Tuck arrived at his rooms later in the day—his thoughts jumping from one piece of advice to the other.
Pretty isn’t what you need right now.
I think you should introduce Miss Tempest to your mother.
Yet he knew right down to the soles of his boots what he must do.
Soles that were getting thinner and thinner by the day.
Still, he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. To do that. To her.
To his Livy.
Town had a way of changing people as it was, but when he thought of Lavinia Tempest, he found he rather liked her just the way she was. Cowhanded. A bit sharp-tongued. Well, very sharp-tongued.
But the part of her that coiled around his heart was that starry bit of innocence about her that suggested the world was a magical place—if one only paused to take a glance—even when she stood amid all the grime and grit of London.
He suspected she held the secret of how to do just that—pause and see the stars in the sky, that single bluebell pushing up through a crack in the pavers, how to find the light that was the very spark of life to everything.
Livy stood apart from every woman he’d ever met, extraordinary in her innocence, in her bright blue eyes, in her unguarded manners.
And if he was to do what must be done, all of that could be lost.
No, would be lost.
For the first time in his life, Alaster Rowland wasn’t sure he wanted to take that wager.
For if ever there was a line that just shouldn’t, just couldn’t be crossed, it was this one.
But then again, he was desperate. And running out of time and options.
He’d sought some solace at White’s, but he’d been plagued the moment he arrived by the curious and the “well-wishers” with a litany of questions as to his “progress” and false consolations of “heard about Lady Gourley’s” and “sad luck, that.”
Sad luck, indeed.
Wretched bad luck that had his neck in a noose was more like it.
And then to make matters worse, there was Ilford holding court in the salon upstairs as if he were the wounded party in all this, decrying that he was the one who was going to pay for all this, for he’d never collect when Tuck lost—not unless he wanted to venture after him to the northern reaches of Canada.
All had laughed, long and hard, that is, until one of the servants had come in with a note for the marquess, one that had left the color draining out of the florid man’s face.
Tuck had heard the words, “Wakefield” “in a rage” and “murderous over it,” then seen Ilford leave as if the devil were at his heels.
Bloody coward. Oh, Ilford would do his best to ruin others, but when he got called out for his misdeeds, he always conveniently had a prior engagement to see to—usually in Scotland.
Still, with Lord Ilford gone, that hadn’t stopped the speculations from running rampant in the room over Tuck’s wager and the now-infamous Miss Tempest.
Tuck looked around at all his boon companions, the ones who had abandoned him since the first indication that he was about to lose his shirt. And his boots. And everything else he possessed.
Lofty and noble gentlemen all.
Yet as he stood in the doorway and listened to them boast and brag, something else struck him.
Not one of these fine examples of all that was good and proper had stood up for Miss Tempest and her sister. Not one of them had decried Ilford’s villainous gossip.
Worse, he had to find a likely husband for Livy amongst this collection of gilded liars and rogues.
He’d left White’s feeling out of sorts with the world. With his world.
And that mood hadn’t improved much when he’d entered his rooms and found Falshaw waiting for him like a gargoyle.
With that look dragging the man’s thick, heavy brow into a single line and his wide chin jutted out. The one that said all too clearly he didn’t like to be the one left to defer the landlady on her overdue rent. Or the greengrocer. Or the tailor.
But no, Falshaw’s news was worse.
The man straightened, like Black Rod at the House of Lords about to announce some unholy disaster.
“Lord Wakefield has been here,” he intoned.
“Piers?” Tuck sputtered, for it was the last name he expected to hear.
Falshaw drew a deep breath, as if gathering patience and perseverance along with a lungful of air. “Yes. As I said, Lord Wakefield.” His withering tone implied that he hadn’t thought there would be any confusion on the matter. Then to make his point, he added. “His Lordship called twice.”
Twice? What the devil? Piers never set foot out of his own house. Well, that is until of late.
Until the Miss Tempests had arrived.
“What did my dear cousin want?” Tuck asked, trying to sound nonchalant as he plucked off his gloves and tossed his hat up on the shelf.
Falshaw’s brow furrowed as the hat bounced around a bit before it finally landed—he was after all a valet, at least he tried to be one. “I would hardly know, sir. He didn’t mention anything specific,” he said with a sigh of resignation.
“He said nothing at all?” It was hard, if not impossible, to imagine Piers being circumspect. The viscount had never been one for subtlety.
