Page 16 of To Defend a Damaged Duke (Regency Rossingley #2)

“One was a bloke called Edward—didn’t ever know his other name, but he turned up like clockwork every Thursday.

Mr Simms, the night watch over at the docks, old Mr Tennant, and some out-of-town merchant used to call himself Smith.

Nice fella, not his real name of course.

And Tommy’s handsome young lordling. Fancy Fitzsimmons, we called him.

The marquess of somewhere or other. He was too stupid—too led by his prick—to come up with summat false. ”

Too na?ve, thought Tommy, with a pang. Too sheltered. Too much in love.

Concluding her work was done, Ma Duggan sat back and folded her arms. “I reckon that’s the name this nob was after.

He handed the blunt over as soon as he heard that one.

Wasn’t interested in the others at all.” Again, she rubbed her yellowed finger and thumb together.

“I’ll have the rest of yours now, Tommy lad. Cough up.”

“Have you come across this Fitzsimmons person since?” Rossingley stayed Tommy’s arm, preventing him handing over the coins. “Any titled gent, perhaps, that goes by that name?”

“Titled gent?” she parroted, and her cackle of laughter turned into a coughing fit. “Oh, yes,” she managed after catching her breath. “One comes here every afternoon. We have tea in a china cup and a slice of seed cake; we sit around talking politics for an hour.”

Wiping her hand across her mouth, she threw him a scornful look.

“’Course I bloody haven’t. Not seen the likes of the Fitzsimmons boy since the raid.

Not gone looking for him either. I don’t go looking for trouble with nobs—lands you in all sorts of hot water.

Clean forgot about him until this brother of his came calling. ”

“His…” Tommy faltered. Even Rossingley was taken aback. “How do you know your visitor was his brother?”

“There’s an extra sovereign in it for you,” Tommy quickly added.

Her shifty eyes turned towards the door again.

“Listen. I said I don’t go looking for trouble with nobs.

Didn’t say I wasn’t nosy. Our Dickie went outside and chatted up the driver, like, while I was chatting up the nob.

The brother wasn’t half as good-looking as the lordling who used to tup you, Tommy.

Proper carrot-top, this fella was. Liked the booze a bit too much, too, if you ask me. ”

Takes one to know one . Tommy and Rossingley traded glances.

So, the duke’s own brother was behind it.

Lord Lyndon. Who needed enemies when one had family?

Was a shortcut to his own ruination not enough for the cove, that he had to take his brothers, his hitherto good family name, and Tommy down with him?

“You’ll be off, then,“ Ma Duggan remarked as Tommy handed over the extra coin. “Don’t bother coming back any time soon, Tommy.”

“Wild horses would have to drag me.”

Having accomplished all they’d set out, he was eager to leave.

Rossingley, however, seemed in no great hurry to say his farewells.

With his lower lip pinched between finger and thumb, he was doing that glittery thing he did with those penetrating pale eyes, which meant his smart brain was whirring at thrice the speed of a normal person.

Twice, his hooded gaze had flicked towards the door during their cosy chat with Ma Duggan.

“One further question,” he said, not caring that they’d outstayed their welcome. “And I’ll come straight to the point. However did you suppose that you could blackmail Tommy and get away with it?”

“What?” Tommy and Ma Duggan stared at him, the older woman’s astonishment as genuine as Tommy’s. She gave a little harrumph.

“Blackmail Tommy? I’m not that daft.”

Lips pursed, Rossingley eyed her thoughtfully. “No,” he agreed. “I don’t believe you are. Only someone as stupid as…say…a barn door would be so reckless.”

Ma Duggan’s gaze darted to the parlour door.

A flash of genuine fear crossed her face.

“I’m telling you. I wouldn’t mess with Tommy.

I’ve seen him take down madges twice his size that got too rough, with nothing but his vicious tongue and a switchblade.

” Her tone, reeking of the truth, held a trace of urgency.

“You tell him, Tommy. You’re an evil little bugger.

Can’t say I like you, but I ain’t got no truck with you. ”

“Lordy,” Tommy urged. “I think our business here is done, don’t you? We’ve achieved what we—”

“Hmm. I’m not yet convinced we have.” Rossingley’s clipped vowels rose above the sound of the other two. “What say you, Mrs Duggan?”

“I say you should get back in that fancy—”

Rossingley held up a silencing finger, cutting her off mid-sentence. “Let me tell you something, Mrs Duggan. A little bit about myself.”

There was something about the aristocracy that set them apart, thought Tommy. When they spoke, they assumed everyone would shut up and listen. The annoying thing was everyone usually did.

“There are three things I love above all others in this world,” Rossingley declared. Stepping closer towards her, he smiled, showing his pointy little teeth. Familiar with that disarming smile, Tommy braced for whatever hurricane came next.

“Shall I enlist them?” Like a sermon tossed down from a high pulpit, the earl’s icy, cultured tones bounced around the walls of the tiny parlour.

“Do I have a choice?”

“Not really.” Rossingley took another menacing step closer to Ma Duggan so that he loomed over her, almost as if he intended to rest his arm around her bony shoulders. “Now, where was I? Ah, yes. Three things.”

