Morgan gave him a dry smile. “Of course, my apologies, Race.”
“I’ve met the Duke of Blooming a couple of times,” Blake said. “I can’t say I know him well. He seldom comes to London. Why were you with his mother?”
Morgan chuckled deep in his throat.
Race shook his head in exasperation.
Blake’s eyes narrowed suddenly, and he said, “No, wait, if I remember correctly, the dowager duchess isn’t his mother. She is his father’s second wife, or maybe she was the third wife, but I was told she was much younger than he was. I don’t think I’ve ever met her.”
“Probably not,” Race said.
“Take my word for it,” Morgan added. “You would have remembered if you’d met her. She is as beautiful as Henrietta but not quite as young. I’d say she’s about our age, thirtyish, wouldn’t you, Race?”
Morgan was being impossible. “Yes. And if you had met her, it would have probably been somewhere other than here. This is her first visit to London in twelve years.”
“That long? Sounds like she is as reclusive as her husband when he was alive. You were in the park with a beautiful woman, and Gibby was challenged to a duel? What else has been going on since I married that I don’t know about? I can’t believe you two have been keeping all this news from me.”
“It’s not as if we wanted to or intended to, Blake. It’s just that you aren’t as accessible as you used to be.”
“I live less than a mile from the both of you, and I damn well expect that one of you will stop by once in a while and fill me in on what’s happening in my own family.”
“Can we please get back to Gibby and the fight?” Race asked in an irritable voice. “The challenge happened less than an hour ago, so it’s not as though days have passed concerning Gibby. Right now, his situation is more important than the duchess or your hurt feelings.”
Blake growled. “My feelings aren’t hurt. I’m angry I was left out.”
“I agree that we do need to discuss Gibby,” Morgan added. “But there’s one more thing about the duchess that Blake needs to know before we quit the subject. She wants Race to hand over our grandmother’s pearls to her.”
“What?” Blake asked, clearly taken aback by this news.
“Yes,” Morgan continued. “She says they were stolen from her family and wants Blake to give them back.”
“What gall! Would you two blackguards not keep things like this from me ever again? Even if I am married, I still want to know what is happening.”
Race suddenly felt as though he was back in the park again. He wasn’t having any better luck keeping control of the conversation with these two than he had with Gibby and Prattle.
“All right, you’ve made that clear already, Blake. Morgan, you’ve said enough. Now, would both of you please sit down so we can get back to Gibby? The duchess and the pearls can wait.”
Grumbling to themselves, his cousins took the two upholstered wing chairs that flanked a small circular table, and Race sat in the middle of the flower-printed settee facing them.
“I’ll make this simple for you. Mr. Steven Prattle’s sister, Penelope, accused Gibby of compromising her at Lord Tinkerton’s party last night.”
“Gibby?” Blake exclaimed. “No way in hell. That didn’t happen, I’m sure of it, but start at the beginning and tell us everything.”
Race briefly filled them in on all that happened in the park, leaving out only the part about his kissing the duchess when he took her home. Contrary to what his cousins thought, he did not have to tell them everything.
“And you couldn’t persuade Gibby to give up this preposterous idea of a boxing match?”
Race drained his wine glass and placed it on the rosewood table in front of him. “No. I think Prattle might have been convinced to forget this idea if I could have persuaded Gibby, but Gib had whipped the crowd into a frenzy to get them on his side. They were with him all the way, shouting ‘fight’ at him over and over again. You can’t imagine what it was like.”
“What in the devil made Gib want to box the man like a bruiser?” Blake asked, shaking his head.
“Who knows what goes through that strange mind of his? It’s clear we have to figure out a way to get Gibby out of this and let him save face, too.”
“Usually the only way that is done is by marrying the lady in question,” Morgan offered.
“Do either of you know of her?” Blake asked.
“I’m thinking she’s one of the spinsters who usually sit around the dance floor at the Great Hall,” Morgan said. “Seems she’s rather tall and buxom and maybe about fifty years old. Do either of you think Gibby wants to marry her?”
