Along Came a Duke (27 page)

Was it Preston's imagination, or did the lady flinch at this description? From what he knew of Tabitha he had to believe she'd never be happy being any man's duty or obligation.

Not even yours, . . .
a wry voice warned.

“
A lady has few choices
,” he recalled her saying. So, that being the case, what Tabitha needed most was the opportunity to decide her own future.

With or without him.

That stung, but if he was to give her her freedom, it was a risk he would have to take.

“Your Grace! The lady is mine,” Barkworth continued to press.

“That may be, but at the moment it appears you haven't the means to give her what she needs.” The duke grinned. “And I do.”

It was a smug statement, a double entendre that had even Tabitha gaping.

Barkworth's jaw worked back and forth before he stepped into Preston's path. “You should at least allow me the pleasure of carrying Miss Timmons, or there will be talk.”

The duke heaved an exasperated sigh, shifting Tabitha in his arms so she was firmly against him. “Sir, I never share my pleasures. Nor do I give a damn about gossip.”

Such a disregard for society looked to be capable of giving Barkworth apoplexy. “Have you no honor?”

Preston thought about it for a moment. “No, none at all.”

Arriving at the carriage, he set her in the seat, then caught up the reins from Roxley, who gave him a slight, censorious shake of his head.

“Is this how you avoid scandal?” the earl asked.

While Preston was doing his best to ignore this jab, Barkworth managed to get in front of him.

Persistent fellow.

“I shall drive Miss Timmons home,” he declared.

Preston laughed. “Drive my cattle?” He glanced over at the nervous set and imagined them in Barkworth's incompetent hands. “No.”

“Miss Timmons is my concern,” he repeated.

Preston glanced around. “And where is her maid?”

Barkworth shifted from one foot to another. “I have sent her on an errand of great importance.”

“Whatever would that be?” Preston asked, booted feet taking a wide stance.

“I told her to fetch the surgeon . . . and my tailor,” Barkworth said, holding out his torn sleeve.

Preston glanced over his shoulder at Tabby. “Truly?”

She shook her head and looked away.

Barkworth held his ground. “Your Grace, your interference is beyond the pale, and I forbid it. I shall go fetch a hackney and take Miss Timmons home myself.”

Preston looked him up and down and nodded. “If you insist.”

“I do.” Barkworth looked up at Tabby. “I shall return forthwith,” he told her before he stormed off.

Preston waited until the man was just out of sight, then caught up Mr. Muggins and hoisted the dog into the tiger's seat. He took his place beside Tabby. “Roxley, I assume you don't mind managing your way home on foot?”

“Not at all,” the earl declared, making a bow.

Giving the reins a light flick, Preston pointed his cattle in the opposite direction.

“But Barkworth—” Tabby protested.

“He's an idiot. He should never have left you alone in my care.”

O
 n that point, Tabitha could hardly argue. Still . . . “You shouldn't have interfered,” she told him.

“Rather too late for that,” he said. “Besides, you shouldn't be marrying that pandering nincompoop, Tabby. He's beneath you.” Preston huffed an exasperated sigh before he turned and faced her. “I won't stand for it.”

Tabitha ruffled. She didn't care that this was Preston, or that he'd just rescued her . . . again. If one more person—make that a man—told her what she could and could not do, she thought she might explode.

No wonder poor Agnes Stakes reached for the fire poker on her wedding night.

His voice lowered. “If you want to marry him, I will step aside. But only if you tell me that you love him.”

“I must marry Barkworth to gain my inheritance.” There. While she couldn't look at him as she said the words, at least she finally told him the truth.

“What if I told you I don't think the only way for you to inherit is to marry Barkfool?”

Tabitha stilled. Even the pain in her ankle seemed to fade away. “What are you saying, Preston?”

“I have presumed in other ways,” he confessed, slanting a glance at her.

“
Quelle surprise
,” she replied, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Will you listen to me, you vexing little minx?” He adjusted the reins and guided the horses into the thick London traffic. “I have made some inquiries.”

