“Stay in London?” Miss Tempest shook her head. Vehemently. Then she made a point of glancing around, urging him, as it were, to survey the landscape as well. “Can’t you see that is impossible?”
He didn’t need to look around to know the situation was unbearable, he could see it in the humiliation in her eyes. That sad, terrible light, oh, that he knew.
But leave? No! Couldn’t she see that he needed her?
Terribly. Vehemently.
Because, he realized in that oh-so-desperate moment, he loved her. From her pert strawberry lips to the breakage that swelled in her wake. To her meddling ways.
Oh, especially those meddling ways.
Love.
Such a small word to tip his world upside down. Crumble the last vestiges of his defenses.
He, Pierson Stratton, the Viscount Wakefield, loved Miss Tempest.
And he knew there were three things that needed to be done.
Get her back to Charleton’s and well away from the slings and arrows of society. Which would leave him free to go find Tuck in his usual haunts. The sort of places one didn’t take a lady.
Then, he’d go have a little discussion with Ilford. Not so much a discussion, but rather a good thrashing.
After that, he supposed there was one more thing he would have to do. He would have to let her go.
Back to her beloved Kempton. Back to where she could shine brightly, meddle to her heart’s content and no one would look askance at her. She could hold her head up and be the lady that she was.
This time, he looked away, because the idea of standing in the window and watching some traveling barouche take her from him left him reeling. He wouldn’t be able to do it.
Not even with Bitty and Bob at his side. Especially not with them. If Bitty started crying, Pierson made no guarantees that he wouldn’t turn into a veritable watering pot as well.
Yet when he looked up and around, as if seeking help, who did his gaze fall on, but the perfect gentleman to help him.
Brody.
Why was it that at this very moment, Poldie’s brother pulled up alongside them?
“Wakefield,” the baron said, nodding politely. The younger man’s face brightened with a smile when he recognized Pierson’s companion. “Miss Tempest! What a delight!”
And like Poldie, there was no guile in his address, no false bright notes. The man was genuinely happy to see her.
“Rimswell,” Pierson said in greeting, trying not to flinch as he used Poldie’s old title. “Could you help me out, my good man?”
“Always,” the man replied, his eyes widening at this unprecedented request.
“Could you take Miss Tempest home to Lord Charleton’s. He’s on—”
“—Hanover Square,” Rimswell finished for him. “Yes, I know. Be more than delighted to be of assistance.”
But there was one person who was far from delighted. And she turned her outraged expression on Pierson.
Not that he had expected her to go easily.
“Have you not forgotten our errand that needs seeing to?” Her brows rose, as if to nudge him.
Pierson wasn’t about to be nudged. “I have not. But I can complete it more efficiently if you are home. Besides, weren’t you just saying that the sun has left you quite fatigued?”
The lady didn’t look tired in the least. Furious and angry, yes. Nor did she see the point of playing along. Not at first.
“I said no such—” But then her protests stopped as she glanced over her shoulder at Lord Rimswell. She could hardly complain further in front of the baron, especially when the fellow had that look of an overeager pup on him. Sir Galahad with an honorable crusade before him. She took a deep breath. “Our errand—” she pressed quietly.
Pierson leaned closer. “I shall see to it. Now go with Rimswell. Please.”
She looked ready to protest further, but stopped, when yet another carriage rolled by.
He didn’t recognize the lady in the carriage, but he did the gentleman driving. The Earl of Kipps. Pierson had to guess that the woman next him, a pretty-looking bit but with the sharp eye of a merchant and a cruel twist to her lips, was none other than Lady Kipps.
But even without the lady’s husband there to give her identity away, the deep blush that rose on Miss Tempest’s cheeks was evidence enough.
That, and her sudden and hasty acquiescence. “Yes, well, perhaps I have been out too long, Lord Wakefield,” she agreed, slanting a glance at Pierson, before accepting Brody’s hand and making the transfer to the seat beside him.
“I will have you safely home in no time, Miss Tempest,” Brody vowed, tipping his hat to Pierson before giving the ribbons a practiced wag.
Never one to leave a moment unmeddled, his Miss Tempest called after him. “Our errand.”
As if he could forget.
Pierson smiled for half a second, and then his eyes narrowed. He had an errant heir to find. A marquess to murder. And his heart to bury.
Louisa glanced over her shoulder and watched Lord Wakefield move quickly out of the park as if the devil were on his heels.
