No Dukes Allowed

by Grace Burrowes, Kelly Bowen, Anna Harrington

  “Seymouth.” The duchess spoke softly. “I told you not to believe a man of business who knew nothing of building. I told you to have a look, to get another opinion.”

  “Your Grace,” Seymouth retorted, “now is not the time to air old and much-wrinkled linen.”

  Dunstable looked from one parent to the other. “You mean to tell me that I sold a house John Nash has deemed a jewel of architectural whatever? Sold it for a pittance ?”

  The duke and duchess spoke at the same time. “Hush.”

  “You did,” Adam said, “and I now own the property. I’ll convert it into seaside quarters for the members of my gentlemen’s club, once it has been cleaned and refurbished. My wife will oversee the decorative scheme once we return from a protracted wedding trip to Derbyshire.”

  “Derbyshire is lovely this time of year,” Augustus observed.

  “Derbyshire is lovely any time of year,” Genie added.

  “What’s the rest of it?” Dunstable’s mama snapped. “There has to be more, or you wouldn’t have gone to all this trouble. Your father has been exonerated of cheating us. What else can you want?”

  “Your son has attempted to extort not only an enormous sum of money from my intended, but also to force her to join him at the altar. In an effort to placate his ambitions, she has surrendered at least two personal heirlooms. Dunstable saw, years ago, an embrace between cousins by marriage during a private moment of grief and chose to misconstrue that memory when it became to his advantage to do so. He is no gentleman.”

  “Now see here,” Dunstable began, “I cannot be responsible for the foolish fancies of a widow whose recollections are as inaccurate as they are unflattering to me. I never threatened, implied, or intimated in any way that what I saw was anything other than—”

  “You did,” Genie said, marching up to him. “You promised me that not only would the present Duke of Tindale suffer the brunt of gossip and rumor at your hands, but you’d inform the authorities that he schemed with me to gain the title by nefarious means. You further threatened Mr. Morecambe and made it very plain that my fortune was the motivation for your proposals, threats, and plots. You extorted Papa’s snuffbox and Mama’s diamond bracelet from me. You are the proverbial blot on the family escutcheon, and I never want to see you again.”

  This magnificent set-down was followed by a ringing silence. Adam wanted to applaud, but he’d save his expressions of admiration for later, perhaps on a picnic blanket.

  “Do you contradict Her Grace of Tindale, my lord?” Adam asked.

  Dunstable’s gaze slewed about the parlor, from parent to parent, to the door, which Augustus happened to be casually leaning against.

  “Apologize,” the Duchess of Seymouth said. “For God’s sake, boy, apologize if you ever want to set foot in England.”

  “Do as your mother says,” the Duke of Seymouth added tiredly. “One ignores her advice at one’s peril. You will return the snuffbox and bracelet as well.”

  In the looks exchanged between duke and duchess, Adam understood something that hadn’t until that moment been clear: Seymouth had swindled Papa because the duke had lacked the funds to pay for the house and had been too proud to admit to his poverty. Seymouth had married an heiress and run through her money, and his son had expected to do likewise.

  “I most humbly apologize,” Dunstable said, bowing to Genie. “I do think we’d have rubbed along tolerably—”

  “Get out,” Genie snapped.

  Augustus held the door. “Your valet is packing your effects, and you’re to be on a ship for Calais by this time tomorrow.”

  “But I haven’t—”

  The Duchess of Seymouth waved her hand, and Dunstable was gone. When Augustus had pulled the door closed behind him, the duchess aimed her next question at Genie.

  “How much do you want? I warn you, the Seymouth dukedom is perennially pockets to let, but we have properties in abundance, and some of them even produce income.”

  Genie took the place at Adam’s side. “What I want—what we want—is for the wrong done to Peter Morecambe to be put right.”

  Adam slipped an arm around Genie’s waist. “What I want is to thrash your son within an inch of his useless, titled life.”

  “I want to watch,” Augustus added, straightening his cuffs.

  “If thrashing had done any good,” the Duke of Seymouth said, “Dunstable would not have made such a pest of himself. You have Nash’s letter. What will you do with it?”