“It would be indelicate for me to repeat what he might have mentioned,” Falshaw admitted, though grudgingly.
“Out with it, my good man! Indelicate, indeed. When I found you, you didn’t even know what that word meant.”
Falshaw, who before, in his previous employment at a Seven Dials’ gambling hell, had been known as Johnny the Breaker, had the audacity to look affronted.
Dear God, this is what happens when one meddles with the natural order of things, Tuck realized. Falshaw was taking on Mayfair airs.
He didn’t want to imagine what would happen to Miss Tempest if he turned her over to his mother and asked her to . . .
No, he couldn’t consider that. Not right now. Not when there was this baffling matter of Piers to contend with first. “Out with it, Falshaw.”
“I fear he was rather in a state—”
“When is my cousin not?”
“Yes, well, be that as it may, he might have made mention of a young lady. And something about a lending library.” Falshaw paused, brow drawn into that line again as if he were waiting for some explanation of these curious utterings.
Tuck wasn’t about to offer up explanations. Really, the man was getting as gossipy as a Berkeley Square housekeeper. Besides, he suspected Falshaw of holding back the real heart of the matter—a tit for tat situation.
But with another moment of waiting and adding a withering stare, his manservant became more forthcoming. “Oh, yes, he also said you aren’t fooling anyone, and he desires a full accounting of your intentions toward the lady.” Falshaw looked as if he would like the same.
A full accounting.
Tuck shook his head. What the devil? Piers was starting to sound like their uncle. “Did Lord Wakefield say he was going to return?”
Falshaw shook his head. “No, he didn’t mention it, but he did seem rather determined to find you. I suggested he try Boodles.”
“Good man, Falshaw,” Tuck said, slapping the fellow on the back. Boodles was their agreed upon diversion if someone came looking for him.
As it was, Tuck never went to Boodles, but most debt collectors didn’t know that. And since Piers had been out of society for years, he probably wouldn’t remember that either.
Yet avoiding Piers wouldn’t be as simple as sending him off to the wrong club. This was Piers. And the only reason Tuck could think of was that he’d heard about the wager and taken exception to it. Especially if what Roselie said the other night was true.
Besides, I do believe Piers rather fancies Miss Louisa.
Piers in love? Oh, that would be dangerous.
“Have we any supper tonight?” Tuck asked as he moved quickly, retrieving his hat from the shelf and gathering up his walking stick. He already knew the answer.
“Not unless you’ve come into your inheritance, sir,” Falshaw replied, the crease in his brow caving into an even deeper crevice. “Sir, may I ask, where are you going?”
“To the one place Piers won’t look for me,” he replied as he went to the door.
“And where is that, sir?”
“His house. And I know there is supper there,” he said with a cheeky grin.
Falshaw hardly looked amused. That, and he had one other thing he’d been holding back. “Sir, there is one other matter . . .”
Tuck paused at the door, hand on the latch. “Yes?”
“A letter,” Falshaw said, nodding to the salver on the table.
“Is it of consequence?” Tuck asked.
He was under no delusions that Falshaw, given his background, wasn’t so indelicate to be above opening his employer’s private correspondence.
“Sir, I would never—” Falshaw began, taking one furtive, guilty glance at the innocuous-looking missive.
“Falshaw, we both know you always do,” Tuck told him. “Now, what is it?”
“It is from a lady, though she didn’t sign it, and it is rather bad news, I imagine.”
“Worse than having my cousin hunting my hide?” Tuck asked, for plaintive, dire notes from ladies weren’t exactly an unusual occurrence.
Falshaw nodded toward it, a movement that meant he wasn’t going to touch it. At least, not again.
More than he already had, Tuck would point out. Still, he returned to the room and opened the note, the plain white paper folded neatly and crisply, the writing clear and direct.
It has been decided. We are leaving London.
Tuck had two choices—avoid Piers for as long as possible or go find Livy and get this straightened out immediately, but one glance at his pocket watch revealed that he’d have the misfortune of arriving at his uncle’s during supper.
Oh, yes, that would make for a painful hour of Lady Aveley’s glaring across the table at him and no opportunity to speak privately to Lavinia.
Lady Aveley would see to that. Come to think of it, so would his uncle.
So, unfortunately, Livy would have to wait.
Besides, speaking of supper, Piers had a new cook. The talented Mrs. Petchell. Oh, her steaks were said to be a marvel, perfectly turned and a delight to cut into.
