What a country bumpkin St. Clare must have thought her. No doubt he’d been laughing at her the entire time. And she so disposed to think well of him for no more reason than that he bore a passing resemblance to Nicholas Seaton!

Chapter Five

After shooting Frederick Burton-Smythe through the shoulder, John Beresford, Viscount St. Clare returned to his grandfather’s house in Grosvenor Square. He had a brief word with his groom, an even briefer word with his valet (who gaped at the singed sleeve of St. Clare’s shirt with blank horror), and then, as he did after all of his duels, he withdrew to the breakfast room and ate an exceptionally large meal.

It was while he was drinking his coffee and reading the newspaper that his grandfather strode into the room.

“Out!” Lord Allendale growled at a lingering footman. The servant scurried away as the earl took a seat across from St. Clare at the table.

A taut silence permeated the room, so ominous that, at last, if for no other reason than mere curiosity, St. Clare was compelled to lower his newspaper. “Well, sir?”

The Earl of Allendale’s once golden hair had gone silvery white, and except when his blood was up, the fire in his distinctive gray eyes had dimmed, but a life of activity and adventure—a life that had bronzed his skin and strengthened his body—had left him free of many of the maladies of old age. He didn’t suffer from rheumatism or gout. He was never confused or forgetful. And though he was the first to admit that he walked a bit slower than he once had, he stubbornly did so without the aid of a stick.

He’d never been a typical English aristocrat. Some even called him an eccentric. Cursed with an insatiable desire to travel the world, he’d spent the better part of his life abroad, the last years of which he’d dragged his grandson along behind him. It had only been recently—as St. Clare approached his thirtieth birthday—that the earl had begun to show signs that he wasn’t so very different from a typical English aristocrat after all.

“I have it from Jessup that you fought a duel this morning,” Allendale said.

St. Clare saw no reason to deny it. His grandfather of all people should understand. He was no stranger to affairs of honor. Proficient with pistols and swords, it was he who had honed St. Clare into the uncannily lethal shot that he was today. “I did.”

“With an inconsequential squire from the country.” Allendale’s tone held an unmistakable note of warning.

St. Clare gave his newspaper a regretful glance before folding it and laying it down on the table beside his plate. “An heir to a baronetcy if that makes any difference.”

“A baronetcy in Somerset.”

He met his grandfather’s formidable gray glare. “Your point, sir?”

“Be careful.”

“I am exceedingly careful.”