Chapter Sixteen

"Y ou're whistling," Renard accused from across the poker table.

Percy glanced at the two men playing cards from his seat by the window. Having found himself a hot cup of tea, a plate of biscuits, and a soft cushion, he'd been lost in his thoughts while he waited for them to finish their game. Thoughts of a dark-haired woman who came with his name on her lips and his finger between her thighs. A woman who kissed like a wild nymph in the dark embrace of the woods and stole topiaries from unsuspecting gardeners like a pro.

"Am I?"

Hamish placed his cards on the table. "Been doing it since you walked in."

Renard cursed and threw his losing straight down before leaning back in his chair and eyeing Percy. "A bit peculiar."

Hamish shook his head. "Downright unpleasant."

"And smiling. Do you see that smile?" Renard said.

Hamish looked alarmed. His won pot forgotten, he too turned to study Percy, brows drawn. "Is that what that was? I thought he was holding in a bodily complaint."

They were like nattering magpies. "Did you summon me here for a reason," Percy said, "or merely for your ill-witted sport?"

"Sport, I should think." Renard glanced at Hamish. "Was there something we needed?"

"Not I," Hamish said.

"You didn't summon me?"

Hamish shook his head.

"Perhaps Charlotte sent the missive?" Renard offered.

Percy inclined his head to the garden out the drawing room doors, eager to finish this errand so he might make other, far more agreeable, calls to a neighboring estate. "Is the duchess outside?"

Renard nodded. "Camille is with her and my daughter." The last word he said with male pride.

Percy would enjoy reminding the smug man how two days ago, he'd paced the floors of his country estate so long, he'd left a permanent line in the carpet, while his duchess had lain upstairs, screaming bloody murder the entire twenty hours of labor.

Starting for the door, Percy found a good place to set his cup and saucer as he bid the two adieus.

Hamish thumped the table. "Good gracious! He's gone and found her."

Renard stretched his arms over his head before picking up his own cup of tea. "Found whom?"

"His duchess."

Percy froze.

Renard startled. "What makes you say that?"

"His attendance at the ball, willingly going off to the firing squad. The whistling, the smiling, what does that make you think of?"

Renard set down his cup, rattling the china in his surprise. "I hadn't thought of that. You think it's a woman?"

Percy gritted his teeth, his reply too quick. "No."

"That's a yes," Renard said. "Who do you think it is?"

"Some barmaid, perhaps?" Hamish said.

Renard wrinkled his nose. "Too common. What about a governess?"

"Enough!" Percy shouted.

"Oh, my," Hamish said. "It's worse than we thought."

"Indeed."

"What the bloody hell are you two talking about?"

"Should we tell him?" Renard asked.

Hamish shrugged. "He's not smart enough to figure it out on his own."

No one would find their bodies in the Thames if he weighed the corpses down. "I'm going to kill you both."

Hamish cocked a brow. "You're in love, idiot."

Percy sputtered. "That's . . . That's . . ."

"True?" Renard said.

"Honest?" Hamish offered.

"Impossible."

The men weren't listening. They continued to prattle on over the likelihood the woman was a seamstress from London, or a Scottish lass, or something akin to a bullfighter from Spain.

Percy would have sliced them open with his tea plate if the word hadn't shaken him badly enough he had to sit back down on the divan.

Love. Such a meaningless word men spouted whenever it suited the need to disarm a woman. But, hearing it now, annoyance and indifference weren't the first emotions that sprang to the surface. This time, there was a warmth, a kind of contentment, and a face.

Did he love Danny?

It was true she was clever and disarming. He relished her company when able and thought of her constantly when apart. He'd chalked his single-minded thoughts to the rarity of their friendship and pent-up desire, but he didn't crave her body—well, he did , but not physical connection alone. He ached for her mind and easy company, the sound of her laugh, and the unmitigated certainty with which she saw the world in an optimistic light.

Good God, he was in love.

"Damn it!"

"Ah, see? He's figured it out." Hamish shook his head, his expression pitying.

"This is terrible." Percy stared at his hands. This couldn't happen. Affection and connection were risky, but love... Nothing good would come of losing his heart. "She'll get hurt."

"Confident, isn't he?" Renard crossed one leg over the other and leaned back in his chair. "No certainty she'll say ‘yes.' Women are unexpected like that, especially if she's a lady."

Percy heard the Duke of Lux's words and hope flared. "That's right! She'd refuse me." Of course she would. He may have had a fancy title and fortune now, but Danny knew what kind of man he really was. Her own fortune and standing in society were greatly coveted. She'd have no shortage of suitable offers. Hadn't she hinted as much? She enjoyed their friendship. Mutual pleasure wasn't the same as true affection.

"No luck there," Hamish said. "If it's the lady I think it is, she'll have him. Only him, if Charlotte's insight is correct, which it always is."

Percy turned to him sharply. "What do you mean?"

"If the gossip rags are to be believed, you've been spending an inordinate amount of time with Lady Daniella Deime." Hamish nodded when Percy frowned. "Charlotte and Daniella struck up a friendship after meeting at the Leishires' ball. I overheard one of their conversations in which the lady asked after a mysterious man she'd met at that same ball, a man she was convinced was an acquaintance of ours."

Percy reined in the desire to cut his friend's tongue from his mouth hearing Danny's name on his lips, and the unspoken closeness of their acquaintance. "Get to the point, Hamish."

Hamish's brows rose in a maddening expression of superiority. "The lady has turned down nine proposals since then, I hear. It doesn't take my wife's sharp mind to make the connection." He gave Percy a pointed look. "I wonder if her refusals have anything to do with a certain mysterious man?"

