Page 3 of To Defend a Damaged Duke (Regency Rossingley #2)
SOME HOURS LATER , ensconced in the second study, the fourteenth duke was absorbed in the solitary sport of thumb twirling. Documents relating to estate matters awaited his attention, but he didn’t have the inclination to unseal them.
His father had been a thumb twirler; he’d frequently practised while waiting for Benedict’s mother to grace them with her presence at dinner.
Since she was habitually tardy, his father became one of those rare folks who could twirl them in contrarotation; whenever Benedict attempted it, his thumbs inexplicably reverted to their former direction.
Outside his window, a carriage splashed noisily through the puddles, drawing his attention away from his wretched ennui.
Though mastering his newly inherited title was a struggle, Benedict wasn’t necessarily sad —he had nothing to feel sad about.
He was a healthy and wealthy young duke, for goodness’ sake!
Put simply, he was empty, his enthusiasm for anything, except for his thoroughbreds, spread as thinly as butter.
It was as though he waited, twirling his blessed thumbs, on something that might never happen.
The carriage momentarily paused, its occupants shrieking with laughter as water sploshed across the windows.
He pictured the group of young, happy souls stuffed inside, taking part in a world full of people Benedict had never met, a world crammed with experiences he’d never experienced and potential lovers he’d never discover.
Not if he spent every bloody evening thumb twirling.
Where was it his brother had muttered that he was off to?
Squire’s. That new club on St James. Could he?
Should he? Reticence and the fourteenth duke lived side by side.
Reflexively, he dismissed the idea. He should send for his paperknife.
And get on with unsealing his papers. On the cusp of Benedict ringing for a footman, another shriek invaded the calm of his study.
Francis would be there, Tuffy would be there, and no doubt a few other chaps too.
He could go for an hour, he supposed. An hour wouldn’t hurt.
And how bad could it be?
*
ON FIRST IMPRESSIONS , the place looked every bit as if it had occupied the four-storey building on the corner of St James and Charles Street for as long as White’s had been plying the same trade at the other end of St James.
The carriages lined up outside were equally as smart, as were the raucous young gentlemen of the ton exiting them, none of whom Benedict recognised.
Feeling old and staid and wondering if it wasn’t too late to turn back home, he waited behind three jolly chums divesting themselves of coats and hats and signing themselves in.
And then it was his turn.
Benedict considered himself tall, but the craggy-faced man behind the desk was taller still. He dwarfed the desk, his brawny shoulders seemingly reaching from one edge of it to the other. If he banged his fist down in anger, it might splinter. Benedict had no intention of finding out.
“Good evening, sir.” The man’s blunt gaze roamed Benedict’s features as if committing them to memory. “May I enquire if you are member?”
Unused to being scrutinised, especially when the scrutiny ended with a curiously knowing smile, Benedict found it rather disconcerting.
“No,” he admitted. “My…um…brother invited me.”
“His name, sir?”
“Lord Francis Fitzsimmons.”
Dampening his meaty thumb, the man flicked through a thick ledger, his expression blank.
A large, rectangular gilt mirror adorned the wall behind him and, unaccountably nervous, Benedict examined himself in it.
God, he looked severe. A study in black and white, as if newly risen from the dead.
And so stiff; his charcoal coat and matching waistcoat could stand up by themselves.
What on earth possessed him to choose such a dull waistcoat?
There was once a time when he made a beeline for the most outlandish.
Hating all he saw reflected back, he dropped his gaze.
“Found him,” said the man. “He’s in tonight.”
“Good.” Benedict breathed a sigh of relief.
“And your name, sir?”
“I’m…uh…it’s duke , I’m afraid.” He always felt peculiar telling someone who he was; people tended to already know. On the necessary rare occasion, it usually elicited a change in behaviour; fawning was the best word to describe it. “I’m…um…the Duke of Ashington.”
For all the effect it had on the man behind the desk, he could have declared himself to be his youngest brother’s valet delivering a mislaid snuff box.
“This way, Your Grace,” the giant declared.
*
PERCHED AWKWARDLY ON the edge of Francis’s rambunctious gaggle of friends, Benedict sipped at his very good quality sherry.
He tried not to behave like a spectre at the feast, except he didn’t quite think he was pulling it off.
Three of his brother’s pals turned out to be the high-spirited chaps he’d followed in.
Oh, they made him feel welcome, and two of them he even vaguely knew something about, through Tattersall’s and the racetracks.
