Duke of Storm

by Gaelen Foley

  “Oh, take your time,” the marchioness drawled. “We’ll be in the milliner’s, probably, or the tea shop.”

  “Good. I’ll find you when I’m done. And don’t leave without me again!”

  Delia stuck her tongue out at her playfully in reply.

  Perhaps her sister still remembered the wigging that Edward had given her for abandoning Maggie at Trinny’s baby shower in January. She’d simply got bored and left her at the hostess’s house in St. James’s. She’d had to beg a ride home from her friend, Felicity, the Duchess of Netherford.

  In this case, however, Delia’s self-centeredness might prove a boon. Once Maggie walked away, Delia would most likely forget she existed, at least for a while.

  Penelope and Maggie hurried across the quaint cobbled arcade, passing the open doorways of several establishments: jeweler’s, glover’s, tobacconist.

  When they arrived under the hanging placard for the bookshop, Penelope hesitated. “Are you quite sure about this?”

  “Don’t worry, he’s a good man—I think. Come,” Maggie added, assuming a businesslike air. “Let’s see what he wants and get this over with.”

  Whether her brisk attitude disguised her crazed inward fluttering at the prospect of speaking with Amberley again, she could not say. But she smiled and nodded to a few random customers with her usual outward serenity as she walked into the cluttered bookshop.

  She kept her footsteps measured and sedate, but gripped her reticule hard with both hands, heart pounding.

  She did not see the duke at once, given all the tall wooden racks that crisscrossed the shop’s length. But just knowing he was here made her flesh tingle with awareness. She could feel her petticoat brushing back and forth against her legs. Her skin seemed to grow a few degrees warmer.

  She very much feared this emotion was lust, and despised herself for it.

  So much for Mama’s perfect little angel, as Delia had said with a sneer.

  Wandering deeper into the quiet bookshop, Maggie nodded back to the ink-smudged clerk who greeted her from behind the counter.

  Penelope followed, an obedient step behind.

  Then Maggie spotted the top of a man’s glossy black hair on the other side of the long wooden rack she was passing.

  There he is.

  Her pulse raced as she laid hold of her courage and walked around the shelving. Amberley was standing with his hands clasped politely behind his back, perusing the titles on offer. But he glanced over at her with a smile that made her stomach flip-flop.

  The vibrant tone of his bronzed face, the clean line of his jaw, and the knowing and strangely intimate twist of his lips as he looked over at her knocked her world slightly off its axis.

  He returned his attention to the shelves. “So, what are we reading?” he greeted her with a playful murmur.

  For a heartbeat, Maggie feared she had forgotten how to read, even how to speak, standing beside him.

  Though she felt fevered with his nearness, she ventured a step closer so they could converse quietly enough not to be overheard.

  Turning to the shelves, she stared blankly at the titles for a moment, for he absorbed all her awareness. The cliff-like angle of his shoulder to her right, looming above her, the subtle spice of his cologne, the smooth brown wool of his tailcoat…

  She shuddered. Oh my God. I want this man.

  Penelope hung back at the end of the aisle, standing guard, as it were. Maggie would have to give her a nice little gift for that.

  “How is your side?” Maggie finally whispered, collecting her wits.

  “How are your ankles?” he countered softly.

  She shook her head and pressed her lips together to hold back a laugh, as Amberley picked up some thick tome.

  He glanced at her, eyes dancing, then he fanned idly through the pages of the book in his hand, stirring up a breeze. Alas, it only fed the blaze that he’d already stoked in her cheeks.

  “You’re sure you’re all right, then?”

  He winked at her. “Never better. Thanks for asking. What about you? You all right?”

  “No!” she whispered. “That was horrible this morning.”

  “Could’ve been worse.”

  She shook her head. “I didn’t expect to see you so soon.”

  He chuckled very softly. “No doubt.”

  “I’m so sorry he shot you, Your Grace. I can’t begin to tell you how appalled I am—”

  “Apologizing for your suitor once again, Lady Margaret?” he said. “I fear you may spend the rest of your life doing that.”

