Daring a Duke

by Claudia Dain

  He made his way through the throng with the grace of a snake. Sophia watched him until he was lost in the crowd.

  “Perhaps we could find a more sequestered spot, Sophia?” Edenham said, looking over her head to survey the room. “It is rather close in here, is it not?”

  “A fine assembly,” she said. “Everyone in Town is here to honor Hyde, and to be seen honoring him. Caro and Ashdon are on their way, I believe, and did hope to arrive in time. I am so sorry they seem to have been delayed.”

  As she spoke, she and Edenham wound their way to a corner of the blue reception room, quite near the door to the stair hall. Hyde House, quite a large home on Piccadilly, was an utterly perfect place in which to hold large and impressive entertainments. The rooms were arranged in something like a square circle, the stair hall comprising the large middle square with two reception rooms, a music room, a drawing room, a dressing room, a bedchamber, and an antechamber comprising the outer parts of the square. It was entirely possible, and indeed it was encouraged, that when large parties were hosted that the guests move about the circuit of rooms at their inclination. It was the only way to keep things from stagnating, much like swiftly moving water circulating through a pond. One did not want pockets of still water, not unless one enjoyed what resulted from men and women finding themselves in secluded and undisturbed corners. Which, of course, many did.

  “I want your help, Sophia,” Edenham said abruptly.

  “Of course,” she said brightly. “Anything at all, Edenham.”

  The Duke of Edenham, looking quite somber, stared at her quite determinedly. “I want to marry again,” he said.

  “But how lovely!” she said. “And of course you should.

  Do you know whom yet?”

  Why had Ruan never married? He hadn’t, she knew that.

  As a marquis, he should have been determined to assure his legacy, finding a wife and getting heirs upon her as soon as he had reached his majority and abused the privilege of title and wealth for as long as he could. That was the tradition among the English, wasn’t it? How was it that Ruan, far past his majority now and, one assumed, all flagrant abuses of privilege behind him, had not married some proper girl and produced one or two proper children by her?

  “Miss Jane Elliot,” Edenham said, breaking into her pointless speculations about Ruan. “I will marry Miss Elliot.”

  He looked quite serious about it, poor darling. Jane Elliot? He had clearly been fascinated by her, to be sure, but marriage? Quite precipitous.

  Sophia nodded and said, “But darling, haven’t you only just met her?”

  Edenham looked just slightly embarrassed by the question, which was completely amusing, but then he quickly gathered his composure. In point of fact, he looked utterly ducal and proud, if not to say arrogant. He clearly meant to have the girl, and could see no difficulty in snatching her up.

  How very British of him. She could read his reasoning quite easily. He was a duke. She was a simple American girl, with a family connection to the Duke of Hyde, never a hindrance in matters of this sort. He was titled, wealthy, handsome, eligible. She was beautiful, young, well connected, and, he had to assume, properly impressed by his grandeur.

  She cared for Edenham, she truly did, but he did not understand Americans at all.

  “I have,” Edenham said, his arrogance sitting quite comfortably upon his features. “And I have decided. She would make me an ideal wife, I believe. I am, you will be forced to admit, a good judge of women. Haven’t my three previous wives been exemplary?”

  “They have,” Sophia agreed calmly. “Yet I must point out that you were not married for any great length of time to any of them. Through no fault of your own, naturally.”

  That the delicious Duke of Edenham had married a perfectly lovely and acceptable woman once, got her with child, and then watched her die upon her birthing bed had been a tragedy. A not uncommon one, but still, a tragedy.

  That it had happened again to his second wife upon the birth of his second child was the subject of much speculation, not very much of it flattering to Edenham. That it had happened to his third wife, and that his son had been stillborn, was the sort of horrific concurrence of events that Society loved to get its teeth into.

  Edenham, thrice married and thrice widowed, was the subject of lurid legend, the seed of his legend resting firmly on his . . . seed.

