Dukes By the Dozen

Lily was sitting next to Mr. Everhart on the piano bench—when had she moved?—while Iris wished the mythic roc would flap out of the sky and transport her to some faraway isle. I was my sisters’ French tutor. I am a glorified governess.

She had known this, but knowing it and hearing the situation laid bare before the Duke of Clonmere were two different orders of painful.

The duke’s slight smile suggested the twins’ chatter charmed him, but the pity in his eyes said he knew the truth: Iris was a spinster in training, not even paid for teaching her sisters French. Or for doing their hair, embellishing their ballgowns, managing their social calendars, and teaching them to ride and drive.

The sonata dragged on, pretty, sad, and sweet, while Iris’s heart broke. She wanted to know the Duke of Clonmere better. She wanted to ask him what literary subject he had enjoyed, if mythology had been such a forced march. She wanted to tell him her middle name was Ann—plain, boring, short Ann—but that had been her grandmother’s name, so she treasured it.

And she wanted Clonmere to close his eyes, point to a sister, and get this whole farce over with. For however long his duchess lived, Iris would be forced into occasional proximity with him, and faced with what she herself had never been allowed to want.

A man worth loving, worth being foolish and brave and trusting over. Clonmere was all of that, but he would never, ever be hers.

CHAPTER 4

THE VISIT with Falmouth’s daughters had been an adagio cantabile hell.

Clonmere jogged down the steps of the earl’s townhouse, the next weeks stretching before him like the labors of Hercules. Without magic potions, intervening goddesses, a friendly centaur, or some handy poison arrows, he would end up married to a woman who needed her twin to finish her sentences.

“I must thank you,” Cousin Thomas said. “That was a surprisingly delightful hour.”

“It felt more like an eternity.”

Thomas was a few years Clonmere’s junior and had always loved music. “Not one but four lovely women shared their time and attention with us,” he said. “I’d always thought Lady Iris too serious, but I hadn’t realized Lady Lily was such a music lover.”

Thank God that Lady Lily has ensconced herself on the piano bench and not budged until the visit’s conclusion.

“What did you two find to talk about?” Clonmere asked.

“The difference between harmonic, relative, and natural minor as they impact the emotional tone of a piece.”

Clonmere paused at the street corner. “I have no idea what you just said. If Lady Iris were any more devoted to her sisters, she’d have to swear fealty to them in a public ceremony involving a sword and Latinate oaths.”

And that was a problem. That was a serious problem.

“Sisters are supposed to be devoted. Perhaps I’ll write an air to show off Lady Lily’s voice.”

“Cousins are supposed to be devoted.” Clonmere took off across the street, entirely frustrated with the time spent with Falmouth’s daughters. He’d undertaken the call to get the initial introductions over with, and to gather information regarding the best means of courting Lady Iris.

“How can a woman be so firmly un-courtable?” he asked.

Cousin Thomas hung back, not quite keeping pace, not quite falling behind. “Lady Lily is eminently court-able. She’s intelligent, knowledgeable, pretty, soft-spoken, knows Beethoven from Mozart and is pretty.”

“You mentioned that.” Twice.

“Well, she is. If you hadn’t been so busy stuffing yourself with tea cakes, you might have noticed that she’s the pick of the litter.”

“Stop languishing at my elbow. Falmouth’s daughters are not puppies.”

Cousin Thomas picked up his pace, barely. “As your cousin, I feel honor-bound to express my opinion that Lady Lily would make you an excellent duchess. The other two are chatterboxes who haven’t outgrown sibling rivalry.”

“And Lady Iris?”

Cousin Thomas linked his hands behind his back, a pose he probably practiced: Composer looking handsome in a creative fog.

“Lady Iris is a perfectly pleasant woman but she lacks…. Sparkle. A duchess should sparkle, tastefully.”

Clonmere barely restrained the urge to shove Cousin Thomas into the street. “She sparkles. You’re too blinded by music to see it.”

“Are you daft, Clonmere? I mean Lady Iris no insult, but she’s not youthful, she’s not musical. She’s not… I have danced with Lady Iris several times in an effort to gain closer acquaintance with Lady Lily. Lady Iris is oblivious to my cause, and now I know why.”

Thomas presented as a placid, dreamy soul who would nonetheless work himself to exhaustion when in the grip of inspiration. He was in the grip of something now, something interesting.

“I say Lady Iris is the most duchess-like of the sisters,” Clonmere retorted. “She is gracious, kind, dignified, selfless, and uncomplaining.”

“And that won’t result in any grand finales.”

“What are you going on about?”

“Molto appassionato,” Thomas said, waving his hands. “Vivace, Con brio. Fire, Clodpate-mere. I fear the Portuguese sun has addled what few wits God gave you, if you can’t see those qualities in Lady Lily.”

Clonmere had read Cervantes, and he knew a man enthralled when he saw one. “You are an honorable man, Thomas, and a good cousin.”

His shoulders slumped. “You’ll marry Lady Lily then?”

Hercules had pulled off more than one of his labors with the aid of loyal companions. In a pinch, a cousin could be recruited to that role.

“I haven’t made up my mind. I’ve only met the ladies, and marriage is forever.”

Thomas paused at the next crossing. “If you break Lady Lily’s heart, I will break your nose.” He’d do it, too, despite the damage to his own knuckles.

“Good decisions are made based on good information. I don’t know enough about Lady Lily to make any decisions about her.”

“Then you’re a dunderhead, though we knew that about you.”

“Take pity on a dunderheaded duke and get to the know the lady. I must find a way to pry the twins apart long enough to become familiar with them individually. That will take effort and time, leaving you to scout the terrain where Lady Lily is concerned.”

Thomas gazed off across the square. He was a handsome devil, his dark hair fell over his forehead a la Byron, and while he was tall, he wasn’t a brutish looby who went around lifting carriages in public.

“Lady Lily will need friends,” Thomas said. “Especially if she’s to become your duchess, she’ll need friends.”

Clonmere clapped him on the shoulder. “I knew I could count on you. Now, do you happen to know which clubs Amherst and Derwood frequent?”

Thomas brushed at his coat sleeve as if a cousinly display of affection was unwelcome. “They frequent them all, depending on where they have credit left. This time of the month, the Brigadier is your best bet. The ale is good quality, the spirits reasonably priced. Nobody plays too deeply.”

“Then I’m away to the Brigadier. My thanks for your assistance.”

Thomas sidled off down the walkway, humming a minor tune. Clonmere let him go and ducked into the nearest flower shop. He sent a bouquet to the ladies of Falmouth’s house—sweet pea, in thanks for a lovely time—but for his lapel he chose an iris.

IRIS WATCHED Clonmere dance with her sisters at one ball after another, watched as each lady grew in confidence and grace for having become one of very few whom His Grace partnered. She listened to the envious speculation of the wall flowers, the sighing asides of the chaperones.

And she’d smiled more in the past three weeks than in the previous four years, then gone home and hugged her pillow in solitude.

Clonmere was nothing if not conscientious about getting to know her sisters. Soon he’d make his choice, and Iris could retire to country with Cousin Hattie.

Though the countryside had few bookshops, and Iris didn’t have any friends there.

Then too, Puck would be a member of the rural household, and he had a disagreeable habit of leaving evidence of feline dyspepsia on carpets and stairs, and cat hair everywhere.

“I’ll have you to cheer me up,” Iris said, patting Rosie’s shoulder. Though Rosie was getting on in years, and she preferred driving to going under saddle, while Iris loved a good gallop.

Iris’s groom was a good dozen yards back, chatting with another groom. The path ahead was quiet with the stillness of pre-dawn, a good time to feel sorry for oneself or to canter away regrets.

“My lady.” The bushes to the right rustled to reveal Clonmere on his gray. “Good day.”

Must he look so delectable in his riding attire? Must he sit that horse like he was born atop it?

“Your Grace, good morning.”

“Keep me company, won’t you?” he said, steering his horse to Rosie’s side. “I’m without siblings today, and the rare solitude has left Boru fidgety.”

“He’s Irish stock?”

“A present from my godfather. So which of the Fallon sisters should I marry?”

Me. You should marry me. Except that made no sense. Iris was the oldest, the plainest, the least outgoing. Her settlements were modest, while her sisters would likely bring handsome sums to the negotiations.

“You should marry the lady with whom you are most compatible, though all three of my sisters would try hard to make a marriage to you successful.”

I’d try harder. The earl would be furious, though, and likely banish his daughters to Surrey. Peter might try to intervene for his sisters, but he was still not of age and had no funds of his own.

Clonmere took a turning onto a narrower path, so that Rosie and the duke’s gelding had to amble along shoulder to shoulder.

“I ask your opinion,” Clonmere said, “because your sisters have given me no clue which of them esteems me most highly. They are all that is charming, they waltz very well, and ask me the polite questions a lady is trained to ask her dance partner, but they are sphinxes when it comes to the matter of their regard for me.”

He sounded honestly puzzled, as if young women who struggled with French might have no instincts when it came to preserving their privacy before a potential suitor.

“You could ask them,” Iris said. “You ask them if they want to marry you. I’m sure nobody has.” Iris certainly hadn’t.

“Fine thing, when a woman is supposed to be thrilled to marry a man because three hundred years ago, his ancestor chose the winning side of some battle or endowed a cause dear to an impecunious monarch.”

Clonmere, a handsome, single, wealthy, young duke, felt invisible, precisely because he was handsome, single, wealthy, and a duke. Oh, the irony.

“I’d marry you,” Iris said. “Not because of your lucky ancestor.”

The horses stopped beneath a canopy of green. “Why would you marry me? I lack refinement, I like making wine, my siblings run roughshod over me, I have the singing voice of a drunken donkey, and I will spoil my children rotten so they can run roughshod over me as well. Any duchess with an ounce of sense will find me utterly unimpressive.”

Do you promise, about spoiling the children? “I would marry you,” Iris said, “because you are kind and honorable, you like to laugh, you enjoy being useful, and you are tolerant of fat felines. Puck’s singing voice does not recommend him, but he seldom wants for the companionship of pretty females.”

The duke fiddled with his reins, then straightened the angle of his hat. “Thomas says Lady Lily’s soprano is extraordinary.”

I lay my heart at your feet, and you bring up Lily’s warbling. “His opinion would mean a lot to her.”

“Could it be that Thomas means a lot to her? Every time I lead her from the dance floor, he seems to be her next partner.”

“And Mr. Dersham and Mr. Amherst have apparently taken an interest in Holly and Hyacinth, respectively. This is your fault, Your Grace.”

He sat straighter in the saddle. “My fault?”

“Because you show such marked interest in my sisters, they have become sought after by all. They are treated differently in the shops, when they go for an ice, when they merely tarry in the churchyard on a fine spring morning. You have caused them to be seen and appreciated for the jewels they are.”

“You say Amherst and Dersham are taken with the twins?”

“You are so busy paying court to your prospective duchesses that you aren’t minding the gossip, Your Grace. The twins have gone driving as a foursome with Misters Dersham and Amherst on three occasions.”

Leaving Iris in the sewing room with Puck, and a bad case of suitor-envy. Dersham and Amherst had, as Clonmere predicted, become best of friends, and they were well situated bachelors. Were Clonmere not in the picture, either man would have made an admirable suitor.

Though Clonmere was in the picture, and looking delectable on his grey gelding.

“I suppose if I marry Lady Lily, then the twins will be pleased to have other options. I believe Thomas has taken a fancy to Lily, though, so marrying her could be problematic. I don’t see a way forward that doesn’t leave somebody disgruntled and unhappy. Have you any advice for me, Lady Iris?”

That he was concerned for the feelings of others, especially for the feelings of Iris’s sisters, spoke well of him, and yet, Iris was annoyed.

Furious, in fact.

“My sisters are not cravat pins, to be chosen among based on your whim or fancy. They are dear young women with feelings and dreams. They didn’t ask for this ridiculous situation, and yet, they will be the ones affected.”

Blue eyes went frosty. “I didn’t ask for it either, Lady Iris.”

“But you agreed to it. You’re a duke. Papa would have had no recourse if you’d asserted your authority. He’s trading on your agreeable nature and your respect for your mama, and you have offered not one word of protest. I had best be going.”

He drew his gelding to the edge of the path. “A moment please.”

In a moment, I will cry. “I will not be your spy, Clonmere. I’ve told my sisters what little I know of you, and that is the extent to which I’m willing to participate in this farce.”

Clonmere passed over a silk handkerchief with his coat of arms embroidered onto the corner. “I beg your pardon, my lady, for having spoken cavalierly about a serious matter affecting those you care for. Your good opinion of me matters exceedingly.”

She snatched the handkerchief from him, though she wasn’t crying. Not at all. “Bother your gallantries, sir.”

“Will you spare me a waltz tonight?”

Iris was on the verge of honking into his silk handkerchief in the hope of spooking his horse. She peered at the duke.

“You seek a dance with me?”

“You are correct that I’ve allowed Falmouth to dictate the terms of this exercise. He has four daughters, not three, and I’d at least like the pleasure of a dance with you. The most difficult part of my conundrum is how to make my choice without hurting anybody’s feelings. But for that, I’d have asked Falmouth for permission to pay my addresses to one of his daughters weeks ago.”

A conscientious brother would know all about hurt feelings between sisters. Iris hadn’t thought that far ahead, though—gracious days—what of the two sisters not chosen to be Clonmere’s duchess?

“Dance with me, Lady Iris. Please.”

She ought not. He was being kind again, decent and gentlemanly, drat him. “Why dance with me?”

“Because I wish it above all things.”

That reply could have been a jest, a line of flirtatious banter. Clonmere presented his answer like a single rose, lovely and fragrant, though thorny enough to require careful handling.

“You may have my supper waltz tonight,” Iris said, “though I’d ask that you decide within the week, which of my sisters to court. For everybody’s sake.”

The sun had crested the horizon, and golden beams were slanting through the trees. Overhead robins caroled a greeting to the day while a pair of swans glided regally across the Serpentine. On his white steed, Clonmere looked like some fairytale prince, which mattered to Iris not at all. Mayfair was full of handsome lordlings who rode well. Clonmere, though, had impressed her.

He’d given her the one justification for equivocating among her sisters that she could respect: He didn’t want to hurt the feelings of those he rejected. Would that Falmouth had shown his daughters the same consideration—all of his daughters.

“Until this evening, then,” Iris said, turning Rosie back the way they’d come. “I’ll look forward to our waltz.” She was, for once, telling Clonmere the absolute truth.

“As shall I, my lady.” He doffed his hat, and smiled, as if he too, were telling the absolute truth.

CLONMERE HAD SPENT the past several weeks engaged in two deceptions. The first deception was that he intended to offer for Lady Lily, Lady Holly, or Lady Hyacinth. They were adorable, sweet, pretty, and not in love with him—thank heavens. Marriage to him would be a duty to them, albeit a tolerable duty.

The second more difficult deception was to pretend he was only cordially disposed toward Lady Iris when he was wild for her.

She had the patience of a saint, standing amid the wall flowers by the hour, smiling while her sisters twirled down the room with every eligible bachelor sober enough to dance.

She was kind, fetching punch for the dowagers, bringing them their shawls, sitting with them at supper.

She was dignified, ignoring Billings Harman’s wandering hands—Clonmere’s fist had had a short discussion with Billings’s nose thereafter—and refusing to be drawn into gossip. Thomas, Dersham, and Amherst had all assured Clonmere of that.

“Though I must tell you,” Dersham said, “I don’t think Lady Holly would suit you either.”

Clonmere occupied an alcove in the Duke of Quimbey’s ballroom. Dersham had joined him, and the violins tuning up meant that their conversation was not overheard.

“Lady Holly seems a very agreeable sort,” Clonmere said.

“She’s too agreeable for you, meaning no disrespect to the lady. You’d trample her delicate spirit inside a year.”

Clonmere consulted his watch. “Do I detect in your warning more than a champion’s chivalrous regard for the lady?” Please, please, let Dersham be as besotted as he sounded.

“Well, you can’t marry them all, Clonmere, and marrying the youngest first isn’t the done thing.”

No, it wasn’t. The eldest typically married first. “If Lady Holly is not my choice, do you intend to offer for her?”

Dersham struck a pose, hand on hip, nose in the air. “I believe I well might. I won’t stand in her way if she longs for a tiara, but neither will I push her into your arms when a more suitable fellow has learned to appreciate her charms.”

“There you are,” Amherst said, slipping into the alcove. “Dersh, be a love and fetch us some punch, would you?”

Dersham sent Clonmere a look that was probably intended to be severe, but mostly looked desperate. “Do we understand each other, Clonmere?”

“We do.” One down, two to go. “Amherst, you had something to say?”

Amherst and Dersham exchanged the same sort of look Ladies Holly and Hyacinth traded. “Only need a minute of your time, Clonmere. Dersh, I’ll meet you—”

“—at the punchbowl,” Dersham said, sketching a bow and bouncing away.

“Here’s what you need to know, Clonmere. I’ve spent the past few weeks getting to know Lady Hyacinth, just as you requested. I know her favorite flavor of ice, I know she speaks French nearly as badly as I do. I know she likes puppies better than kittens, but she don’t care for you above half.”

Amherst, who was notably vague on many points, was very sure of his lady.

“I don’t expect my duchess to be madly in love with me, Amherst.” Though a love match would be wonderful, provided the duchess involved was Lady Iris.

“Nobody can be madly in love with a duke,” Amherst said, “though a duke is often in love with himself. You lot are too high in the instep, and Hyacinth ain’t that sort of lady. She likes to be silly, and laughs at bawdy jokes if her sister ain’t about, and she don’t care for the country. You don’t care for Town.”

Amherst, in his bumbling way, had lit upon several salient truths. Lady Hyacinth was a dear, but decorum was not a priority for her, and she did seem prodigiously fond of the shops.

“Are you enamored of her, Amherst?”

Amherst grasped his lapels with both hands. “And if I am?”

“Then give me about a week before you offer for her.”

Amherst blinked. “D’ye mean it? She’s the dearest thing, and she don’t mind that Dersh and I like the occasional night with the fellows, and she isn’t always trying to take the reins, if you know what I mean. She’s a comfortable sort of lady, not a duchess sort.”

“I must orchestrate matters so that nobody’s pride suffers, regardless of my choice.”

Amherst rocked up on his toes, then back on his heels. “Dersh is powerful smitten with Lady Holly. The feeling’s mutual, I daresay. Suppose that leaves you with Lady Lily. She’ll want you to take her to the opera.”

This condolence was offered with the most sincere fellow-feeling Clonmere had been extended in years.

“Some things can’t be helped, Amherst. Wait until my betrothal has been announced, then call upon Falmouth. You can pass the same guidance along to Dersham, though I’d rather you not discuss this at the punch bowl.”

Amherst paused two steps from the edge of the alcove. “Clonmere, one doesn’t bandy a lady’s name about. Have a damned care or Dersh and I will have to take you in hand. Discuss this at the punch bowl, indeed.”

Two down.

Amherst nearly knocked Thomas onto his arse, so intent was Lady Hyacinth’s swain to not discuss his marital fortunes at the punch bowl.

“Clonmere.” Thomas bowed, not a smile to be seen. “I have secured Lady Lily’s supper waltz, but I must make something clear to you.” He paused, cocking his head. “That second fiddle is at least a quarter tone sharp.”

As if Clonmere knew what a quarter tone was. “You were saying?”

“I am waltzing with Lady Lily tonight, not because you asked me to befriend the lady, but because the lady has befriended me. She fancies me, and I’ve reason to believe she does not fancy you.”

Thank you, Cousin. “Not above half?”

“She says she could esteem you greatly, and you’re very estimable, and a fine gentleman, and any woman would be flattered to have your addresses, but that’s all so much twaddle. She and I play duets. You could never play a duet with her. We argue about the virtues of French versus Italian opera. You view an opera as a chance to catch up on your sleep.”

“Thomas—”

“She has a lyric soprano that will turn lullabies into arias, while you can’t carry a tune in a bucket even when you’re drunk. Lady Lily has discernment, artistic discernment, while you—”

Clonmere stepped closer, before his cousin burst forth into song. “Thomas.”

