The Duke's Holiday (2 page)

Stevenage placed the envelope into Montford’s outstretched hand, and
Montford unfolded it neatly before him and squinted down at the convoluted text.

To His Grace the Duke of Montford,

Concerning His Grace’s inquiries in
his last letter in regards to the profit margin versus expenditure of the
brewery and how the former might be increased over the latter. It is, frankly,
the least of my worries at the moment, but it was So Good of His Grace to Be
Concerned. Honeywell Ale holds itself to a high standard, which, alas, often
means setting itself above margins and expenditures and other mercantile
interests. I am sure His Grace, if anybody, understands the need to Set Oneself
Above. Of course, if His Grace is suffering financially, my family, owing to
our long association with the esteemed Dukes of Montford, would be more than
willing to aid you in your time of need. We do not have any ready cash at hand,
but if His Grace would be so kind as to accept in lieu two barrels of our
special reserve ale to keep His Grace watered during a Difficult Time.

Regards, A. Honeywell

Montford
wasn’t any less irked by the letter now than he had been six months ago upon
its receipt. It read just like countless other letters he’d received from his
tormentor. He would have known the uneven shape and slope of those letters
anywhere. The script was as flowing and untidy as usual, all jerks and loops
and blots. All the lines were written on a slightly downward slant that made him
dizzy. The last sentence – if one could call such a poorly written string
of words a sentence – even had the audacity to curve around the edge of
the page, the author having run out of room.
Difficult Time
dangled along the edge like a deflated balloon,
cramped and flattened but unmistakably capitalized, unmistakably insolent.

A. Honeywell.

Lightfoot claimed Honeywell was dead, but he wouldn’t put
it past Alyosius Honeywell’s ghost returning to earth just so he might pen a
snide letter to Montford. But unless he had suddenly stepped into the lead in
one of those dreadful gothic novels Sherbrook was always toting about, Montford
was quite sure no ghost had been involved. That meant whoever had been writing
to him for the past decade was someone other than Alyosius Honeywell.
Or
the past few letters had been written
by a master forger.

However, Montford doubted the latter. He was firmly
convinced Michelangelo himself could not reproduce the studied anarchy of A.
Honeywell’s writing. Which led him back to the question of the morning:

Who the devil was A. Honeywell?

“Stevenage,” Montford murmured, folding up the letter
carefully. “Someone is bamming us.”

 
“Who would dare
to bam
you
, Your Grace?” Stevenage
breathed, sounding as affronted as Louis XVI must have felt when he learned how
his head was going to spend its last few moments on earth.

To give the loyal servant some credit, Stevenage’s
horrified reaction was only a slightly exaggerated version of what a less
high-strung man would have done, given the same news. For who indeed would dare
to cross the Duke of Montford?

No one in his right mind, obviously.

No one except a Honeywell.

And that was only because they thought they could hide
behind that damnable contract. Only because they thought they were immune to
being crushed under his ducal heel. Which couldn’t be farther from the truth,
now that the Honeywell line was at an end. Only a direct male heir could
fulfill the terms of the contract. And Alyosius had none, which meant the
estate…

Reverted back to the dukedom.

After two hundred long years, Rylestone Hall and environs
were his once more, to dispose of as he wished.

Montford could have jumped for joy had he not thought it
would mar the creases in his breeches. And he couldn’t celebrate just yet. It
was one thing to learn someone was dead from a third party, another altogether
to have direct proof. Ocular evidence. Montford wouldn’t rest easy until he was
assured of Alyosius’ current resting place – which he hoped was six feet
under a rocky patch of Yorkshire dirt.

And as for the author of this little deceit…

“Stevenage, I want you to pay a visit to Rylestone Hall.”

Stevenage’s eyes went as wide as saucers. It was not in
Montford’s habit to send Stevenage on journeys of such magnitude, delegating
his business outside of London to a Montford steward already on site. In fact,
it was not in Montford’s habit to let Stevenage out of the library before
nightfall – unless the man had to use the chamber pot, of course, though
even then Montford had to be well-convinced of the necessity.