  Ridiculous bit of nonsense, but when did that ever matter when the life of a salacious rumor was at stake? The rumor and the ensuing whispers about the man were simply too fantastic to discard. Edenham was such a lovely man, truly what any woman, any English woman, would want in a husband. Unfortunately, the younger women in Society were afraid of him. The older, more experienced women in Society didn’t need him, not as a husband at any rate. Only Penelope Prestwick, who only this morning had become the wife of the Marquis of Iveston, had been of enough resolve of character and determination of purpose to actually want to marry the Duke of Edenham. Of course, once she had got a closer look at Iveston, all resolve and determination for Edenham had flown north with the geese.

  Edenham had not had a good time of it, truly. He deserved better, but did he deserve Jane Elliot?

  He would certainly believe so, though what Jane Elliot believed was an entirely different matter, not that Edenham understood that. Yet. Still, he would have such fun running after her. And darling Edenham could do with a good bit of fun.

  “Thank you,” Edenham said to her remark, his gaze riveted upon Miss Elliot, who stood completely across the room from them. She was an amazing beauty, her hair the glossy dark brown of mink, her large and expressive eyes of shimmering hazel, her features elegantly arranged. Small wonder that Edenham was completely taken in. “Since you agree with me, and since it is clear to me that you have some warmth of acquaintance with the Elliot family, I would ask you to help me present my suit to her.”

  Sophia nodded slowly and kept her gaze slightly averted.

  Her warmth of acquaintance with the Elliot family was not, perhaps, quite as intimate as Edenham hoped. The connection was tenuous and irregular, though not unpleasant. Still, Jane Elliot most obviously wanted to remain in England for a time, and she was not shy about asking for help in managing her brothers. That showed both wisdom and cleverness, which truly did not conjoin as often as they should. It also displayed a certain boldness that Sophia found irresistible.

  The question then became: Would Miss Jane Elliot of New York enjoy being pursued by the Duke of Edenham?

  The answer was obvious: Whyever not?

  It then became a question of strategy, the most intriguing question of all. Playing at strategy was such fun. She couldn’t think why more people did not engage in the practice, but even a casual survey amply proved they did not.

  How else to explain the general muddle?

  “That may prove difficult,” she said to Edenham, looking up at him. He truly was an utterly spectacular-looking man. Jane would have such a marvelous time with him.

  “Why, if I may ask?” Edenham said, looking properly outraged. “I am in the pink of health and possessed of every attribute a woman seeks in a husband. I am a duke, after all.”

  He may have puffed out his chest a bit as he said it. She was nearly certain he did so. He most definitely lifted his chin and looked down at her from his impressive height.

  Sophia nodded and let a smile escape her lips. “Yes, darling, and this is precisely the problem. What does an American girl want with a duke? They have no use for them, you see, not you personally, you understand, but as a concept, as an ideal.” Sophia paused for a moment before applying the spur. “To her, you are simply a man far older than she, living in a country that is foreign to her, with three dead wives and two small children to his credit. Why, my darling Edenham, would Miss Elliot want to marry you?”

  Edenham, to his immense credit, did not turn and bolt for the nearest exit.

  It was one of the finest rea
sons to like a man, one who did not run at the first hint of resistance.

  Sophia’s thoughts strayed to Lord Ruan for a fraction of a moment, but she regained control quickly enough, as was her practice.

  Four

  Lady Louisa had seen it all, indeed she could not but believe that everyone had seen it, yet she could not make herself accept it. It was inconceivable.

  Lady Amelia believed it, found it completely remarkable, and was trying to put a good face on it. It was very like her.

  Penelope, Lady Iveston, who should have been blissfully enjoying her wedding breakfast with all the joy reserved for brides, was so stunned that she could barely find words to express it.

  Barely. She did find the words. Penelope had never been totally without words, at least not unless Iveston was somehow involved. As Iveston was not involved in this turn of events in any manner, she found she had much to say, once the initial shock had worn down.

  “I tried forever to get Edenham to notice me,” Penelope said hotly, “and he was never more than passing civil, and barely that. Why, I could hardly arrange for him to look fully at me for even a minute.”

  “Not quite the thing to discuss on the day of your wedding, is it, Penelope?” Amelia said softly.