  “No,” she said meaningfully. “Probably not.”

  “Aha. Rethinking this marriage, then?” He looked askance at her. “That is good news.”

  “Is it?” She hid her hopeful gulp, trying to glean his meaning.

  “Of course. You can do much better than that idiot.”

  If only he knew how many suitors her sister had scared away.

  “Well, thank you for sparing him, anyway.”

  “My word is my bond, love. However…” He cast her a droll look and snapped the book shut. “You might not want to thank me just yet.”

  CHAPTER 9

  A Wicked Notion

  The girl looked at him in alarm, but at that moment, Connor heard her maid sharply clear her throat. They stepped apart a heartbeat before some portly old gent wandered into the aisle and began studying the bookshelves.

  It was time to take their conversation outside.

  Connor gave his chosen accomplice a discreet nod toward the back door of the establishment, indicating that she follow.

  She furrowed her brow, but he did not wait for her to object, slipping out of the aisle. As he walked out the back door of the bookshop, he glanced over his shoulder and saw the look of baffled worry that she and her maid exchanged.

  He must have intrigued the lady, though, for a moment later, both women followed him out into another cobbled shopping lane. Unlike the arcade, however, this one had no roof.

  It was also considerably less crowded, and for his part, he was glad to get out of the dim, stuffy shop on such a pleasant spring day.

  Outside, horses were tethered in front of different establishments here and there, tails swishing, stirrups run up neatly to the saddles, but at the moment, no carriages were passing, so the street was quiet.

  Candy smells sweetened the air from the confectionery a few doors down. Hanging baskets of flowers swung in the slight wind.

  There were playbills and other advertisements plastered on the wall near the spot where they stood. They flapped in the breeze, and the pub from which the smell of food and the sound of laughter spilled out a short distance down the way seemed interesting.

  He wished Lady Margaret and he could have had the luxury of strolling here together merely on promenade, visiting the shops, having a bite to eat at that cheerful pub with its door propped open. He should have liked to buy her some trifling bauble or other, since God knew he had more gold than Midas now.

  She deserved spoiling, he thought. But at the moment, she was staring at him dubiously.

  “Give us a moment, would you?” he said politely to her maid, and though he said it with a smile, his tone made it clear this was an order.

  “Oh…!” Lady Margaret said when he commandeered her hand and tucked it into the crook of his elbow.

  “Walk with me a moment.” He led her away a few sauntering paces, keeping his voice down. “Though our chat requires privacy, the bookshop was not inappropriate, for, as it happens, I have a story to tell you, my lady.”

  She had to turn her head all the way to see him past the brim of her bonnet. “I’m listening.”

  Connor shortened his strides as they strolled so she could keep pace with him more easily.

  “Once upon a time,” he began, “there was an Englishman who’d been a marquess for decades. But after some obscure personal favor he’d done for King George, this chap was made a duke. Let’s call him Granduncle Charles.”


  “Ah,” she said. “The first Duke of Amberley?”

  He gave a terse nod. “Yes. He had great wealth, vast power, wide influence and many friends, and, one assumes, some enemies as well. But when he died peacefully in bed about two years ago at the ripe old age of seventy-one, his exit from this earth was deemed of natural causes.

  “Since the first duke had no son,” he continued, “his younger brother took up the title. Granduncle Rupert was the churchman of the family, as I mentioned to you last night. You do remember that, don’t you, amidst all the excitement of showing off your ankles?”

  She huffed at his mischievous reminder, but said, “Of course I do. A duke, a churchman, and a soldier, you told me.”

  “Precisely. You look very pretty today, by the by.”

  “Oh—thank you,” she said with a blush.

  It was true. She wore a cornflower-blue pelisse, he believed it was called, over a cream-colored muslin gown with a small pattern of muted blue flowers. The brim of her golden chip bonnet was swathed in an airy scarf, but he noted the nutmeg-brown tendrils that escaped from underneath it, and found himself wondering how long her hair was when it hung loose.

