The silence seemed to stretch forever.
Then, a sound that made Anne nearly keel over with the relief. The duchess made some weak sound. She turned out of her husband’s arms, coughing and coughing and coughing. The force made her entire body tremble.
“Linnie?” The duke kept his hold on her. “God, are you all right?”
“Let me go,” the duchess said hoarsely, twisting in his arms. “Richard? Where’s Richard?”
Anne didn’t miss the way Hastings’s gaze turned cold and indifferent as he released the duchess.
Richard cleared his throat. “I’m right here, Caro.”
The duchess collapsed to the ground, closing her eyes again. “Take me home, Richard. To Ravenhill. I want to go home.”
“I’ll take you home just as soon as I’m able.”
“Good.” Her smile was soft. “Good. I trust you.”
Hastings flinched. She knew Richard must have seen it, because his expression turned slightly pitying. The awkward moment was broken by the arrival of the doctor, who immediately set about examining the duchess.
When it seemed she would make it through, Richard pulled Anne aside. “We’ll make a stop at Ravenhill on the way back to London. I need to send a cable to my contacts with the police about your father. Anne, it’s not going to be good for him.”
Anne tried not to stare at her unconscious father. “I know. I’ll worry about that when we come to it.”
Richard pulled her against him. “I’ll be here with you. Every step of the way.”
Anne thought of the Duke and Duchess of Hastings, and wondered at how two people could grow apart like that. What could be so insurmountable that it destroyed trust?
“Do you promise?” she whispered.
He lifted her chin and kissed her softly on the lips. “I made vows. I’ll love you for the rest of my days, wife.”
Epilogue
Thorne sat behind his desk at the Brimstone Club with an amused smile on his face. “You two have upset the balance of things, haven't you?”
Anne’s father had been arrested for several charges, not the least of which involved the crime of attempting to murder the Duke and Duchess of Hastings. And Kendal? He’d been caught trying to flee the country. Even a dukedom couldn’t save a man from the atrocity of killing children. The authorities had found enough bones in his cellar to make clear that he had been at his crimes for many, many years.
“I see that as a good thing,” Richard said, gazing down at Anne.
She flushed. “Even if your sister bore the price?”
Stanton’s last act of vengeance before being carted off to the gaol had been to reveal Alexandra Grey’s illegitimacy and marriage to Nicholas Thorne. Though Alexandra had claimed not to mind, she was ruined for polite company. She would never again inhabit the circles she once did.
“Alexandra said it was worth it.”
“She would,” muttered Thorne. “Your sister rarely thinks of herself first.”
“No,” Richard said. “She doesn't. You ought to see her.”
Thorne sat back in his chair, those dark eyes glittering with some emotion Anne couldn’t fathom. Though he had helped her and Richard, she found the club owner unsettling. Where Richard looked like a warrior seraph, Thorne was the opposite. A fallen angel who ruled over hell, and seemed to relish in his power there.
“Trying your hand at matchmaker, Grey?”
“Trying to reassure my sister that the man she married isn’t a complete scoundrel.”
Thorne threw his head back and laughed. “Believe me, your sister knows better than anyone how big a scoundrel I am. She ought to tell you all about it sometime.” He pointed to the door of his study. “If you’re through, I’ve business to attend to, a club to run, and a bounty to put on a walking dead man.”
Richard shook his head. “I gave you that name as a courtesy. I could still have Malloy arrested and taken to the gaol.”
The whisper of a smile on Thorne’s face disappeared, and what remained was a man who appeared every inch the devil in beautiful livery. “I’m not benevolent, Grey. I like the pleasure of seeing certain men die the way they deserve. You ought to remember that, if you suffer under the delusion that I’m good enough for your sister. Now get out.”
Once back in the carriage, Anne slid across the seat and pressed herself to Richard’s side. “They, too, have to find their own way.”
Richard stared out the window. “I don’t think Thorne has a way. If he does, it’ll include a walk through hell first.”
Anne pressed a kiss to his lips. “If he loves her, he’ll walk it twice. As many times as it takes. I vow I would for you.”
Her husband’s smile was beautiful. She was going to wake up to it every morning. She laughed as he pulled her into his lap. “Speaking of vows, I’ve been remiss in my duty this afternoon.”
“What duty was that?”
His whisper was spoken in her ear as he began to kiss her softly. “I still have freckles left to kiss, don’t I? Where did I leave off? Ah, yes. One hundred fifty-two. . . . One hundred fifty-three . . .”
Author’s Note
The Ballot Act of 1872 was the law that made election ballots secret. Before that, landlords, employers, and other men of influence were easily able to affect people’s votes. Not only could they be present during a vote to ensure obedience, they sent representatives to make sure tenants and employees voted a certain way.
