Page 5 of My Dearest Duke

Around him, the tavern’s din ebbed and flowed, the sounds muted as if his head was beneath several feet of water.

Not a posh establishment like White’s or Brooks’, The Sword and Shield’s clientele leaned more toward the merchant class. Respectable and well-to-do, but not elite or prestigious. Which, he supposed, was why several of the patrons kept sending curious glances toward his table, where no fewer than three nobles sat with him.

The lords’ very demeanor, let alone their expensive, immaculately tailored clothing, declared them aristocrats. Yet none affected the haughty air or condescending attitude one often associated with nobility.

Kingston’s thoughts meandered back to his siblings, even now awaiting his return home. What would’ve happened to them if he’d perished in Belgium? Bile burned his throat, and his gut coiled into a knot as appalling, inconceivable images paraded before his mind’s eye.

As their next of kin, Gaylord, Duke of Caerleon, would’ve become their guardian, God save them.

Caerleon—Lion.

Lions were noble, dependable, social creatures.

The Caerleon dukes, to date, were nothing of the sort.

“You don’t have to do this, Barclay,” Pierce Chamberlain, Earl of Wainthorpe, murmured, his raven brows pulled together into a single harsh line. His almost black eyes penetrating and intense with emotion, he splayed a palm across his chest, his signet ring glowing in the candlelight. “Myself, Pembroke, Dandridge, Pennington, and half a dozen more of our other friends would gladly loan you the funds until you came into your title.”

As the Duke of Caerleon’s presumptive heir, Kingston would inherit a wealthy dukedom, several estates, and a slew of other entailed and unentailed properties. But his great-uncle despised Kingston as much as Kingston reviled the lecherous old sot.

The only thing Caerleon cared about was his reputation. A reputation that was so tarnished and tainted that a lifetime of servitude to the Church couldn’t begin to bring a shine to it.

How bloody ironic was that?

Kingston would rather sell his soul to the devil before he asked Caerleon for a shilling. The duke hadn’t a benevolent bone in his decrepit body or an inkling of kindness in his corrupt soul. He’d have demanded his pound of flesh from Kingston.

No, he’d have exacted his depraved, warped form of payment from Madeline, Rebecca, and Dorena by selling their favors to his equally debauched cronies. Gareth and Paxton would’ve been Caerleon’s perverse target. Hadn’t the sodding degenerate attempted as much with Kingston when he’d been but a thirteen-year-old lad?

The same age Paxton was now.

And the duke had suffered a knife to his paunchy belly for his deviant inclinations.

Kingston had been going through a stage where he pretended to be a Highland warrior, and blades had fascinated him. He’d forever thank the divine powers that he carried a small dagger in his boot that fateful day. The day he’d nearly rendered Caerleon a eunuch. It would’ve been a service to the world should Kingston have succeeded.

“Surely there is another way,” Crispin Rolston, Duke of Bainbridge, insisted, bringing Kingston back to the present.

Kingston shook his head.

He was out of funds.

Out of ideas.

Without hope or recourse.

Quail Hollow House needed a new roof and chimney before next winter. The larder was nearly empty, the fields unplanted, the floorboards rotted in several damp rooms, and the coffers nearly as empty as a church’s during a famine or plague.

His brothers and sisters had suffered long enough.

Too deuced bloody long, in truth.

Eligible young ladies didn’t want to wait years, perhaps decades, to become a duchess or take a chance that the funds they brought to the union would be long gone before they ever acquired the coveted title.

Then there was the matter of an heir.

Kingston didn’t intend to produce one. Gareth would be his.

A match arranged by The Wicked Widow of Whitechapel was the only remedy. A marriage of convenience. A business arrangement with no expectations of a personal or intimate nature.

Unable to bear the sympathy he knew he’d see in his friends’ eyes, Kingston poured another finger’s worth of whisky into his glass, concentrating his entire focus on the mundane task.