Educating Caroline by Patricia Cabot

Author:Patricia Cabot [Cabot, Patricia]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi, pdf
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

The ninth Marquis of Winchilsea had not left much, it was true, to his children. He had not, poor man, had much to leave, except of course for his title, and a run-down abbey in the Lake District.

But one thing he had managed to leave for Hurst was a membership in his club, a rather exclusive men’s club, for which the marquis had, it was true, not paid dues in some time, but which was so exclusive that no one dared mention this to the new marquis, who, it was hoped, could be appealed to for the back dues when his impending marriage to the wealthy Earl of Bartlett’s daughter became fact.

But it was not his tardiness in paying his dues that had earned the new marquis the contempt of the club’s employees. Rather, it was his inherent stinginess, not tipping, even so much as a ha’penny, the grooms who kept his horses brushed while he was enjoying luncheon, or the sommelier who brought him his claret.

Worse, for all his stinginess, the new marquis was exacting to the extreme, complaining if a bay leaf was found in his stew, or if he had to wait so much as five minutes for anything.

So it wasn’t perhaps to be wondered at that the club employees would not hesitate to declare the marquis “in”—when every other member was always, without question “out” to anyone who came calling (with the exception, perhaps, of the Prince of Wales)—to a man who called himself Samuel Jenkins, but who was, in reality, The Duke.

And to show a man like The Duke to the marquis’s chair, in which he’d been slumping, staring dully into the fire—well, that was a sign that Hurst was very unpopular with the club staff indeed.

“Hello, there, my boy,” The Duke said, as he lowered his impressive bulk into the leather chair opposite the marquis’s. “Been a while, hasn’t it, then?”

For almost a full minute, Hurst could only stare at the man sitting across from him, rendered completely speechless at the sight of him. So it was true. It was true after all, the thing which he’d most feared. He’d told himself over and over again that he was being ridiculous. The Duke couldn’t know. The Duke couldn’t possibly know what he’d done. Who’d have told him? It wasn’t as if the two of them traveled in the same social circles now, was it?

But someone had told. Someone had to have told. Because The Duke had come to London. Come to London, and apparently come to London in search of Hurst. It had been The Duke who’d put the tail on him. The Duke, and not Granville.

Oh, Lord. If only it had been Granville.

Hurst shot the hireling who’d led the corpulent man over to his chair a look of rage, which the servant pointedly ignored, choosing instead to bow politely to The Duke—from whom he’d already received a pretty tip, just for showing him in—and inquire, “Brandy, Mr. Jenkins?”

“Yes, I think I will take a brandy,” The Duke said.

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