Then again, he’d been all but summoned by Piers, so truly Tuck was doing his cousin a favor by coming to him instead of forcing the viscount to go blustering about London in search of him.
So it was to Piers’s he went, where he found himself being welcomed into the house by the viscount’s butler, Tiploft, who greeted him with an effusive, “I am ever so glad that you are here, Mr. Rowland.”
And the fellow meant it.
“You are?” Tuck wasn’t able to contain his surprise. Most times, Tiploft looked like he should be hurrying to lock up the silver when he arrived.
“Bless her heart, she’s done His Lordship a world of good—what with hiring more staff, cleaning up the house, and finding Mrs. Petchell, but I don’t know now—His Lordship may ruin everything if he hasn’t some guidance with this—”
The man paused and sent a significant glance at the salver near Piers’s usual spot. Atop the gleaming plate sat a pile of well-thumbed letters tied up in a blue ribbon.
Something about them, something so very familiar drew Tuck closer, that is until he saw the handwriting. He stumbled back, a cold river of shock rushing through him. “Dear God, those aren’t from—”
“Aye, sir,” Tiploft said. “Lord Rimswell.”
“But where the devil—”
“Miss Louisa brought them over. I didn’t mind when she fired the cook, and I haven’t complained about her cat, and bless her heart, she’s gotten him up and out of the house, but this—” Tiploft shook his head. “It may be too much.”
Tuck swallowed. Hell, they were too much for him. Poldie’s bold handwriting staring up at him like a specter rising from the grave coming to exact a debt.
“Where did she get them?”
“Lord Rimswell’s heir.”
“Brody,” Tuck said under his breath more as a curse. Then he drew in a deep breath. Brody had said he was going to the park—somehow he’d managed to intercept Lavinia’s sister and pass along his brother’s letters from Spain.
“So you can see why I am so glad you’ve come,” Tiploft was saying.
Like a sacrificial lamb to go beside the roasted potatoes and ham already on the table, Tuck mused as his gaze strayed back to the letters.
Those demmed letters.
Tuck sunk into the chair before them.
Tiploft cleared his throat and left, mentioning something about telling the cook that there was to be a second for dinner, leaving Tuck all alone, staring down at the lines—the words blurring and after a moment he realized it was his eyes filling, so he dashed at them with his sleeve.
“Why are you crying?” a child’s voice whispered from behind him.
He twisted around to find a pair of imps gaping at him. “Who might you be?”
“I’m Bob, and this is my sister, Bitty. Our aunt is the cook.”
The little girl, whose red hair stuck out of the two braids that came down either side of her head, regarded him with the same air of mistrust as Lady Aveley at church.
And then he discovered why.
“You aren’t going to make His Lordship mad, are you?” she asked.
“I rather hope not. Devilish temper, my cousin.”
“He’s yer cousin?” Bob asked, taking a step closer, head cocked and examining Tuck like one might a questionable horse favored in the second race.
“Yes,” he told the lad. “Of sorts.”
The boy’s expression turned skeptical again. “How sorts?”
No one would ever call this child eloquent, but Tuck got the gist of what he was asking. “My uncle, Lord Charleton—”
“The fancy old toff next door?”
“Yes, but don’t use that word around him,” Tuck advised.
“Which one?” Bitty asked.
He thought about it. “Fancy or old.”
“Well, he is,” Bob said, clinging to his choices.
“Yes, but I think he’d prefer ‘dignified gentleman.’”
The boy shrugged liked he didn’t see the difference but there was no accounting for the vagaries of the aristocracy.
“Now where was I?” Tuck asked, liking the pair immediately.
“Your uncle,” Bitty prodded. And then added quickly, “The gentleman.”
“Yes, yes, thank you,” Tuck told her. “My uncle, Lord Charleton was married to your viscount’s aunt.”
Both children considered this, and it was Bob who came to a conclusion first. “Don’t seem like yer related in the least.”
Yes, well, there were plenty of times that Piers, his parents, and his sisters had wished the same.
The door creaked a bit and slid slightly open, having been prodded not by Piers but by a large, mangy-looking cat.
“There you are!” Bitty scolded. “Bad Hannibal.”
Miss Louisa’s infamous cat hardly looked chastened. Instead, it walked into the room, stubby tail waving in the air, his only ear cocked up at a jaunty angle, and with his one good eye, he took in the scene before him with a quick, furtive glance.
