Page 11 of The Trouble With Dukes
Shamed by an arthritic coachman.
Hamish climbed out of the carriage, which undertaking rocked its inhabitants. Edana followed, but remained half in, half out, her gloved hand extended.
“Eddie, for God’s sake,” Hamish said, hauling her the rest of the way out. “You’ve been getting in and out of coaches since you were a wee pest. You could drive this coach better than Old Jock”—an indignant breath sounded at Hamish’s elbow—“when he’s been swimming in the whisky barrel. Stop hanging on me.”
Her eyes narrowed in a fashion that would have sent the last wolf in Scotland fleeing into the sea.
Colin emerged from the coach and turned to assist Rhona. “Let’s bicker away the morning on the duchess’s very doorstep,” he suggested, “knocking on her door being tediously predictable.”
“You were supposed to send a footman in with your card,” Rhona said, smoothing her hand over skirts that had probably cost more than the coach.
Nowshe bothered to inform her own brother of the niceties? “Why get trussed up in my finest, put up with you lot, trouble the horses—and our Jock—just to send around a stupid card for which the bloody printer seeks to charge daylight robbery rates, which I am not about to pay?”
Edana’s grip on Hamish’s arm dug into the tender spot in the crook of his elbow. Knew all a man’s vulnerable points, did Edana, because Hamish had taught them to her.
“You left the house without your calling cards? Hamish, how could you?”
He thrashed free of her grip. “It’s like this, Eddie. If you let the trades know they can steal from you, they steal from you. Rules of battle, plain and simple. If the enemy retreats, you rout him. If the enemy stands his ground, you engage him. You do not hand over your hard-earned coin with a superior smile like some infernal, mincing duke who hasn’t got a brain in his idiot English head.”
Somebody shut the coach door with abang. “I make it a point never to mince, not even when private with my duchess.”
Colin’s features went blank, Rhona studied her slippers—pink, of all the useless colors—and Edana for once had nothing to say.
A tall, lean, older gentleman in riding attire stood beside Hamish’s coach—blocking any retreat back into the coach, in fact. The fellow had shrewd blue eyes, and his hair was the pale gold of an aging Saxon warrior.
Hamish had likely insulted the man on his own doorstep. “My apologies for bickering with my siblings on the very street.” He ought probably to have bowed, for this fellow was doubtless a damned duke, but taking his eyes off the gentleman seemed ill-advised.
“Percival, Duke of Moreland, at your service. I have a small but precious cohort of grandchildren, and eight grown children, sir, all of them wed. Bickering is the music of a family with nothing serious to fight about.”
Also the music of a family that hadn’t progressed to the breaking-furniture-and-hurling-oaths stage of a difference of opinion.
Colin’s elbow jabbed at Hamish’s ribs.
“Hamish, Duke of Murdoch, Your Grace.”
Edana’s elbow hammered him from the other side, which made no sense. A duke was a “Your Grace,” of that, Hamish was certain.
“You’re paying a call on my duchess,” Moreland said, striding up the walk. “We can continue the introductions inside and prevail upon Her Grace for some sustenance. The social season can be exhausting, but I assume you’ve already found that out.”
Introductions.
Well, of course. Polite society apparently had nothing better to do than exchange an endless lot of tedious introductions. Even in the military, which had been polluted with titled lords and aristocratic younger sons, protocol had wasted as much time as polishing weaponry.
Edana took Hamish by one elbow, Rhona got him by the other, and thus he was press-ganged into the ducal mansion, Colin trailing behind.
“Alert the ladies,” Moreland said to the footman who opened the door. “I found a stray duke wandering about on the walkway, with his two lovely sisters and a handsome brother, no less.”
“Of course, Your Grace. The ladies are in the green parlor, and I’ll let the kitchen know more guests have arrived.”
“Come along,” Moreland said, setting off at a brisk pace. “Her Grace is doubtless expecting you, though I warn you: She’s in the throes of planning a ball for our nieces. I tread very lightly at such times, and I’m a veteran of His Majesty’s Canadian campaigns.”
That a military veteran and a duke, no less, was daunted by an upcoming ball comforted Hamish not one bit.
Neither did the Moreland dwelling. The ducal mansion was a monument to fanciful plaster work, with porcelain vases tucked into alcoves, hothouse flowers arranged with artless grace, and light glinting off gilt pier glasses. The carpets were thick enough to muffle the duke’s boot steps. Hamish was reduced to silently towing his sisters forward, lest they become transfixed by the sheer wealth on display.
Wealthandgood taste. Hamish recognized good taste mostly because he hadn’t any himself. He had breweries and battle scars, and now several awestruck siblings.
The Moreland mansion was hell with an English accent, at least for Hamish.
