Page 11 of To Defend a Damaged Duke (Regency Rossingley #2)

RAIN LASHED DOWN against Tommy’s windowpanes, fit to turn a dog.

A fancy ball over at a rich dowager’s place had swallowed half his patrons, and the inclement weather was doing the rest. Somewhere above him, water poured from the guttering, splashing into puddles collecting below before joining the ribbons flowing down the middle of the street.

Tommy didn’t mind closing early for once.

The club flourished. He’d taken on three new members of staff in the last month, and his profits had still risen by a fifth.

Soon, he’d take Sidney’s advice and introduce young Mickey to the rudiments of bookkeeping.

Poking the small fire burning brightly in the grate, he loosened his cravat, then settled down to one more page of accounts before turning in for an early night.

He’d felt depleted of late, his sleep plagued by remembrances of the past and the raw, unfiltered truth hiding amongst them that he tried his damnedest to ignore.

After his characteristic signal—more a series of thumps than a polite scratch—Sidney’s broad, plain face appeared in the doorway. “One of the swanky gentlemen is at the front desk demanding to see you, Tommy. He’s right pissed off about summat.”

Juggling a column of figures in his head, Tommy barely looked up.

“I told him you weren’t here,” huffed Sidney. “But he’s one you might want to see.”

“There’s none fitting that description. Tell him to arrange an appointment like everyone else.” Tommy dipped his quill in a pot of red ink. “I’m a little tied up.”

“Tied up ain’t going to cut the mustard, I’m afraid, Tommy. You could have ship’s riggin’ pinning you to that chair in a figure eight, but he ain’t budging. So, unless you want a duke kipping on the front steps, I’m going to… oompf .”

A man of lower social consequence would live to regret shoving Sidney aside. The fourteenth Duke of Ashington, however, his chest heaving and jaw clenched so hard it might snap, had run out of regrets to give. With a pounding in his own chest, Tommy rose from his desk.

“In retrospect, tied up was a poor choice of words,” he managed. “Good evening, Your Grace. Such a pleasure, as always.” He dug a nail into his palm. “Sidney? You may leave us.”

The storm raging outside had nothing on the duke’s pent-up fury. Hardly had the door clicked shut before he unleashed it.

“Damn you, Tommy,” he roared. “May God damn you to hell!”

A spray of silvery raindrops flew from the sodden shoulders of his overcoat as Benedict thumped his fist hard on Tommy’s desk.

Quills and foolscap leaped into the air.

The inkpot tipped onto its side; a thin line of crimson ink slopped across the hidebound desk spattering to the floor below like a life oozing away.

“Damn you, Tommy!” the duke vented with no less fury. “How dare you? How dare you do this to me!”

Dark eyes ablaze, he planted both hands squarely on the desk, looming over Tommy.

“Tell me what you want, and we’ll settle it now.

A thousand guineas? Two thousand? Do you have expensive tastes, Tommy?

Is it a fine racehorse you’re hankering after?

A manor house in the country? Or will you not be content until you have prised this linen shirt from my back? ”

It took all of Tommy’s nerve not to take a step backwards.

He half expected Sidney, who must have heard all the commotion, to come rushing back to his defence.

And he would have done, if the furious gentleman hurling curses at him over the desk wasn’t a bloody duke.

As Sidney had no doubt swiftly concluded, Tommy could handle himself, and one crossed a wealthy duke at one’s peril.

“Your Grace.” Tommy hoped he sounded cooler than he felt.

“I’m afraid I am at an utter loss to comprehend the nature of your problem.

But clearly, it is pressing.” He indicated to a drinks table near the fireplace.

“Perhaps we could discuss it like gentlemen over a thimble of port. And you could dry off a little.”

“Ballocks!” the duke snorted. “You know exactly what you’re doing, you…you snivelling guttersnipe.” Spittle flew from his lips. “I thought you were…were a… But I see that you’re not. You’re nothing but a wretched—you said the word yourself—a wretched money-grabbing whore !”

Tommy fumbled behind him for the small bell hidden amongst the fronds of a large potted plant. He kept a switchblade there, too, but he wasn’t foolish enough to brandish that at a duke, no matter the provocation. But, by God, he was sorely tempted.

Grabbing the bell, Tommy lofted it between them.

“This is louder than it looks when dropped from this height. They’d hear the thud and ringing all the way down in the kitchens.

