The Desperate Duke by Sheri Cobb South

Author:Sheri Cobb South
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Regency, Regency Romance, Clean Regency, fish out of water, comedy of manners
Publisher: Sheri Cobb South
Published: 2018-12-14T16:00:00+00:00

NOT UNTIL AFTER DINNER did Sir Ethan turn his attention from family concerns to the business that had brought him to London in the first place.

“I’ve promised to meet Sir Lawrence Latham at Brooks’s tonight,” he informed his wife with a marked lack of enthusiasm. “I didn’t know at the time that you’d be ’ere, love. I can cancel, if you like.”

“You need not do so on my account,” she assured him, looking up from the note that had been brought to the table along with the sweet course. “The doctor’s wife says he has been called out to attend what may well be a deathbed, and cannot see William until tomorrow morning at the earliest. I confess, I am not entirely sorry. Now that the poor lamb is sleeping soundly, I should be extremely reluctant to wake him, even for the doctor to examine him. So you may leave him with a clear conscience.”

“It wasn’t Willie I was thinking of.”

She laid aside her serviette and rose from the table. “You may leave me with a clear conscience, too. I intend to go to bed early and sleep until noon.”

“And so you shall,” he promised her. “If the doctor should ’appen to call while you’re still abed, I’ll take ’im up to Willie meself. You need not get up at all.”

She gave a wistful sigh. “It’s tempting, but he would think me a very unnatural parent. Go to your meeting, darling. I shall catch up on lost sleep, and see you after you return.”

With this Sir Ethan was forced to be content, and yet he could not be entirely easy in his mind. He knew what he wanted—and wanted very badly, at that—but he also knew what he must do. And so it was that, upon his reaching Brooks’s and being shown into the small private room where waited those bastions of the Whig party, Sir Lawrence Latham and Lord Grey, he bided his time only long enough for handshakes to be exchanged all around before declaring, “Gentlemen, I think I’d best drop out of the race.”

His audience stared at him slack-jawed for a long moment before Sir Lawrence protested, “Drop out of the—damn it, man, you can’t do this!”

“We’ve been laying the groundwork for your Parliamentary bid for months,” pointed out Lord Grey. “Why would you choose to drop out now?”

“It’s not a good time,” Sir Ethan said. “Things ’ave changed since you first approached me. Me father-in-law ’as died, so me wife is in mourning, and I’m the executor of ’is will, so young Tisdale—the new Duke of Reddington, I should say—needs me. Then, too, me boy Willie is ill.”

“I’m sorry for it, Brundy, truly I am,” Lord Grey said in conciliatory tones. He sank into an upholstered armchair before the fire and gestured for the other men to do likewise. “But you must see—”

“Who would we find on such short notice to take your place?” demanded Sir Lawrence, all but bouncing on the edge of his seat in vexation.

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