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I t had been a good while since Lord Richard Orson had spent a more pleasant evening. Likely the last time, he had been surrounded by the same men, minus Mr. Justin Hartley, whose promotion to an important position in the British embassy in India they were celebrating.

He and this particular group of friends were commonly referred to as “Duncan’s sons,” though they were all grown men.

Yet, they had all come to live with Lord Macdonald Duncan early on in their lives, each of them in danger of being denied their rightful peerage by conniving relatives or happenstance, but thanks to Lord Duncan, a Scot whose ancestors had also inherited an English title, they had lived to claim a future.

Most of them had initially fought the idea of living anywhere but their own estates, but soon they had learned that the danger of trusting the wrong people could also cost them their lives.

Not one of them—neither Richard nor Lord Alexander Dutton, who never thought to inherit, nor Lord Navan Beaufort, an Irishman who had inherited both an English title and an Irish one and was often despised for his gall at accepting both, nor Lord Benjamin Thompson, whose sense of wishing to serve his fellow man, inherited from his father, who was the younger son, would make him a better commoner than a peer of the realm, nor Lord Aaran Graham, whose slight limp and scar upon the side of his face had made his uncle’s family label him unfit to be an earl until Duncan had employed a loophole in Scottish law that permitted an otherwise illegitimate son to inherit—none had had a future until Lord Duncan had arrived on their doorsteps and whisked them away to safety.

“And to discipline,” Richard thought. “More discipline than any of us would have wished or, perhaps, deserved.” Not that all did not require a large dose of it, but young boys always think of themselves as “men-in-waiting.” Though Richard now fully understood that discipline, not in the negative manner, but rather as the employing of routines and expectations which was what each of Duncan’s sons had required.

Most assuredly, he had a need of a large dose of structure, for his parents had early on in their marriage both taken lovers and had very much left him to do what he wanted with no recriminations exercised against him.

Then his father passed and was followed a year later into death by his mother.

Guardians and trustees were not in a position to stand against his uncle who wanted to be more than the Right Honorable Mr. Clarence Orson; however, Lord Macdonald Duncan and a new wing of the British government had been.

“Good evening, my lords,” Mrs. Dove-Lyon said as they all gathered in the gentlemen’s entryway to speak their good nights. “I hope each of you enjoyed your evening.”

“Excellent,” Duncan declared. “Our Mr. Hartley is to leave us to join those from the British government in India. Though we will be sore to lose him.”

“Did you each permit Mr. Hartley to win a few rounds so he might ‘enjoy’ the pleasures of India on your coin?” the woman asked boldly.

Richard did not know much of the mysterious Mrs. Dove-Lyon, but he had always thought her a woman of few words—one more likely to speak with the straightforwardness of a man.

Lord Thompson said jokingly, “Hartley must have the ability to read through the back of each card, for he won more than he should.”

“Very good, Mr. Hartley,” the woman declared. With a nod of farewell to all of them except Duncan, she said, “If you have a moment, Lord Duncan, I would have a word with you. I had planned to send a note around at the beginning of next week to ask you to call on me at the Lyon’s Den.”

Thompson slapped Duncan on his back. “Perhaps a lady of the ton wishes a proposal from your lips.”

For a price, the payment of a matchmaker so to speak, Mrs. Dove-Lyon held a reputation of arranging marriages between members of the aristocracy.

Customarily, it was the woman asking for a man’s protection, and the gentleman requiring the lady’s dowry, but there were other instances where Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s influence had proven useful.

The woman’s posture did not relay her thoughts, and it was impossible to read her facial expressions due to the veil she always wore in respect for her late husband, Colonel Sandstrom Lyon, but Richard had the feeling she was not much impressed by Thompson’s tease at her expense.

“Not likely,” Duncan remarked, quashing any hopes of his sons claiming a bit of teasing at Duncan’s expense. “I have known my one great love.” He nodded to each of them. “Claim your coaches. I will be close behind.”

Richard slapped Alexander on the back. “If you plan to travel with me, I am prepared to depart.”

“Come, Hartley,” Navan Beaufort instructed. “I will see you home safely.”

Thompson said, “I will ride with Graham and leave you my coach, Duncan.”

