My Dangerous Duke Read Online Free PDF

yes, they know all about you,” he informed them with a cutting edge to his voice. “As a courtesy to a peer of the realm, he saw fit to warn me in advance of the raid about to be carried out on the village. You should have seen how eager he was for your blood.”
    The smugglers exchanged uneasy glances.
    “We all know what a thorn your gang has been in the side of the Coast Guard. Now they have witnesses, you see. Crewmen from that merchant ship you sank.”
    “But Your Grace—”
    “Silence!”
    They cowered.
    “I will not hear your excuses!” he boomed. “If even one of those sailors had drowned, I should not have intervened to save your miserable hides, I can assure you. Did I mention that the Coast Guard was even prepared to arrest your wives? Aye, and most of your young sons, as well. It’s no secret that these shipwrecks usually involve the whole village. However”—he continued pacing—“given that no lives were lost, I was able, at the cost of a large sum of gold, to bribe the Coast Guard agent into letting me deal with you privately. He agreed to a simple arrangement.
    “I promised to hand over the men directly responsible for the shipwreck; these alone will face prosecution. In exchange, the rest of the village will be spared.”
    He noted their looks of relief.
    “Gentlemen, I know it is your great tradition to protect one another with your code of silence. While I admire your loyalty, times have changed now that the war is over,” he informed them, scanning the line of them slowly. “The Coast Guard doesn’t have to keep watch for Boney anymore. Now they’re free to concentrate on you .”
    A few of them blanched.
    “At any rate, the Coast Guard man consented to my proposal, and Mr. Doyle has wisely agreed to cooperate.”
    Rohan had written to the smugglers’ chief before leaving London, giving him the chance to redeem himself by rounding up the guilty party ahead of his arrival.
    He cast old Caleb Doyle a dark glance. “I trust you are ready to hand them over now?”
    “Aye, sir.”
    Rohan gave him a curt nod. “Bring them in.”
    Doyle glanced grimly at his underlings to go and fetch the prisoners, who remained under guard in the carriages outside. The smugglers retreated from the great hall, but Doyle stayed behind; when Rohan looked at him, he could not help noticing the weariness on the old man’s face, and perhaps a trace of shame.
    No doubt Doyle was aggrieved, considering two of his own nephews were caught up in the scheme. Now it was either the gallows or some hell-hole penal colony for them.
    What a waste. But Rohan also suspected that Doyle’s look of guilt arose from the fact that, as the smugglers’ leader, he was ultimately to blame for failing to keep his people under control.
    Rohan knew that Caleb had not authorized the shipwreck. The feckless crime had been the brainchild of a handful of the younger men out to prove their mettle.
    That was part of the problem. Doyle was growing older, weaker, losing his authority. It was inevitable that his role as village head would eventually be challenged by the new blood. No doubt Doyle’s pride had taken a blow in all this, but Rohan did not intend to throw him to the wolves. The old man was too valuable to lose. Though a trickster by nature, to be sure, Caleb Doyle had proved his loyalty these many years to both Rohan’s father and to him.
    By now, having arranged the delivery of so many secret communiqués, the grizzled smugglers’ chief surely suspected certain things about the Warrington dukes’ longstanding involvement in secret government intrigues.
    Fortunately, Caleb was too shrewd to let on how much he knew—or guessed. Indeed, part of Doyle’s genius lay in knowing what questions not to ask.
    The mood in the great hall was tense as they heard Eldred get the front door for the guilty smugglers, who were about to be brought in.
    Rohan took a seat on the old, thronelike chair in the center of the great hall and