A Duke in Shining Armor

“The devil!” the fellow said. “You can’t—that’s my dog!”

She made a slight beckoning gesture and the dog went to her.

“Sam!” his owner shouted. “You come here, or I’ll—”

“You won’t,” said Lady Olympia. “You don’t deserve to own a dog.”

“You’re not taking my dog! I’ll have the law on you!” He looked about him. “Somebody fetch a constable. That’s my dog, and when the stubborn cur don’t do what I say, I teach him. Nobody else’s bloody business.”

The dog beater was shouting about robbers and interferers and constables and who knew what else. People emerged from the ground floor coffee room. Spectators spilled out onto the gallery overlooking the inn yard.

“Ahem,” Ripley said.

Headed for the post chaise, canine at her side, Lady Olympia paused and looked up at him, surprised. “Oh,” she said. “There you are.”

“We’re not taking the dog,” he said.

“We can’t leave him with that unspeakable person,” she said. “Striking a dumb animal! With a whip! And it wasn’t a light warning tap, or striking the ground to get the animal’s attention. He made the dog cry out—you heard him—and this is a lurcher. They’re stupendously quiet dogs.”

Ripley could see what it was. A poacher’s dog. A silent hunter. It stood close to her, by her hand, the one holding the whip. The animal trembled.

“They’re stealing my dog!” the dog beater shouted. “Somebody stop them!”

“Don’t be a bloody fool, Bullard,” somebody called out. “It’s His Grace of Ripley. A duke, you half-wit. He can do what he likes.”

“He don’t take my dog! After he lets his doxy do the dirty work for him. I want my dog!”

Ripley sighed. Of course. Always had to be some drunken blusterer in the vicinity, saying the wrong thing. Always had to be some jackass uttering words one couldn’t let pass.

He turned back to Bullard and said, in the mild, amiable tone all who knew him would recognize as the Voice Of Death—or at least Of Serious Pain—“What did you say?”

Ripley spoke lazily, offhandedly.

All the same, the hairs on the back of Olympia’s neck stood up and she sensed, with the certainty of a young woman who’d grown up surrounded by males, the stirrings of the inborn masculine need to kill other males.

Despite belonging to the opposite gender, she felt similar stirrings. She longed to thrust Ripley out of the way and lash the brute Bullard until he bawled like a baby. For the lurcher’s sake, she made herself calm. Gently she rested her hand on the dog’s head. He edged closer.

“You heard me!” the dog’s owner said. “You and your fancy piece there, what goes around bullying fellows what’s too mannerly to fight with women, and steals a man’s property. You can’t walk out with my dog, like you own the world.”

“That’s twice you’ve insulted the lady,” Ripley said in the same mild tone.

“Lady! Her! And stole my whip, too!”

“That’s thrice,” Ripley said. “This is what I get for patience and forbearance. No more chances. You will address the lady as my lady and you will apologize. Now.”

“Apologize? To her? I bloody well won’t! I want my dog!”

Ripley hit him. It was shockingly swift, straight to the gut. Bullard folded over and crumpled to his knees.

“Apologize,” Ripley said. “And make it quick. While these new gloves are far from ideal, I’d rather not get blood on them.” He paused, waiting for Bullard to catch his breath.

“Took me off guard, you ugly buffer nabber,” the drunkard gasped. He looked about him. “Everybody seen you do it.”

Thanks to Mr. Grose’s Lexicon Balatronicum, Olympia knew a buffer nabber was a dog stealer.

“It seems my warning went over your head,” Ripley said. “Then I shall speak more plainly. If the next words out of your mouth are not ‘I beg your pardon, my lady,’ you’ll oblige me to injure you severely.”

“Try it!” Bullard put up his fists. “Try it, you filthy—” The rest comprised extremely bad words.

Ripley knocked his hands away, hard enough to unbalance him, but before the man could topple, the duke grabbed him, curling his big hands about the bully’s throat and lifting him up off the ground. Clawing at the gloved hands, legs dangling, the man managed to choke out a stream of words Olympia had never actually heard uttered, though she recognized them from Mr. Grose’s fascinating work.

The duke’s calm, cool voice carried easily across the dead silence of the inn yard, “You will address the lady as my lady, and you will apologize, or I shall have to make your life unpleasant.”

“Go ahead and kill me,” the fool choked out. “You’ll hang, and I’ll see you in hell.”

“Wouldn’t dream of killing you,” Ripley said. “Too quick. No fun in that. No, what I thought I’d do is start with breaking a few bones, then a few more, until there are too many for the surgeon to mend.”

Bullard’s face was turning purple, but he managed to gargle references to Ripley’s penchant for unnatural acts with farm animals.

“What a tedious fellow you are,” Ripley said. “Maybe I’ll drop you and see what happens. I hope I don’t accidently step on your head.”

“Go ahead,” the man croaked.

Ripley let go of him.

Bullard fell onto the cobblestones.

Olympia expected him to bounce up again. Some men didn’t know when they were done for.

Apparently, hitting solid stone made an impression. Bullard clutched his throat but made no other movement. He lay where he’d been dropped, eyes open, staring up at the duke.

“Are you quite done?” Ripley said.

Bullard nodded.

“Then say you’re sorry.

”

“Sorry,” Bullard gasped.

“Not to me, you ridiculous person. To the lady.”

“Sorry. My. Lady.”

“Good. Now go away.”

Bullard lurched to his feet. He called to the dog. Tail down, head down, the creature edged nearer to Olympia.

“No,” Olympia said. “You’ve forfeited the dog.”

“Sam’s my property,” Bullard cried hoarsely. “He goes with me!”

Olympia looked at Ripley.

“We are not taking the dog,” he said.

“We can’t leave him,” she said. “He’s hurt and terrified.”

“That’s my dog! I paid a bloody fortune for the mutinous cur! You’ve got no right!”

“You have no right to him,” she said. “You threw it away when you struck a defenseless creature. You’ve lost him.”

“Get in the carriage,” Ripley said.

“I will not leave this animal to him,” she said. “As soon as we’re gone, he’ll punish the dog for what you did to him.”

“We are not taking the dog,” Ripley said.

“Sam, come,” Bullard snapped.

The dog looked at him and shivered.

“He’s not going with that man,” Olympia said.

“That’s my bloody dog!”

“We are not taking the dog,” Ripley told Olympia. “In case you failed to notice, this animal is not a Pekingese. He cannot sit in your lap. The post chaise holds two people, barely.”

“He can ride in the boot,” she said. “In the crate.”

“Your wedding ensemble is in the crate,” he said.

“The dog can use it for a cushion. It isn’t as though I’ll wear it again.”

“That’s my bloody dog! You’re not taking my dog!”

“Stow it,” Ripley told Bullard. “The lady and I are negotiating.”