“No need to shout. I’m merely reciting facts. That violin is an abomination. I owe it to every refined ear in the ballroom to tune that instrument.”

“You owe it to Lady Lily to court her, but I beg you to first allow me to offer for one of her sisters.”

Thomas studied him as if Clonmere’s tuning were off by a quarter tone. “You really aren’t suited to either of the twins, Clonmere. They are wonderful young women, but your temperament is not compatible with theirs. They are flutes, you’re a trombone, old man. Not a good combination.”

Three down. Clonmere scanned the ballroom for his would-be duchess. “You’ll wait until I’ve become engaged to pay your addresses to Lady Lily?”

“Yes, but I cannot bear another instant of that violin. I wish I had a solution for you, but you can’t marry both twins, and you can’t marry Lily. I won’t have it, and neither, I hope, would she.”

“Go tune the violin, Thomas, and my thanks for all you’ve done.”

“I’ve stolen the best of the lot out from under your nose,” Thomas said, tugging down his waistcoat. “Well done of me, if I do say so my own, humble, handsome self.”

He disappeared into the throng beyond the alcove, leaving a very relieved duke in the shadows. The next part was delicate, but critical. Three of Falmouth’s daughters did not fancy becoming the next Duchess of Clonmere. Clonmere had yet to confirm that fourth daughter did fancy that station, or was at least willing to become his wife.

CHAPTER 5

SPRING HAD ADVANCED during the weeks Clonmere had courted Iris’s sisters. Lily, Holly, and Hyacinth had bloomed as a result of his attentions, while Iris’s spirit wilted with each evening of dancing, music, and socializing she was forced to endure.

Puck’s company was beginning to look attractive. He was soft and warm, he purred, he didn’t chatter or leer or mash a lady’s toes. In his way, he was hand—

“Lady Iris, the supper waltz approaches.”

Clonmere had come upon Iris in the gallery that ran parallel to the ballroom. The duke was tall and imposing in his evening attire, though a gleam in his eye hinted of something not quite civilized.

And even that, that hint of determination or impatience, whatever it was, made him interesting to Iris.

“Your Grace.” She curtseyed. “You found me.”

“Were you hiding?”

Yes—from all the gaiety and joy in the ballroom. “Not from you. I sought cooler air. The weather has become mild.” The evening was warm enough that the ballroom was growing uncomfortable.

“The terrace beckons.” He offered his arm. “Shall we steal a moment of peace and quiet?”

He’d never escorted Iris, never led her out. She took his arm with a sense of wistfulness bounded by resentment. She was one of Falmouth’s daughters. By the rules of this silly courting game, she should have at least danced with Clonmere a few times.

“I am desperate to get back to Surrey,” Clonmere said. “I have the sense the ladies are desperate that the Season should never end. What of you, do you long for the country, or is Town your preferred habitat?”

“I’d forgotten your family seat is in Surrey.”

The terrace was quiet and inviting, lit by enough torches to chase the shadows into the garden.

“I hack out as many mornings as I can,” Clonmere said, “because the maples remind me of the forest back home. You didn’t answer my question.’

He led her down the steps, onto a gravel walk. The illumination along the walk was intermittent, which emphasized the garden’s scents. Too early for roses, though the lavender was evident, and tulips were still making a show. The daffodils were fading, and yet their sweetness lingered on the air.

“I prefer to be where my family is,” Iris said. “The first two years after the late countess presented me, I was the only daughter who came up to Town in spring. That was lonely.” Particularly with the earl quibbling over ever yard of ribbon and pair of slippers the countess insisted on buying.

Clonmere steered her toward a shadowed bench. “Are you lonely now?”

Iris took a seat and the duke came down beside her. “That is a very personal question, Your Grace.” A very painful question.

“I bring my whole family up to Town when I must be here, or as many as I can bribe and wheedle into coming along. Mama loves the shopping, the cousins love Mama, and I love them all.”

And soon, if he didn’t already, he’d include one of Iris’s sisters in the happy, lucky horde. A thought more painful than loneliness threatened: What if Iris, aging and unmarried, lost Cousin Hattie, and had to become one of Clonmere’s tribe of relations?

“The waltz will start soon,” Iris said. “We should be going inside.”

Clonmere remained on the bench beside her. “Might I confide a secret? I’m all waltzed out. I have no more waltzes, minuets, quadrilles, gavottes or Roger de Coverley’s in me. Not tonight. Your sisters have worn me to flinders.”

I want my waltz. And yet, Iris was also relieved. To twirl around in Clonmere’s arms, pretending to be merely amused, pretending to merely enjoy what Iris would instead be savoring and resenting and treasuring…. Clonmere’s demurral was in truth a reprieve.

“My sisters thrive on society’s entertainments. You will have a waltzing duchess, Your Grace. Best accommodate that reality now, even if it’s not precisely what you wish for.”

Clonmere plucked a flower from the urn beside the bench. “What do you wish for? If you had a fairy godmother, and she granted you a wish-come-true, what would it be, Lady Iris?”

Just as the duke was out of waltzes, Iris was out of witty rejoinders. The plain, honest truth begged to be spoken, if only this once, if only to a man making conversation to avoid the ballroom.

“A wish? My deepest, most secret wish?”

“The wish your heart whispers as you drift into dreams, that wish.”

To not end up with Puck-hair all over my life. To not be a burden on my family. To never… but those wishes were all in the negative. What did Iris wish for affirmatively? She had the sense Clonmere would wait for her answer until Michaelmas, though by then he’d be married to some sister or other.

A lady and a gentleman on the terrace pretended to admire the moonlit garden, though in truth they were standing too close to each other, and like Iris, probably enjoying the simple warmth of a companion in close quarters.

“I wish that a worthy man would regard me, the true me, as the fulfillment of some of his dreams, Your Grace. Not all, of course, just as I wouldn’t expect him to be the sum total of my life either. I was raised to expect that I’d find a partner though, and I’m not ashamed to long for it. I wish that man would find me, and kiss me as if all the love in his heart had finally found a home, and as if all the love in my heart was his dearest treasure. Just once, I’d like to experience such a kiss.”

The admission surprised her, but also came as something of a relief. Twenty-six was not ancient, and longing for somebody to love was purely human.

“You are very brave,” Clonmere said, rising. “Very fierce.”

Now he was ready to return to the ballroom? “I am neither.”

He offered his hand—not his arm—and Iris rose. She’d confided much more than she’d intended, but the recitation had given her courage. She would not slink off to Surrey, she would not consign herself to the company of dyspeptic cats and literary spinsters.

“Where are we going?” she asked, for the duke was not taking her in the direction of the ballroom.

“Someplace private.”

This was not a strictly proper idea, though Clonmere would soon become family to Iris—an idea that struck her as increasingly improper.

“Your Grace, we were to dance the supper waltz.” In public, where Iris had a prayer of not betraying her feelings to him.

“What matters one more waltz, when I can make a lady’s wish come true?” He came to a halt toward the back of the garden. The sound of the ballroom faded to a distant roar, moonlight glinted on a trickle of water splashing from a fountain sculpted into the shape of a blooming rose.

“I must make my own dreams come true,” Iris said.

Clonmere shifted his grip on Iris’s hand, linking their fingers. “On Saturday, I will choose which of Falmouth’s daughters to court. From that day forward, I will be devoted to her and only to her, if she’ll have me. I must make my choice in a manner that offers none of your sisters insult, or the woman I choose for my duchess will forever regret that she caused her siblings to suffer. Jealousy among siblings is the very devil, and I won’t be the cause of it in my wife’s family.”

He was trying to make some point, but Iris grasped only the first part of his declaration. “You have not yet made your choice. You aren’t devoted to anybody yet.”

“Precisely.” He took off his gloves, a curious thing to do when the supper was still a set of dances away. “I am free to behave as I please, and I please to make your one, honest wish come true—if I may?”

A peculiar sensation welled from Iris’s middle, part glee, part terror. “You’d like to kiss me?”

“That was your wish.”

Her wish had involved a particular kind of kiss, which Clonmere couldn’t possibly deliver.

She nodded.

He framed her face in the warmth of his hands. “Then… as you wish, my lady.”

Iris braced her hands on his shoulders and braced her heart to be swept into a maelstrom of sensation, but the buffeting never came. Clonmere touched his mouth to hers, another request for permission.

She stepped nearer, letting him have her weight. “Again, please.”

He smiled against her mouth, and as the violins began a lilting introduction in the distance, Iris embarked on the kiss of her dreams. For a big man, Clonmere was delicate about his intimacies. He stroked Iris’s face, feature by feature, then kissed the terrain his fingers had explored. He teased, he flirted, he bit her earlobe and made her laugh.

And then he grew serious, wrapping Iris close and letting her feel every masculine, muscular, aroused inch of him.

Some inconvenient voice was trying to warn Iris that she’d regret this. The kiss wasn’t wrong—Clonmere was not spoken for, Iris wasn’t either—but it was stolen against all the years when such a kiss would be impossible. Long, lonely years, made more difficult by this intimacy.

As Iris tasted Clonmere’s mouth, explored lips and teeth and tongue with him, she found a thread of peace with her future: In the coming years, she could keep a distance from Clonmere, and being a gentleman, he’d understand and allow that.

But at least she’d have this kiss. This wonderful, perfect, cherishing, happy kiss, and for that she would never, ever be sorry.

IF A WOMAN COULD SAY, “Yes, please court me!” in a kiss, Lady Iris was saying that very thing. She had a grip on Clonmere’s hair at the nape of his neck that spoke of possession and passion. She pressed close to him, breast to chest, hips to happiness.

Had not somebody tittered, loudly, from the direction of the terrace, Clonmere might have borne the lady away to his coach, there to follow kisses with even greater intimacies.

Lady Iris broke the kiss but remained in his embrace and kept her arms about him.

“What are you thinking?” Clonmere asked, stroking her hair.

“I cannot think. I cannot even think about thinking.”

That makes two of us. “We would suit, Lady Iris.” He hadn’t meant to say that, hadn’t meant to be so graceless about his intentions.

She drew back and fluffed his cravat. “I fear we would, Your Grace, but if I were to marry you, my father would be wroth with all four of his daughters. He’d say I stole you from the other three, he’d claim they didn’t exert themselves hard enough to win your notice. I am the one daughter you cannot marry.”

Merely straightening his linen, Iris addled his wits. “And if your sisters found suitable spouses?”

“That they cannot do that until you’ve chosen your duchess.”

“My prospective papa-in-law wants a stern talking to.”

Lady Iris wandered back to the fountain as the quartet began a fortissimo restatement of the waltz melody.

“To be honest,” Iris, said, “I suspect Falmouth is in want of coin. My brother has gambling debts, my father has little sense where to profitably invest the rents. I’ll be retiring to the country this summer lest Falmouth make designs on my competence.”

No you will not, not without me. “Perhaps Falmouth will allow me to assist my duchess’s sisters to find suitable situations.”

Lady Iris turned, arms crossed. “You will arrange nothing for me, Clonmere. I am provided for, thanks to my late mother’s settlements, while my sisters must marry well.”

“How can you kiss me like that, and then announce you’ll decamp to damned Lesser Sheep Byre, wishing me well as I court a lady of whom I am not enamored? Your sisters are lovely women, Iris, but they aren’t you.”

She was quiet for so long, the waltz had come to an end before she spoke. “You are a duke, you understand responsibility and the importance of family. If Papa thinks I have interfered with your choice of bride to further my own interests, he will exact a toll. He will refuse me the company of my sisters. He will forbid my brothers to contact me, and they very much need a lady’s civilizing influence. He will interfere with my funds, which would be all too easy for him to do as long as I remain unwed. I must tread very, very lightly, Your Grace, or others will pay should my course be guided by selfishness.”

Truly she was more a duchess than Clonmere was a duke. “And the urgency to decide the matter within the month of April?”

“Falmouth cannot afford the expenses of a full Season for all of us. His circumstances approach embarrassed.”

Well, good. An earl without means was an earl who could be managed. “You dreamed of a cherishing, ardent kiss, Lady Iris. I hope I’ve made that dream come true.”

“You have.” No blush, no smile, no quarter of any kind.

“I have a dream too. I dream of a woman whose trust is precious, a woman of surpassing sense and generosity of spirit, one who has soldiered on without companionship for too long. I dream of that lady entrusting her heart to me. I want—I yearn—for such a lady to take her place at my side, not because I’m a duke, not because I am a competent kisser, not because I can damned waltz by the hour, but because I have earned her tender, lasting regard.”

Lady Iris cupped his cheek against her palm. “You deserve such a lady. I dearly hope you find her.”

She left him by the fountain, half-aroused, half-bewildered, all in love. She would doubtless sit among the dowagers or wall flowers at supper, then dance with the shy bachelors and friendly widowers. She’d keep an eye on her sisters, she’d leave as soon as Cousin Hattie showed signs of tiring.

“But who looks after Iris?” Clonmere asked the darkened garden.

“I was hoping you would.” Cousin Hattie stepped out from behind a lilac bush that had yet to bloom. “The job is getting to be rather too much for me.”

She came up to about Clonmere’s ribs, but in a fair fight, his money would be on her. “Were you spying on us?”

“How droll. You are attempting to look intimidating.”

“Is it working?”

She went up on her toes and batted at Clonmere’s hair. “I heard that last speech, Your Grace, the one about winning the lady’s tender regard. I nearly swooned, and I haven’t swooned since Noah set sail. What Iris says about Falmouth is the sorry truth.” She left off smacking at his hair and stepped back. “You are a handsome devil. You’ll age nicely too.”

“Would you care to count my teeth?”

“Not if I’d like to remain in possession of all ten fingers. I wasn’t spying. I was standing guard.”

“Thank you. I have the matter in hand, or nearly so.”

“Mr. Everhart will do for Lily, Amherst for Holly, Dersham for Hyacinth. Cleverly done, but what will you do about Falmouth? He can keep Iris’s brothers from ever seeing her again, he can refuse to dower her sisters, he can—”

“I’ll dower the lot of them.”

“And how will you prevent Falmouth from denying Iris access to her brothers? They show every sign of turning into wild young nincompoops, and Iris is their only hope of salvation.”

Clonmere sank onto the edge of the fountain. “I thought I had matters sorted out. I hadn’t known Falmouth would be so dastardly. Iris would blame herself if her brothers went astray, though they are probably hellbent on that very objective, regardless of her influence.”

“They aren’t bad boys—yet.”

More people were spilling onto the terrace, some of them carrying plates, all of them laughing and chattering. The newspaper would declare the gathering a sad crush, while for Clonmere, victory was turning to defeat.

“Falmouth wants me to choose my bride as if I were drawing lots. As if any one of his three youngest would make me a suitable wife.”

Cousin Hattie bent to sniff the potted daffodils. “They would.”

“No, they would not. They would all three look very fetching in the Clonmere tiaras, they would be gracious and loyal duchesses, but the only one suited to becoming my wife is Lady Iris.”

She snapped off a yellow trumpet. “You could elope. Scotland is lovely in spring.”

“Falmouth would cut her. Iris has spent too much time dodging his poison arrows to hand him victory at this stage.”

“So what will you do?”

The answer popped into Clonmere’s head just as ladies Lily, Holly, and Hyacinth emerged onto the terrace with their respective swains.

“Falmouth wants me to choose my duchess by lot, that’s exactly what I’ll do.”

The rest of the week was a fog of conflicting emotions for Iris. She was alternately pleased with herself for having kissed Clonmere—really, truly kissed him, and he’d kissed her right back—and despairing, because he’d asked for her trust, but presented no solution to the conundrum Falmouth posed.

Time was running out, the earl’s disposition had deteriorated from grumpy to vile, and Hattie had begun to pack for a remove to Surrey.

“Iris, you must come too!” Lily stood at the door to Iris’s sitting room, waving a hand toward the corridor. “This instant, you must come. Papa said.”

“Come where?”

“To the parlor. A footman in Clonmere’s livery has brought a box.”

Iris rose, though hope and despair weighted her equally. “A box of chocolates?”

“Not chocolates, it’s too big for that, and another footman came with him, which means the box wasn’t full of mere sweets.”

Iris nearly tripped over Puck, curled on the hearth rug. “An engagement ring, then?”

“Much bigger than that. Will you please bestir yourself to move?”

Lily said little all the way down to the family parlor, where Holly, Hyacinth, and Cousin Hattie were already waiting.

“There are four boxes,” Holly said. “One for—”

“Each of us,” Hyacinth added. “They are all wrapped in printed paper—bouquets of flowers, from our four names—and there are labels on each box.”

“Four,” Cousin Hattie said, very firmly.

The Earl of Falmouth stepped out of his study across the corridor. “You should hear this,” he said to Iris. “One of my daughters is about to marry a lunatic. Too bad it won’t be you.”

“John, that is enough,” Hattie snapped.

The three younger sisters all goggled at their cousin. Iris hugged her. “I would happily wed His Grace, but as far as I know, he hasn’t offered for any of us.”

“The lot of you sit down,” the earl said, waving them into the family parlor. “Clonmere is a duke, so allowances must be made, though this is a very queer start indeed.”

Iris remained standing while her sisters chose seats, arranged their skirts, and looked worried.

“Clonmere sent me a note,” Falmouth said, brandishing a piece of embossed stationery. “He has decided that every one of my daughters is fit to become his duchess, and thus he sought his mother’s counsel. One of those four boxes contains the Clonmere tiara. Each box bears one of your names, the labels affixed by the current duchess. Clonmere will stop by after breakfast tomorrow, and you will open your boxes. Whoever has the box with the tiara in it will become the next duchess.”

He set the paper on the mantel. “Damnedest thing I ever heard.”

“No more peculiar than forcing a duke to choose a wife on the basis of correspondence written decades ago,” Hattie said.

Falmouth scowled at the boxes wrapped in a repeating bouquet of pink, purple, green, and white flowers. “Not now, Hattie. One of my daughters shall marry a duke. I don’t care if the other three packages contain necklaces of shark teeth, so long as my son-in-law is a duke.”

Holly and Hyacinth exchanged a look that included Lily. Something was afoot with the three of them, something that excluded Iris.

“He truly doesn’t care which of us he marries?” Lily asked.

He cared. Iris was certain he cared.

“Why should he?” Falmouth said. “You’re equally well born, none of you is ugly. You can all make babies.”

Maybe Puck’s company won’t be so bad. “I have embroidery to work on for Holly’s carriage dress,” Iris said. “I’ll see you tomorrow at breakfast.”

“I have an aria to learn,” Lily said. “Mr. Everhart wrote it specifically for me.”

“I’m working on my French,” Hyacinth said.

“So am I,” Holly added.

They followed Iris into the corridor, none of them looking very pleased.

“I don’t care for this,” Lily said. “I’m not a Maypole partner, to be chosen by lot.”

“I liked Clonmere well enough,” Holly said, glancing at the parlor door. “I don’t like that he can’t distinguish a favorite among us. Taking a wife ought to be something a man feels strongly about, not something he leaves—”

“For his mama to do,” Hyacinth said. “Though I suppose there’s some comfort in knowing that whichever of us must become his duchess, at least the dowager will look kindly upon her daughter-in-law.”

“Any one of you would make a wonderful duchess,” Iris said. “But I agree, when it comes to marriage, one should feel something for one’s intended.”

Trust, for example. Attraction, tender regard.

“I’m off to bed,” Lily said. “At this time tomorrow, one of us will have a ducal suitor.”

“Or be engaged.” Holly made that sound like a dismal prospect.

“But not married,” Hyacinth said. “Not married yet.”

Iris waited until she and her sisters were out of earshot of the parlor. “You do not sound like young women thrilled to be in contention for a tiara.”

That same look passed among the three of them. “Clonmere’s a fine fellow,” Holly said. “But he’s not my choice.”

“Nor mine,” Hyacinth said.

“Nor mine,” Lily said. “But who can turn down a duke? If I’m chosen, and I refuse his suit, will he send three boxes next time? Papa would have an apoplexy, the dowager duchess would be insulted, talk would ensue.”

“I have a megrim in truth,” Holly said.

