Chapter 15
“Hunter Lindsay? Did that man just say his name is Hunter Lindsay?”
Even through the joy of kissing Helena—did her rather inaudible response mean she was willing to marry him?—Hunter heard and recognized that voice.
Peter Huffington.
The man who tried to kill him…
…and perhaps more.
The bastard’s response to his name was another clue...
Reluctantly Hunter released Helena, setting her on her feet and brushing a kiss across her nose. “Here, love. Hold young Beowulf for me.”
Wulfie, however, was having none of that. The little runt jumped from Hunter’s arms to run circles around his mistress, growling at the newcomer.
Or perhaps the newcomer’s birds.
Because as the still-laughing crowd parted and began to disperse, still talking excitedly amongst themselves at the big revelation, the bird-bedecked man hurried forward, his concerned gaze locked on Hunter.
“Where did he find more parrots?” Helena murmured from behind him as Wulfie began to bark.
Hunter considered carefully. “I think those are parakeets.” There were two on his head and four in the cage he carried. What was the collective noun for a bunch of parakeets? A flutter? A squawk? A denouement? “Lovebirds, perhaps?”
“Is he planning on gifting them?” Helena’s whisper turned horrified. “I did not have time to send the letter to him!”
The absurdity of it all made Hunter start to chuckle. “Then I’m sorry, sweetheart, but I think he’s planning on wooing ye with birds.”
But to his surprise, Huffington didn’t even glance at Helena. Instead, he plopped the cage down in an absentminded manner—Wulfie made a beeline for it—and stepped up to Hunter.
In a hoarse voice, the strange man rasped, “Did you say your name is Hunter Lindsay?”
“I did, aye,” Hunter admitted in amusement, watching from the corner of his eye as an exasperated Helena scooped up the cage of possible-lovebirds to keep Wulfie from harassing them.
Well, it was hard to be afraid of a man so utterly feathered.
“I’m no’ Helena’s husband, and I’m no’ Lickfold, never have bin.
So call off yer assassins, Huffington. Killing me will do nae good. ”
The man didn’t seem fazed at being accused of murder, or the realization that Helena had lied.
Instead, his blue gaze—his unsettlingly familiar blue gaze—burned into Hunter’s.
“Hunter Lindsay, the nephew of the Duke of Exingham,” he rasped, stepping closer.
He lifted trembling hands. “That Hunter Lindsay.”
Ah.
Well, Hunter had wondered at the arsehole’s name, ever since he’d heard it from Helena…although he’d been too distracted at the time to do anything about it.
He watched Helena holding the birdcage awkwardly, her lips tugging into an adorable frown, and suddenly the truth of the matter slammed into his brain.
Ah, fook. He should hae spotted it, and now he had…
Hunter cleared his throat and asked her nonchalantly, “Love? Did I ever tell ye my mother’s name? Before she ran off to London in a huff and changed it?”
Her attention snapped back to him, just as the man Huffington reached for him. One of the parakeets flew from his head—going God knows where—as his fingers clenched around the lapels of Hunter’s jacket.
“Huffington,” Hunter and the older man said together.
The woman had been so little of a mother to him, Hunter had barely registered the name, but he could see it now. See her in the man’s face.
His mother had been born Lillian Huffington, and now Hunter knew why this man’s eyes were so familiar. They were the same eyes which looked out of his own shaving mirror each morning.
“Do you have it?” Huffington’s voice had gone hoarse as he shook—or attempted to shake—Hunter. His grip felt fragile, his fingers weak. Another bird flew away, but the parrots seemed content on his shoulders. “Do you have it?”
Frowning, Hunter curled his hands around the old man’s wrists. He didn’t want to hurt the arsehole—despite the whole trying to have him killed thing which was always a damper on a friendship—but he didn’t know what he was talking about. “Have what? Let me go, man—”
“The spoon!” Huffington wailed, shaking him again. “The magic spoon! If you’re Lillian’s son, you must know where the magic spoon is!”
The—?
“The magic spoon?” Helena whispered.
And despite the manic look in Huffington’s eyes, Hunter began to chuckle. As the older man blinked and released him, the chuckles turned to guffaws.
The magic spoon! This was its purpose? To ward off an assassin?
Barely able to find his pocket, Hunter managed to pull out—yes!—the teeny tiny spoon. He held the speck of silver up with a flourish. “I’m—I’m never without it, auld man!” he laughed.
