by Tracy Sumner
Chasing the Duke
Tracy Sumner
Contents
Acknowledgments
Also by Tracy Sumner
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
Chapter One
Also by Tracy Sumner
About Tracy Sumner
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CHASING THE DUKE
Copyright © 2020 by Tracy Sumner
Print ISBN: 979-8689471617
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Edited by: Casey Harris-Parks
Acknowledgments
Huge shout-out to my devoted, wonderful Street Team! Thank you for your support, encouragement and friendship. I’ve enjoyed our discussions about books and life and hope for many more!
Also by Tracy Sumner
Garrett Brothers Series
Tides of Love
Tides of Passion
Tides of Desire: A Christmas Romance
Southern Heat Series
To Seduce a Rogue
To Desire a Scoundrel: A Christmas Seduction
League of Lords Series
The Lady is Trouble
The Rake is Taken
The Duke is Wicked (coming 2021)
Multi-Author Series
Tempting the Scoundrel
Chasing the Duke: Seventh Day of Christmas
Multi-Author Anthologies
A Scandalous Christmas
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Chapter 1
Where childhood adversaries argue over a swan.
Longleat Manor, North Yorkshire, England
The Seventh Day of Christmas, 1815
She wasn’t chasing a duke ever again.
Never, ever, ever.
Camille Bellington yanked a dangling thread from her sleeve and blew a breath that anyone who heard it would excuse as refined from her lips.
She couldn’t believe he’d been invited.
She knew precisely why he’d been invited.
Camille sent a penetrating stare down the enormous table dominating her aunt’s formal dining room, her lips pressed hard enough to crack. Lady Isabel Fontaine snickered at something the Earl of Edelman said, refusing to catch her niece’s eye when Camille’s gaze must have scorched. Her aunt loved nothing more than a dash of fun at someone else’s expense.
“You’re wasting those smoldering looks on the hardest head in England, Princess. Lady Fontaine couldn’t care less about your high dander. She wants a spot of entertainment, and we’re it.”
Surprised by his astuteness, Camille glanced at Tristan Tierney, the fifth Duke of Mercer, for the first time all evening. Through a trembling candlelit glimmer, the clack of crystal and silverware a dull chime in her ear, his undeniable, bombastic magnificence flowed through her to lodge quite faithfully in her belly, an unwelcome return. Dressed head to toe in black except for his loosely-tied cravat and pressed linen shirt, eyes glowing, teeth flashing, dark hair mussed just so, he presented a dazzling ducal puzzle every woman in the ton longed to solve.
More the fool, she found she couldn’t look away.
Even though she loathed him.
Truly. Like a toothache, a hangnail, a shallow cut on the tip of one’s finger that took forever to heal.
Her wound had taken years to heal.
As Tristan bestowed his absolute attention on her for the first time in memory, her mind went hazy. Usually, she was an unseen annoyance—his best friend’s much younger sister—but curiously his unblinking gaze fastened her to her chair like an insect caught in amber.
He’d always been handsome, but now it was worse. Time had carved grooves alongside his mouth, hardened his jaw, broadened his shoulders.
Made a man from a boy.
The chattering throng her aunt had invited to a rousing Christmastide dinner didn’t understand the change, but she did. There were no obvious scars from the Battle of Waterloo, and he’d made light of requests for heroic narratives, but Tristan’s eyes, as green as a bearberry leaf, held a thousand teasing secrets that attracted and repelled in turn.
A blatant appeal should one be set on unlocking a gorgeous mystery, which Camille was not.
And hadn’t been for years.
Countess Milburn, seated to his right, gave a breathy sigh and tapped her butter knife on his wrist, which would have been scandalous had she not been thirty years his senior and generally regarded as the grande dame of England. “Mercer, darling, you were going to tell us about your plans for your ancestral estate now that your father has passed on, may he rest in peace.”
Tristan’s smile was a dreamy display of graciousness, believable for anyone who hadn’t assiduously studied it. “Was I?” he murmured, his gaze sliding away and allowing Camille to bring a frankincense-and-roasted-goose breath into her lungs. “I believe I was about to ask Lady Bellington to recount the time she tussled with a swan in the Serpentine. A perfect topic for the season. And apropos. Aren’t they the symbol for the seventh day of Christmas?”
The choice of subject, and the wry amusement in his voice, sent a bolt of fury through Camille. She glanced around the table, realizing the Duke of Mercer had balanced the entire focus of the room atop her head like an ill-fitting bonnet. Bringing her glass to her lips, she took a revitalizing sip of wine before speaking. “That’s a rumor. And an ancient one.”
He laughed around a bite of goose, chewed slowly, smiled wickedly, before lifting his gaze and snaring hers again. Pinned right to her chair, indeed. “Don’t go down that path. I saw the poor beast after the battle if you recall.”
