Dukes to the Left of Me, Princes to the Right

CHAPTER 2

Nicholas Staunton had always been a light sleeper—growing up in a drafty castle that took the brunt of howling North Sea storms had seen to that—so when he felt someone shaking him, saying, “Wake up, Nicholas,” he knew, wherever he was in the ether of his mind, that something was wrong. No one should have to shake him to wake him up.

Especially when he knew he had something to do. He couldn’t remember what, but it was something rather urgent and distasteful.

He opened an eye. A shaft of morning sunlight pierced the edge of his vision, blinding him.

And then he smelled something.

Lilies.

God, he hated lilies. They reminded him of his parents’ funerals. But someone he knew—someone he’d bedded—wore a lily scent. And he seemed to recall that he endured the cloying odor because she was very good at—

Yes. At that. What she was doing now.

He closed his eye again and sank back into that hazy, sublime world, where he basked in hot, carnal sensation and forgot all about the distasteful, urgent thing.

But then the hot, carnal sensation suddenly stopped. He groaned and wished with all his might for it to come back.

“Nicky, wake up,” a feminine voice insisted.

He winced and ignored it.

“I don’t do things like this in the daylight,” the heavily accented voice went on, “and I have no intention of going further. I’m only trying to wake you up. So wake up.”

He felt a light slap on his right cheek, and with a great deal of will and a tremendous amount of reluctance, he managed to open his right eye and confront the pest jarring him awake.

Good God. Now he remembered who wore the lily scent. She lay a mere inch from his face, her hard brown eyes glinting with impatience and her ebony curls falling around her face.

The way a witch’s would, he had the incongruous thought.

“Natasha,” he muttered.

The Russian princess.

She rested her cheek on her hands and smiled at him—a slow, heated smile. He’d a vague recollection of sipping brandy from her navel sometime after midnight, but he couldn’t remember anything after that.

His limbs were sore and he had a pounding head and he’d really like to go back to sleep, to tell the truth.

Back to a deep sleep.

“Nicky,” she hissed in his ear, “the Howells come back from Sussex this afternoon.” She placed the flat of her palm on his bare chest. “If they find you here, they’ll make me pack my bags and return to St. Petersburg. Don’t doze off again! It’s almost eleven.”

Eleven?

Eleven wasn’t good. Eleven was bad, in fact.

He felt confused. Why had he stayed?

He never stayed.

Morning sunlight, he’d come to discover, was like a splash of cold water on a man and an excuse for clinging in a woman. “You’re right,” he muttered as he rolled out of bed. “I’ve got to go.”

Natasha’s eyebrows lowered over her small, elegant nose. “You don’t have to agree so readily. Many men crave to wake up in my bed.”

Nicholas didn’t mind annoyed females—their pique gave him an opportunity to appease them with his special “I-know-you’re-angry-but-you’ll-forget-after-I-do-this-to-you” restorative (something he’d picked up from an Indian text), but today he didn’t have time.

Today—

Ah. Now he remembered. Today was the day he was to find Frank before the big cockfight to be held at noon in Cheapside, which he was sure his brother would attend, and remind him (last time it was by holding him upside down out a second-floor window) that he really mustn’t gamble away his allowance anymore, nor steal spoons from White’s.

Yes, that was Nicholas’s plan, to reform his recalcitrant brother.

And snow would fall in London in July—

But it was still his plan. He wasn’t allowed to give up hope on Frank. It was one of the self-imposed rules he’d established for himself after their father had died.

“Nicholas.” The princess slapped the coverlet. “Are you even listening to me?”

He found his dove-colored breeches and pulled them on. “Yes, and it’s a good thing you woke me,” he soothed her. “I’ve got a meeting with my lead attorney. He tells me it’s important.”

It was his standard line, but come to think of it, Groop had called him into his office last week. Nicholas had been too involved, however, to bother showing up. Young widowed Russian princesses with voluptuous figures, bewitching accents, and superior connections made for quite a good reason for ignoring obligations. He’d go see Groop straight after he’d rattled Frank’s teeth.

That is—he amended, and pulled his shirt over his head—after he’d calmly talked sense into his brother.

He strode to a small mirror above Natasha’s bureau, willed his own dissolute reflection to be noble, and made quick work of his cravat, ignoring the fact that he needed to shave. Then ran his fingers through his hair once, and gave his head a shake, like a dog.

There. The look served him well enough, judging by the number of women who batted their lashes at him in the street and the number of men who crossed to the other side to avoid him.

“Prinny was right.” Natasha compressed her lips. “You are an Impossible Bachelor, and I’m a fool to share my bed with you.”

