Devil of a Duke by Kathleen Ayers
1
Nicholas Tremaine, Viscount Lindley, heir to the most cursed title in England, hummed a merry tune and pretended to trip over his feet. The alley behind the Green Parrot was dark and quiet, the perfect spot to stage a robbery of a drunken soul, newly arrived to the islands of Bermuda. Which was likely what the pair of dirty nitwits stalking him assumed.
The dirty nitwits were quite wrong.
Nick had much more experience in stalking prey than the fools behind him, though he supposed he did not look dangerous at the moment. They thought him half blind and drunk.
A footstep shuffled behind him. A stone rolled past the toe of his boot and settled in the dirt.
Nick sighed, flicking an ash off his cheroot. Best to get on with this. He forced his feet into a shuffle, tangling his long legs as if he couldn’t walk properly.
The footsteps at his back quickened in anticipation.
A bead of sweat slid down Nick’s forehead to settle behind the eye-patch covering his left eye. He resisted the urge to tear the damn bit of leather off his face. Hot and uncomfortable, the eye-patch was a necessary evil, and he had no wish to allow anyone, even his assailants, see him without it. The risk was simply too great. One look at his mismatched eyes and the jig would be up. His eyes, one brown, the other a brilliant blue, marked him immediately. No one but the Devil of Dunbar sported eyes like that in all of England. The mark, the ton gossiped, of the Dunbars’ continued pact with Old Scratch himself.
Nick itched at the flesh behind the eye patch as a rusty cough erupted over his shoulder.
He might be damned, but he was certainly healthier than that. The man’s deep hacking, sounding as if he breathed through swamp water, belied his future fate. Nick would be doing his assailant a favor if he snapped his neck tonight.
"Damn! My blasted head hurts!" Nick groaned mournfully, slurring the words. He wobbled, then stumbled and fell against the thorny vines covering the brick wall of the Green Parrot. The thorns tore at his clothes and fluttered about his broad shoulders.
The footsteps hesitated.
Nick gave a drunken sounding snort. He should have taken a fork from the tavern to defend himself, but he supposed his bare hands would have to do. He’d snapped a man’s neck before, but not lately. He was given a wide berth in London, most footpads and pickpockets in the city aware of what Nick was. Being damned had few advantages, but not being set upon by thieves while wandering the London wharves was one of them.
Nick’s ears picked up the sound of hands fumbling at clothing and a knife being brought out. He took a deep breath and waited, wishing he had gone straight to the Governor’s instead of deciding to have a tankard of ale. He had only wanted a bit of cool ale served to him by an attractive woman, who preferably was possessed of lovely tits. Attractive women, and indeed, the viewing of lovely tits, had been in short supply during the ocean crossing. The captain's wife, Mrs. Warren, reminded Nick of a wizened apple one found left from the previous fall. If Mrs. Warren ever suckled anyone from her shriveled bosom, it had to have been a lifetime ago. The woman detested Nick on sight, even though he’d made every effort to be charming. The only other female to make the crossing was a minister's wife. Nick never did find out her name. Mousy and timid, she barely came out of her cabin the entire trip. He passed her once and gave her a smile, which promptly sent her scurrying off to the depths of the ship as if the devil himself were after her. The little mouse did have some sense, apparently.
More whispers. Nick nearly turned to give them instruction on just how to accost him. He was trying to avoid drawing attention, which was why he deliberately chose to draw them into the alley and not the main road leading to the Governor’s. He wanted neither questions nor anyone to come upon him dispatching two of Bermuda’s thieves. Damn that barmaid.
The Green Parrot’s barmaid, Drusilla, was a buxom lass who upon spying Nick, immediately put down a large tankard as well as a plate of cheese and bread. And, Drusilla was possessed of a lovely pair of tits. Unfortunately, the rest of Drusilla did not quite measure up to Nick’s standards.
Nick admired the large orbs thrust at him but found the rest of Drusilla a bit worn for his tastes, even after his monkish existence of the last few months.
