Page 6 of The Duke Decides

“Therefore you spite him by marrying and producing a son.” Orde rinsed the razor and finished the shave with an application of witch hazel, which stung like the devil in Gabe’s cuts.

“Hell’s fingertips, not you, too. For the last dozen years, no one’s taken a bit of notice of me, now suddenly Mum and every female attached to the Declan name wants to know where I’ll be putting my sugar stick in the foreseeable future.”

Orde smothered a laugh at the vulgarity with a pretended cough. He handed Gabe a fresh shirt. “You have to understand why.”

“Why they’d ring me into marriage?” Gabe’s voice emerged muffled as he pulled the clean linen over his head and tossed the soiled one aside. Orde caught it. “With Fenton going on as he is, they’re just pushing me to make some poor hopeful maid a widow before she gets the chance to properly enjoy being a duchess.”

Orde shook out a pair of trousers made of white cotton twill. “Your mother, Harry’s mother and sisters, even Fenton’s sisters, and the Dowager Duchess, they all depend on an allowance from your estate. If that estate passes to Fenton, how generous d’you think he’d be with your mum and the young’uns?”

They always referred to Gabe’s squad of siblings as the young’uns, though the eldest was three-and-twenty, only six years younger than Gabe. The youngest was ten, born the year Powlett died and Gabe lost the one mentor who could teach him how to go on as a nameless man in a friendless world.

Gabe scowled as he fastened the fall front of his trousers, his fingers clumsy with his cracked and bruised knuckles. Powlett had taught him how to fight at an early age, a necessary skill for a boy perpetually mocked as fatherless, and Gabe had no doubt that skill had saved his life last night. He’d held his own against the thugs until their scuffle drew attention and passersby started making noises about alerting the watch. The thugs had withdrawn, the big bruiser landing one last punch that had dented Gabe’s ribs.

But escaping only meant Fenton would send bigger thugs next time. Possibly armed with weapons that would see the job done properly.

And Gabe’s death, as Orde pointed out—damn him for being so persevering and perceptive—would leave his mother and siblings without income and without a protector.

“Let me focus on keeping myself alive, Orde. Then we can trick some Long Meg into putting a shackle on me.”

Orde snorted. “The ones lining up for the hand of the Duke of Barkham won’t be Long Megs. They’ll be the daughters of viscounts and earls and barons. Maybe an admiral or bishop’s daughter to sweeten the mix. You’re young, you’re sturdy, your estates are not thoroughly encumbered, and if you’ll drink this, you’ll make a passing show of being more than a sot. The fair maidens will be lining up to throw out their lures.”

Gabe took the glass of liquid and sniffed. Orde’s remedy for a night of drinking, mixed with his remedy for a thrashing. He downed the mixture and set the glass on the tray.

“The nicer ones won’t look twice at me,” he reminded his friend. “You must hear the same gossip at your club that I do at mine. Barely civilized, they say. Raised by a blacksmith—”

“Silversmith, Powell was, and he made fine work.” Orde had been one of the many orphans who congregated under Powlett’s watchful eye, the reason the two boys had become friends.

“Tradesmen are all the same to the high sticklers. So are foreigners.” Gabe lifted his chin as Orde arranged his cravat and knotted it in the Oriental style, a smooth square with the ends tucked beneath the collar of his waistcoat.

“Your father was British, and you are British.” Orde, not satisfied with the knot, untied his creation and tried again.

“And my mother was Egyptian.” Gabe stared into the small, chipped hand mirror, evaluating Orde’s work and his own features. He’d inherited his height from his father, he was told, along with the build that filled out his coats in the style approved by current fashion without need for padding or corsets. But his mother had given him her charcoal hair, long face with its nose and high cheekbones, and the brown tint to his skin. He stood out among the milk and cream of English gentlemen like a stray tomcat in a parlor full of household tabbies.

“The frock coat today?” Orde held up the black coat with its flared skirts and the velvet shawl collar cut to display the pattern of the waistcoat beneath.

“Just who is my caller, and why are you valeting me?” Gabe slipped his arms into the fitted sleeves and buttoned the snug coat at his waist, leaving the top buttons undone to show off the pattern of his waistcoat.

“I found Brown drunk in the scullery with two silver teaspoons in his pocket. Naturally I had to turn him off. I’ll be tending you until we find a replacement. If you moved to the townhouse, there’d be many candidates eager to be a duke’s manservant.”

Gabe had many reasons he didn’t want to move from his shabby rented quarters to the townhouse, built by the first duke in the previous century when the Declan family fortunes took a turn for the better thanks to their support for the Hanoverian ascension. One reason for dragging his feet was that, though his mother and siblings had gladly taken shelter there, to Gabe, the house still belonged to Harry.

“You turned a man off for stealing trinkets to pay for his drink?” Gabe scoffed, pulling at the cuffs of his coat. “Haven’t I done worse? Haven’t you?”

“We were never foolish enough to steal from employers.” Orde held up his cloth brush. “Now heed me. Your caller is the Earl Jermyn of the Hervey family. Son of the Marquess of Bristol and current MP for Bury St. Edmunds.”

“One of the rotten boroughs?” Gabe asked. He was following the Reform debates with interest, especially because the Barkham title came with a seat in the House of Lords, and he was expected to take it.

“No, a real constituency. Votes for the Tories, I understand.”

“Is he trying to influence me on something?” Gabe had more sympathies for the Whigs, the ones calling for reform. Sympathies due to his having been raised among the lower classes and obliged to fight for every opportunity, appreciate every scrap of food.

Orde handed him his watch to attach to the fob dangling from his waistcoat. “Jermyn’s about to marry a daughter of the Duke of Rutland. I think he’s here on family business of some sort.”

“Can’t imagine what a duke’s family wants with me.”

Orde paused and looked him over. “You’re one of them now, Gabe.”

“I’ll never be one of them,” Gabe said. He combed pomade through his hair to push back the thick locks and try to keep them from falling in his eyes. “They’ll never allow it. Fenton’s likely thought of a new way to try to kill me.”