He wouldn’t deny it. Being selected an Impossible Bachelor last year with his good friends Harry, Lumley, and Arrow had only given him more reason to kick up his heels while he could. While the weeklong wager had been vastly amusing—who wouldn’t love entering one’s mistress in the Most Delectable Companion contest?—he’d come this close to legshackles. One of the losing mistresses’ consorts had been forced to marry. Luckily, that sad fate hadn’t fallen to him or any of his friends but to a weasel who’d been seducing young virgins for years and getting away with it—until Prinny’s scandalous bet, that is.

Which reminded Nicholas—he was a Bachelor, known for his skill at evading the parson’s mousetrap—so what was he still doing here? And where was his damned coat?

He bent low, sending a crashing pain through his head. But there the rumpled garment lay, under the bed, a comfortable nest for two snoozing corgis.

Natasha lifted her feet, and he nudged the dogs awake long enough to pull the coat from under them with the least amount of disturbance to their slumber.

When he stood, a slant of that dreaded morning sunlight hit him square in the eye.

As if on cue, Natasha bounded from the bed and took his arm. “Imagine the children we could have if we married.” Her expression was more determined than dreamy. “My hair. Your blue eyes. And the boys with that sweet cleft in their chins, like you.”

She pulled him closer, and he paused in his dressing, one arm inside his coat sleeve. “I’m sure I mentioned I’ve no intention of marrying and having children of whom I’m aware for at least another decade, possibly two.”

He was an expert at seduction and was damned sure she wasn’t in danger of producing any ebony-haired, blue-eyed children any time soon—ones fathered by him, that is. The women he bedded never seemed to notice how disciplined he was, how carefully he kept a wall up between them, even in the throes of passion—

Especially in the throes of passion.

He looked around the room for his hat and found it next to another corgi—Boris, the one with the missing eye—and a small, empty bottle of brandy on the floor by the bed. Of the two glasses nearby, one had a golden puddle in the bottom. The other—he picked it up and sniffed it—had never been used.

Natasha laughed, but he caught an uneasiness in her tone. “Men and their brandy. It turns them into—” She gave him a smoldering look then, and he knew she was thinking of their sensual play of the evening before. Or attempting to get him to think of it.

She bit her lip.

He sat down on the bed next to her and shackled her slender wrists with his fingers. “Tell me truthfully what happened,” he said. His voice was firm. But fairly gentle, for a man with a sore head, a growing suspicion, and an unfulfilled, hot carnal need.

She lowered her eyes.

“Natasha?”

“All right.” She looked up, her tone defiant. “I took liberties last night. I added something to the brandy because I wanted you to stay. Is that too much to ask?”

Bloody well it was too much to ask. “Do you often drug men who take you home?”

She refused to answer.

He turned her chin toward him. “Tell me.”

She shrugged. “It’s a habit of mine. I find it rather titillating.”

Looking into her lovely face, marred by a petulant expression, Nicholas saw how stupid he’d been to give in to temptation. He rarely made such careless mistakes. In fact, he wondered if he was losing his touch.

He’d known after one conversation with her at Gunter’s, where he’d followed her one day last week, that she’d no political on-dits of any import to offer, not even a morsel or two about her famous uncle Revnik or her twin brother, Prince Sergei.

Yet when Nicholas had run into her at a musicale later that evening, he’d come back with her afterward to Lord and Lady Howell’s residence, sneaking into her bedchamber through her balcony—out of sheer boredom.

He’d been back twice, which said a great deal about his mindset these days. He was in a rut, well before he should have sunk into one, by his appraisal. Ruts were for men over thirty.

He released Natasha’s wrists and stood. “Today we say good-bye.”

She sniffed. “You’ve no heart, Nicholas.”

“Consider yourself lucky for having found out so quickly.” He arched a warning brow. “You could’ve killed me, you know—me or one of your precious corgis. A few licks out of a tipped-over glass might be enough to do a doggie in.”

He could tell by the way the young widow’s eyes widened that she hadn’t thought that far. She was impulsive and, for all her sophistication, not very bright.

“Don’t worry,” he assured her. “Boris and company appear none the worse for wear this morning. But here’s a bit of advice: don’t drug the men you bring back to your bed. It’s bad form. And in your case, bad politics.”

He’d learned through experience that no woman likes a man to leave her bed whistling, so he closed the door with his usual somber expression on his face. This time it wasn’t faked. He did feel somber. It had been a near miss.

But when his champagne-buffed boots hit the pavement outside Lord and Lady Howell’s Mayfair town home, Nicholas couldn’t help but be restored to good humor. It was a gorgeous day, and he already knew just the expensive bauble he’d buy to soothe Natasha’s wounded pride, a bracelet she’d admired at an exclusive shop yesterday.

It was a small price to pay for his folly.

A few hours later, his pockets considerably lightened, Nicholas went to a meeting with Groop.

But he wasn’t his attorney. Far from it. The man was actually a spy chief in the clandestine branch of the government fondly known by its employees as the Service.