  “I should think I can safely discuss a man who paid me not one whit of attention, particularly on the day I married the man who can’t keep his hands off me even in a crowded room,” Penelope said. It was just the sort of rational, slightly rude thing that Penelope made a habit of saying. Amelia hadn’t yet grown accustomed to it. Louisa had no intention of trying.

  “What can he see in her?” Louisa said, looking across the room to where Edenham stood talking to Sophia Dalby in a secluded corner. Not precisely secluded, if one insisted upon absolute accuracy, but certainly out of the main throng. There was no need to be ridiculous about accuracy now, was there? It was enough that the Duke of Edenham, whom nobody wanted to marry unless they were desperate to marry a handsome duke, which, in fact, did include very many women, was clearly captivated by Jane Elliot, American.

  Oh, yes, Jane was beautiful. Louisa knew she was beautiful, could plainly see that she was beautiful, but Jane was far from being the only beautiful woman in the room. This was London, after all. Edenham had certainly seen a beautiful woman before now.

  He’d been married to three beautiful women, and shouldn’t that have taught a man that there was more to a woman than beauty?

  No, probably not. They did get so distracted by things of that nature. If she weren’t quite beautiful enough in her own right she might find it excessively annoying.

  “She’s quite supremely beautiful, for one,” Penelope answered, looking at Louisa as if she were an imbecile.

  “Added to that, she’s a very pleasant sort of girl. I like her.”

  Penelope gave Louisa a very searching and slightly accusatory look, as if they all didn’t like Jane. Of course Louisa liked Jane, it was only that Jane was so very different. An acquired taste, surely. But why then had Edenham not required the necessary time to acquire a taste for Jane? It was beyond comprehension.

  “I like her, too,” Amelia said, looking at Louisa with a slightly warning aspect.

  “I like her!” Louisa said, which, as she had spoken a bit abruptly and not at all quietly, had caused Lord Raithby to start and stare in her direction. She nodded at Lord Raithby, who was quite handsome, and smiled slightly. Raithby simply looked, and then looked away. Raithby, it was quite well known, was completely horse-mad. Of course he wouldn’t know what to do when a beautiful woman smiled at him, a married woman at that. She was firmly married to Blakes, and couldn’t be happier about it, which should have proved to Raithby most fully that he was in no danger from her.

  Men really were so slow on most days. One was kept in constant turmoil in trying to bring them round to anything resembling good sense.

  Which put her right back round to Edenham and his utterly obvious fascination for Jane. One would think that, being a duke of mature years and with three wives to his credit, or debit, depending on one’s perspective, Edenham would have learnt some sort of rudimentary composure around women. He gave every appearance of being entirely lacking in composure regarding Jane. With any other woman in Town, and for as many years as anyone could remember, he was completely composed. As to that, he was not at all affected by Sophia Dalby and every man was affected by her, Blakes excluded, naturally.

  Most definitely excluded, if he had any sense at all.

  What was it about Jane Elliot that had captivated the Duke of Edenham?

  And what could be done about it?

  “She is Blakes’s cousin, after all,” Louisa said, trying to see Jane in the crowd and failing. The room was an absolute crush. “Family bonds, and all that.”

  “And all that,” Amelia repeated, smiling devilishly.

  Amelia, who had always been so generally quiet and well mannered, had got quite sparkish upon marrying Cranleigh. What to think but that Cranleigh was a horrid influence on her? There were rumors that Amelia and Cranleigh had been slightly involved in something torrid for years, but Louisa discounted that entirely. It was not at all possible to be slightly involved in anything torrid with a man. Was not Blakes the most solid proof of that? Anything torrid with a man was a full-blown event, no half measures about it.

  “The point I’m trying to make,” Louisa said, tossing a red curl over her shoulder, “is that since Jane has snared the Duke of Edenham without any effort at all—”

  “Without any obvious effort,” Penelope cut in. Penelope made a habit of being unaccountably precise. It was extremely trying. “She may just do it very well. Who knows what techniques they practice in New York? They might know things about snaring men that we know nothing of.