He would go to Yorkshire himself – he was vexed
enough by this mess to overcome his aversion to traveling – but he
couldn’t leave London right now. Lords was still in session for the next few
weeks, and then he was getting married. It was to be the biggest society
wedding of the year. Obviously. He was Montford. An affair of that magnitude
required careful planning and an endless parade of luncheons, dinner parties,
musicales and balls, all guaranteed to irritate the hell out of him.

He did
not
do
well in crowds. But he did not have a choice but to play the doting bridegroom,
if he was to wed the inestimable Lady Araminta Carlisle, society darling,
perfect future Duchess of Montford. Appearances were everything with the
ton
. And with Araminta. And of course
with Montford. Which was why he’d chosen the flawless paragon for his Duchess. Yet
Montford just wished for the whole blasted business to be over and the requisite
heir and a spare produced so that his life could return to normal. Propagating
the ducal line was turning out to be the most inconvenient duty he’d had to
undertake yet in his role as Montford.

Stevenage nodded vigorously. “O… of course, sir.”

“I want proof of that man’s death. Certificates, et cetera.
A trip to the gravesite. That sort of thing.”

Stevenage went from incredulous to horrified in the blink
of an eye. “Your Grace, you don’t want me to … dear heavens, you don’t think I
should actually …”

“Out with it, man!”

“ …
dig up the body
!”
Stevenage concluded, winded.

Good God, did Stevenage actually think he would stoop so
low as to demand such a thing? Montford was appalled.

Then he cocked his head to the side and thought about it
for a moment.
That wouldn’t be such a bad
idea, actually.

Stevenage must have read the drift of Montford’s thoughts,
for he backed up a step, then crossed his arms over his chest in a rare gesture
of defiance. “Your Grace, you know I would take a bullet for you if I could,
but I draw the line at … at … grave digging!”

Montford cleared his throat and waved one arm through the
air in what he hoped was a convincingly dismissive gesture. “Of course I don’t
want you to dig up his grave. That would be …”
Thorough?
Conclusive?
“…
wrong. A rubbing of the headstone is probably enough.”

Stevenage’s shoulders sagged in relief.

“And while you’re up there, I want you to figure out who’s
behind this little charade.”

Stevenage nodded, looking more like his old self. “With
pleasure, Your Grace.

“And you might as well take an inventory of the estate.
Somehow I don’t think this is the first time the Honeywells have pulled the
wool over our eyes.”

Stevenage nodded solemnly. “I understand there are gypsies
in their lineage,” he offered, as if that explained all.

“Hadn’t heard that one,” Montford said. He sat back in his
chair, pinching the bridge of his nose, a headache coming on.

Stevenage stared at him, blinking. Montford began to wonder
why the man was still standing there.

“Well?”

Stevenage jumped at Montford’s tone. “Do you mean you want
me to go
now,
Your Grace?”

“As soon as possible. I want this matter sorted. I’m
getting married soon, and I don’t want any loose ends hanging over me. It will
be chaotic enough around here.”

Stevenage gathered up the errant letters cluttering the
desk and began bowing his way out of the room.

“Oh, and Stevenage?”

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“I want detailed reports. Every day.”

“Naturally,” Stevenage said, as if this needn’t have been
asked. “I would dream of no less.”

Then Stevenage was gone, and Montford was alone in his
library with nothing to do until he had to be at the House of Lords. In three
hours. He thrummed his fingers on the desktop for a while, but when he saw how
he smudged the surface, he brought out his handkerchief and wiped it clean.

And, as he was doing this, he wished that the Honeywells
could be removed from his life as effortlessly as his fingerprints from a
desktop.

BUT
HAVING that wish come true was clearly too easy, for it appeared Stevenage did,
in fact, dream of something less than what he promised in the matter of
progress reports.

