Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right (8 page)

Nicholas tossed the bow and arrow aside. Frank had always gotten away with calling him names at home. Mother had intervened every time, and after she’d died, his stepmother had actually encouraged Frank’s insults. But both of them were gone.

Nicholas grabbed his baby brother by the cravat and hauled him close to his face. “Grow up.”

“No.” Frank’s eyes narrowed. “Big
dummy
.”

Nicholas forced himself to remember that Frank was, quite simply, an ass. The last ass in the family had been Great-uncle Hesperus, who’d fathered six children among three housemaids.

Nicholas supposed the family was due another ass now. Which gave him the wherewithal to drop his brother to the ground without killing him. “And your speaking like a two-year-old is somehow going to convince me to give you additional funds?”

Frank stood up and wiped off his bottom. “It should. If you were a
good
brother.” He broke an arrow over his knee for emphasis.

Nicholas bit his cheek and picked up the bow again. “Listen. If you’d stop gambling, which you’re not terribly good at, you might notice you can do other things better.”

“Like what?”

Nicholas thought. “Like, um—”

He thought some more, poised the arrow, and then shot it directly into the bull’s-eye.

“See?” Frank let his hands drop to his thighs. “You do everything right. Which makes it so I can’t. So why should I try?”

Nicholas handed him the bow and arrow, stood behind him, and twisted him toward the target. “Because you were gifted with a brain, and a healthy body, and devoted parents who gave you many opportunities to prove your worth. Until Mother died, of course, and then Father became quite useless.”

Blast. He hadn’t meant to add that last bit.

There was a beat of silence.

Frank shot the arrow ten feet to the left of the target. “If you’d let me shoot barrels with a blunderbuss, I guarantee I’d do better than you.”

“We have no barrels—”

“I do. I’ve loads of them.”

“Nor blunderbusses.”

“You could get one.”

Nicholas clenched his jaw. “Well, it’s clear that today, we
don’t
have them. So let’s go again, and this time pretend the target is me.”

“I hate archery
and
you.”

“Very well, Frank.” Nicholas strove to keep his anger in check. “I won’t dwell on the fact that if you had any integrity whatsoever, you’d try to be a decent brother because that’s the right thing to do. But if you want your allowance to continue, you
will
stop stealing spoons from White’s or any other establishment and you
will
alert me if you get into any scrapes.”

“You always were a nosy bastard,” Frank said.

“Yes, I suppose I am. The Drummond name’s at stake.”

“I think you’re jealous. You want to know what I’m up to because my life’s much more exciting than yours. That’s it. You can’t let me have any fun because you’re the boring older brother.”

It was the same old story.

Nicholas gathered up his things. “I’ll see you around.” He began to walk away, then turned. “Are you staying at that hotel for long?”

Frank’s lower lip stuck out. “None of your bloody business. But you saw—my bed is no better than a pile of straw. And I’m down to two waistcoats.”

Nicholas felt a war being waged within him, but then he reached into his pocket. “Here.” He threw Frank a leather pouch filled with gold coins. “An advance on your next allowance.”

Frank sneered, but he grabbed the bag. “I’m not going to thank you, you old miser.”

“Then don’t.” Nicholas turned away and refused to look back.

“Hey.”

Very reluctantly, Nicholas stopped. Turned around.

“Is it true you’re marrying Lady Poppy Smith-Barnes?” Frank asked sullenly.

Nicholas hesitated but a moment. “Yes.”

“She’s a morsel I’d like to pluck.”

“No, you wouldn’t, Frank, because if you did I’d kill you. And I’ll maim you if you ever say something rude about her again.”

Frank narrowed his eyes, then he whipped around and took off at a run. He held the leather pouch up in the air and said, “The first thing I’m doing with this is bed a whore, and I’m going to imagine it’s Lady Poppy Smith-Barnes when I do.”

Nicholas stopped and inhaled a deep breath.

You will not kill your own brother
. His parents’ words echoed in his head.

But when he walked back to the Albany, he was angry. Angry that he was saddled with an immature idiot as his brother. The only thing that kept him trying to help Frank was the memory of his father’s face whenever he’d talk about his big brother, Uncle Tradd.

His father James had needed his brother.

Near the end of his life, the duke had asked Nicholas to carry him that morning to the shore—which, of course, Nicholas had done.

“We try to deny it,” James told him while they watched the waves pound the sand, “but blood is thicker than any grievance or separation. No matter how irreversible—or in your case with Frank, how sensible—the parting, at the core of your being is a silent mourning. For me it has never gone away. Learn from my story, Nicholas, so that you may have a modicum of peace.”

And so Nicholas knew he couldn’t—and wouldn’t—abandon Frank the way Uncle Tradd had abandoned his own father.

Just in case Frank needed him.

But once a year Nicholas
would
sit him backward on a horse and make it go—Frank would never know the time or place, but God, it brought Nicholas such joy, such unbridled delight, to see his brother bobbing madly on that horse, yelling for help. Nicholas deserved that, didn’t he? After all, the other 364 days of the year, Frank brought him nothing but misery.

Oh, and he called him Frank the Farter every once in a while. But that’s because Frank called him Nick the Nutsack.

That’s what brothers did.

“I could do so much worse, Father,” Nicholas said to a passing cloud.

So
much worse.

He was practically a saint.

CHAPTER 10

Poppy had been caught. She was officially betrothed. Her engagement to the Duke of Drummond had made it into the morning papers. Every ounce of her being protested because it was so obvious—

I should be marrying Prince Sergei.

Dumbfounded, she cast the paper aside. She’d
always
been able to wrangle out of an engagement.

Until now.

