of the room.

“Fine, then.” Wesley waved a hand dismissively. “At least make yourself useful and fetch me the chamber pot. I need to take a piss.”

That was it. Stuart’s tentative grip on his patience snapped. He tossed the laudanum into the fire grate, gratified as it smashed to bits on the bricks, making the remnants of the evening’s fire crackle and hiss as it rained down on the coals.

“Get out of the fucking bed,” he ordered his brother.

“I paid for that bloody laudanum only yesterday,” Wesley complained. “You owe me a new bottle.”

“Get out,” Stuart gritted through clenched teeth. “Of. The. God. Damned. Bed.”

“Jesus,” Wesley grumbled, throwing back the bedclothes and rising, still clad in last night’s trousers, judging by the wine stain marring the buff fabric. “I’m out of the bed. Stop throwing things like a child having a tantrum.”

“Get dressed,” he clipped out.

“I am dressed.” Wesley rubbed his bare chest then yawned loudly. “Say your piece and get the hell out of my room.”

Stuart took in the sight his brother presented, thinking that if he’d been a painting, it would have been titled Dissipation, Portrait of a Drunken Wastrel .

“This is my house,” he reminded him sharply. “I own everything in it.”

Wesley sneered. “But not every one in it, and you would do well to remember it.”

“Damn you, Wesley, you have been warned,” he growled, infuriated. “There is a matter of some import which we need to discuss.”

The scent of spirits grew stronger as his brother shuffled listlessly toward him. Dear God , Stuart realized, he was still soused from the night before.

“Do you need some blunt, brother dearest?” Wesley smirked. “I’m flush in funds at the moment.”

How it was that Stuart continued to regard his brother calmly rather than smashing a fist into his nose was a mystery of the universe that he suspected would never be solved.

“Hardly that. You reek of spirits. I’m likely to get drunk on the fumes you’re emitting.”

“I’m not in my cups at all,” Wesley said and then hiccupped. “I won two thousand pounds again just the other night, y’know. I suppose whispers have made their way to you, and you’re going to demand it all so you can pay some bloody creditor of yours.”

Stuart clenched his jaw. “Your contribution to the extensive debts you’ve created would be appreciated. However, it isn’t funds or debts that I wish to speak with you about.”

His brother staggered to the left and nearly tripped over the side of a wing chair piled with more clothing before righting himself, scowling. “What the hell is it? I don’t appreciate being summoned from my bed like this, you know. A man needs his damned rest.”

“Perhaps you would have more rest if you didn’t go to sleep at half past eight in the morning,” he pointed out, trying to tamp down his resentment and failing miserably.

Wesley’s lip curled. “Are you having the household spy on me now, brother?”

He raised a brow. “Hardly. The domestics all have far more important tasks than watching my scapegrace younger brother. Now, are you finished being insolent? Because if so, perhaps you ought to have a seat so we can speak like gentlemen.”

But Wesley gave him no quarter, scoffing as he retrieved a discarded shirt and slipped it on, doing up the buttons. “I’m not a gentleman, and I don’t want to sit.”

“As you wish. The news I wished to discuss with you is my impending marriage.”

Wesley blinked. “Marriage?”

“Yes.”

“ Marriage ,” Wesley repeated.

“As I said. Twice.”

“Who is the fortunate lady?” Wesley sneered. “Dare I ask?”

“The lady is one you are acquainted with,” he said with great care, some deep, previously unknown part of him feeling irrationally possessive and protective of Rosamund. He didn’t want her near Wesley. Didn’t even want to speak her name to his brother. And yet, there was no other recourse. He had to do it. They were marrying tomorrow. She would be living in this house.

“Just how well am I acquainted with her?” Wesley asked, grinning before he issued another hiccup.

“She was your betrothed,” he said, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice.

His brother was silent, apparently rendered speechless. A rarity.

Finally, he gathered his wits and spoke. “You’re marrying Rosamund Payne?”

Wesley laughed then, as if Stuart had just relayed the finest joke.

“You do not have leave to speak of her so familiarly,” he bit out, hating her given name on his brother’s lips.

She was going to be his wife , damn it.

Wesley’s laughter faded. “You’re not afraid she’s still in love with me, are you, brother dearest? That she is marrying you so she can be closer to me? Because it would be a grave concern of mine if I were you.”

“No,” he snapped. “She harbors no tender feelings where you’re concerned. Of that, I have no doubt.”

Wesley swaggered forward with an exaggerated air, giving him a smug grin. “I would not be so certain if I were you. She was desperately in love with me, you know. It crushed her spirit when she discovered Madeleine was carrying my bastard. I’ve never heard a woman weep so pathetically.”