  Yet. I shall ask her. I’m certain she’d be happy to educate us about it.”

  “Educate other women in how to effortlessly snag a handsome man’s undivided attention?” Louisa asked, her brows raised. “That’s quite naïve, isn’t it?”

  “Not if Jane is as pleasant and as charming as you believe her to be,” Amelia said, smiling fully, not even trying to hide it behind her fan, the bold thing. Louisa couldn’t think what Cranleigh had done to Amelia, but she didn’t care for it in the least. Between Amelia’s new bold ways and Penelope’s frank ones, Louisa was quite put out fully half the time.

  “Are you suggesting that you need to find new ways to attract a man?” Louisa asked. “I had expected Lord Cranleigh to have persuaded you that he is quite all you should want. Or are you still pining for some duke or other?”

  Amelia, far from blushing and stammering, which she might have done a six month ago, laughed and said, “Louisa, if you believe that, you are the last person in Town to do so. Certainly Cranleigh thinks nothing of the sort. I did think you had a more finely developed sense of humor. Perhaps Blakes is responsible for your bleak temper?”

  “You have been very churlish of late, Louisa,” Penelope said, her black eyes studying Louisa’s face. “Not feeling quite the thing, or is it simply a row with your husband?

  I can’t think it’s a good sign to be in conflict so quickly and so heatedly after only having been married a few weeks.

  It does point to a habit of contention, which I believe should be avoided, unless absolutely necessary. Was it necessary?”

  “I did not have a row with Blakes!” Louisa snapped.

  “Yet if I did, I should certainly have won it, and I would not be in anything like a bleak temper after having made my point with him.”

  “And what was the point you made?” Penelope asked, tilting her head quizzically at Louisa before turning to face Amelia, and winking.

  Louisa, beyond all control of herself, burst out laughing.

  Amelia and Penelope joined her, naturally. She had been made a proper fool, and it had been done very handily.

  She did like Penelope, especially now that she was safely married.
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  “Now, what is it you have in mind for dear Jane?” Amelia asked when they had resumed the carefully composed aspects one put on for public display. “She is family, and she is an American, and I don’t know but that we should be very careful of her for those two reasons alone. I know I should very much dislike being made uncomfortable if I ever should visit New York, which I hope most heartily to do.”

  “I can’t think how gaining a duke’s attention should make any woman uncomfortable,” Penelope said. As Penelope had been doggedly determined to marry a duke and nothing less, and as it was her wedding day to the Duke of Hyde’s heir apparent, her opinion was just slightly shaded.

  “What she does with it is entirely up to her. Shouldn’t that be a highly pleasant circumstance? I would have found it so.”

  “Did she look to you to be pleased by Edenham’s attention?” Louisa asked Penelope.

  Penelope looked down at the floor, pondered, and then looked up again. “No, she did not. In fact, if I had to hazard a guess, she looked a bit displeased, which I cannot comprehend in the slightest. What is there to be displeased about?”

  “Let’s ask her,” Louisa said. And, with that, they tried to move through the crowd as gracefully as possible.

  Lord Raithby watched the three Blakesley brides of the current Season make their most determined way through the throng that had turned the spacious grace of the blue reception room at Hyde House into something not unlike a tavern brawl in both noise and excitement.

  He had heard enough of their conversation to be slightly alarmed. Just slightly. He was not married to any one of them, he had no sister to fall prey to their plots, and he did not know Jane Elliot. No, he had nothing to be alarmed about.

  But there was just something tickling at the back of his thoughts, some small remembered bit of a conversation he had dabbled in with George Prestwick, Penelope’s brother, a month or so ago. On the night that wagers were flying left and right about whom Penelope would marry. He had won twenty pounds based solely on the condition of Iveston’s cravat, courtesy of Miss Prestwick. George Prestwick had been quite alarmed by the wagers flying about about his sister, causing Raithby to be more than glad he did not have a sister of his own to worry over. Still, it had caused him to think of other things besides horses and wagers, and he had not quite shaken himself free of it yet.