Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord (Love By Numbers #2)(6)

“I’m afraid I cannot stay.” The duke’s words were clipped. “I came looking for you.”

“You and the female population of London,” Gabriel said with a laugh.

The duke ignored him, folding his giant frame into the seat and setting his gloves on the scarred wooden table. Turning to face Nick, nearly blocking Rock and Gabriel from the conversation, he said, “I’m afraid that you are not going to like what it is I have to ask of you.”

Nick waved the barmaid over with a tumbler of whisky, keenly aware of the distress in his friend’s gaze.

“Does it involve marrying him off?” Gabriel asked dryly.

Leighton looked surprised. “No.”

“Then I would think that Nick would welcome your request.”

The duke took a large gulp of whisky and met Nick’s interest. “I’m not so sure. You see, I am not here for Nick. I am here for the bulan.”

There was a long silence as the words sank in around the table. Rock and Gabriel stiffened, but did not speak, watching Nick carefully. Nick leaned forward, placed his forearms on the scarred wood, and tented his fingers. He spoke quietly, his eyes not leaving Leighton.

“I do not do that any longer.”

“I know. And I would not ask if I did not need you.”

“Who?”

“My sister. She’s gone.”

Nick sat back in his chair. “I don’t chase after runaways, Leighton. You should call Bow Street.”

Leighton’s frustration brought him forward in a rush of movement. “For Christ’s sake, St. John. You know I can’t do that. It will be in the papers yesterday. I need the bulan.”

Nick recoiled from the word. He did not care for being the hunter once again. “I don’t do it any longer. You know that.”

“I’ll pay you whatever you ask.”

Ralston laughed at that, drawing a growl from the duke. “What’s so amusing about that?”

“Only the idea that my brother would take payment. I don’t imagine you’ve endeared him to your cause with that offer, Leighton.”

The duke scowled. “You know, Ralston, you were never the twin I preferred.”

“Most people feel that way,” Ralston said. “I assure you I am not overwrought at the idea. Indeed, I confess a modicum of surprise that you are even here, deigning to speak with us, what with our ‘questionable stock'—isn’t that how you refer to it?”

“Gabriel, enough.” Nick stopped his brother from going too far into the past.

Leighton at least had the grace to be embarrassed.

For many years, the St. John twins, though aristocracy themselves, had been a primary outlet for young Leighton’s disdain. The scandal that had fallen on the house of Ralston when the twins were young—their mother’s desertion of her husband and family—had made them ideal prey for the more pristine families of the ton, and Leighton, in their class at Eton, had never failed to remind them of their mother’s disreputable actions.

Until one day, Leighton went too far, and Nick had put him into a wall.

Pounding a duke was not something that the second son of a marquess could get away with at Eton; Nick would have almost certainly been dismissed had he not been a twin—and Gabriel had taken responsibility for the event. The future Marquess of Ralston had been sent home from term early, and Leighton and Nick had come to a tentative truce, no one the wiser.

The truce had become a friendship of sorts—one that had blossomed in the upper years of Eton, and withered during the years when Nick cut a swath across the Continent. Leighton had already ascended to the dukedom, and his fortune had, in no small part, funded Nick and Rock’s expeditions into the dark recesses of the Orient.

Leighton had played an important role in making the bulan.

But Nick was not that man any longer.

“What do you know? ”

“Nick …” Rock spoke for the first time since the duke had arrived, but Nick raised one hand. “Mere curiosity.”

“I know she’s gone. I know she’s taken money and a handful of things she considers invaluable.” “Why did she leave? “ Leighton shook his head. “I don’t know.” “There’s always a reason.” “That may be … but I don’t know it.”

“When?”

“Two weeks ago.”

“And you only come to me now?”

“She had planned a trip to see a cousin in Bath. It was ten days before I realized she lied to me.”

“Her maid?”

“I terrified her into confessing that Georgiana went north. She knew nothing else. My sister was very careful to cover her tracks.”

Nick sat back in his chair, mind racing, energy coursing through him. Someone had helped the girl. Was still helping her if she’d not given up and returned to her brother. It had been years since he had tracked someone—he’d forgotten the pleasure that came with a new search.

But this was no longer his life.

He met the duke’s worried gaze. “She’s my sister, Nick. You must know that I wouldn’t ask you if there were another way.”

The words struck Nick to his core. He had a sister, too. And he would do whatever it took to keep her safe.

Damn.

“My lord?”