Stuart clenched his hands at his sides, knowing Wesley was soused and taunting him to provoke a reaction and determined to deny him the pleasure. “You are a heartless cad.”

Evidence: he had cast off his French mistress before the child had even been born, leaving her penniless and without a roof over her head. Stuart had given her as much as he had been able to see that she wouldn’t be without food or a home. The last he’d heard, she had returned to the Continent with Wesley’s child, having married a wealthy merchant. The two were certainly better off beyond Wesley’s venomous reach.

“I always thought she was a bit plain, her nose rather overly large, but maybe I’ll seduce her just for sport,” Wesley continued. “What do you think of that, another woman you care for on her knees, my cock in her mouth?”

Despite his every intention to remain unmoved, Stuart’s reaction was instant and uncontrollable. He rushed forward, slamming his brother into the barren damask wall, grasping a handful of his shirt with one hand and holding his opposite forearm to Wesley’s throat.

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” he roared in Wesley’s face, fury overtaking him.

But Wesley was unmoved, still smirking. “I’d like to see you stop me, brother. We both know that I’m the better-looking of the two of us. You may be the duke, but when they have the choice between the two of us, they always choose me.”

“That was before you were a drunken ruin,” Stuart snarled. “What woman would want you now? You haven’t a farthing to your name, Christ knows when you last had any of your clothes washed, your eyes are bloodshot, and you reek of whisky, smoke, and stale piss. Not a pleasant combination designed to lure the ladies, to be sure.”

Stuart was being brutal, and he knew it. Part of him understood that Wesley couldn’t help the monsters within him. He was driven by jealousy and greed, and his love of drink had made him even more selfishly cruel than he had been before. But damn it, thoughts of Wesley even entering the same room as Rosamund made Stuart want to tear down the goddamned walls.

She was his , damn it.

Not Wesley’s.

Never Wesley’s.

His brother was laughing again. “Nothing a bath and a shave won’t cure. Mark my words, brother. I’ll have your plain little spinster. When I’m through, she’ll be wishing she married me after all instead of you.”

Stuart pressed his forearm against Wesley’s neck. “If you so much as look at her in an impolite manner, I’ll toss you out of here on your arse and cut you off.”

“You can’t cut me off,” Wesley rasped, struggling a bit to catch his breath from the force Stuart applied to his neck. “Mother would never allow it.”

He didn’t relent. “Mother has no notion of what you’ve become. It would kill her if she knew. But her protection of you is not infinite.”

“Just as it would…kill her…if you cut me off,” Wesley panted.

Curse him to hell. Mother was ever Stuart’s weakness. He had to think of her. To put her fragile health first. He couldn’t bear to lose her because of his own stupid rage over his brother’s antics.

With another curse, he released Wesley, pushing away from the wall. “You will not speak of my duchess with anything less than respect from this moment forward. And if you dare anything with her, there will be consequences. Don’t think that my love for Mother will save you from everything. I have powerful friends.”

“Tell yourself that if it makes you feel better,” Wesley said, still grinning.

“Go to hell, Wesley.”

“Only if you join me.”

Stuart stalked from the room to the sound of his brother’s drunken laughter.

“What else do you have for me, Mr. Watts?” Rosamund asked her father’s man of business—now hers—as they were seated at Father’s desk in his office.

The room still smelled of him. Cigars and leather, blended with that mysterious scent so many pieces bore after they had been passed down for centuries, rather as if they had been confined to the rafters of an old attic. The office was also untouched. Nothing had changed after Father’s death—Rosamund had seen to it. The shelves were still lined with hundreds of books he had amassed over the years. It was cluttered with Roman statuary, with priceless paintings, with oddities he had collected: ancient swords and vases, ferns that she had kept living, and even a taxidermy of his favorite hound, Dash. His ledger book remained where he had preferred to keep it in the corner of his desk, and she proudly continued to make use of his pen and inkwell.

“I believe that is the last of the latest reports, Miss Payne,” Mr. Watts said, pushing his spectacles up on the bridge of his nose.

A kind, balding man with a round face and ruddy cheeks, Mr. Watts had been her father’s most-trusted man. And he had proven his loyalty and dependability to Rosamund again and again during the time she had taken over her father’s affairs and she had been swept up in grief over the sudden loss of her hero and greatest champion.

