Barbara Metzger (3 page)

Worse, a man could not even bring his own pet, his own (sometimes) loyal dog, Nelson, into the house. On the hound’s last, unsanctioned visit, Nelson had caught one glimpse of the little rodents in fur coats and, knowing that no real dog was fluffed and perfumed and beribboned, he did his level one-eyed best to rid Mayne Chance of such vermin. Banished, he was, and his master with him.

Viscount Mayne sat alone and lonely amongst the holland covers in the dower house library, still cold despite the new-laid fire. His hair was mussed, his broad shoulders were bent with the weight of the world—and the Mainwarings—on them, and he’d have a devilish headache in the morning. He should have stayed in the navy, Forrest thought as he contemplated the most recent missives from his loving parents.

* * * *

My dearest son,
his mother wrote from ten minutes away.
How I miss you.
The viscount almost laughed. She’d most likely have moved Princess Pennyfeather and the bitch’s latest litter into his bedroom by now. Forrest skimmed over the body of the letter—gads, he’d been gone only a day and a half. Whipslade’s prize bull Fred got into Widow Lang’s garden again, a tile was loose on the south wing, Reverend Jamison thought the tower bell might have a crack in it, and the Albertsons were coming to dinner tomorrow. The viscount would see to the first three in the morning, and see that he was otherwise engaged by the evening. Lady Mayne wanted grandsons or revenge, Forrest never knew which. The Albertsons had a daughter.

I am worried about your brother,
the letter continued in the duchess’s delicate copperplate. Not Brennan, but your brother. That meant trouble. Lady Mayne had a network of information gatherers spread through the ton which would put Napoleon’s secret police to shame. Bren’s larks usually flew home in the next post, where the duchess could cheerfully shred his character to bits and lay the pieces at his father’s door. Of course the duke was to blame for
his
son’s peccadilloes; the boy was always properly behaved in the country.

When Brennan became Forrest’s brother, she wanted the viscount to handle the bumblebroth. Dash it, Lord Mayne cursed, he wasn’t the lad’s keeper. He didn’t have time to rush off to London to tear the cawker out of some doxie’s talons, no matter how homely the Albertsons’ daughter was.

For once, though, there was no mention of a female anywhere in his mother’s enumeration of Brennan’s misdeeds and character flaws, not even between the lines. Usually she would refer to “persons about whose existence a lady is supposed to have no knowledge.” This epistle was filled with basket scramblers, gallows bait, and ivory tuners instead. Those were some of the fonder epithets she was tossing at her youngest child’s head. No, the viscount realized when he reread the rambling paragraph, sure he’d find a Paphian in there somewhere; the basket scramblers, gallows bait, et al., were the villains of the piece. Brennan, for once, was an innocent lamb being led to the slaughter through his father’s neglect. Someone, she wrote, would have to save her baby from the wolves.

“She must mean you, old fellow,” the viscount told Nelson when the hound vaulted back in through the window, leaving muddy footprints on the carpet. “‘Cause I ain’t going.”

When you get to London,
Her Grace concluded,
not if, but when,
give your dear father my fondest regards and tell him I wish he were here by my side.

The viscount shook his head and scratched behind the hound’s ears. Nelson drooled on his master’s boots, radiating affection and the mixed aroma of swamp and stable. Now there was a man’s dog.

The duke’s writing was firm and bold; his letter was short and succinct, the antithesis of his lady wife’s style, naturally.
Forrest, Your brother—
they seemed to have something in common, after all—
is in a spot of trouble, but do not let the duchess hear of it lest she worry. The doctor says he’ll be fine. You might suggest your mother come to London for the beginning of the Season. Tell her I miss the waltzes we used to share. P.S. We need a new butler.

* * * *

“Dash it, Father, why couldn’t you have thrown the inkwell at your new secretary instead of at Potts? Educated young fellows are as common as fleas on a dog, but a good butler ...”

The duke was looking hopefully out to the carriage, where a footman was carrying in Forrest’s bags. The light seemed to go out of his eyes when the coach proved empty.

“She did send you her best wishes,” the viscount hurried on, “and some apples from the west orchard. She remembered they were your favorites, Your Grace.”

“What’s that? Oh, yes, apples. No, I must get back to Whitehall straightaway. Did I tell you we might get passage of the Madden-Oates Bill finally?” A second footman stood ready to hand the duke his hat and cane.

