Page 5 of To Defend a Damaged Duke (Regency Rossingley #2)

THE HONOURABLE BEATRICE Hazard, Isabella’s bosom friend and confidante, ought to leave the harpsichord to a person more skilled.

Though, on this fine morning, her slaughter of Bach traumatised Benedict much less than usual, and for good reason.

An hour earlier, he’d received word that Ganymede’s temper was markedly improved and that Helios, his stablemate, had romped home in yesterday’s opening race at Epsom Park by five lengths.

Furthermore, his brother Lyndon’s name hadn’t been raised in a concerning way for over a month.

But best of all, Benedict had reacquainted himself with Rossingley and enjoyed the company of his charming friend Mr Angel.

In addition, he’d found himself a discreet somewhere to while away a few hours in an atmosphere far less stuffy than the bay-windowed salon at White’s and far more convivial than his own second study.

“Have you thought any more about marrying, Your Grace?” asked Isabella sweetly from her perch on the sofa, far too close to Francis than was conventional for an unwed young woman. “You aren’t getting any younger.”

“So you and Francis insist on reminding me.” Benedict threw her a stern look. Or attempted to. The young chit had cheeked him since she was old enough to toddle around the walled garden clutching his brother’s chubby hand. “I’ve not yet reached thirty! And the answer is still no.”

She bobbed her tongue at him, and he chuckled. Why her father, currently under the impression the ladies were shopping for new silk stockings, refused to let her be betrothed to her childhood sweetheart was beyond Benedict. The man was simply pig-headed.

From the harpsichord, Beatrice regarded the canoodling couple—and really there was no other word for it—with a sigh. “I’ll marry you, Your Grace, if I must. Seeing as you have such a well-stocked library.” She shook her head. “It would be the most honourable thing.”

Isabella chortled with delight, and Benedict smiled fondly at both ladies, his gaze lingering on Beatrice.

Gentlemen weren’t supposed to enjoy the company of bluestockings, known to be too opinionated, too audacious, too frightening to contemplate.

Nonetheless, he found Beatrice especially pleasing.

“My laden bookshelves and I shall bear your starry-eyed proposal in mind.”

“Truly perfect, of course, would be the library minus the husband,” Beatrice added with a long-suffering sigh. “But beggars shouldn’t be choosers.”

“You’re far from a beggar, my dear,” scoffed Benedict.

Unlike Isabella, Beatrice had no intention of marriage. Fortunately, her frail but wealthy father liked his spinster daughter’s company well enough that he was perfectly happy if she stayed that way.

“Shh.” Beatrice put her finger to her lips. “Don’t tell everyone, otherwise I’ll have the likes of Mr Bannister coming to call. Gossip regarding my association with you is the only thing keeping them at bay. And goodness knows, I only tolerate you for the books.”

Benedict threw her another smile. “Then, if we had to marry, I would be sure to apologise daily for the inconvenience of my existence.”

He returned his attention to The Morning Post and tried to block out both Beatrice’s clumsy destruction of Bach’s Fugue in E-flat major and his brother and Isabella’s inane doe-eyed giggling.

“You seemed to be rather enjoying yourself at Squire’s the other evening with Rossingley and his pal,” Francis commented. “Thinking of joining?”

“Yes,” Benedict answered swiftly, surprising himself as well as his brother. “I do believe I might. Is it…ah…a difficult process?”

Francis guffawed. “For you? You’re a duke, Benedict.” Despairingly, he shook his head. “Sometimes, I wonder if you have any idea at all how the world turns outside of your various homes and that damned stable block.”

“At the pace of a snail,” piped up Beatrice, scowling. “That is, if one is expected to spend all of one’s waking hours embroidering cushion covers and perfecting fugues.”

“You are a long way off that, my dear.” Benedict peered over the top of his paper.

Francis continued. “Joining is quite straightforward. One must simply be of good standing and a nominated member of the ton .”

“And be in possession of a member , obviously,” added Beatrice.