“You bring this up,” she whispered, “to divert attention from yourself.”
“An effective strategy,” he volleyed, “and I’m nothing if not a well-trained soldier. What’s surprising to me is that you’re still upset about an event that happened years ago.” He shrugged a broad shoulder and shared a slice of his devastating charm with the room’s inhabitants as if to say, petty of her, am I right?
“It was partially your fault. You and Edward.” Her brother had hooted when she fell into the pond as if he’d never seen such a thing. Who tried to pet a swan, after all? Then he’d sighed and begun the process of dragging her out, a bold rescue of his reckless sister from the grasp of an enraged fowl.
Tristan tipped his glass toward her with an elegant turn of his wrist. “You’re the one who said swans were nice. We tried to tell you they’re bloody nasty, not to touch. I don’t even know why we brought you along. Your governess begged us to, I suspect.”
“You arrogant cur,” she said for his ears alone.
“You brash hoyden,” he returned for hers, his ghost of a smile proving he was enjoying this.
“Children, children, let’s not argue,” Lady Fontaine admonished from her spot at the head of the table. The jewels circling her wrist, paste because they’d had to sell the real ones to pay the bills, created a merry chime as
she waved her hand in the air, a magician without a wand. “Family friends, it’s all in good fun,” she added, a vapid explanation Camille guessed no one believed.
Though Tristan had often circled her orbit during her childhood, they’d never been friends. But her aunt had always treated Tristan like family, provided shelter and encouragement when he and his father got into the raging battles that later drove an heir to a dukedom to join Wellington’s army and ride away to Belgium.
Not once looking back to see who he’d left behind.
“Obviously more enemies than friends,” Countess Milburn tittered.
Tristan blinked and tilted his head as if the idea hadn’t occurred to him. When she’d thought it a thousand times herself. “Who says we’re enemies,” he murmured and gave Camille a look that said something her mind didn’t understand but her body, oh, the wash of heat centering in her belly and moving into a neat tuck between her thighs…
Viscount Ridley slapped his glass to the table, spraying wine across starched linen and china. “Mercer, hold up, you’re embarrassing my intended. I suppose you must be reminded of courteous behavior now that you’re off the battlefield.”
Tristan halted, his glass suspended halfway to his lips. His eyes when they met hers were flat, a verdict she wasn’t sure how to interpret. “That’s not embarrassment on Lady Bellington’s face, Ridley, it’s anger.” He finished his motion, polished off his wine, looking down his aristocratic nose at the man she’d only yesterday accepted a proposal from. “You’d better learn to recognize the difference, or you’re in for a grueling matrimonial haul.”
“As if I’d take your—”
“I should add, I think it best you don’t mention a battlefield to someone recently removed.” Tristan peered into his glass as if wishing more wine would appear. “We fighting men tend to get testy about such matters, lack of courteous behavior as you so kindly mentioned.”
Her aunt jumped into the fray, willing to roll the dice for fun but not with malicious intent. And dipping a toe into the disaster of a pond that was the Battle of Waterloo was going too far, even for her. “Aren’t the floral arrangements adorning the room gorgeous? The mix of evergreens, holly, and English fir a scrumptious holiday presence? The cinnamon sticks interspersed throughout a brilliant touch. I wanted to bring the forest inside the manor, incorporating the fragrances of winter and Christmas, with as much color as the season could provide. Out of season, hothouse varieties being too steep for my purse, you see.”
“Lovely, Lady Fontaine, just lovely.” Countess Milburn touched a pine needle with her gloved finger. “You can evaluate the decorations for my annual winter ball in two days if you enjoy that sort of thing. I know you’ll be in attendance. I was exceptionally disappointed with last year’s preparations. And to think, I’ve used Germaine and Sons for years.”
Her aunt laughed and patted her ample chest, eyes sparkling in a way Camille had come to fear over the years, hard little sapphires glowing in the candlelight. “Oh, dear me, I’m as untalented as one can be with floral arrangements and the like. Every shrub I plant dies a quick death, pathetic things. My gardener cannot even bring them back once I step in.”
Giving her head a firm shake, Camille sent another pleading look down the table. Not here, not now.
But when had Isabel Fontaine ever followed any whim but her own?
“My niece created each flowery composition you see in this mausoleum of a house. Longleat could not survive without her. Camille has been interested in plants, cuttings, and such since she was in leading strings. It’s her special talent when most women in the ton aren’t allowed one. An interest of their own and the freedom to explore it. But with her parent’s demise when she was five, I was left to manage her upbringing in my way. Spinster aunts are a strange lot, aren’t we?” Lady Fontaine patted her lips with her napkin and pretended to ignore the horrified looks being once again aimed in Camille’s direction. “Her conservatory is nothing short of a museum dedicated to the study of botany. Fascinating aside from the spider webs and teeny-tiny insects and smell of decaying organisms. My library is filled with gardening texts, too, floor to ceiling. The girl always has her nose stuck in one. A book that is. Or a hand buried wrist-deep in dirt. She even corresponds with a botanical group in London. A group of men. A riveting hobby, isn’t that right, my dear?”
