The Wicked Duke Takes a Wife

Chapter One

THE SCARFIELD ACADEMY FOR YOUNG LADIES

LONDON, ENGLAND

1818

It had taken Miss Harriet Gardner two years of intensive training in the polite graces to become that mysterious creation known in Society as a gentlewoman. It took the stormy young Duke of Glenmorgan less than two days to undo months of discipline, of tears, of sweat, of French lessons, to reawaken every gutter instinct Harriet had fought to subdue.

The foundress of the elite academy for young ladies where Harriet was now gainfully employed would not be pleased. In fact, Emma Boscastle, the former Lady Lyons and current Duchess of Scarfield, would be the first to remind Harriet that a gentlewoman would sooner be caught in a swoon than in a sweat. Horses sweat. Gentlemen perspired. And ladies glowed, albeit only after a vigorous cotillion or lively ride through the park at the fashionable hour. Certainly a lady of the academy did not draw attention to this unfortunate bodily function. She merely applied her fan with a little more energy than usual. A well-bred lady should never speak of whatever embarrassment befell her at all.

Which was why no one at the academy ever mentioned that its foundress had abandoned every rule in her own book when she unexpectedly fell in love.

A handsome duke tended to wield a devastating effect upon even ladies who believed themselves to be above temptation. The Duchess of Scarfield’s lapse in love’s name, however, did not excuse those she had tutored from their obligations. Harriet would battle forth as her creator had intended.

For two years she had devoted herself to the study of deportment. She had turned down the dancing master’s marriage proposal. She had laughed at the footman’s clumsy effort at courtship.

Two grueling years, mind you, for everyone involved in her social edification. Days of rehearsing the nuances of proper behavior until curtsying to an earl came as easily to her as cutting a purse once had. Evenings spent practicing dictation until her tongue went numb.

“How many times do I have to remind you not to drop your aspirates, Harriet?”

“And how many times do I ’ave to tell you I ain’t never dropped my-what you said-in my life?”

She cringed to think of what an utter ignoramus she had appeared.

Certainly Harriet’s colorful past was not a Crown secret. But the fact that she had been rescued from the slums and had risen to the position of fledging instructress in the exclusive academy proved that one could indeed fashion a little monster into a suitable member of Society.

For, in a fond if morbid way, she regarded herself to be less a lady and more like the ill-fated fiend created in the recently published sensation Frankenstein. Having come late in life to the pleasures of literature, she took secret delight in comparing her own re-creation to that of Victor’s hideous being. Not that Harriet planned to end up on a sled in the Arctic. A mate would be nice, though. That’s all the misunderstood monster wanted.

Indeed, she hoped one day to meet the anonymous author and confess how the queer parts of Harriet’s own nature had been similarly redesigned as a social experiment, not by a mad scientist but rather by a genius of the genteel arts. Harriet had been the academy’s first charity case. Several others had been accepted since. This practice might have discouraged enrollment had the school not achieved unprecedented success in marrying off its graduates, known as the Lionesses of London, to numerous noblemen highly ranked on the marriage mart. One teacup, one viscount at a time, the girls of the academy were unleashed upon Society and set forth to conquer.

Harriet had worked harder than any pupil in the school’s history to overcome her flaws, and a rough bit of work she’d proven to be during those initial months. She had been tempted countless times to revert to her former ways. Instead, she had risen above her past to prove that her Modern Prometheus’s faith in her redemption had been well placed.

Yet therein lay the black magic of London’s most beloved and infamous family, the Boscastles. One way or another, by hook or by crook-although usually by charm-the lords and ladies of the notorious clan not only won over their hapless victims, they mesmerized those invited into their inner circle so that bewitchment seemed an honor and seduction a benediction.

Unfortunately, Harriet’s introduction to the esteemed family had not been of their choosing. She’d been caught red-handed in the act of robbing Grayson Boscastle’s Park Lane mansion during a house party. Fortunately, it was not the marquess who had interrupted her amateur crime. It had been his wife, Jane, a woman possessed of emotional depth and unconventional daring.

Harriet might have inherited a penchant for vice from her father’s ancestors. But the will of her Boscastle sponsors had proven stronger than the malicious influence of her own blood.

It was, therefore, what the Duchess of Scarfield would consider a regrettable irony that a member of the family that had redeemed Harriet would prove to bring about her final disgrace.