“Beatrice!” Isabella flung a hand across her mouth. “How can you say such scandalous things! Or even think them! And in the presence of His Grace too!”

Fleetingly, Benedict expected his father to appear at the door. Nearly three-quarters of a year gone, and the absurd grandeur of the thing still caught him out.

“Settle down, ladies. You’ve made your point, Beatrice.” He shook out his paper. “If it’s any consolation to you, I doubt very much you’d enjoy it in there anyhow. Although”—and he gave her a wicked smile—“a veritable cornucopia of books line the shelves.”

“All of them unread, too, I’ll be bound,” interjected Francis. “Their spines just waiting to be cracked open. I’ll nominate you for membership tonight, Benedict. Poaching a duke from Boodle’s and White’s? I daresay Thomas L’Esquire will bite your hand off.”

Benedict frowned. It was not a name he recognised, but then, he wasn’t terribly observant. “Squire’s owner, I presume?”

“Yes,” confirmed his brother. “According to Tuffy, he’s come from abroad. Made his money there. I’ve only met him a couple of times, very briefly. A grim sort, he certainly doesn’t give much away. Watchful and quiet, you know.”

“Squabbling seagulls are quiet compared to you, Francis,” commented Beatrice.

Francis grinned. “But sadly, your harpsichord playing isn’t.”

He turned back to Benedict. “Apparently, when Mr L’Esquire is not being silent and enigmatic, he’s awfully fond of the gee-gees. So I daresay you’d get on splendidly.”

*

BENEDICT TRIPPED UP the steps of Squire’s with much more confidence than a few days earlier.

His long-suffering valet had even teased him into a more form-fitting waistcoat with a black silk stripe running through the charcoal and a matching pocket square.

The austere set to his countenance, his valet could do nothing about, although Benedict had practised smiling in the glass a few times as he’d powdered his teeth.

For a moment, he almost glimpsed the blithe, carefree youth he’d once been.

Before that dreadful, dreadful afternoon.

He wouldn’t dwell on that tonight, not now he was trialling this new, emboldened version of himself.

At some point, for all his fobbing off of his brother and Isabella, Benedict would have to consider marriage.

Perhaps bluestocking Beatrice and her witty tongue might suit him well.

She was comely enough, he supposed. If only he could somehow stir his errant body into… performing with a woman.

“Good evening, Your Grace.”

The same colossus as before rose from the front desk. He bowed, somehow managing to make it both subservient and intimidating. Benedict couldn’t help thinking he must be an excellent deterrent of poor behaviour. The colossus proffered an elegant swan feather quill pen.

“If one could simply sign one’s name here in the ledger, Your Grace, then I shall add you to the member’s list. The Earl of Rossingley has already proposed you. I shall take the liberty of addressing all correspondence from here on to your man of business so as not to concern you further.”

Another little bow accompanied the last, no less off-putting than the first. “I believe Squire’s owner, Mr Thomas L’Esquire, is upstairs this evening, Your Grace.

It would give him great pleasure to offer you a tour.

Would it trouble you too much to ask if you would spare him a moment of your time later? ”

“Not at all,” said Benedict expansively. “I should be delighted.” He scribbled his name in a rather fetching blood-red ink before allowing the man to lead the way. Really, the whole thing had been as terribly straightforward as Francis promised.

Rossingley was absent this evening, but Benedict’s favourite brother and his chums, already settled and in full flow, greeted him with much more enthusiasm than he generally warranted.

Waving them away, Benedict perused the bookshelves awhile.

To give him something to occupy his hands other than brandy, he selected a mercifully slim tome with a decent-sized font about the life and achievements of somebody called Major General James Wolfe.

Soon, he was ensconced in Rossingley’s preferred corner with the book, brandy, and a warm glow of contentment.

A shadow crossed his field of vision. Expecting a footman, hell bent on pandering to his every whim, Benedict schooled his features into polite neutrality, only for them to fall flat when his twin, Lyndon, slid into the chair opposite.

