Dukes Are Forever Page 2

  Apparently realizing it was time to surrender the battle in hopes of eventually winning the war, Thomas grudgingly agreed. “I’ll contact Grey to see if he has men to spare. But promise me you’ll consider letting Benton go.”

  The hell I will. Edward held his gaze and lied, “I’ll consider it.”

  But he would never change his mind. Benton was his prisoner now, as surely as if he’d chained him to the walls of Newgate himself. He might be free to come and go as he pleased, but he’d be living in rooms Edward chose for him. His every move would be watched, his every activity and choice would be Edward’s to make, and never again would he have so much as a halfpenny to his name. There was nothing that would ever make him set that bastard free when his own brother lay dead in the churchyard.

  “Good night, then, Colonel. And give my best to Aunt Augusta.” Thomas opened the carriage door and swung outside, to drop away onto the street and disappear into the darkness.

  Blowing out an irritated breath, Edward slammed the door shut.

  Thomas was wrong. Revenge had proven easy. He didn’t have to hang Benton; he didn’t even have to give the man enough rope to hang himself. All he’d had to do was follow along behind and pick up the pieces. It had been that simple.

  He’d won. He’d attained his revenge and received every capitulation he’d wanted, giving Benton exactly the punishment he deserved—the loss of everything he held dear. At the card table, when Benton realized who he was and what he’d done, an intense satisfaction struck him unlike anything he’d ever experienced before in his life.

  But the sensation faded, and quickly, until all that was left was the same emptiness as before. Instead of the happiness and relief he expected, he felt hollow, as if he were missing half his life, with no idea where to find it.

  * * *

  Katherine Benton pushed back the hood of her cloak as she entered the blacksmith’s house, her leather bag gripped tightly in her other hand.

  “Forgive us, miss,” Mrs. Dobson greeted her, “for fetchin’ ye in the midst o’ th’ night like this.”

  She smiled reassuringly. “You did the right thing in sending for me.”

  The worried mother moved the toddler in her arms to the other hip as another child wailed from somewhere upstairs and two boys chased each other through the rooms. There were now ten children in the small but well-kept house, with Kate delivering the last baby herself.

  “Bless ye, miss,” Mrs. Dobson sighed gratefully, and for a moment, Kate saw the glisten of fatigued tears in her eyes, “you comin’ to help us, an’ you wit’ all yer own troubles.”

  Your own troubles. Ignoring the prickle of humiliation, knowing the woman meant well, Kate placed a comforting hand on her arm before Mrs. Dobson could go into detail about those troubles or remind her of how Mr. Dobson had been kind enough to buy her horse last year when she needed money. “Where’s Tom?”

  She pointed toward the stairs, then shooed away two youngsters at her skirts.

  “Would you bring up a kettle of hot water and a mug, please?”

  The woman nodded, and Kate hurried upstairs. Tom must have truly been ill tonight to have all the household in such an uproar, the children out of their beds and running wild, from the oldest at fourteen right down to the baby. Stomach trouble, the boy who had been sent to fetch her reported. Please, God, let it be something I can fix.

  Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she stepped into the little room beneath the eaves that served as the bedroom for all six of the Dobson boys, with the three girls and the baby sharing a room downstairs. A young boy lay scrunched up on the cot in the corner, his father trying uselessly to comfort him as he grasped at his abdomen and groaned in pain.

  Kate gently elbowed Mr. Dobson away, set her bag on the edge of the bed and opened it, then looked down at the boy. “Hello, Tom.”

  “Hello, miss,” he returned, forcing the greeting out through gritted teeth. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His face was pale, and his arms never released their hold over his middle.

  She frowned. “James said your stomach hurts.”

  “Somethin’ awful, miss.” He swallowed down another groan.

  “Show me exactly where.”

  The boy glanced uncertainly at his father, who nodded his permission, and Tom pushed the blanket down to his hips with one hand while pulling up his nightshirt with the other, baring his little, flat belly.

