The Last Hellion (Scoundrels 4)

He fled to the billiard room, only to be ambushed by another lot of servants.

He escaped to the library, only to find yet more close on his heels.

He went from room to room, looking for refuge, only to meet invasion time and time again.

At last he skulked into his study, closed the door, and shoved a chair against it.

“Oh, my dear,” came his wife’s amused voice behind him. “That isn’t necessary.”

He swung toward the sound, his face hot. She was sitting at the desk, trying very hard not to laugh.

“They’re everywhere,” he reproached.

“They won’t come in here today,” she said. “I told Mrs. Clay I needed to work.

“Work?” he cried. “They’re tearing the house to pieces. Thousands of them. They tear rugs out from under your feet. They pull the drapery—rods and all—down on your head. They—”

“Do they?” She smiled. “Mrs. Clay means to make a thorough job of it. I thought she would.” She set down her pen and folded her hands upon the desk.

“And you’re mightily pleased with yourself,” he grumbled. He started to move the chair from the door, then changed his mind and left it as it was. He advanced to the desk, pushed aside a tray piled with correspondence—his, neglected—and perched on the corner, half turned toward her. “They’re so terrified of you that they scarcely know I’m there.”

“Why are you there? Or here, rather. I’d thought you’d have run screaming from the house long since.”

“I couldn’t decide where to go,” he said. “China seemed far enough away. But then, New South Wales may be more appropriate, being a penal colony and all.”

“May I suggest Bedfordshire?” she said.

He didn’t move, by not so much as a muscle twitch. His gaze remained fixed upon the untidy pile of letters and cards, while in his mind’s eye images played, of how they’d made lazy, sleepy love this morning, while the rain softly pattered at the windows…and of how she’d left the bed before he did, and he’d dozed, and wakened to her scent—in the pillows, the bedclothes, on his skin—and the musky scent of their coupling.

“Yes, well, I did not expect you to leap eagerly at the suggestion,” she said. “But I cannot walk on eggshells about the topic. I am your wife. The proper thing to do is take me to meet my new family. This house is in turmoil and will be for some days. I had thought we might kill two birds with one stone: escape the upheaval and induct me into the family.”

“You’ve work to do,” he said, very quietly, very calmly, while he remembered last night, and evilly feminine underthings, and how he’d gone dry-mouthed, like a boy seeing his first naked female—he, who’d seen hundreds.

“I am merely completing obligations to Macgowan and the Argus,” she said. “My new position is Duchess of Ainswood. I accepted it intending to carry out all of its responsibilities. One of us, you see, did consider the consequences.”

“Then do what you like.” He left the desk and headed to the door. Quietly and calmly he moved the chair away. “I’m not going to Bedfordshire.”

He opened the door and walked out.

Lydia quickly pulled off her shoes and hurried out into the hall. He was moving swiftly toward the vestibule.

She hurried noiselessly after him, ignoring the startled gazes of the servants working in the hall.

She grabbed a bucket and flung its contents at him, just as he opened the front door.

She heard a chorus of gasps.

Then the hall became utterly still.

Ainswood stood for a moment, unmoving, while dirty, soapy water streamed from his head over his neck and shoulders, and dribbled down his coat to plop on the threshold.

Then, very slowly, he turned.

“Oops,” she said.

His green glance swept over the servants—maids covering their mouths with their hands, footmen gaping—a tableau of paralytic shock.

He looked down at his sopping garments, then up again, at Lydia.

Then his mouth opened and laughter cracked out, sharp as a pistol shot. And more spilled out, great guffaws that reverberated through the carpetless hall. He leaned against the doorframe, shoulders shaking, and kept trying to say something, only to go off into whoops.

Then finally, “Th-thank you, m’dear,” he choked out. “M-most refreshing.” He straightened, and his glance took in the servants, who had recovered their wits sufficiently to cast perplexed looks at one another.

“Yes, that settled the dust nicely, I think,” he said. “I believe I’ll change.”

And, Yes, I believe you will, Lydia thought as she watched him saunter, dripping, past her and down the hall, to the stairs, and up them.

This afternoon, the Duke of Ainswood bore his valet’s grumblings and sarcasms with a suspiciously angelic meekness.

After he was freshly bathed and dressed, His Grace spent a very long while examining his reflection in the glass. “I shouldn’t have put you to so much work,” he said. “They’re only going to get spoiled when I climb out the window.”

“If I may be so bold as to offer a suggestion, Your Grace?” said Jaynes. “The front door is in excellent working order.”

“I was lucky to get away with merely a dousing,” said the master. “I’d rather not imagine what she’ll try the next time.”

“If I may venture an opinion sir, I strongly doubt Her Grace entertains any objections to your exiting the house.”

“Then why did she stop me?”

“She was not trying to stop you. She was expressing exasperation.”

The duke gave him a dubious glance, clasped his hands behind his back, and walked to the window.

“If I may speak plainly sir,”—Jaynes generally did—“you are exasperating.”

“I know.”

“If she murders you in your sleep, no one will be in the least surprised, and there is no jury in all of Great Britain that would not instantly acquit her. On the contrary, she would likely be awarded the kingdom’s highest honors.”

“I know.”

Jaynes waited for a clue to what had triggered the expression of exasperation. His master simply continued looking out the window.

Swallowing a sigh, Jaynes left him and went into the dressing room to collect the duke’s pocket watch and the small box containing the assorted oddities the master carried about, to the detriment of his finely sewn pockets.

When Jaynes returned to the bedchamber but two minutes later, the window was open and the master was gone.

Leaning out, Jaynes caught a glimpse of chestnut hair among the tall shrubbery.

“No hat, as usual,” Jaynes muttered. “Just as well, I suppose. He’ll only lose it.”

He set down the box and pocket watch to one side of the wide sill and closed the window, for the day was chill and damp, promising more rain. “And it’ll be a miracle, I daresay, if wet’s the worst of his condition when he comes home.” Preoccupied with an array of uniformly appalling scenarios, Jaynes exited the bedchamber, altogether forgetting the items he’d left upon the windowsill.

The eminent firm of Rundell and Bridge having considerable experience with the upper orders—including the uppermost, His Majesty the King—its shop clerks manifested no signs of dismay or alarm at the entrance of an alarmingly large nobleman towing a black mastiff the size of a young elephant.

“Dash it, Susan,” said Vere, “you can move quickly enough when Trent’s in the vicinity.” He tugged on the leash and grumbling, Susan condescended to cross the threshold of Number 32, Ludgate Hill.

Then she sank down on her haunches, laid her big head on her forepaws, and let out a martyred sigh.

“I didn’t force you to come with me,” Vere said. “You were the one who started whimpering and making me feel sorry for you.”

The dog had apparently arrived—presumably with Bess and Millie—sometime after Vere had gone upstairs to wash and change. He’d found her wandering in the garden, the lead in her mouth. He’d p

etted her and headed for the gate. She’d followed. When he tried to shut the gate behind him, she’d commenced whimpering.

“You’re blocking the door,” he said now. “Get up, Susan. Up.”

A chorus of male voices assured His Grace that the dog was not at all in the way.