Page 4 of The Duke is Wicked
Humphrey pointed the bottle in Sebastian’s direction. “I vote we send Fireball. Perfect for the job. Hyde Park is a natural habitat for a duke. No one will blink when he saunters through.”
Sebastian leveled Humphrey with a scowl that would send most men to their knees. “Do I look like I have the patience to deal with this girl, a big brain with bad habits?”
Simon stepped into the circle, shaggy hair the color of wheat and a smile that would someday break hearts. Living,breathinghearts, Sebastian hoped. The boy tunneled his hand in his waistcoat pocket and extracted a metal box etched with initials not his own. Popping the case open, he slipped out five toothpicks. Modern, made of birch and manufactured by a machine. “Let’s draw. Shortest goes in search of the untouchable.”
Julian snatched one of the toothpicks from Simon’s hand and tossed it to the floor. “Sixteen-year-olds under my watch do not wager.”
Finn lifted his hand to his lips, too late to contain his burst of laughter.
“Seventeen.” Simon elbowed Finn in the ribs, the brother of his heart if not blood. “I never get to do anything when I could be of spectacular help! I can filch her blind. Get a trinket for you to read.”
Sebastian seized the silver case from Simon and read the inscription. “Winthrope. Dear God, did you steal this from the marquess earlier this evening?”
“We’ve talked about the thievery, Simon,” Julian grit out, his pencil snapping cleanly in two. “You left that life behind, and you don’t have to chase it down every time you get the chance.”
Sebastian noted Simon’s downcast gaze, the wretched expression.Dammit. “I’ll take him. Tomorrow morning,” he said, and tried mightily to ignore the naked sentiment shining in the boy’s dark brown eyes when they met his. “My men will be with me. He’ll be safe. And he might be helpful. I’ll create a diversion, we pilfer an insignificant article from this hellion’s person, Julian can read it, and we’ll go from there. A plan?”
“Always good to have a soldiering duke among us,” Humphrey murmured from the dark corner into which he’d retreated. “No one better at making a plan.”
Sebastian sighed and tucked the marquess’s toothpick case in his pocket, the feeling of a battle brewing an unwelcome tickle between his shoulder blades.
When he wanted nothing less than to fight again.
Chapter 2
The next morning, a spring fog lay so thick over London, the dome of St Paul’s was lost in it, potentially rendering a ride along Rotten Row an impossibility. Sebastian and Simon, with two of the duke’s men nearby, crossed through Grosvenor Square and down Brook Street, where they’d decided to leave the carriage.
“Stay with me,” Sebastian whispered to Simon as they entered Hyde Park, dew-soaked grass slicking his boots as he tramped over it. “No arguments, no talking to your haunts, no theft. Until I tell you to, that is. I’m happy to convey to Julian that I erred and you’re not prepared for adventures yet.”
“I’m not going to mess up.” Simon sprinted to match Sebastian’s long-legged stride. The boy was almost able to look him in the eye, which was shocking when he was near the tallest man in London. “I told them to stay back today. The haunts. Sometimes they listen, sometimes they don’t. I want to be a full member of the League. I’m ready.”
Sebastian grunted beneath his breath, uncertain about that passionately uttered statement. But it was too late—and young Simoncouldbe of great assistance. He did have the fastest hands in the city, outside a Whitechapel whore.
Flipping the collar of his greatcoat high, Sebastian huddled into it and threw his gaze to the gravel and grit beneath his feet. A faint murmur was threading through the crowd strolling the park’s perimeter, the gentlemen riding their horses along the winding drives, the ladies spinning their parasols in gossiping delight. Titters of curiosity he tried valiantly to overlook. He’d no interest, not a flicker, in gossip, in society, in women. Not in months. He was starting to worry he’d never feel anything again.
“You’re legendary.” Simon adjusted the collar of his coat as he’d seen Sebastian do and bowed into it. “They all want a piece, they do. Hungry eyes, the lot of them. Like those starving dogs when I was a lad in St Giles, roaming the street looking for something,anything, to sink their teeth into.”
“It’s the title.” He angled south down a footpath, the hem of his coat slapping his shins, the scent of blooming flowers and dust kicked up by carriage wheels and pounding hooves stinging his nose. “It has nothing to do with me.” He suspected the fervor would increase in pitch if, and when, he announced an engagement. Hence his decision to purchase an Oxfordshire estate he didn’t need, but for some reason, desperately wanted.
A place to hide. Maybe forever. Maybe even from the woman he was considering marrying.
“How will we recognize her? I don’t think I’ve ever laid eyes on the woman,” Sebastian asked when they came to the fence bordering Rotten Row.
“You’ll know her when you see her.” Simon pointed to the drive running parallel to the horse path, where carriages swept by in a thunderingly steady pace. “The time she nearly ran us down, she was zipping along, just there.”
Sebastian spent an hour chronicling Rotten Row’s bustle, evading exchanges, engaging in those he couldn’t with enough indifference to bring the conversations to a hasty demise. If anyone wondered why he lingered with Julian Alexander’s bastard half-brother—the same justification Julian had thrown out to explain Finn’s sudden appearance years ago, when there wasn’t a drop of blood shared between the men—no one said a word.
No one dared.
He turned to Simon, set on telling the young man this endeavor would have to wait…
…when there she was.
As Simon had said, he would know the moment he saw her.
Sebastian Fitzgerald Tremont, fifth Duke of Ashcroft, would never forget his first sight of Delaney Temple.
Not until the day he died.