The Taming of the Duke

There was nothing to stop him walking over to the sideboard right now and pouring himself a glass of that exquisite golden whiskey they made in Scotland. The idea had hovered at the edge of his mind all day. He could see himself throwing down his cards and saying, "Enough is enough!" He was a duke, wasn't he? He could do as he wished.

Imogen looked at him sharply and then pushed away from her chair. She walked over to the sideboard while he watched hungrily.

"How is baby Mary today?" she asked over her shoulder, giving Gabe another one of her delicious smiles.

Gabe answered something, but Rafe was too busy watching to pay attention. If Imogen took a drink in front of him, that would be a sign. He'd been through enough agony. He could drink a little, and then keep his drinking more controlled, so he didn't have a headache every morning. It wasn't as if he ever neglected his estate… much. Perhaps he would only allow himself a drink three times a week. That sounded good. Or perhaps only when he had guests.

He started to his feet. "What the devil are you doing?"

Imogen had pushed open one of the windows that looked down over the courtyard before Holbrook Court. "I'm throwing out this liquor," she said simply, as if she were discarding a piece of broken glass.

Rafe wasn't even sure how he found himself on his feet, but there he was, grabbing her arm.

"Ow!" she said.

"That's whiskey," he snapped. "My God, you've tossed the Tobermary."

With her left hand she reached out and grabbed a crystal decanter. "Why not?" she said tauntingly. "You're not going to drink it again."

"That's no reason to destroy it!" He looked wildly back at the table. His brother was watching, eyebrows raised. Griselda had looked up and was actually smiling. "Tell her that she has no right to pitch my best whiskey into the courtyard," he snarled at Griselda.

"The only one who will care is you," Imogen said, still holding the decanter high in her left hand. "You can't stop thinking about it, can you? I've watched you look over here all evening. I wouldn't put it past you to sneak down after we've all gone to bed and drink the place dry!"

Rafe just stared at her. He had toyed with that idea… but—

Crash! The crystal decanter shattered against the dark cobblestones far below, and quick as the flash of an eye, Imogen snatched up another.

"Don't—" Rafe gasped, but this one didn't make it through the window. It caught on the frame and shat-tered, filling the room with the pungent, deep smell of the best whiskey made in the world. Rafe felt like a terrier scenting a fox.

"You're pathetic," Imogen said to him, tossing another decanter into the darkness outside the window.

By some miracle this one didn't smash; he heard it fall on its side with a dull clunk. He could just see jewel-colored port leaking onto the dusty cobblestones, far below.

"Will you please sit down so that I don't have to destroy any more of your crystal? Because I will," she added.

Rafe just blinked at her, a hairbreadth from doing her an injury. Then Gabe took him by the elbow and led him back to the table, and Imogen commenced, as happy as a housewife hanging out laundry, to empty all the decanters Rafe owned: whiskey from the Bowmore distillery, from Ardbeg, Glen Garioch, and Magnus Gunson. They weren't labeled. He knew which was which by the color and the weight of the liquor.

"I expect you have more of the same stored around the castle," she said. "Phew, what a stench!" She reached out and pulled the bell.

Brinkley appeared so promptly that he must have been just outside the door, likely wondering about all the crashing glass. "I've had to purge the duke's whiskey collection," Imogen said airily. "Now, is whiskey kept in another location as well?"

Brinkley nodded, eyeing the cracked decanter on the floor.

"Then why don't you lead me to it," Imogen said, her voice allowing no disagreement.

Brinkley looked at Rafe, who shot him a look of pure rage. But before he could open his mouth, Gabe said, "His Grace agrees with Lady Maitland, Brinkley." And Gabe put a hand on Rafe's arm.

It took everything Rafe had not to floor his brother. But he couldn't. Floor him, that is.

Imogen followed Brinkley from the room.

"I know why Draven Maitland jumped onto that horse," Rafe said hoarsely. "He was just trying to get away from his wife."

"Imogen has backbone," Griselda said. "She fought to keep that foolish young man alive."

Rafe didn't like the implicit comparison. "I'm not trying to kill myself."

"In that case, it's a good thing that you've given up the liquor," Gabe said, laying out the cards for another hand.

"We can't play without that she-devil," Rafe snarled.

"We'll play this hand as dummy whist," Gabe said.

A few minutes later Imogen returned, positively beaming with success.

"Well?" Rafe couldn't not ask. "Did you destroy the best whiskey to be found outside Scotland, then?"

"Just imagine," Imogen said, not meeting his eyes. "There were barrels of it in the basement. So rather than throw it all out, Brinkley is loading it onto carts. It'll be taken to Bramble Hill, Lucius's house, come daylight. Would you like to confirm that all your spirits are leav-ing the premises?" She nodded mockingly toward the windows that faced the courtyard. "I wouldn't want you to injure yourself wandering around the castle at night searching through the wine cellars."

He hated her. With every cell in his body, he hated her. He didn't move.

She didn't even shiver at the look in his eyes. "In that case, you'll have to take my word for it. Brinkley took all the whiskey and the port. He seemed to have some scruples about moving the port—something about it needing to remain still—but when I made it clear that it was either move or be smashed, he gave in. There are only a few bottles of wine left in the entire castle."

"You're a she-devil," Rafe said. He looked down at the cards. They seemed to be pulsating in his hand, growing larger and then shrinking. He lurched to his feet. "I have to get out of here. I'm going for a walk."

"I'll join you," Imogen said.

"Anyone but you!"

"What's the matter?" she taunted. "Are you afraid I'll say something you don't want to hear?"

Gabe gathered together the piles of cards. "Perhaps Miss Pythian-Adams will consent to play a two-handed vingt-et-un?"

Rafe strode out of the room after Imogen. He pushed open the great north door, and they walked into a patch of light cast from the entry at their backs. The tall firs that usually tossed their heads in the sun and the wind had merged into shapeless, dark crests, barely moving in the light of the moon. It was unseasonably warm for an

October evening. He walked down the steps, his feet crunching on the gravel sweep before the great door.

"It's rather gloomy out here," Imogen said.

Rafe heard with pleasure the shiver in her voice. It would do that termagant good to be unnerved. She generally acted as if nothing could frighten her. "Let's go," he said.

"Where? Into the dark?" But she trotted after him as he stepped out of the circle of light.