The Duke's Men [1] What the Duke Desires by Sabrina Jeffries Page B

stand it. He’d never been in a public coach. Even when he’d been in
     school, some servant had always come to fetch him in one of the many family equipages.
    Lisette had said he should look on this as an adventure, but clearly her idea of adventure
     differed vastly from his. His would never have included having a packet that reeked
     of mutton lodged under his arm, or being jabbed in the ankle by an umbrella every
     time the coach made a stop.
    And there were several stops before they even left the city—to pick up a young woman
     from her home,to intersect with an incoming coach in order to acquire a load of goods, to maneuver
     around another carriage blocking the road. He couldn’t believe the number of delays.
    By the fourth one, he was chomping at the bit. He glanced over at Lisette, wondering
     if she was, too, but she was gazing out the window with an expression of rapt attention.
     They were passing Kennington Common now, where some orator was boring the crowd with
     his opinions and the nearby Church of St. Mark’s was disgorging its worshippers. Then
     came Brixton Road and a long line of moderately pretty terrace houses. Mundane sights,
     all.
    Yet every one seemed to fascinate her, for she alternated between craning her neck
     to see things and pressing her face to the glass. Had she really traveled so little?
     She’d spent part of her life in France, after all.
    Then again, if she’d been living with her brother all that time and then come straight
     to London with her half brother, she might not have had many other chances to travel.
    Her enthusiasm made him envious. When he rode in his own coach, he never noticed the
     world outside. He was too busy sorting correspondence or reading the papers. But now,
     through her eyes, he noticed the beautiful carving on one impressive edifice and the
     glistening of sunlight on the River Effra.
    An adventure? Perhaps.
    They had just reached a more rural stretch of road when Greasley bent down to remove
     from his satchelwhat looked—and smelled—like a peeled raw onion. He bit into it and, catching Maximilian’s
     hard stare on him, explained, “It’s good for the constitution, you know. I eats one
     every day.” He thumped his chest. “Keeps me strong and healthy.”
    “Put that thing away,” his wife mercifully said. “You’re going to stink up the whole
     coach!”
    “It’s your mutton pies that’s stinking up the coach,” Greasley retorted.
    “Our angel likes my mutton pies, she does. I promised her I’d bring her some.” Mrs.
     Greasley turned a flirtatious smile on Maximilian. “So do you like mutton pie, Mr. Kale?”
    “I don’t eat mutton,” he said hastily. Unless it’s prepared by my French chef and not by a woman who thinks it improves with
     age.
    “Then you just haven’t had it cooked right, that’s all,” the woman said. “I warrant
     once you taste my mutton, you’ll have a right healthy appreciation for it.”
    As her husband fell into a coughing fit, Maximilian fought to maintain his composure.
     Obviously Greasley knew what his wife did not—that “mutton” was a vulgar term for
     something else. And though Maximilian doubted that anyone, even her husband, had ever
     tasted the harpy’s mutton, he sure as blazes didn’t want that confirmed or disproved.
     Indeed, he would do almost anything to get that image out of his head.
    So it was fortunate that Lisette chose that moment to join the conversation. “How
     long do you mean to stay with your daughter in Brighton, Mrs. Greasley?”
    Sparing a frown for her still coughing husband, Mrs. Greasley let Lisette change the
     subject. “A week at least, I expect. She just bore our first grandson—that’s why we’re
     going. Mr. Greasley put our son Danny in charge of the drapery shop until we return.”
     She shot her husband a dark glance. “I daresay he will make it pay.”
    “The devil he will,” her husband muttered, having finally stopped coughing. “The