Many powerful men supported keeping ballots public. In fact, it was considered radical (and cowardly) to suggest casting votes in secret. Britain introduced a number of changes to elections the 1860s-1880s, due to the amount of corruption in politics. Election spending was unlimited, voters took bribes, and men in power were able to intimidate people into compliance.
The Ballot Act was an important step in attempting to end corruption during the election process.
I do hope you’ll forgive me for historical liberties I took regarding Britain’s prime minister. Stanton Sheffield is, of course, entirely fictional — and the office of the PM will return to historical rights in Alexandra’s book, Tempting the Scoundrel.
The prime minister in 1872 was William Gladstone, who was a liberal, and very much in favor of secret ballots. He served as PM for four terms.
Thank You!
Thank you for reading His Scandalous Lessons! I hope you enjoyed it.
If you’re able, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. I welcome all reviews, whether positive or negative, critical or gushing. Even just one line helps readers find books.
If you want to know more about what’s going on with Richard’s brother James, his story is told in the novella A Touch Wicked; an excerpt is included at the end of your ebook, and is currently available for purchase on Amazon. [LINK]
If you’re wondering about Alexandra and Thorne, their story continues in Tempting the Scoundrel, which will be released in September 2018.
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Sneak Peek
He is London's most eligible bachelor
James Grey, the Earl of Kent, is at the top of every debutante's list for marriage. He's handsome, titled, rich as Croesus, and on the lookout for a bride. When an invitation to the Masquerade — an illicit club where members carry on affairs in complete anonymity — arrives on his doorstep, it seems like a last chance to revel in bachelorhood. But after he meets the mysterious Selene, he gets more than he bargained for.
She is keeping a secret identity
Emma Dumont is a commoner with desires far too lofty for her station — including a hopeless infatuation with Lord Kent, her employer. When she overhears his plans to attend the Masquerade, she decides to act: go under the guise of a lady, seduce him, and spend one night in his arms. As it turns out, one night isn't enough.
The arrangement is supposed to be straightforward: anonymous lovemaking, no attachments. But matt
ers of the heart are a lot more complicated . . .
Chapter 1
London, 1872
James Grey, The Earl of Kent, had only heard of the Masquerade discreetly murmured between glasses of brandy at White’s. The stories alone were enough to inflame a man's desire.
Yet, as he regarded the invitation and box that had arrived on his doorstep that morning, he felt a foreign sense of trepidation. And James Grey — ever-practical, and certainly not prone to being emotional — was not a man who grew nervous easily.
“If you don’t go, I will.” James’s younger brother Richard read over the invitation. “I shall bear the hardship,” he declared dramatically, “of anonymous lovemaking. Oh, the sacrifice.”
James eyed his brother. “Don’t be ridiculous. You can’t pretend to be me.”
“Thank god I’d be wearing a mask, then,” Richard said, looking up from the letter. “Since I’m the handsomer brother and no one would be fooled otherwise.”
The Grey brothers were close enough in age and appearance that people often mistook them for twins. They both had the same dark blond hair and piercing blue eyes, the same broad shoulders and muscular form. They were, to use a word whispered among the ton, delicious.
Their personalities, however, couldn’t be more different. Richard bedded any attractive woman who crooked a finger at him — then left her by morning. James had a tendency toward longer affairs. He was a considerate lover, methodical in his devotion to female pleasure. His partners gossiped often about his mastery in the bedchamber, his ability to seduce.
There was only one problem: he never, ever yielded his control.
“The answer is still no.”
James swirled the brandy in his glass and drank. The afternoon light had cast the drawing room in a warm glow, and the light fell on that damned box as if God himself was telling James: take your mask, go to the Masquerade, and fuck a woman senseless. You know you want to. It’s been a month.
James’s last affair ended in the way they all did: when his mistress began to feel things for him and expected him to reciprocate. Feelings were messy things. Too troublesome. He’d seen the destruction wrought when emotions clouded all sense of reason.
Perhaps that made the Masquerade a perfect solution to his month-long celibacy. Its draw was the anonymity of intimacy, uncomplicated by identity, status, money or duty. But James was not the kind of man who listened to his cock.
Or God, for that matter.
Richard waved the invitation in the air like a flag. “Don’t you understand how many people are clamoring for this?”
“I’m beginning to have some notion,” James said dryly.
Richard went on as if he hadn’t heard his brother. “I haven’t received one, and god knows I’ve tried. I even went so far as to try bribing the messenger into revealing the Madame’s identity. No luck.” He looked up at James and narrowed his eyes. “Why you?”
“I can’t possibly imagine.”
James considered telling his brother that he might not have bedded every woman of a certain age in Britain, but he didn’t take his pleasure and leave. Quick lovemaking was not something James Grey was capable of. He gave and gave and gave first, until her knees shook. Until her toes curled. Until she screamed for him.