"Will there be anything else?" She smiled broadly enough to show her missing teeth.
“No.” Nick lifted the tankard. He preferred a clean lass who had more than five teeth in her head.
Drusilla brushed a large breast against him and moved back behind the bar, her annoyance at his rejection plain. Two men slid down in front of the bar and spoke to her in hushed tones. The first man, with the sallow looking skin of a corpse, stared particularly hard at the buttons on Nick's coat. His friend, a bit older with a fringe of greasy red hair around the edges of his scalp, chewed sporadically on the dirty nail of one hand. After speaking to Drusilla, the two men sauntered out, barely glancing at Nick.
Now, Nick surmised, the pair from the bar were behind him, intent on theft and possibly murder.
Drusilla herself had tipped Nick off. She’d brought him another ale, one he hadn't asked for. Planting a hand on her hip, she’d leaned over until he could smell the garlic on her breath. “On the house. You look parched, milord.”
As Nick took a sip of the cool liquid, he did not swallow, instead the drugged ale stayed in his mouth until Drusilla turned. Then he immediately spat the mouthful into the sawdust beneath the table. Dru had slipped something into the ale, he was sure. It was an old trick, one that many taverns used in the islands to rob an unsuspecting gentleman. The idea was for Nick to wander away, drugged, and simply pass out so to be easily relieved of his purse. Once, when Nick was much younger, he’d fallen for the ruse on a trip to Jamaica. Never again.
So he’d left the tavern, pretending to be unsteady and decided to allow himself to be followed out into the alley. What else could he do? The men would likely not be put off, and he did not want to be followed to the Governor’s. So Nick picked the alley and told himself he was performing a public service ridding the world of the two miscreants.
The point of a sword suddenly poked him below his left shoulder disturbing his reverie. Finally! Nick gave a muffled sound of distress.
“Stand right where you are, toff. I've got a sword and will run you through in a thrice!” The words dissolved into a moist gurgle.
“Please! Don't ruin my coat,” Nick slurred. “I’ve not much but I do so love this coat. I've only just arrived, and I fear I've had too much to drink." Nick bit his lip to keep from laughing. This whole affair was becoming most amusing.
The sword pressed harder, but the blade was so dull Nick could barely feel the tip. "Stop your blubbering, toff.” The man laughed. “You've only got one eye, and for a big man you're a bit of a coward.”
Nick decided he would break the man's nose. Possibly, a wrist or the man's forearm before killing him.
“Where's yer purse? I seen it in the tavern. Throw it down on the ground.”
“Purse?” Nick whined. "I have no purse."
“Just gut ’im, Bobo. Dru put enough in his drink to take down two men at least.” The other man slid out from behind a brilliantly blooming bougainvillea in front of Nick.
Ah! The admirer of my buttons!Part of the man's form remained in the lengthening shadows, but Nick recognized him all the same.
“Take off the coat, toff,” the man coveting Nick's buttons announced to the alley. “Don't want to be getting blood on it.”
Obviously, these two did not have Nick's vast experience in gutting a man. Blood got on everything. The coat would most assuredly be ruined. Nick changed his mind and decided to kill Admirer of Buttons first.
“Are ye deaf? I said take off the coat. Wren wants it.” Bobo's irritated whisper came to Nick accompanied by another shaky push from the sword.
Wren.Nick watched the man in front of him. Yes, he'd have to teach Wren not to covet thy toff's buttons. Falling to one knee, he spread the long fingers of his hands, feeling the assurance of the Devil's ring on his thumb. He could twist easily from this position and kick Bobo, breaking the man's leg.
“Knew this would be easy as pie with him being one-eyed and all. Wren,” Bobo addressed the younger man, "find you a big rock over there to hit him with. Dru's potion is doing our work for us. He can't even stand.”
“Big man like that,” Wren mused with a snicker. “Thought he'd be more of a challenge.” He picked up a large rock, hefting the weight of the stone in his hand. “This will be an easy day's work.”
