Page 23 of To Defend a Damaged Duke
“Have you come across this Fitzsimmons person since?”Rossingley stayed Tommy’s arm, preventing him handing over the coins.“Any titled gent, perhaps, that goes by that name?”
“Titled gent?”she parroted, and her cackle of laughter turned into a coughing fit.“Oh, yes,” she managed after catching her breath.“One comes here every afternoon.We have tea in a china cup and a slice of seed cake; we sit around talking politics for an hour.”
Wiping her hand across her mouth, she threw him a scornful look.“’Course I bloody haven’t.Not seen the likes of the Fitzsimmons boy since the raid.Not gone looking for him either.I don’t go looking for trouble with nobs—lands you in all sorts of hot water.Clean forgot about him until this brother of his came calling.”
“His…” Tommy faltered.Even Rossingley was taken aback.“How do you know your visitor was his brother?”
“There’s an extra sovereign in it for you,” Tommy quickly added.
Her shifty eyes turned towards the door again.“Listen.I said I don’t go looking for trouble with nobs.Didn’t say I wasn’t nosy.Our Dickie went outside and chatted up the driver, like, while I was chatting up the nob.The brother wasn’t half as good-looking as the lordling who used to tup you, Tommy.Proper carrot-top, this fella was.Liked the booze a bit too much, too, if you ask me.”
Takes one to know one.Tommy and Rossingley traded glances.So, the duke’s own brother was behind it.Lord Lyndon.Who needed enemies when one had family?Was a shortcut to his own ruination not enough for the cove, that he had to take his brothers, his hitherto good family name, and Tommy down with him?
“You’ll be off, then,“ Ma Duggan remarked as Tommy handed over the extra coin.“Don’t bother coming back any time soon, Tommy.”
“Wild horses would have to drag me.”
Having accomplished all they’d set out, he was eager to leave.Rossingley, however, seemed in no great hurry to say his farewells.With his lower lip pinched between finger and thumb, he was doing that glittery thing he did with those penetrating pale eyes, which meant his smart brain was whirring at thrice the speed of a normal person.Twice, his hooded gaze had flicked towards the door during their cosy chat with Ma Duggan.
“One further question,” he said, not caring that they’d outstayed their welcome.“And I’ll come straight to the point.However did you suppose that you could blackmail Tommy and get away with it?”
“What?”Tommy and Ma Duggan stared at him, the older woman’s astonishment as genuine as Tommy’s.She gave a little harrumph.
“Blackmail Tommy?I’m not that daft.”
Lips pursed, Rossingley eyed her thoughtfully.“No,” he agreed.“I don’t believeyouare.Only someone as stupid as…say…abarn doorwould be so reckless.”
Ma Duggan’s gaze darted to the parlour door.A flash of genuine fear crossed her face.“I’m telling you.I wouldn’t mess with Tommy.I’ve seen him take down madges twice his size that got too rough, with nothing but his vicious tongue and a switchblade.”Her tone, reeking of the truth, held a trace of urgency.“You tell him, Tommy.You’re an evil little bugger.Can’t say I like you, but I ain’t got no truck with you.”
“Lordy,” Tommy urged.“I think our business here is done, don’t you?We’ve achieved what we—”
“Hmm.I’m not yet convinced we have.”Rossingley’s clipped vowels rose above the sound of the other two.“What say you, Mrs Duggan?”
“I say you should get back in that fancy—”
Rossingley held up a silencing finger, cutting her off mid-sentence.“Let me tell you something, Mrs Duggan.A little bit about myself.”
There was something about the aristocracy that set them apart, thought Tommy.When they spoke, they assumed everyone would shut up and listen.The annoying thing was everyone usually did.
“There are three things I love above all others in this world,” Rossingley declared.Stepping closer towards her, he smiled, showing his pointy little teeth.Familiar with that disarming smile, Tommy braced for whatever hurricane came next.
“Shall I enlist them?”Like a sermon tossed down from a high pulpit, the earl’s icy, cultured tones bounced around the walls of the tiny parlour.
“Do I have a choice?”
“Not really.”Rossingley took another menacing step closer to Ma Duggan so that he loomed over her, almost as if he intended to rest his arm around her bony shoulders.“Now, where was I?Ah, yes.Three things.”
“Get out,” she hissed.“You’ve had what you came for.Now get out.”
“The first, above all,” he continued as if she hadn’t spoken, “I love Mr Christopher Angel.Such a darling chap.And so terribly handsome.Some days, I have to pinch myself that he’s all mine.Secondly—” His lip curled into the hint of another smile, even more unpleasant than the first, causing Ma Duggan to shrink back in the chair.“—and I can be forgiven for discussing this particular intimacy in my present surroundings—I absolutely adore the sounds Mr Angel makes mere seconds before he spills inside my mouth.”He accompanied this shocking statement with a deep and obscene groan.“Divine.And thirdly…”
Oh Lord, Tommy dreaded to imagine the third item on the list.A misplaced bubble of laughter welled in his throat at the craziness of it all.Forget blackleg stands and gambling hells.He should focus on bottling whatever ran through the earl’s extraordinary head to sell as a cure for nerves, fear, and melancholia.
“I recall that during the journey here, my lord,” Tommy butted in, “which, frankly, seems months ago now, I requested you refrain from speaking.”
“Thirdly—” the earl continued in a smooth and abnormally loud tone.“—and this is utterly unrelated to Mr Angel, you understand.Thirdly, I can’t help having a peculiar penchant for the naked fear in a fellow’s eyes as he realises a crazed aristocrat is about to slash through his dear old ma’s jugular!”
In a flash, Rossingley lunged and wrapped his arm around Ma Duggan’s scrawny neck.A switchblade appeared in his elegant hand, a horribly familiar switchblade generally found skulking behind a potted plant.He jammed it up against her throat.The woman let out a dry gasp of shock.
