Free My American Duchess by Eloisa James Page B

appropriated all those involving social events—particularly those at which strong drink flowed like water.
    “You never looked at them, did you?” Cedric asked with a sniff. “Did you even realize that you hosted tonight’s ball in honor of the hospital with her ladyship?”
    Trent straightened, boot in hand. “What?”
    “You know, two hosts, one party. She’s as stingy as they come, so she leapt at the idea. You paid for the champagne.”
    “How did that come about, given that I know nothing of it?”
    “I’m certain I told you weeks ago. Or perhaps I forgot. It was one of my more brilliant ideas, that you and Lady Portmeadow should share the expenses, if not the duties.”
    Cedric pushed himself out of the chair and walked unsteadily to Trent’s dressing table, where he propped himself on one hand and leaned close to the mirror. “Now the ball is over, Lady Portmeadow would like you to release funds for the wing of the hospital. They’re going to break ground next week.”
    Trent dropped the boot with the thump. “I’m building a hospital wing?”
    “I’ve put a year into ensuring that hospital breaks ground. You didn’t really think that our family wouldn’t contribute, did you?” Cedric turned, a sardonic twist on his lips. “The Duke of Trent is building a wing on the hospital in memory of his oh-so-beloved parents. It’s only a few thousand pounds.”
    “You have no right to promise thousands of pounds to anyone,” Trent stated.
    “Lord Portmeadow,” his brother drawled, “is the head of that precious Committee on Standing Orders that you are always complaining about.”
    An all-too-familiar frustration rose in Trent’s throat. After inheriting the dukedom seven years before, he’d succeeded in turning his impoverished ancestral estate into a flourishing concern that employed hundreds, but the one person he had been unable to master was his twin.
    “You should be glad that your hoard is going to good use,” Cedric said, with a squinty-eyed smile. He was happiest when he managed to provoke Trent—and he knewexactly how to do it. He apparently devoted his sober hours to dreaming up new ways to force Trent to fall in with one of his schemes.
    Trent picked up the dropped boot and tossed it in the general direction of the wall. Cedric was right: it was too late to withdraw his sponsorship without offending the lady and her husband, who was one of the most powerful men in the House of Lords.
    More importantly, he had always meant to support the hospital, though he would have preferred to be consulted about his donation. That charity was the only thing Cedric had done in the last year other than order new coats and drink himself into a stupor.
    God knew why his brother had taken on the task, but he had talked an impressive number of people into supporting the project.
    “The wing is in memory of our parents?” Trent asked.
    “Yes,” Cedric said, his voice taking on a false sweetness that Trent loathed. “I thought of specifying Mother, but I had the idea you might object.”
    Trent didn’t answer. The late duchess had never pretended not to favor her younger son. And to despise her elder.
    “The wing will be devoted to the care of impoverished orphans,” Cedric continued. “We are orphans, after all.”
    “I scarcely think that we qualify as orphans, in that we were twenty when the duke and duchess died,” Trent said, tugging off his second boot.
    “ I for one am practically impoverished,” Cedric said.
    “You have a tidy income, and the house in Berkeley Square,” Trent said, adding, “not to mention the fact that you are affianced to an heiress.” It was ridiculous to feel a twinge at the memory of Merry Pelford laughing about English fortune-hunters.
    Trent should be happy about his twin’s betrothal; itmeant Cedric would finally establish his own household. A few years ago, Trent had deeded him a townhouse that had belonged to an aunt, but Cedric had declined to leave