“Get out,” she hissed. “You’ve had what you came for. Now get out.”

“The first, above all,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “I love Mr Christopher Angel. Such a darling chap. And so terribly handsome. Some days, I have to pinch myself that he’s all mine.

Secondly—” His lip curled into the hint of another smile, even more unpleasant than the first, causing Ma Duggan to shrink back in the chair.

“—and I can be forgiven for discussing this particular intimacy in my present surroundings—I absolutely adore the sounds Mr Angel makes mere seconds before he spills inside my mouth.” He accompanied this shocking statement with a deep and obscene groan. “Divine. And thirdly…”

Oh Lord, Tommy dreaded to imagine the third item on the list. A misplaced bubble of laughter welled in his throat at the craziness of it all.

Forget blackleg stands and gambling hells.

He should focus on bottling whatever ran through the earl’s extraordinary head to sell as a cure for nerves, fear, and melancholia.

“I recall that during the journey here, my lord,” Tommy butted in, “which, frankly, seems months ago now, I requested you refrain from speaking.”

“ Thirdly —” the earl continued in a smooth and abnormally loud tone.

“—and this is utterly unrelated to Mr Angel, you understand. Thirdly , I can’t help having a peculiar penchant for the naked fear in a fellow’s eyes as he realises a crazed aristocrat is about to slash through his dear old ma’s jugular! ”

In a flash, Rossingley lunged and wrapped his arm around Ma Duggan’s scrawny neck. A switchblade appeared in his elegant hand, a horribly familiar switchblade generally found skulking behind a potted plant. He jammed it up against her throat. The woman let out a dry gasp of shock.

“I’ve taken the liberty of hurrying things along, Tommy,” the earl explained, sounding as if he was apologising for rushing an afternoon pot of tea before it had properly stewed.

“The company here isn’t to my liking. And my dear Angel will be wondering where the devil I am if I don’t reappear soon. ”

Good lord above . Blowing out an exasperated breath, Tommy shook his head. He stared at the blade hovering a hair’s breadth from the woman’s wildly beating pulse. “Which bit of ‘stand behind me and stay silent’ did you fail to grasp, Lordy?”

Rossingley beamed at him. “The entirety.”

“I preferred you during your melancholic era.”

With another grin, eliciting a short hiccupping squeal from Ma Duggan, Rossingley hitched the blade even closer, his arm winding tighter.

“I daresay the lady of the house would agree with you, Tommy. If she could speak.” He raised his voice again.

“And she would be able to—she would be able to speak freely if I didn’t have your lethal switchblade against her throat and a thirst to change the colour of this hideous carpet from green to red. ”

“You’re bluffing,” she wheezed, eyes bulging with terror. “You wouldn’t dare.”

The knife hitched higher, and as the flattened blade flashed, a thin trickle of blood oozed from the tip.

“Oops.” Rossingley made a sound very much like a giggle. “Shall I do that again? Or maybe half an inch to the left this time?”

The door crashed wide. A white-faced Dickie Duggan charged through it, skidding to a halt at the sight of his mother in Rossingley’s grip.

“Get your filthy hands off her!”

“If it’s all the same to you, I shall remain as I am. We’re having such a lovely cuddle, aren’t we, Mrs Duggan?” Rossingley tutted. “Dear, oh dear, Dickie. Someone’s been a naughty boy.”

“Tommy,” Dickie beseeched, his ashen features slack and wobbling. “Tell this madman to stop.”

Tommy shook his head. He hadn’t clapped eyes on Dickie for years, and suffice to say, the man’s youthful good looks had gone the way of the original White Hart.

Judging by his greyish complexion, he was no stranger to the laudanum bottle either.

Tommy could have felled him with one blow, never mind a switchblade.

Wrapped around Dickie’s mother like a lover, Rossingley grinned wolfishly. If Dickie resembled a grubby ageing cherub, the earl was the devil incarnate, packaged as a daydream.

“Listening at doors, sir, is a fruitful pastime,” Rossingley drawled.

“One I’m quite partial to myself. However, a word of warning.

One will eventually overhear what one deserves.

” He twisted the knife a little harder, piercing the soft flesh in a fresh spot.

Ma Duggan looked on the verge of a dead faint.

“Now, if you would be so kind, sir, I’d like you to explain why on God’s green earth you thought you might get away with blackmailing Tommy. ”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let her go.”

“I told you not to drag Tommy into this,” Ma Duggan squawked. “I knew no good would come of sending that bloody note!”

Rossingley sighed, long and drawn out as though suddenly weary of the whole thing.

His grip slackened a fraction. “Dickie, poppet,” he said.

“May I call you Dickie? Or are you a Richard?” He cocked his head.

“No, I don’t think you are. Another piece of advice, Dickie, and then I shall leave you at the mercy of maternal wrath.

A mother’s wisdom may not be what you want to hear, but is, more often than not, what a son needs to hear. ”

And with that, he pushed Ma Duggan and her idiot son aside and, towing Tommy in his wake, sauntered from the room.