The Duke's Holiday (The Regency Romp Trilogy) Read online

Mr. McConnell looked alarmed. “Nay, nay. I dunna think so. But ye do.”

  “I most certainly do not. Miss Honeywell is many things, but she is no murderer.”

  Mr. McConnell looked taken aback. “Oh. Well then.”

  “Yes, well then. I don’t think Miss Honeywell is behind it, but she does inspire a certain amount of … devotion in her followers. Perhaps one of them decided to do me in.”

  “No one what works under me or her,” Mr. McConnell said, affronted by the very notion.

  Montford sighed, feeling as if he were pushing a boulder up a very steep hill. “The shot did not come from the heavens, Mr. McConnell. I don’t think I have yet done anything so villainous that the gods would wish to smite me from on high.”

  McConnell’s eyes narrowed. “Ye ain’t be one of them papists, are ye?”

  Good God, where had that come from? “I am not a Roman Catholic,” he found himself saying. He was not exactly intimidated by McConnell, but he was treading very carefully.

  “Twaddle about gods and smiting. Sounds papist to me.”

  “I would point out that papists are monotheistic.”

  Mr. McConnell looked as if Montford had spoken in Greek. Montford sighed. He supposed he had. “I am not a papist,” he repeated.

  “What are ye, then, C of E?”

  “What business is … I suppose I am.”

  “Ye suppose? What? Ye dunna ken what alter ye worship at?”

  “I do not attend chapel…”

  McConnell jerked to his feet, and the pipe nearly fell out of his mouth. The movement was so sudden that Montford involuntarily leaned back, just in case McConnell decided to swing his large ham hock of an arm in the direction of his face. “It’s worse, then. Ye be one of them nonbelievers.”

  Montford bristled. Brawn aside, this was simply too much. “Mr. McConnell, it is none of your concern what altar I worship at.”

  “It is when ye bring yer fast, unholy ways into this house.”

  “You shall remember who you are addressing, Mr. McConnell.”

  Mr. McConnell didn’t look inclined to do so.

  Montford wondered if anyone within a thirty-mile radius had any regard for his title besides himself. Montford couldn’t very well throw the constable at the man for his insolence, since Mr. McConnell was the constable. But he had had lesser men horsewhipped for such cheek.

  No, he hadn’t. But he’d considered it on occasion.

  He was considering it now, but he had a sneaking suspicion McConnell would turn the horsewhip on him.

  He decided to try a different tack. Mollification. It went against his nature, but he’d found himself mollifying several times during the space of the last forty-eight hours, to some effect.

  “Mr. McConnell, I was raised in the Church, and do attend on occasion.” Weddings (reluctantly), and funerals (reluctantly, unless he had disliked the deceased). “But I’ll not lie to you –” Yes, he would, “—and tell you I am religious, because I’m not. I’m indifferent.”

  Mr. McConnell considered Montford’s statement and did not find it entirely lacking.

  “Dunna ken if it’s worse or no. Dunna ken if I believe ye. Ye’ve a good deal o’ anger in ye …”

  “I have anger!” he burst out. “You’re the one who was yelling at me!”

  “I weren’t yellin’,” Mr. McConnell said, sticking his pipe back in his mouth and daring Montford to contradict him.

  Montford clutched his head, which was a mistake, because he hit the bandage over his right temple. He winced and tried to rein in his temper. “Mr. McConnell,” he said evenly. “May we get back to the matter at hand.”

  “Certainly, Yer Grace. What were the matter at hand again?”

  “For the love of … is there something in the water here that makes everyone talk in circles?”

  McConnell grinned and puffed on his pipe.

  “What do you suggest we do about this shooting?”

  Mr. McConnell scratched his neck. “Dunno. Not much to be done. ‘Twould solve everyone’s problem if ye were to depart.”

  “Would it indeed?”

  “Solve yer problem, at least,” he muttered into his pipe.

  “I’ll not construe that as a threat. I want the shooter found and crucified. I do not care to be shot at, Mr. McConnell.”

  “Course not.”

  “There shall be a thorough investigation.”

  “Aye, there will be an accountin’,” McConnell said grimly, “dinna worry about that. Cyril was a goer, an’ he didna deserve such an end. I’ll catch the piker what done him in an string ‘im up by his ballocks for fashing poor Miss Astrid.”