Camille took a slow sip of wine and closed her eyes. Counted to five as she considered why her aunt raised this topic when she knew Viscount Ridley would be horrified. Of course, the plan had been to tell him. At some point. When it was too late for him to back out and ruin her design to enter into a loveless marriage to save Longleat Manor from creditors. “It’s a business,” she finally muttered after a charged silence, as the gathering processed the idea of the daughter of a marquess having a special talent. A business. Reading biological texts and meeting with men, if only by letter. It sounded shocking, even to her, when listed out like that.
“How industrious,” Countess Milburn murmured in a tone stating it was anything but.
Viscount Ridley smoothed his hand—a rather handsome hand, slim fingers and neat, clipped nails—down his crimson waistcoat. Over the slight, very manageable, bulge that was his belly. “Well, this endeavor will end with our marriage. It’s no wonder you’ve been around for a season or two longer than anyone with your grace and undeniable beauty should have, Lady Camille. No viscountess has a hobby such as this. Practically sounds, dear God, academic.”
Awareness fluttered through her like someone had trailed a finger along her skin. Camille blinked to find the Duke of Mercer’s piercing gaze fixed on her. He made no effort, none at all, to hide the challenge coloring his emerald eyes almost black.
Tell them, his look said, go on.
Oh, that rebellious encouragement had nearly led to a swan’s death, as he’d told the entire gathering, thank you very much. She’d come close to drowning in the Serpentine. And embarrassed herself for life in front of the man she’d loved since her first memory of him.
Glancing at the slice of nougat almond cake on her plate, Camille tapped the thistle branch she’d wrapped in gold ribbon and placed by each place setting, completely giving up the ghost. “I retained thirty accounts from the florist in Helmsley when he retired last year. In actuality, I make a tidy sum, which has kept Longleat afloat, if I may be so crass as to admit it. Celtic sprays, love knots, bridal bouquets, consulting on gardens in distress and the like keep me—”
“You make money?” Viscount Ridley clutched his chest as if his heart had stopped with the news.
“For aiding gardens in distress,” Tristan added in a deafening voice as if the viscount was hard of hearing. “Did you not grasp that part, Ridley? Perhaps your advanced years are catching up with you.”
Ridley colored, a bright pink stain swimming unflatteringly across his cheeks. “We were at Eton together, Mercer. I only have you by a year!”
Tristan propped his elbow on the table and dropped his chin to his fist. “Honestly, I don’t recall.”
“Ousted during your third term, weren’t you? That I recall.”
“Rusticated, not expelled. A six-month sojourn from classes.” Tristan’s smile was positively beatific. “I thought I had the composition for the perfect pyrotechnic, but magnesium is a fickle ingredient, I learned and quickly. Took me a year to pay off the damage to the laboratory. And my hair didn’t grow back properly for two.” He dragged his hand through the luscious, overlong strands, dark and wild as the healthiest soil in England. “Burned it right off my head on one side and took part of an eyebrow with it.”
Camille jammed her fist over her mouth a second too late. Her laugher, delighted and real, she recognized the difference, sweeping the room like a summer breeze as the tight knot her belly had been twisted in since she accepted Ridley’s proposal unfurled. After a quick instant, Tristan laughed, too, deep and wonderfully, his gaze dusting her before his smile slipped, and he glanced into his lap for no reason she could
fathom.
Disconcerted, she looked to the man she’d pledged to marry and away from the one who’d always made her blood kick a touch harder than required. No more dreams squandered on the Duke of Mercer. Eight years his junior, too young to be bothered with until it was too late. Now, he presented a complicated mix of pensiveness, ferocity, and defensive humor, the intensity he tried to hide bubbling just beneath the surface.
The duke needed someone patient enough to figure him out. Someone who hadn’t given up on loving him long ago.
While her intended, the man she’d chosen, would take her as she was, an amateur botanist who uncouthly made money doing it, or not take her at all.
He’d laughed.
For the first time in years.
Out loud, surrounded by a roomful of people. And not one of those fake chuckles he could conjure up like a mystic a vision, but a genuine release of amusement and…pleasure.
Tristan Tierney, Duke of Mercer, Viscount Wimble, Baron Easley, took a thoughtful drag on his cheroot and blew smoke into the frigid Yorkshire night. Longleat Manor’s terrace was deserted except for the occasional jangle of Lady Fontaine’s off-tune pianoforte and the whistle of the wind through the trees. The men had retreated to the billiard room for port and ribald conversation while the ladies had absconded to the drawing room for more decorous entertainment.
While he, the evening’s guest of honor, had slipped away like a thief.