Page 28 of To Defend a Damaged Duke
Fortunately, he could always rely on Sidney to drag him away from lofty notions of love.His friend lumbered up to the mezzanine above the gaming room, where Tommy leaned his elbows on the railing, looking down on his clientele.Though reluctant to admit it, he half hoped the Duke of Ashington might put in an appearance, which wasn’t entirely a proper emotion pertaining to a man he’d ostensibly hated these past ten or so years.Lord Francis and his friends were in their usual corner; Lord Lyndon hadn’t been seen for a while.
“We’ve trouble brewing,” Sidney announced, “with the horses coming out of the Duke of Ashington’s stables.”
“Yes?”Tommy didn’t relish a conversation in which the duke’s name cropped up.It interfered with his weak plan to push the man from his mind altogether.
“There’s summat fishy about his recent run of poor form.”Producing a familiar thick ledger, for the next couple of minutes Sidney befuddled Tommy with columns of figures, which, he summarised, didn’t quite add up.
“You think someone is nobbling the duke’s horses?”Tommy enquired, coming straight to the point.
When it came to calculating the likelihood of racegoers wagering on a particular race outcome then stacking the odds in favour of Squire’s blacklegs, there was no better mathematician in the trade than Sidney.A man of few words and even fewer social graces, when he wasn’t herding foxed noblemen in and out of Tommy’s premises, he could be found poring over the form books.Where Tommy saw his accounts and rows of numbers as a necessary evil to be endured, Sidney viewed them as the poetry of logic.
Sidney shrugged.“Or Ashington’s behind it himself, to fool the punters.Saving for a day when a horse has a lighter weight to carry and the money is down.”Pursing his lips, he tapped his quill against his jottings.“Can’t see it meself.The man’s rolling in gold.”
“Quite.”
A door opened below, and Tommy quashed the flutter of anticipation behind his ribcage when Mickey led a portly older gentleman over to his waiting friends.“But you think it’s more than simply a run of bad luck.”
“My gut tells me it’s looking that way.”
Tommy sighed.Sidney’s entrails tended to be a reliable barometer.“Could his trainer be behind it?Making coin on the side?”
Head grooms had a dozen tricks to prevent a horse from winning.Fitting its shoes too tight, for instance.Giving it a belly-filling bucket of water five minutes before the starting pistol.Running it on firm ground when it needed soft, on a left-hand track when it preferred the right.
“Nah.”Sidney shook his big head.“Joe Jonas has been at Ashington’s since he was a nipper.His dad ran the stables before him.No one who’s worked there ever has a bad word to say about either.Nor about the duke; he’s a fair employer by all accounts.”
Tommy cast his mind back to Ganymede’s confident romp to victory in the steeplechase the week before.Thanks to his heart-stopping tête-à-tête afterwards, he’d had the opportunity to study the creature up close.The thoroughbred was perfection, from every angle.As was his blasted owner.Of course, Ashington was a fair employer; yet another thing making him impossible to dislike.In addition to the small fact that twice now he had confessed to Tommy how much he’d loved him.And how he’d never loved another since, a declaration bothering Tommy much more than it should.Mostly because it held a looking glass up to his own wretched heart.
Studying the punts below (all much plainer than the duke) amusing themselves in the gaming room, Tommy steered his thoughts back to the issue at hand.“It’s not every race though, is it?Is there a pattern?”
“Not one I can see.”Sidney grimaced, showing the gap where a front tooth was missing, another consequence of his incarceration in Newgate.“So, I reckon no.But if you want my advice, Squire’s should suspend giving odds on races the duke’s got favourites running in until it’s settled down.”
“Mmm.”A strategy guaranteed to get tongues twitching, though it served to protect Tommy’s assets.“Do you know anyone in his employ at the stables?Excepting Jonas?”
Sidney threw him a knowing look.“Fancy sniffing around, do you?”
“Perhaps,” Tommy admitted.
“Mebbe I’ll have a chat with one of the lads.”
The second time the door below opened, the flutters simmering behind Tommy’s rib cage took flight.Led by Mickey again, the duke himself entered, a slight hesitation in his step.As his midnight eyes anxiously skirted the tables until they settled on Francis, Sidney let out a low whistle.
“Very tasty.He’s like a nice knob of Stilton, Tommy.”He gave his boss a nudge.“He gets better with age.”
He returned Tommy’s incredulous look with a smug smile.“What?Yer didn’t think you’d get away with it, did yer?”
“I’d say I don’t know to whom you’re referring, you blasted oaf,” Tommy growled.Wearily, he shook his head.“But we both know I’d be lying.”His own lips curved into a smile as the duke ran a hand through his thick dark locks, pushing a clump away from his forehead.“And I happen to agree with you.”
Half of him willed the duke to tilt his gaze skywards; the remainder was happy to bask in the shade all evening, drinking him in.Ashington commanded notice despite himself—the curse of a dukedom—even if his dull but perfectly tailored attire seemed chosen to meld seamlessly with the shadows.And though he shrank away from attention, the play of flickering lamplight only served to accentuate his brooding dark looks.
“When did you realise who he was?”Tommy tracked the duke as his brother’s chums leaped to their feet to greet him.Knowing Sidney, he had a feeling he already knew the answer.
“As soon as he stepped through the door the first time.Even with all his finery.Your lordling wasn’t the sort of madge you forget that easily.”
Ever, thought Tommy glumly.
“Yer going to go down and say ’allo, then?Or are you going to just stare at ’im all night with your mouth lolling open?Yer like a moonstruck country lass after one sniff of the fruit punch.”
“If I wanted your smart commentary, Sidney, I’d ask you for it.”