  McConnell was certainly getting into the spirit of things. Montford cleared his throat, thankful he was not on the receiving end of McConnell’s Old Testament justice. “Well, then, since I see you’re on the job, I’ll leave you to it. I’m departing for London tomorrow, and you can send word there if you find our man.”

  McConnell nodded, as if he’d expected this. “Scared ye off, did she?”

  “What?”

  “Miss Astrid. Scared ye off. Reckon ye’ll high-tail it back to Lunnon an send some stuffed shirts down in yer stead to finish her off.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  McConnell crossed his beefy arms over his chest and studied Montford for a long, tense moment. “I’m gonna speak my mind to ye, Yer Grace, an’ yer gonna listen. Ken?”

  Montford blinked. As if the man hadn’t already. “Please, by all means, Mr. McConnell. Proceed.”

  “I dunna care what a piece of paper says, this is the Honeywell’s place, an t’would be criminal to toss them out like yesterday’s dish water.”

  “I am not going to toss them out,” he grit out.

  “Nay?” McConnell said, looking surprised.

  “Nay. You people have the mistaken idea I am some sort of ogre. It is plain to see I cannot merely ask the Honeywells to vacate the premises.”

  McConnell’s stern expression faded as if it never was. He beamed at Montford as if they were now old friends. “Well, then, I dinna know ye had such sense, lad. I mean, Yer Grace.”

  Montford rolled his eyes. “No need to start groveling now, Mr. McConnell. Sit down, if you please, and do something with your pipe before I yank it out of your mouth and shove it down your throat.”

  McConnell laughed and did as Montford ordered. “I’m beginning to like ye, lad.”

  “How lovely,” he said dryly.

  “Despite ye bein Indifferent.”

  Montford ground his teeth together and forced himself back to the main point of this interview. “I am not going to kick them out, but to my mind, there are some issues that need to be addressed. I own this property, in case anyone has forgotten, and I cannot in good conscience let it continue to be run at the behest of Miss Honeywell.”

  Surprisingly, McConnell did not protest.

  “I am willing to let the Honeywells remain at Rylestone Hall, but the management shall have to change.”

  At this, McConnell opened his mouth to say something, but Montford raised his hand. “I don’t want to replace you, Mr. McConnell. If you are indeed the estate manager-cum-constable, then I have to congratulate you on running the estate so well, despite Miss Honeywell’s interference.”

  “She weren’t an interference. A couple of odd notions, here and there, but nothing to do real harm.”

  “Besides cheating me?”

  McConnell looked chagrined. “She dinna do anything foolish, did she? She likes to fancy herself a bit of a Robin Hood, spread the wealth around to those more … ah, deservin’ than yerself.”

  “No one is more deserving than myself.”

  “Of course not.” McConnell averred drily. “Yer not to be sending her to the gaol for a bit of cookin’ of the books?”

  “McConnell, she threw the books in a vat of grease and fried them. But I’ll not send her to the gaol. Good God, who would protect the other inmates?”

  “Or the
guards,” McConnell added in a fond tone. “She’s a canny one, that.”

  “She’s a menace. A hoyden. A danger to herself and others.”

  McConnell’s smile dimmed. “Dunna go too far, Your Grace. She’s a good lass, and has tried her best with what God provided her.”

  “Be that as it may, she needs to be reined in.”

  McConnell sat back in his seat and surveyed Montford. “Aye. An’ are ye the man to do that?”

  At some point, around the time Miss Honeywell was brought up, the conversation had become unhinged. He was not quite sure what McConnell was asking, but the way he asked it was implicating. It was the kind of question a father might ask when attempting to intimidate his daughter’s suitor.

  Montford was alarmed at the idea that McConnell seemed to hold that he was interested in Miss Honeywell. In that way.

  Which he most certainly wasn’t – notwithstanding their encounter of the day before in this very same room. His eyes wandered over to the ladder, where he had nearly kissed her, then the spot on the floor where he had run his hands up her legs and…

  Couples had been married for less than that. He would have been obliged to marry her, had she been a London lady. Thank hell she wasn’t. And thank hell no one had seen them together, for even if she was not precisely genteel, he didn’t see how he could have wriggled out of an engagement and kept his honor as a gentleman.