“My digestion is growing tentative,” Hyacinth added. “I’m for bed.”

They all three slipped off to their respective bedrooms, leaving Iris alone and hopeful, and also worried. Very, very worried.

CHAPTER 6

“I’M SORRY,” Lily whispered to the darkened room. “I cannot be married to a man who prefers the music of a Scottish farmer to the delights of Italian opera. I cannot. Iris, forgive me.”

She carefully peeled the labels on two of the pretty boxes free, then affixed Iris’s label to Lily’s box, and her own label to Iris’s box. Mr. Everhart had been very, very certain that Clonmere would choose Lily, and had regaled Lily with a long list of attributes that made her the best suited to become a duchess.

Such a long list, in fact, that Lily had begun to hope dear Thomas was speaking for himself rather for his titled cousin. She could not be certain if the brush of his hand against hers had been accidental, cousinly, or something more, but if she married Clonmere, she’d never find out.

“I’m sorry, Iris, but I am simply not cut out to be anybody’s duchess.”

She smoothed her fingers over the labels one last time and slipped from the room.

“MR. AMHERST WAS VERY CLEAR,” Hyacinth said, closing the parlor door quietly. “He told me, plainly that if Clonmere was looking for paragon, a lady whose company never failed to delight, the embodiment of womanly perfection, then he need look no further than me. Amherst considers himself well acquainted with Clonmere. I feared he was quoting the duke in fact.”

“Mr. Dersham has put much the same fear in me,” Holly whispered. “He said Clonmere would be a fool to choose any other woman, when I was surpassingly warm-hearted, exceedingly pretty, and tolerant of human foibles. I don’t even know what foibles are, but I know I do not want to wear that tiara.”

“Iris is the oldest,” Hyacinth said, picking up the box with her own name on it. “Papa should have found a spouse for her first.”

“Cousin Hattie says the same. We’re the youngest. Lily at least should marry before we do.”

“What if we’re wrong, Holl? What if Clonmere holds a secret tendresse for Iris? Or Lily?”

Holly lifted her box and shook it gently. “What sort of tendresse makes choosing a duchess a game of musical tiaras?”

“We have to do this, Holl.” Hyacinth began peeling the label on her box free. “I don’t want to be a duchess, and I’m sorry if it makes me a bad sister, but I don’t want you to be a duchess either—not Clonmere’s duchess.”

Holly passed her Lily’s box. “I think of the wedding night, all serious and ducal… what if he starts making love in French? I’d probably respond with something like, ‘Pass me the potatoes, my dear water buffalo.’”

“He’s not that big.” Hyacinth gently worked Lily’s label loose.

“He’s too big for me. Iris and Lily are both taller than we are. Duchesses should be tall.”

They worked in careful silence, until they’d switched their labels for Iris’s and Lily’s.

“We must swear,” Holly said, putting the boxes back in the order they’d found them.

“To the grave,” Hyacinth replied. “Never a word, not even to Lily, Hattie, or Iris.”

“I might tell Mr. Amherst,” Holly said. “But not until I’ve presented him with an heir, though I can’t become Mrs. Amherst if Clonmere flings his tiara at me.”

“Nor can I become Mrs. Dersham. We had to do this, Holl.”

“Lily or Iris will thank us for this, or she would, if she knew we’d done it.”

“Which she won’t. Ever.”

IRIS HADN’T SLEPT, she hadn’t eaten, she’d barely gulped down a cup of tea in the oddly silent breakfast parlor. She remained standing while Lily, Holly, and Hyacinth—all in lovely outfits—took the chairs in the family parlor.

“It’s after breakfast,” Lily said.

“We didn’t eat breakfast,” Holly replied. “Who could eat breakfast with this awaiting them?”

Holly rose and went to the window. “That’s His Grace’s coach. He couldn’t walk five streets on a pretty morning to pay a call, he had to make a grand show. I already hate this day.”

“He’s being impressive, the better to keep Falmouth in line,” Iris said, joining her at the window. Impressive was an understatement. Clonmere’s coach was pulled by four handsome greys, two liveried footmen rode on the boot, and a groom was up beside the coachman.

“I don’t want to be a duchess,” Lily muttered. “How can I impress that sentiment on our daft papa?”

“His Grace brought reinforcements,” Holly said.

Hyacinth took the place to Holly’s left. “Is all of London to know we drew lots for a tiara? That hardly seems dignified.”

“That’s Mr. Dersham,” Iris observed, “and Mr. Amhearst, and Mr. Everhart.” Their presence made no sense, and yet, they reassured Iris that Clonmere was up to something.

“They make a dashing foursome,” Lily said, peering over Hyacinth’s shoulder. “But why are they here?”

Cousin Hattie bustled in the door. “Away from the window, my dears. You don’t want the gentlemen to think you’re gawking. Iris, is that the oldest, plainest dress you could find? Honestly, what were you thinking? You’re to be courted by a duke today, see if you aren’t.”

Oh, if only… “I’ve only been introduced to Clonmere’s mama once,” Iris said. “I doubt she’d choose me for his duchess.”

“She’d better not have chosen me,” Holly murmured. “I have plans that do not include being dignified and speaking French.”

“My plans don’t include the laments and airs of any Scottish farmers.” Lily resumed her seat. “Did somebody move these boxes? I was certain mine was sitting closer to the blotter.”

The four boxes, looking as pretty as ever, sat on the desk in the same order they had the previous evening.

“Mine is still closest to the window,” Iris said, though Lily was right. Holly’s box had been to the right of the blotter, not sitting half on the blotter.

Masculine voices floated up from the foyer, and Iris’s tea threatened to make a reappearance. “I hate this.”

“I do too,” Lily said. “If the tiara is in my box, I’m giving it to you, Iris.”

“So am I,” Holly and Hyacinth said in unison.

“You’ll make a much better duchess than we would,” Lily said, “and Clonmere will grow on you, Iris. You like a challenge, and he’s… challenging.”

“He is,” Holly said, regarding the boxes. “Look at his notion of how to choose a duchess. He needs you, Iris.”

“But Falmouth…”

“Papa can’t disown all four of us,” Hyacinth said. “Or he can, but we won’t disown each other, and Peter won’t disown us once he runs out of his quarterly allowance. Benjamin is too young to disown anybody.”

Iris considered her box, the one sitting farthest to the left. “I love you all very much, and to be honest, I fancy His Grace. He’s honorable and kind, he loves his family, and he can lift carriages when carriages need lifting.” He also kissed like a dream come to life.

“A fine quality in a man,” Cousin Hattie said, “but do you young ladies honestly think you can refuse a duke?”

Iris waited for a resounding, reassuring affirmative chorus and instead beheld uncertain glances.

The earl strode in, Clonmere, Everhart, Dersham, and Amherst on his heels. Clonmere was very much on his dignity, while the other three were looking uncharacteristically serious.

“Ladies,” Clonmere said, bowing. The other men did as well, while Falmouth took the seat behind the desk.

“His Grace has made a request,” Falmouth said. “I’m not inclined to grant it. He wants these boxes opened in order of age, oldest to youngest.”

“Seems reasonable to me,” Everhart said. “Ladies usually do marry in order of age, my lord.”

“My sisters did,” Amherst did.

“Mine too,” Dersham added. “Meaning no disrespect, my lord, but Clonmere’s honoring a vague wish expressed in some old letter his pater sent you, likely before Lady Holly or Lady Hyacinth were even born, and yet he’s done the pretty with them both.”

“True enough,” Amherst said. “I read law. If you only had the two daughters at the time the letter was sent, then common sense suggests only the oldest two daughters—”

Clonmere was by the window, looking bored and handsome. “Enough. Falmouth, the ladies either open their gifts in age order, or I walk out of here without a prospective duchess. Before witnesses, I’ve expressed my willingness to honor my father’s wishes, however vague and however many years have passed without the late duke informing me of same. Your quibbling over this detail is unbecoming and more than my patience will allow.”

The clock ticked. Nobody so much as breathed, though Iris wanted to kiss Clonmere for that little speech alone. Falmouth was turning pink. Cousin Hattie was positively beaming.

“But,” Falmouth sputtered, “Iris is not even…”

“Falmouth, have a care.” Clonmere spoke softly. “You never once consulted your daughters about their wishes regarding this scheme of yours. If I insist on a modicum of convention regarding the order in which the gifts are opened, you will accommodate me.”

“Not well done of you, my lord,” Everhart said, looking much like his ducal cousin. “Your daughters are intelligent young women, and marriage is a very serious matter.”

Falmouth looked like Puck just before that cat disrespected a carpet. “Iris, open your box.”

Clonmere passed her the box, the first time he’d looked directly at her. He winked, though his expression remained so grave, so very dignified, Iris doubted the evidence of her eyes.

“Thank you, Your Grace.”

Holly had scooted to the very edge of her chair, Hyacinth was holding Holly’s hand. Mr. Everhart stood behind Lily’s chair. They made a handsome couple, and they deserved a chance to be a couple. Holly and Hyacinth shouldn’t have to adjust to one of them marrying into an exalted station. This whole blasted month had been wrong for all concerned.

Iris had formed the intention to refuse to open her box when Clonmere spoke.

“My lady, you keep us all in suspense. Won’t you please unwrap my gift? My dearest wish is that you open that box.”

His dearest wish had been a woman who’d entrust her heart to him. Iris’s heart thumped against her ribs like a kettledrum, but Clonmere’s regard was so steady, so trust-worthy, she tugged on the purple ribbon encircling her box.

“As you wish, Your Grace.” She wanted to preserve the lovely paper, and she wanted to tear it to shreds. Cousin Hattie took the ribbon, Lily leaned closer, and Iris gently slid a finger beneath the paper.

“Do hurry, Iris,” Holly muttered.

Iris lifted the lid of the box, but could not make her gaze drop to the contents.

“Oh, my,” Hyacinth said.

“Well, what’s in it?” Falmouth barked.

“A tiara,” Cousin Hattie said. “A lovely, sparkly, antique tiara that the duchesses of Clonmere have worn since the days of Good Queen Bess.”

Falmouth’s harrumphing was drowned out by Lily, Hyacinth, and Holly’s squealing and the applause of the three gentlemen.

“That’s decided then,” Clonmere said, taking Iris’s hand and bowing over it, “assuming you’ll have me?”

He was asking, he was sincerely, honestly asking, and for that Iris fell in love with him all over again.

“Court me for a month,” she said, “court me, save your waltzes for me, introduce me to your family, make my dearest wish come true at least a dozen times over, and then I’ll give you my answer.”

Clonmere kissed her knuckles. “Only a dozen?”

Somebody sighed, certainly not Iris, for she was too busy admiring her prospective husband.

“Let’s move to the formal parlor, shall we?” Cousin Hattie said. “A toast is in order. Falmouth, bestir yourself to order the champagne brought up, and somebody have the coach brought around. We have trousseaus to shop for.”

Falmouth scowled at the three unopened boxes. “Trousseaus, plural? Harriet, do you know something I don’t?”

“I know much that exceeds your grasp, my lord, but even you must recall that a couple embarking on a courtship is entitled to some privacy.”

“That they are,” Everhart said.

“’Deed,” Amherst added. “A fine tradition.”

Falmouth looked like he wanted to rattle the remaining boxes,or perhaps even sniff them. Dersham gave the earl a little shove toward the door. “Champagne, my lord. Along with cakes, some chocolates. Amherst and I have a few matters we’d like to discuss with you.”

“As do I,” Everhart said, offering Lily his arm.

The lot of them trooped out, leaving Iris alone with her duke. “I am most exceedingly relieved to have found the Clonmere tiara in my box.”

She was so relieved, she had to kiss him… and kiss him, and kiss him. Clonmere was apparently relieved as well, because he gave as good as he got, until Iris was perched on the desk with a duke wedged between her legs.

A heavily breathing duke whose hair was awry, and whose cravat was off center.

“What if the tiara hadn’t been in my box?” Iris panted, holding him close. “What if… I can’t bear to think of the fussing and carrying on and harrumphing.”

“Neither could I,” Clonmere replied, “which is why the ancestral tiara wasn’t in your box. That little bauble is paste.”

His heart was cantering along at a marvelous clip. Iris pressed her ear to his chest for the pleasure of feeling his heart beat. Though what had he said about…?

“Paste? Because a fortune of jewels shouldn’t be carted all over Mayfair? Very prudent of you, Clonmere.”

He took her hand and helped her down from the desk. “Not prudent, desperate. Open the other boxes.”

He was looking both sheepish and proud, also a little disheveled. Kissably disheveled.

Iris used the penknife on the desk to slit the ribbons on the other three boxes, and opened them one by one.

“Oh, Clonmere, you clever, determined fellow you.” Three identical tiaras glittered in the three boxes. “As long as I went first, I’d find a tiara even if the labels somehow got confused.”

“Because I could not trust Falmouth to leave well enough alone, and I suspect your siblings might have been tempted to meddle as well. Hattie warned me to plan for every contingency.”

“And you did.”

She hugged him, because she could, because she had to.

“I have a new dearest wish, Lady Iris.” His voice had dropped to a register Puck’s purr approximated when the cat was exceedingly content.

“Do you?” Iris nuzzled Clonmere’s throat. “This is an interesting coincidence, because my own dearest wishes are growing in number. One of them involves a special license.”

“One of mine involves a very slow coach ride over to Ludgate, where we’ll find a jeweler who can fashion you an engagement ring.”

Oh, he smelled wonderful, of flowers and excellent ideas. “A very slow coach, Your Grace?”

“Very slow and comfortable.” He gathered up all four boxes. “How soon can you be ready to leave?”

“Five minutes.”

She and Clonmere were out the door in two minutes, and though His Grace did get a special license, he also spent the next month making every one of Iris’s dearest wishes come true, and far more than a mere dozen times.

FROM GRACE BURROWES

Greetings, Dear Readers!

I hope you enjoyed Henning and Iris’s story. The inspiration was a family incident recounted by my Aunt Sharon, about somebody (who shall remain nameless) purposely switching the tags on Christmas presents. Does every family have such a story?

If you’re looking for a full-length Grace Burrowes Regency, I just released When A Duchess Says I Do, the second tale in my Rogues to Riches series. Duncan Wentworth meets his match in Miss Maddie Wakefield, provided they can overcome a few pesky obstacles relating to international intrigue, a scorned suitor, the king’s justice, and (of course) meddling family members. Excerpt below.

If you’d like to stay up-to-date on my new releases, pre-orders, and discount deals, following me on Bookbub is a good way to do that. If you’d like the coming attractions reel and kitten pictures, as well as cover reveals and exclusive excerpts, my newsletter is the better bet. I am also fiddling around on Instagram as graceburrowesauthor and having great fun there too.

Happy reading!

Grace Burrowes

From When A Duchess Says I Do….

A stolen moment catches Duncan and Matilda by surprise….

“I am embroiled in a situation that has consequences at the highest levels, Mr. Wentworth,” Matilda said. “If I share with you what I know, you will find yourself embroiled along with me.”

She’d expressed a wish to study their chess game, but now she was taking pieces off the board, lining them up in order of rank. Her white pawns, Duncan’s black pawns. Her bishop, knight, rook, and queen, her king.

“Matilda,” Duncan said, getting to his feet. “Please calm yourself. You have made a minor slip by letting Stephen see your prayer book. He will carry your identity to his grave if need be, as will I. I’d rather not. I’d rather see you free of the burdens you carry, else I shall never have an opportunity to properly court you.”

She went still, Duncan’s king in her hand. “Did I hear you, aright, Mr. Wentworth?”

“My name is Duncan. Your hearing is excellent.”

She set the king down slowly, next to the white queen. “You seek to court me?”

“I most assuredly do.”

Based on the lady’s expression, this disclosure astonished her almost as much as it surprised Duncan.

Order your copy of When A Duchess Says I Do!

LOVE LETTERS FROM A DUKE

MAY

GINA CONKLE

PREFACE

The Duke of Richland needs a proper duchess, but he wants his thoroughly fun, entirely inappropriate neighbor, Mrs. Charlotte Chatham. She’s widowed, older, and if the whispers prove true—barren.

CHAPTER 1

May, 1788

ENGLAND’S best and brightest young ladies flittered about his lawn, each one as colorful as macaroons of mint green, pale orange, and fragile pink. Sun drenched their stiffly curled hair. Meringue-white smiles dazzled the eye. A delectable assembly to be sure. The women preened and played (croquet as it were). One click of mallet to ball, and mind-numbing giggles floated his way. The match’s tempo had been the same since luncheon ended. A man could set his pocket watch by it.

A contretemps by the refreshment table highlighted the stakes. Another game of greater consequence was afoot—the competition for Richland Hall’s next duchess.

“Our mother’s trimming the ranks. Those who don’t pass muster will be dismissed.” His brother chuckled at the flouncing skirts of one perturbed miss. “No biscuits for you, young lady.”

“You’ve used military metaphors all day,” he said dryly. “Do you see our ancestral home as a battlefield?”

George grinned. “With our mother hunting for your duchess, I expect a skirmish or two. She has exacting standards, and the competition is fierce.”

His duchess. A wife. He ran a finger between his neck and stiffly starched cravat. The mantle of ducal authority sat squarely on his shoulders, but the fit wasn’t quite right, and George knew it. It was why his ginger-haired brother kept vigil with him under the cover of a gnarled oak tree. Both understood a deeper truth was at play: restoring Richland after devastating loss. Their mother wanted laughter ringing in the halls again, the tapestries bulging with gleeful children hiding behind the antiquated weaves. She needed this next, inevitable step to heal. They all did.

George should’ve had his place in the birth order, but nature was a fickle mistress. She’d cast his younger brother as the family’s impeccable dresser with an ability to navigate social events with ease. At this very moment, a breeze toyed with the ribbon securing George’s queue, yet not a hair was out of place. If it ever was. The same couldn’t be said of him. A few strands escaped their mooring, sausage curls above his ear itched from heavy pomade, and new shoes pinched his toes.

“It’s all about finding a diamond in the rough,” George said between sips of tea.

They winced at Miss Pettyfer’s exuberant upward swipe, which nearly toppled a baroness and her daughter. Hips shifting, Miss Pettyfer took aim and swung her mallet with indelicate fervor. Whack! A yellow ball blasted across the green.

“Is that your gentleman’s way of saying they’re all too young?” He cast an eye to the south lawn where his brothers, Ethan and Edward, played a rousing game of cricket.

“I’m not sure of our mother’s strategy.” His perplexed brother shook his head. “Or why she chose such a…youthful array of guests.”

“Every eligible lady here could’ve been nursery playmates to the twins. Makes me feel ancient.”

Handsome and ruddy, Ethan and Edward were the toast of Eton. Smart, well-mannered, and charming to boot, they seized every bit of joy to be had in their late May half-term. He grinned at their zeal. The mayhem was good. Richland had been a tomb.

With the exception of one woman who swanned about on a steady basis.

Mrs. Chatham. Their neighbor and his mother’s friend. She was older than him, a widow solidly in her third decade. With a smile too bright, her manner too friendly, and laugh too loud, she was a shade out of touch with proper decorum. Probably from her long rustication in Kent. Other ladies sat ramrod straight in Hepplewhite chairs under the fluttering canopy. Not Mrs. Chatham. Her spine had bumped her chair’s back rest several times this morning.

Yet, she was a tempting morsel.

He’d collected brief junctures with the widow since her arrival in Kent two years past. He’d savored them like a miser: the sight of her unshod foot tucked under her bottom when idling in the salon, an afternoon consoling his mother with a basket of kittens, and then there was the day she thrusted an armful of hydrangeas on the dowager. His mother’s smile had shined brighter than the sun from that simple, touching gift.

Mrs. Chatham’s passion for gardening was legendary. It seemed to fill her days, but he couldn’t say how she filled her nights.

Everyone knew attractive widows gadded about.

And glory in her independence, she did…like two of her honey-colored locks which had tumbled free of their pins. The effect was too messy to be artful wisps. One curled tip teetered over her velvet-clad bosom.

His fist pressed harder into the small of his back.

What would it feel like to run my fingers through her hair?

