Dukes By the Dozen

“Devil take me if I will.” His tanned face was marred only by that ferociously lovely scowl—and that interesting little scar on his forehead. “You’re the first friendly face I’ve seen since I put a foot on land, and I’ll not abandon a friend to the foul winds of rumor.”

“Kind Beech.” He would be such a man.

If only she had had been patient. If only she had been prudent. If only.

But there was no way to put spilt milk back into the pail. “Sorry, Beech, but I’m afraid I’ll soon be abandoning you. I’m being sent to the hinterlands—banished to some Backwater-By-Nowhere as companion to a maiden aunty in punishment for my sins—whilst my parents try to launch my younger sister, Susanne, off.”

“Like a ship of war, ready to go into battle?” he chuckled.

“Indeed.” Penelope found her own smile to mirror his. “In light of my scandal, they feel they must wage a campaign to find sweet Susanne a husband. And until they depart for London, I am meant to be as quiet and invisible as a mouse, which is why I made for my lonely bolt hole here this evening.”

“Lonely?”

“I beg your pardon, Beech. I meant to be alone, but that does not mean that I am not delighted to have the unexpected pleasure of your company. Lord, but it has been a long time, hasn’t it?”

“A lifetime—Caius’s lifetime, at the very least.” Beech knocked back another drink of brandy. “Which is damned ironic, considering I was meant to be the expendable one.”

Such a thought was not to be borne. “Not expendable, Beech. Never that. Out of sight, perhaps, but never out of mind, surely.”

“Out of mind until they had use of me,” he scoffed. “My mother, and the lawyers and secretaries she has set nipping at my heels like a pack of rat terriers.”

“Poor Beech, to discover yourself a duke,” she teased.

“Aye, well…” One side of Beech’s lovely mouth curved up in a rueful smile. “I know there are a thousand men—nay, a hundred thousand—who should love to be standing in my well-polished boots, but…” He let the thought trail away as he absently touched the empty sleeve of his coat where it was sewn under his lapel. “I daresay I’ll be happier once I settle into my duties and escape society’s demands. At least in the country I can get a fresh breath of winter air. I was like to suffocate in that ballroom.”

To Penelope, leaving society was exile, not escape. This winter, and every one thereafter, would be spent as a companion to a relative she had never met, in some frozen corner of the countryside where she would doubtless spend the coming years being made to stop up drafts.

Such a bleak prospect was enough to prompt sarcasm. “I should recommend getting yourself ruined if you want to escape society entirely, Beech. Though I daresay a fellow as handsome as you got himself good and ruined a long time ago.”

“I beg your pardon?” His tone was incredulous enough to remind Penelope that Beech had done nothing to earn her spleen.

Yet some still-wounded piece of her tattered pride prompted her on. “But, of course, chaps aren’t accounted ruined whenever they indulge in…shall we call it ungentlemanly behavior, are they? Because my unladylike behavior—being caught alone with your brother, to be specific—is how I was ruined.”

He looked slightly stunned. “You went apart with Caius? Willingly?”

“I have to admit so, yes. Very willingly. Enthusiastically, even.” She gave Beech that much of the truth. She had been a fool for a handsome face so very much like Beech’s, and the late Duke of Warwick had been irresistible to her—all brooding, dark delight that she had learned nearly too late was the sort of self-loathing that poisons everything and everyone it touches.

She had only just missed it touching her.

Still, she had been poisoned, and everything that had made her life comfortable, everything she had recklessly taken for granted—her good name and her family’s regard and protection—was gone in an evening.

“He fooled you, then.” Beech’s scowl loomed across his brow like a thundercloud. “He always did like having his way, and he never did care who he hurt while he got it.”

Dear, clever Beech, to see so clearly, and yet, still not see all.

“Alas, Beech, I was the one who kissed him,” she admitted.

Penelope could not tell if the look in his eyes was pity or disappointment. Either way, it was more than she could stomach. “What about you? Have you never kissed anyone, Beech?”

Her question took him aback for only the briefest moment. “Indeed, I have,” he confirmed without a trace of rancor. “And enjoyed it. Immensely. Great stuff kissing, when properly done—amicably and with the right person.”

Something within her—something ridiculously, miserably hopeful—sparked to life. Properly done, indeed.