At precisely four o’clock every Thursday afternoon, Cook prepared a scrumptious tea of bite-sized ham, cheese, and watercress sandwiches served daintily between triangular slices of thin buttered bread. No sooner were these morsels consumed than scones, cakes, and cream-filled French pastries arrived to tempt the palate. The scullery maids donned fresh aprons and delivered the treats to the ravenous young ladies of the academy. The underbutler brought out the silver tea urn and polished it to a dazzling gleam to place it, steaming invitingly, on the sideboard. At last came the anointed chime of the long-case clock. The scuffle of slippered feet resounded in the musty drawing room like a stampede of deer.

It was Harriet’s first opportunity to preside over the practice tea. She had not felt this nervous since she stole a necklace from the Prince Regent’s mistress during an act of what she didn’t care to remember. Not only were the eyes of a dozen students observing her for the tiniest infraction, but several of Society’s stalwart matrons had volunteered their presence to ensure that the ritual went as smoothly as possible.

One might assume, from the gravity of those in attendance, that the torch of female knowledge was being passed from the hands of ancient priestesses to the uncertain grasp of an uninitiated white-gloved generation. The Duchess of Scarfield’s etiquette manual was the sacred tablet from which her young priestesses read.

Harriet would count herself fortunate if she survived the ordeal without losing her temper or spilling tea on her new lavender silk frock. Today marked a milestone in her life. She breathed in the scent of pastry and honest-to-God beeswax candles like an elixir against her evil upbringing. A far cry, she reflected, from her former days of gin and card games played under the light of cheap lard candles.

It was her pinnacle of achievement. She was to be trusted to supervise the sacred ritual. Not even the thunder that rumbled over London could spoil the occasion.

“Miss Lucille Martout,” she said in mild reproach, “do remember that the first lady to the table does not attack her tea with the brutality of Genghis Khan.”

“Hear, hear, Miss Gardner,” one of the ancients concurred. “Let us nibble in due time.”

“Sorry, miss,” mumbled the shamed girl, sliding her lacy triangle of buttered bread and watercress back onto the plate. “I shall not do it again.”

The eleven other students, dressed by London’s finest mantua-makers in gowns of dreamy spring pastels, giggled demurely. Their kidskin-sheathed hands settled like wings in their laps. Miss Charlotte Boscastle, the academy’s current headmistress, walked between each table before returning to her place with the four young ladies who would make their debut this season. She nodded her fair head in approval.

Three of the accomplished quartet had received a half dozen offers of matrimony between them, with others pending. The fourth was a shy Yorkshire girl with solid connections at court. Her family had confided to the academy that they had begun negotiations with an earl. The prospect appeared to interest their daughter far less than the thickly iced cakes adorned with fresh violets that graced the table.

Charlotte took her seat, her willowy frame silhouetted against the tasseled silk curtains. She sent an encouraging smile across the room. “A final reminder, ladies. Tea is not a game of tennis. Serve those closest to you first, and do not use the silver tongs to pinch one another. If you are pinched, seek retribution at a later time. I was a student once myself.”

Harriet cleared her throat, then paused. It challenged the imagination to picture Charlotte as anything but a model of propriety-unless one happened to read the novel she was secretly writing, and that, indeed, was another story.

A brilliant display of lightning flickered behind the sash windows of the cozy drawing room. At once the skies that had bestowed a celestial blue upon the city dimmed. The candle flames danced as if to defy the elements.

“Taking tea is an art,” Harriet began, raising her voice in competition with another clap of thunder. Hell’s bells, what a clamor. Did she hear hoofbeats, or was the back door banging open? It sounded like the confounded apocalypse. She glanced around the room in rising irritation. She was anything but a model of propriety. She still struggled to shackle her tongue when something upset her. The coalman cheating Cook, for example. A nob whacking an apprentice with his walking stick. The prospect of a ruined practice tea. The students had started to wiggle, sensing that Harriet was not paying attention to protocol.

One of the girls sitting at the window gasped. “Oh, golly! Look at that.”

The dowager at the distracted student’s side sprang out of her chair. As the gathering watched on in happy apprehension, the distinguished guest parted the curtains for the entire assembly to behold a jet-black carriage with enormous wheels rolling to a dramatic halt at the pavement. A spume of mud splattered the lacquered red dragons emblazoned on the door panel. A man in a top hat sat behind the carriage window.

“Who is he?” Miss Martout demanded, craning for a look.