  “The letter will become part of the club archives,” Adam said, “available in our Brighton property for any to see who have an interest. I won’t hide it, but I won’t bruit it about either. Reparation to my intended for Dunstable’s bullying is another matter.”

  Genie folded her hand over his where it rested on her waist. “I want Your Graces to remain for the rest of the evening, and when Augustus makes his announcement at the conclusion of the supper break, you will be visibly pleased at the news.”

  “Very visibly,” Augustus added.

  “And Dunstable?” the duchess asked.

  Adam and Genie hadn’t discussed this. He’d been too busy keeping his construction project moving forward, totaling Dunstable’s debts, arranging Nash’s visit, and missing his beloved.

  “I have two requests,” Genie said. “The first is simple: Make him pay his debts. He’s left everybody from tailors to bootmakers to haberdashers to finance his excesses. Don’t allow him to perpetuate a legacy of dishonesty and irresponsibility.”

  Seymouth looked pained. His duchess looked vindicated. “What else?”

  “Keep him away from England for at least two years,” Genie said. “My menfolk need some time for their tempers to cool—as do I. Dunstable was a nasty, vile, conniving disgrace and had I been just another young heiress in from the country, I’d likely be shackled to the likes of him for life.”

  The duchess rubbed a gloved hand across her forehead. “We will remain for the rest of the evening. We will rejoice at any announcement. We will leave Dunstable to sell his coaches and rings and snuffboxes to pay the trades. We will send him abroad for a good long while.”

  Seymouth assisted the duchess to her feet. “And we will apologize. By the time I could have made things right with Peter Morecambe, he had gone to his reward. I will recommend your services to all and sundry, Mr. Morecambe, and admit my part in the misunderstanding that sent your father into retirement. Honesty from me now won’t give you back your father, but it will allow me a very small measure of self-respect.”

  He bowed and withdrew, his duchess at his side.

  “That went well,” Augustus said. “I do believe Seymouth and his duchess consider themselves in your debt, Morecambe.”

  “Honor is not the exclusive province of the titled,” Adam said.

  Genie kissed his cheek. “Nor of those who wear breeches. Away with you, Augustus. Adam has something he wants to ask me.”

  Tindale stayed right where he was. “If it has to do with capitals and astragals, then an estimate would be the first—”

  “Out,” Adam said. “Now.”

  Augustus scampered from the room—in as much as a largish duke could scamper—and Adam took Genie by the hand and led her over to the sofa.

  “Your Grace,” he said, lacing his fingers with hers. “Would you do me the very great honor of reserving all of your future picnics for me and me alone?”

  “Yes,” Genie said, wrapping her arms about his neck, “or yes, unless children come along, in which case, we will have to let them accompany us at least some of the time.”

  Oh, that was the best, best answer. Adam kissed her and kissed her and kissed her, and only Augustus rapping on the door prevented Genie from holding their first picnic as a betrothed couple on the rug before the formal parlor’s hearth.

  Epilogue

  * * *

  Genie mapped out a wedding journey that wandered from Yorkshire to Lancashire, then down to her beloved Derbyshire, the better to inspect
properties for purchase. She also frequently inspected her husband’s unclad person.

  She settled on a lovely estate in Derbyshire and promptly named it Farmdale. The lintel over the drawing room was Gibbons’s work, and the portrait gallery included plasterwork by Bradbury and Pettifer.

  “I do so love my sheep,” she said, lounging back on the blanket. “They seem happy.”

  Adam, upon whose chest she reclined, propped his chin on her crown. “They seem woolly and happy.”

  She turned in his arms, feeling like the luckiest woman in the realm. “Are you happy?”

  Adam nuzzled her ear, which gave her the shivers in the best possible way. “Not quite.”

  Oh dear. She’d worried. She had never quite felt like a genuine duchess—and thank heavens she no longer had to try—but would Adam ever feel comfortable as the husband of a dowager duchess?

  “What’s amiss?”

