The Wager (Ruthless Regency Dukes 1), page 1
COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2022 Carole Mortimer
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Cover Design Copyright © Glass Slipper WebDesign
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Editor: Linda Ingmanson
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Formatter: Glass Slipper WebDesign
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ISBN: 978-1-914336-02-7
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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
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All Rights Reserved.
DEDICATION
To my wonderful readers
I so appreciate all of you.
CONTENTS
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Epilogue
Newsletter and Social Media Links
About the Author
Other books by Carole Mortimer
PROLOGUE
Lincoln House, London
An evening in early March, 1816
The fashionable black carriage barely had time to come to a standstill before Grayson Vaughn, the Duke of Flint, opened the door himself rather than waiting for his groom to do it. He then stepped briskly down onto the cobbled road. Having done so, he instantly recognized the ducal seals on the three other coaches standing outside Lincoln House as belonging to his friends, the Dukes of Bristol, Oxford, and Melborne.
He had expected to see the other gentlemen here, of course, when he’d received his own invitation to call upon Lincoln at his London home at eight o’clock this evening.
Nevertheless, it was still a jolt to have that expectation confirmed and for Grayson to know that he was about to come face-to-face with his four closest friends, together for the first time in months.
Nine months, to be exact.
Oh, all of them had made half-hearted attempts at the five of them meeting up, as they used to do several times a week, but for one reason or another, none of those attempts had ever come to fruition, and eventually, they had all stopped trying.
Which was why, when an invitation from Hunter St. John, the Duke of Lincoln, had been delivered to Flint House earlier today, Grayson had sensed its import and reacted accordingly.
Obviously, the fact Bristol, Oxford, and Melborne were already here meant they had responded more promptly than he had, the time being a little after the specified eight o’clock.
They all knew why they had been avoiding each other’s company, of course, even if none of them had verbalized that reason.
For them to meet up as a group in any way would mean acknowledging one of their number was missing. All these months later, since the Battle of Waterloo, and none of them were yet ready to talk of Plymouth’s demise.
Until now, it seemed.
Grayson was greeted by Stokes, Lincoln’s butler, and relieved of his hat and cloak before being shown into the library by that same gentleman.
Their host stood in front of his huge oak desk, the other three gentlemen seated in chairs placed in a half circle in front of him. They all turned toward the door when Grayson entered, their expressions differing greatly at his tardy arrival.
Lincoln looked at him with reproof.
Tardiness is hardly a punishable offense, Grayson mentally dismissed.
The enigmatic Melborne’s expression gave nothing away, as usual.
Arrogant bastard, Grayson acknowledged affectionately.
Then came the steely-eyed Oxford and the haughty Bristol.
Not a smile in bloody sight from either of them either, Grayson accepted ruefully.
But they were exactly the same four gentlemen, including that lack of warmth at seeing him again, whom Grayson had expected he might encounter.
Except…there was a fifth man in the room. A slightly hunched figure seated in the shadows at the back of the library. A hat was pulled down over his face, his long and unkempt hair more gray than black, his ragged clothing as unappealing as the rest of his appearance.
“I am glad you were finally able to join us, Flint,” Lincoln said abruptly into the silence.
Grayson shrugged off the implied criticism. “It is only a few minutes after eight o’clock, and your note did not say the matter was urgent.”
“It did not say it was not either,” the other man returned evenly.
Grayson sighed his irritation as he stepped farther into the awkward stillness of the room. It was as if none of the men had spoken a word since their own arrival and before his own, but rather been shown into the room by Stokes, taken a seat, and then silently sat waiting until they were all here.
If so, then it was a sad state of affairs for the men to have fallen into who had been friends for as long as they had.
The six of them had met at university fifteen years ago when they were all aged eighteen. They had quickly formed an invincible alliance they had eventually named the Ruthless Dukes. Until the Battle of Waterloo and Plymouth’s death had proven, beyond a doubt, that they were not invincible at all.
Grayson threw himself onto the one chair left vacant in the center of that half circle in front of Lincoln. “Well, get on with it, man.” He slouched down to rest the heel of one of his highly polished boots on the opposite knee.
Lincoln’s green eyes narrowed as a warning not to bait the temper that went with his auburn hair. “As you may have noticed, there is a sixth person present at our meeting—”
“In bloody poor taste under the circumstances, if you ask me,” Melborne muttered.
Lincoln’s eyes became icier still. “I did not ask you.”
“Well, I, for one, wish you would get on with it,” Bristol snapped.
“Is some lucky lady of the night expecting your arrival?” Melborne taunted.
“No,” Bristol answered flatly.
