Page 37 of The Trouble With Dukes
“Lieutenant Lord Hector Pierpont,” Puget said. “Drinks rather more than he ought, former soldier, typical education, and he frequents the same coffeehouse off Grosvenor I do. I’ve seen his notes of hand often enough to be able to replicate his penmanship.”
“You’ve hit on a brilliant solution, as usual. I don’t doubt that come Monday night, Pamela will bask in your clever company for at least the duration of a minuet.”
“I want a waltz, Pilkington, preferably the supper waltz.”
Sir Fletcher, though fools in love must be allowed their petty dramas. “You will write the IOU for the full fifty pounds?”
Puget’s expression became gratifyingly hopeless, then determined. He was the best kind of felon, being both reluctant and highly competent.
“Pierpont can stand the expense,” Puget said, “and if you bilk him for the entire amount, he might be less inclined to drunkenness when he gambles in the future.”
A reluctant, competent felon with a troubled conscience. What could be better? “I’m sure you’re right. You’re doing him a favor, when you put it like that. Poor wretch ought to be thanking you for warning him off even greater excesses of vice.”
Such was Puget’s skill, the poor wretch would never know he’d been robbed. Sir Fletcher would send his man of business to call on Pierpont’s. Pleasantries would ensue, a bank draft would be handed over in exchange for an exquisitely forged IOU.
And thus, a problem solved. The army would advance without a drop of bloodshed.
“Lady Pamela will look with favor on your request for her supper waltz at Monday night’s ball,” Sir Fletcher said.
A single waltz was small consolation for the years Pamela would spend marching through various formal parlors and ballrooms in aid of some gouty old baron’s interests, much less the nights she’d spend in his bed.
Geneva, as the indulged youngest, might look forward to a happier fate. If she were lucky, the present earl would expire before she came of age—cheering notion.
“Isn’t that your intended?” Puget asked as the horses emerged onto a broader thoroughfare.
Through the hedgerow and across a green, Megan Windham sat on the bench of a phaeton side by side with a large man in a kilt. She made a pretty if somewhat nervous picture, but then Megan was as timid as a smooth-chinned navel ensign shipping out for Cathay.
“Poor thing has apparently drawn charitable duty again,” Sir Fletcher said, “for that’s the new Duke of Murdoch at the reins. I do believe His Grace is pulling that phaeton with draft stock.”
The beasts put to were at least matched, both chestnuts with four white socks, but they were far from the sleek Dutch trotters one expected a duke to drive.
“Hamish MacHugh owns two thriving breweries,” Puget said, again turning his horse to the left. “He fought like a demon for Britain, no matter what the mess hall gossip was about conduct unbecoming an officer or desertion. As far as I’m concerned, he can drive any pair he pleases to drive.”
“Megan isn’t wearing those ghastly spectacles, so she can’t see you, Puget,” Sir Fletcher said gently. Puget had seen a great deal of Megan’s handwriting, and for him, that was tantamount to peering at a person’s soul—a curse, when a man was plagued with a conscience.
“She’s sitting rather close to the duke for a woman doing charitable duty,” Puget said. “But then, Murdoch takes up a lot of the bench. I saw them walking out last week with some of her cousins. Does that make you nervous?”
Puget would enjoy the thought that Sir Fletcher’s marital prospects were tenuous. “Megan will never play me false.” Sir Fletcher need not say more, not to Puget.
The phaeton rattled past twenty yards away, an incongruously delicate vehicle drawn by enormous horses with the hairy feet and coarse heads of the least refined specimens ever to qualify as equines. The sight should have been laughable, but with a duke at the ribbons, nobody would offer public ridicule.
“Don’t underestimate yonder Scot,” Puget said. “Hamish MacHugh disobeyed direct orders and the generals left him alone because the French were terrified of him. My men said when the French caught him, they let him go because he was too dangerous to hold. Every Scotsman in the army would have personally avenged MacHugh’s death ten times over had the French let him come to harm.”
If an army could advance on the strength of soldiers’ gossip, Wellington would have flown over the whole of Spain in a week.
“Scotsmen like to kill things, Puget, and if nobody else obliges them, they kill each other. The French exaggerate, and should anybody need a reminder of Hamish MacHugh’s violent nature, I—who witnessed his brutality firsthand—will happily provide same.”
Sir Fletcher had done some of that reminding in the card rooms last night. Never hurt to reminisce about old times with fellow veterans, after all. MacHugh’s younger brother was tagging along on this London trip, and Sir Fletcher had a nagging sense that one would cause trouble.
Sir Fletcher had once sent Colin MacHugh from camp on a goose chase—typical prank among bored officers—and the whole business hadn’t ended well. Everybody in the officer’s mess had agreed that the Scots were singularly lacking in gentlemanly humor.
“Miss Megan might be too good for the Scot,” Puget said, “but she deserves better than you.”
“Of course she does,” Sir Fletcher replied, for the time had come to end this outing. “All the ladies deserve better than the fate life hands them, which is why I will make her an excellent husband. I’m mindful of the good luck that’s coming my way.”
Megan hadn’t been exactly smiling from her perch beside Murdoch, but such was her refinement that she hadn’t looked grim either. Without the dreadful glasses, she was pretty enough, despite that red hair.
“You’re very sure of your future,” Puget said as they drew nearer to the noise and bustle of Park Lane. “Very sure the Windhams will look favorably on your suit.”