Dropping the rat he carried, he headed straight for Tuck.
Having met this beast before, he drew back in his chair.
He rather liked all his fingers and hadn’t any desire to lose some to this animal.
“Don’t you like cats?” Bitty asked.
“Why, is there one about?” he replied, as Hannibal proceeded to rub and wind around his legs. Then, with one quick, assessing glance at Tuck, he jumped up into his lap, settling down immediately and making a mangled sort of sound that he surmised might be purring.
At least he hoped it was.
“Never heard him do that before,” Bob remarked with a bit of awe in his voice.
“What does he usually do?” Tuck asked.
“I don’t think you want to know,” Bob told him. “Not with him sitting on your lap and all.”
“Aunt says he has fleas.” Bitty said this as both a caution and as if she was glad to have something to add to the conversation.
Tuck glanced down at the cat in his lap and tried not to shudder. “Lovely.”
Nor was Bitty done. “You won’t put His Lordship in a state, will you? He was right angry at you earlier, and our aunt just got him sober.”
“Your aunt could quite stop Bonaparte if she managed that,” he told her.
The little girl beamed at such an opinion, but her expression turned back to one of serious intent. “You shouldn’t be squiring about with Miss Tempest.”
She couldn’t have said anything that would have shocked him more.
“Pardon?” he managed, getting to his feet, dumping Hannibal in the process. The offended cat hissed and stalked from the dining room.
“We saw you,” Bob said, coming to stand next to his sister. “With her. In your carriage.”
“Well, yes, I was with Miss Tempest.”
“Have you been kissing her as well?” Bitty asked.
“Have I been—” Tuck stammered, feeling the conversation had taken a very wrong turn. Then it struck him, sending a rather ugly current of shock through him. “As well? Who else has been kissing Miss Tempest?”
Both children regarded him with an air that said he had their votes for the village idiot.
Then it struck him and he sat back down as it all came together. “Has my cousin been kissing Miss Tempest?”
“Yes,” Bitty told him, eagerly really, as if the secret had been bubbling inside her for days ready to burst. “In the linen closet.”
“Bitty!” Bob said, rounding on his sister.
“Well, he did. Kiss her.”
“But you weren’t supposed to tell.” Bob heaved an aggrieved sigh. “Mr. Tiploft said so.”
Not even this stopped the unrepentant little busybody. Bitty shrugged as if it had been old news to tell, and besides, was being wasted residing in silence.
But Bitty wasn’t the only one with a penchant for gossip.
Now it was Bob’s turn. “Have you been kissing Miss Tempest as well?”
Tuck was glad he was seated again. “No! I barely know the lady.”
“But we saw her—” Bitty said, diving back into her part of their interrogation, “getting into your carriage.”
“Twice,” Bob added. “What were you doing if you weren’t—” The boy stopped there, unable to bring himself to mention an act so repugnant to a lad of his age.
A pair of Lincoln’s Field’s barristers, these two, Tuck mused. But they had managed to arrange all the facts for him and answer all his questions as to Piers’s ire.
“You do know there are two of them,” he offered.
They looked insulted. “Of course,” Bob huffed.
“And that they are identical?”
“I—what?” Bob asked, his brow furrowed with questions, while a bright light lit up Bitty’s face.
“Identical,” Bitty informed him. “They look the same.”
Bright little minx.
“I was out with the other Miss Tempest, Miss Lavinia Tempest, not your Miss Tempest.”
Bob still regarded his assurance with some measure of suspicion—but Bitty seemed quite relieved.
“She’s not ours,” Bob told him.
“No, she’s his,” Bitty told him with a nod toward the ceiling, meaning Piers.
“That’s excellent news,” Tuck told them both. And though his gaze strayed for a moment over toward that demmed pile of letters, he couldn’t help himself, he turned his attention back to the children. “Now tell me more about my cousin and Miss Tempest. Especially the kissing part.”
Tuck was well into his third helping of lamb and reading the last of Poldie’s letters when he heard the front door slam shut.
Ah, Piers. And in his usual good mood. There was a muffled conversation with Tiploft, then his cousin’s hard steps came crashing toward the dining room.
When the door plowed opened, Tuck glanced up and grinned. “Where the devil have you been, cuz?”
“Looking all over Town for you,” Pierson said as he strolled into the room. But he got no further than the table when his gaze fell on the salver of letters.
There was no mistaking the shock in his eyes—for he knew that handwriting as well as Tuck.
