The Lost Duke of Wyndham (Two Dukes of Wyndham, #1)(41)

"The rules don't apply," Mr. Audley said with a shrug. And then, as soon as the dowager was looking away, he winked at Grace. "What did she say yesterday?" he asked again.

Grace was not sure she could adequately paraphrase, given that she was so at odds with the overall sentiment, but she couldn't very well ignore his direct question twice, so she said, "That there is an art to insult, and if one can do it without the subject realizing, it's even more impressive."

She looked over to the dowager, waiting to see if she would be corrected. "It does not apply," the dowager said archly, "when one is the subject of the insult."

"Wouldn't it still be art for the other person?" Grace asked.

"Of course not. And why should I care if it were?" The dowager sniffed disdainfully and turned back to her breakfast. "I don't like this bacon," she announced.

"Are your conversations always this oblique?" Mr. Audley asked.

"No," Grace answered, quite honestly. "It has been a most exceptional two days."

No one had anything to add to that, probably because they were all in such agreement. But Mr. Audley did fill the silence by turning to the dowager and saying, "I found the bacon to be superb."

To that, the dowager replied, "Is Wyndham returned?"

"I don't believe so," Grace answered. She looked up to the footman. "Graham?"

"No, miss, he is not at home."

The dowager pursed her lips into an expression of irritated discontent. "Very inconsiderate of him."

"It is early yet," Grace said.

"He did not indicate that he would be gone all night."

"Is the duke normally required to register his schedule with his grandmother?" Mr. Audley murmured, clearly out to make trouble.

Grace gave him a peeved look. Surely this did not require a reply. He smiled in return. He enjoyed vexing her. This much was becoming abundantly clear. She did not read too much into it, however. The man enjoyed vexing everyone.

Grace turned back to the dowager. "I am certain he will return soon."

The dowager's expression did not budge in its irritation. "I had hoped that he would be here so that we might talk frankly, but I suppose we may proceed without him."

"Do you think that's wise?" Grace asked before she could stop herself. And indeed, the dowager responded to her impertinence with a withering stare. But Grace refused to regret speaking out. It was not right to make determinations about the future in Thomas's absence.

"Footman!" the dowager barked. "Leave us and close the doors behind you."

Once the room was secure, the dowager turned to Mr. Audley and announced, "I have given the matter great thought."

"I really think we should wait for the duke," Grace cut in. Her voice sounded a little panicked, and she wasn't sure why she was quite so distressed. Perhaps it was because Thomas was the one person who had made her life bearable in the past five years. If it hadn't been for him, she'd have forgotten the sound of her own laughter.

She liked Mr. Audley. She liked him rather too much, in all honesty, but she would not allow the dowager to hand him Thomas's birthright over breakfast.

"Miss Eversleigh - " the dowager bit off, clearly beginning a blistering set-down.

"I agree with Miss Eversleigh," Mr. Audley put in smoothly. "We should wait for the duke."

But the dowager waited for no one. And her expression was one part formidable and two parts defiant when she said, "We must travel to Ireland. Tomorrow if we can manage it."




Jack's usual response when delivered unpleasant tidings was to smile. This was his response to pleasant news as well, of course, but anyone could grin when offered a compliment. It took talent to curve one's lips in an upward direction when ordered, say, to clean out a chamber pot or risk one's life by sneaking behind enemy lines to determine troop numbers.

But he generally managed it. Excrement...moving defenseless among the French...he always reacted with a dry quip and a lazy smile.

This was not something he'd had to cultivate. Indeed, the midwife who'd brought him into the world swore to her dying day that he was the only baby she'd ever seen who emerged from his mother's womb smiling.

He disliked conflict. He always had, which had made his chosen professions - the military, followed by genteel crime - somewhat interesting. But firing a weapon at a nameless frog or lifting a necklace from the neck of an overfed aristocrat - this was not conflict.

Conflict - to Jack - was personal. It was a lover's betrayal, a friend's insult. It was two brothers vying for their father's approval, a poor relation forced to swallow her pride. It involved a sneer, or a shrill voice, and it left a body wondering if he'd offended someone.

Or disappointed another.

He had found, with a near one hundred percent success rate, that a grin and a jaunty remark could defuse almost any situation. Or change any topic. Which meant that he very rarely had to discuss matters that were not of his choosing.

Nonetheless, this time, when faced with the dowager and her unexpected (although, really, he should have expected it) announcement, all he could do was stare at her and say, "I beg your pardon?"

"We must go to Ireland," she said again, in that obey-me tone he expected she had been born with.