Page 83 of The Best of Friends
His response was equally as quiet. “He won’t, but I very much think he wants your father to know how much peril he is now in.”
Mother certainly seemed to know. She was fussing her handkerchief to the point that Daria expected it to fray into a heap of threads.
“What should we do with him, Charlie?” the duke asked, still not looking away from Father.
“What do you think my father would have done if he’d heard what was just said about his wife?” Charlie was such a lighthearted and even-keeled person. To hear his voice tinged with anger was disconcerting.
Not half so disconcerting, though, as the sinister smile that spread slowly over the duke’s face. “Let’s go for a ride, shall we?”
“Where to?” Father’s question shook a bit.
“Lampton House. Four of this lady’s sons are there at the moment. Between the six of us, we ought to be able to sort outexactlywhat the late earl would have done to you.” His Grace pulled Father by his cravat to where a footman stood near the door. “Have this deposited in the carriage. He’s not to leave it.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” The footman took possession of the “prisoner” and disappeared from view.
“Gordon.” The duke called the butler over. “See that the Mullinses’ carriage is called up for Mrs. Mullins. She is returning home.”
The butler waved a maid inside the room, offering instructions for her to accompany Mother to the entryway. He then looked to the duke once more, seeming to anticipate that there were more instructions to come.
There were.
His Grace looked back to Charlie. “Don’t dawdle. Procrastination is inexcusable in matters of retribution.”
Charlie gave his mother a kiss on the cheek as he passed, then stepped from the room himself.
“Your Grace.” Toss took a step away from Daria and closer to the duke. “He offered insult to Miss Mullins as well.”
The duke eyed Toss for the length of half a breath. “Be in the carriage when we leave.”
Toss offered an abbreviated bow before turning back to Daria. “I don’t truly have the right to defend you in this, but I do want to be certain he knows that unkindnesses toward you won’t be ignored any longer.”
Any longer.For so many years, she’d assumed his slights and insults were deserved and, therefore, were unworthy of comment. The simple acknowledgment that her pain had been wrongly ignored was a welcome and much-needed change. “Be careful.”
“I will, my darling Daria.” He raised her hand to his lips and, after the briefest of kisses, followed Charlie’s path.
The dowager stopped His Grace with a hand on his arm. “Adam.” It was very much the tone a mother used when concerned her child was about to do something ill advised. “Mr. Mullins is not worth fighting a duel with and certainly not worth causing you any trouble with the law.”
The duke bent and kissed her cheek, very much as Charlie had done. Daria couldn’t help but stare a little. She’d seen the duke, in moments when he hadn’t realized he was being watched, show tenderness to his wife and children. But this was wholly unexpected.
“You forget, Mother Julia,” His Grace said. “Iamthe law.”
Chapter Thirty-two
Toss had added himself tothe party headed to Lampton House in order to defend Daria. Seeing the look in both Charlie’s and the Duke of Kielder’s eyes, he began to suspect the person most in need of looking out for was Mr. Mullins.
That gentleman, however, seemed intent on making his survival less certain. “I spoke harshly, I’ll confess. But it isn’t as though I said anything unflattering in front of her husband. He’s been dead for years.”
The duke didn’t move, didn’t look away, didn’t speak. The only change in Charlie’s expression was the slightest tensing of his jaw. Yet the air in the carriage turned icy. If Mr. Mullins, donkey-brained man that he was, wasn’t very careful, he would dig himself a hole too deep to ever escape. And though Mr. Mullins deserved none of Daria’s love or concern, Toss suspected she would be grieved should actual harm come to her father.
“Gads, man,” Toss muttered. “Keep your mummer shut, will you?”
Mr. Mullins ruffled up. “I beg your pardon.”
“It is notmypardon you ought to be begging. You’ve offered insult to Mr. Jonquil’s mother and the memory of his father, and both of those people are of great importance to His Grace. The two of them might actually kill you.”
“They wouldn’t dare.” Mr. Mullins’s voice rose too steeply on the phrase to make it sound as confident as he’d likely hoped it would.
“Keep talking.” The duke’s invitation was clearly a warning. “You’ll soon enough discover there is very little I wouldn’t dare.”