“Am I just to lounge here quietly then and allow you to beat me over the head?” Nick tried to keep the sarcasm out of his voice and failed. He'd had quite enough of these two idiots. He planned to be at the Governor’s in time for tea.
“Shut up, ye one-eyed bugger,” Wren snarled.
“Yes, terribly inconvenient, being one-eyed. But I am hardly a Cyclops and you, my friend are no Odysseus.” Nick turned slightly, lifting his head.
“Who's that?” Bobo sounded dumbfounded.
“Ah. You are decidedly uneducated and know nothing of mythology. What a pity. Well, I've no time to tell you the tale now.”
Wren strode confidently forward, the rock clutched in his hand. “I’m sick of listening to him talk. He shouldn't even be able to talk with what Dru gave ’im.” Wren stopped halfway to where Nick sat sniffing the air like a rodent who has sighted a mousetrap but still wishes the cheese.
“Ah! The barmaid with the fabulous pair of tits. Lovely girl,” Nick said thoughtfully. "Thought about fucking her, but she's a bit, well, used for my tastes. I'm sure most of the Royal Navy's had a go.”
“You bastard!” Wren spat. “That's my sister you're talking about.” The rock fell from his hand to the ground. “Don't care no more about the damned coat. I'm just going to shoot you and leave you here to bleed.” He pulled an ancient pistol from his coat and cocked the weapon. “No one will hear the shot. The Parrot's got thick walls.”
Nick changed his position slightly, in light of the fact he had a pistol pointed at him. He'd turn and grab Bobo, throw the red-haired man over his shoulder like a filthy rag doll, snapping Bobo's neck as he did so. Wren's shot would go through Bobo and not Nick. Nick would then snap Wren's neck. He knew there was quicksand in the mangrove swamps. He could drag the bodies through there and—
A shot broke the silence of the alley followed by the smell of gunpowder.
Nick winced and grabbed his midsection, expecting the impatient Wren had fired.
Instead, Wren fell to the ground with a small thump.
Blood shot out like a spigot. “You!” Wren screamed at someone barely discernible in the shadows. “You shot my bloody knee!” Dropping his unfired pistol, he writhed on the ground in pain. Blood spurted from between his clasped fingers, splattering the grass and dirt around him.
“Drop the sword.” The sound of another pistol being cocked sounded from the depths of the mangrove swamp. “Now.”
The sword fell away from Nick's back.
“Don't shoot!” Bobo's frantic cry came from behind Nick.
A slight figure materialized at the edge of a line of mangroves, a slim lad holding a pistol. While he couldn’t have been but a year or two out of the schoolroom, he walked with authority and little fear as he neared Nick and the two thieves. Obscured by the large, broad brimmed hat he wore, Nick couldn’t make out the boy’s face. Shells crunched under the soles of the boy’s well worn leather boots as he approached. Nick did not miss the glimmer of the hilt of a knife tucked into the top of the left boot, nor a third pistol hanging from his belted waist.
As he approached Bobo and Wren, the boy acted as if he shot at men everyday in dark alleys, for he showed not the slightest hesitation or fear. He put his pistol even with Bobo’s temple.
“I beg you drop the sword.”
Bobo complied immediately and the sword fell to the ground, landing against Nick’s boots. The lad nodded towards the bleeding Wren. “Collect your friend and go.”
The aroma of chocolate filled the air as the boy moved closer to Nick. The scent certainly didn’t come from Bobo who reeked of grease and onions. Had the lad eaten a chocolate tart or other sweet before appearing to rescue Nick? The image of the boy with a cache of desserts hidden in the mangrove swamp would have made Nick smile if the current circumstances didn’t require him to be serious.
“We weren't gonna hurt ’im!” Wren screeched at the lad. “You shot out my knee! I'll likely not walk again without a crutch. High and mighty, aren’t you?” Wren's free hand crawled towards his unfired pistol lying in the grass. “I know who you are, don’t think for a minute I don’t.” Wren gave another cry. “I’m crippled because of you!”