“I believe it is the Duke of Glenmorgan,” the dowager said after a pause. “I saw that same carriage pass through Berkshire two years ago when his brother was still alive.”

Harriet turned to question Charlotte, who had half risen, shaking her head in denial.

“But he isn’t meant to arrive until Thursday,” Charlotte whispered in panic. “I wrote it down.”

Harriet rolled her eyes. “This is Thursday.”

Charlotte pushed away from her chair, white as marble. “Assert your authority, Miss Gardner, lest we have anarchy on our hands.”

Harriet clapped her hands. “Ladies, please remain in your places.” That was futile. There wasn’t a single girl left at the tables. “Girls! There is nothing worse than lukewarm tea!”

“You’ll have to come up with a more dire threat than that to control them,” a cheerful voice commented over her shoulder. “A duke will trump a cup of hot tea any day.”

Harriet opened her mouth to reply, but it was too late. The stouthearted Lady Hermia Dalrymple had surged past the students to the windows as if she were a schoolgirl herself and not a widow in her late sixties. To look at her, one would never guess she was as celebrated for her painting circle, which featured half-naked Boscastle men posing as deities, as she was for her place in the family as a beloved aunt-in-law.

“Where is he from?” a younger student asked, climbing onto a chair to see above the other girls peering through the curtains.

“Why is he here?”

“No one has told me, but I saw him first.”

“How could you? He hasn’t even stepped out of the carriage.”

“For all you know, he isn’t even in the carriage.” Harriet strode across the room, snagging a sash here, an elbow there. “That could be his valet or his uncle. Back to your seats this very moment. I shall not tell you-”

“He’s stepping out of the carriage-”

“That’s a lady’s foot, you ninny,” another student noted. “And all those lovely feathers in her hair are going to be soaked and leave her battered like a wet hen before she reaches the front steps. Where are the footmen?”

From where she stood, Harriet could discern neither bird nor beast through the rain washing against the windows. The temperature in the drawing room dropped. Few of the candles had survived the frantic dash of a dozen girls at once. Harriet’s shawl had fallen to the carpet. A furtive shape moved in her peripheral vision. She turned to glimpse Charlotte sneaking toward the door.

“Where are you going?” she asked in alarm.

“I have to change,” Charlotte said quietly, pressing her finger to her lips. “I’ll only be a few moments.”

Change? But everyone looked so fresh, so lovely. Like a watercolor of fairies gathered under a rainbow-before a big nasty storm appeared to ruin the day.

“I know the duke is a distant cousin,” Harriet said in bewilderment. “But I thought he would only be leaving his niece at the academy, and-why do you have to change?”

Lady Dalrymple hurried after Charlotte, agile for a woman of her ample build. “It’s his aunt, you understand.”

“Understand what?” Harriet asked, suddenly feeling like the lone rat on a sinking ship. “Wherever are you going?”

“We have to freshen up, dear,” Lady Dalrymple whispered. “Lady Powlis and I attended school together long ago. I’d never dream of greeting Primrose without putting on a fancier pair of gloves. She notices things like that. Charlotte, you don’t mind if I share your dressing closet for a few moments?”

“Who is going to welcome the duke with all these girls gone wild?” Miss Peppertree, the academy’s senior instructress, a spinster, and a sourpuss, asked in an aggrieved voice.

“Miss Gardner won’t mind,” Charlotte called back distractedly.

Harriet frowned, staring at the academy’s finest shoving one another aside to stand on the highest chair. “I won’t?”

Lady Dalrymple paused to deliver an unhelpful bit of advice before disappearing into the hall. “It’s good experience, dear. One day you might be employed in a grand house and have to answer to a duchess.”

“But in the meanwhile I haven’t the faintest notion what to do with… a duke,” Harriet muttered, feeling more abandoned by the moment. Even worse, she sensed herself to be in trouble. As subdued as her street instincts might be, they rarely failed to warn her when her well-being was at stake. In her experience, people who caused this much bother when they arrived only meant a load of work for everyone expected to please them.

Miss Peppertree propelled her toward the door. “Just be polite and let him guide the conversation,” she said anxiously. “I’d go in your place, but one of us has to remain here to calm the girls down. It is quite clear they are not listening to you.”

Harriet sighed in resignation. The duke, being a Boscastle, would undoubtedly disregard pretension and put her unfounded fears to rest. Lady Dalrymple was probably right. The social experience might prove to be a better lesson than teaching the girls to pour tea without spilling.

