Page 36 of To Defend a Damaged Duke (Regency Rossingley #2)
BENEDICT WHILED AWAY the next four afternoons drinking lemon tea (made by someone else) and perusing The Morning Post ’s excellent racing commentary in the relaxing and comfortable surroundings of Mrs Catherine de Villiers drawing room on Cumberland Place.
And replaying his night with Tommy over and over in his head, like the lovesick youth he used to be.
They’d made love again during the darkest hours—coming together whilst still half asleep, and in the morning, too, a lazy mutual cock rubbing which left Benedict swearing he’d never leave the bed.
They did, of course, and by the time his staff arrived, they were up and dressed and pointedly discussing horseflesh.
The charming Mrs Catherine de Villiers, accepting of his poor, distracted company, used the time to complete a rather intricately designed coverlet for her niece’s trousseau and taught him the rudiments of lansquenet, a card game she’d learned during her years as the bored young wife of an elderly French General.
His card-playing valet, she confided to Benedict with an impish smile, had been younger and vigorous.
Tongues had wagged, Francis reliably informed him.
Especially by the fifth afternoon, when the Post dedicated an entire column to a description of Benedict escorting the spirited widow and the Honourable Beatrice Hazard in his landau around Vauxhall Gardens on two separate occasions during the same day.
What the ton failed to read about on the sixth afternoon was a rendezvous at Beatrice’s home between Beatrice and Mrs de Villiers. The two ladies got along famously, according to Francis, who heard it directly from Lady Isabella, who herself had quizzed Beatrice until she threatened her with Bach.
“A cunning plot is afoot,” confided Francis on the seventh afternoon when Benedict had been granted a reprieve from lansquenet.
He’d yet to win a hand; Mrs de Villiers’s young French valet had taught her well.
Uninvited as usual, his youngest brother made himself comfortable in the second study.
“Individually, Mrs de Villiers and Beatrice are forces to be reckoned with. Together, I fear they could rule the world.”
“Albeit a topsy-turvy world,” agreed Benedict, “where men occupy themselves with nothing more arduous than shopping for hats whilst womenfolk manage household finances and debate our foreign policy in Parliament.” With a sigh, he surveyed his cluttered desk.
“Bring it on, I say. They wouldn’t be able to make any more of a hash of things than the current government. ”
“Until that utopian day comes, they are putting their excellent brains to finessing a plot set to unfold at the Horton ball.” Francis smirked. “Designed to display the devilish Duke of Ashington at his most daring and dastardly. The finer details of which I must, on no account, share with you.”
“Because you don’t know them,” observed Benedict drily, tapping his quill against his ink pot.
He had changed his usual black ink to a dramatic dark green and was quite taken by it.
So much so, he’d ordered a similar coloured cravat.
“Beatrice doesn’t trust you not to blab. That woman’s wisdom knows no bounds.”
“Mmm,” confessed Francis. “Damned annoying.”
Benedict threw him a grave look. “Do you think the plot involves cheese?”
For a startled moment, Francis actually contemplated it. Had Benedict always been such a bore that even his rare jokes were misconstrued?
“Who knows.” He heaved a sigh. “I’m dreading it, to be blunt.
The whole bloody evening.” In a rare show of annoyance, he banged his fist on the arm of the chair.
“Isabella and I shall elope if we have to. Lord Ludham’s views on it be damned.
I refuse to let bloody Lyndon ruin her life. Mine and yours, too, come to that.”
“So do I,” said Benedict. “In fact, you have my word that I shall not allow it. You will not need to elope. You and dear Isabella shall have the finest wedding the ton has seen since Peel’s lavish affair at Westminster. I promise. If it’s the last thing I do.”
*
WAS IT POSSIBLE to hate and love the same person in equal measure?
No, Benedict didn’t believe it was. And anyhow, he wasn’t a man capable of hate.
He might pity someone, perhaps, though still love them all the same.
He could balance those emotions against one another.
His sympathy for the bitter demons occupying Lyndon’s head was bottomless.
Those demons drove Lyndon to pit his wits and rage against his twin, the firstborn son, forever set to gain everything, thanks to a few minutes.
An accident of fate. And yet, despite the campaign Lyndon raged against him, Benedict wanted nothing more than to forgive and forget, to cast the other cheek.
And he would, if his role wasn’t to protect Francis and Isabella, innocent victims of all of it.
As far as practical dealings with Lyndon were concerned, honesty was best. In Benedict’s experience, it afforded one the advantage of surprise. Having never employed that virtue as a tool himself, Lyndon never expected it.