“Don’t.” The boy sounded blasé and a bit annoyed. “Just don't. I'll be forced to shoot you again, perhaps in your other knee. Or maybe your stomach. That’s a painful death I’m told. You’ll suffer for days before expiring with your guts in your hands.”
Wren paled. His blood-stained hand retreated from the pistol and returned to his knee, where he rocked in pain.
Bobo's mouth hung open in shock, a bit of drool dangling from his lips.
What a gruesome little lad he was. While Nick was grateful his time in Bermuda would not start with a bloody hole in his stomach, he found he was a bit irritated he'd been needlessly rescued. And that Bobo and Wren would not meet their deserved demise at his hands. I’m the bloody Devil of Dunbar.Saved by a boy from incompetent thieves no less.
“Go on.” The boy said, lifting the pistol a bit higher, prodding Bobo to move.
Bobo nodded, eyes wide, his chin quivering in fear. Slowly, his hands in the air, he made his way to Wren. Hooking his beefy arms around the younger man, he turned away from the boy as if afraid to look the lad in the eye and scooped up his friend.
Wren’s cheeks puffed out as he tried to stand on his injured leg. He glared at the boy, his eyes narrowing into slits. “I’ll not be forgetting this.” He winced. “Your name won’t protect you.” He spit into the grass and leaned his body against Bobo.
The boy didn't flinch or even acknowledge the implied threat. His arm remained steady, pistol aimed at the two men until they hobbled off around the corner. A trail of blood from Wren's shattered knee wound through the dirt and grass, marking their passage.
The boy lowered his pistol to his waist but kept the weapon cocked. He turned towards Nick, his arm taut, ready to shoot Nick at a moment’s notice.
Nick rather thought the boy's suspicion a bit unwarranted, given the circumstances. He unraveled his tall form slowly until he stood, towering over the lad. He held up his large hands in supplication and took a careful step towards his savior.
The pistol came up in a flash.
Nick raised a brow in question but put some distance between himself and the pistol. Distrustful little shit. “Nice hat.” Nick gave the lad a polite smile. "You smell of chocolate. Do you have a horde of it stockpiled in the mangrove swamp?"
“Funny.” The boy didn’t lower the pistol.
A bit of wind gusted up and blew against the boy’s oversized shirt. The cotton billowed about his slight frame.
Nick struggled again to make out the lad’s face beneath the hat, but the brim was too large, ridiculously so. Almost, Nick thought, as if the lad was concerned about getting too much sun on his cheeks.
Wind whistled again through the alley, this time causing the fronds of a large palm to sway to and fro.
The boy’s shirt puffed about him like a sail around his form, threatening to pull the well-worn cotton out of the lad’s waistband. A light brown lock of hair fell from beneath his hat, landing neatly on his shoulder.
The boy cursed under his breath.
Nick lifted a brow in surprise. What a salty vocabulary the boy had. No doubt he was the bane of his tutor. He lowered his hands and slowly moved forward.
“That's far enough,” his rescuer snapped. “You may have noticed that I am an excellent shot.”
“I did, indeed,” Nick admitted. “You are a most excellent shot. I wonder what you could do with a knife?” His gaze flickered down to the bit of silver protruding from the top of a boot.
“And at this close range.” The pistol turned to point directly at Nick’s chest. “I would do far worse than ruin your coat.”
“Agreed. I am quite partial to this coat.” Nick swept a hand down one tailored sleeve. “I’ll behave.”
“Newly arrived?” The boy lowered his pistol but did not put it down. He walked over to Wren's discarded pistol and bent to pick up the weapon. “Only the newly arrived are stupid enough to venture into the Green Parrot. I'm betting Drusilla served you.” The tone was clipped and decidedly upper class.
Nick took objection to being called stupid. “I was not stupid enough to drink Dru's concoction,” he countered. “And yes, my ship docked mere hours ago. I've received such a charming introduction to your little island and its citizens that I am considering settling here.”
“Oh, I doubt you’d like it.” The boy snorted. “I’ve seen many an English gent come to these islands and leave within a month.”