The students would witness that the calm reception one afforded a duke differed little from that granted an ordinary gentleman. Harriet had bluffed her way thus far through life. She should be able to pass this minor trial. Besides, the man had not been born who could make her lose her head.

“Wait.” Miss Peppertree clamped a bony hand around Harriet’s wrist. “It is only fair that I advise you to be on your highest guard.”

“He’s only a duke, Daphne.” Harriet pried her wrist from the talonlike grasp. “Good heavens. All this fuss over a person none of us have even met. I shouldn’t have to remind you of what I have dealt with in the past.”

Miss Peppertree nodded unconvincingly, turning to confront what she clearly perceived a less dangerous duty. The drawing room had erupted into chaos. Dames and schoolgirls alike seemed to have fallen under some wicked enchantment. It disheartened Harriet to think that in the end a shove onto the path of holy matrimony mattered more than… a hot cup of tea.

She gave Miss Peppertree a reassuring smile. “I’ll be fine, you silly goose.”

“You don’t know about him, do you?” Miss Peppertree was edging away, a frown of impending doom settling over her thin, pale face.

“What?” Harriet scoffed. “Are you going to tell me that he’s a rake? That all the ladies fall at his feet? You ought to be used to that sort of nonsense by now. I have never known a Boscastle who was a saint.”

“You have never known one who murdered his brother for a dukedom, either,” Miss Peppertree whispered in a dire voice.

Harriet snorted at the warning.

Duke or darling. In her estimation, his grace’s arrival would prove much ado about nothing. He wouldn’t be the first nobleman to be accused of doing away with his brother for an inheritance. That was actually none of her business. What involved her was that he had chosen to darken the academy’s door on the very afternoon she had meant to distinguish herself. To think she had purchased a new frock for the occasion with her paltry savings. The duke would not care.

No doubt he would blow in and out of the school as swiftly as the present storm. He would drop off his ward as casually as the morning post and expect her to be transformed into a proper miss by his next return.

And it might well happen. But not until everyone stopped oohing and aahing and got back to work.

“One more thing,” Miss Peppertree said at her shoulder. “Do you know what he is named for?”

Lord help her. What a time for a history lesson. “Another duke?”

“Not his title-his given name.”

“I shall hardly be on a first name-” Harriet gave a sigh. Far be it for her to spoil Daphne’s small pleasures in life. “Go on. What is his name?”

“It is Griffin.”

Harriet waited a few moments for further clarification. When none appeared to be forthcoming, she released her breath. “Well, I’m glad you told me. I shall bear that in mind when I bring him in from the storm.”

“You have no idea what a griffin is, do you?”

Harriet hung her head. “You have caught me out again.”

“It is a fabled beast.”

She glanced inadvertently at the window. “And here I thought I was greeting an ordinary duke.”

“There is no such thing,” Miss Peppertree said, sounding oddly pleased.

“As a griffin?”

“A sharp tongue will not protect you from the world, Harriet.”

“I know that better than anyone you have ever met.”

Miss Peppertree sniffed. “I admit that when you first came to the academy, I thought you were a hopeless cause. But I have seen you transformed into a living young lady one could almost admire.”

Harriet smiled. “That is high praise, indeed, coming from your lips. But I have to ask-Do griffins attack young girls in particular?”

Miss Peppertree blinked repeatedly. “I would imagine that they attack anything that attracts their notice. They have a lion’s body, a beaked eagle’s head, and-”

Harriet nodded thoughtfully. “That must make it difficult for him to drink tea, speaking of which-”

“-they have wings!”

Harriet had heard enough. “Then he should have flown here, instead of riding in a coach. Honestly, Daphne, a woman of your age should not believe such nonsense.”

“He is a duke, Harriet. A duke.”

Resigned to the whims of the nobility, Harriet hastened into the entry hall. To her surprise, half of the academy’s staff had already emerged from the bowels of the house to observe the occasion. The portly butler, Ogden, proceeded at a sedate pace to the front door, as was his custom, in order to set a proper example to those who served in lesser positions.

“His Grace the Duke of Glenmorgan has arrived!” the head footman, Trenton, shouted back to the underfootman, Raskin, who was hurriedly tying one of his knee breeches with a trio of maidservants trailing amusedly in his wake. Harriet would have scolded the lot of them had she not suddenly lost her voice.