  “Another viscount has petitioned for membership in the club.” The gentlemen’s club in London was simply named Morecambe’s, nicknames notwithstanding.

  Adam had the loveliest steady heartbeat. “How many is that?” Genie asked.

  “This will be our fourth if we approve of his application. He’s an earl’s heir.”

  Three months ago, Genie might have scampered off to the nearest copy of Debrett’s, where she’d research the courtesy lord in question and all of his family connections. The Farmdale library held no such volume.

  “Is he a decent fellow?” she asked.

  “Seems to be. Two current members vouch for him. He pays the trades on time.”

  Genie struggled into a sitting position as an inquisitive lamb sniffed at the blanket. “But you don’t want his business?”

  “I want the business of any decent man who appreciates a place to spend time with others of like temperament, but this man will be an earl someday. Viscounts can be relatively unassuming, but an earl…”

  Genie waited, because Adam considered his words and what he had to say mattered.

  “Life was simpler when I could resent the entire peerage and dukes in particular,” he said. “We’ve been invited over to Chatsworth for dinner.”

  “His Grace of Devonshire is a lovely man,” Genie said. “He’s a bit hard of hearing, but a great patron of the arts and sciences.” He was also their neighbor, by country reckoning, and a genial host.

  The lamb grew bolder, sniffing at the wicker basket on one corner of the blanket.

  “He’s a duke,” Adam said. “This part of the country is positively infested with them. I’m an architect.”

  “My favorite architect, who is wrestling with some conundrum which you’ve yet to share with me.”

  Adam distracted the lamb by scratching its woolly forehead. “Devonshire’s invitation included a note. He’d like my opinion on some renovations.”

  “Ah.”

  He scooped up the lamb and cradled the lucky little creature against his chest. “Am I a tradesman, a respected professional, a neighbor?”

  “What would you like to be?”

  “Mostly, I’d like to be your husband.” The lamb leaped off of Adam’s lap and gamboled away. He watched it go, and Genie took the lamb’s place.

  “You are concerned,” she said, pushing his hair back from his brow, “that a gentleman does not engage in trade, much less in commercial undertakings. As an architect, you were a gentleman with a profession. Now you are in the middle of Derbyshire, with me.”

  “My favorite place to be.”

  He meant that, and he’d given up much to make it so. “Adam, you don’t have to choose. You don’t have to remain penned here at Farmdale like one of my rams. You can be Devonshire’s neighbor and consult on his renovations. Chatsworth is a perpetual work in progress and enormous. If the duke isn’t modifying his house, he’s tinkering with the stables, the gardens, the conservatory, the landscaping, the fountains… I’m sure you will assist him if you can, and if he offers a professional arrangement, and you’d enjoy the work, then do it.”

  Adam passed her a clover plucked from the grass. “For pay? You would not object to my taking commissions?”

  He’d found a lucky clover, hadn’t even had to hunt for it.

  “You trained long and hard to develop your expertise, and Devonshire has pots of money. Why should you work for free? I don’t intend to give my wool away.” That Adam would trouble over this decision and discuss it with her was all the morning gift Genie would ever need.

  “I never want you to regret marrying me, Genie. You learned to move in circles I never aspired to reach, and I…”

  “You love to build things.” He’d built her the most marvelous barn, for example, with winches and trapdoors and chutes and clever lifts.

  “Mostly, I want to build a life with you. I’ll have a look at the renovations at Chatsworth.” He fanned his hand over the grass again, as if he could feel the four-leaf clovers. “Worksop apparently needs some interior redesign as well.”

  “That’s the family seat of the Dukes of Norfolk.”

  Adam was smiling. “His Grace of Newcastle has invited us to Clumber House at a time of your convenience. I think your peers are rallying to your cause, madam.”

  Genie tackled him, because what were blankets—and husbands—for? “They are rallying to your cause, you daft man. Not all dukes are like Seymouth or Dunstable. They are the exceptions, in fact. Most dukes are simply gentlemen with complicated estates.”

  “I am a gentleman,” Adam said, frothing Genie’s skirts up. “I am your gentleman.”

