The Duke's Holiday Read Online Free PDF Page B

in a flash – faster than Montford had seen him move in years
– and this time he was so distraught he forgot about his port. The glass
tumbled down his gut and landed on the Persian carpet.
    The sound that emerged from Montford’s throat was not a whimper, but it was damned close.
    Marlowe blotted the front of his stained waistcoat to no
real effect and bent over to retrieve his snifter. “Awful sorry, Montford,” he
muttered.
    “Don’t worry. I’ll buy a new one,” he said through his
gritted teeth, feeling a headache come on.
    “Yes, well …” Marlowe drifted off and furrowed his brow in
an obvious attempt to recover his train of thought. It came back in a horrible
rush. “Honeywell’s dead!” he blustered with a passion Montford would have
appreciated in his apology about the carpet. “Don’t tell me the brewery has
folded! I don’t think I could bear it.”
    “Of course the brewery’s not going to fold,” Sebastian
scoffed. He turned to Montford, looking a bit apprehensive himself. “It’s not,
is it?”
    Montford shrugged, and because he couldn’t stand it another
second, he marched over to the spill, armed with a handkerchief, and began to
blot up the port on the carpet. “Honeywell had no male heir. The property
reverts back to the dukedom,” he said.
    “But you won’t … surely you won’t shut it down,” Marlowe
cried. “Montford! You wouldn’t be so cruel!”
    “Alyosius Honeywell died a year ago. Clearly someone is
still producing that swill you call ale. You are in no danger of dying of
thirst.”
    “Oh,” said Marlowe, who, seeing that the crisis had been
averted, shrugged and returned to his seat – after pouring himself a new
glass of port.
    “Oh,” echoed Sherbrook, who furrowed his brow. “A year, you
say. How peculiar. It’s not like you to let a detail like that go, Montford.”
    “I didn’t. I didn’t know he was dead until two weeks ago.”
    Sherbrook cocked an eyebrow. “Indeed. I wager that one has
been sticking in your craw.”
    “You have no idea.”
    “So what are you going to do?”
    “I haven’t decided.”
    “You aren’t going to shut down the brewery, are you?”
Sherbrook asked, pitching his voice so as not to distress the slumbering Marlowe
again.
    “It is hardly profitable.”
    Sherbrook shook his head and threw up his hands in
exasperation. “That’s everything to you, isn’t it? Profit?”
    “Not everything. But damned near close.” Someone had to keep his two friends in beverages
and meat pies.
    “At least you’re honest.”
    “See here, Sherbrook, you know how the Montfords despise
the Honeywells.”
    “May I point out you’ve never even met a Honeywell?”
    “Yes, well, be that as it may, Rylestone is my responsibility,
and I will be damned before I let it continue to be so grossly mismanaged. The
tenants must be starving, considering what I’ve seen of the returns on the
estate.”
    “But the ale !
Montford, it’s the best ale in the Kingdom!” Sherbrook wheedled, the plight of
the tenants completely beside the point, as far as he was concerned.
    Montford sighed and rubbed his forehead. “I honestly don’t
know what I’ll do. With Stevenage out of touch, I am feeling … disjointed.”
    Sebastian nodded his head decisively. “What you need is a
good holiday.”
    Montford snorted. A holiday indeed. “Dukes do not take
holidays.”
    Sebastian gave him an arch look. “Really, Montford. You can
be so tiresome sometimes. You’re a mortal man, same as the rest of us. And if
you ask me, you need to loosen that cravat of yours a little before you
strangle on it.”
    “Hear, hear,” Marlowe seconded, apparently more alert to
the proceedings than his posture indicated.
    “I didn’t ask you,” he growled. “Or you,” he added in
Marlowe’s direction.
    Sebastian rolled his eyes.
    “Besides, there’s no time for a … holiday, what with the
wedding in a month,” Montford finished.
    Sherbrook’s face darkened, as it