Chapter Eight
Max rushed down the stairs, his cheek still stinging from his valet’s rushed scrape. It wasn’t the man’s fault. Max had been pulling on a fresh shirt at the same moment, and that had not gone well. He prayed he wasn’t bleeding all over his attire.
Once on the main floor, he saw his father seated on the chair everyone called his throne. Emma was with him, valiantly trying to delay the man with sweets.
It wasn’t working. Though he pretended to listen to her babble on about Mama’s nerves, his attention was focused on the parlor door while he sat slapping his newspaper against his thigh. At least Christopher had made himself scarce. Max’s friend was the one man guaranteed to ignite father’s temper.
That wasn’t his father’s fault. Chris enjoyed constantly poking at the man’s politics.
In truth, Chris liked poking humorless people until they broke, and in the duke’s case, that meant making fun of conservative politics.
But now wasn’t the time to inflame the situation, and so Max was grateful for his friend’s absence.
Determined to keep everyone calm, Max sauntered into the parlor as if he’d just arrived from an afternoon’s stroll. “Hullo Father,” he said. “Thank you, Emmaline,” he added, pressing a kiss to her cheek. “You’re a treasure.”
“And don’t you forget it,” she said with an extra-wide glare. “Mama’s upstairs resting. The servants are deployed as instructed.”
He grinned, always finding it funny when she used military language.
“And in the library?”
“The Watch.”
Max nodded. “I will speak with them directly.”
No fool, their father bolted to his feet. “The Watch? What the devil—”
“Not something you should be concerned with,” Max said with a jaunty wave. “Come if you must”—he knew his father would—“but since you haven’t any idea what’s been going on, pray do let me handle it.”
His father harumphed. “I know a Chinese gentleman has expired in one of our bedrooms.”
“That’s true—” Max began.
Emmaline interrupted. “But it isn’t the whole story.”
“Maximillian!”
Damn it, his father was in no mood to be fobbed off. “Yes, Father?”
The man’s eyes narrowed, and he abruptly pulled out his handkerchief. Then he closed the distance to his son in two long strides and firmly brushed it across Max’s jaw. The white linen came back bloodied.
The duke looked at Emma. “Sack his valet immediately.”
“Yes, Father.”
It would do no good to argue that it hadn’t been Moore’s fault. By his father’s estimation, any valet who allowed his master to appear in public in anything less than perfection was a man who didn’t deserve the position.
Fortunately, Emma saw Max give a slight shake no. She knew not to obey the command. In fact, she would likely whisper to Moore to keep out of sight for a while.
“A disgrace. An absolute disgrace,” their father muttered, referring to Max and not his poor valet.
Max responded as he always did. He grinned and gave yet another jaunty gesture that covered the wince. “Right-o,” he said, sounding more like an idiot the longer his father glowered at him. “The library.”
He spun on his heel and walked at a speed his father would not match.
The man was as hale as a horse, but he believed in a decorous pace no matter what the situation.
That allowed Max a moment to enter the library, scan the four Watchmen who waited for him, and address the one who appeared to be in charge.
“Good afternoon, gentlemen. I am sorry you must deal with this ghastly business, but I’m sure it can be handled quickly if we all work together.”
“Oh, yes, milord,” the man said with a slight bow. “I’m Sergeant Berry and I’ve already seen to the bulk of it. If you could recount what happened, we’ll get this wrapped up.”
Max nodded. He took a moment to lean back against his father’s ponderous desk and feign an insouciance that he didn’t feel.
He was well aware of his father’s dark glower as the duke entered the room.
Max summarized his day in short, clipped sentences, skipping over his engagement, leaping to Miss Wong’s recovery upstairs, and focusing on the mandarin’s brutality.
“I’ve seen ’er feet, my lord,” the sergeant agreed with a sad shake of his head. “And there were plenty of witnesses to say that he had a knife to her throat. It’s self-defense to be sure. I’m afraid I can’t keep it out of the paper, but there’ll be no trouble from us.”
“Thank you.”
“I’ve given your butler the name of someone who can help with the body, my lord—”
Right. Max fought the shudder that went through his body. “Good thinking, Sergeant.”
“And if I may, there’s a home for young ladies that might have room for her. Madame Sabate runs a private rooming house—”
“Madame Sabate?” Max interrupted, his voice growing colder as his blood heated.