Afternoon visits were advised too. They increased the likelihood of finding Lyndon awake.
“Only just returned from Brighton,” he informed Benedict after he’d been shown through to the small drawing room by a housemaid.
The same drab woman, matching the drab furnishing, proceeded to procure tea.
At least Lyndon wasn’t squandering money he didn’t have on staff and belongings he couldn’t afford.
“Spent a fortnight in bed. Staring out to sea and fucking my mistress.” His upper lip curled into a sneer. “Good fun. You should give it a go.”
He certainly didn’t look as though he’d spent a fortnight having fun. He looked weary and pale. And alone. The bruising around his eye and jaw had healed though.
With effort, Benedict allowed the comment to wash through him.
If he played this game with Lyndon, rising to the bait, his brother’s cleverness would win out, leaving Benedict feeling small and inadequate.
And now he had Tommy and the friendship of Rossingley, not to mention the support of Francis, Angel, and his dear confidante, Beatrice, he knew he was neither of those things.
“I come in the spirit of friendship, Lyndon,” he began. “And brotherhood. Our father, rest his soul, would hate for his sons to be at war with one another.”
“If only he’d taken that into consideration before he disinherited me.”
“He did what he thought right to help you to help yourself. Can one ask any more of a conscientious parent?”
Smirking, Lyndon cupped a hand behind his ear. “Did you hear that? I swear he’s still in the room.”
Benedict pushed on with the speech he’d prepared. “You still have your entailed house in Norfolk. You could go there, make a fresh start. I could…I am prepared to assist with any necessary renovations. Setting you up with suitable staff and so forth. A change of scenery might suit you.”
Lyndon threw him a disdainful look. “What, and miss all the merriment here?”
“The season is soon drawing to a close. Next Thursday’s race at Ascot and the Horton ball are the last major events on the Society calendar until autumn.”
“Matters of which I am fully aware. And I wouldn’t miss them for the world.
I intend to have a flutter on the horses, then drink myself into a stupor on Countess Eveline Horton’s free sherry.
Which reliably flows freely. And after that, who knows what will transpire?
” He threw Benedict one of his sly looks, perfected back when they were still in short trousers.
Funny how it didn’t elicit quite the usual nervousness.
“Loose tongues are worse than loose horses. Isn’t that what they say, Your Grace?
You’d know, what with owning all of those ever-so-lovely nags. ”
Never mind hearing his father’s echo, Benedict fancied he heard his heart, slipping down into his boots.
“Don’t do this, Lyndon,” he pleaded quietly. “I know you are the anonymous sender of the list. Do not deny it.”
“I have no need to deny it.” If Lyndon was shocked that his underhand behaviour had been discovered, he showed no sign. “Why would I? It comprises nothing but the truth, and unless my share of our family’s wealth is fully restored to me, I intend to reveal it.”
Benedict tried again. His brother was only a lost cause after everyone had given up. And Benedict never would. “Then, I beg you to reconsider. I do not ask for my sake but for Francis’s. And for the sake of our mother. However low your opinion of me, they are not deserving.”
Lyndon examined his nails. A smile toyed at his lips, of a sort that a man less mild than Benedict would have smacked away with his fist. Yet Benedict could no more have raised a hand to this man than he could to a newborn lamb.
What was it Francis had said? His big heart was both the worst and the best of him. Ah, well. So be it.
Eventually, Lyndon spoke. “I’m afraid that’s not possible, Your Grace.”
A profound sadness wrapped around Benedict’s chest as he regarded his twin brother. All this, over some damned pilfered teaspoons.
Except it was so much more than that. It was about the impact of a few minutes on years of a life.
The whimsy of primogeniture. Chance, a cruel monarch, ruling over them all yet again, sorting the pair of them into the duke and the not duke.
The heir and the spare. No judgement, no ambiguity.
No choice. Their identities had slotted into a crisp hierarchy from the moment they’d sucked in their first sobbing breaths.
And, in the only ways he knew how, Benedict’s clever, capable, brother rebelled against it by seeking out external pain, a matching twin for his inner grief.
With nothing to lose, Benedict attempted one last time. “This will not end well for you, Lyndon,” he said, gently. “Please. I implore you to reconsider.”
For a long minute, he stared into a pair of dark eyes so similar to his own, even if the rest of his twin’s bloated body and mind had long since slid beyond recognition.
“So you say.” Rising to his feet, Lyndon gestured to the door. “Begging your pardon, Your Grace. I have another appointment. You can show yourself out.”