  To her shoulders? Down the middle of her back?

  But thinking about her back was dangerous. For he imagined it bare, and his mind offered up a ready fantasy of creamy skin, delicate shoulder blades and a supple spine, the curve of a slim waist, the flare of her womanly hips…

  When his fingertips started to tingle with the need to glide all over her body, he dropped his gaze to the well-polished toes of his black boots, tapped his hat against his thigh a few times, and continued his story.

  “Well,” he said as they strolled on, “as it turned out, the poor vicar-duke lasted less than a year in his new role. He went out walking one day, contemplating heaven, I suppose, when he lost his footing on a high promontory overlooking a river on his estate, and fell to his death. It was deemed an accident.”

  “How awful!” She glanced anxiously at him. “I am sorry for your loss.”

  He shrugged. “Thanks, but I only met him once, as a boy. My grandfather brought me to London to meet all my English relatives. He didn’t really get along with them, you see, which is why he moved to Ireland after leaving the Army.

  “In any case, Rupert’s son, Richard, became the third duke. Did you know him, if he was such great friends with your suitor?”

  “No. He died before Bryce and I were introduced.”

  “Ah.” Connor nodded. “Here is where things start to get interesting. By the time Richard came into the title, it seems he’d begun to suspect that something was, er, rotten in Denmark.”

  “How so?”

  “He found his father’s fall from that cliff quite suspicious, and began looking into it. But before he reached any certain conclusions, Richard had an unfortunate carriage accident of his own several months into his tenure as duke.”

  “Dreadful.” She shook her head.

  “To be fair, he was known to be fond of driving too fast. Still…”

  “Yes.” She gave him a troubled glance. “One does start to wonder.”

  “Indeed. It was at that point that Mr. Rollins, the family solicitor, tracked me down in Ireland to let me know I’d just become the fourth duke.”

  “Were you shocked?” she asked with a smile.

  “Flabbergasted.” He smiled back. “I’d barely finished unpacking from the Peninsula. I stayed on for several months after Waterloo to help with the occupation, so I had just got home.”

  “Why?” she asked abruptly, sounding mystified. “Hadn’t you had enough of the war?”

  He shrugged. “Fighting’s what I do. Well,” he added awkwardly, “it’s what I used to do, anyway.” He shook off the uncomfortable topic and forged on.

  “When the solicitor explained this run of ‘bad luck’ that had befallen my relatives in England over the past two years, it probably should’ve alerted me that something was wrong. But in my shock at the news, I must’ve ignored any inner warning. Either that, or I’d got so used to being surrounded by death that it just seemed normal to me—at first, anyway.”

  She made a soft sound of sympathy.

  “But then,” he continued, “I arrived in London to claim the title. And in the short four months since I got here, there’ve been two attempts on my life. Not counting the duel.”

  She stopped walking and turned to him. “What?”

  He sighed. “Somebody’s trying to kill me.”

  She stared at him. “Oh my God.”

  He shrugged, smirked a bit. “Nothing new in that, really. But, I confess, when your suitor called me out, and then you came knocking at my door moments later, I thought you both might be a part of it somehow.”

  She gasped. “Me?”

  “Silly, I know. Sorry. I’ve become a bit paranoid of late.”

  “One can hardly blame you!” She looked dazed at his revelation, and indignant on his behalf. “How awful. I’m so sorry you’re going through this.”

  “Thanks.” Her show of instant support comforted Connor more than he would’ve expected. A bit of sympathy was welcome for a change—especially coming from a beautiful woman.

  Even if she did have a suitor.

  Not that he intended to let that match continue. How could he, now that he knew Bryce’s secret?

  Thinking of Bryce brought him back to the matter at hand.

  “So, you see, your suitor was not so far off the mark when he made his accusations, claiming that Richard was murdered. I think so, too. But I assure you, I had nothing to do with it, or any of their deaths. You do see that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, yes, of course. But tell me what happened. Who tried to kill you? Where and when did this occur, and do you know why?”