Air huffed past his lips. He was on the brink of dangerous ground. Twice today, her dark-eyed stare had collided with his, stealing his breath.

These episodes were increasing. More furtive glances. More ambles near Mrs. Chatham for the thrill of hearing her amiable voice. This had to stop.

At the moment, she was a comfortable distance away under the canopy. A breeze sent her serviette tumbling down her burgundy skirt. She tipped forward to retrieve it, giving him a sublime view of delicate breasts, sugar-white, and of tempting size. They were perfect. Of course, they were; they were attached to her.

“Smile at them, Richland,” George coaxed.

At Mrs. Chatham’s breasts? “That’s beyond the pale,” he sputtered.

His brother looked askance at him. “Why? You’ll have to dance with them tonight.”

He shut his one good eye. “You mean the young ladies in attendance.”

“Of course, I mean the young ladies in attendance.” George gave him a I know this is unpleasant, but this is your duty gaze.

His brother couldn’t hear his lustful musings, nor thankfully had George noticed him ogling Mrs. Chatham, the advantage of a piratical eye patch. He was rusty in the art of wooing. With flirtation in general. Until the ducal title landed on his head, he’d spent his days designing and building follies for country homes.

He tried smiling, but searing pain lanced his leg, a residual effect of the cataclysmic carriage accident that had taken his father, his brother the heir, and the vision in his left eye.

George choked on his tea. “Not that! You’re snarling at them.”

“That bad?” Air hissing between clenched teeth, he rubbed his hip. Sweat nicked his hairline. His leg locked again. The familiar ache started at his knee and flared like molten nails digging into his thigh.

His mother caught the move from her seat under the red-striped canopy. A delicate frown marred her features. She held up an elegant finger, pausing polite conversation with Lady Malmsey and the Countess of Kendal. The supremacy of that single gesture. Carriages braked hard for it, and servants snapped to attention at the sight of his mother’s raised hand. Given time, the Dowager Duchess would take a turn at stopping the sun, such was her power. Concern in her eyes, she rose from her chair and headed his way.

“Leg acting up, is it?” George asked.

“It will improve.” Someday. This was what the family physician had promised and the myriad of well-meaning physics who’d traipsed through Richland Hall. “But tonight, of all nights,” he managed to say between gritted teeth.

George’s merry blue eyes softened. “Our mother will fret.”

“I know.”

Her worry was the millstone about their necks. This house party was Richland’s reawakening from a long, dark year of solace. The dowager’s sons wanted this for their loving matriarch. Last year had shredded them all, but their mother’s hurt was most profound. Seeing her wracked with sobs followed by weeks of disturbing silence had frightened them all.

He would do anything, anything to ensure she lived the rest of her days in happiness.

“Prepare yourself. She’s bringing reinforcements.” George clicked his heels and called out a cheery, “Mother. Mrs. Chatham. Come to check on us?”

The duke froze his massaging hand. Pain subsided only to be replaced by new agony—the swish of velvet skirts and familiar orange and ginger perfume. He was at once tense and restless. Desire had a rhythm, and he found it in the cadence of the widow’s walk.

Unrestrained womanliness. A certain…knowing.

It drove him mad.

Primal instincts flared to life when Mrs. Chatham drew near. His skin tightened. Muscles clenched. He couldn’t put his finger on exactly why she appealed above all others. The pert smile on her wide mouth? Sparkling sherry-brown eyes? A natural sensuality?

At the moment her eyebrows pressed a worried line as she dipped a curtsey. “Your Grace. Lord George.”

“Mrs. Chatham,” they said in unison.

His heart ticked faster. Did the sun shine brighter with her in his vicinity? He must’ve stared a fraction too long because the widow coughed delicately and directed her attention to the dowager.

The grand dame swept forward and touched his elbow. “Your leg pains you.”

“It will pass.”

A motherly sigh and, “I am sure it will, but we must consider tonight’s ball.”

He covered her hand with his and gave it an affectionate squeeze. “Worried I won’t be in top form?”

“You will have to drag him away,” his brother teased. “It’s all he can talk about.”

The dowager’s mild laugh jiggled ruby earbobs. “Don’t be impertinent. I know each of my sons all too well.”

She was a wonderful woman, his mother. Piles of silvery-gingered hair, a smattering of freckles that defied the best cosmetics, and a talent for winding her offspring around her little finger.

He stiffened, fighting a flash of discomfort along his outer thigh.

“It’s dreadful to see you like this.” She drew closer, worry threading her voice. “Perhaps we ought to cancel the ball, and call for another physician.”

“And let this house party be for naught?” He forced a smile. “I’ll soldier on.”

He’d had his fill of physicians.

Since the accident, the dowager had summoned doctors from every corner of the realm. Their wisdom ranged from prescribing ample doses of laudanum, to bloodletting and more bloodletting and more bloodletting after that. Two had even suggested amputation of an otherwise sound limb.

“My sweet dear,” she said sadly. “Always the stalwart one. I wish with all my heart I could make this go away.”

Mrs. Chatham’s head dipped at the private moment. Her presence at this family tête-à-tête proved what he’d long suspected. The dowager held the widow in the highest confidence. Together, they’d constructed everything from the guest list to the entertainments for this week-long house party.

When the widow’s gaze met his, knowledge reflected in their depths. Tonight marked a separation of the wheat from the chaff. He would dance with three young ladies of style, comportment, and estimable status. His choices for the final selection. After the ball, quiet invitations for a longer stay would be extended to those three women and their families. The rest would return home tomorrow.

But he’d have to dance in the first place.

The dowager turned to her friend. “Charlotte, that remedy you mentioned last week. Would you consider administering it to the duke?”

Mrs. Chatham’s eyes went saucer big. “Me? I rather thought Simms might.”

The dowager huffed, a sign she’d not be thwarted. “His valet would show him all the tender care of a plow horse. It must be you. Who else would know the exact dosage? Or have the right touch?”

A frisson feathered his groin. Mrs. Chatham touching me? No! No! No! “What the devil are you planning?”

His mother gave him the gimlet eye and waved over a footman. “We’re in a desperate state, Richland. I’m willing to try anything.”

Was he?

Alarm bells careened through his head. He should stop this. He was the duke after all, but the dowager was equally determined. It was in the line of her mouth and angle of her chin. His mother was indomitable, well-acquainted with years of directing her sons. One had better luck stemming the tides than stopping her once her mind was set.

Hands clamped behind his back, he’d tolerate this madcap remedy for the moment. The past year, he and the dowager had tactfully juggled their new positions in life’s hierarchy because she understood change was coming. She wanted it. For her happiness and the future of Richland Hall, he’d allow some leeway.

Thomas strode to their circle, a flurry of scarlet and gold livery. There under the sprawling oak tree, the dowager beckoned the trusted servant to bend his bewigged head to hear her softly issued commands.

“Deliver a heated tea kettle, several buckets of water, and our largest, empty butter churn to the duke’s sitting room. When you’re done, have a chambermaid go to Mrs. Chatham’s room and retrieve an amber vial.”

“You will find it on the escritoire by the window,” the widow put in.

“And Thomas…” The dowager’s tone was serious.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

“You understand this requires the utmost discretion. I don’t want the duke and Mrs. Chatham disturbed for the rest of the afternoon.”

The footman didn’t bat an eye. “Very good, Your Grace.”

He was speechless, watching Thomas speed toward the sprawling Dutch-Palladian structure that was Richland Hall. His mother whispered like a conspirator in Mrs. Chatham’s ear, but the widow had eyes for him alone. Lively, seductive, experienced eyes. Her earthy stare sent exciting currents between them. Hair on his arms stood on end. A similar sensation had happened once when he’d stood too close to a demonstration of von Guericke’s frictional electrical machine. Agitation had sparked his skin.

But this? This was a thrilling jolt. A prudent man would quash the madness now, but wisdom wasn’t foremost on his mind. Anticipation was.

“What are they up to?” George asked in low tones.

“I don’t know, but it involves hot water, a butter churn, and an afternoon alone with Mrs. Chatham.”

“Sounds torturous.”

Or a new circle of Heaven.

CHAPTER 2

THERE WAS delightful horror in being attracted to Lord Nathaniel, Duke of Richland. A lofty title and ridiculous wealth made him the crème de la crème of eligible men. He was leagues above her in birth and breeding. For those qualities alone, they would never suit. They didn’t interest her at all. What drew her to him were the small treasures that made the man.

The way his hands held a letter.

His attentive manner with his family.

The firmness of his lips before giving an edict, and their pliant softness when listening with compassion.

Oh, she could wax long about the little things that attracted her to the duke, but this infatuation had to stop. How demoralizing to lust after a younger man. Her first husband had been eighteen years older than her. Society smiled on those unions. An older woman/younger man liaison was deliciously naughty, a rarity, but such connections did happen.

Marriage between a humble merchant’s widow and a duke? Nigh on impossible.

Thus, striding up wide, shallow stone steps to the back of Richland Hall, she entertained not a whiff of hope that she was among the three to be selected. She hadn’t been invited here for that anyway.

Biting her lower lip, she acknowledged her assignment. She had this afternoon to get the duke in dancing form—a difficult chore since she’d made avoiding him an artform. She couldn’t say the same about His Grace. He kept looking at her with an ardent eye. Nor was she fooled by his numerous trips to the canopy. He’d dawdle near her corner of the refreshment table, only to leave empty-handed.

Men sniffed around her now and then. None interested her more than the distant duke.

He was so, so…different.

Before the accident, he’d lived as an architect and builder of follies for wealthy estates. Always a few days in Kent, gone the next. That Lord Nathaniel earned his coin made him an interesting varietal in Richland’s hothouse of privilege. Women flirted with him, and he’d smile back with unfailing politeness because his course was set. He was going to make his way in the world before he married.

As the obscure second son, he’d stride through the halls lost in thought, rolled-up design plans tucked under his thickly muscled arm, his boot prints leaving bits of dirt behind him. Such concentration.

What it would feel like to be the center of his focus?

A delicate swallow followed that thought. I’m here to help. She’d keep that reminder in her head since the duke was taking the stone steps with care on their stately forward march.

“Is your gait tentative because of your leg, Your Grace? Or the new shoes?”

A smile cracked his profile. “I’m pretending my discomfort doesn’t exist.” His chuckle was endearing. “Apparently without success.”

Another stone step was breached, then a second, and a third. They made fine work of avoiding eye contact on their promenade.

“You’re not answering me, Your Grace.”

A ducal brow arched in her side vision. She was over-bold, but faint hearts never won the day.

“You won’t allow me to suffer in silence?”

“Not when I’m tasked with healing you.”

His arm flexed under her fingertips. The duke was equal parts quiet and certain. Acknowledging the extent of his pain was tantamount to admitting weakness…of yielding to a woman.

No man relished that. Well, some did privately.

“Both the shoes and my leg bother me,” he said with clipped efficiency. “Thank you for noticing.”

“I’ve noticed a good many things about you, Your Grace.” The way your sleeve tightens around your upper arm. The keen expression on your face when you read. The wool of your breeches molding to your backside.

“Regale me, Mrs. Chatham. What have you observed?” His baritone was smooth as simmering chocolate on a lazy morning.

They passed butterflies flittering over the dowager’s roses, and two orange tabby cats lolling in the sun, stretching with satisfaction.

The duke invited discourse.

How tempting.

“I’ve observed your preference for boots over buckle shoes. You like your coats in unembellished shades of blue, brown, or green. Never black. You’re given to brooding when a design does not materialize as planned.” She grinned, mostly for her own pleasure. “And you have a penchant for steak, chops, and mutton stew.”

“I sound a trifle boring.”

“I prefer to call it quietly fascinating.”

The duke hummed thoughtfully. “That would be a first.”

The world abounded with rogues. An intelligent man, handsome and appealing in character and visage, was a rare find for women of her ilk. How she came upon that nugget of wisdom would not be a topic of conversation. Ever.

Stoic footmen flung open the doors to the formal salon. Once inside, their footfalls were muffled by densely piled carpet. Landscape paintings by Dutch artists she couldn’t name trimmed one wall. A bank of floral arrangements and marble busts lined another. This room was predictable. Overdone and meant to impress like so many of the peerage. The same couldn’t be said of Lord Nathaniel, Duke of Richland, which was why he intrigued her.

When they reached the east wing stairs, she let go of his arm. The subtle loss left her empty. She craved connection with him. Grabbing a handful of skirts and the cold, hard banister was her consolation with the duke climbing the stairs beside her.

“Whatever this remedy of yours is, Mrs. Chatham, I want a minimum of fussing.”

Ah, now we’re back to cool politeness. “In my experience, men usually enjoy a woman’s attention.”

“This week has filled me to the brim with feminine interest.”

“Perhaps not the right kind?”

His head turned sharply toward her. Nostrils flaring and posture erect, the duke was imposing, a dragon ready to breathe fire on the unfortunate maiden who entered his lair.

But she was no maiden.

Carnal want flashed in his eyes, there and gone. “Since I am about to surrender to your tender mercies, I shall take the high road and hold my tongue.”

She laughed, enjoying his mild censure. “It’d be better if you loosened it, Your Grace.”

A male grunt was his answer. Of all the Richland men, Lord Nathaniel was known for his abiding honor.

Their lineage bequeathed him with a blade-straight nose and defining jaw, but his hair was a dark auburn among a family of gingers to reddish-blonds. The duke’s eyes were his most distinct feature, a penetrating silver-gray when his brothers had variants of blue.

At present, his stormy gaze narrowed on her.

His Grace armored himself with unshakable manners. Today, she would breach them and touch his bare leg.

Her palms tingled at the idea of it.

Their approach drew the attention of Mrs. Staveley, half in, half out of a doorway ahead. The housekeeper’s face brightened, and she nipped into the ducal apartments. There was a quick clap clap, and two charwomen, their mob-caps aquiver, rushed out of the room. They executed speedy curtseys, murmuring Your Grace, Mrs. Chatham before scurrying down the stairs.

“So much for caution,” he muttered.

“I’ll talk to Mrs. Staveley. My room is on the third floor. Perhaps she can pass this off as you going to your chambers and I was on the way to mine.”

“You’re on the third floor? This is the family wing.”

She ignored his consternation and swept through the doorway with a breezy, “Mrs. Staveley, how are you enjoying the roses I brought for you?”

The housekeeper clutched her skirts and curtseyed. “Your Grace. Ma’am.” She folded work-chafed hands against her bosom. “They are wonderful. Thank you.” The older woman’s hazel eyes twinkled beneath her mob-cap. “We’re all atwitter below stairs about the duke needing a butter churn. Simms and Cook think its inspiration for a folly. Two footmen say it’s for an entertainment on the south lawn. With the young lords home, there’s no telling what mischief they’ll make.”

The duke groaned.

Mrs. Staveley, more high-strung than the average housekeeper, fretted. “Oh, dear. I’ve spoken out of turn, Your Grace. Forgive me.”

“No trespass was done.” But he shifted uncomfortably.

They were on shaky ground. Her discreet flirting on the stairs was one thing; servants discussing the duke’s activities was another.

“Mrs. Staveley, Her Grace is counting on you to stop any gossip,” she said firmly.

“You’ve not to worry, ma’am.”

The housekeeper didn’t balk at her taking charge. When mourning the late duke and the heir, the dowager had often sent desperate notes: Please, help me with Richland Hall. Assisting with the house party was no different. Except she’d never ventured inside the ducal apartments. The duke’s sitting room wasn’t so improper. His bedchamber was. A veritable Pandora’s box. She checked the forbidden portal, which was safely shut, and mustered the authority of a queen.

“Make certain there are no further conversations about this below stairs.” She paused to add iron to her words. “Because no one else can know that I’m spending the afternoon with the duke.”

The housekeeper blinked fast. “Certainly, ma’am. I’ll have a word with the footmen and the charwomen.”

“And the visiting attendants?”

“They’re enjoying a picnic on the other side of the vegetable garden. They’ll not get a whiff of…” Mouth puckering, Mrs. Staveley eyed the waiting buckets and finished with a tactful, “Of whatever it is you’re going to do.”

“Very good. Now, if you’ll excuse us.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The housekeeper bobbed a skittish curtsey and raced for the door. She hesitated there, a work-raw hand hovering over the knob. Shutting it would’ve been the natural thing to do.

“Leave it open,” the duke intoned.

His formality pricked her playful spirit. “Don’t worry Mrs. Staveley. His Grace’s virtue is safe with me.”

The servant’s hand jerked back, and she fled the room. When the noise of her starched skirts faded, the duke fisted a hand on his hip.

“Was that necessary? Your quip poked the beast of impropriety.” He was adorably grumpy.

“A little fun now and then is good for the soul.”

His scowl indicated otherwise.

She stepped bravely closer to him. He needed a good…something to ease his tension. A terse line settled between his brows. Brass buttons on his waistcoat strained against their moorings. She buried her hands in her skirts to keep from smoothing the silk covering his chest.

“I’ll own that I deserve your frown,” she said quietly. “But you’ve had week of stiff propriety. One might think you’ll burst with it.”

His shoulders were tense within his green velvet coat. “Saucy humor. That’s part of today’s remedy?”

“It can be.” She searched his eyes and found new pain which owed nothing to his injured leg. “I know you don’t take pleasure in these entertainments. You tolerate them. It’s not bad that you prefer a sedate, country life. It’s who you are.”

The atmosphere shifted. A pleasant fissure broke the strain, and the corners of his eyes softened.

“How refreshing to be understood.”

“I understand a good many things about you.”

His gaze rested at the base of her neck, and slowly, slowly he took in her jaw, her lips like a starving man. “I shall count myself fortunate to have you as my neighbor.”

Neighbors, yes, but they were never alone. This unexpected escape to his sitting room was luxurious torment. Pure denial. They’d not kiss. She reveled in flirting with him—and His Grace needed a good flirting—but a dalliance would only further their suffering.

Their attraction was a dance of the unsaid.

And it would have to stay that way.

Her hand dropped to her midsection, nursing the hurt hidden under layers of cloth. She contemplated his perfect cravat, feeling dry as dust and all of her thirty-five years. “We have four hours before you must get ready for the ball.”

The duke eyed the clock on his mantle. “I suppose this is where I should concede that you’re right.”

Her “Yes” was grudging acknowledgment.

She dipped low and tested the kettle perched by the fire. The copper was hot. If a passerby touched her, they’d find her flesh over-warm and shush her off to bed. A prudent woman would take that advice and stay under the covers.

Dragging the butter churn before the fire, she faced a trying fact. She wouldn’t kiss His Grace, but she would touch him…and that would test the limits of their restraint.

“Is there anything I can do to help?” he asked.

“Nothing at the moment.”

He gave her room to work, an indication of his budding trust. “When do you plan to inform me of the details of this…”

“Healing treatment?” she supplied, pouring hot water in the churn. “In a moment.”

She upended buckets of tepid water into the churn, mentally cataloging the process her father had taught her years ago. The fire was a respectable blaze, heating her legs. Spring was lovely and full of sunshine, but winter’s bite lingered. His Grace would need the warmth, and she needed the oil of amber. She spun around, searching for the vial, finding a nicely lived in sitting room.

This is where he finds rest. It was a peek into the duke’s private life.

Windows shed light on a satinwood desk full of unrolled architecture plans. A beige brocade winged chair with its dented seat cushion waited for its usual occupant. Shelves of books, a few ferns but no flowers, and a wine-colored settee with comfy beige and white pillows added the final touch to cozy confines. It was all very un-ducal. She could lose herself in here.

“Mrs. Chatham,” he said sternly.

She continued searching the room, checking shelves, the mantle. “Keep your voice down, or this afternoon meeting of ours won’t stay secret for long.”

“What are you doing?”

“I am looking for my jar.” She spied the squat amber glass near papers on the duke’s desk. She sped toward it and plucked the treasured vial from the mess. “Here we are.”

He scrubbed a hand over his mouth. “Pray tell, what are your plans for me?”

She uncorked the jar with a pop. Oil of amber. The robust scent prickled the back of her nose. The aroma was full of the earth and not at all sophisticated. Like her. But the viscous oil would do a world of good for an inflexible duke.

