The Spinster and the Rake

by Eva Devon

  Violet pulled a face, lifting the hem of her black bombazine mourning dress to follow Isobel. Molly, never a far step away, appeared beside them. “He doesn’t look happy. He never looks happy. Maybe he saw those awful scandal sheets, too.”

  A fist clenched around Isobel’s heart, mortification rushing through her. She couldn’t deal with anymore pity, not even from the one person who could possibly understand. She and the duke had shared a lot over the years, but this was painful new territory.

  “Honestly, you can’t believe a word of it, Izzy dear,” Violet said when they reached the landing. “The papers reported that I was an unremarkable, plain spinster, after two unsuccessful seasons, while Molly here was the rose of the hour, when we look exactly the same. How am I not a rose as well? No, no, I’m some anonymous, hideous weed.” She exhaled a peeved breath. “My name is Violet, for heaven’s sake. I’m the flower.”

  Molly rolled her eyes and gave a shrug that made her brown ringlets bounce. “Everything isn’t a competition, Violet. But maybe if you were less thorny and more flowery, that would help your prospects.”

  “I am not thorny, you beast!”

  Despite being identical, the twins couldn’t be more like chalk and cheese, always at odds with each other. It usually made for good fun, but right now, Isobel had other things to worry about. “For the love of all things holy, stop bickering you two and help me change!”

  After a quick sponge and spray of honeysuckle-scented water, it didn’t take her, the twins, and two maids long to switch out of her riding habit to a pale green muslin morning dress. Her hair brushed and re-braided, Isobel made her way down the stairs to the duke’s study.

  With a calming breath, she knocked and entered.

  In terms of coloring, the duke looked nothing like his eldest son. His hair leaned toward black instead of brown, and his eyes were blue instead of gray. However, the family resemblance was stamped in his high forehead and that proud nose. Not that she’d seen enough of her husband of late to compare otherwise. For all she knew, Winter Vance had put on ten stone and developed a set of jowls better suited to his excessive lifestyle.

  “Your Grace, you’ve returned earlier than expected.” She greeted him from the open doorway, watching as the tall, elegant man rose to his feet from behind the desk.

  “We had good weather and made excellent time.” The Duke of Kendrick frowned, a concerned expression on his face. “How are you faring, my dear?”

  It was only then that Isobel saw the rolled-up newssheets on the desk, and all of her brave composure unraveled.

  “I could shoot him in his rotten legs,” Isobel muttered, bursting into tears. She’d sworn no more, but her body shook with the effort to contain them.

  “Get in line,” the duke said, offering his handkerchief. “Though I suspect you’d have much better aim than me.”

  Isobel dabbed at her eyes with a laugh. He’d been the one to teach her to shoot and bought her a pair of pocket pistols for her last birthday. She composed herself and took a seat, pouring a cup from the nearby tea tray instead of the bottle of brandy she wanted.

  Kendrick eyed her. “You need to go to London.”

  “I cannot go to London.”

  “He refuses to see me,” he pointed out. “He won’t refuse his wife.”

  Isobel sighed. “We’ve had this discussion, Your Grace. I won’t go and be publicly cast aside. We both know that Roth is more than capable of doing that. I won’t set myself up for such a public rejection.”

  The duke flinched. A year ago, the wretched marquess had cut his own father—a duke, no less—dead at a ball. It hadn’t done anything except pour salt in an old, raw wound between the two men, and the rumor mill had put it down to family intrigues that weren’t as rabidly exciting as Lord Roth’s other deliciously devilish escapades. Like his races in Hyde Park, bare-knuckle boxing, outrageous gambling, and illegal duels over opera singers.

  “You must.”

  A slight frown drew her brows together. “Why do you want me to go so badly? I’ve been content here in Chelmsford.”

  She cringed at the lie. Content was a ludicrous stretch of the truth. If she didn’t have Clarissa, and more recently, the twins, she would have gone mad ages ago. But Isobel had long convinced herself that her situation was better than many other ton marriages that ended in disaster. She couldn’t hate her husband if she didn’t actually see him, could she?

  She silenced the voice screaming an emphatic yes! and turned back to her father-in-law.

  “I would like to hold my grandchild before I die,” the duke said.

  Isobel’s brows rose at the turn in conversation and tried to hide the instant ache his words brought on. “You do realize that your son needs to participate for that to happen.” After years of fruitless waiting for her marauding husband to come to his senses, she’d long squashed that yearning, but it rose to torment her all the same whenever the duke mentioned grandchildren. “And you’re not going to die.”

  “I will someday,” he said. “My son is far from happy. And I believe his happiness starts with you.”

  She felt a twinge at the sadness in his voice. “He doesn’t even know me.”

  “Not yet,” the duke said. “But I do, and you are perfect for him. He needs a woman like you. Someone with a backbone who won’t take his shit.”

  Isobel gasped. Kendrick never swore. Perhaps he was as fed up with his son’s antics as she was. She sipped her rapidly cooling tea and contemplated the stern-faced man sitting across from her. “And you think that’s me?”

  The duke studied her for a long moment. “What is it you want most out of life, Isobel?”

  The question was one she’d put to herself many a lonely night abed. Isobel considered the answer. She wanted an enthusiastic, dutiful husband, and someday, a loving family like her sister and the Duke of Beswick had. She wanted companionship and friendship in a partner. She wanted a bit of adventure, passion, and maybe the chance to experience something new. And all of those things were out of her reach.

  They would continue to be so long as she stayed in Chelmsford. Isobel fisted her hands in her skirts. Confronting Winter in town was daunting, but she knew she had to make some sort of stand. She deserved to be presented to society, not hidden away like some mistake. A part of her wanted to shake her odious husband until his teeth rattled, and then show him just what he’d been missing all these years. Flaunt her presence in his face.

  Raise the daring Lady Darcy in the flesh.

  Make him grovel. Make him sorry. Make him beg.

  The thought made a dark thrill course through her veins. How often had she fumed to Clarissa about getting even? About pulling her husband up to scratch? This was her chance, and now, she even had Kendrick’s blessing.

  Isobel’s hard gaze met her father-in-law’s. “Very well, I’ll do it. I’ll go.”

  Because damned if she wasn’t going to make him regret making a fool of her for so long.

  Eloisa James meets Sarah MacLean in this fresh, fun take on women rising up

  and taking what’s theirs.

  by Stacy Reid

  Miss Maryann Fitzwilliam is too witty and bookish for her own good. No gentleman of the ton will marry her, so her parents arrange for her to wed a man old enough to be her father. But Maryann is ready to use those wits to turn herself into a sinful wallflower.

  When the scandal sheet reports a sighting of Nicolas St. Ives, the Marquess of Rothbury, climbing out the chamber windows of a house party, Maryann does the unthinkable. She anonymously claims that the bedchamber belonged to none other than Miss Fitzwilliam, tarnishing her own reputation—and chances of the dastardly union her family secured for her. Now she just needs to convince the marquess to keep his silence.

  Turns out Nicolas allows for the scandal to perpetuate for his own reasons… But when Maryann’s parents hold fast to
their arranged marriage plan, it’ll take a scandal of epic proportions for these two to get out of this together.