“Your IF is long overdue,” Groop told Nicholas in his thin, reedy voice. His cravats were always perfectly folded and his coats cut by Weston. His natural sartorial elegance called attention away from his long face and beady eyes. “You shall marry for King and country.”

“The King is quite mad, thank you,” said Nicholas. “And I still don’t see why marriage has to be my Inevitable Fate any time soon.”

The Service was fond of abbreviating terms. It lent an air of elitism to the whole profession, but certain codes—especially the more melodramatic ones—drove Nicholas a bit mad himself.

Groop arched a brow. “The higher-ups believe your new title will thrust you into a whole new realm of desirability among the ton’s matchmaking population.”

“I haven’t told anyone my new title, save for three very close friends. They and a few government hacks at Whitehall are aware of it, but men don’t tend to talk, especially about little-known dukedoms that carry no influence.”

“Nevertheless, everyone in the social world will soon know, and no one will care that your father made no ripples in Town. A duke’s a duke.”

“But—”

Groop put up a hand. “Prinny’s come out with a new directive. He’s cut short your year of mourning and has included you in his new crop of Impossible Bachelors. The list comes out any day, and you and your new title are on it.”

“Good God. Nothing’s as desirable as the unattainable. Every girl and her mother will be trying to win me over—damn Prinny’s hide.”

“It’s entirely too much attention you don’t need,” Groop agreed smoothly. “Therefore, you must slide into a dull, proper, entirely respectable engagement immediately. You’ll make your first contact this evening at the Grangerford ball.”

“This evening?” Nicholas sputtered. “With whom, may I ask? You know I avoid anyplace young, insipid debutantes tend to gather. Finding a bride will take some time in a gambling den. Or at Madame Boingo’s Palladium Show. I’ll have to take you, Groop. She dresses in nothing but feathers.”

“Not to worry, Your Grace. We’ve already chosen you a suitable candidate in a satisfactory quid pro quo arrangement. The girl’s father unknowingly hired one of our own Service employees who does private detective work. It seems this particular earl was looking for you.”

“Me?”

“Every one of his daughter’s rejected suitors has said she claims she’s on the verge of a betrothal to you. Of course, until she mentioned your title, not a one of them had ever heard of it, nor are they aware you’re in current possession of it. As far as they’re concerned, Lady Poppy has been carrying a torch for a wicked, mysterious, faraway lover for three years.”

Nicholas gave a short bark of laughter. “Absurd.”

“Your esteemed colleague discovered that you and the subject of his search were one and the same person. I’ve put the information to great use, as you will soon see. Here’s the girl’s name.”

He shoved a scrap of paper across the desk.

Nicholas almost swallowed his cheroot, but he leaned forward anyway, feeling a faint curiosity about this so-called candidate. “Lord Derby’s daughter?” he said after a quick glance. “He’s a high stickler, and no doubt she’s a milk-and-water miss. I prefer a red-cheeked hussy or no one.”

“We could find no red-cheeked hussies among London’s Upper Ten Thousand, Your Grace.”

“God knows you tried.” One of his small joys in life was teasing Groop.

“Your goal is to become an afterthought in the minds of the ton,” Groop reminded him, as usual ignoring all of Nicholas’s attempts to bait him. “Lady Poppy Smith-Barnes is almost on the shelf. We took a gamble, brought Lord Derby in, and told him of your connections to the Service.”

“I hate when you do that. I want to work a long time, not be a flash in the pan. I’m aiming for the wall of unsung heroes, you see. I plan to be front and center.”

“Right,” Groop said dryly.

Groop had one serious shortcoming. He still couldn’t tell when Nicholas was being serious—and Nicholas was very serious about that wall.

Of course, Nicholas liked keeping Groop guessing. He didn’t need anyone to get close.

Close was reserved for his favorite horse, Fritz (who was now twenty-five and stabled at Seaward Hall), and his good friends, Lord and Lady Harry Traemore, Viscount Charles Lumley, and Captain Stephen Arrow of the British Royal Navy.

Everyone else could jump in a lake. Or go about their business. He didn’t care which.

“Lord Derby is a loyal subject,” Groop was saying. “Nothing to fear there. We told him he’d be doing a great service to his country and alleviating his own problems in the bargain if he would agree to your marrying his daughter, under certain conditions.”

“What conditions?”

“He has to help expedite the betrothal if you run into snags. And he must agree to pay off your brother’s debts and help get your family estate back on its feet. We can’t have any financially insolvent dukes, you know. Leaves you open to blackmail.”

Nicholas propped his feet up on his employer’s desk. “My God, Groop, that’s brilliant. The government can keep paying me a pittance and let a private citizen award me the compensation I deserve for marrying a silly debutante who just might be off in the head. Why didn’t I think of that?”

Groop didn’t blink an eye. “The fact of the matter is, starting right now, you’re off assignment until your betrothal takes place.”

