Jack thought it wasn’t his duty to answer, so he happily kept quiet.
“Grace?” Wyndham asked, turning to Miss Eversleigh.
Jack watched the exchange with interest. They were friends, but were they friendly? He could not be sure.
Miss Eversleigh swallowed with noticeable discomfort. “Your grace,” she said, “perhaps a word in private?”
“And spoil it for the rest of us?” Jack chimed in, because after what he’d been subjected to, he didn’t much feel that anyone deserved a moment of privacy. And then, to achieve maximum irritation, he added, “After all I’ve been through…”
“He is your cousin,” the dowager announced sharply.
“He is the highwayman,” Miss Eversleigh said.
“Not,” Jack added, turning to display his bound hands, “here of my own volition, I assure you.”
“Your grandmother thought she recognized him last night,” Miss Eversleigh told the duke.
“I knew I recognized him,” the dowager snapped. Jack resisted the urge to duck as she flicked her hand at him. “Just look at him.”
Jack turned to the duke. “I was wearing a mask.” Because really, he shouldn’t have to take the blame for this.
He smiled cheerfully, watching the duke with interest as he brought his hand to his forehead and pressed his temples with enough force to crush his skull. And then, just like that, his hand fell away and he yelled, “Cecil!”
Jack was about to make a quip about another lost cousin, but at that moment a footman-presumably named Cecil-came skidding down the hall.
“The portrait,” Wyndham bit off. “Of my uncle.”
“The one we just brought up to-”
“Yes. In the drawing room. Now!”
Even Jack’s eyes widened at the furious energy in his voice.
And then-it was like acid in his belly-he saw Miss Eversleigh lay a hand on the duke’s arm. “Thomas,” she said softly, surprising him with her use of his given name, “please allow me to explain.”
“Did you know about this?” Wyndham demanded.
“Yes, but-”
“Last night,” he said icily. “Did you know last night?”
Last night?
“I did, but Thomas-”
What happened last night?
“Enough,” he spat. “Into the drawing room. All of you.”
Jack followed the duke, and then, once the door was shut behind them, held up his hands. “D’you think you might…?” he asked. Rather conversationally, if he did say so himself.
“For the love of Christ,” Wyndham muttered. He grabbed something from a writing table near the wall and then returned. With one angry swipe, he cut through the bindings with a gold letter opener.
Jack looked down to make sure he wasn’t bleeding. “Well done,” he murmured. Not even a scratch.
“Thomas,” Miss Eversleigh was saying, “I really think you ought to let me speak with you for a moment before-”
“Before what?” Wyndham snapped, turning on her with what Jack deemed rather unbecoming fury. “Before I am informed of another long-lost cousin whose head may or may not be wanted by the Crown?”
“Not by the Crown, I think,” Jack said mildly. He had his reputation to think of, after all. “But surely a few magistrates. And a vicar or two.” He turned to the dowager. “Highway robbery is not generally considered the most secure of all possible occupations.”
His levity was appreciated by no one, not even poor Miss Eversleigh, who had managed to incur the fury of both Wyndhams. Rather undeservedly, too, in his opinion. He hated bullies.
“Thomas,” Miss Eversleigh implored, her tone once again causing Jack to wonder just what, precisely, existed between those two. “Your grace,” she corrected, with a nervous glance over at the dowager, “there is something you need to know.”
“Indeed,” Wyndham bit off. “The identities of my true friends and confidantes, for one thing.”
Miss Eversleigh flinched as if struck, and at that moment Jack decided that he’d had quite enough. “I suggest,” he said, his voice light but steady, “that you speak to Miss Eversleigh with greater respect.”
The duke turned to him, his eyes as stunned as the silence that descended over the room. “I beg your pardon.”
Jack hated him in that moment, every prideful little aristocratic speck of him. “Not used to being spoken to like a man, are we?” he taunted.
The air went electric, and Jack knew he probably should have foreseen what would come next, but the duke’s face had positively twisted into fury, and Jack somehow could not seem to move as Wyndham launched himself forward, his hands wrapping themselves around his throat as the both of them went crashing down to the carpet.
Cursing himself for a fool, Jack tried to get traction as the duke’s fist slammed into his jaw. Pure animalistic survival set in, and he tensed his belly into a hard knot. With one lightning-quick movement he threw his torso forward, using his head as a weapon. There was a satisfying crack as he struck Wyndham’s jaw, and Jack took advantage of his stunned state to roll them over and reverse their positions.
“Don’t…you… ever strike me again,” Jack growled. He’d fought in gutters, on battlefields, for his country and for his life, and he’d never had patience for men who threw the first punch.
He took an elbow in the belly and was about to return the favor with a knee to the groin when Miss Eversleigh leapt into the fray, wedging herself between the two men with nary a thought to propriety or her own safety.