“What are those?” Piers managed, taking an unsteady stance as if he needed confirmation that he was seeing things.
“Letters,” Tuck replied, setting the one he’d been reading down amongst the jumble.
But if he thought his cousin would have the same curiosity, he was quite mistaken. For Piers lurched forward, gathered them all up as quickly as he could and carried them toward the fireplace.
Tuck knew he should stop him, do anything to keep those letters from going into the flames, but for the life of him, he couldn’t get up. It was almost as if Poldie’s calm presence and sensibilities had settled into the room. All Tuck could do was make the same sort of quiet, solid request that their long-lost friend might have.
“Please don’t. If you bear any bit of love for Poldie, don’t do that.”
Piers stiffened, his back still to Tuck. “I can’t. I can’t read them,” the viscount confessed, the words faltering over his tongue.
“Then let me tell you what they say—” Tuck got up and walked over to where Piers stood. He took the letters from him, sighing with relief that the precious missives were safe.
For now.
As he looked down at Poldie’s scrawling handwriting, a desperate sort of need filled Tuck. Piers needed to hear this. Tuck knew that Brody had tried over the years to get Piers to see him, to listen to Poldie’s version of the events—which right now, more than ever, Piers needed.
Quickly sorting through them, Tuck smiled at one in particular. It had made him bark aloud with laughter.
“Wakefield found us a rare cook,” he read, using Poldie’s northern accent and affable tones. “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.”
Pierson had much the same reaction as Tuck and laughed.
So far, so good. Tuck set it down and chose another. The one that had left him with an icy cold lump of foreboding in his chest.
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.
He glanced up and found Pierson dashing at the tears welling up in his eyes.
“The next day it was him,” the viscount said quietly. “He saved me. But—”
But. Tuck knew what that meant. That “but” had jolted him awake with guilt more times than he could count.
If I had been there, it might have been me, and not Poldie.
“Yes, indeed,” Tuck said instead, 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. “No more,” he told Tuck, reaching for that letter.
“No,” Tuck said, shaking his head. “This is the last one he wrote to Brody, 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.
He couldn’t argue with that. More than once he’d put Poldie’s letters down, determined not to read another word. But this time it was different. “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, unwilling to let anyone see the tangle of emotions roiling inside him.
Much like the ones inside Tuck. He’d read every word. Including a number of passages about himself.
I am sure there are some who have spurned Tuck for abandoning us. For not buying his commission and staying behind. I won’t. I trust he had his reasons. Good reasons. If I can forgive him, there isn’t a man alive who shouldn’t.
“Why did you bring those here?” Piers’s question pulled Tuck out of his reverie.
He shrugged. “I didn’t. They were here on the table when I came in.”
“So you—” Piers’s mouth snapped shut, his annoyance leaving him at a loss for words.
Perhaps Tuck shouldn’t have pried—after all, Brody had sent the letters for Piers to read, not him. But then again, Tuck believed in luck and fate, and perhaps this was Poldie—reaching from beyond the grave—trying to see this estrangement between his two best friends put to rights.
If Tuck was being honest, he missed Piers—the man who had been more brother to him than chance relation. He missed their routs. He missed the companionable silences that could slide along all evening over a bottle of whisky—and for no other reason than there was nothing that needed to be said.
And he knew that now. Was willing to even admit it, if need be. For when Miss Tempest had asked him that simple question, “What do you do?” he knew he needed to find an answer.
Perhaps it was as simple as being a friend.
So he shrugged off his cousin’s sharp words. “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.
He wasn’t going to let Poldie’s words go up in flames all for one of Piers’s irrational flares of temper.
“Where did they come from?” the viscount asked, taking his chair and collapsing into it and pointedly ignoring the jab about his temper.
“According to Tiploft, your Miss Tempest brought them by earlier.”
“How the devil—” he began, looking up.
Tuck let him figure it for himself. Besides, his cousin probably knew better how Miss Tempest had gotten hold of letters written to Poldie’s brother, Brody.
Piers reached for the decanter Tiploft had brought in earlier, pouring himself a glass of wine, then, after a second, refilling Tuck’s glass. “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.
Suddenly, the room seemed to close in around them, and Tuck felt as if they weren’t alone. For years it had been the three of them. Him, Piers and Poldie. Inseparable since childhood. Gone to school together. Gotten into more scrapes than he cared to recount.