“That’s ridiculous.”

“We’ve a particularly intriguing assignment coming up, too,” said Groop, “Operation Pink Lady. It comes with an MR, a rarity in our profession.”

Monetary reward, and Groop was right—they were hard to come by. Operation Pink Lady must be very important, which made Nicholas want to work on it all the more.

“How large is the MR?” he asked.

“Substantial. But you won’t need it if you align yourself with the house of Derby.”

“True, but—”

“But you want the assignment anyway.”

“Of course. Luscious assignments don’t come along as often as I’d wish. I want the monetary reward, too. The bigger the pile, the better. Seaward Hall requires a great deal of work, and in case Lord Derby’s tightfisted, that MR will be good insurance.”

“We should make a decision in the next day who shall handle it. If you want to be considered for it and if you care to continue working with the Service at all, you’ll betroth yourself to Lady Poppy tonight.”

Nicholas rose from his chair. “You dry-lipped devil. Why couldn’t you have told me this sooner?”

Groop shook out his cuffs. “I called you in a week ago. But you were too busy bedding Russian princesses to come in.”

“Oh, yes … right.” Nicholas sank back into his chair.

“This ultimatum should come as no surprise,” Groop said, steepling his hands under his chin. “On the first day of your training, you were told your IF.”

“Yes, but I thought I had several decades’ leeway.”

Groop’s gaze was unwavering. “Spoken like a true Impossible Bachelor. If you’d remained Earl Maxwell longer, you might have had another five years’ grace period. But the fact is, you’re now a duke. A duke should be married. Especially a duke who dabbles in clandestine work for His Royal Highness’s government.”

Nicholas scoffed. “I do much more than dabble.”

“We’re aware of that, Your Grace.”

“You know how I feel about marriage.”

“I do. If a brilliant, generous man like your father could be so deceived—”

“Then so could I.”

“Not all women are like your stepmother, draining away entire fortunes.”

“Yes,” Nicholas said, “but which ones aren’t? That’s the question.”

Groop sucked in his cheeks. “As you’ve no fortune to drain away at the moment, you’ve no need for concern in that regard.”

“Damn your cold, clear grasp of the situation, Groop.”

“Yes, you’re between a rock and a hard place, Your Grace. Your brother is currently in debt to Lord Wendell for a thousand pounds.”

“I know that,” Nicholas sputtered. “The half-shiner I’m sporting right now is what happens when an empty wooden keg thrown by one’s fleeing sibling meets with one’s eye.”

Groop steepled his hands. “Let me be blunt, Your Grace.”

“It’s your favorite thing to be.”

“Money and adventure. You and I both know you need them in equal measure. If you refuse to marry this girl, you’ll have neither.”

“I could go out on my own,” Nicholas said. “I could find my own wealthy bride, and I could certainly have my own adventures outside of the Service.”

“I’ve no doubt you could find that wealthy bride, Your Grace, but adventure? Where shall you find that adventure outside of the Service? At Seaward Hall?” He gave a bitter little laugh. “You’d slowly give up the idea that adventure exists, and you know it. You need me to seek it out for you, to put it in your lap, and to remind you that you’re more than a duke.” Groop drew himself up tall. “You’re a clandestine agent for His Royal Highness’s government,” he concluded dramatically, which for Groop meant his facial muscles twitched.

Nevertheless, Nicholas was shaken. Groop was right. Again.

Frank’s problems … Seaward Hall’s decay … to forget his personal troubles, he was foolishly indulging in too much brandy and too many women—sly women like Natasha, for example, who could have killed him if she’d wanted to.

He’d allowed himself to be vulnerable—was acting like a dilettante, as a matter of fact—and it was now time to shore up his defenses. A discreet mountain of money to dispense as needed, a meek bride, and a boring title would help restore some stability to his otherwise topsy-turvy life.

“Fine, then,” he said, never afraid to admit he was wrong. “But I’ll do the thing on my terms.”

The Service and his obligation to it always won out in the end, but he had to throw in a bit of rebellious rhetoric to keep things amusing.

“You’re wise not to waste time lamenting the current state of affairs,” his impervious advisor said over his spectacles. “Lord Derby will meet you at White’s at eight o’clock so he can make his own assessment of you, as any good father would. If you pass muster—which I’m sure you will—you’ll go to the Grangerford ball on your own and do your duty. If all goes well, by the end of the evening, you’ll be betrothed.”

“God help me.”

Groop tossed Nicholas something.

He caught it handily and looked down. It was a ring. A lovely one.

“It belonged to your mother,” Mr. Groop said.

“How’d you—”

“We have our ways.”

“Of course.”

Mr. Groop gave him an odd smile—half paternal, half wistful. “Might as well get used to the look of it.”

Yes, he might as well, Nicholas mused as he left Groop’s office in search of a bride. But he didn’t have to like it, did he?