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Pardloe sat frozen for an instant, then—very carefully—reached up and removed a large shard of porcelain from his hair.
“Mr. Fraser,” he said, in a voice that was almost steady. “Your servant, sir.”
“Your most obedient, Your Grace,” Jamie replied, suffering an insane urge to laugh, and kept from it only by the sure knowledge that his sister would immediately reload and shoot him at point-blank range if he did. “I see ye’re acquainted with my sister, Mrs. Murray.”
“Your—dear lord, she is.” Pardloe’s eyes had flicked back and forth between their faces, and he now drew a long, slow breath. “Is your entire family given to irascibility?”
“We are, Your Grace, and I thank ye for the compliment,” Jamie said, and laid a hand on Je
“Would ye be so amiable as to pour out a dram of whatever’s in that decanter, Your Grace?”
Pardloe did and approached warily, holding out the glass—it was brandy; Jamie could smell the hot fumes.
“Don’t let him out,” Je
Before he could answer, heavy footsteps came hastily down the hallway and the black housekeeper appeared in the doorway, breathing audibly and holding a silver-inlaid fowling piece in a ma
“The two of you can just sit yourselves down this minute,” she said, moving the barrel of the gun back and forth between Pardloe and Jamie in a businesslike fashion. “If you think you’re going to take that man out of here, you—”
“I told you—I beg your pardon, madam, but would ye honor me with your name?”
“You—what?” The housekeeper blinked, disconcerted. “I—Mrs. Mortimer Figg, if it’s any of your business, and I doubt that.”
“So do I,” Jamie assured her, not sitting down. The duke, he saw, had. “Mrs. Figg, as I said to ye downstairs, I’ve come for my wife and nothing more. If ye’ll tell me where she is, I’ll leave ye to your business. Whatever that may be,” he added, with a glance at Pardloe.
“Your wife,” Mrs. Figg repeated, and the barrel swiveled toward him. “Well, now. I’m thinking that perhaps you ought just to sit down and wait until his lordship comes and we see what he has to say about all this.”
“Di
“Claire?” exclaimed Pardloe, standing up again. He had been drinking from the decanter and still held it carelessly in one hand. “My brother’s wife?”
“She’s no such thing,” Jamie said crossly. “She’s mine, and I’ll thank someone to tell me where the devil she is.”
“She’s gone to a place called Kingsessing,” Je
“I daresay,” Pardloe murmured, and took another gulp from the decanter. He turned his attention to Jamie. “I don’t suppose that you know where my brother is at the moment?”
Jamie stared at him, a sudden feeling of unease tickling the back of his neck. “Is he not here?”
Pardloe made a wide gesture round the room, wordlessly inviting Jamie to look. Jamie ignored him and turned to the housekeeper. “When did ye see him last, madam?”
“Just before he and you skedaddled out the attic window,” she replied shortly, and prodded him in the ribs with the barrel of the fowling piece. “What have you done with him, fils de salope?”
Jamie edged the barrel gingerly aside with one finger. The fowling piece was primed but not yet cocked.
“I left him in the woods outside the city, two days ago,” he said, a sudden feeling of disquiet tightening the muscles at the base of his spine. He backed against the wall, discreetly pressing his arse into it to ease his back. “I expected to find him here—with my wife. Might I inquire how you come to be here, Your Grace?”
“Claire kidnapped him,” Je
“Oh, aye? What did she want him for, did she say?”
His sister gave him a look.
“She was afraid he’d turn the city upside down looking for his brother and you’d be taken up in the kerfuffle.”
“Aye, well, I think I’m safe enough now,” he assured Je
“No,” she said promptly, pounding home her ball and patch. She reached into her apron and came out with a tiny powder horn. “We ca
“Oh.” He considered this for a moment, watching the duke, whose face had assumed a slight purple tinge. “Why is that?”
“He ca
“I see.” The urge to laugh was back, but he controlled it manfully. “So ye were about to shoot him in the house, in order to keep him from dyin’ in the street.”
Her dark-blue eyes narrowed, though she kept her gaze fixed on the powder she was pouring into the priming pan.
“I wouldna really have shot him in the guts,” she said, though from the press of her lips it was apparent that she’d have liked nothing more. “I’d just have winged him in the leg. Or maybe shot off a couple o’ toes.”
Pardloe made a sound that might have been outrage, but, knowing the man as he did, Jamie recognized it as smothered laughter. He hoped his sister wouldn’t. He opened his mouth to ask just how long Pardloe had been held captive, but before he could speak, there was a knock at the door below. He glanced at Mrs. Figg, but the housekeeper was still regarding him with narrowed eyes and made no move either to lower the fowling piece or to go downstairs and answer the door.
“Come in!” Jamie shouted, sticking his head out into the hall, then jerking back into the room before Mrs. Figg should take it into her head that he was attempting to escape and discharge a load of buckshot into his backside.
The door opened, closed, and there was a pause as the caller apparently looked around the devastated entry, then light, quick steps came up the stairs.
“Lord John!” breathed Mrs. Figg, her stern face lightening.
“In here!” called the duke, as the steps reached the landing. An instant later, the slight, bespectacled form of Denzell Hunter appeared in the doorway.
“Merde!” said Mrs. Figg, bringing her shotgun to bear on the newcomer. “I mean, Shepherd of Judea! Who in the name of the Holy Trinity are you?”

HUNTER WAS NEARLY as pale as Je
The duke dropped the decanter, which fell over and disgorged the few drops it still contained onto the braided hearth rug.
“You!” he said, drawing himself abruptly to his full height. He was in fact no taller than Hunter, but it was obvious that he had the habit of command. “You are the skulking fellow who has had the temerity to seduce my daughter, and you dare come here and offer to physic me? Get out of my sight, before I—” At this point, it dawned on Pardloe that he was in his nightshirt and unarmed. Nothing daunted, he seized the decanter from the floor and swung it at Denzell’s head.