“Inquiries?”

“Regarding your uncle's will.”

Tabitha sat up and turned toward him. “Whatever for?”

“Isn't it obvious?” He gazed into her eyes, once again that boyish smile on his face—the one that made him seem so vulnerable.

“I am beginning to think you are not the seducer and rake everyone says you are but rather something quite different. Perhaps even mad.” Tabitha bit her lip and looked away, unwilling to even think of such possibilities. Dare hope.

“That may be the case. So I will say in my defense and in my state of alleged madness, I spoke last night with Mr. Hathaway. You know him—your friend, Miss Hathaway's brother?”

“Chaunce.” Oh, yes. She knew Harriet's rapscallion brother. Already this tangle had Harriet's meddling all over it as much as Preston's.

“A most excellent fellow,” Preston declared.

“
Harrrumph
.” Bothersome, rapscallion rakes, the pair of them. She shook her head.

He ignored her. “He and I are of the same mind and suspect—”

“Preston, you needn't—”

“Hear me out,” he pleaded.

She pressed her lips together. Preston's meddling into Winston Ludlow's estate would ignite the collective fury of her Timmons relations. Especially Sir Mauris.

However, the duke wasn't one to easily give up. Not that she didn't already realize this about him.

“Answer me this,” he posed. “Where does your uncle's fortune go if you
don't
marry the esteemed Mr. Barkworth?”

As the question and all its implications swirled around in her, Tabitha sucked in a deep breath. It was as if all of London stopped as she comprehended what he had just asked.

Where, indeed?

“I don't know,” she confessed, feeling utterly foolish for not having thought of this before. In the rush of Uncle Bernard's announcement, the haste to pack and come to London, the whirl of dressmakers and dancing lessons, not once had she taken the time to contemplate such a question.

“Exactly!” Preston said, grinning as he turned off the main thoroughfare and into the more sedate streets of Mayfair.

“But my uncles both said—”

Preston's brows arched up. Truly, there was no need for him to say the words.

Why would her uncles say anything else? For Tabitha wasn't the only one who had much to gain from her marriage to the future Marquess of Grately.

Suddenly echoes from the past month began to resonate very clearly.

“
A better posting, . . .”
Aunt Allegra had said one night when she'd thought Tabitha had been upstairs sorting linens.

“
Think of the connections for the girls, . . .”
Lady Timmons had said more than once to her sister when she'd thought Tabitha hadn't been attending the conversation.

Not to mention the way Sir Mauris wrung his hands with glee each time he looked at her, as if he'd just found a long-ago-hidden pot of gold.

“Do you truly think—” she began, unable to say the rest aloud, lest she curse it all. —
I won't have to marry him?

Preston didn't answer; instead he asked, “When do you reach your majority?”

“This St. John's Day.”

“Ah!” His brow furrowed. “I suspect that explains the undue haste of your match. I'd venture a guess that the terms of your uncle's will change once you turn five and twenty.”

Her conversation with Barkworth from the previous night echoed through her thoughts.

. . . I reach my majority in a sennight—

. . . There is no time like the present, my dear Miss Timmons. The sooner we are married it will be for the best—

Tabitha shivered. Preston might have the right of it.

For again today, when she'd tried to put off any formal declaration of a betrothal, Barkworth had been overly insistent.

. . . the best thing to do would be to announce our engagement tomorrow night . . .

And what had her uncle said? “
You aren't getting any younger, gel.
”

All this rush for them to marry . . . Suddenly it held more questions than answers.

“Do you have any notion of what would happen if Barkworth decided not to marry you?”

Sitting back in the seat and folding her arms over her chest, she said, “Unfortunately, that is not an issue.”

“Quite confident in your charms, are we?” Preston laughed. “Left the poor man besotted with that bonny smile of yours?”

“I believe my appeal comes in the form of a rich purse.” She swatted him in the arm. “Stop laughing. It's rather dreadful to be coveted like a prized cow at the fair.”