“But what about Brennan?”

“No, I don’t think he’d like any apples either. Loose teeth, don’t you know.”

His Grace departed and Forrest temporarily promoted the sturdiest-looking footman. Then he went upstairs.

* * * *

Forrest almost did not recognize the man in the bed. The viscount was even more alarmed when he considered that Brennan was usually his own mirror image, less a few years and worry lines. Like peas in a pod, they shared the same dark curls and square jaw, the same clear blue eyes and the authoritative Mainwaring nose. They used to anyway.

His lordship’s next thought, after vowing mayhem to whoever had done this to his brother, was to thank the heavens the duchess hadn’t come to London after all. If the idea of Bren’s putting on a uniform sent Lady Mayne into spasms, he could not imagine her reaction to the sorry specimen between the sheets.

“What in bloody hell happened to you, you gossoon?”

Bren opened one eye, the one not swollen closed and discolored. He tried to smile without moving his jaw, winced, and gave up on the effort. He raised one linen-swathed hand in greeting. “The governor send for you?” he asked.

“No, His Grace merely needed a new butler.”

Bren sighed. “I suppose it was Mother who sent in the big guns.”

“It was either London or the brig on hardtack and bilge water.” Forrest dragged a chair closer to the bed and carefully pulled the covers over his brother’s bandaged chest.

“I can handle it,” Bren said, looking away.

“I can see that.”

The younger man flushed, not an attractive addition to the yellow and purple blotches. He cleared his throat and Forrest held a glass to his cut lip so he could drink. “Thank you. Ah, how is Mother?”

“In alt. Princess Pennyfeather had four pups, all that coppery color she’s been after. Of course I wasn’t permitted to see the new additions. I might disturb the princess, don’t you know.”

“She’s daft when it comes to those dogs, ain’t she?”

“My dear Brennan, anyone else would have been committed to Bedlam long since. Mother is a duchess, however, so she is merely eccentric.” Forrest picked a speck of lint off his fawn breeches. Then he inspected his Hessians for travel dust.

“You ain’t going to be happy.”

“I’m already overjoyed, bantling.”

“I didn’t ask you to get involved.”

Viscount Mayne stood to his full six foot height, his legs spread and his arms crossed over his chest. Men had been known to tremble before Lieutenant Mainwaring in his quarterdeck command. “Cut line, mister. I am here and I am not leaving. I’d go after anyone who treated a dog this way. Perhaps not one of Mother’s rug rats, but my own brother? They must have loosened a few spokes in your wheel if you think I’ll just walk away. No one, I repeat, no one, harms one of mine.”

“Well, there was this woman .. .”

“I knew it!”

Chapter 3

Might and Mayne

The woman was not to blame. Not that a pretty little redheaded opera dancer wouldn’t have taken Brennan’s money and laid him low; she just hadn’t—yet.

“They were giving a benefit performance after the regular show that night, so I had a lot of hours to kill before I could meet Mademoiselle Rochelle.”

“A French
artiste. Je comprende.”

“I’m not such a green ‘un as all that. Roxy’s no more French than I am. She’s not even much of a dancer, and I found out straightaway she sure as hell ain’t a natural redhead. Still...” He shrugged, as much as two strapped ribs would allow.

“Still, you had a lot of hours to kill.”

“So I had a few drinks with Tolly before he went on to Lady Bessborough’s. He needed it; she’s his godmother and has her niece in mind for him. So I toddled off to White’s.”

“And had a few drinks there.”

“Dash it, Forrest, that ain’t the point. I can hold my liquor.”

The viscount studied his manicure. His brother swallowed hard before going on. “White’s was as quiet as a tomb. You know, the governor’s cronies nodding over their newspapers. I decided to step over to the Cocoa Tree. Don’t raise your eyebrow at me, I know the play gets too deep for my pockets there. I just had a glass or two of Daffy and watched Martindale lose his watch fob, his diamond stick pin, and his new curricle and pair to Delverson.”

“Dare I hope it was an illuminating experience?”

