“You’ll do as you must, I suppose,” his father said. “I don’t pretend to understand the Foreign Office.”
And thank God for that. If his father knew half of what went on in diplomatic circles, he’d be shocked and appalled into an early grave. At least, if Benedict’s stories were true.
“Come along, Max. We’ll discuss an end to your madness in the carriage. I will not stay here another instant.”
Lord, he was so tired of everyone railing at him. Christopher had the right, given their many years of friendship. Obviously, the prince regent could command whatever he chose from his subjects. But his father was treading too heavy tonight, and Max was done with it.
“What madness, exactly?” he drawled as he was served another brandy.
The color in his father’s cheeks and neck darkened noticeably, but the man had generations of breeding inside him that refused to make a scene in public. Even in a place as secretive as this.
So despite his demand for an immediate departure, the duke gestured for the footman to bring over another chair. The man did so with speed, and much to Max’s dismay, his father sat down with spread legs, flushed countenance, and a cane that thumped hard on the floor as he settled.
“You’re to marry Lady Kimberly in the morning. I’ve already obtained the special license. She is right now being informed of the matter by her own father. You’ll come home with me now where I shall set a guard on your door until you do what is right by that gel.”
“You would have me commit high treason? I am under royal command to marry Miss Wong.”
“That’s a ridiculous command and you know it. And Prinny cannot set aside a marriage once it is done.”
Christopher snorted. “He can still throw him in the Tower.”
The duke’s gaze flicked to Christopher and away. “Like your title, your thoughts are impoverished.”
“Father!” Max snapped, but Chris was ahead of him.
“Good thing Prinny enjoys frivolous people.” Chris rose to his full height. “Well, Max? What do I tell His Royal Highness?”
The message was clear. If Max were about to be put under house guard, Chris could slip that threat into Prinny’s ear and stop the wedding forthwith. Assuming, of course, that Prinny was of a mind to interfere. For all that he’d made a show of demanding Max marry Yihui, he knew as well as anyone that the dukedom did not want to pull in Chinese blood.
“That I shall visit him forthwith and we can discuss when Miss Wong shall be presented at court. She is most anxious to meet His Royal Highness in better circumstances.”
“Excell—”
“Miss Wong is right now being settled in a location better suited to her social standing,” his father interrupted. “I have told you that I would not tolerate this murderous disaster for long, Max. My patience has reached its end.”
Max bolted upright in his seat. “What have you done? Damn it, Father, she can’t even walk. Where have you put her?”
“Be thankful it’s not Tyburne.”
“Be thankful the prince doesn’t clap you in irons!” Max cried as he jumped to his feet. Damn it, the places where his father might have put her were endless.
“I must agree, Your Grace,” Lord Benedict inserted in his low, diplomatic voice. “Max has been threading a very difficult needle with the prince. To insert yourself in the middle of this—”
“Insert myself!” his father all but shrieked. “That woman”—he spat the word at Chris’s feet—“sleeps in my home, lives at my tolerance, and is completelyunwelcome at my table.” He used his cane to thrust himself upright. Max could see the bulge at the man’s temple and the white-knuckled grip he had on his cane. If ever a man were about to have an apoplexy, it would be now. And at the moment, Max was furious enough to not care.
But he knew better than to match his father fury for fury. Screaming back was not the way to get through, though it had taken him most of his adolescence to understand that. Instead, he took a page from Benedict’s book.
He rocked back on his heels and pulled up a calm façade. His face and his voice gave no room for disagreement.
“You have two choices, Your Grace,” he said coldly. “Either tell me where Yihui is or Chris will see that Prinny claps you in irons.”
“As if—”
“Oh, he would,” Chris interrupted with a vicious grin. “I shall be sure he knows how much you despise him. I shall spin a tale of your political ambitions, your desire to topple the monarchy—”
“Ridiculous!”
“Is it?” Max asked. “How many times have you publicly voiced your disgust of the prince?”
