The Duke's Downfall (15 page)

As they neared the carriage, a blue high-perch phaeton bowled past at a high rate of speed, showering them in dust and upchurned leaves. Fletcher shouted and shook his whip; Teddy glared at the reckless young blood at the ribbons.

“You could say the same for many of the ton, as well.”

“I wish we knew the hour.” Charles waved away another swirl of grit as a dark green curricle drawn by a familiar pair of blacks rocketed past in the wake of the phaeton.

“Betsy!” he and Teddy shouted in unison.

Her ruined bonnet tumbled over her shoulder as she saw them and hauled on the leathers. On the seat beside her, as she turned the spirited, still-ready-to-run team in a smart circle, George loosened the death grip he’d fastened on the side of the curricle.

“Have you seen Boru?” Betsy called worriedly.

She looked nearly as winded as the blacks to Charles, her hair as snarled as the manes they tossed as they pranced and chafed under the tight rein. Her face was pale but for ruddied spots of color in her cheeks, her luminous eyes huge and anxious.

“No,” he replied, catching the right leader’s bridle, “but we did run to ground a young urchin of your acquaintance who says he saw Boru taken up in a hackney.

“Oh, no,” she breathed, wilting visibly on the seat of the curricle.

“I shall post a handbill,” Charles told her gently.

“The scoundrel will come round soon enough with Boru and his hand out for a fat reward.”

“The devil you will!” Betsy sprang straight on the seat, her face awash with fresh, angry color. “I’ll find him myself! If I have to waylay every hackney in London!”

Taking the ribbons in one hand, she reached for the whip with the other. Before she could lift it, Charles clamped his fingers on her wrist.

“I think not, my lady. Not in your present state.”

“Unhand me.” Betsy’s eyes flashed. “There is nothing wrong with my state. Past, future, or present.”

“Oh, no?” Charles signed to George.

The footman nodded and jumped down to help Teddy hold the blacks. Then Charles shook the ribbons free of Betsy’s ungloved right hand. She sucked a breath between clenched teeth as the air hit the raw flesh in the curve of her thumb and forefinger.

“With this hand, my lady,” Charles said, turning her wrist to blow softly at the blister welling there, “you’ll find it devilish difficult to use your fan at the Countess Featherston’s ball tomorrow evening.”

Despite the feathery chill fluttering up her arm, his mention of the affair reminded Betsy that Teddy had made a to-do of it earlier—and that the Earl of Clymore had left Berkeley Square in a tearing hurry and a hackney.

“Julian!” she gasped, causing Charles to lift his head quizzically. “My cousin, the Earl of Clymore, called upon us this morning in a hackney.”

“That’s so,” Teddy chimed in.

“Did the boy mention Julian?” Betsy asked him. “No, just the jarvey. Had he seen his lordship I’m sure he would’ve remarked upon it, since when we came upon them on the flagway Dameron was thrashing the boy with his cane.”

Loosing Betsy’s wrist, Charles prudently lifted the ribbons from her grasp and wrapped them around the brake. “Then it appears we are in search of two beasts.”

At the muscle leaping in his jaw and the vicious twist he gave the leathers, Betsy chose to forgive his veiled insult to Boru. She rubbed her wrist, which still throbbed from his touch, against her skirt.

“Boru detests Julian, but he would happily go anywhere with anyone else. Especially as frightened as he was.”

“Do you know Clymore’s direction?” Charles asked, squelching a fresh qualm of guilt.

“Sadly, no. He is, I believe, just arrived in London.”

“A mushroom can’t be that hard to find,” Teddy put in. “And if all else fails, he may return to Berkeley Square to take up residence as he threatened.”

“Hopefully so.” Betsy brightened, but not much, as the yellow phaeton, with her grandmother and Silas aboard, approached from the opposite direction and came to a halt.

Once the situation was explained to Lady Clymore—mostly by Charles, but with additions by Teddy and Betsy as he helped her down from his curricle and into the phaeton—it was agreed that a handbill would be printed and posted, and the search for Boru suspended until such time as Julian Dameron could be located. Or he presented himself again in Berkeley Square.

“And he will, most assuredly,” Lady Clymore opined emphatically.

And ominously, thought Betsy, quelling the fear she felt at the idea of Boru in Julian’s hands. Not literally, of course, for he would have to depend on a hireling such as a hackney driver to handle Boru. But to what purpose?