  But marriage to Miss Astrid Honeywell? Her?

  Montford tugged on his cravat. It was suddenly very warm in the library. Stifling, in fact. “I am not … that is … we are not…”

  McConnell arched his brow and looked satisfied by Montford’s incoherence, as if he had expected no less.

  “Mr. McConnell,” he continued when he had collected his wits, “I am not interested in Miss Honeywell.”

  McConnell looked surprised by this statement. “Ne’er implied ye were.”

  “Did you not?”

  “No, I didna.” McConnell paused, studied Montford in a hawkish way that made him want to squirm. “But ‘twould look verra odd for ye to allow four females to remain here under a roof not their own. Not to mention how verra difficult it would be to keep Miss Astrid out of yer affairs.”

  “I see. And what would you have me do?”

  McConnell smiled, as if he had finally coaxed the exact question from Montford’s lips he had wanted to hear all night. He leaned forward and replaced the pipe in his mouth. “I’ll tell ye what ye can do, and it will get ye free and clear of the Honeywell lasses for good.”

  That was precisely the sort of thing Montford had wanted to hear. He leaned forward, prepared to take in all the advice the Scot could give him. “I’m all ears, Mr. McConnell.”

  CONTRARY TO what the Duke of Montford might surmise regarding her reading habits, Miss Honeywell did not care for gothic novels. She liked academic tomes and, yes, scandalous verse. She read the occasional light novel of manners, but found gothic novels incredibly ridiculous. Miss Alice Honeywell, however, devoured gothic novels like boxes of chocolates, often in one sitting, and always to excess. She reveled in the same overblown sentiments and absurd, lurid plots that her sister declared “piffle” and “a waste of typeset”. She knew all the conventions, could anticipate plot twists and entire speeches from out of the character’s mouths. She often skimmed ahead in order to read the titillating parts, and discreetly dogeared the pages upon which these parts were written in order to reread them at a later date. Which she did. Often.

  She knew the hero from the first trite word out of his mouth, and she could spot a villain even before he entered the scene from some poorly veiled foreshadowing on the author’s part – usually something to do with shifting shadows, or thunder rumbling in the distance. And the villains in her favorite novels were usually afflicted with the following maladies: a) a case of unrequited love for the heroine, b) insanity or c) some combination of both. Alice tended to like these brooding, lost souls better than the heroes and often wished they would succeed in their dastardly schemes.

  The villain in question, who was, alas, not the fictional “Mad Pasha” from Alice’s latest book, and who was currently sitting behind an oversized mahogany desk in a cavernous office some fifty miles north of Rylestone Green, was not cast in shadows, nor did thunder rumble in the distance to alert onlookers to his malevolence. Nor would Alice have liked this particular villain, as he possessed none of the romantic allure – brooding eyes, raven’s wing hair, broad shoulders, etc. – common in the ones from her stories. But he did suffer from the afflictions subscribed to his kind: he wanted a woman he couldn’t have, and he was slightly barmy in his brain box.

  Many of his cohorts suspected the former, as they’d watch him pursue the county hoyden for years, but they subscribed his occasionally obsessive behaviors to uncommon strength of purpose. It was why Samuel Lightfoot was such a success, some said, because of his devotion to his work and his willingness to call a spade a spade.

  No one under his employ, even the henchmen he occasionally called upon to do his dirty work, suspected that he worked twenty-hour days or shouted imprecations at them or anyone in his proximity because he was cracked in the head. They just thought he was a bit of an arse.

  But a successful, rich arse who kept them employed.

  So they minded their manners, even if he didn’t, and continued about their business.

  One of Mr. Lightfoot’s henchmen currently stood at the foot of the mahogany desk. He was tall and strapping and wore a long green hunting coat. He was newly hired and greatly concerned for his future at Dunkirk Brewing Company, as evidenced by the state of the hat mashed between his hands.

  Mr. Lightfoot was still sitting behind his desk, which might have been a good sign, but he had remained silent long after his new employee had finished his tale, which didn’t bode well. Mr. Lightfoot’s silences never remained silences for long. Nothing could be heard in the room but the ticking of an ornate clock over the hearth and the sound of Mr. Lightfoot’s breathing.

