Read Online The Duke's Tattoo: A Regency Romance of Love and Revenge, Though Not in That Order by Miranda Davis - Free Book Online Page A

muscular build. He took another gulp and glowered at his large, booted feet stuck out before him. “Must send our condolences. We’ve been remiss.”
    “To our dear, departed hell-raiser,” said Lord Burton Seelye, the third man in the somber group. “We will miss him.”
    Seelye, the Earl of Exmoor’s second son, seemed the odd man out in this threesome. Percy and Clun wore clothing with simple, military precision but still looked hulking. In contrast, Lord Seelye was almost average in size and an unabashed nonpareil. He was among the rarest tulips of the
ton.
After Brummel, it was said, Seelye. After Seelye, no one. Yet, despite his Byzantine cravat knot, he was as lethal as the others, a rapier among heavy sabers.
    “To Jem Maubrey,” they said quietly and drank.
    Three solemn men sat around the cold hearth in a private salon at White’s, their broad shoulders wedged into club chairs, their long legs stretched before them, their well-shod feet propped on the brass fireplace fender. One of the attendants offered to light a fire for them when they settled in but no fire could chase the chill they felt on the first anniversary of Waterloo.
    They sprawled before the empty fireplace grate. Each held a glass of port. All gazed without seeing, lost in thought.
    On the nearby table sat a fourth glass of port still untouched among numerous empty bottles.
    “Can’t say ‘rest in peace’ because the man couldn’t sit still for two minutes together,” Clun said with a dry chuckle.
    “Bound to give the Devil fits, our Jem,” Seelye said proudly.
    “So he will,” Percy agreed. “Poor Beelzebub.”
    “Still. Damned careless disregard for our appointment,” growled Clun.
    “Gave his word, bloody thick lout,” Percy swore roundly.
    “Bloody lout,” the others concurred and drank to it.
    “Did we not make it clear at the Duchess of Richmond’s ball we would meet here one year to the day?” Lord Seelye asked the others.
    “Certainly did,” the raven-haired giant huffed. “Before we mustered out to meet Napoleon.”
    Percy added, “Had no notion the war’d end in days, not months. Made sense to allow a year to finish it and get settled back home.”
    “And didn’t we seal the pact with blood?” Seelye asked, like a barrister arguing in court.
    “Not ours,” Clun said with a smirk, “but yes, we did.”
    “And, my lords, is it not the 17 th of June?” Seelye concluded.
    “It is,” Clun said, “devil take it.”
    “Gave his bloody word,” Percy muttered.
    As their bravado faltered, the men tipped their glasses back, somber once again. They contemplated the loss of their friend in silence.
    “Pass the bottle, Clun, I’m dry,” Percy murmured. Clun complied.
    The men refilled, rallied and resumed their rough badinage. These vaunted cavalrymen relied on laughter and mockery to disguise their true feelings on many occasions, especially after a particularly brutal engagement.
    “He better be dead or I’ll kill him myself for ruining our enjoyment of this port,” Clun groused.
    “To Maubrey, the thickest-skulled, poorest-seated clod to afflict a horse,” Percy hoisted his glass for the umpteenth time.
    “Here, here!” The other two responded.
    Though they had no wish to return to war, contemplating their friend’s passing made them nostalgic.
    “What was it Uxbridge told the duchess about us that night?” Percy mused.
    Seelye attempted the nasal inflection of their commanding officer, Henry Paget, Earl of Uxbridge. “Surely you’ve read about them, Duchess. I call these fine fellows the ‘Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse,’ for wherever they ride, they leave nothing but death and destruction in their wake.”
    “They wear the Blue. They are cavalry, Lord Uxbridge?” Clun supplied the duchess’ fluty falsetto. Percy choked on his port upon hearing him.
    “Or rather berserkers on horseback,” Seelye continued in character, “for as many Frenchies die of fright as die by their