And then Everson stopped. “Forgive me. I should not be speaking out of turn. Lady Catherine, you will draw whatever conclusions you wish to about His Grace, but I am pleased that you are in his life, and I hope that you will continue to be a force of good for him.”
“I shall try,” she said. “He is certainly a force of good in mine.”
“I’m glad.” Everson hesitated as if uncertain how to convey his thoughts, but then he seemed to throw away caution. “I was sorry that such dark things happened around your brother, but they were necessary, you understand. His Grace always does what is necessary.”
“Yes,” she replied. “And that was why I came to him.”
“Then you are wise,” he said.
“I think I understand better now, why you were so firm when you turned me away… you wish to protect him, don’t you?”
“Yes,” he said softly. “If I can, in my way.” But then Everson shook his head quickly. “You are required downstairs. There are several tradespeople. They wish to fit you for dresses and accoutrements. They’ve brought some ready-made things because His Grace wishes to take you out this evening.”
“I beg your pardon?” she gasped.
“He has already gone out,” Everson explained patiently. “He has a day that is full to the brim with the affairs of being a duke. He will not return until almost ten o’clock at night. But he will expect you to be ready.”
She wanted to query, “Out where?”
But she did not think it would be helpful to ask Everson such a thing. She simply had to put her trust in the duke.
She inclined her head. “Thank you. I shall come at once.”
She took one last, lingering look over her shoulder at the portraits on the desk. The melancholy that filled her was so intense she could hardly breathe. She could not fathom how he had managed to survive it and be so good. And perhaps that was why he said he was not, because he had survived something so hard.
Perhaps he could not see how he truly was.
Perhaps he could only see the man who was swallowed up by grief.
Chapter 8
Garret was supposed to be working.
He was not.
Instead, he had sought out one of the only people that he considered an equal in emotion, or lack thereof. He had friends, if one could call them that. Men like Tom Courtney and the Duke of Clyde.
But the Earl of Argyle was something altogether different. Argyle had not been to Scotland in almost ten years. Argyle did not want to go home. He did not want to face his people. He did not want to face anyone, as a matter of fact, because his face and much of his body was a sight that most did not wish to behold. Including Argyle himself.
Garret visited his friend Callum often. It was necessary. After all, if he did not, Callum would no doubt go for days, if not weeks, without seeing a single human soul besides his servants.
And truth be told, there was no man better for fighting than Callum.
So as Blackwood raced up the steps to Callum’s exclusive home west of London on the Great River Thames, he steeled himself. Argyle was often in a terrible mood. His pain made it so that he could not smile without difficulty, and the truth was that his whole body had been ravaged by war.
Unlike many aristocrats, Argyle and Garret had fought Napoleon because they had both seen the sort of existential threat that the man was.
Napoleon would not be content with being emperor of France. The man wanted to own the world, and England was a part of that world. There would be no stopping a man like Napoleon unless people like him and Argyle fought with tooth and blood.
They had until it had been no longer effective for them to do so.
Argyle had been injured beyond repair, sent home, and told not to come back.
Together, they had done things that most of London thought nefarious beyond measure.
They’d gone behind enemy lines, and they’d killed men without mercy. And they had not hesitated, for those men had ravaged the Spanish countryside. They had killed women and children and partisans, leaving the most horrific tales in their wake.
He and Argyle had thought nothing of putting those men to rest permanently in hell.