  The henchman had the very bad idea to break the uncomfortable silence with his apologies. “I’m surely sorry, sir. Didna mean to actually hit ‘em. But like I said, the demmed scope must have been off. I aimed over his head, just like you told me to –”

  “Cease. Speaking. Worm,” Mr. Lightfoot growled, rising to his feet.

  Mr. Lightfoot was a good deal shorter than him and a bit paunchy, as if he enjoyed a pint or two of his recipe of an evening. The henchman was certain he could take Mr. Lightfoot in a fair fight. But he suspected he’d never see a fair fight with Mr. Lightfoot. He didn’t trust the gleam in the man’s dark eyes. So he backed up a step or two and watched out for knives or any other flying objects.

  “You tell me you nearly succeeded in killing the Duke of Bloody Montford,” Mr. Lightfoot said quite pleasantly.

  “He took a tumble, an’ the horse was done for, but he ain’t dead,” the henchman assured him. He’d loitered about the castle for a while until the young popinjay, Sir Wesley, had come and told the story about the Duke’s spill, before riding up to inform his new employer of the proceedings. “His Majesty’s hale and hearty and no doubt dustin’ up a storm at the castle.”

  “Then I wonder why you feel the need to apologize,” Mr. Lightfoot said evenly, “when you succeeded in doing the job I assigned. Nothing I hate more than apologies for doing your job, Mr. Weeks.”

  Mr. Weeks crimped his hat brim together end to end and stared at the brewer in surprise. He’d not thought of it in that way. All he could think when he saw the Duke tumble down the embankment was that he was a dead man. He’d nearly wet himself imagining the noose tightening around his neck. A body did not shoot Dukes.

  Mr. Lightfoot began pacing at the foot of his desk, deep in thought.

  “This is better than I could have planned. A shot overhead, she might not have taken seriously. But this, this is hard to overlook. No, it’s better this way. Good work, Mr. Weeks.”

  Mr. Weeks was confuse
d and a bit apprehensive over this commendation, but he allowed himself to breathe a sigh of relief that he was off the hook. “Thank ye, sir.”

  “Now, tomorrow I shall attend the Harvest Festival in Rylestone Green to assess whether Miss Honeywell has changed her mind regarding my suit,” Mr. Lightfoot continued.

  “Will she be knowing you had something to do with the shooting?”

  “I suspect she’ll have an inkling. If not, I shall suggest it to her on the morrow and warn her that the next time you shall not miss, should she continue to be difficult.”

  “Right.” The henchman’s brow furrowed. “I mean, we ain’t actually going to kill His Grace?”

  Mr. Lightfoot looked annoyed. “Of course not, you fool. It’s a bluff.”

  “Oh.” He scratched the back of his neck, then his backside, trying to wrap his mind around Mr. Lightfoot’s elaborate scheme. It didn’t make a bit of sense to him, but then again, he’d never been terribly clever at puzzles.

  Mr. Lightfoot stopped pacing and crossed his arms over his girth. “And if she doesn’t prove amenable, we’ll move on to our next plan. She’ll have no choice but to wed me then.”

  “Right,” Mr. Weeks said, clearing his throat, full of doubts now. He’d known Miss Astrid for years and years, and it was hard to imagine her wed to anyone, especially Mr. Lightfoot. But as Mr. Lightfoot assured him, she needed a husband. Mr. Weeks couldn’t agree more. Someone needed to take the wench in hand, for all she was a generous manager. She was a woman, and ought to know her place. Mr. Lightfoot, of all the men in the county, seemed quite up to the job. Yet Mr. Weeks wondered, not for the first time, whether his new employer would be kind. He didn’t like the idea of handing Miss Astrid over to a villain.

  “Remember,” Mr. Lightfoot said in a conciliatory voice, seeing his henchman’s doubts. “We’re doing this for her own good. She’ll be rich and well-treated by me.”

  “Right,” Mr. Weeks said, not feeling very assured. “For her own good.”

  “And don’t forget your own family, Mr. Weeks. Four wee ones, and another on the way. When the Duke tosses you out, you’ll find no better work than with my company.”