And why wouldn’t he want to be away from her? When every pair of eyes they passed gazed at her, and now at him, in scorn.
Guilty by association.
She should never have forced him to come along with her. Yet . . . for a moment when he’d been protesting her leaving London, she’d thought . . . well, hoped, he had come out with her today for reasons other than her “blackmail,” as he called it.
That he truly had come blustering out of his house, half shaved and still damp around the edges to rescue her from Tuck.
Rescue her. Those words sent a shiver of desire down her spine.
He’d come out to rescue her.
Much as he’d arrived at Almack’s like a knight in shining armor.
Could he . . . She stopped herself right there. The very idea left her breathless.
For all the problems she’d brought to his doorstep, could Lord Wakefield actually hold a tendre for her?
Louisa pressed her lips together and looked away. Oh, that would never do.
Because he’d have to be completely mad to fall in love with her and here she’d always vowed that if (and that was a rather large if) she married, she certainly wouldn’t marry a man who wasn’t sensible. She wouldn’t fall in love with some beastly fellow just to be married.
And yet . . .
For all Wakefield’s adamant protests that she couldn’t leave London, he’d failed to mention the one reason that mattered most.
That he loved her.
As worried sick as she was over Lavinia’s disappearance, she nearly laughed at the very thought of Lord Wakefield making some flowery declaration of love.
He was not a man for speeches. At least not those kind.
But she could see him standing up in the House of Lords and giving a voice to those whose cries went unheard, day in and day out. That’s why she’d made the suggestion. Urged him to take his seat.
Besides, she’d seen the grief on his face as they’d passed that poor man with only one leg. That he was lost and homeless hadn’t escaped the viscount.
As much as Lord Charleton applauded how she’d been able to draw the viscount out of his lair, one look at his face when he’d seen so many of his fellow soldiers in such desperate straits—well, it hadn’t felt like a kindness.
“I wish he didn’t blame me so,” Lord Rimswell said to her.
“Excuse me?”
“I said, I wish Wakefield didn’t blame me,” the baron repeated.
“Blame you? Whatever for?” If anyone was to blame, it was she.
“For being Rimswell. For being Poldie’s heir.”
“I’m sorry, my lord. I don’t quite understand. Who was Poldie?” Even as she asked the question, she realized that name was familiar. She’d heard it before. And while she tried to remember where she’d heard it, Lord Rimswell made his explanation.
“My brother was Baron Rimswell before me. He’d been Rimswell since just after I was born.”
“Your brother?” She paused. “You inherited your title from your brother?”
“Yes. I know Wakefield finds me a poor substitute for Poldie, as well I know I am,” he confessed. “Poldie thought of Wakefield more like a brother than a friend. I was merely the spare who wanted to tag along.”
“I doubt that, Lord Rimswell,” she told him.
“You are most kind to say so.” He sat back in his seat and held the reins with an easy grace, but his gaze was fixed on a spot far from London. “Don’t get me wrong, Poldie was a grand fellow—oh, not nearly as choice as Wakefield or even Rowland, but in his own way, he cut a swath through Town. The three of them larked about all the time.”
“You are the second person who has told me that, and yet I have a hard time imagining Lord Wakefield ever ‘larking about,’ ” she told him.
Rimswell laughed. “I suppose so. He’s not the same man who sailed for Spain. But I’ll never forget the two of them, standing on the deck of that ship, all done up in their coats and ready to whip Bonaparte into submission. They quite swaggered.”
Louisa smiled at this. She couldn’t help herself. As the baron described his carefree brother, she swore she could see him, there beside Lord Wakefield.
“So your brother wanted to go?”
“Oh, yes, nothing would stop him,” Lord Rimswell told her. “When he bought his commission, my mother was furious, but Poldie was adamant about going. ‘If Wakefield can do his bit . . .’ he told her. ‘ ’Sides, I can’t let him go alone. He needs me.’ He believed that, Poldie did. That Wakefield needed him. Believed it with all his heart.”
Then Louisa remembered where she had heard Poldie’s name. When Wakefield and Mr. Rowland had argued outside the carriage at Almack’s.
Poldie kept his word, the viscount had said.
And died, Tuck had said with a regret in his voice that had been heart-wrenching to hear.
“Yet Mr. Rowland didn’t go to Spain,” she said, trying to put the pieces together. She felt as if she was on the verge of discovery. As much as Lady Aveley avowed that Wakefield had come to his beastly state when Melliscent had thrown him over, Louisa had suspected there was something more to the man’s pain than a jilted betrothal.
