What I Did For a Duke Read Online Free PDF Page B

their cousin on their mother’s side, and since the Everseas owned the living they’d installed him as a vicar and the little church in Pennyroyal Green had never been more crowded on Sundays, owing to Adam’s . . . appeal.
    Polly Hawthorne wove through the crowd and pointedly settled both ales down in front of Ian. She cut Colin dead with an admirable flick of her long, black braid as she departed with coins jingling in her hand.
    Ian grinned. He was beginning to feel a little more like himself, despite his barked shin and raw feet and hands and the damned souvenir splinter in his thumb, which was working itself out only slowly, surely a form of penance.
    “And besides, the duke didn’t call me out. He just sent me out the window.”
    Colin leaned back slowly against his chair. He pressed his lips together pensively.
    And then he began drumming his fingers rhythmically against his tankard of ale. And said nothing.
    “What?” Ian demanded irritably.
    “Ah, but here is what troubles me, Ian. They say the duke’s heart is so hard and black that musket balls glance right off. And that he always gets his revenge in some fashion.”
    “Rumor and conjecture and pure bloody balderdash.” The rumors were easier to dismiss, anyway, after that first sip of the dark. Courage in a tankard.
    “If he didn’t call you out, then what did he say? Anything?”
    Ian hesitated to say it aloud. “Something about the punishment fitting the crime,” he admitted.
    Colin took this in.
    “Chhh rrrrist ,” he finally said grimly.
    Ian didn’t have time to retort. Olivia and Genevieve had just pushed through the door of the Pig & Thistle, letting in a gust of autumn air, and when they didn’t immediately begin divesting themselves of cloaks and gloves—the warmth of the place was like donning a second coat—he correctly imagined they were to collect him to greet guests at home. The Everseas were holding an autumn house party. Another blessedly normal event.
    He gestured with his chin in their direction, and held a finger to his lips, which was unnecessary. It was a tacit understanding that not a word of his exploit would be breathed to anyone else in the family.
    Their sisters immediately spotted their tall brothers slouched over ales and wended their way through the tables, nodding and smiling to friends and acquaintances in the pub.
    “I wonder what’s wrong with Genevieve,” Ian murmured. “She looks a bit pale.”
    They didn’t mention Olivia. She looked lovely, as usual, but they both almost unconsciously glanced toward the dartboard, where Jonathan Redmond was handily winning and looking more and more like his brother Lyon, the eldest Redmond, every day, which did nothing to endear him to the Everseas. The Redmonds maintained Olivia was the heartless siren who had caused their heir to mysteriously disappear. Olivia steadfastly denied anything of the sort, insisted, sometimes with a yawn, sometimes with a tinkly incredulous laugh, that her heart was whole and hale, all the while skillfully shaking off suitors with the grace with which a duck shakes water from its feathers.
    And Ian would have strangled Lyon Redmond if he could, because despite everything, not a one of them could bear to see anyone hurt their sisters.
    “Darling brothers, we’ve been sent to fetch you. Father is expecting an important guest in a few hours and he wants you to be present when he arrives.”
    “Who could possibly warrant my presence so urgently?”
    Olivia presented the name with as much ceremony as she would a scepter.
    “The Duke of Falconbridge.”
    To their astonishment, their brothers greeted this news with resounding silence.
    Olivia murmured in Genevieve’s ear, “I wonder what’s wrong with Ian. He looks pale.”

Chapter 3
    T he duke stood in the Everseas’ echoing marble foyer, his feet planted on the north end of an enormous inlaid marble compass star, a mosaic in shades of gold. A team of efficient liveried footmen had