The Duke's Downfall Read Free Page A

not show in his expression. He did blink, but only as he turned his head to take quick, keen stock of their carriages stopped side by side in the midst of Oxford Street. When he looked back at her, the corners of his eyes had lifted, along with those of his mouth, in a smile of bemused surprise.
    “Good day, my lady,” he said, unlatching the carriage door and swinging it open to jump down. His deep voice was pleasant and matter-of-fact, as if meeting in the middle of a busy London street were as common as dust.
    “Good day, sir,” Betsy replied, matching his calm tone despite the quiver of excitement his smile sent racing up her spine.
    Beside her, Boru whined and began to tremble. She laid a hand on his shoulder to soothe him, but he only whined again and gave a short, throaty bark that caused both teams to flatten their ears and back in their traces. It also alerted the coachman to the untoward creak of the springs, and turned him in his box to call urgently to his passenger, “No, no, Yer Grace! We’re no where’s near Piccadilly!”
    “Your Grace!” Betsy breathed, her eyes widening. Why, he’s a duke, she thought amazedly, quite the nicest—and the youngest—she’d ever met.
    “Yes, Fletcher, I’m aware of that,” he replied, patient reassurance in his voice as he looked up at his driver.
    “Betsy! How many times must I tell you—” The dowager leaned around Boru and froze in midscold as she beheld the duke’s face. “Good heavens, Braxton! You are half in and half out of your carriage!”
    “Yes, Lady Clymore, I am.” He stiffened then, as if suddenly remembering something, and shifted his gaze to address the dowager countess. His eyes, which only moments before had sparkled with humor and quick intelligence, now looked vacant and clouded with bewilderment. “I am?” he repeated, making a question of it. “I mean, I am, Lady Clymore. But you see, I thought this was Piccadilly.”
    “Yes, of course,” her ladyship replied, with an ironically arched brow. “Soho is so often mistaken for it.”
    Only by a complete dolt, thought Betsy, which the Duke of Braxton was not. The unanswerable question was why on earth he was trying to pass himself off as one.
    His blacks chose that moment to chafe at the delay by rearing in their traces, which sent the carriage rocking, the duke weaving precariously to-and-fro, and Boru springing up on all fours. Vexed by the blacks and the hound’s barking, Betsy’s grays tried to bolt. The phaeton lurched forward before Silas could regain control, and Boru, before Betsy could restrain him, launched himself at the carriage.
    The dowager valiantly flung herself across the banquette to catch him, but succeeded only in bumping so hard into Betsy that she sent her granddaughter tumbling to the floor. Only when both conveyances had stopped pitching and both teams had been calmed, did Betsy dare pick herself up to see what had happened. She had to sweep Boru’s tail aside to look, and when she did, she cringed and groaned.
    Pinned against the squabs by Boru, who was stretched between the phaeton and the duke’s carriage, the countess turned her head as best she could against his shaggy flank and glared at Betsy.
    “Get this oaf off me,” she said between clenched teeth.
    “This instant, Granmama.” Betsy bolted from the phaeton, calling to Silas as she rounded the boot, “Hold them steady!”
    George jumped down from the box and met her beside Boru. The crowd that had gathered to watch the argument between the two drivers who’d nearly collided but had settled the matter and moved on, now drifted down the flagway to gape and twitter at the huge dog strung between the two vehicles. Boru, clinging to the carriage window by his toenails, turned his head toward Betsy and whined imploringly.
    “I’ll have him down in a wink, m’lady.” George raised his arms over his head, gripped Boru’s front legs, and glanced at the duke’s coachman. “Pull away real slow,