Nine proposals? The number was scandalous. And yet, the number wasn't near staggering enough for a woman as fine as Danny. The men of England were morons.

"She turned them all down?"

"Earls, barons," Hamish said. "A viscount or two."

"Wasn't there a duke in there as well?" Renard asked.

"You're right. Duke of Wembley."

It's not possible.

She'd been waiting for him. The idea was ludicrous, as unimaginable as a lady who demanded a kiss in payment for silence. Or a lady who walked miles in the dark to check and see if a black-hearted devil was all right.

Would she say ‘yes' if he asked?

Ties of any kind led to death. That had been the first rule drilled into him by his superiors.

But he wasn't an officer in Her Majesty's army anymore, nor an agent sanctioned by the Home Office. If he avoided the rookeries, his enemy list comprised of a single name.

Nic, that evil bastard, hadn't shown himself in over three years—very possibly a rotting corpse at the bottom of the Thames. And if he was gone...

Danny was wild and sensual, clever and competitive, beautiful, charming... and she made the most erotic sounds when she came. Why couldn't Percy beg her to take him?

He threw his cup and saucer on the table and went for the door. He bloody well was going to find out.

"Where are you going?" Hamish asked.

"To get my duchess."

His friend waved him off with a knowing smile. "I'll send your regrets to Charlotte."

*

Percy's hands were clammy as he was shown to the second-floor drawing room. He'd practiced what he'd say, even memorized one of those insipid poems of Byron's the ladies all twittered about. Over and over, he recited some benign description of a beautiful woman until the door opened and his mushed brain called out in greeting, "Of cloudless climes!"

Frankly, the young man who'd walked in was just as surprised as he was.

Taking in the split tailcoat and an unfortunate mismatch of polka dots and stripes all in the same ensemble, Percy assumed he'd just professed his affections to a half-blind footman.

But if the servant found Percy's outburst odd, the man matched the insanity by saying, "I prefer Wheatley's poem: ‘To Maecenas.'"

Percy blinked. "You prefer verses of inadequacy to lamentations of love?"

"Is that what you got out of it?" The man rubbed his chin, where a peppering of whiskers would have any housekeeper descending from the rafters in a rage. "I took the words as more of a hopeful prayer. An interesting perspective, Mr....?"

"Percy." He grimaced, remembering he was a titled man and here on a formal visit. "Er—Grandfellow."

The man's dark brows arched. "The Duke of Grandfellow. How fortunate." He plopped down on the divan opposite Percy's seat and crossed his legs at the ankles, revealing a glaringly obvious mismatch of stockings. "Now we may speak."

"Speak?"

"Size you up, to be frank." The man's dark gaze gave him a onceover in a way that felt familiar. "I have concerns about your worth."

Were all footmen this blunt and patronizing? Percy reconsidered his distaste for English servants.

"How do you feel about fox hunting?" the man asked.

Percy had no idea the protocol in such an impromptu interrogation, but the man seemed sincere and unbiddable, and Percy could use a verbal match to calm his nerves.

"No prelude, sir? No pleasantries?" he asked. "No introduction?"

The man threw Percy a smirk. "Were you not the one who confessed your intentions upon my arrival, not even a formal kiss on the hand?"

Oh, but the man was impossible not to like. Perhaps he could steal the cheeky man away from the household and bring him back to Fellow Hall.

"Fox hunting is barbaric," Percy said truthfully. "Any man who wishes to boast of skill should reserve his claims to the day after a ball. The patience required is just short of saintly and the maneuvering of social etiquette far more dangerous."

"I see you've attended your fair share of balls."

"Three, and it was four too many."

The man chuckled. "And what are your thoughts on trees?"

"Trees?"

"I'm a purveyor of nightly reports. Most evenings, I walk the grounds in search of interesting creatures found in trees." Leaning back, the man leveled Percy a gaze that had him itching under the collar. "You wouldn't believe the things one finds high up at night."

Percy cursed himself for not waiting for a moonless sky. There was little doubt the man had found a most interesting sight over a week ago, when a man had found himself knocking on the window of a lady of the house in the dead of night.

Keeping his voice steady, Percy met the man's stare head on. "Most men would raise the alarm at a predator sighting."

"I'm not most men, Your Grace," he said.

There was a long pause, but the silence was not empty. Percy forced himself to not look away, feeling if he did so, he'd lose whatever test he'd stumbled into. A minute passed. Two.

With a warm smile, the man stood, all traces of hostility gone. "Very good. You pass."

Percy tracked his movements to the door, feeling oddly disappointed and more than a little relieved. "That's it? No more wooing? I feel positively used, sir."

"Seeing as I was not the person you came to visit, I leave the rest of the wooing up to you." The man gave Percy an inscrutable wink and nodded in the direction of the window. "You'll find Danny practicing archery in the side lawn."

Percy didn't ask how the man knew whom he'd come to visit. Nor why he referred to her so familiarly. His gaze went to the view outside and the three-ringed target in the distance where two arrows were seated in the inner ring. Of course the Goddess of War was a superior shot, and she was currently armed when Percy found himself in need of discussing an overly emotional subject.

"A word of advice, friend," the man said, drawing Percy's attention. "Stave off the poetry. Your delivery is horrible and will make no impression on her."

Percy's gaze narrowed. "You're not a footman, are you?"

The man bowed. "Merely a concerned party and at your service, Your Grace." Before the door shut behind him, the man called over his shoulder with every pompous air of a gentleman, "I'm rooting for you, Byron. We all are. Don't screw it up."