An Improper Arrangement. Кейси Майклс

and Basil, Basil and Vivien, carefree, high-spirited, game for any adventure. And without a care in the world.

      But then Boswell, the second duke, died within days of his sixtieth birthday. Fit as a fiddle, happy as a lark, drinking and carousing, mounting a mistress in the country, keeping a canary bird or two in the city. The picture of health (and the envy of many), he was heading toward the dance floor with a lovely young thing on his arm one evening when suddenly he stopped, said something very much like “Erp?” rolled his eyes heavenward…and dropped like a stone.

      Unnerving, to say the least, but the fellow had certainly had a good run at life. All things considered, his wasn’t such a bad way to go.

      Basil and Vivien paid their respects, mourned in their fashion (a trip to Africa to hunt anything with four legs and a tail), secure in the knowledge that their allowance would continue under Basil’s oldest brother.

      Until Bennett, the third duke, just two weeks shy of his sixtieth birthday, whilst driving his new pair of matched bays in Hyde Park, his recently affianced and hopefully fertile bride-to-be at his side, uttered a rather surprised “Erp?” rolled up his eyes and toppled to the gravel drive. Luckily, the bays, being, as the saying went, “all show and no go,” were easily stopped before running the curricle and screeching fiancée into the Serpentine.

      Basil, learning the news nearly six months later, gnawed on his bottom lip as his darling Vivien oohed and aahed at the sight of the Taj Mahal, unaware that a small seed of worry had planted itself in her husband’s brain.

      Sixteen months later, when Ballard (the fourth duke, for those keeping track, and Basil most certainly was), having just finessed a mediocre hand into a five-thousand-guinea profit, reached out to gather in his winnings, he suddenly hesitated, then said something his fellow gamblers swore sounded exactly like “Erp?” At nearly the same time, his eyes rolled up in his head, and a moment later he was facedown in the chips.

      Ballard had been eight days shy of his sixtieth birthday.

      “Let me guess,” Jeremiah Rigby said, holding up a hand to interrupt his friend Gabriel as he told the story. The two sat on a bench in the Cranbrook Chase gardens. “Basil and Vivien were on the moon munching green cheese when they got the word?”

      Gabriel smiled, because he wasn’t a man devoid of humor, even rather dark humor. “Not quite. They were somewhere in Virginia, visiting a distant relative of my aunt’s. She’s just home from there now, by the way, having had her reunion shortened by Uncle Ballard’s death.”

      “Your uncle didn’t go with her, obviously, considering he’s upstairs dying.”

      “Again. He’s dying again. But let me finish.”

      “Yes, there’s another B in there somewhere, isn’t there? The first duke was a busy man, and his wife even more so. Bronson? Bundy? Baldric? Now tell me he erped in Prinney’s lap, and I’ll die a happy man.”

      “Bellamy, and he was being fitted with a new rig-out when it happened. Word has it the waistcoat was to be striped orange satin, so at least Society was spared that.”

      “He’d ordered new clothes to celebrate his sixtieth birthday?”

      Gabriel stood up, smoothed down his cuffs. He was a tall man, much more so than his rather squat friend, so he was used to looking down at him whenever he spoke. He did so now, raising one expressive eyebrow in mock disapproval. “Who’s telling this story? Yes, he was four days from his sixtieth, and there was to be quite a large celebration at Cranbrook House in Portman Square scheduled for the night after that birthday. Uncle Bellamy was out to prove the curse wrong.”

      Now Rigby was on his feet, all eagerness. “Oh, now that’s something you forgot to mention. There’s a curse? Keep going, please. Nothing like a good curse to liven an otherwise dull afternoon.”

      “Picked up on that, did you? Uncle Basil thinks so, yes. The moment word reached him that he was now the heir—they were in Venice, I believe—he packed up Aunt Vivien and has been hiding here at Cranbrook Chase ever since. He’s convinced his father and brothers lived too high and too hard—rather in the way he and Aunt Vivien were living—and the jealous fates had exacted a price for their excesses. He’s given up traveling, wine, song, adventure. And women. According to Aunt Vivien—who unfortunately shares everything other than her age—that includes her. His major worry is that he left redemption too late and won’t even live long enough to, well, erp.”

      “I see. Well, not actually, but go on. Wait. Before you do, how did your father die? And when?”

      “That took longer than I expected, but thank you anyway for your concern. My father never reached sixty, either.”

      “Aha! You live a fairly high life, my friend. Why aren’t you hiding out up there with your great-uncle, perhaps reciting Psalms?”

      “Papa accidently shot himself in a rather personal area of his anatomy while out hunting with his friends, who said they’d honestly tried but couldn’t find a way to attach a tourniquet.”

      Rigby politely coughed into his hand, undoubtedly to cover a smile, and Gabriel just as politely ignored the gesture. “And before you ask, my grandfather, brother of the first duke, passed away peacefully in his sleep at the age of eighty-two. I think I’m safe, my only problem being that I’m now the sole heir of—to borrow from the Greek—that hypochondriac hiding in his bedchamber, and his sixtieth birthday is fast approaching.”

      “So are we here to plan a party to mark the day or a funeral?”

      “Neither. I received a note—no, a command—from Aunt Vivien, informing me of her return from America. I’m to meet her here because, God help me, she has a surprise for me.”

      “Not a good thing, I take it?”

      “That depends. Would you have liked to be, I’m fairly certain, the only child ever to have a stuffed lemur—grinning, mind you, and with beady glass eyes—in your nursery? I’ve also got, just to list a few, cowbells from Switzerland, a gondolier’s hat and pole from Venice, some sort of strange white coat—I refuse to call it a gown—from India. Oh, and a bull’s ears and tail from Spain. There was also a monkey, but, alas, the thing died on the voyage home. I would probably have liked the monkey.”

      “I think I’d like to see the lemur before I give you an answer. So what do you think she’s brought you from the wilds of America? I’ve seen drawings of some fairly fantastical feathered bonnets their Indians seem to favor. Think of the stir you’d cause in London, going out on the strut wearing one of those.”

      Gabriel looked at Rigby questioningly. “Remind me again exactly why I let you tag along with me? Clearly you’re not going to be at all helpful.”

      “I’m to back you as you lie barefaced to the duchess when you say you can’t linger here because you’re in hot pursuit of a certain young lady in London and have promised her you’ll be there for the Little Season.”

      “Ah, yes, I remember now. But not one lady. Several. I’ve decided, as Uncle’s last and only heir, that I must marry, set up my nursery. Never say just one, for God’s sake, or Aunt Vivien will want to meet her. She’ll be happy enough I’ve taken her advice and set out to produce several heirs of my own.”

      “You probably should try for something else while you’re at it,” his friend suggested.

      “Such as?”

      “Such as, since you say you’re not all hot to be the seventh duke anytime soon, making certain Uncle Basil wakes up hale and hearty, to greet the sun the day after his sixtieth birthday.”

      “And how do you propose I manage that? According to him, there’s an erp out there somewhere just waiting for him between now and November.”

      “True. But think on this for a moment, Gabe. If he does croak before his sixtieth, that would make