“I will, Uncle,” Ethan interrupted, blood a punishing hammer against his ribs. “I have always understood what you expect of me.”
As he walked toward the drawing-room, Ethan felt like a French aristo climbing the stairs to the guillotine.
Silver lining?
There was likely a poem in that thought, too.
Ethan found Kendallstanding before the barren hearth in the drawing-room, his shoulders to the door, hands clasped behind his back, gaze fixed on a painting of hounds tearing into the haunch of a wild-eyed Highland buck.
The duke turned around at thesnickof Ethan closing the door. Whatever the duke had to say, Ethan was quite sure they both wished to keep it from prying ears.
“Penn-Leith,” Kendall nodded.
“Your Grace,” Ethan returned.
“This painting is wretched.” The duke pointed to the artwork with a shake of his gray head. “Please tell me this house is rented, and therefore, neither you nor your uncle had any say in its decor?”
Ethan managed a genuine smile at that, despite the vise banding his lungs. “We have indeed let the house for the Season.” He motioned to the chairs before the hearth, indicating His Grace should sit. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company, Your Grace?”
Kendall, of course, waved away the offer of a seat with a ducal flick of his hand. Which meant that Ethan had to remain standing as well. Decorum demanded no less.
The duke began pacing in front of the hearth, hands clasped behind his back once more. “I shall simply come to the point, Penn-Leith. You and that dratted poem of yours have placed me in the most dire of straits. The press continue to sniff around Lady Allegra, despite my denials of her innocence. My threatening letters to various newspaper editors are all that stand between my sister and ruin. I am sure you understand the seriousness of this situation.”
“I do, Your Grace.” Ethan folded his own arms across his chest, perhaps to hide the faint shake of his hands. He could taste his pulse on his tongue. “I hope ye are here because ye ken I can help in some way.”
There. That was polite and helpfulanddiplomatic.
Assume the best until you were told the worst.
Kill them with kindness.
“Yes, well, you might have the right of it.” Kendall moved to pace in front of the windows opposite the fireplace. “I have looked at this state of affairs from all possible angles, trying to find a way to prevent my sister’s ruination. Blackmailing, paying off, or bloodying every newspaperman in Britain, aside from being tedious, would hardly bolster the claims of my sister’s innocence. And realistically, I have recognized that our family history is far too salacious to silence the rumors. Our mother was Italian. She divorced my father quietly and privately, but the matter is still discussed in hushed voices nearly sixteen years on. Add in gossip about my own sister’s time in Italy . . . and well, it is simple to weave a captivating narrative.”
Here, the duke paused, releasing an enormous sigh.
Kendall was right, of course. The very idea of Lady Allegra’s history was simply too scandalous, too romantic, too fantasticalnottospread like wildfire.
Ethan could scarcely feel the breath in his lungs. What did the duke wish from him?
Taking two steps, Kendall sank into an armchair, the seat groaning faintly right along with him. He pressed three fingers to the bridge of his nose, as if his head ached.
Cautiously, Ethan took the chair opposite.
“After several days of thought,” His Grace continued, lifting his gaze to Ethan, “I have realized that the only solution to this problem is to seize the story’s momentum for myself.”
“Pardon?” Ethan frowned.
“I need to make it appear—convincinglyappear—that I know there is nothing to the rumor. That it is the height of absurdity to suggest that my twin sister, the elegant Lady Allegra Gilbert, would have ever plied trade as a highwayman in the mountains of theSüdtiroland held the famed Ethan Penn-Leith at gunpoint.”
“When stated so baldly, such an idea does beggar belief,” Ethan agreed. “So what do ye propose?”
Here, Kendall heaved another sigh and returned to pressing the bridge of his nose. “To be exquisitely clear, I do not like what I am about to suggest, but it is the only solution I see. Lady Allegra and I will be leaving to attend a house party in Scotland in two days. I would like you, Penn-Leith, to accompany us.”
Shock cemented Ethan’s tongue to the roof of his mouth.
He blinked. And then blinked again.
What? And . . . why?
