Page 4 of An Inconvenient Duke

Marcus grumbled, “Every single moment of my humiliation, you mean.”

“Details, details,” Merritt dismissed, deadpan. But he couldn’t hide the gleam of amusement in his eyes.

“What we really want to know about your birthday party is this.” Pearce touched his glass to Marcus’s chest and leaned toward him, his face deadly serious. “When do the pony rides begin?”

Marcus’s gaze narrowed as he glanced between the two men. “Remind me again why I saved your miserable arses at Toulouse.”

Pearce placed his hand on Marcus’s shoulder in a show of genuine affection. “Because you’re a good man and a brilliant general,” he said sincerely. “And one of the finest men we could ever call a friend.”

Merritt lifted his glass in a heartfelt toast. “Happy birthday, General.”

Thirty-five.Bloody hell.

“Hear, hear.” Pearce seconded the toast. “To the Coldstream Guards!”

A knot tightened in Marcus’s gut at the mention of his former regiment that had been so critical to the victory at Waterloo yet also nearly destroyed in the brutal hand-to-hand combat that day. But he managed to echo, “To the Guards.”

Not wanting them to see any stray emotion on his face, he turned away. Leaning across the stone balustrade on his forearms, he muttered, “I wish I could still be with them.”

While he would never wish to return to the wars, he missed being with his men, especially their friendship and dependability. He missed the respect given to him and the respect he gave each of them in return, no matter if they were an officer or a private. Most of all, he longed for the sense of purpose that the fight against Napoleon had given him. He’d known every morning when he woke up what he was meant to do that day, what higher ideals he served. He hadn’t had that since he returned to London, and its absence ate at him.

It bothered him so badly, in fact, that he’d taken to spending time alone at an abandoned armory just north of the City. He’d purchased the old building with the intention of turning it into a warehouse, only to discover that he needed a place to himself more than he needed the additional income. More and more lately, he’d found himself going there at all hours to escape from society and the ghosts that haunted him. Even in his own home.

That was the punishment for surviving when others he’d loved hadn’t. The curse of remembrance.

“No, General.” Pearce matched his melancholy tone as his friends stepped up to the balustrade, flanking him on each side. “You’ve left the wars behind and moved on to better things.” He frowned as he stared across the crowded garden. “This party notwithstanding.”

Merritt pulled a cigar from his breast pocket and lit it on a nearby lamp. “You’re exactly where you belong. With your family.” He puffed at the cheroot, then watched the smoke curl from its tip into the darkness overhead. “They need you now more than the Guards do.”

In his heart, Marcus knew that, too. Which was why he’d taken it upon himself to go through Elise’s belongings when Claudia couldn’t bring herself to do it, to pack up what he thought her daughter, Penelope, might want when she was older and to distribute the rest to the poor. That was how he’d discovered a letter among Elise’s things from someone named John Porter, arranging a midnight meeting for which she’d left the house and never returned.

He’d not had a moment of peace since.

He rubbed at the knot of tension in his nape. His friends didn’t need to know any of that. They were already burdened enough as it was by settling into their own new lives now that they’d left the army.

“Besides, you’re a duke now.” Merritt flicked the ash from his cigar. “There must be some good way to put the title to use.” He looked down at the party and clarified, “One that doesn’t involve society balls.”

“Or togas,” Pearce muttered.

Marcus blew out a patient breath at their good-natured teasing. “The Roman theme was Claudia’s idea.”

“Liar,” both men said at once. Then they looked at each other and grinned.

Merritt slapped him on the back. “Next thing you know, you’ll be trying to convince us that the pink ribbons in you horse’s tail were put there by Penelope.”

Marcus kept his silence. There was no good reply to that.

He turned his attention back to the party below, his gaze passing over the crowded garden. He spied the delicate turn of a head in the crowd—

Danielle.There she was, standing by the fountain in the glow of one of the torches.

For a moment, he thought he was mistaken, that the woman who’d caught his attention couldn’t possibly be her. Not with her auburn hair swept up high on her head in a pile of feathery curls, shimmering with copper highlights in the lamplight and revealing a long and graceful neck. Not in that dress of emerald satin with its capped sleeves of ivory lace over creamy shoulders.

Impossible. This woman, with her full curves and mature grace, simply couldn’t be the same excitable girl he remembered, who’d seemed always to move through the world with a bouncing skip. Who had bothered him to distraction with all her questions about the military and soldiers.

She laughed at something her aunt said, and her face brightened into a familiar smile. Only then did he let himself believe that she wasn’t merely an apparition.

Sweet Lucifer.Apparently, nothing in England was as he remembered.