Page 58 of The Trouble With Dukes
They walked along in silence to the next corner.
“Keswick, your usual loquaciousness has deserted you,” Rosecroft said. “What are your thoughts?”
“We could warn MacHugh off,” Deene said. “Evie says Sir Fletcher Pilkington has been sniffing about Megan’s skirts.”
“I asked Keswick for his thoughts,” Rosecroft said. “Any damned fool knows Sir Fletcher has been doing the pretty around Megan, but he’s the next thing to a fortune hunter.”
Had Rosecroft and Deene been ten years younger, they might have shoved each other, elbowed one another in the ribs, and otherwise masked an abiding affection with fisticuffs.
Keswick might have knocked their heads together too. “Doesn’t it strike you both as odd that MacHugh’s military record is a little too awful? Why wasn’t he drummed out of the regiment? Why no court-martial? Why all that bad conduct, but no reduction in rank?”
Rosecroft waited for a carriage to pass, then stepped into the street. “Because MacHugh was brave. The French talked about him in whispers, and his men would follow him anywhere. Even the generals respect bravery.”
“Our generals talked about him in whispers,” Deene said. “Mad MacHugh, the Terror of Toulouse, or something like that. The French couldn’t hold him for long. It’s odd that his name comes up, though, because I overheard a discussion last week in which he was mentioned.”
As had Keswick. Several discussions. “Speculation about his fitness to hold a title? Intimations of an unbalanced mind? Vague innuendo about ungovernable temper, dishonor, and violent impulses?”
Deene bent to toss a dead lily into the nearest flowerbed. They were outside Lord Anthony’s town residence, the house dark save for lamps lit on the front steps.
“Exactly that,” Deene said, straightening. “What has the peerage come to, when a savage brute, a murderer of unarmed innocents, holds a ducal title? When a man of significant rank leads his soldiers into an ambush against orders and evades justice? If that’s what happened.”
“When a title ends up in an unlikely place, there’s always talk,” Rosecroft said. “One endures the gossip and goes back to Yorkshire at the first opportunity.”
“Or Kent,” Keswick said. “And one doesn’t convict a man on the basis of talk. MacHugh served honorably, no matter that his record has some blemishes. I’m inclined to trust Megan’s judgment where he’s concerned.” Particularly when Megan had confided in MacHugh rather than bring her troubles to her own family.
Deene swung his walking stick up to rest against his shoulder, as soldiers often carried their rifles.
“Why trust our Megs? She isn’t the most outgoing soul, and MacHugh—Murdoch, rather—has come upon the scene suddenly. Sir Fletcher has been constant in his attentions since the season began, and while I don’t care for Pilkington, he’ll not disappear into the wilds of Scotland once the vows are spoken.”
“Are the cock pits, bear gardens, whorehouses, and gaming hells preferable to Scotland?” Keswick asked. “For those are Pilkington’s favored haunts when he’s not swilling drink at his club or ogling some debutante’s mama.” Or chasing heiresses, or using a lady’s correspondence to coerce her hand in marriage.
Keswick wasn’t about to reveal Megan’s epistolary mistakes to her own cousin, not when MacHugh had apparently taken that situation in hand.
Rosecroft muttered something foul in his native Irish. “If we disqualify as a suitor every bachelor who behaves as a bachelor, my cousins will all be old maids. Keswick, what do you know that you haven’t told us?”
“Much, of course, but what’s relevant is that in every case where somebody has brought up Murdoch’s unfitness—his alleged unfitness—in my hearing, that person has recently been discussing the new duke with one Sir Fletcher Pilkington.”
“Him again,” Deene replied. “This will get messy, and there’s Megan in the middle of it, with Their Graces intent on marrying her off, come fire, flood, or famine.”
“Here’s what I think,” Keswick said. “If Sir Fletcher is concerned for Megan, then he ought to bring his concerns to her family, most especially to us three. Spreading talk in the clubs is cowardly, and whatever else is true, I have not heard Hamish MacHugh accused of cowardice, ever.”
“Messy,” Deene said again. “Damned messy, when all we have to go on is a lot of conflicting talk.”
“So we learn what we can,” Rosecroft said, “keep a sharp eye out, and alert the rest of the family to a potential problem. Gentlemen, I’ll bid you good night and wish you pleasant dreams. My regards to your ladies.”
He bowed and strode back in the direction of Westhaven’s townhouse. Deene took off in the other direction, while Keswick remained where he was.
“Are you coming?” Deene asked. “The hour grows late and my marchioness will worry.”
“Your marchioness, like my countess, is not worried,” Keswick said, resuming their perambulations. “She’s waiting for you in her most diaphanous evening ensemble, probably enjoying a cup of chocolate and planning your welcome. This is how large families are made.”
“One is inspired, Keswick, to know a man of your stalwart nature regularly surrenders himself to the charms of diaphanous nightwear.”
Every chance I get. “As do you.”
They came to another corner, at which their paths diverged.
“What shall we do about Murdoch?” Deene asked. “I can have a word with a few former officers, nose about at Horse Guards, look over whatever records might pertain. I’m not above sending letters to some of the men I served with or chatting up a few others.”
