Page 9 of Dukes Do It Better
Her finger brushed the black ribbon around his biceps. “I’m sorry for your loss. My father died several months ago. The family recently came out of mourning.”
“My condolences.” The polite words were automatic, but not insincere. A low current of grief over George swept away the lingering attraction he’d been enjoying.
“You are moving about in society, though, correct?” he asked.
“Yes, but I’m picking and choosing events. My departure date isn’t set in stone as of yet, but I doubt I’ll be in London for much longer, Lord Trenton.”
The title should have made him flinch, but her tone, low and intimately teasing, brought back a simmering shock of heat to his belly. Malachi leaned forward, until their faces were close enough to smell the bergamot on her breath from the pot of tea cooling on the table nearby. “I like it better when you call me Mal,” he said, angling his mouth to steal a kiss.
She lifted her chin to meet him, dark lashes already swooping down.
“Em, have you seen today’s edition of the Times? I set it aside at breakfast and it seems to have disappeared.” A blond man wandered into the room as he spoke.
Malachi jerked back, clambering to his feet like a child caught stealing sweets. A glance down showed Emma biting her lip, blinking as if waking from a daydream. There was no doubt she’d been ready for his kiss, with her pink cheeks and rosy flush peeking from her fichu. Emma recovered quickly, straightening her shoulders as she raised a brow as if to say don’t just stand there, then nodded toward a nearby chair.
“Phee had it last. Calvin, would you like to meet my guest? Calvin, Marquess of Eastly, may I introduce Malachi Harlow, Duke of Trenton. This is my brother, Your Grace.”
Malachi cocked his head. He’d always had a memory for faces, and he was certain he’d met her brother before now. It was only a matter of placing where he knew him from.
The blond man froze for a second before his darker brows met into a solid line across his forehead. “The pirate captain is a duke?”
Emma jerked her head to look at Malachi. “Pirate?”
“Captain, yes. Pirate, no.” Malachi shook his head toward her, but eyed the man.
Like a puzzle coming together, pieces of memory clicked into place. They’d done business several years before, while Malachi had been running convicts to the penal colonies. Where had he picked up the prisoner? Scotland? Yes, the Solway Firth. He and the man she called Calvin had struck an under-the-table deal to transport someone with forged papers. It hadn’t been the first time he’d supplemented his crew’s income with creative transactions.
He offered the newcomer a handshake. “A pleasure to see you again, milord.”
The man stalked across the room to stand between Malachi and Emma, ignoring the proffered greeting. “What the hell are you doing with my sister?”
“How do you two know each other?” Emma rose to her feet, eyeing Malachi and her brother with suspicion.
Malachi asked Calvin, “Would you like to tell your sister what this is about, or should I?”
As quickly as he’d marched over, full of protective indignation, Calvin deflated, slumping into a chair by Emma’s side of the sofa. “My sins have come home to roost, I suppose.”
Emma put her hands on her hips and studied the two of them. Although her face was composed, her mouth was hard, daring the men to attempt a lie so she could squash them like a bug.
Another current of desire flared. Before now, Malachi hadn’t realized this combination of strong and adorable would shoot straight to his groin, but here he was. Silently counting backward from fifty, he willed his body not to betray him.
When Emma turned that expression on Malachi, he shifted from one foot to the other. No matter how much he’d prefer to take a seat for whatever lecture was imminent, he wouldn’t sit while Emma stood. He shot her brother a condemning look, although the man ignored him.
“It seems to me, whatever sins Cal refers to are shared by the two of you. Now somebody had better explain.”
Calvin stared at the toes of his boots but didn’t offer words right away.
Malachi shrugged. There wasn’t anything to hide. While not technically legal, he’d provided a service, which he’d been paid for. Nothing too sinister there.
“A few years ago, your brother had a problem. I helped solve it in the form of taking a bad man off his hands and delivering said bad man to the penal colonies in Australia. Simple as that.”
Calvin glanced at Malachi with a look he couldn’t define. Relief? Puzzlement?
“Who was the man? Cal, why haven’t I heard of this before now?” Emma’s attention focused on her brother, eyebrows meeting over the bridge of her fine nose.
It was almost comical when her brother was the one being interrogated. After all, Malachi hadn’t paid to have a man shipped off to the end of the world. He’d only been the one to take out the trash, so to speak.
Calvin’s heavy sigh echoed in the room. “It was the year before your debut, Em. It’s not as if I deliberately hid it from you.” He waved a hand at her. “Sit down. Stop looming like you’re going to take a switch to my hide.”