“You have the patience of Job, Your Grace.” She leaned a hip on the corner of his desk. “I tend to lose myself in a project.”

Hand clasped behind his back, he was every inch a duke. “Since I am your project today, it’s only fitting for you to tell me what we’re about to do.”

She smiled. The explanation alone required the utmost delicacy. “You know the same thing happens when I put together my gardens. I don’t precisely plan as others do.”

He tipped his head a slight degree. “You’re evading me, Mrs. Chatham, but I can forgive you that because you’ve piqued my interest.”

He was as hungry for details about her as she was of him.

“Are you telling me you don’t put your garden plans on paper first?” he asked.

“Never. They’re designed entirely on intuition and impulse.”

“I can’t fathom such a thing.”

“Gardens are meant for pleasure,” she said tenderly, because the duke could use some tenderness. “Sometimes one must let things happen.”

It was a brazen statement. Rife with suggestion. By his ravenous stare, he couldn’t quash the warmth unfolding between them any more than she could.

“I’ve glimpsed your garden from the road. It is a thing of beauty.”

Her knees were jelly. Arousal flooded her body. Somehow the compliment tinged with erotic undertones. He could have said I’ve glimpsed you naked.

“Thank you, Your Grace. It is a hodgepodge of chaos and order, which I find utterly satisfying. The truth is with a little care and attention, and the right doses of sun and water, my gardens flourish every season without fail.”

He locked on to her wayward hair which had come loose during luncheon. “They certainly do.”

A delicious connection formed, sweet as summer rain and twice as healing. She missed this, the bond of man and woman. Being with the duke fed a timeless yearning which defied explanation, and she had mere hours to enjoy him. She’d take pleasure in every minute.

“Will you trust me to take care of you?” she asked with all gentleness.

“A woman to take care of me.” He contemplated the butter churn, his mouth quirking. “We are compatriots in this…our game of patient and physic.”

She laughed lightly. “Is that what we are? Compatriots?”

His true smile returned. The first one she’d witnessed in days. “I can think of nothing better.”

Is this an offer of friendship?

What a dashing friend indeed. The ever-polite duke had a certain roguish appeal with his black eye patch and jagged scar trailing down the bottom of it. He was full of surprises. Best of all was his willingness to try something new—with her.

She advanced on him, hips swaying, skirts swishing. “I assure you, this is not a game.”

Amiable air drifted, and the same elemental threads that inhabited their stolen glances connected them. His eye was a silver-coin hue, brighter from sunlight washing the room. The pale color was uncanny. Piercing and hawkish for an otherwise proper gentleman. The pain was clearly gone, or he was distracted by the bee-like hum thriving beneath the surface of their conversation.

Her flesh prickled with awareness. There’d be no getting around this.

“I need to explain the remedy, Your Grace.”

“Yes?”

Cradling the jar with both hands, she could be a virtuous woman about to bestow a gift, which made what she said next wholly incongruent.

“First, you must remove your breeches.”

CHAPTER 3

“WHAT?” he sputtered, the second time in a single day.

“You heard me. You must remove your breeches and allow me to administer the oil. Then, you will put your injured leg in the butter churn.”

He dragged a hand over his head. “Yes, I heard you the first time. About my breeches that is.” He paced the short distance between the hearth and the settee and back to the hearth again. “I expected a tincture. Something horrid that I would endure simply to have this afternoon alone with you.”

There. He’d voiced their vexing attraction, and they were none the worse.

“I’m glad to hear you say that.” She beamed as gorgeously as forbidden fruit would.

Sun bathed Mrs. Chatham in angelic light, a contradiction to the blatant sensuality thrumming between them. The dowager gave her blessing to this? He wouldn’t ask about that conversation.

“It’s for the good of your leg. You see my father was a physician. I assisted him from time to time, and one of his favorite remedies was to soak a sore limb in hot water with—” she raised the jar for visual proof “—oil of amber.”

They were in an awkward staring contest. Her smiling a tad salaciously with the jar in hand and he, gathering his wits. She must think his brains were in his ballocks.

For a moment, they were.

He’d been close to pinning Mrs. Chatham to the wall (twice!) and kissing her saucy mouth.

Thus, it took all his might to summon years of breeding to the fore. One wrong whisper and the family name would be counted scurrilous. If there was one thing he understood, it was decorum and what was at stake. His father was the epitome of goodness. No foul business dealings. No mistresses or babes born on the wrong side of the blanket. The pressure was immense, the responsibility considerable, but he would carry on the Richland banner.

He waved his hand irritably at the butter churn. “This appears to be a pediluvium. A rustic one at that. My leg pains me, madame, not my head.”

“I know, but I beg your tolerance.”

Soaking one’s foot was an accepted treatment for headaches, but what Mrs. Chatham suggested was unorthodox. And titillating. He’d had his fill of being poked and prodded, a thing he’d tolerated for months since the accident until he put down the ducal foot as it were, refusing any physicians to come near him.

“It sounds like medical heresy,” he groused.

“You’ve already taken an unusual approach with your leg.” She ambled closer, her voice soothing. “When the best doctors urged you to stay abed for a year and drown your pain in laudanum, you didn’t listen. Instead, once the bone healed, you exercised your leg.”

He swallowed peculiar dryness in his throat. She was appealing to his sense of reason, and it was working. So did the effect of her nearness. If he was honest, his current discomfit stemmed more from desiring his neighbor and suffering their mutual denial—made worse by her request that he remove his breeches.

Golden light limned Mrs. Chatham. Dust moats floated behind her, caught in the sun’s brilliance flooding the room. With her head tipped, those errant honey-blond tresses brushed her neck. She was luminescent. Well within his reach yet untouchable.

And how he ached to touch her.

“Today’s bout is probably because you’ve sat more than usual,” she went on, standing close enough for him to count her eyelashes. “You’re an energetic man. Give this a try, Your Grace. You won’t regret it.”

She was mellowing him. It was true. He’d done well with long walks, advancing to building not one but two follies on Richland grounds. Physical exertion had helped. The projects staved his boredom, healed his soul, and strengthened a body grown weak after the accident.

His heart thudded against his ribs while he breathed deeply of Mrs. Chatham’s perfume. She had a talent for enthralling him. For making him want. Badly.

Thus, he found himself slipping free of his coat. The murmur of cloth on cloth was seductive, especially with her watching.

“I will allow your medicinal treatment, short of removing my breeches.” Tossing his coat on the settee, he tried to regain control. Arms spread wide, he offered himself to her. “This ought to be sufficient.”

Her laugh sprinkled the air. “Your torso is not the body part in question.”

Lips clamped, he dammed a tide of sensual words that wanted to come out. Mrs. Chatham’s brows arched with challenge. He arched his too. They were in another draw. Frustrating, invigorating, and breathtaking all at once.

“Your Grace,” she chided. “It’s a simple thing, and it solves your problems.”

Was he being foolish? Total surrender was not a familiar skill. Negotiation was.

“What if I put my clothed leg in the butter churn?”

The widow’s mouth made a pretty moue. Her gaze dipped south, landing on his placket, dithering there a moment before sliding over to his thigh. “No. That wouldn’t work. The point is to have hot water against your unclothed skin. Then, I must rub oil onto the affected flesh.”

His gut clenched, and his ballocks twitched. Mrs. Chatham massaging me knee to hip?

Sweet Mother of God!

He’d spend himself. Right here, midday.

Flesh grew heavy against his placket. Parts of him were far from troubled with the makeshift-physic-turned-siren standing before him.

Steam curled up from the butter churn. Cheeks glowing with a pretty sheen, Mrs. Chatham could be an enchantress, dribbling oil from the jar, conjuring a spell. Her fingertips stirred the water and he was lost.

“You might be surprised to know this treatment is quite ancient. It comes from an antiquated book my father purchased.” She stopped her enigmatic stirring and flicked wet fingers. “He collects old books on the healing arts,” she said by way of explanation. “He kept poring over one tome in particular because it addressed wounds of muscle and sinew. He was relentless, writing fellow physics far and wide. The book was of eastern origin, and while he couldn’t read the text, he grasped the scribe’s illustration on this one remedy.”

“That must’ve been quite an illustration.”

Mrs. Chatham lured him. “Oh, it was. Finally, a friend in Venice helped him. He told my father the text referred to oil of amber. The patient must soak in it and—" she fixed a naughty glint on him “—have it rubbed onto the affected limb.”

“Your father administered this?” His placket and his voice were distinctly taut.

“Certainly not. He advised wives what to do, and they tended their husbands, of course.”

“Of course.”

Lambent sensuality danced between them. He was glad his waistcoat’s hem landed atop his thigh—all the better to hide nature’s response. A pulse ticked visibly at the base of Mrs. Chatham’s throat. He wanted to kiss the tiny throb. There was much to explore about his neighbor, her smooth jawline, her incredible mouth, and he had the afternoon to do it.

If he seized this chance.

A hint of laughter outside doused icy water on his ardor.

The ball. Averting his gaze, he stepped back. He wasn’t a feckless man to blithely tup a woman by day, and court another by night. Especially under the same roof. Flesh in his smalls might plow happily onward, but right was right…for all the bloody good it served.

He clapped a hand on his nape and squeezed tense muscles. Perhaps his brains were in his ballocks because he was sorely tempted to let them have sway.

“Mrs. Chatham…”

“Don’t worry, Your Grace. I’ll administer the oil as quickly as possible and leave. I did not expect to stay in the room while you are in a state of undress.”

His shoulders sagged. She was sage and kind. They both understood his predicament without having to say it aloud.

She stuffed the cork back on the vial. “I told the dowager I’d put you in the least compromising position.”

He dropped his hand to his side as a dull ache flared along his outer thigh. The injury and mention of his mother doused the mood.

“Then who will attend me?”

She shrugged. “I can come back.”

“I would hope you would. I am in this predicament because you suggested it to Her Grace.”

She smiled fully aware that he, like his brothers, would do anything to restore their mother’s happiness. “Have you a banyan? You could wear it and—”

“And be stripped to my smalls underneath? Out of the question. There must be another solution.”

She set the jar on the floor and angled her head for a side view of his leg. “What if I cut the outer seam of your breeches? That way you keep your clothes on.”

Blessed relief filled him. “A fine idea.”

“Have you scissors in here?”

“In the top-right drawer of my desk.”

She retrieved them and hurried to his side. Staying mostly clothed restored his sanity and gave him a barrier from the invasion that was Mrs. Chatham. Hands on his hips, he stared ahead and let her undo the button at his knee—anything to keep from visually consuming the bounty of her cleavage.

This is no different than a fitting with my tailor. An easy argument to swallow while he forced his focus to the far wall. On the beige paneling. The white trim. The mirrored sconces newly polished. The matching brass candelabra, both with five, half-melted candles. The door to his bedchamber…

His neighbor’s tender assault weakened him. When he peeked down—his first mistake—she was a study in delicate striving. His thoughtful physic nibbled her bottom lip. Gentle, elegant fingers tested the seam of his breeches.

She slid a hand partway under the cloth, and rivulets of pleasure followed her touch.

Mrs. Chatham’s hand wandering up his breeches was an image that’d be forever burned on his brain.

He closed his eye, surrendering to the attack. She besieged him with her orange and ginger scent, her knuckles grazing his skin and the rustle of her velvet skirts. That jostle of cloth could defeat a man.

Is this what famished men experience? They gorge on crumbs?

Because this was as close as he’d get to being the center of Mrs. Chatham’s attention. Tender hands untied the garter holding up his stockings. She dragged silk down his shin. Air was cool. Her breath was steady and warm, trifling with his bare calf.

A tiny shudder skipped along his spine.

He was living in increments. The shears snip, snip, snipping his breeches. Broadcloth giving way. His fortitude crumbled when metal glanced his hip, and the imprint of Mrs. Chatham’s steadying palm seeped through cloth to his skin. He stilled.

A medieval device could be squeezing his chest, and this was contact with a barrier between them.

“I cut the bottom of your smalls, Your Grace, but they are intact.”

What a reverent confession. Mrs. Chatham, his heretofore saucy healer, was apologetic about nicking his smalls. Was the experienced widow nervous about the path both of them were about to tread? Fabric covered him. The nakedness issue was solved, as long as one didn’t make an over-fine distinction of the word. That hurdle surmounted, he had another to go.

Submitting to her rubbing oil on his bare skin.

CHAPTER 4

THE DUKE’S resistance hung by a thread. Each time her skin glanced his, flesh pebbled. His and hers. Waves of pleasure washed over them from her touching him in this un-carnal manner. Yet both were swept into a tide of yearning.

She was kneeling on the floor, her heart racing and her mouth flooding with wetness. She couldn’t stop licking her lips.

“Now I must administer the oil.”

The duke braced himself. “Do what you must.”

His voice was thick. Hands resting on his hips slid higher to his waist and dug in. That simple move humbled her. His Grace was trying hard to be the moral man his mother and father had raised him to be.

Head bowed, she swallowed the lump in her throat. One caress in the right place, and this afternoon could easily take a different turn. They both knew it.

If she truly cared for him, if she wanted his happiness above her own, she would keep what he valued in place—his sense of goodness and all that it entailed. For there was more to his inheritance than title and wealth. The Richland name was defined by its noble disposition, and Lord Nathaniel was the best of the breed. Generous, hard-working, decent to all.

Who was she to tempt such a man?

She’d honor his reputation, his dignity, and ready in him for tonight. No more teasing. No more flirtation. She’d do what she was tasked with in the first place.

Tears pricked her eyes. This was newfound misery. Truly, Hades added a new level today. It would be torturously known as Preparing a man to dance with another woman.

Three of them actually, and one would become his wife.

As a mature woman she should be able to do this. Contemplating his leg, the slivered view of his thigh with its bits of springy masculine hair, she accepted a truth. Experience didn’t take the sting out of loss. It confirmed it. As much as it promised she could live life happily again…someday.

She sniffled and poured the balm into her cupped hand. Yes, someday. If she sold her cottage and removed herself to another corner of the realm.

Excess oil dripped onto her dry hand. “I am about to administer the oil.” Her voice was shaky. That was the second time she’d warned him.

His good eye was closed. “I am ready.”

She took a bolstering breath and slid her hand up his thigh. The breeches parted. Dark auburn hair crinkled against her palm. She concentrated her strokes around his knee. Rubbing, kneading, feeling him. Muscles knotted under her touch. Angry pink-red scars ridged his skin in places, then ran slick.

Studying the carpet, she offered a bland, “Oil of amber reduces inflammation.”

Explanations were safe. Her hands going above his knee was not.

The duke was silent. His mouth was compressed, and sinew popped visibly on his neck.

“If you continue to exercise the limb…” Her lungs constricted and she let her words taper off.

“Yes?”

Her hands ventured higher, finding well-developed thigh muscles and no scars. “If you—If you exercise the limb and soak it often, you will see much improvement.”

Sweat beaded in her cleavage. She shut her eyes, and her strokes became more vigorous. She was in peril of reaching his hip…and other places.

A hand settled on her shoulder. “Mrs. Chatham, perhaps now is a good time to introduce me to the butter churn?”

“Oh, thank goodness,” she fairly breathed the words and withdrew her hands from their hold on his leg.

She was clumsy, getting off the floor. Her legs wouldn’t cooperate, and her corset stuck to heated skin. Whalebone jabbed her. More strands of hair had come loose and were clinging to her cheeks.

“Here.” The duke grasped her by the elbows and helped her upright.

They were quite close and quite intimate. Her limbs were heavy, and her blood was sluggish in her veins. She was sweetly drowsy. She couldn’t leave if she tried.

He’d bound her with a spell.

The center of his eye was a black pool. The fire’s blaze danced bronze-like and dangerous in that dark depth. An auburn wisp fell over his forehead. She brushed it back, tucked it neatly along his temple.

“You should put your leg in the churn.”

“I should.”

They were somehow closer. Velvet-covered breasts brushed a wall of silk, and the duke’s hand slid possessively, neatly into the curve of her waist.

She allowed herself the luxury of tracing his jaw. Barely-there afternoon whiskers scratched her fingertips. Simms would take care of them, but for this moment those whiskers belonged to her.

His nostrils flared. She’d swear he scented her.

The duke’s one-eyed concentration was so, so…intense. She’d burn up from it. A little wetness trickled between her breasts, the single, private drop taunting her.

“You’re flushed, Mrs. Chatham.”

“Velvet was a poor choice to wear today. Spring in Kent seems…warmer than usual this year.”

“Indeed.” He didn’t break his potent stare.

His claiming hold on her waist slid comfortably over to the small of her back. And jammed her against him.

She ought to take matters in hand. She was an older, experienced woman after all. “I’m not going to let you do this.” She was breathy and desperate.

“You will.”

“Oh,” she whimpered, weak-kneed, clutching his waistcoat.

Apparently, that was all the duke needed. She gasped when his fingers tunneled her hair. Pins dropped to the floor. His mouth hovered over hers a final, agonizing second. They’d waited for this a long, long time. There was no going back.

If a single kiss was all she’d have of Lord Nathaniel, they’d do this right.

Something to make the one-eyed, dragon duke never forget her.

Their mouths met in a fury of bone-melting, seize-the-moment lust. The first contact obliterated her senses. Singed them down to her toes. She gave him a remember-me-for-the-rest-of-your-life kind of kiss. The duke set out to do the same. His embrace was passionate. Demanding. They could be floating on a wave. Lost. Happy. Together.

The memory of his lips would warm her many a cold winter’s night, though their kiss wasn’t pretty.

It was…

Hungry, carnal, scorching. All take…and take…and take.

Slickness poured like warm honey between her legs. Lust consumed her.

Their anxious, desperate hands sought skin and found none. Until she reached for the duke’s exposed smalls. Hip muscles clenched underhand. She scraped her fingernails along that hip.

He answered with a guttural growl against her mouth.

What delicious power. It was shocking. Wonderful. She wanted more.

She flattened her hand against him, seeking bare skin.

The duke broke their kiss. He staggered backward and grabbed the mantle with both hands. His head hung low.

“You can’t do that.”

Heels scraping backward, she put some distance between them. She was dazed, checking her surroundings. “Do what?”

“Touch me like that. It was—” His mouth pulled a grim line.

She was certain he forbade himself from finishing. She had no such compunction. “It was what? Overwhelming? Annihilating yet elevating at the same time?”

His laugh was low and lusty, the kind a woman heard from the corners of midnight gardens and dark alleys. “You have a talent for words, Mrs. Chatham.” He pushed off the mantle. “I can only say mine were of a baser nature.”

She wished to hear them, but this thing between them was too potent. Another kiss and they’d set the room on fire. Or find their way to his bed.

Whatever modesty his waistcoat afforded him was long gone. His breeches were shamelessly tented, and a rakish side-smile changed his visage. “Do we repeat this? Your rubbing oil of amber on my leg, my soaking it, then more…rubbing?”

She set her knuckles on kiss-swollen lips, stifling a giggle. Oh, he was awful, grinning at her.

“I like this game of ours, this patient and physic,” he said.

“Your Grace!” She was properly scandalized. “Please. Soak your leg.”

He eased his damaged limb into the butter churn. Water sloshed over the sides as he gave a playful, “I feel better already.”

Hair falling about her face, she swiped the jar and scissors off the floor, no small feat with her corset and heavy velvet gown. “Must I remind you that you have a ball to attend?”

“It will be a pleasure as long as you’re there.”

“Don’t waste your dances on me.” She looked crossly at the butter churn, the bloom of the kiss fading. He would dance other women. Not her. Never her.

“Why shouldn’t I dance with you?”

Her skin was terribly hot and the room felt over-bright. “This is only one soak and one application of the oil. There’s no telling how long this will last.”

“We can walk in the garden and steal a kiss.”

“Not with me, you won’t.”

“You’re pretty when your irritable. Your eyes darken and your move with such interesting precision.”

“Don’t flirt with me.”

“I’m not. I’m simply complimenting my healer. You’ve done a better job this hour than England’s best physicians. My leg feels good.”

He stood there, hale and hearty, leg in the churn, dressed in day finery, arms crossed over his chest, absurdly appealing. He’d trusted her, appreciated her, and that pushed past the protective, thorny parts of her heart. The kiss helped too, adding a new, dangerous dimension.