“Until this evening, Lady Clymore.” Charles bowed to the countess, but raised his gaze to Betsy. His eyes no longer gleamed with fever and apoplexy, they smoldered with it. “You see, Lady Elizabeth, I do not forget my promises.”

“Just this once, Your Grace,” she replied coolly, “I think you would be well advised to do so.”

“But I cannot.” The pang Betsy felt at the smile he gave her as he backed away from the phaeton made her turn her head away until Silas clucked to his grays.

“What was that about?” Lady Clymore asked, just as Betsy shifted on the squabs to inquire of her grandmother, “Why is His Grace calling upon you this evening?”

“You first,” the countess directed sternly. “What promise did Braxton make you and when?”

“Merely a promise to call, Granmama, to hear the tale of how Boru escaped and came to knock him senseless."

“God’s teeth!” Lady Clymore clapped a hand to her forehead. “Not again!”

“He was most accommodating,” Betsy lied, with only a tiny twinge. “I thought it odd, to say the least, but I’m sure his brain was completely scrambled by the fall.”

Lady Clymore lowered her hand and blinked. “How could you tell?”

“He called me by another name, as Papa did. I should not take seriously anything he might say to you, Granmama. The poor man has lost his wits completely.” Betsy paused, then asked mildly, “What reason did he give for wishing to call upon you?”

“Impertinent gel,” Lady Clymore replied tartly. “’Twas I who asked Braxton, and the reason is no concern of yours.”

“How unfair!” Betsy howled.

“Of course it is unfair, but it is what you deserve for running afoul of Braxton, when you promised—” Her ladyship broke off and again clapped a hand to her brow. “Hell and damnation! The note you sent with his coat! What did you write, you wretched gel?”

“I’d forgotten!” Betsy smiled—no, grinned—with relish at the recollection.

"I'll have the truth,” Lady Clymore threatened, “or you will have the birch rod.”

“Of course, Granmama,” Betsy replied prettily. “I told His Grace he had the manners of a goat.”

“You what?” the countess squawked. “You rackety, maggot-headed gel! You shatterbrain! You cotton-headed chit!”

With any luck, Betsy thought, as she listened to her grandmother rain names upon her, the Duke of Braxton would have a similar reaction, and one major worry would be scraped off her dish. Not that she thought for an instant Charles seriously intended to offer for her—not after he’d had a good night’s sleep. But knowing that her note would eliminate the possibility of a rash offer he’d regret on the morrow left her mind clear to dwell on Boru and how to get him back. From a hackney driver or Julian, whichever the case might be.

She hoped Charles was right, that a passing jarvey had spied Boru and a fat reward, for she could not fathom why her cousin would want the hound. Other than to dispose of him permanently, and Betsy steadfastly refused to believe even Julian could be so cruel. Returning Boru to turn her up sweet was the most likely possibility, and it was the one Betsy clung to for comfort throughout the long afternoon of writing the handbill and dispatching it for printing, bathing and washing her hair, and helping Lady Clymore’s abigail treat her swollen foot.

Hope sustained her until the fall of evening, when the Duke of Braxton’s impending visit stirred a flock of butterflies in her stomach. It was also Boru’s usual hour for exercise, and it was just possible, Betsy reasoned, that her darling might manage to get himself free of Julian or the hackney driver and make his way home in time for his romp with George. In which case, someone ought to be there to let him in through the gate in the back garden wall.

And if she couldn’t be found when Charles called—and he left without seeing her—that would be fine, too.

Throwing a woolen shawl over her shoulders, Betsy crept down the back stairs to the kitchen. Cook was in the scullery, which gave her a clear path to the door. She took it and let herself noiselessly out of the house into the cool and musky-smelling dusk. It was almost, but not quite chill, not yet.

With a minimum of crunching underfoot, Betsy picked her way through the dry leaves scattering the lawn to a fair-sized oak growing near the wall. When she grasped the lowest limb to pull herself up, the bark bit painfully into her blistered hand. Catching her lip in her teeth, she held on, pulled herself up to the first crotch, and from there onto the capped top of the wall. Not as nimbly as she might have the day before, for the muscles in her calves ached and her knees cracked as she sat down.

The wall felt cold beneath her skirts, but no colder than the cobbles would feel beneath Boru’s paws if he were still on the loose. Thinking of him wandering the streets, lost and frightened and hungry, brought tears to her eyes. What if he’d gotten away but couldn’t find Berkeley Square? What if he never did?

