Page 16 of Last Night with the Duke
“That’s really all I wanted to hear,” Griffin said with a nod. “I’m hoping in the light of day with clearer heads, the bucks decided they really don’t want to take on three dukes. Join me at St. James for a drink. We’ll put our memories to the test to come up with a list of possibilities of who might want to engage in this ill-conceived plot.”
His friends agreed and soon left the carriage. When the door shut behind them, Griffin reached up and knocked twice on the roof, signaling his driver to proceed. He then relaxed against the seat and allowed his thoughts to drift back to the past.
Being the firstborn and only son of a duke, his parents celebrated him the day he was born and never stopped. If he wanted it, it was given to him. If he wanted to do it, he was allowed. If he didn’t want to do it, he wasn’t forced to. The only thing his father required of him was that he respect and learn how to manage the entailed property of the dukedom. That had been a relatively easy accomplishment.
But when his father died and Griffin became duke, instead of treasuring and respecting the title, he abused it and chased only what he desired, and then voraciously indulged in it. Drinking, gambling, and ladies of the night were the cravings of his heart.
The beginning of that wasteland of extravagant behavior was what led to the catastrophic wager that stunned all in Society and still haunted him and his friends.
It all started because of a book:A Proper Gentleman’s Guide to Wooing the Perfect Lady.
He blew out a huffed laugh and watched his breath chill in the frosty air of the coach.
Griffin never doubted they’d rightly deserved the “Rakes of St. James” name. They had no boundaries and no discipline. Week after week they attended card parties that were littered with willing women and overflowing with brandy and anything else they desired. They wagered and gambled continuously for weeks on end, winning prized horses, estates, and fortunes—losing a little along the way too.
In the evenings they’d make their rounds to the Season’s dinner parties and balls. They would dance, charm, and woo all the innocent young ladies, making them think they could be tamed, or caught. But none of the rakes had any intentions of making a match. They only wanted to hone their skills with mistresses, cards, and dice. As soon as they left the gatherings of innocent ladies of Polite Society, they spent the rest of the night and most of the next day in a gambling hell on the east side of Bond Street.
Now, Griffin was restless. No, it was more than that. He was bored. Bored with cards, dice, racing, shooting, and hunting. All of it. He was even bored with the parade of beautiful women that seemed to have no end.
In truth, he couldn’t remember half of the things he’d been accused of that Season because he’d kept his face in a bottle of brandy, port, or a tankard of ale. His eyes were always blurred and his head had kept a constant pounding. Thankfully they didn’t think, drink, or behave like that anymore.
He couldn’t say he missed those days. He didn’t. Somehow they’d all three managed to live through the debauchery, though they hadn’t lived it down as he’d hoped.Miss Honora Truth’s Weekly Scandal Sheethad seen to that by being the first to stir up the past again.
At various times, they’d all tried to find out who wrote that column about the wager. Each one of them had failed miserably. They had finally concluded the writer must be one of the older, trusted employees at the publishing company that concocted the drivel. The owner, who’d made it quite clear he would take the writer’s identity to his grave, used the made-up name so no one could find out who the real author was. Griffin had long since ceased reading or caring what was written about him, though it was a very different story now that his sisters were mentioned.
There were things he and his friends did in the early years that were far worse than that wager, but no one had found out about those. And it was a good thing no one had, or Miss Truth would be writing about that too.
One drunken night, they’d decided that they should each select a young lady, find a way to slip into her bedroom without her or anyone else in her house knowing about it, and bring back something to prove he had been there—a monogramed hairbrush, a bow, a ribbon, or a reticule they would all be able to recognize as belonging to the young lady. They were all such reckless, heartless rakes at the time. It was never to harm or to seduce the young lady. It was only to test their skills of getting in and out of the room without anyone knowing.
Griffin stretched out his booted feet and leaned against the cushion as his thoughts took him back to that fateful night that earned him and his friends the name “Rakes of St. James.” They had been laughing at the ridiculous suggestions inA Proper Gentleman’s Guide to Wooing the Perfect Lady.
On the list of things a proper gentleman should never do was to send a young lady a love note signedYour Secret Admirer. That’s all Griffin and his friends needed to read. If they were told they shouldn’t do something, it was a given they would.
Rath’s idea was to send a secret-admirer note to all the unmarried ladies of the ton. Griffin and Hawk had readily agreed to the lark. Over another bottle of brandy they’d decided there were too many ladies and it would be far too much work. In the end they sent secret-admirer letters only to the young ladies who were making their debut Season. There were twelve. That was more manageable.
And turning it into a wager would make the prank more interesting. They each put in one hundred pounds. The one who had the most young ladies show up for the assignation with their secret admirer would win the money.
It was so easy—until it was over. Their success that night ended up being their downfall.
In the letter to his four, Griffin had asked them to meet him by the fountain in the back garden of the Grand Hall. Rath had told his four to meet him on the south portico, and Hawk had instructed his to meet him by the pavilion. Much to their astonishment, all twelve young ladies showed up to meet her secret admirer. But no admirer showed. Just four ladies at each place who eventually started talking to each other as young ladies were predisposed to do. It was then they realized they had been duped.
None of the rakes could have expected that there would be no winners that night.
Only losers.
The carriage stopped, pulling Griffin from the past. He looked out the small window. He was home. The sooner his sisters were married, the better. Once they had husbands they would no longer be tainted by his scandal.
He would gladly take whatever revenge anyone wanted to do to him for his crass behavior so long ago, but he would do everything in his power to keep his sisters from being hurt because of him.
Chapter 6
Do choose your words carefully. You never know when they might be said back to you.
MISSMAMIEFORTESCUE’SDO’SANDDON’TSFORCHAPERONES, GOVERNESSES, TUTORS,ANDNURSES
A short time after the duke left, Esmeralda locked the front door of the building. The stuffed coin purse weighted the pocket of her skirt as she headed to the back of the building. She climbed the stairs to the living area and smiled at Napoleon’s familiar woof. She heard his nails clicking rapidly on the wood floor as he raced toward the entrance to greet her. No matter how quietly she tried to come up the stairs, he always heard her and stood his ground at the entryway, waiting for her each afternoon.
She opened the door and the blond Skye Terrier jumped up to greet her. “How are you this dreary afternoon, Napoleon?”