She set the jar and scissors on the mantle. “I’m glad to hear it.”

They were at impasse, surrounded by a sensual web of their own making. Air was thick with ardor and unsated wants and confusion. Gaiety from the house party’s outdoor entertainments broke into the silent room. Did she need another reminder why this interlude never should’ve happened?

New voices glided up from the stairs.

“Simms,” she said, suddenly stricken. “I must leave.”

“Stay.” The duke reach for her wrist which she yanked back. “You’re in my sitting room.”

“With your breeches cut in half,” she cried. “Look at me! He’ll know what we did.”

The kiss was a clarion call to how deep and wide passions ran between her and the Duke of Richland. No long smolder for them. They were fireworks, burning fast and bright.

It’d be best for all if the household assumed that she’d instructed His Grace on how to administer the oil and that he soaked his injured leg alone. It’d be best for all if she disappeared and lost herself in her gardening. What a lonely prospect.

Gripping handfuls of skirts, she headed for the door.

“Mrs. Chatham. Wait.”

She whirled around with a hushing finger to her lips. “Shhhh.”

By the volume of the valet’s voice, she’d guess he was at the foot of the stairs. Leaving unnoticed was still a possibility. Fortune favored her this day.

The duke smiled his pirate smile and shifted his stance, splashing more water onto the floor. “I haven’t properly thanked you. I will when we dance tonight.”

“We shall not,” she whisper-hissed.

“Then how shall I thank you?” he asked, a tad louder.

She glared at him with all the disapproval a thoroughly kissed woman could muster. “You are incorrigible. If you want to thank me, write a letter.”

Everyone else did. Cold, polite letters. With that lonely prospect on her heart, she sped off to the sanctity of her room, velvet skirts swaying furiously.

CHAPTER 5

EVERY FASHIONABLE PERSON IN KENT, and the next district over, was crammed in his ballroom. Chandeliers blazed with brilliant, piercing light. Sherry, wine, and champagne sparkled in glasses because the dowager had spared no expense. Men and women danced a minuet, their lines so long he couldn’t see who was at the far end.

Ebullient laughter spilled from open doorways and washed over him. It was a pleasant thing for a man to watch his home filled with splendor. It’d be more enjoyable to share the night with a companionable woman. One given to spicy kisses and saucy quips. Yet, Mrs. Chatham was nowhere to be found.

“A fine night,” George said, tipping his head at the ballroom.

“It is.”

Lady Jacintha, the daughter of the Earl of Kendal, stepped out of the ballroom onto the back terrace. She flicked open a bronze fan, the silk flaring wide. The fan could be preening bird feathers. Three tittering young ladies clustered in the half-light around the earl’s daughter. Lady Jacintha smiled coyly at him over the rim of her fan.

His name had somehow landed on her dance card.

Between that mistake and the invisible Mrs. Chatham, his joy was quickly evaporating.

His brother rested a hip on the stone balustrade. “Your leg. Is it better from your medicinal treatment?”

“I’m well.”

“And apparently only capable of monosyllabic answers.”

He gave George a cross look which bounced off him.

Fire flickered from decorative brass bowls all around them. Enough light for well-bred ladies to feel safe; dim enough to invite a stolen kiss. Moths danced around the flames, dipping close and diving back. Rather like what went on with his elusive neighbor. There’d been missed opportunities in the past, chances to test courtship’s waters. He’d been set on his work. She with her…oh, he didn’t know how she’d filled her days, but he wanted to.

George tapped a flawless shoe on flagstone. “Everyone’s abuzz about which dance cards will bear the privilege of your name.”

“You said that an hour ago.” He scanned the ballroom again.

The room was a crush of panniered-skirts and frizzed hair. The square, ratted style was all the rage. Mrs. Chatham had blessedly not given into that fashion, which made him grateful for her genteel, countrified life. He liked her pretty blond locks, but the woman who bore them was nowhere to be found.

George chuckled and smoothed his jabot. “She’s not coming.”

“She?”

“Mrs. Chatham. The woman you’ve been searching for all night like a bloodhound.”

“Why do you say that?”

George’s gaze raked him from head to toe. “Your sudden change of fashion gives you away. Men who don’t dress well sing a different tune when they want to catch a woman’s eye.”

His brother had him there.

He’d surprised Simms and called for the new black, superfine cutaway coat his tailor had delivered before the house party. An onyx silk waistcoat, ending at his waist (unlike the outdated one he’d worn today) added to the ensemble. Ink-black breeches covered his legs. Severe. Dramatic. He stood out in a crowd adorned in confectionary colors.

The same crowd with the power to crush unassuming widows.

Once the languor of their afternoon kiss had diminished, he’d been careful not to mention Mrs. Chatham to Simms. Protective even. He didn’t want to sully her reputation.

His mind was already set when it came to his neighbor. He was going to marry her though he hadn’t mentioned it to a soul. A minimum courtship was in order, then he’d ask her.

After today’s kiss, how could she say no?

George scrutinized him, humming thoughtfully. “Perhaps your torn breeches gave you away? Or the hair pins abandoned on your floor?”

He cursed under his breath.

George produced two wire hair pins and passed them discreetly over. “Your secret is safe with me. Simms was too busy fussing over your shoe buckles to notice me picking them up.”

“It’s not what you think,” he said, stuffing the pins into his coat pocket.

“There’s the rub. It doesn’t matter what I think.” George’s arm flung wide at the ball. “It doesn’t matter what they think. What matters is you. Your happiness.”

His happiness. A gift rarely bestowed on people of privilege. They enjoyed wealth and comfort, a fair trade for duty. But this sudden advice on happiness piqued him.

Was his brother encouraging a dalliance? George was highly attuned to who was duchess material and who wasn’t. London’s finer doors would never open for Mrs. Chatham, a widow from Kent. They would for a duchess. It didn’t matter. He liked her exactly as she was.

A baron and his wife passed by on their way to stroll through the gardens. Greetings were exchanged, pleasantries said, but he itched to pursue George’s unexpected admonition.

He swung around to face the lawn. “Why so concerned about my happiness?”

George matched him, bracing both hands on the stone balustrade. “Because you’ve never forgiven yourself for being the one to survive the accident.”

He tensed from head to toe, his mid-section clenching as if he’d taken a blow. The Richland family, while loving and good, were prone to weaving delicately around unpleasant topics. Dancing by. Skimming over. Treading on eggshells from time to time. Never hitting a problem head on.

“What makes you think that?” His voice was deceptively calm. A storm threatened to erupt inside him. He held onto the stone, needing its solidness.

“You’ve been irritable all year.”

He was aghast. “Our family suffered great loss.”

George nodded with small concession. “Yes. Father and Darius will forever be on our hearts, but we must move on.”

“I have.” Now he was defensive. “I honor them by fulfilling my duties, but I fail to see why you’re spewing balderdash about forgiveness or the lack thereof.”

“You’re alone far too much.”

“I prefer to keep to myself.”

“That’s true. You’re far too aloof.”

He flicked an unseen speck off his sleeve. “Reserved, thank you.”

“And you’ve given up architecture.”

He flinched. Now they were getting somewhere. George’s words pierced the marrow of his bone. Even he heard the misery in his voice when he said, “I built follies, not grand cathedrals.”

“But you loved building them all the same. I can tell you miss it. Don’t deny it.”

He wouldn’t.

George delivered another assault. “Don’t stop pursuing the things that give you pleasure.”

“There is being the Duke of Richland,” he said dryly.

“So? Be a duke and a builder of follies.” George paused before dropping his voice an octave. “Mrs. Chatham told the dowager you should take up more building projects. She’s convinced the work makes you happy.”

His head swiveled sharply to his brother.

George whistled softly. “Like a bloodhound at the mention of her name.”

He was baffled. The day had opened up a world of possibilities after his interlude with the widow. The night was proving to be a puzzle. He’d kissed Mrs. Chatham, or she’d kissed him (a distinction not worth splicing), yet she wasn’t at the ball.

Why was she hiding?

“Are you going to seek her out after your dance with Lady Jacintha?” George asked.

No need to clarify the woman he’d seek. His attention drifted to a dormer window on the third floor. He’d been astonished to learn the dowager had ensconced Mrs. Chatham in the east wing. That side of Richland Hall was for family alone.

Gentle light shined through the small square glass. The widow was on the other side of it, hiding away. Once or twice he thought a lonely soul looked down the festivities. He could go to Mrs. Chatham, coax her down from her uncharacteristic tower of solitude. She always did well at local routs. Villagers enjoyed her amiable conversation.

Perhaps she found the size of the ball off-putting? The swell of too much noise?

The orchestra was taking a break. The old fellows were mopping their brows and gulping down punch. They’d play again after a decent rest. His minuet with Lady Jacintha was coming due like a dreaded debt he didn’t want to pay.

A stream of people poured outside, but he would dive in and fish out a certain neighbor tucked quietly in his home. He was about to leave when George grabbed his sleeve.

“You’re going to her now, aren’t you?”

“I am.”

“There will be consequences if you don’t come back.”

There would, but he was a duke. Excuses would be made and accepted. It was another thing to take in stride, no different than his stiff new shoes.

The crowd swelled around them. Several portly gentlemen ambled down the steps, heading to the striped canopy where the day’s refreshment tables served as nightly card tables. If he wanted to escape, now was the time, but George tugged his sleeve again.

His brother was earnest, dipping his head to impart a grave message. “Before you go, there is something you need to know about Mrs. Chatham.”

CHAPTER 6

THE LETTER SAT in her lap. She read it again, taking bittersweet delight in each wonderful word.

Richland Hall, Friday afternoon

May 23, 1788

Dear Mrs. Chatham,

I could wax on about our fine spring weather. I could offer effusive thanks for the oil of amber, but I won’t because my afternoon with you was transcendent. Wholly unexpected. One kiss can change a man. Yours did. You reset my fulcrum. I am balanced again, and the world is right because of you. Please accept my humble thanks for the gift of your time today. I can only hope to deserve more of it.

With kind regard,

Lord Nathaniel, Duke of Richland

SHE FOLDED the foolscap and set it lovingly on the table beside her chair. Pandora’s box had been opened by a single kiss and a few choice words. They’d said aloud what had long simmered under the surface.

“How do I put this back inside the box?” she mused to her empty room.

They’d unleashed what could never be, and that was difficult to swallow.

She tucked one foot beneath her bottom and let the other leg dangle. An open book was in her lap. She’d tried to read it several times. The pages swam. The story eluded her.

This self-imposed exile was awful. She’d return home tomorrow. Sneak out early, though it was cowardly. The duke would be busily dancing attendance on three fortunate young women. Really, they’d dance attendance on him. It’d be a race to win his heart.

Her face crumpled. The duke could share his lust with her, but never his love.

Twice she’d peeked out the window at the goings on below. The grounds swelled with merry-makers. Everyone celebrated the Richland family’s return into the blessed arms of society. A season of joy was upon them. She’d not interfere. This past year had seen her traipsing about Richland Hall far too much. Now she would extract her person and drown herself in her garden.

Inquiries about a cottage in Cornwall would be made. The sooner, the better.

A knock at her door startled her. Hair on her arms bristled. He was on the other side; she knew it with every fiber of her being.

Quiet as a mouse, she shut her book and set it carefully on a side table.

A bolder, louder knock sounded.

Drat! Too many candles blazed for her to feign sleep. Polite as Lord Nathaniel was, he could also be obstinate. She touched her cheeks and checked her face in a hand mirror. Her eyes were red-rimmed. The duke would know she’d been crying.

Another knock came. Very insistent. The dragon wanted entry. Sighing, she put down the hand mirror.

“Come in.”

A door hinge creaked the tiniest noise. The duke filled her doorway. Masculine. Robust. Dressed in dangerous black. A cutaway coat fit his shoulders like a second skin. Light kissed his auburn hair. No strand was out of place. Lacy, snow white cuffs rested evenly on the back of his hands—his persuasive, passionate hands.

It was foolish, her visual devouring of the man, but even the best-intentioned women slipped.

“You’re quite dashing, Your Grace.”

“And you’re quite…comfortable.”

She laughed and pulled her shawl tighter about her shoulders. “Is that a euphemism for my ugly day gown?”

“You would be beautiful in burlap, madame.”

She sighed softly. By the tender octave of his voice, she believed he truly thought such a foolish thing.

He sauntered into the low-ceilinged room, searching for a chair, finding a dainty one at the escritoire, and hefting it high to plunk it directly before her. The duke’s hand slid under the back of his coat, flaring the cloth tails while he took a seat. Spine straight, he was imposing. A man in the prime of his life, and he’d come to sit with her.

“You’ve been crying. Is that why you’re not at the ball?” His silver-gray eye was hawkish. He’d give no quarter.

Her gaze slid to his letter on the side table. “Because I decided it was in the best interest of all concerned that I not go.”

“You’re making decisions for me?” There was irritation in his tone.

She’d matched it.

“No. I made this decision for me. You might have the power to make me weak-kneed, Your Grace, but I possess a strong mind. It’s the benefit of having used it at least a decade longer than the women who’ve flung themselves at you all week.”

Taking a deep breath, he set both hands palms down on his thighs. He tried to bite back a smile and lost the battle. “Weak-kneed?”

He said it with the most unusual blend of seduction and humor. How was that possible? The effect was butterflies in her stomach. Parts of her hidden under yards of ugly brown wool were doing a jig, but she wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of answering.

“Is that the reason you’re in here?” he asked. “The difference in our ages?”

“Of course, a younger person would say that.” She squirmed on her seat. “Youth is its own armor. You feel invincible…until the day comes when you realize you’re not.”

A sober shadow fell over his face, dimming the light in his eye. “I am twenty-six years old. Not a stripling lad. I faced my lack of invincibility last year.”

She winced. “Forgive me. That was a thoughtless, impulsive retort.”

“No harm was done, madame, and it was a truthful thing you said. It’s one of the qualities I admire about you.”

He studied her in the same manner he pored over his architecture plans. Every detail was worth consideration. She was conscious of her sloppy braid, and the faint lines etched at the outer corners of both her eyes. Her maid said they were from smiling too much.

Wherever the duke’s gaze touched, her skin got warmer. He traced a visual trail down her leg and back to her foot peeking half out from under her skirt. A white stocking covered her, but he stared with such interest that her skin pebbled.

“I spent a good portion of my night waiting for you.” He tore his attention off her foot. “Then I wondered why would a woman kiss me passionately, elicit my emotions, and hide.”

She twisted the edges of her shawl. “I already told you.”

Arms crossing, he leaned back in his chair. “You’ve told me nothing. You’re a confident woman, Mrs. Chatham. I don’t believe this is about our ages, or station, or wealth.”

She mirrored him, mulishly crossing her arms. “You appear to be well-informed about us. Why don’t you tell me what this is about?”

“We finally admit to our attraction, and that, madame, scares you.”

Oh, it frightened her out of her wits. Marriage to Mr. Chatham had been a comfortable affair. Sexual congress had been enjoyable, the occasional tup, but no exploration, no sharing of secret desires. She’d mourned her husband’s passing. They’d had a good life. He was a friend, a partner, but passion failed to burn bright.

It took a dalliance with a rake to open her eyes. Then a dalliance with another man, and another after him. Widows were afforded certain freedoms if they were discreet. But, the excitement, the sense of exploration eventually faded in favor of a new want—love.

Was it too much to ask for love and bed-shaking, rope-creaking sex? She’d resigned herself that never the twain would meet. Hence, she’d purchased Butterfly Cottage in Kent and prepared to lose herself in vigorous gardening, but no woman could live by spade and dirt alone. That point was driven into her soul the day she’d spied an intelligent-looking, auburn-haired man with impossibly wide shoulders in a public house in her new home village.

The first time their eyes had met devastated her.

Hot, lustful seeds were planted that day. She couldn’t deny it.

After two agonizing years, they finally, finally acted on their mutual attraction. One kiss was all it took for her to know love and sex could live under one roof.

And that scared her most of all.

Because he was a duke, and she’d never be able to give him what men in his position needed most. An heir.

CHAPTER 7

LOVE WAS PROFOUND AND UNRULY. He’d known versions of it with his family, but the emotion blossoming between him and Mrs. Chatham was a tempest. He wanted to grab her by the shoulders, give her a good shaking, and make her tell him the truth about her difficult secret.

He already knew. George had told him.

His brother imparted the substance of a conversation he’d overheard months ago. In it, Mrs. Chatham had tearfully shared a confidence with the dowager. Now she needed to share it with him. That was how trust and respect worked. Love fed on those qualities.

He and Mrs. Chatham needed to entrust their worst pain, their harshest disappointments, and their greatest joys for love to grow. His good, affectionate family had struggled with this truth as well. This past year showed him that.

Today, he and Mrs. Chatham had a taste of honest words in his sitting room. It was their beginning. Now they must continue to feed their wildly chaotic, yet fledgling, emotions, but it couldn’t be forced.

She had to give him the deepest recesses of her heart.

Seeing this truth was no different than glimpsing a corner of a magnificent painting, knowing the beauty that was coming…and having to wait for it. And wait. And wait.

Gentleness helped. Thus, he unfolded his arms and leaned forward. He brushed the back of his knuckles on her knee. She was wary, watching him like a curled-up cat unsure of being petted. Her gaze followed every stroke on her wool-covered knee, her leg, and her half-exposed foot.

Two candelabra lit the room. Flickering candles brightened her sherry-colored eyes. Their rich, liquid hue filled her face.

“Your Grace—”

“Nathan.”

Her eyes flared wider.

“When I’m alone with you, call me Nathan. It’s what my brothers called me as a boy.”

His voice was hoarse from intimacy twining between them. Mrs. Chatham might wish to slow the swirling changes going on between them, but she couldn’t deny their palpable presence.

She nibbled her lower lip as a puzzled dent camped between her eyebrows. Her breathing ebbed and flowed with greater tenacity. She fought something.

“Tell me what it is,” he coaxed.

Her soulful gaze met his. “We’ve opened Pandora’s box, and now we ought to close it.”

Careful strokes to her skirt-covered leg stopped. This was puzzling. And enlightening. He expected a garden metaphor or an outright confession of the heart, not a mythical reference.

“What do you mean?”

“Pandora, the first woman in Greek mythology,” she explained patiently.

“I know who she is. The gods bestowed their choicest gifts on her, and she married...” Perplexed, he searched the air.

“Epimetheus.” She supplied the name, looking at him as if comprehension would come. Seconds ticked on the Dutch clock tucked in the corner before she added, “He was warned not to marry her, but he did anyway, bringing him misery.”

He toyed with her hem. He had a good idea where she was going with the tale, but he had something to add of his own because art and precision were in his blood. “Some say the first translation wasn’t correct. Pandora had a jar, not a box. Another translation has misplaced curiosity at fault, while another—”

“I don’t need a lesson in the details of Greek mythology,” she huffed in frustration.

“My point was only to enhance the—"

“I’m barren!” Color was high in her cheeks. She blinked as glossy wetness filled her eyes.

He scooted forward, his knees bumping her chair. “That doesn’t matter. I want to be with you. Isn’t that enough?”

She dabbed her eyes with the corner of her shawl. “You can’t mean that. You’re the Duke of Richland. The very design of this house party has been to find your duchess.”

He could argue a different point. Oh, she had one facet correct: the guests, the week-long entertainments were meant to find him a wife, but today…tonight shed new light on a dark, dark year. What if the true motive of his heart was to restore Richland? To fill it with love and happiness however such a gift might come?

Was the greater thing progeny? Or love?

He knew how he’d answer, but marriage was an equation with two hearts and minds.

Mrs. Chatham was prickly. “Don’t you understand? I can’t give you children. If you pursue this—this passion between us, you’d be leg shackled to me.”

He grinned. “I could use a good leg shackling. If it’s with you.”

Her jaw dropped. “This is not a light-hearted matter.”

Perhaps he shouldn’t have ventured the leg-shackling quip.

“Mrs. Chath—"

“You must go. Now.” Her trembling voice brooked no disagreement.