Except, once he exhausted their enthusiasm for horseflesh (his own was inexhaustible), and their eyes began to glaze over, he realised the only reason they’d stuck with the polite conversation was due to his superior rank.
Taking pity on them, Benedict took a turn around the room, pretending to examine the sombre oil paintings of bygone bloody battles, bucolic generals, and long-forgotten racehorses.
He wasn’t much of a historian or scholar, but some of the racehorse oils were actually quite striking.
The salon, one of three available for guests, was also impressive.
At some point in time—perhaps a roof had fallen in, or a fire had broken out—the end farthest from the window had been rebuilt and now had a double height ceiling.
Above a line of tall bookcases ran a galleried landing, hemmed by a thick wooden rail preventing whoever was up there from tumbling to a grisly death on the parquet below.
Benedict toured the salon a second time, dawdling at the fireplace, hoping his presence wasn’t putting too much of a damper on his brother’s evening. Most probably, they all thought him quite odd, a stuffy, friendless bore and with the sartorial style of a tea chest.
So it was with vast relief, just as he contemplated making feeble excuses to Francis to slink away, that two newcomers entered the room.
One of whom, thank heavens, was a few years older than him.
Though with his arresting white-blond hair, exquisite lilac silk costume, and ravishing features, it would be hard to convince anyone.
The man at his heels, equally handsome, though a dark, brooding sort, Benedict didn’t recognise.
Nonetheless, Benedict’s heart lifted.
“Ashington,” said the fairer newcomer at once.
“Hullo, old friend! It’s been too long.” He strode over with a warm smile and clasped Benedict’s hand in his much daintier, cool one, and beamed.
“My fault entirely. I’ve been quite the hermit over the last few years.
” He cast an amused glance back at his companion.
“Only recently have I been encouraged to venture from my shell.”
“You’re not entirely to blame, Rossingley.”
“And I must offer my condolences on the loss of your dear father. Taken from us far too soon, bless his soul.”
Aware of a flush creeping up his neck as he waved away Rossingley’s kind words, Benedict tugged a finger into the tight gap between his cravat and his skin.
As a boy, he’d harboured a childish infatuation with Rossingley.
Their mothers had been good friends, and sometimes, the older youth had been home when they paid visits.
Years later, the blissfully unaware earl still possessed the power to discombobulate Benedict.
“I’m not exactly…ah…the pink of the ton myself.”
“No,” agreed Rossingley carefully, giving Benedict a shrewd look. “But that’s not a crime.”
Benedict had a dreadful certainty his high colour had not escaped the man. Which only made him flush more. The earl laid a hand on his companion’s arm.
“Allow me to introduce my darling friend, Mr Christopher—Kit—Angel. Kit, I present His Grace, the Duke of Ashington.”
“Your Grace.” The man offered a small bow. His left ear held a gold loop. Benedict tried not to peer at it.
“Angel has taken over Gartside’s place next to mine,” explained Rossingley. “We have since become very close neighbours.”
Something about Rossingley always gave Benedict a frisson of pleasure .
He’d often felt a kinship towards him, though they couldn’t be more different in spirit than a mule and Benedict’s finest stallion.
He experienced it again now, wishing he could loosen his cravat even further.
There was something about the way he described his friendship with Mr Angel as close , as if infusing that basic geographic adjective with a hidden meaning.
Or perhaps that was simply wishful thinking on Benedict’s part.
Privately, he’d always wondered about Rossingley.
Yes, the man had once married and begat sons, but even so, he was awfully—Benedict would say gloriously—effete.
“I have two of Gartside’s thoroughbreds,” Benedict informed them, seeing Rossingley’s pale blue eyes light up. “Purchased them back in September for a song.”
His nerves eased a little. Rossingley was always happy to talk horseflesh. His excellent seat on a horse, only surpassed in recent years by Benedict’s own, had occupied a younger Benedict’s thoughts (and his nether regions) for many a long, dull summer in the country.
“If nothing else, that blasted creature knew his racehorses,” answered Rossingley dolefully. “Horrid business. Horrid man.”
Yet again, he exchanged a look with Mr Angel, whose dark gaze had hardly left the earl’s slender figure since they’d walked into the room together.
“Would you care to drink with us awhile, Ashington?” Rossingley asked.
“Our usual table is over by the window.” Nodding his elegant head in the direction of Francis and his friends, he smiled.
“These young bucks will be losing their blunt, hand over fist, to one another at basset any minute now. And I find it gets rather rowdy at this end of the room. How’s your dear mother? ”