Huffington snatched the filigreed utensil from his fingers. With both hands, he held it aloft, reverently. “The spoon,” he whispered worshipfully. “Our grandmother’s spoon! Lillian took it when she left because she knew how badly I wanted it!”
Oh, is that what it was? Hunter’s mother must’ve hocked it as soon as she reached London, just to anger her brother, a character trait Hunter desperately wished he was surprised by.
And how exactly had it reached Lady Mistree’s collection?
Well, thanks to the old woman and her devastating illness, cough cough, the spoon was back in the correct hands.
Peter Huffington’s shaking, over-eager hands.
Huffington’s gaze suddenly sharpened and swung back to Hunter. “If you have it, then you are Lillian’s son. My nephew. My only nephew.”
It was as Hunter suspected; well, his mother had once muttered about a little brother and there was no reason to think the man had died.
He also suspected his Uncle Peter was a few ounces shy of a pint.
So he nodded affably and exchanged a glance with Helena, who was holding the cage awkwardly away from her body—and a good thing, too, because every bird who’d abandoned Huffington was trying to land on the thing. Her lips curled distastefully.
The old man was still holding the spoon in both hands, raised toward the heavens as if it were a holy item. “My nephew,” he repeated in a whisper. “My heir.”
Hunter’s good humor fled as he whirled back to the madman. “Yer what?”
Helena dropped the damned birds.
One minute she was standing there, the birdcage getting heavier and heavier as she tried to keep it out of Wulfie’s reach; the next, Huffington had made that outrageous proclamation and the hook slipped from her grasp, causing the cage to clatter down against the porch.
Both men turned to her. Huffington was beaming, Hunter looked…stunned wasn’t the right word. More like hit over the head with a mallet.
It was almost a surprise that little blue birds weren’t flying around his head.
“Your heir?” Helena repeated, not bothering to look down at the dropped cage. “Sorry, I think I just hallucinated. Hunter is your nephew and your heir?”
Blast, there were those italics again.
“Of course!” Huffington beamed, spreading his hands wide. “This is perfect, don’t you see?”
“I see you tried to kill him!” No, no, this wasn’t diplomatic at all, she needed to find a new way to address the issue. Unfortunately, none came to mind and she was still angry about the whole thing. Her finger jabbed toward the older man’s chest. “Twice! You tried to kill Hunter twice!”
“Come now, love,” murmured Hunter, stooping to pick up the bird cage, “dinnae anger the madman.”
Thankfully, Huffington didn’t seem to hear. Instead, he nodded eagerly. “Yes, yes, twice—and isn’t it wonderful that he wasn’t hurt?”
“Was not hurt?” she blurted incredulously. “He almost died!”
Huffington merely waved dismissively. “Of course he didn’t. He was, after all, carrying the magic spoon.”
And there was no logical way to reply to that sentence.
Helena glanced incredulously at Hunter, who merely shrugged.
It was a beaming Huffington who explained.
“Don’t you see? No harm can come to you if you’re carrying the magic spoon!
That’s what Grandmama always said, and that was why that rascal Lillian stole it from me when she ran away.
I’ve been waiting decades for its return, for it will always return to a Huff, and now I have it!
” He held it triumphantly over his head.
“This is what I was waiting for! India is calling!”
Hunter tucked the bird cage under one arm, much to the dismay of the possible-lovebirds who were trying to alight upon it. “What does India have to do with anything?”
“That’s where I’m going, don’t I keep saying?
” Huffington explained in delight. “Stefan is waiting for me, you know. He sends me the birds, aren’t they delightful?
” He made a cooing sound and lifted his finger toward the large white parrot on his right shoulder.
“This is Hortense, and this—” he shifted his finger to the other shoulder, where the gray parrot clamped down hard on his finger.
“Is Chuck. Darling Chuck doesn’t like my ears. ”
Helena could only stare in horrified fascination as the parrot attempted to de-finger the man before her.
It was Hunter who said in a low, serious tone, “Allow me to clarify. Ye, Peter Huffington, are leaving. Going to India?”
“Now that I have the magic spoon!” He waved it in the air, and both parrots watched it flash in the sunlight, but Chuck didn’t cease his determined chewing on Huffington’s finger. “I shall leave posthaste. Peater Distillery is yours, lad!”
“What?” Hunter stumbled backward: either over a bird or Wulfie or perhaps just in shock—Helena couldn’t drag her surprised gaze away from the older man to check. “Ye’re leaving—what?”
“Oh my dear boy, I don’t like work.”
Helena gaped. “You do not like to work.”