“Much obliged,” Duncan said with a nod of gratitude.

They were still talking over each other as they moved together towards Cleveland Row. “Would it not be something if some woman wanted an arranged marriage with Duncan?” Thompson declared.

“Soften all his hard lines,” Graham added.

“Would he discipline her as he did us? A board to the rear,” Beaufort said around a burst of laughter, of which they all joined in, each enjoying the double entendre .

Nearly bent over in glee and the pleasantness of a slight inebriation, when they reached the curb to cross to Cleveland Row, where their carriages waited, they encountered a large boxy-looking man, wearing a long black coat nearly reaching the top of his boots and a hat that was more indicative of someone working the fields than entering a gentleman’s club.

The fellow walked rigidly and with apparent strict control in the direction of the gentlemen’s entrance and dared to cross the center of their loosely formed group.

Together, they turned to look over their shoulders at the man to present him a “What the...” look, for he had not stepped to the side, but, rather, walked straight at them, forcing them to give way, though Richard had purposely bumped shoulders with the stranger, momentarily disrupting the fellow’s steady progress towards the entry door.

“Who the hell does he think he is?” Thompson growled. “A bloody duke or a prince?”

“Needs his arse kicked for not showing proper respect,” Beaufort declared. “And I may be the man to do it.”

Beaufort started in the direction of the rude man, but Thompson caught their brother’s arm. “Just drunk. You know how a man who is deep in his cups attempts to walk straight. Mrs. Dove-Lyon’s man Titan will settle what is what.”

They had all stayed where they were to have a second look at the man who had dared to offend them by not stepping aside to permit their “superiority.” It was then that Duncan stepped from the club and into the dim light to call to them. “Wa...!”

Yet, he did not finish the word, for a gunshot rang out, and Duncan stumbled forward and collapsed to the ground while holding a hand over his heart.

All of them froze for the tick of a handful of seconds, deciding whether to seek cover or go to Duncan’s rescue.

In fact, Titan, the club’s manager, reached Duncan before any of them moved.

“Hartley, with me,” Beaufort called as they darted off after the shooter who circled the building in a practiced clip towards the kitchens and the gardens beyond, which proved the fellow was not drunk, while Richard, Thompson, and Titan attempted to stop the bleeding.

Alexander had darted off towards the female entrance to meet up with Beaufort and Hartley in the back.

Graham kept the onlookers away from their efforts to save Lord Duncan.

“It was the man who purposely bumped into us,” Thompson declared, as he ripped his cravat from his clothes to staunch the bleeding.

“We should move his lordship inside,” Titan ordered. “Mrs. Dove-Lyon is quite knowledgeable in such matters, but someone should fetch a surgeon.”

“I will go,” Richard declared. “Rheem is likely with his mistress.” Richard did not wait for their agreement.

He was at a run. The only man Richard had ever come to call “father” had been shot and could die.

Despite sometimes despising Lord Macdonald Duncan for taking him from his home, Richard did not wish to lose the man from his life.

“You will come to live with me and my wife for a time, boy,” Duncan had said.

Naturally, Richard had protested, but Duncan simply put his arms about Richard’s spindly body and tugged him into his embrace.

Never once had his mother or father held him thusly.

“You’ll have a home with me, and, if you are willing, I have a wee bit of a daughter, who could use the strength and caring of an older brother.

” Duncan had spoken no ill words about Richard’s own parents, though he could have spoken to their depravity and their lack of parent kindness.

Instead, “I pray you will agree,” Duncan had continued.

“My Theodora desperately requires someone to assist her in learning to read and how to perform as a lady.”

Duncan and Lady Elsbeth had been the ones not only to see to his education and his needs for food and shelter, but also to turning him into a man.

Teaching him how to conduct himself in society and how to defend himself and others.

Lady Elsbeth had also discovered Richard’s interest in astronomy and had fostered it.

She had had a telescope purchased just for him, and the two of them would watch the night sky for hours and talk about so many things he had never understood until he had come to live with the Duncans.

He owed Duncan his life. They all did. Duncan’s presence held them all together.

A rag-tag family, but family, nevertheless.

The man was the only constant in Richard’s life.