If Bristol had been feeling anything like Grayson had these past nine months, then there wouldn’t have been any women, lucky or otherwise.
As Grayson had discovered, it was difficult to get so much as a cockstand with a guilty conscience constantly looking over a man’s shoulder, let alone maintain one long enough to actually perform.
His right hand had been providing his only bed sport, and even that only rarely.
“I advise you tell us why we are here, Lincoln, before some of us actually come to blows.” Oxford sounded disinterested in either outcome.
Lincoln gave a weary sigh. “I am sorry to see that our friendship has disintegrated into such a state as this. But perhaps I have something—not a solution as such—but a common cause that might once again unite us.”
Grayson was the first to break the lengthy silence that followed Lincoln’s statement. A silence during which none of the men had looked directly at each other. “As you can see, none of us think that likely. Unless that is Plymouth skulking about in disguise at the back of the room?” he added scathingly.
“Unfortunately not,” Lincoln said sadly. “But my reason for asking you all to come here this evening does have something to do with Plymouth.” He glanced toward the unkempt figure in the shadows. “If you would like to stand up and step over here beside me, sir? Can I ask that you also remove your hat?” he requested once the stranger stood beside him.
The man was dressed in a ragged shirt that might once have been white but was now a dingy gray, and breeches that were ripped in several places where the fabric had worn thin.
If the removal of the man’s equally disreputable hat was supposed to result in some sort of denouement, then it fell tragically flat when the four gentlemen seated in the semicircle all continued to look baffled by the gesture.
Except…
Grayson believed there was something slightly familiar about the short and too-thin man, the latter appearing to have come about from a sudden and prolonged lack of sustenance if the loose skin about his face and jowls was an indication.
If the more-gray-than-black hair was trimmed, and the loose skin filled out again—
“Good God, is that you, Stanley?” Grayson pushed his chair back noisily as he rose to his feet in his astonishment.
“It is, sir, and I thank ye for knowing it.”
It had been a close thing, if Grayson were being honest: the man before them bore very little resemblance to the rotund and dapper valet they had once known.
“My God, it is Stanley.” Melborne also rose to his feet, although less noisily than Grayson. “I would recognize that pleasant Somerset burr anywhere.”
The bedraggled man nodded. “I thank ’e, sir.”
“We thought you dead alongside Plymouth, man.” Bristol spoke with his usual lack of tact or diplomacy, all of them aware that James Stanley had been both Plymouth’s valet and manservant.
But the James Stanley they had known had been a cheery-faced and portly man aged in his mid-forties, his hair short and black rather than the now bedraggled mess that didn’t look as if it had seen clean water or a brush in months. Considering his overall dirty appearance,
“We did look for you once the fighting stopped,” Oxford put in. “To no avail, obviously.”
“So I ’as been informed by ’is Grace, the Duke of Lincoln,” Stanley said sadly. “And may I say ’ow sorry I am for all of us as loved ’is Grace, the Duke of Plymouth.”
None of them seemed to know how to answer that sentiment, so once again, silence fell. It quickly became an uncomfortable one.
One Stanley decided to break. “As you know, I was at ’is Grace’s side for ten years or more, and to see ’im struck down in such a way…” He gave a shake of his head. “Only the thought of revenge ’as sufficed to keep me going these past nine months.”
“It might be a little difficult to exact revenge upon the whole of the French army,” Grayson pointed out.
Whilst it was gratifying to know Stanley had survived that last bloody battle after all, Grayson failed to see why Lincoln thought it necessary to bring them all together in this way. In order to celebrate that survival, perhaps? If so, it would have been kinder to all concerned if Lincoln had just given Stanley money and assistance to set the man back upon his feet, rather than the valet’s unkempt presence acting as further emphasis of Plymouth’s absence.
They had all joined Wellington’s army for the last five years of the fighting against Napoleon, and as was the custom, and with those men’s agreement, all had taken their valets with them to act as their manservants. Melborne’s man had been shot in the arm during a battle early on. But he had quickly recovered, and other than that, they had all remained unscathed.
Until Waterloo.
No one had expected that Napoleon would escape his incarceration on Elba, let alone with the intention of returning to France and resuming his role of emperor.
But that was exactly what the Corsican had done, resulting in the recall of Wellington’s army and a return to France to prevent a coup from happening a second time.
Would the six Ruthless Dukes have volunteered to return to France if they had known one of their number would not survive that last bloody battle?
None of them had been able to answer that question since, to themselves or each other.
“Got nothing to do with the French army and everything to do with the English officer as raised ’is sword and struck ’is Grace down dead,” Stanley scoffed.
