Page 10 of To Defend a Damaged Duke
Even as the duke stuttered and stumbled, that sonorous voice still gripped Tommy’s craw.Deep, rich, and melodic, it was the sort of voice one craved to hear late in the evening, murmuring one’s name from the adjacent pillow.Tommy gulped at his brandy, acid sloshing in his gullet.
“A friend saved me, someone to whom I am forever indebted.”He swirled the drink around in his glass.“Someone not afraid to step up to defend one of his own.Your cravat, sadly, I cannot return to you.”
Tommy was being deliberately cruel and yet couldn’t restrain himself.“Have you ever seen a man pilloried, Your Grace?No?You really should if, perchance, one afternoon, you ever find yourself in Charing Cross and at a loose end.It’s quite the spectacle.Quite the family day out.Even more thrilling if half the men are mere boys.It takes over seventy constables to escort seven defenceless sodomites to the pillory; did you know that?On account of the crowds, you see.They can turn horribly violent, often without warning.I can still rattle off all the names of those in chains, of course.James Cooke, James Amos—we knew him as ‘Sally’.Will Thompson, Dickie Duggan—Ma Duggan ran the place.Sidney Bolton…oh, and yes, a young trussed-up Tommy Squire.”
“Please stop, Tommy.”The duke’s broken plea was barely a whisper.“I’m so sorry.I’m so, so sorry.Just, please.Stop.”
Tommy gave a humourless laugh.“Stop?How funny, Your Grace.Because that’s exactly what I begged to happen too.Except, on that occasion, they didn’t listen, did they?Folks lob all sorts of rubbish at you, you know, when you’re locked in there.Mud, potatoes, offal.To this day, I can’t stomach a turnip.Not too fond of dead cats, either.Nor the scent of stale piss, not only the buckets of it showered at you, but your own, too, because one is trapped there for hours, you understand, and a man has to go eventu—”
“Stop,” the duke shouted hoarsely.He banged a fist on the desk.“I said stop, dammit.Sir, I beg you.”
Nine years or so had passed since Tommy Squire had shed a tear—of sorrow or elation.Except now, they stung hot and sharp at the back of his eyes.His throat closing, he stood abruptly, arms wrapped tight across his chest.Turning his back on his visitor, he stalked towards the window.
Silence spread between them, like spilt milk.The air in the small library settled around them, still and thick.Tommy fancied he could reach out and grasp it.
“What I…how I behaved that afternoon,” began the duke.“It is unforgiveable.You must believe me when I tell you I have lived with my actions every hour of every single day since.”
“Not as well as I,” bit out Tommy.
“That is true.But also believe me when I tell you how gladly my…my soul sings now, finding you so recovered and prospering.WhatIdid to you, whattheydid to you, a man would not wish on his greatest enemy, and yet…” He gulped audibly.“I allowed it to happen to my…to a person I once held more dearly in my heart than anyone else.”
Tommy clenched his fists.If the duke began making excuses, he’d hit him.Nobility be damned.
But he didn’t, the duke stayed quiet until Tommy felt sufficiently himself again to turn from the window.A person I once held more dearly in my heart than anyone else.How dare he stand in Tommy’s office and say that.With effort, he schooled his features into a mask of cool indifference.
“Are you still of a mind to have a tour of the premises, Your Grace?Because I might cry off, if it’s all the same to you.I could ring for Sidney to escort you, though it might be a little slower, as he has a limp, you see.A memento from his time in Newgate.Or, you can return to the gaming room and join Lord Francis for a few hands.Really, as the club’s most esteemed and high-ranking member, the choice is yours.I am at your service, Your Grace.”
For a snatched moment, their eyes met, one set hurt and bewildered, the other hardened into chips of granite.Tommy would die rather than look away first.But, God, how he shed blood on the inside.
“I would be grateful if you called for my carriage,” the duke managed at last.“That would be for the best, I think.”
Chapter Six
“YOUNG MEN’S LOVElies not truly in their hearts but in their eyes,” the Honourable Beatrice Hazard declared as she took Benedict’s arm.“At least, that’s Will Shakespeare’s learned opinion, anyhow.And his understanding of human desires has no equal.”
Strolling through the gardens at Vauxhall, they deliberately dawdled a short way behind Francis and Isabella.As Benedict dully appreciated the plain simplicity of a broad avenue of trees, it struck him that he had never seen Tommy outside of a closed room.They’d certainly never strolled together, arm in arm.
A month had elapsed since Benedict and Tommy’s worlds had collided.Naturally, Benedict had steered clear of Squire’s, much to his brother’s befuddlement.He’d not been very much of anywhere, in fact, except for his stables.Needless to say, the month had not been a happy one.
“Then my brother may have broken the mould,” Benedict responded.“Whilst he is undoubtedly enamoured of Isabella’s outward beauty, I do believe his love for her is heartfelt and true.”
“So do I,” agreed Beatrice.“Sickening, isn’t it?”
He laughed for perhaps the first time that week.“It pains them to be parted from each other for even a day.How will we ever find an undesirable to threaten her virtue and thereby tempt Lord Ludham to receive Francis’s suit if she is forever in his company?”
“Perhaps your own presence, never far from your brother’s shoulder, also shies them away, Your Grace.You put the fear of God into them.”
“I do?”He glanced down at her in astonishment, his thick eyebrows huddled together.
“Yes!You are very forbidding, especially when you regard a person like that.Your eyesscowl.”
“They do?”He twitched the muscles in his cheeks and wiggled his eyebrows up and down as if trying to rearrange them.Hopeless.
She laughed prettily.“You sound as if you are conjugating verbs, Your Grace.And…and appear to have developed an unfortunate tic.Yes, they do.You do.”
“Huh.”With difficulty, he refrained from frowning and encouraged his lips to curve up a little.Now, he probably looked like a simpleton.“Scowling is not my intent.”
“Never mind.”Beatrice gave his bicep a friendly little squeeze.“I would be thrilled if you persevered with the habit whilst strolling in my company.Being seen on the arm of one of theton’s most eligible, dour dukes is a first-rate strategy for maintaining my unmarried status.”She paused.“It also is excellent at maintaining yours.”
