Page 82 of The Trouble With Dukes
“How can I be pleased for myself, when I see my brother—” Colin couldn’t speak as bluntly before a lady as he’d like to. Hamish was mucking up this courtship of Miss Megan, disappointing hostesses, aggravating Eddie and Ronnie, and generally fouling up the works.
And Colin didn’t know how to intervene, didn’t know how to be the good brother Hamish had so often been to every one of his siblings.
Was this how Hamish felt, when Colin got into scrape after scrape? Helpless, inadequate, frustrated, and nearly choking on the need to help and be useful?
“Are we letting the horses rest?” Miss Megan had brought her mare to a halt, and why Colin’s gelding had stopped in the middle of the path, he did not know.
“Walk on, you,” Colin muttered, and the beast complied. “I need to have a wee chat with my brother. Set him straight on a few things.”
“Not on my behalf,” Miss Megan said. “I esteem Murdoch greatly, and wouldn’t have you troubling him on my account. I did have one more question for you, Lord Colin.”
Colin wanted badly to canter off in the direction of his brother’s house, hunt Hamish down, andthankhim. Not the grudging thanks of a young man toward the fellow who’d spared him the risk and stupidity of a few duels, but a brother’s sincere thanks for a life saved, many times over.
“I think that fellow on yonder gelding might be ready to escort you home, Miss Megan.”
“Keswick enjoys his privacy,” Miss Megan said. “He’s a conscientious escort, but it’s not as if I’m prone to tumbling from the saddle. Not lately. The question I have for you is one I can put to you alone, and I hope you’ll answer honestly.”
Unease uncoiled in Colin’s gut. “Hamish killed an unarmed man, Miss Megan. It was in the heat of battle, one among many other deaths, and that’s all you need to know. Hamish was a good ten yards off my flank so I didn’t see it. He told me he was growing desperate because the line wasn’t advancing and the rain had started up again. He needs to leave it on the battlefield, a necessary violence on the way to an equally necessary victory.”
Miss Megan waved a gloved hand and readjusted her whip. “I know all about that, Lord Colin. Strangled a man with his bare hands, or broke his neck, possibly both. Beyond awful for all concerned, and certainly regrettable. I do not pretend to understand what goes on in the midst of battle. I want to know what happened when Hamish was ambushed. I think that’s the worse memory, and yet, he can barely allude to it. Won’t you tell me what happened?”
She knew all about that awful day in Spain? Only Hamish himself could have told her, and yet, here she was, wanting to know more.
Fifty yards ahead, the Earl of Keswick sat upon his horse as if posing for a statue. He’d wait for Miss Megan until high summer.
“You love Hamish, don’t you?” Colin asked, though he only dimly grasped what it might mean, for a woman this fierce to love his brother. Trouble for Hamish, but good, long overdue trouble.
“I love him with all my heart, and I always will. Bear that in mind if you refuse me a few simple truths now, Lord Colin.”
“I think you’d best dispense with the lord business, and call me Colin when we’re private.”
Her ladyship petted her mare’s shoulder. “Colin, then. So tell me what happened, please.”
The sun rose higher in the sky, and the laughter of children joined the quacking of the ducks and jingle of carriage harnesses beneath Hyde Park’s towering maples. As dawn stretched toward a lovely morning, Colin told Megan Windham about the time Hamish MacHugh had chosen death over dishonor and lived to regret it.
“The trades must be paid. The books must balance.”
Hamish muttered those words, which had been among his father’s favorite admonitions. Most of the afternoon had been spent tending to finances, and while Hamish’s hand had been writing bank drafts, and his mind totaling figures, his heart had been aching.
How was Megan faring, and how could Hamish assure her that he’d been working diligently to find a means of thwarting Sir Fletcher? A hint of gossip, a thread of dishonor, a disgruntled tradesman, anything …
“Are you still at it?” Colin asked, appropriating the chair across from Hamish’s desk. “I take it you’re abandoning us again this evening? Leaving all the bowing and smiling to me, all the escorting and cavorting?”
“Cavort with caution, little brother,” Hamish said, rubbing his eyes.
And that made him think of Megan too.
“Have you given up socializing forevermore?” Colin asked. “Half the matchmakers in London will go into a decline.”
“While all of the fortune hunters will rejoice. Have you met any young ladies who catch your eye, Colin?” Hamish picked up the last of the tradesmen’s requests for payment rather than study Colin’s expression.
The bill was the one for an exorbitant amount of boot-making, from Puget and Sons. Hamish had put off paying it, at first because nobody in the family had purchased nearly enough boots to justify this much expense. Moreover, no one in the extended family spread out over various London trades—not a second cousin, not an in-law, not a great-auntie—had ever heard of the establishment.
“I thought you were on the verge of offering for a young lady, Hamish.” Colin’s gaze held accusation and quite possibly pity.
“I was, Colin, but circumstances have changed. You’re sure this isn’t yours?”
Colin snatched the invoice away and set it aside. “I don’t want to talk about pence and quid, Hamish. Megan Windham cares for you, and you’ve turned your back on her. Not well done of you, and no kind of example for me.”