In the two weeks since Stevenage’s departure, Stevenage had
sent precisely one letter to Montford. It appeared to have been written the day
of Stevenage’s arrival in Yorkshire, was all of five sentences long, and did
nothing to assuage Montford’s already frazzled nerves.

When Stevenage wrote progress reports, he accounted for
nearly every minute of the day’s business in cold, clinical detail, rather like
the prose one would find in a medical compendium. Stevenage’s letters were
usually five pages long at the bare minimum, not five sentences. And they hardly
ever contained adjectives.

And never,
ever
,
did they contain emotion.

But this odd note – Stevenage’s normally immaculate
script slanting slightly to the right as if dashed off in a passionate rush
– was all emotion. And chock full of adjectives. It was alarming.

Your Grace
, it
read,
I have confirmed that Alyosius
Honeywell is dead. But it is, alas, the only thing I can say for certain in
regards to that family. They are all as mad as march hares, I avow, although
Miss Honeywell suggested that
I
am
the mad one. I haven’t located A. Honeywell yet, as there are
so many
of them, but I beg you to consider
recalling me to London post-haste. The Honeywells are quite unsettling indeed.
Stevenage.

Montford had written back immediately for Stevenage to stay
put and get to the bottom of the Honeywells’ schemes. He wanted no unpleasant
business hanging over him when he was married.

But Stevenage sent no reply, and a week and a half passed
without Montford hearing from his man-of-affairs at all. Montford sent a
barrage of letters, each one more mystified than the last. The final one sent
northward was merely one sentence long:

What in the hell is
going on up there?

Which summed up the problem quite nicely, Montford thought.

But when still he received no reply, Montford began to
worry that something dire had happened to Stevenage. Or rather, that the
Honeywells had
made
something dire happen
to his man-of-affairs. Stevenage had called them unsettling in his letter,
which, at first, Montford had assumed pertained to aspects of character that
usually unsettled his man-of-affairs. Like disorganization. Loud laughter. Poor
hygiene. But the more Montford thought about it – in truth, obsessed over
it – the more he began to fear that something more sinister than poor
hygiene was going on up north.

For Montford could not imagine anything short of death keeping
Stevenage from his usual perfection.

It would be most inconvenient if Stevenage turned up
murdered by the Honeywells. But at least Montford would have the satisfaction
of seeing one of their clan hanged, if that was the case.

Montford decided to wait it out for a day or two more.
After that, he was prepared to take drastic action, even if it meant getting
into a carriage and driving up to Rylestone himself, weak stomach be-damned.

MEANWHILE,
SOMEWHERE IN YORKSHIRE…

EVERYONE
WHO knew and loved the Honeywell clan – and their numbers were legion in
Rylestone Green – bemoaned the fact that Astrid Honeywell had not been
born a man. For as soon as she was old enough to walk and talk, everyone agreed
she would have made Alyosius a splendid son.

Everyone, that is, except Astrid herself. Aside from the
obvious advantages being Alyosius’ heir would have given her family – and
the fact that the Honeywells could thereby poleax the Montfords for at least
another generation – Astrid was glad she was not a man. For she had
discovered at an early age that men were morons. Even her father, whom she had
adored with all of her heart, had been a prize idiot. Especially after a few
pints of Honeywell Reserve.

Astrid often wondered how in the hell women had allowed men
to rule the world. Men were physically stronger, granted, and were thus quite
good at getting what they wanted with their fists. But women were, by and
large, so much
smarter
than men. It
seemed an easy enough thing to outwit the male sex despite their brawn. Astrid
did it every day.

But Astrid knew her questions were rhetorical at best. She
knew precisely why women were chattel and men their keepers.

Because most women filled their brainboxes with so many
trifles they could not navigate their thoughts around them, a conspiracy
perpetrated by milliners, dress makers, clergymen, the marriage institution,
and novel writers. It was rather like owning a grand palace, then filling only
a small front parlor of it from floor to ceiling with meaningless bric-a-brac,
gewgaws, and fribbles, with nary a decent chair to sit upon, and then leaving the
rest of the rooms to molder with cobwebs and damp.