The Gamekeeper's Lady

A group of gentlemen crowded around a faro table, the game in full swing. Guineas and vowels were heaped at the banker’s elbow—Viscount Lullington, a fair-haired Englishman with thin aristocratic features whom many of the ladies adored. He had a Midas touch with gambling and women. Only Robert had ever bested him on either count—something that did not please the dandified viscount. But that wasn’t the reason for the bad blood between them. It went a whole lot deeper. As deep as a sword blade.

The one Robert had put through his arm dueling for the favours of a woman. Robert glanced around the panelled room. No sign of Radthorn amongst the crowd, but a glance at his fob watch revealed he’d arrived a few minutes earlier than their appointed time. He drifted towards the faro table.

‘Who is in the soup?’ he asked Colonel Whittaker as he took in the play.

‘Some protégé of Lullington’s,’ Wittaker muttered without turning. ‘The young fool just bet his curricle and team.’

Lullington smoothed his dark blond hair back from his high forehead, his intense blue gaze sweeping the players at the table. A clever man, Lullington, his fashionable air a draw for unwary young men with too much money in their pockets.

Too bad the man had chosen tonight to play here.

As if sensing Robert’s scrutiny, Lullington glanced up and their gazes locked. His lip curled. Slowly, he laid his cards face down on the green baize table.

‘Mountford?’ Lullington never confused him with his twin. ‘How did you get into a gentleman’s club?’ he lisped.

Robert recoiled. ‘What did you say?’

The viscount’s lids lowered a fraction. He shook his head. ‘You never did have a scrap of honour.’

All conversation ceased.

The hairs on the back of Robert’s neck rose. Fury coursed through his veins. He lunged forwards. ‘You’ll meet me on Primrose Hill in the morning for that slur. Name your seconds.’

The young sprig to Lullington’s right stared opened mouthed.

‘Gad, the cur speaks. Does it think because it is sired by a duke, it can mix with gentlemen?’

An odd rumble of agreement ran around the room.

Robert felt as if he’d been kicked in the chest. ‘What the deuce are you talking about?’

Lullington’s lip lifted in a sneer. ‘Unlike you, I would never sully a lady’s reputation in public.’

Robert felt heat travel up the back of his neck. So that’s what this was all about. Lullington’s cousin, the little bitch. He should have guessed the clever viscount would use the incident to his advantage. ‘The woman you speak of is no lady,’ he said scornfully. ‘As you well know.’

‘Dishonourable bastard,’ Wittaker said, turning his back.

‘No,’ Lullington said softly, triumph filling his voice. ‘Mountford is right not to bandy the lady’s name around in this club. Mountford, I find the colour of your waistcoat objectionable. Please remove it from our presence at once. None of us wants to see it here again.’

One by one each man near Robert turned, until Robert stood alone, an island in a sea of stiff backs. Some of these men were his friends. He’d gone to school with them, drunk and gambled with them, whored with them, and not a single one of them would meet his eye.

One or two of them were the husbands of unfaithful wives. The triumph in their eyes as they turned away told its own story.

Good God! They’d decided to send him to Coventry, because he’d refused to marry a scheming little bitch.

The only man who remained looking his way was Lullington, who lifted his quizzing glass as if he had spotted a fly on rotten meat.

‘It is a lie and you know it,’ Robert said.

‘Cheeky bastard,’ Pettigrew said.

‘Oh, it’s cheeky all right.’ Lullington’s lisp seemed more pronounced than usual. He gave a mocking laugh like splintering glass. ‘It remains. Pettigrew, will you have O’Malley throw this rubbish out, or shall I?’

One of the men—Pettigrew, Robert assumed—left the room, no doubt to do the viscount’s bidding. Robert stood his ground, forced reason into his tone. ‘I didn’t touch the girl.’ Damn. If he said any more, he’d be playing right into Lullington’s hands.

Ambleforth, round and red about the gills, a man Robert had known at Eton, shuffled closer. He caught sight of Lullington’s glass swivelling towards him and stopped, shaking his head. ‘’Fore God, Mountford,’ he uttered in hoarse tones. ‘Go, before you make it any worse.’

Worse. Heat flooded his body, sweat trickled down his back. How could this nightmare be worse? Lul-lington had turned every man in the room against him for a crime he hadn’t committed. The girl had brought it on herself.

‘If you’ll just step outside, my lord?’ O’Malley grasped his elbow. ‘We don’t want no unpleasantness, now does we?’

Robert yanked his arm away. ‘Take your greasy paws off me.’ He swung around to leave.

‘Thank God,’ Lullington said into the heavy silence. ‘The air in here was becoming quite foul. Did you hear gall of the fellow? Actually had the nerve to challenge me. I wouldn’t let him lick my boots.’

A ripple of uncomfortable laughter followed Robert down the stairs. He clamped his jaw shut hard. He wanted to ram his fist through Lullington’s sneering mouth, or bury his sword, hilt deep, in the man’s chest.

He certainly wasn’t going to marry Lullington’s scheming little cousin to please them. Charlie was the only one with the power to get him out of this predicament.

He snatched his hat from O’Malley and stormed out onto the street, almost colliding with someone on the way in. He opened his mouth to apologise, then realized it was Radthorn. He reached out and pressed a hand on his friend’s shoulder. ‘John, thank God.’

‘Mountford?’ Embarrassment flashed across John’s handsome face. ‘You’re here?’

What the devil? ‘We had an appointment, remember?’ Robert dropped his hand. Had John joined the rest of them in sending him to Coventry? It certainly seemed so.

‘Damn you,’ he said. The curse made him feel only marginally better as he barrelled up St James’s Street.

Charlie was his only hope, because the duke had long ago washed his hands of his dissolute second son.

Mountford House was no different from all the other narrowly sedate houses on Grosvenor Square. A spinster on a picnic couldn’t be more externally discreet and so seething with internal passions. These days Robert only visited the Mountford London abode in Father’s absence. He might not have visited then, if it weren’t for Mother. He certainly didn’t visit Charlie who grew more like Father every day, only interested in his estates and the title and the name.

The door swung open. Robert ignored the butler’s hand outstretched for his hat and coat. ‘Is Tonbridge home?’

‘Yes, Lord Robert. In his room.’

‘Thank you, Grimshaw.’

He took the stairs two at a time and barged into Charlie’s chamber. A room with all the pomp and circumstance required for the heir to a dukedom, it was large enough to hold a small ball. The ducal coat of arms emblazoned the scarlet drapery and every piece of furniture. It always struck Robert as regally oppressive. Charlie took it as his due.

Charlie, Charles Henry Beltane Mountford, named for Kings and Princes, the Marquis of Tonbridge and the next Duke of Stantford, neatly dressed, his cravat pristine, his jacket without a crease, sat at his desk, writing.

He looked up when Robert closed the door. ‘I’ve been expecting you,’ he said coolly.

Robert rocked back on his heels. ‘You knew? You bastard. Why the hell didn’t you give me some warning?’

Charlie’s mouth flattened. ‘I sent word to your lodging. My man missed you.’

Robert ran a glance over his older brother. It was like looking into a distorted mirror. He saw his own brown eyes and dark brown hair, his square-jawed face and the cleft in the chin that made shaving a chore. He saw his own body, tall and lean, with long legs and large hands and feet, but he hated the rest of what he saw. The weary eyes. The lines around his mouth. He looked like their father.