Piers the adventurer, the headstrong leader. Tuck, madcap and equally driven to find trouble, but savvy enough to save their hides when need be.
And then there had been Poldie. Quiet, solid Poldie. Always there. Always game for whatever his friends proposed.
Yet, the one thing Tuck had never understood, at least until this very moment, was that Poldie had been the glue that had kept them all together. And when he’d died, he and Piers had wrenched apart, fallen away.
In some odd, unforeseeable way, Poldie’s calm words had brought them back to this place, and they stood on a precipice. At a moment of choice.
And they both knew it for what it was—a rare opportunity.
A gift from a long-lost friend.
Piers 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, something they both acknowledged in a nod, in silence.
“Yes, well,” Tuck finally said, pointing 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 teased back.
“Always,” Tuck told him. “Always.”
And while Pierson filled his plate, Tuck leaned back in his chair, glass in hand, considering how to broach the next subject.
Not that he needed to. Piers, never one to mince words, got to the point. “Why are you here, Tuck?”
“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 a platter of pork chops—not before taking one. “These are most excellent.”
The viscount’s gaze rolled upward. “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, feeling a bit mischievous. It had been too long since they’d talked like this. “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,” he insisted.
“Now see here,” Pierson told him. “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 took Piers completely aback. “How did you—”
“You need to remind those urchins of yours under whose roof they live before they start gossiping.”
God bless the pair, Tuck silently toasted. They had given him fresh hope for his cause.
Pierson had closed his eyes and brought his hand to his forehead.
Given this was Piers, Tuck guessed his cousin was considering a long, laborious punishment for the two imps. Then again, he should probably help them out a bit, at the very least to save them from having to scrub the cellars.
“Yes,” Tuck said, raising a glass in a mock toast. “You can’t imagine how well informed those two imps are—but you cannot blame them for their indiscretion. I am rather adept at getting what I need.” He paused for a second, taking stock of the set of Pierson’s brow. “Well, perhaps you can.”
“This isn’t about me,” the viscount told him, sitting up straight and for the first time in years, looking like his old self.
And given that Tuck had known the man all his life, he had to imagine Piers was trying to change the subject, for he never liked being caught out. But this time he wasn’t going to get out of a scrape that easily.
Besides, Tuck wasn’t the one who’d been caught kissing some innocent gel. He might have sent Lavinia Tempest spinning out of control in Almack’s, but what Piers had been doing was irreparably ruinous.
“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.” Tuck leaned forward. “Going after Ilford all by yourself? Tsk, tsk, tsk. Badly done.”
Piers ruffled with indignation. “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?”
No one was more surprised than Tuck at his own sensible advice. Having read Poldie’s letters had given him a fresh perspective. And so armed, he pressed forward.
“You have a chance here, Piers.” Tuck needn’t say what that chance was.
They both knew what that was. Or rather whom.
The one you’ve been kissing, Tuck would have liked to add. But he took another tack. “What are you thinking? Letting the likes of Ilford ruin it for you?”
Piers glanced away, trying to hide an expression of grief that Tuck had managed to glimpse. “There is no chance there. She’s bound for the country—”
Yes, he knew that as well, but Tuck was never one to give up. He couldn’t.
So he 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 that chit’s best interests at heart. You’ll see.”
“I doubt it. They must leave town now, Tuck. There is no other way of it,” Pierson told him—resorting to the gloomy countenance that had become far too familiar on his old friend.
“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,” Piers pointed out.
“He can go to the devil,” Tuck told him, half hoping the man was already there, imagining a dozen or so endings for the foul fellow that hardly seemed good enough.
Now it was Pierson’s turn to laugh, for he probably knew exactly what Tuck was thinking—just as he had when they’d been younger. “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.”
The viscount looked up at his butler. “Pardon?”
“It isn’t Mr. Rowland who is summoned next door,” Tiploft told him. “You are, my lord.”
Tuck reached for the decanter and topped off his glass, raising it in a mock salute. “In the suds now, cousin.”
Wakefield rose, his brow furrowed.
“Care for some experienced advice?” Tuck offered.
Piers only glared.
Never one to back down from his friend’s temper, he grinned. “Don’t bother denying the charges. Uncle rarely has his facts wrong.”
To this, Piers cringed.
That bad, eh? Tuck mused.
Then, when the viscount turned to leave, he added one more sally. “In the linen closet? Truly? Cousin, you need this gel more than you realize.”