  Kate touched his stomach carefully, starting with his lower left side and working her way across. “Here?”

  He shook his head. Moaning, he placed his fingers over a spot high in the middle just under his sternum.

  “Here?” Kate pushed into his abdomen, and he cried out. Her eyes narrowed, and from what she knew about this particular boy, she suspected…“Open your mouth for me, Tom.”

  He opened wide, and when she looked inside, she scowled, all worry inside her vanishing.

  Now, she knew. “You sneaked out of bed tonight, didn’t you?”

  His eyes widened—he’d been caught. “Miss?”

  “And judging by the pains, I’d guess most likely around midnight. Isn’t that so?”

  With competing looks of suffering and guilt flitting over his young face, he nodded.

  She sat back on the bed and raised a sharp brow. “You got into your papa’s tobacco.”

  He shot a worried glance at his father and moaned. Being caught—and fear of the punishment to come—only made his bellyache even worse.

  “Your son has an upset stomach,” Kate informed both husband and wife, who had remained in the doorway, the baby still in her arms and a tenacious toddler clinging to her skirts. “He’ll be better by morning.” She cast a sideways glance at the boy. “And I have a feeling that after tonight, he’ll never touch your stash again. Will you, Tom?”

  The boy glumly shook his head.

  “Good. This should help.” She pulled a bottle of white powder from her bag and poured some into the cup Mrs. Dobson handed her when Kate signaled for both it and the kettle. She poured in hot water, then stirred it. “Drink this.” When the boy frowned warily into the bubbling mixture, she explained, “It’s saleratus. The bubbles will help settle your stomach. Go on—drink it up.”

  Making a face as if being tortured, Tom gulped it down, then gasped in distaste.

  “You’ll be better in a few hours.” Kate stole a glance at the mother and father, obviously overwhelmed by their brood. “How old are you, Tom—nine or ten?”

  “Eleven, miss.”

  Even better. “Old enough for a job, then. Come visit me at Brambly tomorrow. We could use a boy for the stables.”

  That was a lie. Brambly had no need of stable boys, because Brambly had no stables. Because Brambly no longer had any horses except for an old swayback no one would take off her hands if she paid them. But she also knew that one less child to worry about would help ease the burden of the Dobson household, even if she wasn’t certain how she’d manage to feed one more mouth in hers. But she would. Somehow, she always managed to find a way.

  She closed her bag and stood to leave.

  “Miss, are ye certain ’bout Tom goin’ to work fer ye?” Mrs. Dobson pressed as she followed Kate downstairs. The couple wasn’t poor but neither were they wealthy, and although sending Tom to work for Kate meant less money spent on him, more importantly it meant one less child to supervise.

  “We could use the extra hands.”

  From the twitch of the woman’s lips, she clearly didn’t believe Kate, but she didn’t challenge her. “T’would be a great help, miss. It’s always somethin’ wi’ children, ain’t it?”

  As if on cue, the baby wailed. The woman sighed and opened the door.

  Kate stepped outside into the darkness and cold, not looking forward to the miles she’d have to walk home through the darkness.

  “Ye should count yerself fortunate, miss, that ye don’t have no children t’ constantly scold an’ fuss over.”

  Kate forced her smile not to wav
er despite the stab of jealousy. No, she had no children of her own and most likely never would. To make the sacrifices necessary to have a husband and family…She simply couldn’t bring herself to do it.

  “Yes.” She drew her hood down over her face. “How very fortunate I am.”

  * * *

  Inside his study, Edward poured himself a whiskey. Taking a gasping swallow and welcoming the burn, he turned toward the fireplace, where dying embers still glowed. He jabbed at them with the brass poker until he’d sparked a weak flame, more to physically expel the pent-up frustrations inside him than to stir up a fire. Around him, the town house was dark and quiet, with Aunt Augusta and the servants catching the last few hours of sleep before dawn.

  He envied them. He’d hadn’t slept well in over a year. And he knew he wouldn’t tonight, either.