” He gave it a little jangle. “So, any more of that and you’ll be escorted from the premises, Your Grace.

And none too politely. You might be a high-in-the-instep duke; you might be the bloody King of Spain for all I care.

But no one, and I mean no one , barges into my garret uninvited and calls me a whore. ”

Tommy didn’t know which part, if any, of that speech had resonated.

Perhaps it was the repetition of whore (such a coarse, reductive term, even worse when dripping from a duke’s lips, a man who’d never had to fight for a penny in his life).

Or perhaps the duke had simply run out of steam.

A whole heap of misery was stacked up under that anger.

Now Tommy looked properly, it was there for all to see in the shadowy bags under the man’s eyes, the creases bracketing his fine mouth, and the unhappy manner in which he rubbed at his chin as if waking disoriented from a ghastly dream.

As if already shocked at his own vile utterances and an abject apology would hastily follow.

Whatever the trigger, as abruptly as it had begun, the duke’s outburst bled away, his high colour paling with it, leaving his handsome features a sickly grey. His body swayed, and Tommy, his damned soft heart flickering to life, rushed around the desk to catch him.

“Have a seat, Your Grace. You…you are not yourself.”

The duke staggered backwards, his behind thankfully landing in the grumbling, spindly chair. He made a desolate sound, caught somewhere between a sob and a groan.

“I fear I have not been myself, Tommy, since…since…ah, since you know when.” Another sound, yes most definitely a sob, and he covered his face in his hands.

“ The duke this, Your Grace that. Hah! I’m nothing but a poor facsimile of a man, and that is God’s own truth.

And now, all of London is on the brink of discovering it. And it is everything I deserve.”

His head fell back, his eyes closed. Raindrops—or were they tears?

—sparkled on his thick, sooty lashes. “A poor facsimile?” In Tommy’s biased opinion, his lordling was being a little hard on himself.

Despite looking like lukewarm death, with his reddened nose and loud sniffling, he still cut a fine figure.

Tommy threw another log onto the fire and stoked it.

He ran a shaky hand through his neat hair as he hovered over the still figure slumped in the chair.

Then he moved to the drinks table, wavering between the port and the brandy.

Why did he never know what to do with himself in the presence of this man?

Should he call for some hot soup? Insist the duke took a restorative?

Throw him out? Should he stand, sit, or stare up at the ceiling? Should he beat his chest and scream?

As if winter’s icy breath gusted over him, a violent, bone-deep shiver wracked the duke’s body, accompanied by a despairing moan. Tommy elected for brandy.

“Your Grace, let me ease you from your sopping overcoat. You shall catch your death, and I do not wish that on my conscience.”

The duke prised open an eye. “Your conscience hangs heavy enough, I’ll wager.”

“My conscience is regretting its good manners and charity towards someone wholly undeserving. Nonetheless, remove yourself from your coat and drink this. Then tell me what this terrible thing is I’ve done so I can grovel at a duke’s feet accordingly.”

“Enough with the pretence, Tommy.” The duke knocked back the brandy in one. “Just tell me what it is you want from me, and you shall have it. Anything to prevent my brothers’ names and my father’s memory dragged through the mire.”

Tommy wrapped his arms tight about himself.

“And I shall repeat, though it is falling on deaf ears, that I am in the dark about what it is I am purported to have done.” Another shiver cascaded through the duke’s body.

“And for God’s sake, stop being such a stubborn ass and take off that blasted wet greatcoat. ”

The duke laughed, a hollow, broken sound. “A stubborn ass? I should slap you with my glove for that.”

“That would end badly for you,” Tommy warned. “Duke or no.”

The duke wore full evening dress under his heavy wool travelling coat, the pristine starched collar seemingly the only thing holding the man’s head up.

Whether his tailcoat was also damp, Tommy couldn’t bring himself to enquire for fear of the answer and the man revealing even more of his well-shaped body.

Tommy cursed under his breath as he poured the duke a second drink, trying to ignore the damp fabric stretched inconsiderately tight across the duke’s thighs. Unhappily, he failed.

Bloody Rossingley was right. Tommy sprinkled a few muttered curses in his direction too. Tart with a heart . How was Tommy supposed to pretend to himself, never mind anyone else, that he never wanted this man again? He might as well kid himself he could blow spots from bloody playing cards.