His inborn stillness cracked. The heels of his hands dug into his thighs. None of this was going as planned. He was raised to give the utmost respect to women. He wanted to persuade her against her angry demand, but wisdom whispered otherwise.

Retreat was in order. He’d regroup and reassess how to fully win her heart.

Wearily, he pushed up off the fragile chair and returned it to its rightful place at the escritoire. The soles of his shoes scraped the floor from leaden footsteps. He made his way to the door and tarried there, bitter disappointment washing over him. He wouldn’t be the one to dry her tears tonight. But he was determined. They would have more nights together. Of that he was certain.

Before he closed the door, he faced the stubborn woman who would someday be his duchess. He was quite certain no other dukes had to work this hard to gain their duchesses. He’d take this as further proof of the widow’s worth: her refusal came from a wish to protect him, albeit misguided. Her valiant effort made her all the more endearing.

She wiped another tear, managing to be fierce and soft while sniffling in her chair. “Why do you linger in my doorway, Your Grace?”

“Because I must own that my poor choice of humor caused you pain. I will carry that with me for the rest of my life. I hope someday you will forgive me.”

“It’s done.” Chin to chest, she plucked a loose thread on the chair’s upholstered arm.

A million stars winked encouragement at him through the dormer window. Those heavenly bodies had witnessed centuries of lovers in turmoil. No doubt they’d preside over many more.

“There is something else…if you’ll allow…”

“This is your home,” she said peevishly. “I can hardly toss you out.”

A giant hand could be squeezing his heart. His fingertips whitened from their staying grip on the door. He’d failed her this night, a lesson to harbor for the future.

He took a labored breath and gentled his voice. “I think you’ve forgotten that there is more to Pandora’s tale. All translations end on a similar note. After the badness fled, there was one thing left.”

Her spine was off the back rest. She dabbed her nose with a kerchief and slipped one foot, then the other into her shoes. “I can’t recall what it is, but I’ve no doubt you’ll supply me with the answer.” Hands resting primly on her knees, she met his gaze and waited.

“Hope.”

CHAPTER 8

HE SUNK onto his bed and fell back onto a sea of the finest cotton money could buy. Mrs. Staveley and a battalion of chamber maids had prepared his bed for warmer weather: a fluffy summer counterpane, lighter draperies to shut around his bed, and the downiest pillows.

Restorative sleep was what he needed. He tore off the piratical patch and flung it to the floor. His eyes grained. He rubbed them, the good one and the cloudy blind one too. On occasion, when he caught his uncovered visage in a mirror, he’d fancy himself a villain in a gothic novel. The medieval-looking scar, an ugly jagged line, was just as frightening as his whitish eye.

Mrs. Chatham’s ardor had never changed. Lust between them had sizzled hotly before the accident when he was a whole second son, and it crackled like wildfire even though he was a damaged man.

The widow had deep, unseen wounds of her own. She’d masked them well. Wasn’t it time for her to let them go? Dare he suggest such a thing?

He wanted a life with Mrs. Chatham. To build and love, to heal and grow.

He smiled at the plum canopy overhead. Only a gardener would know how to fill the holes in his heart…humor for a more opportune time.

Stretching on his bed, the tips of his fingers grazed something stiff and crinkly on his pillow. He picked it up and held a neat square to the light. Foolscap. Folded in quarters. The slanted penmanship familiar to him.

“Mrs. Chatham. Leaving missives on my pillow, are you?”

Legs dangling over the bed, he opened the letter and read it with her knowing, sensual voice flooding his ears.

Richland Hall, Friday evening

May 23, 1788

My Lord Duke,

You’ve done me a great honor with your kind letter. There is no need to offer thanks. I am glad the oil of amber treatment agrees with you. You are possessed of an otherwise healthy constitution. Steady exercise and regular application should solve your aches.

HE CHUCKLED TO HIMSELF. “Why Mrs. Chatham, you’re just as bland as Doctor Mimsby.”

He put his attention back on the staid missive. There was a break in the text and two ink blobs before the widow continued.

I’d be remiss if I failed to mention our kiss. There was something exalted and heavenly in our embrace. No man has ever kissed me like that. I can’t imagine another could (don’t let your head swell with such fine praise). As I write this note, I’m picturing your male satisfaction at having pleasured me so.

He gripped the paper with an air of possession. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

He’d earned an underlined word and high praise for giving the best kiss to the woman who made his heart sing. Of course, he was peacocking.

The minx.

Ideas were flowing. Seductions were forming. He’d have her again, and again, and again.

Another ink spot marred the foolscap. What a messy letter writer she was. He touched the surface lovingly, finding the outline of a stain. Wetness. A tear, he was sure. He scanned the remaining lines for the source of her weepiness.

Your Grace, this day with you will be with me forever. I will cherish it, but please know I will not infringe on your happiness. I will remove myself a suitable distance in another district.

We must do what is right. Your mother wants a proper marriage for you. I’m most certain your late father would too.

Yours in the deepest affection,

Mrs. Charlotte Chatham

P.S. Please burn this letter.

Burn the letter? Never. He’d memorialize it and read it when he was long in the tooth. Folding the tender missive back into neat fourths, he acknowledged a vexing point: the dowager.

What was he going to say to her?

CHAPTER 9

CARRIAGES RATTLED STEADILY, lines of them. In the distance, clouds of dust billowed on one particularly dry, eastern road. He let go of the high, sweeping curtains and took a seat at the round table where his half-eaten breakfast waited to be finished. The ever-vigilant Thomas attended his private meal. The footman’s back was to the window overlooking the south lawn where his brothers escorted Lady Jacintha, her sister, and mother on a late morning. The merry troop appeared to set out toward his newest folly, a recreation of a ruined Roman fortress.

There was much to decide today—and after seeing the earl’s daughter—a bit of strategy to plan too.

He speared his fork into a coddled egg when his mother nipped into his sitting room.

“Thomas, please arrange a carriage to take Mrs. Chatham home.” She paused, checking the brass mantle clock. “Have it ready for her in the next hour. She’s a bit peckish this morning and moving rather slowly.”

“Yes, Your Grace.” White glove on his midsection, the footman executed a perfect bow. “I’ll attend it now.”

“Please do,” she said, arraying herself on the settee. The dowager cleared her throat while fussing with yellow silk skirts. The rustle was distinct, concise with an I’ve got things to say to you air about them.

A wise son, he would listen. He swallowed his last bite and turned his attention to the settee. Pleasantries were in order.

“Good morning, mother.” He motioned to the chair facing him. “Care to join me?”

“Good morning, and no, I have already broken my fast, though my appetite was a bit off because I had to use much of the morning explaining your sudden departure from the ball last night.” She tipped her head and pearl earbobs slanted elegantly. “You remember. The ball in your honor.”

A line was being drawn this day in their shifting relationship. She would forever be his mother, deeply loved and much admired, but he’d not be managed.

“Everyone seemed to enjoy the evening, and my presence was not required.” He set his fork on his plate and dabbed his mouth with the serviette. “My choice for duchess has been made.”

“Oh? Has Lady Jacintha won the honor? You didn’t dance with her.”

“No. I didn’t. Yet she’s gamboling on our south lawn with my brothers as we speak.”

Hyphen-thin brows arched. “What else could I do, but invite her and her family to stay? Your name was on her dance card.”

He put some space between himself and the table. “How did it get there?”

“I don’t know.” The dowager’s feigned innocence was terribly obvious.

“Mother…”

“I had to do something. Of all the young ladies, you favored Lady Jacintha. You spoke to her the most.” Manicured fingers drummed the settee’s back rest. “Though you ogled Mrs. Chatham at every turn.”

“Ogled?”

“That is how I would describe it.”

He checked his desk where another missive for the widow awaited delivery. A new appreciation for correspondence was forming. With Mrs. Chatham as his recipient, the chore was fun. Hadn’t she pointed out his need for more fun? He’d risen early and labored over three drafts before perfecting his message in this latest edition.

The balled-up rejections sat in the hearth. The dowager followed his sightline to those half-burned offerings, eyeing them keenly when she asked, “What are your intentions with her?”

He stilled as a poacher would when caught by a sheriff. Excess warmth gathered under the knotted neck cloth Simms had perfected. He was tempted to run a finger between its tightness and his skin.

“You speak of Mrs. Chatham.”

“Are we discussing anyone else?”

It was on the tip of his tongue to mention Lady Jacintha, but his mother was testy this morning. If she didn’t want to discuss the earl’s daughter, he saw no need to encourage that conversation. Taking a deep breath, he braced himself. The topic of their neighbor would be tetchy enough.

“I’m assuming her remedy worked?” Azure eyes speared him. The dowager was hunting for information. Did she suspect more had happened?

“As you witnessed last night eve. My stride was fluid.”

She nodded thoughtfully, her scanty brows pressing together. She searched the room from her grand perch as if the walls and furniture would speak. He was blessedly thankful they couldn’t.

Pushing upright, he dropped the serviette on his plate. “There is something I need to tell you.” Hands clasped behind his back, he paced a line to the mantle. “I have developed deep affections for Mrs. Chatham.”

The dowager’s head turned sharply toward him. Faintly painted lips firmed.

He and the widow had voiced their attraction in this room and sealed it with a kiss. In for a penny, in for a pound. There was no turning back…and how relieved he was in setting his course.

“I am going to ask her to marry me.” He’d tried last night and failed. His mother didn’t need that detail.

“Today?”

“Yes.”

She sighed a great gust of air. “Finally.”

For the second time that morning, he couldn’t move. Both times, his mother was the source of his befuddlement. She popped off the settee with startling energy and bestowed a relieved smile on him.

“I was worried you were considering asking her to be your mistress.”

“Mother!” he gasped.

“I don’t mean to be indelicate—”

“Then don’t be.” His stern tone earned a healthy pause.

The dowager was subdued, folding her hands together, wringing them ever so slightly. “Charlotte is my friend,” she said quietly. “Her good nature saved me more times than I can count.” The hand wringing slowed, and when his mother looked at him, light showed her age. Hurt etched the sides of her mouth and skin beneath her eyes. “I’ve known for a long time the two of you harbored an attraction for each other.”

“You have?”

The dowager rolled her eyes. Would wonders never cease?

“Give me some credit, my dear.” How sagacious, his mother. She smiled blandly at him with the tolerance one would give a dull pupil.

“Then you support my marrying her even though she’s…” He let his words trail because it was his turn to avoid being indelicate.

“I support your decision with all my heart. She will be exactly what Richland Hall needs. Her joy. Her laughter.” Hands fluttering, she tittered softly. “I can’t think of a better pairing of two souls. Opposite in many ways, yet a perfect, perfect fit in character and temperament.”

“You say this despite the fact she can’t…” He considered the carpet. Last night’s learned lesson was to speak the truth, and do it he would—as delicately as possible. “Despite the fact that she may never bear a child.”

“I have three more sons to carry on the Richland name.” A contemplative shadow flitted across her face. “This past year taught me that we must seize happiness because what we hold dear can be taken from us in the blink of an eye.”

The room was brighter for the honesty shared. It was a gift, adding dimension to their love. He strolled to his desk, plucked the folded letter from a mass of papers, and held it over his heart. Laughing gently for the sheer joy of it, he acknowledged another truth: love was softening him.

“You’ll have some convincing to do,” his mother said behind him. “A woman who can’t have a child carries a unique wound.”

“I know.” He’d love Charlotte Chatham through her trials as he suspected she’d love him through his.

Beyond the bank of imperious windows lining his wall, he spied his brothers emerging from the woods. They must already have finished their jaunt to the Roman folly. Their affection and brotherly camaraderie were dear to him. It was his place to lead their family now, and he’d do that by demonstrating love and fidelity.

Tucking the missive into his coat pocket, he was ready. It was time to launch the charge and win Mrs. Chatham’s heart once and for all.

CHAPTER 10

HER MAID REFOLDED a yellow underskirt for the third time. It was irksome because Malmsey had been with her for years and was the soul of efficiency.

She tapped her quill to her chin with the steadiness of a clock. Daylight washed over her latest unfortunate task: a list.

Villages had been written down, scratched off, and re-listed again…each one a possible new home.

When the grumbling maid removed a gown yet again, she had to ask, “Are you unwell, Malmsey?”

“No ma’am.” She turned the hem over, inspecting it with pursed lips.

“Then why so slow this morning?”

The maid ducked into the chest, her voice a muffled, “I didn’t know you were in rush to be gone, ma’am. You and the dowager get on so well. I thought you’d want to stay a bit longer.” Curious eyes peeked at her from a froth of skirts. “Maybe you’d want to see the duke again.”

Her quill-tapping stopped, and an odd tingle invaded her. The maid conspired to keep her in Richland Hall. Why? She’d not ventured from her chamber, but when she did it’d be to leave this fine estate and hunker down in Butterfly Cottage. She’d throw herself into gardening, find healing for the time being. She snorted. Maybe she’d give garden planning a try. Anything not to think of him.

Because the Duke of Richland would not be part of her future.

She could only guess she wasn’t in his. Not after last night’s uncomfortable dismissal. She’d paid for it with long, achy sobs and poor sleep. His last word about hope was far too cryptic.

Did he wish for a congenial parting? She was his neighbor and his mother’s friend.

That had to be it.

Smiling blandly, she looked out the window. From the third floor on a clear day, one could see the ocean spreading wide and blue in the distance. Perhaps a walk there would assuage the pain?

“No,” she said. “I won’t see the duke again.”

“Ever? That’s a bit hard, ma’am. He is your neighbor.” Mamlsey was, if anything, persistent.

“I’m sure the duke will be very busy soon.”

Neighbor’s could be avoided if one put some thought into it. Acknowledging that fact widened the void which had camped around her since last night. For two years she’d made a concerted effort to be in the duke’s vicinity, though never alone. It was always enough to fuel their attraction, yet not push them over impropriety’s cliff.

Their kiss unraveled everything. Their awkward conversation about Pandora’s box did too.

She rubbed her forehead. A throb banged there, magnifying the void that enveloped her. She badly needed the healing sanctity of her home.

There was a knock on the door, probably Thomas come to let them know the carriage was ready to take her home all of the short distance to Butterfly Cottage.

Malmsey opened the door with a cheerful, “And here he is, the duke himself.” The maid curtseyed. “We were just talking about you.”

She glared fiery darts at the maid’s back.

“Indeed.” His Grace wasn’t bothered by Malmsey’s forward chatter. He filled the doorway, more heart-achingly handsome than ever. “Good morning.”

His chocolate-smooth voice was a balm to her irritation.

“Good morning, Your Grace.”

It was silly how the small things about him affected her. His strong, thoughtful hands. His scar peeking out from the black eye patch. She wanted to kiss the slanted line and heal it, though she never would. The denial left her dry as sand.

He was staring at her mouth. Had he come for a parting kiss?

She became aware of her death-grip on her chair’s back rest. Since she was leaving for good, she’d allow the luxury of a last kiss. A brazen idea, but recklessness in small doses was good for the heart. Freeing. Life was meant to be lived to the fullest, and he filled her. Thus, it was easy to order her maid to leave.

“Malmsey, go find Mrs. Staveley and ask her about the carriage.”

She was steady, giving the order. The maid’s eyes were saucers, the unspoken Alone? writ on her face. It had to be a shock after two years of working hard to never be alone in a room with the Duke of Richland. The practice was obliterated in one afternoon.

After interminable seconds, Malmsey dipped a curtsey. “Yes, ma’am.” And left.

They kept eye contact, listening to the maid’s footsteps fade. Daylight brushed the left side of him. The shine of his auburn hair. The stoic line of his jaw. He was back to his old habits, wearing his favorite boots and a brown broadcloth coat well-past the first stare of fashion. She liked him this way.

His lips twitched. “I didn’t come to gawk at you, yet I count it the best part of my morning that I am.”

“Oh, Your Grace.” The void around her was fading. All because of his presence and a few choice words.

He didn’t have a flare for conversation like his brother, Lord George, but his forthrightness was a fine quality. It made what he said better because it was a gift, raw and lovely beyond measure.

“You elevate me, Mrs. Chatham.” He canted his head, searching the window, a faint scowl crossing his features. “Somehow, you make the air I breathe better, the food I eat more satisfying, the…” His scowl deepened, and he was clearly searching for what he’d say next. His great, wide shoulders shrugged with futility. “Love should be me elevating you, seeing to your needs. Not stating what you do for me.”

He’d said love. For a second, she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Whatever the duke wanted to say was a struggle, but there was nothing she could do. To struggle was to find enlightenment.

“What about my needs perplexes you?” she asked with gossamer lightness.

His brows thundered. A roil of emotion showed on his face. “I want you, Mrs. Chatham—” he raked her from head to hem “—and I want to attend to your needs. All of them.”

The dragon duke was back.

She feared turning to ashes under his liquid-silver gaze. There was no mistaking the mix of affection and ardor gleaming from their depths. She had hoped for one more kiss when they really needed sexual congress—a lifetime of it.

And that still wouldn’t be enough.

“Your Grace…I…” She possessed a steady voice, but it fled her. She was turning into a puddle in the chair.

He withdrew something from his coat pocket. “Allow me this,” he said, unfolding what appeared to be a letter.

She couldn’t be sure because clear thinking fled her too. She couldn’t make a coherent sentence. Her tongue refused to work. Her legs wouldn’t move and her breasts were suddenly sensitive. Achy. Full. Desperate for his touch.

The duke’s grin was endearing and boyish a split-second before his resonant voice filled the room.

Richland Hall, Saturday morning

May 24, 1788

My Dear Mrs. Chatham,

Thank you for your letter. It was the zenith of my day. Reading your words, I heard your voice. I felt your presence with me in my bed.

He paused to give her a smoldering look that curled her toes.

Please know my longing for your goes beyond the flesh. I don’t want to be your lecherous neighbor. I want to be your husband.

A glorious spangle jolted her. The chair squeaked from her rapid shifting because it was all she could do to let him finish. His gaze drifted up from the page.

“I want to be with you no matter what.” His firm tone spoke volumes.

“And my barren womb?” Her voice was whisper-thin.

He set the missive on the desk and dropped to one knee before her. He folded his warm, wonderful hands around hers.

“My letter addressed that. It says, in effect, that I don’t care because I want to you, body and soul, in my bed and in my home. That I accept you as you are.” He tapped his eye patch. “As I believe you accept me as I am.”

The gulf around her shattered. The duke had broken it into a thousand pieces, freeing her with his fervent, honest words. She was speechless.

His smile creased nicely. “Would you like to hear the rest of the letter?”

“There’s more?”

“There is. The last part references yesterday when you asked me if I trusted you to take care of me.”

She laughed, so light and giddy. “When we were compatriots in a game of patient and physic.”

“Exactly. Now, I suggest we play the game of duke and duchess.” His mirth blended with awe, changing his features. “I suggest we play it for a lifetime.”

She could hardly contain the elation swelling inside her. “Is that how your letter ends?”

He kissed her hands and his voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “It ends with ‘I love you with all my heart, Nathan.’”

“It’s a perfect letter.”

“It’s salacious. Hardly proper as marriage proposals go.”

Joy flared inside her. The duke was adorably well-mannered.

She bent over and kissed his hands. Her teeth grazed one of his fingertips and gave him the tiniest bite. “Salacious letters are the best kind. I expect a lifetime of them.”

He eyed her hungrily. “You shall.”

And that was how the Duke and Duchess of Richland enjoyed a lifetime of love…one letter at a time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

About the Author: Gina Conkle writes Viking and Georgian romance. She grew up in southern California and despite all that sunshine, Gina loves books more than beaches and stone castles more than sand castles. Now she lives in Michigan with her favorite alpha male, Brian, and their two sons where she occasionally gardens and cooks.