  He was simply tired. That’s why he didn’t feel the lasting happiness he’d expected at bringing Benton to justice and why he let Thomas’s words prickle him. In the morning, once he’d slept and the success of his revenge settled over him, the joy of vindication would come. He would feel happy then.

  Happy? Christ. He’d be glad if he could feel anything.

  With a curse, he tossed back the remaining whiskey and stared at the fire.

  “Your Grace?”

  He glanced up as Meacham paused in the doorway. Edward signaled his permission to enter, glad for the man’s arrival. The sooner they settled everything regarding Benton’s situation, the better.

  Meacham nodded politely. The Westover family attorney for nearly thirty years, William Meacham had proven himself time and again to be a superior lawyer and a dedicated employee. Occasionally over the years, even a friend. When Edward’s father died and Stephen inherited, with the two brothers just twenty and nineteen, Meacham had been an invaluable advisor, and Edward owed him more gratitude than he could admit or the man would accept.

  For all the history between them, however, Meacham would never assume familiarity, and he would never cross any lines of decorum, not even at four in the morning. As the new duke, Edward should have been pleased by the deference paid to him, but it rankled. Since he’d inherited, no one was open and honest with him anymore.

  His lips twisted. Apparently, except for Thomas Matteson.

  “My apologies for the late hour,” Edward said quietly.

  “None necessary, Your Grace.” Meacham reached inside his coat and withdrew the papers he’d prepared. “Benton agreed to your terms and in exchange signed over all his possessions, just as you demanded. He is bankrupt and in your debt.” Then he added quietly, “Congratulations, sir.”

  Edward glanced at the papers only long enough to make certain Benton’s signature crossed the bottom of each, then turned back to the fire.

  It was done, then. Phillip Benton was now penniless, his life completely and publicly ruined. He would live in the small room in Cheapside that Edward provided, on a single pound’s allowance that Edward gave him, watched at every moment and unable to make a move without permission—he had become a prisoner, or as close to one as he could be without being put into chains. His life had become Edward’s to ruin, just as Benton had ruined his.

  So why wasn’t he happy?

  “Thank you, Meacham. We’re done for tonight.”

  The attorney hesitated. “There is one more item, Your Grace.”

  “What is that?”

  “He has a daughter.”

  Edward frowned into the fire. Benton mentioned a daughter, but he hadn’t thought the man was serious. In the months since he’d been having Benton trailed, his investigators hadn’t seen nor heard any mention of a child.

  He shouldn’t be surprised, though, to learn Benton had a daughter who meant so little to him that he never went to see her or contacted her. The bastard had destroyed his own life through gambling, whoring, and drinking, and ruined the girl’s life right along with his by denying her the care she deserved. A man like that didn’t have the heart to love a child.

  Meacham continued cautiously, “He requested that you become her guardian.”

  “No.”

  “If I may, sir, I think you should reconsider. Her mother is dead, and now with her father’s situation—” A sharp glance from Edward made him censor himself. Good. Meacham and Thomas could both keep their bloody opinions about Benton to themselves. “You have your reputation to consid—”

  “Damn my reputation,” he muttered.

  Meacham stiffened. “Your Grace, I do not believe you mean that.”

  Edward narrowed his eyes on him. This was as close as the man had ever come to overstepping between them, of being so familiar as to attempt to chastise. But Meacham wasn’t wrong. Edward couldn’t have cared less what happened to his own reputation, but now as the duke, he held the responsibility for the reputation of the Westover family and the title, whether he wanted it or not.

  “Sir, you have made it so her father is no longer able to financially support her. Morally, she has become your responsibility. Best to make it legal as well.” The attorney added plainly, his expression as paternal as Edward had ever seen it, “If you do not provide for her, and her situation becomes common knowledge, you will become a social pariah.”

  And Augusta right along with him. His aunt was his only family now, and he would never do anything to hurt her. “Fine.” He turned dismissively back to the fire. “Write the contract.”

