Read Online Once a Rake (Drake's Rakes) by Eileen Dreyer - Free Book Online

unbending steel beneath. Alex gave a formal bow. “Indeed, sir.”
    “Grandfather,” Fiona said, her voice sounding strained. “Allow me to introduce Alex Knight, Earl of Whitmore. Alex, my grandfather, the Marquess of Leyburn. I think Alex has news of Ian, grandfather.”
    “We have met, granddaughter,” the marquess said, again in that curiously quiet voice. “You need not belabor the relationship.”
    Again she sat. The two men followed suit. Alex snuck a look at Fiona to see a betraying flush in her pale cheeks.
    “Is it?” the marquess asked, his tone changing not at all. “About John?”
    Alex saw now that the older man’s fingers were digging into his knees, and he felt a fresh grief for the news he brought.
    Clearing his throat, he faced the marquess. “Ten days ago,” he said, wishing he could instead watch Fiona, who had lost that brief color, “an attempt was made on the life of the Duke of Wellington.”
    Fiona gasped. Her grandfather sat unmoving. Alex did not want to share the rest. He wanted to walk out right now and leave them with something. Anything.
    He couldn’t. “Reports have come that Ian was the one who fired the shot.”
    “No,” Fiona said very clearly, very definitely. “Absolutely not.”
    The marquess waved off her objection. “The duke?” he asked, his voice brisk.
    “Is unharmed. Other men protected him.”
    The marquess let out his breath, as if the news relieved him.
    Fiona leaned forward. “That is absurd. You know Ian. He has too great a respect for the duke. He would never harm him.”
    Alex almost smiled. It was true. Often enough when in his cups, Ian had declared to all and sundry that the Duke of Wellington was the only Sassenach worth the powder to blow him to hell, and that even a Scot would be a fool not to follow him.
    “Miss Ferguson, I promise,” Alex said, finally taking her hand. “We are doing everything we can to learn the truth. But I’m afraid there were witnesses.”
    She had no answer. Her hand was cold, though, and trembling.
    “Where is he?” the marquess asked.
    Alex snapped back to attention. “Wellington?”
    “John.”
    Alex noticed that the older man had not once called Ian by his Gaelic name or identified him as his grandson. It made Alex remember the day four years earlier when he had tracked the marquess down to bring him long-awaited news. The marquess’s grandson, missing since childhood and long since given up for dead, had been found. He called himself Ian Ferguson, and was a colonel in a Highland Brigade. Until the truth had been revealed to him, Ferguson had believed himself and his sisters bastards.
    Anyone would have thought the old man would have been over the moon. The search for an heir had been protracted, the marquess’s only son having died four years earlier without other legitimate sons. If Ian had not been found, the title would have most likely reverted to the crown upon the marquess’s death.
    But upon reading the official notification, the marquess had crumpled the letter up and tossed it in the fire, his only words, “Damn Scottish witch.”
    Alex had not been there when the marquess had finally met his grandson, but it seemed that he had not gained any affection for him.
    “He’s dead,” Alex said anyway. “Ian is dead.”
    Alex braced for tears, for denials and recriminations. Instead, he was met by silence. The marquess looked pensive. Fiona turned to her grandfather, perfectly composed, except for her eyes, which had grown large and glittered with unshed tears. She was trying to gauge the old man’s reaction, Alex realized.
    “Are they certain?” the marquess demanded, his voice unchanged.
    Alex nodded. “I’m sorry, but it is almost certain. He was shot and went off the side of a ship in the Channel. An extensive search was mounted without success.”
    The marquess nodded, as if Alex had imparted news no more disturbing than a cancellation in his schedule. “In that case,” the man said,