Tony choked on his brandy. “I don’t like you speaking of a man’s brother like that, Charles. Wouldn’t be surprised if Luc called you out for it. And if he don’t, I might.”

“He knows I won’t, damn his two eyes.” Luc slipped the letter into his pocket. “And you won’t either.”

“I’ll challenge the blackguard if I like, even if I do owe him a hundred guineas from that faro disaster.”

“There is a note enclosed from Adina, Lucien,” Cam said. “Are you not interested in reading our auntie’s heartfelt pleas for you to return and make it all better for her?”

“Bed her already, did you, Cam?”

Tony sprang to his feet, knocking his chair over behind him. “Damn all three of your eyes. The poor girl’s only just been widowed.”

“Sit down, you chivalrous fool.” Cam laughed with languor. “Luc is merely taunting. And the duchess is not to my tastes anyway.”

“She’s not female and married, then?” Luc finally took up his glass.

The duke had died. Long live the duke.

In the nineteen years during which Adina had been Theodore’s wife, she had lost five infants before birth. The life of the poor child she carried now was not by any means a certainty. After the fifth still birth, Theodore’s demand that Luc relinquish his command in the navy had made his concerns upon that score eminently clear.

But Luc had always assumed his uncle would recover from his illness and continue trying to make heirs. Others had grimly suggested that delicate Adina would not survive the next difficult birth, and that Theodore would swiftly take a second wife whose ability to produce heirs might meet with more success.

Now that was not possible, and because of it everything had changed.

The face of the sailor Mundy haunted Luc, like the little governess’s pleas to save the starving youth. A year after the famine now, hunger still ravaged the poor. Failed harvests the year before had decimated seed reserves, and this year’s crops were scant. He’d seen it in Portugal in the spring, France in the summer, and again in Cornwall and Devon before he departed Plymouth: peasants’ hollow cheeks, the bone-thin limbs of villagers, and children dying everywhere. Even his own family’s patrimony, a sprawling Shropshire estate, still suffered.

But he had no choice now. His current cargo must sail to Portugal without him.

Now he had one goal: he must have an heir. With the duke dead, while Adina awaited the birth of her child, the duchy was in abeyance. But if the child did not survive, or if it was a girl, Luc would inherit. He must leave his ship and return to London to find a suitable bride. The French property was modest, the Rallis title honorary; his brother Christos, who had lived at the chateau for years, could manage those. But the dukedom must never come to him. The weight of responsibility and authority would kill Christos as surely as if it were a guillotine.

Finally, Luc could no longer remain abroad. For the first time in eleven years, he must go home.

In doing so, he could see to the troubles at Combe while he still might. Theodore could not name him principal trustee to the estate. He feared that Fletcher, his uncle’s longtime friend, had been given that honor instead. Luc had only until the birth to wield authority at Combe. After the birth he would have none . . . or all.

“In point of fact, coz,” Cam said, “the duchess isn’t in any condition to be rolling about in the hay with anybody. Lovely Adina is nearly in her confinement.”

Luc’s gaze snapped up. “Already?”

“Oh, how the months fly.”

“Poor girl.” Tony shook his head. “With her record at the track, likely as not it’s all for nothing. Still, Luc’s got to hang about twiddling his thumbs waiting. Damn the aristocracy, yanking a fellow about this way and that all his life. Much better to be a commoner, I always say.”

“Your father is a baronet, Anthony,” Cam said with a slight smile.

Tony waved his cheroot about. “Nobody cares a sow’s ear about a wretched little baronet. Least of all his fifth son, don’t you know.”

“When is the child due?” Luc said.

“November.”

Less than three months. Three months, after which Absalom Fletcher could very well be the de facto master of Lycombe for years to come. Or three months until he himself became duke. It all depended on a fragile widowed duchess and her unborn infant.

Luc rubbed his scar. Casually, Cam turned his head away. But for the first time in six months, Luc did not have the urge to plow his fist into his cousin’s perfect face.

“Still and all, Luc, the poor girl could probably use a man about the place.” Tony patted the hilt of his saber. “Best you hurry home.”

“What is that monstrosity?” Cam passed an arch look over the sword. “Good God, Tony, it looks like the crown jewels.”

“Family piece.” Tony’s chest puffed out. “My great-grandfather had it as a gift from King Willie himself after his smashing success at Cherbourg, don’t you know.”

Luc stared distractedly at the glittering gems on the sword handle. A ruby caught his eye, but not nearly as large as the jewel on the little governess’s ring. He could not follow her to his chateau after all. It was for the best. He had no business courting trouble with a governess, no matter how brave and vulnerable and foolhardy she was, and no matter how her magnificent eyes looked at him with barely veiled desire and her tongue surprised him at every turn.

He swallowed the brandy in his glass, all of it, as he had the night before when he shared the darkness with a beautiful little sodden servant.

“I’ll leave the Retribution in Church’s command,” he said. “Will you head back to England immediately?”

Tony snorted. “The Admiralty has commanded that I put my ship at your disposal. The Victory sails at your leisure. Again.” He grinned upon a scowl.

Luc met his cousin’s dark gaze. Cam stared back at him, his eyes hooded.

“Why did you really volunteer to bring me the news, Cam?”

The corner of Cam’s mouth crept up. “Serendipitously, at the moment of our uncle’s demise I found myself with the pressing need to be absent from London.”

“A woman, I presume.” Luc’s scar ached. Six months ago it had also been a scandal with a woman that drove his cousin from England to France. A girl, rather. But that time Cam had surprised him. His cousin’s vice had not been what Luc imagined. By the time he understood the truth of it, of course, it was too late. His eye had been the casualty of his misjudgment.

Cam absently twirled the stem of his brandy glass. “It is always a woman that drives a rational man to behave contrary to his interests, Lucien. That you are too blind to see that”—he finally looked directly at the kerchief about Luc’s brow—“is no one’s fault but your own.”

Luc scraped back his chair and rose. The door opened and the Victory’s first lieutenant entered.

“Captain,” the sailor said to Masinter, “we’ve interrogated Mundy. He’ll admit only that he was hired in Plymouth by a man he had never seen before to find the Retribution, join the crew, and steal poison from the infirmary. He was to await further orders when they arrived in Saint-Nazaire.” He turned to Luc. “I believe he is telling the truth, sir.”

“Put the thumbscrews on the lad, did you?” Cam drawled.

“He gave you no name for the man that hired him?” Luc asked the lieutenant.

“He said he didn’t know it, sir. As to thumbs . . .” He glanced at the earl. “Mundy said that the man lacked a thumb on his left hand.”

“Thank you, Park,” Tony said. “That will be all.”

“Aye, Captain.” The officer left.

Tony scowled, this time with no pleasure. “Blast it, Luc, I don’t like a thief going freely about my ship.”

“Hold him in the bilge if you wish. I will speak with him during our return.” And learn what could be learned of the lad’s attempt at thievery. If her instincts were to be believed—her ability to read men, as she said—Mundy was not a thief by inclination but by desperation. But the poison was worrisome.