  “This is the right decision, sir,” Meacham assured him. “It would have been regrettable to you if an innocent had been hurt.”

  Edward said nothing, not able to summon enough guilt to care. He’d seen hundreds of innocents hurt during the atrocities of war. What was one child’s lack of ribbons compared to that?

  “Someone should also travel to her home to ensure the suitability of her situation. I’ll arrange for one of my assistants to leave next week—”

  “No,” Edward interrupted. “I’ll go.”

  Meacham paused in surprise. “Pardon?”

  “I’ll go myself.” Not that he truly cared about the little girl’s feelings, but a legal clerk swooping down on her and frightening her was the last complication he needed when he wanted everything settled with Benton’s situation as quickly and easily as possible. Screaming children and angry nannies would only add to his headaches.

  He had another reason for going as well. After the ordeals of the past year, it would do him good to spend a few days alone in the countryside, riding and hunting, far from the family seat at Hartsfield Park and all the memories there. He wanted to go someplace where he could forget, if only for a few days, and where he wouldn’t have the constant reminder of Stephen and Jane.

  So he would meet the child, determine her living situation was satisfactory, then be on his way. Most likely, he’d be gone by teatime.

  “If there’s anything else,” Edward instructed, “see me in the morning. Good night, Meacham.”

  “Your Grace.” With a shallow bow, Meacham retreated from the study.

  Edward refilled his glass and swirled the golden liquid thoughtfully. So Benton has a daughter.

  Had.

  She belonged to him now, as close to being his own daughter as possible without sharing his blood, and she’d become his responsibility to raise, educate, and eventually marry off when she came of age. Rather, that is, she’d become Meacham’s responsibility, as he planned on never directly concerning himself with the child again after his visit to Sussex.

  He hadn’t planned on this, but now that she was part of the battle’s aftermath, the guardianship would only make his revenge that much sweeter. She was a spoil of war he had no intention of ever letting Benton see again.

  A daughter’s life for a brother’s. Fair retribution.

  “Strathmore?”

  Aunt Augusta appeared in the doorway. Despite the late hour, she held her head regally, every inch of her a countess.

  He returned his tired gaze to the fire. Good God, he was exhausted…“No, just Edward.”r />
  “Just Edward?”

  He rolled his eyes at the oncoming onslaught from Augusta and her fierce dedication to social position. Childless herself, his widowed aunt raised him and Stephen after their mother died when they were just boys, her duty as the duke’s sister to keep them in line and away from scandal. They’d been a handful for her, but she’d corralled them with a stern command and a sharp glance. One of the few people in the world able to reprimand him, she still possessed the ability to shake him with a single look.

  Such as the one she now leveled at him. “You are the Duke—”

  “It is what I desire tonight.” Forced decorum was the last thing he wanted to deal with, all those reminders of how much his life had changed. Tonight, he wanted to be just Edward again. “Please, for tonight, let it be.”

  She drew up her shoulders in that posture of grudging surrender she assumed when she knew she’d pressed as far as possible but wouldn’t win.

  “I apologize for waking you,” Edward offered, hoping to mollify her and avoid further argument.

  “I heard the door.”

  “It was Meacham,” he told her gently. “You should go back to bed and get a good night’s rest. I’ll join you for breakfast.”

  “Do you need anything? Should I call for Huddleston?”

  He shook his head. Huddleston was a good valet, always eager to assist and please, but Edward found the attention cloying. He preferred to dress himself, just as he had in Spain despite having an aide-de-camp at his disposal, preferring his privacy. He would gladly do without a man completely if he could, but as a duke, that was impossible, and because Huddleston had been Stephen’s valet, Edward kept him on.

  “Sleep well, then.” As she turned to leave, she rested a hand against his arm.

  But he shifted away. He didn’t want her motherly concern tonight, preferring to be left alone in his misery. Or it would have been misery, had he been able to feel even that.

  Her face softened. “The title does not rest easy on you, does it, Edward?”