He knew of the infamous courtesan and guessed exactly what the true purpose of her home for young ladies was: a training ground for new courtesans.
Indeed, Yihui’s exotic looks would garner a pretty penny from lustful aristocrats who wanted to try an out of the ordinary kind of girl.
“Yes, my lord. She runs—”
“I know who she is and what she runs,” Max snapped.
But the damned man would not back down. “It’s the best future for her, my lord, assuming she survives. She’ll make good money if she’s trained right.”
Max wanted to toss the man bodily from the house, so furious was he at the suggestion. But a future duke couldn’t be seen throwing the Watch out of the house. That would add fuel to the gossip flame. So instead, he focused his mind on the other thing the man had said.
“What do you mean, ‘Assuming she survives?’”
“Oh well, my lord, I was upstairs when…” The man fumbled with his notebook as if he’d written something in it. “Well, I heard the doctor and the surgeon conferring. Lady Kimberly as well.”
“Conferring about Miss Wong?”
“Yes, my lord. She’s got a fever, growing worse by the second. And those feet…” He shook his head. “Well, it seems to me that it might be best if she passes. And if she doesn’t, then what’s she to do with those feet? Madame Sabate can train—”
“You will not mention that woman again,” Max said, his voice a low growl.
The man squared his shoulders. “I’m older than you, my lord, and seen a bit more of what happens to these girls. And your mum, the duchess is in quite a state. If you sent the miss away—”
“The miss, as you call her, is my fiancée by royal decree!”
The sergeant’s head bobbed up and down. “Well, yes. I had heard that, but seeing as how it’s become a bungled affair an’ she’s not likely to survive—”
Max hadn’t realized he’d stepped to tower over the man until he saw the sweat beading on the sergeant’s pate. “I do not require your assistance in the care of my fiancée.”
“O-of course not. I-I only thought to help—”
“Is that all?” he bellowed.
“Er, yes, my lord.” He turned to his men who all bobbed their heads in equally silly fashion.
“Then I bid you good day,” Max said.
Chiverton was on the mark, popping open the library door with an imperious air. “This way, gentlemen,” he intoned.
The Watch scrambled away. That was one thing done. Next, Max needed to go upstairs before the leeches could do something stupid. But he didn’t make it out the door before his father’s firm hand gripped his arm.
“Have you taken leave of your senses?” the man growled in a low enough tone that no one else would hear.
Max turned to his father and deadpanned his answer. “I’m quite sure I have. I watched a man get a knife to his chest today. If you don’t want to smell his blood while you sleep, I suggest you spend the night at your club.”
“Chiverton’s handling that,” his father returned. “Why do you claim this Chinese gel? Do you plan to go into mourning when she dies? Do you mean for us to pay for her funeral rites?”
“Prinny himself—”
“Will understand. Damn it, if the girl is dying—”
Red washed through his vision. Not the red of fury, but one of blood spurting from a man’s chest. Of seeing dark red on yellow damask walls. Of the smell that came not just from blood, but other bodily fluids as a man died.
“There will not be another death in this house,” Max said.
“That’s why the girl must be sent on.”
“And what should I tell Prinny then? He ordered me to sort this out.”
His father threw up his hands. “This is sorting it out!”
“It’s sweeping it—and her—under the rug.”
“That’s where dead foreigners go. Good God, even a child can understand that.”
“Maybe so, Father, but I am fresh out of brooms and rugs.” They had all gone to wrapping up the mandarin.
His father pursed his lips, his sigh audible to the entire household. “Why do you persist in antagonizing me? I am trying to help! What you’re doing is not how a duke—”
“Not how a duke acts.” Max said the words at the same time his father did. “Then it is a good thing that you are not doing it.”
“Maximillian—”
“Excuse me, Father. I need to consult with the doctor.”
With that, he walked away from his very disapproving parent and straight up the stairs.
He had no idea when exactly he set himself on an opposite path to his father.
From his earliest memories, he recalled his father would issue a decree, and he as the heir was expected to follow it.
There had never been any discussion or leniency in his father’s commands but sometime around Max’s sixteenth birthday, he decided that he would think for himself.
He would choose his own actions regardless of what his father dictated.