“What’s that? Oh, d’you mean did I learn anything? Sure. I’ll never game against Delverson. Fellow’s got the devil’s own luck. Anyway,” he continued over his brother’s sigh of exasperation, “Martindale knew of a place where the stakes weren’t so high and drinks were free. Since I still had a few hours before I could go back to the theater, I went along. I know what you’re going to say. I ought to, by George, you’ve said it often enough: Don’t play where you don’t know the table. But the place looked respectable enough—not first stare, don’t you know—and I recognized some of the fellows at the tables. The long and the short of it is, we sat down to play.”

“And had a few drinks?”

“And had a few drinks. They were serving Blue Ruin. I think now that it may have been tampered with.”

“Undoubtedly, but do go on, Bren, you’re finally beginning to get interesting.
Or wise.”

“You ain’t making this any easier, you know. Anyway, the stakes weren’t real high, and I wasn’t laying out much of the ready, ‘cause I needed it for later and, ah, Roxy. Martindale lost his ring and decided his luck was out, so he quit and went home. I should have left with him.”

“But you still had a few hours to fill.”

“And credit in the bank, with the quarter nearly over and next quarter’s allowance due. So I stayed, won a little, lost a little. Fellow by the name of Chester was holding the bank. Otto Chester. He seemed a gentleman. You know, clean hands, clean linen. Wouldn’t have seemed out of place at White’s. I signed over a couple of vouchers to him, nothing big, mind, and then I went home.”

The viscount was up and pacing, having reached the ends of even his copious patience. “What do you mean, then you went home? Then you were set on by a pack of footpads? Then you were mowed down by a runaway carriage?”

“Then I went home. My head was too heavy for my neck and my eyes didn’t fit in their sockets. My insides felt like I’d swallowed a live eel. I didn’t think I was so castaway; I just thought it must have been from mixing my drinks all night. Anyway, I wasn’t going to be much good to Roxy, and I was afraid I’d embarrass myself by casting up accounts on her shoes or something, so I sent her a note and took a hackney home.”

Forrest ran his fingers through his hair, wondering whether he’d pull it all out or turn gray before this tale was told. He frowned at his brother and told him, “You know, you take after Mother.”

“And when you knot your eyebrows together like that and start shouting, you remind me of the governor. Just don’t throw anything ‘cause I can’t duck right now. There’s not much more to tell anyway.

“The next morning I woke up late, stopped by the bank to withdraw the balance, and at Rundell’s to pick out a trinket for Roxy. Then I called on Mr. Chester at the address on his card, to redeem my vowels. Only he didn’t have them. Said he had expenses of his own, gambling losses he had to meet, so he’d sold
my
notes to a moneylender to get money to pay off
his
debts. Have you ever heard the like? A gentleman would have given a chap to the end of the week, at least. Well, I told him what I thought of such a scurvy move, in no uncertain terms, you can be sure.”

“I bet you threatened to call him out.”

Brennan smiled, and a tiny glimmer of the blue spark showed in his one good eye. “Worse. I swore never to play with him again. At any rate, I went to the new address, somebody Randall, an Irish Shylock. I introduce myself, tell him I want to settle up—and damned if this Randall says I don’t owe hundreds, I owe thousands! With interest building every day. He shows me chits that look like my hand, but they couldn’t be. I don’t have that kind of blunt and I didn’t play that deep, I swear.”

“I believe you, cawker,” Forrest said. He rested his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “So what happened? You went after Randall?”

Brennan cursed in disgust. “I didn’t even get the chance. He whistles and this ogre as big as a house lurches out of a side room. Next thing I know, I’m lying in the gutter. They’ve got my purse, my watch, and Roxy’s bracelet. Goliath is grinning and the bastard Irishman is claiming I still owe a thousand pounds. Says he’ll go to the governor if I don’t pay up in a week, or send his bully to call to remind me.” He winced. “As if I could forget.”

“You can. Just rest now, I’ll take care of it.”

All of it. The bogus debt, the bone crusher, the bloodsucker, and the cardsharp.

Forrest Mainwaring really was an even-tempered, mild-mannered gentleman to the dignified core. He was tolerant, temperate, thoughtful, and slow to anger. He waited till after luncheon.

First he sent a note to his mother, assuring her of Brennan’s welfare and, out of habit, his father’s continuing devotion. Then he checked some of the accounts, sent a note round to a new hiring agency, and made an excellent meal of turbot in oyster sauce, veal Marsala, a taste of rarebit, tomatoes in aspic, and cherry trifle.