Feeling thoroughly miserable, Betsy gazed at the injured hand cradled in her lap. The blister wept and she could just see the bruises on her knuckles in the fading light. What a wretched day. Of all the people in all of London, why did Charles have to be the man flying a kite on that particular stretch of green?

How hopeful and happy she’d been upon her arrival in London. How simple she’d thought it would be to find a husband and escape Julian. How perfect her plan to be outrageous had seemed. How naive, how idiotic.

How had it all gone so horribly wrong?

Perhaps it was just bad luck, or the work of the Fates the Greeks prosed on and on about. She’d lost Boru and she’d lost her silly heart to a man who thought her nothing more than a scheming huntress. What a cruel twist that was. He should have called her Diana, not Aphrodite.

Leave it to Charles to know Mimnermus, one of the more obscure poets. Still, she would treasure for the rest of her days the wondrous expression on his face when he’d murmured to her dreamily of life and delight.

“Oh, Charles,” Betsy murmured, lifting her fingers and smiling, albeit sadly, at the feel of his name on her lips.

“Me name’s Davey,” came a small voice from the near darkness below.

Twisting at the waist and leaning on the heels of her hands, Betsy peered into the gloom at the foot of the wall and saw the boy looking up at her with Scraps in his arms. Her heart leapt at the sight of him and the little terrier whining and wagging his tail.

“How do you do, Davey? My name’s Betsy.”

“That jarvey brung Boru back?”

“No, not yet. I want to thank you for telling my friends what you saw. It was very brave of you.

“T’warn’t nothin’,” Davey said, with a shrug that ended in a shiver.

“Would you like to come up and sit with me?” Betsy asked, quelling an impulse to jump down and fling her shawl around him. When he drew back a nervous step, she added hastily, “I’m keeping watch for Boru, and would be most pleased to have your company.

He hesitated, shifting from one foot to another. Betsy held herself ready to leap after him if he turned to run. She’d lost Boru, but she would not, by heaven, lose Davey.

“All right, then,” he said finally, pronouncing it roight.

Swinging herself to the ground via the oak tree, Betsy raced for the gate, half afraid he’d be gone when she opened it. But he wasn’t, and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“Your parents won’t mind if you’re out after dark?”

“Me an’ Scraps is orphans,” Davey mumbled, ducking his head to scratch the little dog’s ears.

“What a small world. So am I.”

Davey raised a suspicious glance. “Who’s th’ ol’ crone I seen you with?”

Betsy smothered a grin. “My grandmother.”

“‘Er drink gin?”

“No. Does yours?”

Davey ducked his head again. “Did ‘fore ‘er fell off ‘er perch.”

“So there’s no one to care if you’re out alone?”

He raised just his chin and looked at her, his eyes glimmering in the near dark. “No'um."

“There is now.” Betsy smiled and offered Davey her hand.

Chapter Fifteen

When Charles arrived in Berkeley Square on the second chime of eight o’clock, Lady Clymore was in the Blue Saloon, a cane leaning against the back of the striped satin settee she sat upon. A tea service rested on the table in front of her, her gouty foot on a small stool beneath it.

“Shall we get straight to it,” she asked, waving Charles into a chair placed next to the settee as the butler closed the doors, “or would you like a cup of tea?”

“I prefer to get down to cases,” he replied, crossing one knee and resisting the urge he felt to jiggle his foot.

He’d spent the afternoon waving away the laudanum and burned feathers his mother had tried to foist on him in favor of pacing the library and planning what he would say to Lady Clymore. Giving in to the wretched pounding in his head and the occasional wash of vertigo would have been easy, but Charles was determined not to, for it had occurred to him at some point in the long afternoon that the easy path was not always the best path.

“A delightful boy, Teddy,” Lady Clymore began, “but somewhat excessive.”

“One of the Earnshaw family’s less noble traits, I fear,” Charles replied truthfully. “I myself have spent a lifetime fighting the tendency."

‘Forgive my plainspeaking, Braxton,” Lady Clymore said forthrightly, “but in your case a bit of it might have been just the thing.”

“How perceptive.” Charles grinned. “Do you know, my lady, that very thing occurred to me this afternoon."

Lady Clymore notched a brow. “It did?”