Last night she’d slept so poorly that she’d given up when the moon was still high in the sky and sat at her window, listening to the sounds of London and taking sips from a restoring punch Aunt Charlotte had left outside her door.

Oh, who was she fooling? She’d taken no sips. She’d downed the entire thing in twenty minutes and gotten sodden drunk, flung open her windows, and yelled into the night, “Damn you, Drummond! Damn you to bloody hell!” at least twice before her father himself strode into her room and locked the window.

Now in Lord Derby’s drawing room, she sat with her two best friends, both of whom wouldn’t quite look her in the eye.

She was rather wincing at them herself. That cursed punch, after all.

“I can’t believe you two were
grinning
when he proposed,” Poppy said, treading lightly because of her poor head, but attempting to pace in front of the fireplace. “Aunt Charlotte, too. She explained it away by claiming stomach pains.”

“I couldn’t help it,” Eleanor replied, her head low. “You two looked
adorable
. It must have been the light. The candles put a certain glow on you that was, um, a bit magical.”

Beatrice shook her head. “I don’t know what came over me, either. In that moment, when he kissed you, it was as if all the fairy tales came true. And then I became sensible again. I realized he’d … he’d forced you into a metaphorical—and actual—corner.”

Beatrice was a stickler for details.

“As for the metaphorical corner, you had no idea it existed!” Eleanor huffed. “Who ever knew the Duke of Drummond wasn’t a legend?”

“Exactly.” Poppy threw up her hands. “He battles large sea monsters. He’s crazy, murderous, wicked, and—”

She’d kissed him. She’d kissed him to distraction.

She licked her lips and bit the inside of her cheek. She was in a nightmare. And she only wanted to wake up.

“Don’t worry,” Beatrice reassured her. “Despite the awful announcement in the newspaper, we members of the Spinsters Club will help you out of this somehow.”

“We know if you choose anyone to marry, it will be Sergei,” Eleanor added stoutly.

“But how?” Poppy said. “How can I possibly save myself?”

“Paris is out.” Aunt Charlotte popped into the room, and took the best seat by ordering Eleanor cheerfully out of it. “Your father caught on. He’s paid all the servants extra wages to report to him any havey-cavey packing of suitcases. In fact, we no longer have trunks of any kind. He’s donated them to charity. He’s confiscated our pin money, too, and even put all our jewels in his safe. We have to ask to use them when we go out, and we’ll be escorted by footmen at all times, unless we’re with Drummond, of course.”

“That’s not the worst of it.” Poppy sank onto a chair by her aunt. “Drummond says if I run and he catches me, we’ll marry that day—or live in sin until the special license comes through.”

“Did he now?” Aunt Charlotte drawled. And then gave a little laugh. A wicked little laugh.

“Aunt,”
Poppy remonstrated with her.

The Spinsters’ mentor sat up. “Oh, yes, that would be
dreadful
.”

Poppy shook her head. “Something’s wrong. Something’s come over each one of you—”

“I assure you, niece,” Aunt Charlotte said in her haughtiest tones. “I’ve not forgotten Sergei’s the only man who comes even
close
to fulfilling the requirements for you to receive dispensation from the Spinsters Club rules.” She blinked. “It’s just that Drummond falls into the category that should make every Spinster wary: he’s dangerous. A dangerous man can make a Spinster forget like that”—she snapped her fingers—“every tenet of the Spinster way of life.”

God, she was right. Poppy simply had to think about the duke kissing her, and her Spinster knees almost buckled. Not that she would admit it out loud.

Eleanor raised her teacup. “Never fear, Lady Charlotte. We can recite those tenets backward and forward.”

“Our standards are so high, we’re bound to be Spinsters forever.” Beatrice clashed cups merrily with Eleanor.

Poppy felt guilty, terribly guilty.
If they only knew the truth,
she thought. Dangerous men were—

Well, they were dangerous.

Aunt Charlotte chuckled. “I’m proud to say I had the devil of a time drawing up the latest edition of the Spinster bylaws. Lord Bimmington was blowing in my ear the whole time. And Sam-the-footman was quite leering at me. No wonder—I was wearing my teeth, of course. And that recklessly red silk gown from Milan.”

Poppy knew the very one. It really
was
reckless.

She gave her aunt a hug. “You’re the best chaperone a girl could ever wish for,” she whispered in her ear.

And it was true, but part of Poppy felt rather wistful for a shrew of a chaperone, one who might tell her all the naughty things she’d done with the Duke of Drummond the night before would come back to haunt her—and put her plan to win Sergei in jeopardy.

She needed reminding, and an embittered battle-ax might restore her to the lofty daydreams she’d harbored for six years about Sergei.

“Do you think the duke really did have his uncle murdered?” Beatrice asked her in hopeful tones—and no wonder, she wrote shocking novels with an occasional dead body in them.

“Whether he did or not,” said Eleanor, “there’s absolutely no chance he’s ever fought an octopus as large as a Royal Mail coach.” She was the artist, so her sense of proportion was impeccable.

“Heavens, of course not, on both counts.” Although a perfectly silly part of Poppy still wondered.

But thankfully for her fanciful imagination, not for long.

There was a loud commotion outside and a forceful knock on the front door, followed by a demanding exotic voice and much yapping.

Kettle came into the drawing room. “Princess Natasha and her dogs to see you, Lady Poppy,” he announced.

She shared a surprised look with her aunt and Spinsters Club sisters. “Show them in, Kettle,” she said, not sure what to think.

Natasha strode in, strikingly elegant in a pale green morning dress with a sheer overlay and a high, frothy collar framing her long, slender neck. Her only accessories were the two panting corgis she carried, one of whom was missing an eye.

Poppy stood, her knees a bit wobbly. “This is indeed, um, an honor, Princess.”