“Tuck was supposed to go, at least as far as I know, but in the end it was just Wakefield and Poldie. I don’t know the circumstances, so I can’t blame the man, not like Wakefield does.”
“Is that why the viscount is so—”
“Like he is?” Rimswell teased. “Yes, I expect that’s part of it. Oh, I know there are those who think it was all that Lady Melliscent business, but it wasn’t. He was broken before she left. The plain fact is, he came home without Poldie and he can’t forgive himself. Can’t forgive me for inheriting. Can’t forgive Tuck for whatever reasons.”
“Oh, heavens, how horrible,” Louisa said more to herself. For now it seemed she had found her answers.
But hardly the solution to it. She bit her lip in consternation and looked away.
“Wakefield shouldn’t blame himself,” Lord Rimswell continued. “Poldie made his choice. Wild horses couldn’t have stopped him. For Lord knows, my mother tried and she’s about as determined as they come.”
Louisa couldn’t help herself, she laughed a little. “Have you tried to talk to Wakefield?”
“Can anyone?” the baron laughed, shaking his head. “That much about him hasn’t changed. He’s always been stubborn. But still, I tried when he first came back. Knew he’d taken Poldie’s death hard—we all did. Brought over his letters—my brother wrote constantly—and all of them talk about Wakefield—his heroism, his regard for his men. His bravery. Poldie quite idolized him. Knew he would come home and do great things.”
They were nearly to Hanover Square, and as they drove into the square, the baron continued. “What is odd is that Poldie never once wrote about coming home. Never wrote of missing our cook, or clean sheets, or the other comforts you’d think a man would miss. Not Poldie. It was as if he knew there would come a moment when the choice would be made for him, and he was resigned to it. Knew his fate and would play the hand before him.”
“He must have been an extraordinary man.”
“Actually if you’d met him, you might have thought him quite ordinary. Still, I had hoped that if Wakefield would read his letters, he would know that whatever happened there, however Poldie died, it wasn’t his fault. At least not in Poldie’s eyes.”
“That might be exactly what the viscount needs,” Louisa agreed.
At this Rimswell snorted. “Yes, but good luck trying to get the fellow to see sense. He had his butler throw me out when I tried to leave them for him. Banned me from the house.”
“He’s banned me as well,” she told him. “But I ignore his bluster.”
“I think you rather like it,” he said.
“I don’t know about that,” she said, though a part of her thrilled to think of the passion Lord Wakefield inspired. His bluster, his beastly ways, made his kindness and his passion that much more amazing.
Yet what if those letters could heal some part of Wakefield’s wounded heart? Louisa, as ever, was unwilling to leave such a thing unfinished. She had to try. “Might you give them to me? Your brother’s letters, that is.”
The young baron grinned and pulled the carriage to a stop in front of a house. “I’ll do one better. I will give them to you right this very minute.”
He dashed into the house and returned a few minutes later with a bundle of worn and tattered letters carefully tied together with a navy blue ribbon.
“I would so love to see Wakefield restored,” he told her as he entrusted her with his brother’s legacy. For a second she thought he might relent and take them back, so precious were his brother’s words, but then he took a deep breath and gathered up the reins. “Yes, for Wakefield. It’s what Poldie would have wanted.”
After delivering Poldie’s letters to Tiploft, who had promised quite faithfully to see that His Lordship would receive them, she hurried home, hoping to find Lavinia already there.
“Has my sister returned?” Louisa asked Brobson as she came in the door.
The poor fellow’s brows puzzled together, and she could all but hear the question in his thoughts. Whichever one is this one?
She knew the dear old man couldn’t tell the two of them apart. “Lavinia—” she prompted.
“No, miss,” he told her.
Louisa went up to the room they shared and took off her pelisse and gloves. She was pulling the pins from her bonnet and putting them away, when she heard the front door opening. She hurried downstairs to find Lavinia just coming in.
Make that swanning in as if she had all of London bowing at the hem of her skirts.
“Where have you been?” Louisa demanded.
This stopped her sister’s grand entrance in its tracks.
“Why, at the library. You knew that,” Lavinia said, hurrying toward the stairs.
And, most notably, not looking Louisa in the eye. They weren’t twins for nothing. Louisa could tell when Lavinia was lying—all it took was one look into those all-too-familiar eyes.
But right now, her sister was doing her best not to look Louisa in the eye.