She invites you to connect with her:

Ginaconkle.com

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ALSO BY GINA CONKLE

For Georgian Romance

The Midnight Meetings series

Meet the Earl at Midnight

The Lady Meets Her Match

The Lord Meets His Lady

Meet a Rogue at Midnight

Meet My Love at Midnight

For Viking Romance

The Norse Series

Norse Jewel

To Find a Viking Treasure

To Steal a Viking Bride

The Forgotten Sons series

Kept by the Viking

Her Viking Warrior

The Viking’s Oath (coming winter, 2020)

HER PERFECT DUKE

JUNE

ELLA QUINN

DEDICATION

To my granddaughters Vivienne and Josephine. May you always find love and friendship. And to my husband for sticking by me and my life changes.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thank you to Anna Harrington for putting the project together and patiently keeping all of us headed in the same direction. She has been amazing. Thanks also to my editor Ali McGraw for catching all my typos and helping make this a better book. And thank you to my readers. Without you none of this is worth it. You are all amazing!

PREFACE

Still suffering over the loss of his wife and child, Giles, Duke of Kendal sees Lady Thalia Trevor at a market and is instantly smitten. There is only one problem. She is already betrothed to another man. Will she defy her powerful father to marry him?

CHAPTER 1

Somerset Castle, May 1819

His Grace, The Duke of Berwick-Upon-Tweed

Tweed Manor

My dear Duke,

It has come to my attention that you have six grown daughters, but no son to carry on your title. My daughter Lady Thalia Trevor has reached the age of eighteen. I will offer her to you as your wife in exchange for the strip of land you own in Eastern Northumberland that marches along my land.

Lady Thalia has been raised to be an obedient lady, yet she has been educated as befits a duchess.

I look forward to hearing from you regarding my proposal.

Yr. Servant,

Somerset

Berwick-upon-Tweed, May 1819

My dear Lady Hawksworth,

Allow me to commend you on your prescience. Your father-in-law wrote to me concerning Lady Thalia, offering her to me in marriage. After giving the matter much serious thought, and unless you have an objection, I shall propose that Lady Thalia be allowed to visit along with her mother for one month, beginning in mid-June. I believe I have the perfect suitor for her.

Yr. Servant,

Berwick

My dear Berwick,

Lady Thalia will be visiting my mother-in-law’s family in Lincolnshire near the town of Wintering during June. Their lands are across the Humber from Hull’s estate. Hawksworth and I will be joining them toward the middle of that month.

Yours in friendship,

M. Hawksworth

My dear Lady Hawksworth,

I shall adjust my plans accordingly.

Yr. Servant,

Berwick

Dear Duke,

Before I commit to a second marriage, I must meet your daughter and come to know her. My first marriage was extremely satisfactory. My wife and I had much in common and a great affection for each other. Would it be possible for Lady Thalia and the duchess, and naturally you too if you wish, to join me in Berwick for the month of July?

Yr. Servant

Berwick

Dear Duke,

I will make arrangements for my daughter and duchess to visit you in July. In the meantime, I suggest we discuss the settlement agreements.

Yr. servant,

Somerset

Somerset Castle, late May 1819.

“MY LADY,” Lady Thalia Trevor’s maid said as she entered her parlor, “your mother has sent word that you are to go immediately to the duke’s study.”

This was it then. Thalia had known it was coming, and she should not be nervous, but she was. Rising from the window seat, she glanced at her sister Laia, Duchess of Bolton. Their other sister, Euphrosyne was not allowed to visit, nor did she wish to. “Am I presentable?”

“Yes.” Laia grimaced. “Not that he will notice. Remember what I said. Smile gratefully and do not in any way betray that you do not agree with his decision.”

“I do remember what happened to Euphrosyne.”

Her other older sister had been kept literally a prisoner in the castle after the duke had rejected the perfectly eligible Marquis of Markville as her husband, only because Markville did not have any property the duke wanted.

Due to an elaborate scheme involving their sister-in-law Meg Hawksworth, Euphrosyne and Markville were finally able to wed. For at least three months after she ran away with Markville, their father had guards following Thalia.

Yet, for her, however, it was almost pleasant. With her two older sisters gone, she had few people with whom to walk, go horseback riding, or converse and had decided to make do with the guards. The duke, however, eventually decided that she had no plans to flee the castle, and recalled the guards.

Thalia walked quickly to her father’s study on the other side of the castle. Her father’s butler opened the door and announced her—because, naturally, her father would not know who she was or remember that he had summoned her. She made herself stroll into the room as if she had no worries and performed her best curtsey.

Glancing up from his papers, he motioned to one of the heavy leather chairs in front of his desk. “Have a seat.” She quickly took the one to this right. Laia had told Talia about being made to wait, but apparently their father was in a hurry today. “I am in the process of arranging a marriage between you and the Duke of Berwick-upon-Tweed. You will travel with your mother to her family’s home, and from there journey to Berwick-upon-Tweed in July.” He lowered his bushy white brows. “I trust that you will make yourself agreeable to the duke, and he will decide to accept you.”

Thalia had kept her eyes lowered and was glad that he couldn’t see her anger. Both her older sisters had discovered, much to their dismay, that the duke wished to arrange their marriages only to acquire property for the dukedom. She crossed two of her fingers, hiding the gesture in her lightly clasped hands. “Yes, Father. I will not disappoint you.”

“Good girl.” He went back to the documents on his desk.

Assuming she had been dismissed, Thalia rose and quietly left the room. Now it was time to pray that somehow, somewhere, she would meet the gentleman she was meant to love and marry, before her father discovered that she had no intention of wedding the man he had selected.

Lincolnshire, June 1819

GILES, Duke of Kendal, strolled around the Midsummer’s fair in Wintering, a small market town in Lincolnshire. His friend, mentor, and one-time guardian, the Duke of Berwick-upon-Tweed, had suggested Kendal take advantage of being a guest of the Duke and Duchess of Hull. The town was famous, at least in this small area of England, for its Midsummer’s night fair. Berwick had even gone so far as to suggest that Kendal might find something that would interest him, or perhaps it was someone that would interest him. If it was a someone, he hoped it was a soothsayer or fortune teller. Thus far in his life, he had not made the best of decisions. Or rather, he had accepted the decisions that had been made for him.

Except for Lillian. She had been the light of his life.

He gave himself an inner shake. There was no point in continually asking if he could have done anything differently. She was gone, and that was that. Or so Berwick had told Kendal more than once.

Determinedly, he turned his focus on the fair. The purpose this year—aside from local craftsmen and women making a bit more money and celebrating the longest day of the year—was to raise the funds necessary to provide a new roof for the church. Why did churches always require new roofs?

He had almost strolled past a booth with two elderly women selling lace and ribbons when the sound of light, musical laughter stopped him. Two females, one with silvery blonde hair and dressed like a lady, although not in the latest fashion. The other looked like every lady’s maid he’d ever seen, dressed primly in a dark gown. The women were inspecting the lace.

“This is extremely fine work,” the lady said. “Mannering, I think it would look lovely on my blue gown.”

“I agree, my lady.” Mannering held the piece of lace up, inspecting it. “It’s just what we need to make it special.”

“How much do you think we require?” the lady asked.

Mannering measured the lace with her arms as a guide. “If you like, you could also get some for your mother.”

“What a wonderful idea!” The lady smiled. “I can give it to her for”—a faint line appeared between her brows—“Her birthday and Christmas are too far away.” Then she smiled, a smile with no artifice, no calculation. Very much like Lillian had smiled, although different, too. It was the smile of an unaffected lady, not the child Lillian had been. “I shall just give it to her. Those are the best gifts.”

“That is a lovely idea, my lady,” one of the old women said.

Was the lady from here? She turned just enough for him to see that her brows and eyelashes were darker than her hair. One did not see that often in England. It was more common in Germany and Holland. Yet she was obviously English.

The lady and her maid concluded the purchase and went to another booth, where the lady found something else she needed and something else she could give to another. This time, as if she knew he was watching her, she glanced in his direction. Their eyes met for a mere second. It was long enough for him to see they were almost turquoise, the color of the sea in the Greek Islands. Then she blushed and dropped her gaze.

Kendal was entranced.

Attending the house party held by the Duchess of Hull, he’d met many ladies from the surrounding area, but he had never seen her before. She definitely appeared old enough to be out. As she was a lady, her father must be an earl or above. He could swear that the duchess had told him all the ladies from around that area of Yorkshire had attended the ball she’d given . . . That was it. Since crossing the river Humber, he had been in Lincolnshire. Hull’s estate was not far, but one would require a barge to go to the ball, and back if the guest did not spend the night at the estate. Was that why she had not attended?

Kendal kept up with her, stopping at booths and buying things he had no real use for. He supposed he’d find someone to whom to give the stuff. She moved like she was floating on air instead of walking on dirt and grass. He had no idea what he’d say once he got near enough. Or how he would find an excuse to speak to a lady to whom he had not been introduced. He caught her eyes several more times, and each time she glanced away and blushed charmingly. Bit by bit, he worked his way to the same booth she was at.

“What an interesting fan.” The lady held it up for her maid to see. “The art is lovely.”

“My son brought it back from Paris, my lady,” the middle-aged woman said.

“Oh, my.” The lady’s eyes widened. Soon he would have to give her a name. He could not keep calling her “the lady” or “she” in his mind. “I have never seen anything from Paris.”

The tone of her voice was low and extremely pleasing.

Kendal tried to focus on the frippery. It could have come from Paris. More likely that than from around here, since it would have been a source of pride in the area and would have been claimed as being from here. “A fine piece.”

Her eyes flew to his and just as quickly turned aside. Damn. What an oaf he was. Naturally, she would have been instructed not to speak to men she didn’t know.

“Forgive me.” He bowed, but that was ill-advised as well. Where had his manners gone?

“Lady Thalia, there you are.” The Duchess of Hull bustled up. “We have wondered—we have been curious as to how you are enjoying the fair.”

“Vastly, Your Grace.”

Lady Thalia, named after one of the Three Graces. The name suited her.

She glanced at her purchases. “I shall require a separate coach to carry everything back.”

“I would say your day has been extremely productive.”

The duchess looked at him, and he bowed. When in doubt, always bow. “Your Grace.”

She peered at him for a bit, then shook her head, as if she didn’t know how he’d come to be there. Granted, he had not traveled with the rest of the group. Her husband had wanted to talk to him, but the duchess knew he would come. At least he thought she did. “Lady Thalia,” she finally said, “may I present the Duke of Kendal?”

Her rosy lips formed a perfect “O.” This time she peered at him without any of her previous bashfulness. “Yes, if you please.”

He’d never heard that response before. Naturally, a lady must always be asked if she wished to make a gentleman’s acquaintance, but the question was a mere formality. Lady Thalia had answered as if she were truly being consulted.

The duchess’s lips twitched as if she thought the same thing. “My lady, allow me to present the Duke of Kendal. Kendal, Lady Thalia Trevor.”

Ah, one of Somerset’s children. The coloring made more sense now. Except for her eldest brother, Hawksworth, perhaps they all had it. Her eyes, however, were a different color blue from that of her sisters whom he’d met in Town last autumn. But what was she doing here? Kendal had heard the old duke kept his unmarried daughters locked up in Somerset castle. Had the man died? Not that it would be a loss, but surely Kendal would have heard about such an event.

She sank gracefully into a curtsey. “Your Grace.”

He took the hand she offered. “My lady, it is a pleasure to meet you.”

Her purchases, which the maid was now carrying, gave him an opportunity to suggest a way to spend more time with her. “I would be happy to escort you to the rest of the booths and help carry your packages.”

She gave her maid a guilty look. “I have bought too much.”

“Not at all, my lady.” The maid came as close to glaring at him as a servant could. “If we can find one of the footmen, I’m sure he’d be happy to take these to the coach.”

“What a good idea.” Lady Thalia glanced at the duchess. “Is it possible to find a footman?”

The duchess raised one arm and waggled her fingers. A moment later, two footmen ran up.

“Please take Lady Thalia’s packets to one of my coaches and mark them so that we know which ones are hers.” The duchess turned to her cousin and companion. “Aurora, you are responsible for seeing they are moved to the Duchess of Melbrough’s coaches before we leave.”

“I shall ensure it is done.” She took out a notebook and scribbled in it.

“There, it is all settled.” The duchess smiled serenely. “I shall leave you two young people to enjoy the fair.”

CHAPTER 2

“THANK YOU, YOUR GRACE.” Thalia was grateful the duchess had settled the problem of the purchases so easily. She had never had the opportunity to visit a fair, and she truly did wish to visit the rest of the stands.

“Think nothing of it, my dear.” Her Grace had a satisfied smile on her face. “As I am certain your aunt told you, your contributions to the market will be appreciated.” The duchess turned to Kendal. “I will count on you to bring Lady Thalia back to the inn in time for tea.”

“Upon my word.” He inclined his head, and one dark curl fell forward.

Thalia wanted to brush it back, but he did it. Somehow she felt cheated. Just the thought caused heat to rush to her cheeks, and she tried to fight it down.

She had always thought her eldest brother, the Marquis of Hawksworth, was the most handsome gentleman she had ever met. Her brothers-in-law were very handsome as well. But the Duke of Kendal was even more beautiful. Could one call a man beautiful? Perhaps not. More handsome? Kendal had the same dark hair as her brother. His shoulders and height were similar, but his eyes were a lovely gray that changed from dark to light, depending on how he looked at her. And he had been gazing at her a lot. Could he be the one she was searching for? She had seen her sisters and brothers with their spouses, and she wanted a love match more than anything.

Giving herself an inner shake, Thalia took herself to task.

I have only just met him. I do not have much time, but I do not have to make a decision today.

He held out his arm. “Shall we go?”

For a moment, she did not know what to do. The only arms she had held were her brothers’. Yet when she placed her fingers on his arm, it felt right, as if she had been waiting for this. “Yes. There are so many more booths to visit.”

His grin brought out a dimple in his left cheek, and she felt the heat rise in her face again. As they ambled to a nearby stand, he matched his steps to hers. “How does this fair compare to the others you have visited?”

“I have not been to any others.” After listening to her married sisters talk about what other young ladies were allowed to do, Thalia did not want Kendal to know how ignorant she was, but there was no point in hiding it. “My older sisters were in Bath last year, but my younger brothers, sister and I remained at Roseland, one of my father’s properties near there. The year before that we were at my uncle Melbrough’s main estate in Wiltshire. To the best of my knowledge, neither area had fairs, and I have not been allowed to go to town on market day.”

“Never?” His head tilted, and a line formed between his brows.

“No.” She saw a man selling bolts of fabric. “May we look at the cloth?”

“Of course.” He smiled. “I am yours to command.”

She had never had anyone to command before. Or was it a term of speech? She had been so little in company, and her sisters teased her about taking people so literally. “Thank you.”

“It is my pleasure.” His tone was serious as if he meant it.

The merchant obviously traveled to many places. His wares included several types of silk in varying colors, but what caught her attention was a fine, stiff netting. “What is this? I have never seen anything like it before?”

He unwound part of one bolt. “Milady, it is called tulle, because it comes from the French village of Tulle.”

Tiny sequins were sewn into the material. “It is beautiful.” Mama had given her a great deal of money to spend, but did Thalia have enough? The merchant was also tempting her with some lovely muslins and silks. “How much is it?”

He named a sum, but what did she know about a reasonable price? “Mannering?”

“It is a fair price, my lady.” The maid also seemed to be interested in the tulle. “If you’ll choose what you like, I’ll see if we have the funds for it.”

“If not,” Kendal said, “I shall loan you the amount. I had the opportunity to see this made into an evening gown when I was in Paris, and it was magnificent. You will not regret the purchase.”

Thalia bit her lip. She really did want the fabric, but . . . “I am sure I should not accept such a sum from a gentleman.”

“I promise you, it is strictly a loan, and I shall expect prompt repayment.” His gray eyes smiled, but his tone was firm.

Well, if it was a loan, she could repay him almost immediately. When they went to the inn for tea, some of her family would be there. She could ask her brother, if need be. “Thank you. I shall accept your kind offer.”

Gazing at her, his lips formed a slow smile that made little shivers run through her. “Think nothing of it. If you were at a regular shop, you’d be able to put it on account. This is simply another method of doing that.”

She had never put anything on account, but apparently that was a normal practice when shopping. She matched his smile with one of her own. “What an interesting way of putting it.”

Kendal turned out to be very interested in all the different fabrics, and more than happy to engage in discussing the merits of one over the other. By the time they were finished, she had bought several bolts, most of them paid for by him.

Handing the merchant several gold coins, Kendal said, “These will need to be taken to the White Horse and given to one of the servants working for either the Duchess of Hull or the Duchess of Melbrough.” He glanced at Thalia. “Even I cannot carry all of this.”

There were a good many bolts. “No, of course not.”

The man’s eyes widened. “Yes, my lord.”

Talia started to open her mouth, but Kendal took her arm. “Shall we visit the next booth?”

He steered her away from the fabric stand rather quickly and expertly. Her brothers would have dragged her away. “Why did you do that? I was going to tell him it was not the right way to address you.”

He cocked a brow. “That’s exactly the reason. Not everyone needs to know who I am.”

She did not understand. “But many people seem to know my title of lady. Do they not know yours?”

“Some know yours because they have heard your maid call you my lady, but others do it as a sign of respect. Mere misses will be flattered, and they run no risk of insulting a lady of rank.”

“Oh.” She had not thought of it in that way. “It never would have occurred to me.”

“No.” His well-shaped lips pressed together, but the ends tipped up. “I do not suppose you have been anywhere that you have not been known.”

He was correct. She had not been. But how lowering that he knew it.

A woman greeted them at the next stand. “My lord, my lady, how may I help you?”

The next hour or so went on as the previous ones had. Thalia conferred with her maid, and now Kendal, concerning her purchases. “I would like to buy something for the babies. I know they are all very young, but someone here must have toys for babies.”

The duke, who was taller than her by at least a foot, scanned the rest of the booths. “Come with me. I see someone with wooden wares. He might have toys for children.”

When they reached the stand, he was proved right. “The rattles would do well for my sisters’ children. They are only a few months old. But my sister-in-law Meg’s little boy is almost a year.”

“Perhaps these blocks, my lady,” the man said.

The squares had brightly colored animals on two sides, numbers on one side, and letters on the fourth side. “I think he would enjoy those.”

The clock stuck the hour as they finished her final purchase. Kendal held his arm out again. “I must say, I have never had so much enjoyment from shopping.” Then he grinned and his dimple showed again. “I am quite sure the church will have enough for its roof.”

If he had been one of her brothers she would have hit him. Raising her chin, she sniffed. “I do not like being teased when I can do nothing in retaliation.”

Instead of begging her pardon, the blasted man burst out laughing, and she decided to pinch him.

“Ouch!” Kendal gave her an aggrieved look. “That hurt.”

“It was meant to.” Her mother might scold Thalia for pinching a gentleman she had just met, but he had not behaved much like a gentleman with his teasing, and she would not be sorry for it. “When a lady has as many brothers as I do, Your Grace, she knows how retaliate.” She gave him the superior look she gave her younger brothers. “I do not take teasing lightly.”

“Apparently,” Kendal muttered. “Remind me not to get in your black books.”

“I shall.” The words were out before she thought that she might be taking his words too literally again. “If you truly do want me to remind you.”

His eyes seemed to smile at her as he rubbed his arm near the cuff of his jacket. “I am completely serious.”

They reached the inn, and Kendal opened the door for Lady Thalia and her maid, then followed the ladies in to a small hall. “I am Kendal. We are looking for the parlor reserved for the Duchesses of Hull and Melbrough.”

The man bowed. “This way, Your Grace.”

Kendal had been serious about never having so much fun shopping. And it amazed and impressed him that Lady Thalia had put so much thought into each item she bought. Was that the product of never having the freedom to shop on her own before? Or was it simply her nature?

He thought of his older sisters’ shopping expeditions, and how quickly they lost interest in much of what they’d bought. Come to think of it, except for birthdays and Christmas, they had rarely purchased gifts for others.

Yet, Lady Thalia had seemed to have a mental list of people who might like a present. Including those who could well afford whatever they wanted, such as her sisters and mother. Was she the person Berwick had meant Kendal to meet?

His mentor had been against Kendal’s first marriage, one that had been arranged by his father when he’d been just a year or two old. Since his wife’s death, he’d been almost afraid to consider marrying again. But perhaps it was time to start thinking of what he wanted in a wife he chose himself.