His ruddy cheeks proved he’d also been at the brandy, but without a bloodthirsty description of the besting of the Frenchies at Quebec to distract him.

A less agreeable man than Benedict would question the exclusivity of the place, yet even now, after all his twin’s degeneracy, a masochistic part of Benedict remained pleased to see him.

Was it idiocy to still hope his once biddable brother had developed a semblance of decent behaviour and returned to the fold?

“Your Grace,” Lyndon acknowledged.

Never had those two words been uttered in such a sardonic tone.

“Lyndon. I am still your brother. This damned title has not altered me.”

A sly smile crept across Lyndon’s ruddy face.

“No, I suspect not.” Cocking his head, he peered bleary-eyed at Benedict.

“Our innate selves, our inner desires and our passions, have an annoying tendency to persist, do they not? Regardless of external pressures placed upon them.” He spread his hands wide.

“Such as a dukedom, for instance. They are the very devil to quash. Wouldn’t you agree? ”

“Um…I daresay, yes?” Benedict floundered. Lyndon had always been a much cleverer bugger than himself—even half-foxed, such as now. “I’m still closely invested in my thoroughbreds, if that’s what you mean.”

His brother’s peculiar smile grew wider. “I imagine you are. Have any…young colts caught your eye recently?”

“No,” Benedict admitted, a little uncomfortable.

Lyndon didn’t usually demonstrate this degree of interest in any of his pursuits.

“Not currently. Papa never warned me quite how much ducal affairs eat into one’s leisure time.

Though I think I’m finally getting to grips with it all.

I hope to acquire one or two in the spring. ”

“Still not the marrying type, then.”

Marriage and investing in young colts weren’t mutually exclusive projects, as far as Benedict knew. Puzzled, he shook his head. “All in good time. You?”

“The aspirational fathers of the ton don’t find me an enticing prospect for their virginal daughters. Can’t imagine why,” he added drily. “Can you?”

Benedict sensed an imminent outpouring of bitterness.

In the main, it tended to focus on their deceased father but invariably swung in his direction, too, leaving him conflicted between his need to protect the wealth and reputation of the Ashington name and his dislike at seeing this man, whom he once loved dearly, ruin himself.

Of course, Lyndon never considered pointing the needle of his hostile compass at himself.

“You could always try harder to endear yourself to them.” Benedict gestured to his brother’s freshly topped up glass. “Imbibing a little less of this and spending less time and money at the card tables might be a start.”

“How very dull,” observed Lyndon.

“But excellent for your purse,” countered Benedict. Nine months into the dukedom and already he sounded exactly like their pompous father. “And for your standing with the aforementioned wealthy papas.”

Should he offer to channel more funds in Lyndon’s direction?

Or would it simply increase the speed at which his brother’s ruination would be complete?

As much as Benedict hated being cast in the role of stolid, conscientious older sibling (although, to be fair, it came to him naturally), his current course of action was still best. And sensible, smart Francis agreed.

Benedict braced for an unpleasant ending to their rare interaction.

“My purse,” Lyndon groused, “is not empty through excess liqueur. It’s empty because someone saw fit to follow our dear father’s—God rest his virtuous, pious soul—orders to the letter.”

How did this damned brother’s snide comments always succeed in wheedling under Benedict’s skin? “And someone saw fit to steal the family silver, Lyndon. The remainder of us Ashington’s are quite fond of it and would wish it to remain in the family. Have you ever considered…”

A footman approached, and Benedict snapped his mouth shut. Bickering with members of one’s close family in a public space was never a good look, even for a duke.

“I am terribly sorry to interrupt, Your Grace,” the footman said. “But if I may be so bold, Mr L’Esquire is awaiting the honour of your acquaintance in the upstairs library.”

Benedict blew out a breath. Thank heavens for Mr L’Esquire. “Certainly. The pleasure would be all mine.”

Bidding Lyndon a curt adieu, he fair leaped out of his seat. Not only would he thank Mr L’Esquire for allowing him to join this excellent establishment, but he’d also thank him for an excuse to escape his damned difficult brother.