He may not bother with things like feelings, but many women had tried and failed to make him theirs. Which was reason enough not to attend. "The last thing I need is to see some woman from this club in a ballroom. Especially, god forbid, a debutante. When I marry, I want it to be on my terms.”
“Not a concern,” Richard replied shortly. He pointed to the letter and quoted, “Members shall never reveal themselves to one another. We honor secrecy above all.”
“Noblewomen not expecting a betrothal after lovemaking,” James said doubtfully. “Assuming you can believe that overwrought letter.”
As a rich earl, aged nine-and-twenty, James knew it was his duty to marry and begin the business of producing an heir. Which seemed a rather dispassionate view of matrimony, but it was the way of the ton. It was generally well known that James Grey — ever logical and scrupulous — had decided that his bachelorhood would end at age thirty.
And his birthday was just before the London season.
There’s still time, he thought, staring at the letter.
Hell, ambitious mothers had already begun shoving their daughters at him whenever he entered a ballroom. A man could only take so much of it before he went mad.
“I’ve had friends attend,” Richard said. “The rumors are true. If anyone breaks the rules, the Madame sends them a letter informing them they’re no longer welcome. Though I've heard she’ll allow people to trade memberships, depending on the circumstance.” He set down the invitation and regarded the slim white box. “What’s in this?”
“What do you think? The mask, of course.”
Richard opened the white box to find a leather mask nestled in the centre. Like something the devil himself would wear, it was pitch black and pointed at the ends, hornlike. Made for a sinner. Made for indulgence. It concealed just enough of the face to obscure a man’s identity. He could become a different person each night.
James couldn’t help but think of the kind of man he’d be behind that sinner’s mask. He could be anyone. Play a different part each night.
How would he make love to a woman while he wore it?
What would her mask look like?
“Kent.” His brother’s voice was suddenly serious.
“Hmm?”
“You’re going to be thirty in under two months.”
James scowled at Richard and took another drink of brandy. “I appreciate the reminder.”
Richard set the mask back in its box and shut the lid. “I wouldn’t need to remind you if you hadn’t decided on an arbitrary age—”
“It’s not arbitrary,” James said in irritation. "Christ, man, I'll be courting debutantes ten years my junior. If I wait too long, I’ll be another old bastard hoping to snare a young wife. I’d feel sorry for her.”
Richard stared at him. “I see you’ve put a great deal of thought into this. Perhaps too much.”
“If I had known you were here to harangue me, I wouldn’t have bothered letting you in.” James rose from the settee and went to collect the invitation, but Richard held it out of his reach. “Give me the damn thing, Richard.”
His brother only smirked and continued to hold the paper aloft. James would have to climb over him like a complete fool to get it. “Do you plan to have a mistress after you marry?” Richard asked. “Or do you still only intend on fucking one woman?”
James straightened. He shouldn’t have been surprised — the filter between his brother’s brain and his mouth always took a detour through his prick first. How he managed to hold any sort of conversation at all was a mystery. “I don’t see how that’s any of your business one way or another.”
“Because you wouldn’t set some woman up, would you? Not like Father.” Richard looked smug. Sometimes James longed to punch him in the face for it.
“I might.” The lie felt awkward on his tongue. “You don’t know that I won’t.”
But James was nothing like the late earl. Their father was never discreet in his numerous affairs. He paraded his mistresses about town without regard to the humiliation and gossip his countess endured. When James’s mother was in labor with his sister, Alexandra, his father hadn’t bothered to be present. Nor was the bastard there mere hours later when his wife's difficult childbirth drove her to an early grave.
He had been too damn busy tupping his mistress.
Richard let out a breath, and James knew his lie was obvious. His brother held the invitation in front of him. “Go — before you’re shackled in a passionless marriage to a society miss seeking a titled husband. This gives you the opportunity to bed a woman in complete anonymity, no attachments. Hell, go bed several. Just make sure it’s enough to last a lifetime.”
James felt something inside him s
tir at visions of his nameless future wife who only married him for what he could offer. One he only married because it was his duty. “How do you know it will be passionless and dull?” His voice sounded even, but hollow to his ears.
Richard smiled bitterly. “Because duty is the antithesis of desire, brother. Father knew that.”
James stared at the eloquent handwriting, each word painstakingly inked. After a moment’s hesitation, he took the invitation from his brother.
If you enjoyed this excerpt, A Touch Wicked is available for purchase on Amazon now: [LINK]
Katrina Kendrick believes in love at first sight, but prefers to write about complicated couples, second chance romances, and other matters of the heart. While she enjoys teasing emotions out of her readers, happy endings bring her joy — which is why she writes romance.
Kat lives in Scotland with her husband and cats. Sometimes you can find her wandering the cliffs along the sea, thinking about her next love story.
www.katrinakendrick.com
Copyright © 2018 by Katrina Kendrick
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Author.
Cover design © Katrina Kendrick
Cover photographs © Period Images | Shutterstock
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