“I disagree.” Nick threw out the story he'd concocted for himself. “I am here to purchase land and start my life afresh. I have a wealthy patroness, the Dowager Marchioness of Cambourne. Perhaps you’ve heard of her?”
“I didn't ask for your life history, though I'm sure I'd find it endlessly entertaining.” The boy shook his head. “You'd do better to take the next ship back to London and ask your ‘patroness’ for her assistance there. While Hamilton, and indeed all of Bermuda abounds with opportunity, I'm not sure you are suited to the climate.” The brim of the hat pointed towards Nick’s brow, now dripping with sweat.
He'd been nearly robbed, killed, and now his reputation as a gentleman was being insulted all in one afternoon! Nick was having a glorious time. The current situation was the most amusing thing that had happened to him in ages. “Bermuda and it’s ‘climate’ do not concern me in the least.” He wiped his brow. “I’ll get used to the heat as well as the citizenry.”
“You nearly got yourself killed and by your own admission, you are newly arrived. Despite your size you aren’t very menacing.” The boy shrugged. “And you’re half blind.”
“Yes.” Nick waved to the eye-patch. “I suppose they thought I’d be an easy mark.”
“And the fact you didn’t even try to fight back.” The patrician voice mocked him. “Man as big as you and no weapon? Not even a knife? I thought all you London dandies kept at least a small pistol up your sleeve.”
Not in the whole of his life had Nick ever been accused of being a dandy. Ever.
“Good thing I came along. Saved you. Else you'd be dead. I don’t suppose your patroness would appreciate that?”
His rescuer’s smug attitude started to grate on Nick’s nerves, though he wasn’t about to correct it. “Indeed. I am in your debt. You saved me,” Nick said softly. He bowed low as if meeting royalty. “Nick Shepherd, lately of London, at your service.”
“Well, Nick Shepherd, lately of London. Take my advice and take the next ship right back to England where you’ll be more at home. I might not be around the next time you find yourself in trouble.” The words were tinged with dislike and scorn.
Interesting. Usually one had to know Nick for at least an hour before a negative opinion was formed. He thought his savior’s quick assessment to be totally unfair. “Indeed, I am quite terrified to view the island without you by my side,” Nick said, not bothering to hide his sarcasm. “I quiver with fear at the mere thought.”
The figure before him stiffened. “You are quite ungrateful.”
“Quite,” Nick agreed with a shrug before leaning back against the wall of the Green Parrot. He pulled a cheroot from his pocket and lit it, tossing the match down on the ground where it landed at his savior’s well-booted feet.
“Well, it's been delightful getting to know you,” Nick said into the late afternoon air, pretending to be totally immersed in his cheroot. “I shall be sure to call out for you if I am in need of assistance. What is the name of my savior?” He was determined to goad the figure before him. “I shall include you in my prayers."
“Jem.” The name came out choked and angry. “Though I sincerely doubt you pray, Mr. Shepherd.”
“Jem? An interesting name. Short for Jeremiah?”
“Truly,” the voice tightened. “I should have let them shoot you.” The brim of the hat shook in agitation. “I wish I had let them shoot you.” The pistol was uncocked and tucked into the waistband. “And by the way, if you recall, the Cyclops ended up blinded and his brother dead.”
Nick bit the end of his cheroot. “I see you know your Greek myths, Jem. How did you come by such an education in the wilds of Bermuda?”
The loose curl danced in the soft breeze and bounced against the boy’s shoulder. “Good day to you Mr. Shepherd. Have a care for your favorite coat. Your charming personality will no doubt cause you to pawn those buttons for food within a fortnight, if you don’t get killed first.”
Nick opened his mouth to reply, but at that very moment a group of drunken sailors burst into the alley. The sailors were singing a delightful tune about mermaids as they stumbled about in the dirt. Nick stepped aside quickly to let them pass and dropped his cheroot in the process. He straightened after picking it up, only to find that his savior had fled and quietly melted back into the mangrove swap.