  “No! The who and the why of it are utter mysteries to me. One of my predecessors must’ve wronged someone—badly—it would seem. Someone who now seems bent on revenge and won’t be happy till they’ve altogether ended our line.”

  An appalled sound escaped her, then they walked on.

  “As to the when and where of it, the first attempt happened moments after I’d stepped off the boat from Ireland onto the London docks. This was a few days before Christmas. I was attacked by what I assumed at the time was a footpad. Fought him off, no harm done. I had all but forgotten about it.

  “But then, at Twelfth Night, a good friend of mine, a guest, was poisoned under my own roof, at my own table, and that’s when I realized…I had a problem.”

  “Good Lord.”

  “That’s why the house is a shambles,” he explained. “I sacked the whole staff, since one of them had to be involved somehow. Called in the lads from my regiment to help watch my back. Loyal, they are, but cooking and cleaning?” He chuckled. “Not exactly what they’re trained for.”

  “You poor man.” She shook her head. “What of your friend who got the poison? Did he die?”

  “No, thankfully, he recovered. There has not been a third attempt—yet—and I don’t intend to sit around and wait for it. I’m trying to piece together information on my predecessors’ lives so I can figure out who bears this vendetta against us.

  “It hasn’t been easy. The family is, er, closed-mouthed about many things. They, like the rest of the ton, see me as an outsider, and, of course, that’s what I am. Which is why I was hoping for a little help from you, Lady Margaret.”

  “What can I do?” She stopped and turned to him.

  Her dove-gray eyes were wide, their expression grave. Her lips, primrose pink, were drawn into a thoughtful little frown.

  He let his gaze roam admiringly over her peaches-and-cream complexion, down her regal neck to the demure lace frill around her alluring throat.

  He had a fleeting vision of tearing that delicate lace asunder with his teeth, claiming her pearly neck with his lips. God, what was this effect she had on him? Even his wound stopped hurting in her presence.

  Yet her nearness made his body feel hot and con
stricted, like he was wearing too many damn clothes.

  Perhaps her maid sensed his errant thoughts, for she cleared her throat loudly from a few feet behind them, playing chaperone.

  They both glanced over and saw the woman’s pointed look that clearly said, That’s far enough, you two.

  Lady Margaret looked up at him, her gaze troubled. “We should turn back,” she murmured.

  “As you wish.”

  They retraced their steps, and the maid stepped obediently out of the way, waiting till they passed to trail after them again.

  “You were saying?” she prompted.

  “You can go places and talk to people I can’t.” Thankfully, by now, Connor had managed to curb his more primal urges. “You fit in here, Lady Margaret. These people trust you. Me, I’m a stranger in a strange land.”

  She passed an uncertain glance over his face. “I suppose I could help to introduce you around…?”

  He snorted. “Frankly, if last night in the ballroom was any indication of my future in Society, I’d rather spend time with my horses.”

  She winced. “Rest assured, there are good people, too, Your Grace, but never mind that for now. What exactly would you have me do?”

  “Advise me on who’s who in Society. I could really use an insider’s knowledge about various people so I can narrow the list of who is probably not the killer. They’re all strangers and thus all suspicious to me. I’ll need answers about certain people. Basic backgrounds. Where they’re from. With whom they associate. On occasion, you may have to act—in a limited way, mind you—as my…well, as my spy in Society.”

  “Spy?” she burst out, then started laughing. “Me?”

  Connor saw nothing funny. “Will you do this? You gave me your word.”

  “Yes, I know, but…” She hesitated, and her laughter trailed off as she searched his face. “I’m not sure I can. That is, I know we made an agreement, but…I wasn’t expecting anything involving murder!”

  “Shh! Keep your voice down.” He glanced around, annoyed at her wavering, exactly as he’d feared.

  This was precisely why he’d connived her into baring her ankles. Only, now that it came down to it, Connor did not want to have to use that against her.