‘But what are you going to do for a month like that?’ Matthew asked.
‘Travel,’ the Duke said recklessly. ‘Explore the country. Gain the experience Leo wishes for me.’
‘You’ll find it dashed uncomfortable. Dashed dull, too. You must have rats in your attic, Sev. If I were a duke, I shouldn’t set foot on the stage for the rest of my life. Who cares if you don’t do things for yourself? Why would you bother, when you’re Severn? Dash it, what if you’re pretending to be nobody and you meet someone you know?’
‘I’ll just have to avoid fashionable haunts.’
‘Nobody will recognise you without your pomp and circumstance,’ Leo said, all the more brutally because it was a statement of fact. ‘You’ve a damned forgettable face. If you weren’t dressed up, you wouldn’t look like anyone at all.’
‘I have often observed, my brother didn’t consider the breeding stock when he married,’ Aunt Hilda said. ‘Joan was a delightful woman, but sadly unremarkable. Typical of a Malsham, all their girls were plain as—’
‘Hilda,really,’ Aunt Amelia said.
‘This is not to the purpose.’ Lord Hugo glowered at his sisters to no effect, then turned on the younger generation. ‘And you will both stop this nonsense.’
‘It is a wager,’ the Duke said. ‘I shall fend for myself for a month without using my title or influence or advantages, and when I have done so, you, Leo, will make an apology to me for doubting my capacity.’
‘If you do it,’ Leo returned. ‘Using the public stage and inns as any common fellow might: no hiring a carriage or any such. If you survive a month of ordinary life without disaster, and without resorting to your title or station, I shall admit I was wrong as publicly as you like. And the stakes if you don’t succeed . . .’ He paused, thinking. The Duke braced himself. ‘Your match greys.’
‘What? No!’
‘You can’t wager money,’ Leo pointed out. ‘It doesn’t mean anything to you, and Father would have an apoplexy.’
‘Yes, I would!’ Lord Hugo had never permitted betting or borrowing: the ducal estate was the Duke’s alone, and he had rigidly avoided any action that might be interpreted as profiting from his nephew. ‘You know very well—’
‘Yes, sir, we do,’ his son said impatiently. ‘Stake the greys, Sev, if you’re so sure it’s easy.’
The Duke adored his greys. He had bought them as foals, trained them himself, and driven them for two years now, turning down extravagant offers. They were his sole point of personal glory. People who would not recognise him in acrowd knew the Duke of Severn’s greys: fast, sweet steppers, perfectly matched, high-spirited but never misbehaving. He didn’t want to lose them.
‘Or if you don’t care to risk it . . .’ Leo added.
The Duke set his teeth. He needed this time, this free month in which he would go out into the world and get his ring back by hook or crook. Not to mention, he was cursed if he’d back down now. He would just have to make sure he won his bet.
‘Very well,’ he said. ‘The greys.’
Chapter Two
Waters came in the next morning bearing a tea tray in his hands and the world on his shoulders. ‘Your Grace,’ he said. ‘I am informed of the most distressing news. It cannot be correct.’
‘My wager with Leo?’ The Duke had been awake for some time, wondering if his great idea was in fact quite as great as it had seemed last night under the influence of several glasses of wine and the flush of insult. The concept was impeccable: a month in which he could track down the scoundrel John Martin and retrieve his ring. It was the execution – specifically, the fact that he had no idea how to go about executing it – that worried him.
‘But Your Grace cannot seriously intend this.’ Waters looked distraught. ‘To travel alone? Without your carriage, or James, or a single outrider, or a wardrobe? Withoutme?’
‘It is only for a month,’ the Duke said soothingly.
‘A month! Your Grace jests. Who will brush your coats and see to your linen? What about your boots?’
‘I expect inns have people who do that.’
‘Hardly to the standards Your Grace expects.’
‘Indeed not. It will teach me to appreciate you.’
‘Your Grace,’ Waters said strongly. ‘You must not. Surely Lord Hugo objects.’
‘I dare say he does, but I don’t require his permission.’Or yours, the Duke did not say, because, exasperating thoughit was to be nannied, Waters had cared for him all his life. The tightening of the valet’s lips suggested he had taken the inference anyway, and was offended. The Duke sighed internally. ‘Will you help me select the most ordinary clothes from my wardrobe?’
Waters stiffened even more. ‘Your Grace does not possess anyordinaryclothes.’