Which told the entire story.
She drew close to Lavinia. “You were not at the library—”
“Why of course I was.”
“You were seen, Lavinia.” That was all Louisa had to say for her sister’s gaze to come flying up.
“Seen? Whatever does that mean? I went to the library.” She was all defiance now, hands fisted to her hips.
“Lord Wakefield saw you getting into Mr. Rowland’s carriage, Lavinia.”
If she expected her sister to retreat, or even blanch with the knowledge that she’d been caught, Louisa was wrong.
For Lavinia quickly countered. “And how would you know that? Were you over there again? With him? Alone?”
“No!” Louisa managed, taking a tentative step back. This was hardly going as she’d planned. “He and I . . . That is, he offered—”
“Yes, I suppose he did,” Lavinia said, now completely on the offensive. “He always seems to be on hand to offer.”
Louisa bristled, yet before she could make a hasty retort, Lady Aveley appeared on the landing above them.
“Girls! There you are. I had hoped to find you together. Excellent.” She smiled at them and began to come down the stairs.
The sisters shot each other hot glances, vows that this was hardly over.
But it was, in ways that they could never have suspected.
“However was the library?” Lady Aveley asked Lavinia.
Lavinia smirked at Louisa and then turned to face the matron. “Delightful. Though I am afraid I lost track of time—I started reading Homer’s Odyssey and couldn’t put it down. Such a gripping tale.”
Louisa groaned. Oh, good heavens, couldn’t Mr. Rowland have helped her—at the very least—come up with a more believable lie?
Not that Lady Aveley noticed, for she only smiled brighter, as she came to a stop in the foyer. “I have had a letter from your father.” She held up the note, the familiar handwriting giving Louisa a bit of a start. “He has asked Lord Charleton to provide you with a carriage as far as Tunbridge Wells, and he will have your coachman meet you there.”
“Leave London?” Lavinia whispered.
“Yes. Your father thought these arrangements would be the most expedient,” Lady Aveley told them.
“No!” Lavinia told her, backing away. “I won’t go.”
“My dear, I know this is—” Lady Aveley reached out to her, but Lavinia jerked back, her face stricken, her eyes already brimming with tears.
“No! I won’t go,” Lavinia repeated as she backed into the post at the bottom of the stairwell, using it to support herself. “You cannot make me. The Season . . . It isn’t fair—”
“Is over. At least for us,” Louisa said, with all certainty. How could she not be anything but certain when she could still feel the sting of the park.
“Not for me. I refuse to go. I won’t leave. Not yet,” Lavinia told them, before she burst into tears and went running for the refuge of their room.
Louisa made a move to go after her, but Lady Aveley shook her head. “Let her go. She’s right. It isn’t fair. It never has been.”
Her Ladyship turned and walked away, her head held high, but there was a slump to her shoulders that told Louisa all too well that Lavinia wasn’t the first lady in London to discover how cruel the ton could be.
Pierson had spent the better part of the day and into the evening looking for Tuck . . . And Miss Tempest’s sister, to no avail. Nor had he been able to locate any sign of where Ilford might be.
He’d returned to find Tiploft waiting for him. “My lord, I do apologize. He arrived not long ago and took the liberty of—”
His loyal servant needn’t say anything further. The viscount knew exactly who he meant.
“Tuck,” he said, more as an accusation than a greeting as he entered the dining room. He’d known exactly where to look.
Tuck wouldn’t waste his time pacing about a library. Not when supper was set and waiting.
Nor was Tuck simply waiting for his host. From the looks of things, he was well into his third helping, settled in his seat and reading something. Tuck glanced up and grinned. “Where the devil have you been, cuz?”
“Looking for you all over Town,” Pierson said as he strolled toward his chair. Then he looked down at the scattering of paper in front of Tuck.
All in a familiar hand. Gooseflesh spread across his arms and it seemed as if every bit of air had been sucked from the room.
“What are those?” he managed, even when he already knew.
“Letters,” Tuck replied, setting the one he’d been reading down among the jumble.
Pierson glanced back at the pile, the broad strokes of the pen so much like their author. No, this wasn’t right.
He gathered them all up as quickly as he could and carried them to the fireplace.
He quite expected Tuck to rise up and stop him, but all the man did was make a quiet request.
“Please don’t. If you bear any bit of love for Poldie, don’t do that.”
If he bore any love for Poldie? How could Tuck even say such a thing. Poldie had been like a brother to both of them.