“What the…!” Grayson was as shocked by this announcement as three of the other men in the library appeared to be, Lincoln obviously already being aware of what Stanley had been about to say. The rest of them stared at the valet with varying degrees of shock. “I— You— That is a strangely specific accusation to have made.” Grayson finally managed to speak coherently.
“Because that’s the truth of it,” Stanley stated firmly. “I saw it with my own eyes. Never would have believed it otherwise.”
“You’re sure it was an English officer you saw strike Plymouth?” Melborne rasped.
“I believe I know a red uniform from a blue one, Your Grace,” the older man confirmed bitterly.
“Did you recognize the officer?” Oxford pressed.
Stanley shook his head. “I didn’t see ’is face, only the gold braid on ’is uniform as marked him as an officer, when ’is sword arm came down and struck ’is Grace.”
Grayson winced at the imagery. “But what possible reason could an Englishman have for wanting to kill Plymouth?”
He had to admit it was not something that had occurred to any of them before now. Why should it have done? They had all been caught up in that bloody battle, determined to rout the Corsican usurper once and for all. Many men had died during that long day of battle. Until now, they had all believed Plymouth to be amongst that number.
“I’ve ’ad months to think on the subject, Your Grace,” Stanley answered him. “The only person I could think of as might want the duke dead was mayhap ’is Grace’s cousin, as ’e’s the one who ’as now inherited the ducal title.”
“Robert Granger was not at the Battle of Waterloo,” Oxford pointed out practically. “Or any of the other battles, for that matter,” he added with a scathing curl of his top lip.
A sentiment Grayson and the other gentlemen echoed. They were all acquainted with young Granger and knew him to be something of a fop, with a penchant for colorful and ridiculous fashions that did not include a wish to wear a red army jacket.
“’E could very easily ’ave paid someone to carry out ’is dirty work for ’im,” Stanley insisted.
An opinion none of them bothered to argue with when it could all too easily be true.
Lord Robert Granger was the only son of Plymouth’s Uncle Charles, the younger brother of the previous duke. Robert was ten years younger than them, but, despite his reprehensible taste in fashion, he had always seemed like a pleasant fellow whenever they happened to meet him. Moreover, he had seemed fond of Plymouth, and Plymouth of him.
But that fondness did not prevent Granger from feeling a longing to become the Duke of Plymouth, and the only way for that to happen was if the previous duke was dead.
“Why didn’t you come forward with this information before, man?” Bristol accused. “It’s been fully nine months since…since we lost Plymouth.”
“And, until three days ago, I ’ad been at sea for eight months, three weeks, and three days of it,” Stanley explained with disgust. “I was captured and sold into servitude onboard a French privateer, alongside fifteen other Englishmen,” he continued. “A group of French soldiers, who I’m supposing ’ad decided not to let the whole bloody war be a complete loss for them, received money for their trouble.”
Grayson could only imagine the conditions aboard the French privateer, and how those Englishmen might have been treated with Napoleon once again a prisoner of the English. No wonder Stanley looked a mere shadow of the cheerful and portly middle-aged man he had once been.
“I came straightaway to see ’is Grace after I escaped and was able to return to London,” Stanley explained.
“You did well, man,” Lincoln assured.
“There were only five other officers, beside ourselves, caught up in the fighting in the area where Plymouth was killed,” Bristol put in with his usual efficiency.
“Which is why,” Lincoln spoke up, “as Stanley cannot put a face or name to the officer he saw attack Plymouth, I suggest the five of us now direct our considerable powers of deduction and deliberation by each concentrating on one of those officers and endeavoring to discover which of them is responsible for killing our dear friend Plymouth. And why,” he added pointedly. “We may assume all we wish in regard to Granger having reason to want Plymouth dead, but one of those five officers would still have had to commit the deed. First we need to ascertain who would have had reason to kill Plymouth, either on Granger’s behalf or their own,” he added darkly.
“Simpler to round the five of them up and torture the bloody truth out of them if they won’t give it up without,” Melborne announced without a shred of mercy in his tone.
“One of those officers is a general, another a major, the other three are captains, and all of them are respected members of Society,” Lincoln reminded.
“There is that,” Melborne muttered.
Lincoln nodded. “There is also the fact that four of the five men are completely innocent of any wrongdoing. In which case, perhaps I should have added ‘subtlety’ to my statement of using our ‘powers of deduction and deliberation.’”
“Subtlety,” Bristol echoed as if he had never heard the word before now. One of his eyebrows also rose with the haughty eloquence he was known for.
None of them were able to hold back a smile, even laughter, at Bristol’s total lack of ability to admit the word “subtlety” into his vocabulary.