  He was so much more than that. He was Genie’s partner in every regard, her lover, her companion, her favorite architect.

  “You will be very busy,” she said, kissing his nose. “I might have to hire you to ensure our home is kept in good repair.”

  “You will come with me on reconnaissance,” he said. “I don’t intend to take on these dukes without you.”

  “We’ll take them on together, just as you assist me to manage my flocks, and—oh, Mr. Morecambe.” Adam had situated himself behind her, so they lay spooned on the blanket. His hand had found its way between her legs, and Genie’s thoughts went scampering off like spring lambs.

  “We should reply to Devonshire’s invitation, Mrs. Morecambe.” He called her that when they were private, and it was Genie’s favorite endearment. “Also to Newcastle and Norfolk. You’ll help me compose my replies?”

  “No dukes right now, please, Adam. Not on my picnic blanket, please.” What he could do with his big, talented hands…

  He leaned closer and kissed her temple. “No dukes for now, then, only the architect of your fondest wishes and most intimate dreams.”

  To my dear readers,

  I hope you enjoyed Adam and Genie’s happily ever after, meaning no disrespect to all those dashing dukes. For my next full-length novel, My Own True Duchess (June 2018), I recruited a ducal heir, Jonathan Tresham, to woo the fair maid. Suffice it to say, Jonathan’s dashing needs some work—a lot of work—and Theodosia Haviland has a few pointers for him. Order your copy here. Enjoy an excerpt below.

  If you simply must have another duke, you’ll be pleased to know that the first story in my Rogues to Riches Series, My One and Only Duke (Nov. 2018), features Quinn Wentworth, who doesn’t find out he’s come into a ducal title until he’s kicking his heels in Newgate prison. Jane Winston come along, and then things really get interesting. Order your copy here. Enjoy an excerpt below.

  I hope to have another True Gentlemen on the shelves in September 2018, but that will require the cooperation of a certain stubborn earl—I’m looking at you, Grey Birch Dorning—and a widow with a mind of her own. Wheeee!

  If you’d like to keep up to date regarding my upcoming deals, pre-orders, or new releases, following me on Bookbub is a handy way to do that. If you’re more the type who enjoys cover reveals and author-chat in addition the new release announcements, you can sign up for my newsletter.

  Happy reading!

>   Grace Burrowes

  My Own True Duchess

  * * *

  Mr. Jonathan Tresham, heir to a dukedom, has sought the privacy of an unused parlor to negotiate with Mrs. Theo Haviland for certain personal services. The negotiations are off to a bumpy start…

  “I don’t want a perishing duchess!”

  Mr. Tresham had raised his voice, though he was insisting rather than shouting. Theo was pleased with his reaction nonetheless. He’d managed the situation with Bea, managed Diana’s obstinance in the park, and managed any number of presuming debutantes. Theo was cheered to think Mr. Tresham had found a situation he could not confidently handle on his own.

  “What do you want, Mr. Tresham? You are to become a duke, God willing. Dukes are married to duchesses.”

  “Might we sit? I’ll spend the rest of the evening enduring bosoms pressed to my person while I prance around the ballroom with a simpering, sighing, young woman in my arms. My feet ache at the very prospect.”

  Theo began to enjoy herself. “Poor dear. You must have nightmares about all those bosoms.”

  He smiled, a rueful quirk of the lips that transformed his features from severe to… charming? Surely not.

  Theo took a seat and patted the cushion beside her. “Speak plainly, Mr. Tresham. The bosoms await.”

  He took the place beside her. “Plain speaking has ever been my preference. I left England after finishing at Cambridge, and went abroad to make my fortune. In that endeavor, I was successful, but the whole time I ought to have been finding my way among polite society, making the right associations, being a dutiful heir, I was instead making money on the Continent.”

  Without any partners, he’d said. “Why Cambridge? You would have met more young men from the right families at Oxford.”

  Theo really ought to scoot a good foot to the side. She’d taken the middle of the sofa, and Mr. Tresham was thus wedged between her and the armrest. There was room, if they sat improperly close.