He glanced down at the letters and felt the tug to open them. To read Poldie’s words, to hear his voice rise out of the ink and paper. Yet that, oh, God, that was too much.
“I can’t. I can’t read them,” he confessed, the words faltering over his tongue.
“Then let me tell you what they say—”
The gooseflesh shivered again and if ever he had felt a moment of fear, it was right now.
Tuck got up and took the letters from him. Sorting through them, he smiled at one and began to read.
Wakefield found us a rare cook. A fellow from Bristol who can make a feast out of a rat. Though he had the nerve to try and convince us it was rabbit.
He couldn’t help himself, Pierson laughed. As much at the memory, but also at the way Tuck managed to recreate Poldie’s affable charm and thick Northern accent.
Tuck set it down and chose another.
Wakefield saved my life tonight. Pulled me off my horse and down behind a tree just as the French snipers began picking us off again. I never noticed a thing before that moment, but he did. I’ll get him killed before this march ends and I’ll never be able to live with myself.
Pierson didn’t even realize it, but his eyes had welled up with tears. Suddenly he was back on that road, and right there with Poldie. As usual, his friend had been chatting away about some Spanish bit of muslin, with not a care in the world, as if the French weren’t right on their heels and harrying them the entire way to the coast.
“The next day it was him,” Pierson said quietly, a sheen misting his vision. “He saved me. But—”
“Yes, indeed,” Tuck said, glancing away, as he dashed at his eyes with his sleeve and went back to reading.
You should see him, Brody. Wakefield is magnificent with the men. He can rally them through chaos, and has held our unit together these long days of marching. The people of England will be well served when he takes his seat in the House of Lords.
Pierson’s gaze flew up. For wasn’t that exactly what Miss Tempest had urged him this very afternoon? Now here was Poldie making the same charge.
“No more,” he told Tuck, reaching for that letter.
“No,” Tuck said, shaking his head. “This is the last one he wrote and you will listen.”
Promise me, that if I don’t make it, you’ll follow his example. Seek his advice. He’s the finest man I’ve ever known. He deserves every honor, every happiness.
“No more, please, no more,” Pierson told him, his heart breaking.
“As you wish. Couldn’t read anything more if I wanted to. Those were his last words, Piers. His final wish. That you find happiness.”
Pierson shook his head and turned his back to Tuck, trying to sort out of the tangle of emotions rolling inside him.
Demmit, Poldie! How could you?
He glanced over his shoulder at Tuck. His friend had sat down and was stacking the letters back up and tying them with a navy ribbon. “Why did you bring those here?”
Tuck shrugged. “I didn’t. They were here on the table when I came in.”
“So you—”
“Of course. I knew that hand immediately. Knew you might go into one of your stubborn tempers and burn them.” He paused and looked Pierson directly in the eye.
Tuck was right. That’s exactly what he would have done.
“Where did they come from?” the viscount asked, taking his chair and collapsing into it.
“According to Tiploft, your Miss Tempest brought them by earlier.”
“How the devil—” he began, but he didn’t need to finish. He’d sent her off with Brody. And then, if he was still the wagering sort, he’d guess she’d meddled.
Pouring himself a glass of wine, and then, after a second, filling Tuck’s glass, he looked up. “Did you know?”
“Yes,” Tuck told him, picking up his glass and letting the wine swirl a bit. “Rather, I suspected. He wrote me as well, you know. Never one to hold a grudge, that Poldie.”
“Never,” Pierson agreed, a shiver lifting an unseen weight from his shoulders. It was as if the burden he’d been carrying since Spain no longer had a place to reside in his life.
He raised his glass, and Tuck followed suit.
“To Poldie,” they said together.
And in that moment, a good portion of the estrangement between them melted away as well. Pierson looked over at Tuck and his friend nodded in silent acknowledgment.
“Yes, well,” Tuck said, nodding toward one of the covers on the table. “Do try the roast lamb. Mrs. Petchell has outdone herself.”
“You mean there is some left?” Pierson asked.
“Always,” Tuck told him. “Always.”
And while Pierson filled his plate, Tuck leaned back in his chair, glass in hand.
“Why are you here, Tuck?” he asked.
“Thought I’d save you the trouble of all that driving and come to call. Heard you were looking for me.” He paused and shook his head. “Don’t like the idea of anyone nosing about my rooms. Simply not done, my good man. Not without an invitation.” He sat up and passed the platter of pork chops. “These are most excellent.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Tuck said. “Demmit, Piers, what did you think to find?”
