Page 36 of The Trouble With Dukes
“I didn’t miss the Windham do. I was present until the good-night waltz.”
Doubtless hoping Sir Fletcher would finesse the poor fool one of Pamela’s dances. But for a moment’s distraction with a buxom widow in an unused parlor, Sir Fletcher had been too busy keeping an eye on various Windhams and inebriates.
“Pamela must have missed you,” Sir Fletcher said. “She’s much in demand among the nabobs and cits. They do favor a lady with a title.”
Puget remained silent in the face of that goading. He was not a loquacious soul, but his skill with a pen was considerable.
“I need you to write me up a few vowels,” Sir Fletcher said as the horses ambled along. “Nothing extravagant. A few pounds here and there.”
“You said you were all but engaged to a Windham. Why not do as other younger sons do and trade on your expectations?”
Had they been in the army, Sir Fletcher could have ordered Puget into the thick of the fighting, and Puget would have had no choice but to go, such was the discipline of the British military. Alas, the war had ended, more or less, and vague threats on a leafy bridle path were the best Sir Fletcher could do.
“You are a discerning fellow, Puget,” Sir Fletcher said. “Think about it: A man from good family with a spotless reputation and excesses of charm and sophistication might be given leave to pay his addresses to a woman of suitable station. This is generally not a matter of public proclamation, though the lady will know she’s been claimed.”
Sir Fletcher had been given that leave first with Sally Delaplane and then with Hippolyta Jones. In both cases, he’d traded on his expectations rather exuberantly, and required his father’s assistance to avoid the sponging house. The earl had made it plain no further aid would be forthcoming, and the merchants had been growing impatient. Sir Fletcher had come across Megan Windham’s old letters in the very nick of time.
“I’m familiar with courting protocol, Sir Fletcher.” Puget sent his horse ahead through a narrowing in the path, and rather than hold back a slender oak branch that blocked the way, he allowed it to slap against Sir Fletcher’s chest.
That minor rudeness gratified Sir Fletcher as a bout of swearing from Puget would not have.
“I’ve every confidence you shall soon have need of courting protocol yourself, Puget. In any case, between obtaining leave to pay Miss Megan Windham my addresses, and plighting my troth with her, inquiries will be made.”
“You’re an earl’s son. The inquiries will be made mostly regarding your family’s situation, and their contribution to the settlements.”
Sir Fletcher rather hoped that was the case, but hoping was for fools when a man could plan instead. The business of an army was to advance.
“The family finances will be quite in order,” Sir Fletcher replied. “The expenses of a social season, however, exceed a bachelor’s means, and thus I have immediate needs to see to.”
More debts in other words, most of them to the trades, others in the form of markers and notes of hand. The Duke of Moreland, his brother, and his squadron of sons and sons-by-marriage would learn of those all too easily.
“All gentlemen have debts, and you have one to me,” Puget said. “I haven’t so much as danced with Lady Pamela since last month, and you said she wanted for partners. She sat out four times last night, Sir Fletcher.”
That was rather a lot, even for Plain Pammy.
“Strategy, my good fellow. When you dance with her next, my step-mama will have become desperate to keep Lady Pamela on the dance floor. Even my father would overlook a penniless younger son’s presumption when Step-mama explains it to him that way.”
This was pure tripe, but Sir Fletcher knew Puget’s circumstances, and had engineered some of those circumstances in fact. Tripe was as much consideration as Puget would get from his former commanding officer.
“How much and from whom?” Puget asked.
“Fifty pounds should do it,” Sir Fletcher said. “Perhaps fifteen or twenty each, from Quimbey, Barchester, and, say, Hancock. The usual approach will serve. The gentlemen played a bit too deep when in their cups, and I happily benefitted from their bad luck at cards. My man of business will discreetly pass an IOU complete with signature before their men of business, and my finances will come right.”
“You’re daft,” Puget snapped, taking the left fork in the bridle path. “Quimbey was never seen drunk in public even before he married. Barchester is a sot, I’ll grant you, but he hasn’t twenty pounds to pay you with. Hancock never plays deep and I’ve never seen a sample of his handwriting.”
Here was the moment Sir Fletcher enjoyed the most, when arrogance led the righteously unwary further in the very direction Sir Fletcher intended them to bumble.
“You’re the penmanship expert. You tell me whose notes of hand can be most credibly duplicated.”
Not forged. Puget grew rabid at the mention of the word, and well he should, for forgery remained a hanging felony.
“Why not a Windham? They’re obnoxiously well fixed, you have to have played against some of them from time to time. As duke’s sons they’ll write in typical Etonian copperplate.”
Puget had an odd ability to assess character based on handwriting, and handwriting based on character.
“I’ll avoid them because they areWindhams,” Sir Fletcher replied. “Moreland will manage the settlement negotiations as head of the Windham family. That’s as close to an overprotective duke as I’d like to come.”
Sir Fletcher let Puget parse possibilities in silence. Far better for the forger himself to suggest who the next victim should be.