“I would put a ribbon on you even without the benefit of your fortune.”

“Do stop!”

“I'll do my best to refrain, but you have to admit it is a fertile subject.”

Tabitha shook her head, and after a few more moments he burst out laughing yet again. “Now whatever is so funny?” she asked.

“Barkworth. His face. When I refused to hand you over. No wonder he looked so vexed. I was stealing his prized—”

“Preston!” she warned.

He laughed, a loud, boisterous melody that left her biting her lips together to keep from joining in.

“You should have returned me,” she said, trying to rein him in . . . herself as well.

“I didn't think you wanted me to,” he admitted. “You didn't, did you?”

“No,” she admitted. “Oh, do stop grinning. I only say that because I feared he would drop me.”

“Yes. If you say so,” he agreed, winking at her broadly and scooting closer to her than what she suspected was proper. His thigh brushed against hers and she found herself tucked neatly against his side.

As if he were made for her.

Oh, she had to stop thinking like that . . . like they were . . .

Tabitha crossed her arms over her chest and sighed. “Preston, after you've determined the true state of my uncle's will, I beg of you to stop interfering in my life.”

“No,” he said.

“No?”

“Yes. Exactly. No, I will not stop.”

“Why not?”

“I have very noble reasons for my interference, as you so ungratefully call it.” He straightened, doing his best, she assumed, to look noble. He only looked more devilish.

After a long bit of silence, she couldn't help herself. “That would be?”

“Your family, Barkworth and his wretched lot are ruining you.”

“Yes, yes, so you said last night.” She turned toward him. “I will have you know I am quite the
on dit
today, not because of my family or Barkworth but because of you—”

“You are on everyone's lips, my dear Tabby, because of that scandalous gown you wore last night.”

She groaned. “Oh, bother, Preston. Not my gown again.”

“Yes, that gown.”

“You still don't approve?”

“No,” he averred. “Though it does hold the promise of setting old Grately's teeth on edge.” He glanced over at her, as if a new bit of trouble had dawned in that scandalous brain of his. And much to her chagrin, it had. “That gown may be your ticket out of a marriage to Barkworth. Especially if Grately saw you in it.”

“The Marquess of Grately? Whatever would he care what I am wearing?”

“Grately? Why, your soon to be uncle-in-law is the most tight-fisted, preening old goat ever to trot about London. He sees you in that gown, he'll marry you himself.”

“Marry me? Why, he's nigh on—”

“Eighty,” Preston supplied. “Had four wives already trying to get an heir to replace Barkworth's father, and then your illustrious Barkworth.”

Tabitha shuddered.

“Finally you see some sense,” Preston said, looking quite smug.

“I rather thought of wearing the gown to Almack's,” she told him. “Mrs. Drummond-Burrell is sending round vouchers.”

“Almack's? Over my dead body!”

“Why not Almack's? It is entirely respectable,” she told him.

“Horrid place,” he told her. “My aunt was slighted by a wretch there.”

“Lady Juniper?” Tabitha couldn't imagine anyone slighting that stately and aristocratic lady.

“Yes, at your respectable Almack's,” Preston assured her. “And by a bounder of a fellow.”

“Whatever happened?”

“My uncle—her brother—and I found the fellow and gave him a good thrashing.”

Tabitha couldn't help it. She smiled. As much as she knew she shouldn't, it rather pleased her that Preston took his familial duties so seriously. “What did your aunt say?”

“She was furious.”

“Did she forgive you?”

“Worse,” he told her. “She married the rotter.”

Tabitha laughed. “That certainly bodes ill for me.”

Preston glanced over at her. “How does my aunt's marital choices bode ill for you?”

“Your interference pushed her right into the arms of the man you disliked.”

“I doubt you will be so foolish as to become Mrs. Reginald Barkworth.” He glanced at her, up and down, as if sizing her up. “I truly can't see you as a Barkworth.”

“Why not? From what I know, the Barkworths are an old, respected family with a long lineage of service to their king and country.”