“Not what. Whom,” Pierson corrected. “What were you doing with Miss Tempest’s sister?”
“Which one?” Tuck asked, his eyes alight with mischief. “They are devilishly hard to tell apart.”
“It doesn’t matter which one,” Pierson told him. “Whatever you are about, stop.”
“Can’t,” Tuck told him, cutting into a chop.
“Can’t?”
“Won’t,” the man insisted.
“Now see here,” Pierson said. “Charleton will have you staked out on the nearest piling on the Thames and leave you for the tide and the fishes for leading one of Sir Ambrose’s daughters astray. And nor would I blame him.”
Tuck glanced down at his nails, turning his hand one way, then the other, completely unmoved. “So is that why you went bolting out of your house to go looking for me? Didn’t want me stealing a march on you, eh?”
This was a turn in the conversation Pierson hadn’t anticipated. It was Tuck’s behavior that was in question, not his. Besides . . . “How did you—”
“You need to remind those urchins of yours to remember under whose roof they live before they start gossiping.”
Bitty and Bob.
Pierson’s hand went to his forehead. Of course.
“Yes,” Tuck said, once again grinning and raising a glass in a mock toast. “You can’t imagine how well informed those two imps are.” He paused for a second, his head tipping a bit as he examined Pierson. “Well, perhaps you can.”
“This isn’t about me,” the viscount told him, sitting up straight and taking control of his own table. He’d deal with Bitty and Bob later. A week of cleaning out the cellar would be just the thing to teach them a lesson on the wisdom of letting their tongues wag in front of Tuck.
Or any visitor.
“Not about you? Oh, but it is,” Tuck replied. “What the devil are you doing, Piers, kicking up a fuss to find Ilford? You’ve gone and sent that fox to ground what with all your stomping and saber rattling in all the clubs and his dreary haunts.”
Pierson ground his teeth together rather than admit that Tuck might be right.
Nor was the man finished. Tuck leaned forward. “Going after Ilford all by yourself? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Badly done.”
He might have felt chastened before, but now his old familiar ire caught a fresh wind. “You don’t think I could?”
Tuck held up both hands. “Oh, I know you could. That’s the problem.” He reached for his napkin and settled it on the table, then pushed his empty plate forward. “Once you found him, then what were you going to do? Kill him?” He shook his head. “Then once you’d put him to bed with a shovel, what do you think would happen?”
Pierson took a steadying breath. Demmit.
When had Tuck gotten so sensible? The old Tuck would have helped him drag Ilford down to the river and toss him into the Thames without a second thought. Probably been the one to remember to carry along a few rocks for the marquess’s pockets.
Worse, Tuck had grown far more than just sensible. He’d gained a measure of wisdom that left Pierson staggered.
“You have a chance here, Piers.” Tuck needn’t say what that chance was.
The viscount knew. Miss Tempest. His Miss Tempest.
“What are you thinking? Letting the likes of Ilford ruin it for you?”
His old friend’s words were hitting far too close to home. “There is no chance there. She’s bound for the country—”
Tuck merely laughed. “Don’t try some bouncer on me. You went racing out of this house today because you love that gel.”
“I hardly raced.”
“Yes, well, I got my information from those brats of yours.”
“They are not mine.”
“Tell them that,” Tuck replied, smiling as he poured himself another glass of wine. “As for the other Miss Tempest, you have to trust me when I say I have the chit’s best interests at heart. You’ll see.”
“I doubt it. Besides, they must leave town now, Tuck. There is no other way of it,” Pierson said.
“Bother that,” Tuck declared. “I’ll make those two the talk of the Town before the Season is done.”
“I think Ilford already managed that.”
“He can go to the devil.”
Now it was Pierson’s turn to laugh. “You told me I couldn’t kill him.”
“So I did,” Tuck admitted. “Sometimes I forget myself.”
Just then there was a scratch at the door, followed by Tiploft’s entrance. He came in carrying a tray and wearing a somber expression. “You are summoned to Lord Charleton’s.”
Pierson glanced over at Tuck. “Told you. You’re in the suds now. Charleton will cut off your quarterlies, if not your—”
“My lord,” Tiploft said in an uncharacteristic interruption. “It isn’t Mr. Rowland.”
He looked up at his butler. “Pardon?”
“It isn’t Mr. Rowland who is summoned next door,” Tiploft told him. “You are, my lord.”