When Father’s death had been new and as painful as an open wound, she had sat here at his desk on many occasions, counting back in her mind each day that passed, pretending that at any moment, he might come thumping through the door with his cane in hand. At first, it had been just yesterday he was alive. Then two days ago, and three, until finally, it had been a sennight, then a fortnight, and longer. The world had carried on relentlessly, blissfully unaware of her father’s absence. So, too, had her responsibilities.

Her father had owned a tremendous number of businesses. Shipping, textile factories, a hotel in London and another in Paris, mines, and more. He had taken her under his wing when she had been quite young, preparing her to be his only heir. To his credit, he had never made her feel inadequate for having been born a female rather than a male.

He had bequeathed everything to her in his will, with the provision that she look after her mother, seeing to her every comfort. Rosamund had done so with ease and without hesitation, assuming the mantle of business owner initially as a means of distracting herself from her grief and soon enough because she had found she possessed an interest in it.

Fortunately, she had the keen eye and sharp mind of Mr. Watts to aid her, steering her back on course if ever she drifted astray. She rather considered him to be a second father, for he had certainly cast himself in Father’s mold.

She settled her father’s pen back in its holder. “And you have pored over the marriage contract again, Mr. Watts, have you not?”

“I have, as has Mr. Trumbull,” Mr. Watts reassured her, referencing her solicitor. “You are uniquely protected, thanks to the provisions Mr. Trumbull enumerated in the contract. The duke cannot lay claim to your business interests, and the control of your fortune will remain yours, aside from the generous sum allotted as your dowry by your father in the hope you would marry. His Grace is to receive the full amount, his to dispense with as he sees fit.”

Her greatest fear was that she had somehow overlooked something, made an error somewhere in the marriage contract, particularly after Stuart had all but demanded that she live with him instead of remaining at her own town house.

She nodded now, forming a tremulous smile. “Thank you, Mr. Watts. I am indebted to you, as always. I cannot think of where I would be without your trusted counsel.”

Mr. Watts gave her a benevolent, fatherly smile in return. “You need not thank me, Miss Payne. You know that I owe your father everything I have. If he had not believed in my potential many years ago, I shudder to think where I would be now. It is my great honor to offer you any paternal advice and protection that I am able in the absence of such a great man.”

The fondness in his voice, coupled with the references to her dear father, brought tears forth to sting Rosamund’s eyes. It never seemed to matter how much time had intervened between when she had whispered her last farewell to him when he’d lain there on the bed, so still and pale, and the present day. There would not cease to be a day when his loss would not loom large in her heart, a wound that could never fully heal.

“Do you think he would have been happy to see me married?” she asked Mr. Watts, her voice gone thick with her effort to stay her tears and keep from weeping.

“Of course he would have,” Mr. Watts reassured her. “Your father wanted nothing more than for you to have all the happiness you could find in this hard, cold, cruel world of ours.”

She bit her lip, trying to distract herself, but her nose was tickling and her vision had become indistinct. “I know I cannot change the past, but sometimes…oh, sometimes, I wish he were still here.”

He extracted a handkerchief from his coat and offered it to her. “As do I, my dear.”

She accepted it gratefully, using the scrap of fabric to dab at her eyes before forcing her thoughts back to where they belonged, where her father would have wanted them—to business. “Will you accompany me to see the new shipments, Mr. Watts?”

“I would be delighted to do so,” he said. “I think you’ll be well pleased by the latest statuary that has arrived from the Continent.”

Rosamund forced a smile for both their benefits. “I’m sure I will be.”

With another look around Father’s office for comfort, she rose to her feet, hoping she wasn’t about to make a grave mistake in marrying the Duke of Camden.

On the morning of his wedding day—the same day Stuart was meant to have his payment delivered, per the edict from his blackmailer—another letter arrived. He read it as he stood at the window of his bedroom, dressed in the suit King had lent him for the purpose of not looking like a beggar before his new bride , as his friend had helpfully explained. King had also opined that Stuart’s existing wardrobe ought to be sold for rags. Stuart had ignored him.

But he couldn’t ignore the seed of worry, burrowing deep in his gut, as he opened the missive that had been delivered to him on a salver by Sharpe and cast his eye over the by-now-familiar slanted script.

To His Grace, the Duke of Camden,

Felicitations on your impending nuptials to the heiress Miss Rosamund Payne. Accordingly, our price has increased. The sum of ten thousand pounds shall now be delivered to Messrs. Dolan and Rowe, or, as previously specified, a letter will be delivered to The Times.

Damn the bastard to hell.

Stuart crumpled the letter and tossed it into the grate, watching it burn.

The seed took root and sprouted, along with the fear that this menace would never be done.