No Dukes Allowed

by Grace Burrowes, Kelly Bowen, Anna Harrington

  The men soberly raised their glasses with his to drink to fallen comrades and a continuation of peace. One of them murmured, “Hear, hear.”

  The men moved away, now that the novelty of having Max among them had worn off, to return to their card games and cigars.

  He set down his empty glass and gestured for a refill, grateful to finally have the peaceful drink he’d sought when he entered the club. And a moment to himself to contemplate what to do next about Belinda. If he didn’t complete his orders, his military career would be over. There would be no more promotions, no more command posts. He’d be lucky not to be sent to some godforsaken post in northern Canada.

  But if he succeeded, he’d never win Belinda’s forgiveness.

  Either way he was damned.

  The attendant placed the glass in front of him. Just as Max raised the drink, a large hand slapped him on the back, causing him to nearly spill the brandy.

  Oliver Graham grinned at him. “Heard you and Colonel Woodhouse just had a set-to.”

  “I was a dashing hero, I’ll have you know.” He took a gasping swallow and welcomed the burn down his throat. Thank God Graham was in Brighton this summer. The way things were going, he could certainly use an ally. “I was defending a woman’s honor.”

  “So that’s what they’re calling it these days.” Graham signaled for a drink. “And here I thought you’d simply struck out at a man for daring to criticize the woman you once loved, then shut the two of you together into a small room.” He paused. “Alone.”

  Max grimaced. Apparently, rumors were faster than military intelligence, as well.

  “Were you hoping to hold her captive until she declared her undying devotion to your cause?” Graham joked.

  “Holding her captive is on tomorrow’s agenda.” He was only half teasing. If tying up Belinda until she agreed to champion him to the board would have worked, he’d have done it right there in the hospital.

  Graham’s amusement sobered. “I take it that your meeting didn’t go well.”

  “As well as can be expected.”

  “That badly, huh?”

  In answer, Max tossed back the brandy and signaled for another.

  Graham was one of his oldest and most trusted friends, and fate had tossed them together in Brighton this summer. But even after years apart, they’d fallen back into their fast friendship. Graham was one of a handful of men in the world whom he trusted unquestioningly with his life, and the only one who knew the real reason why he’d broken off with Belinda. He knew he could count on his advice. And when his advice failed, he could count on Graham’s silence to let him wallow in misery in peace.

  Graham arched a brow. “Well?”

  Usually.

  “Circumstances weren’t the best.” Max rubbed at the knot in his nape. “I surprised her by being the officer in charge.”

  Surprised? Hardly. He’d downright stunned her. The look of wounding that had gripped her beautiful face when she’d walked into the room and seen him had torn his breath away. So had the hatred that immediately replaced it.

  He hadn’t reacted much better, staring at her throughout the meeting like a smitten pup. He simply wasn’t prepared for his visceral reaction to seeing her again. One that had come like a punch to his gut when he saw her face, those sparkling green eyes, and that auburn hair that was even softer than it looked. And the way he’d chastised Woodhouse—Christ. He’d have to seek out the colonel to offer his apologies.

  But seeing her again changed nothing. “I have no intention of giving up trying to win her support.” The academy was too important.

  “What about winning her over in other ways?”

  His gaze snapped to his friend. Surely he didn’t mean… “Pardon?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Graham eyed him warily. “ Pomperly’s arrived in Brighton.”

  A rush of jealousy burned through him at the mention of the duke, followed by an unreasonable flash of hatred that Pomperly would dare try to claim her—

  Then he felt like a damned fool.

  Good God. Less than an hour in Belinda’s presence, and he was already losing his mind.

  What did it matter to him if rumors were flowing through London like the Thames that the Duke of Pomperly had determined to marry Belinda? So many rumors, in fact, that all of Society believed just that would happen, so confident in it that the gossips had begun to call her the Double Duchess. What difference did it make to him whom she chose to let into her life… or into her heart?

  Still, he couldn’t stop his hand from shaking as he raised the glass to take a bracing swallow.

  “So if you want to pursue her yourself, then—”

  “No.” He said that with more force than he’d intended. But good God, he wasn’t here because of her. He was here exactly for the reason he’d given her—to turn his experience into saving men’s lives rather than leading them to their deaths. To think he’d come here wanting anything else was preposterous. “It’s no concern of mine who courts her.”

  And yet, he was shaken by seeing her again, hearing her voice, and breathing in the sweet lavender scent of her… by seeing firsthand that she still possessed the same fiery spirit and kindness of heart that had made him fall in love with her. Just as he couldn’t help experiencing again the old jealousies and desires he’d once felt over her. He wouldn’t be a warm-blooded man if he didn’t, even if he had no intention of acting upon them.

  “Seems to me you’ve been given a second chance,” Graham said thoughtfully. “You might consider taking it.”

  He laughed, although in truth he didn’t find the suggestion at all amusing. “All I want is her vote.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Absolutely.” A damned lie. He wasn’t certain at all.

  He’d loved her once, he couldn’t deny that. And ten years ago, he’d convinced himself that he loved her enough to let her go, just as he’d convinced himself that a life in the army was all he needed. He’d had to, in order to keep getting out of bed in the mornings once she was gone. In order to simply keep breathing. He’d hoped that eventually, with the passage of enough time and distance, he could purge her from his heart the way he’d purged her from his life.

  He’d been a damned fool to ever think that.

  * * *

  Belinda slumped down onto the bench in the town house’s garden and hung her head.

  Maxwell Thorpe… good God.

  Of all the places to encounter him again, of all the ways she’d always imagined in her mind for how they’d meet after all these years, if ever—this certainly wasn’t it. She’d planned to pretend not to recognize him at all at first, then give a well-practiced look of bored disdain, followed by a haughty sniff and a toss of her head, then casually pass him by as if he meant nothing to her… actions she’d replayed countless times in her mind. Not one of which had involved a fight over elderly pensioners.

  She bit back a groan. Only Maxwell would reappear in her life at this very moment and completely invert it, now that she’d finally found her footing after Winchester’s death nearly three years ago.

  But then, hadn’t he always taken her off guard?

  She sucked in a pained breath as the memories rushed over her like a tidal wave. The day she’d met him, when her eighteen-year-old eyes had never seen a more handsome man, even wounded and covered with bandages… Their first dance at the assembly rooms, first picnic in the park, first stroll… Their first kiss, when she could never have imagined a more magical moment. Until he’d said he loved her and wanted to marry her. And that had been simply perfect. Because she’d never expected to find love.

  To say that her prospects for marriage had been limited would have been a grand overstatement of how bleak they’d actually been.

  Bleak? Black, more like.

  Despite empty flattery from gentlemen about how beautiful and brilliant she was, those compliments never turned into courtship. Not once those same gentlemen discovered that she had no dowry bec
ause her father had made bad business decisions and stumbled far into debt. She’d been destined for spinsterhood.

  Until she met Maxwell.

  The biting irony was that she’d met him right here in Brighton, recuperating in the very hospital he now wanted to destroy. He’d been wounded during his first engagement on the Peninsula, by the slice of a French bayonet across his chest that nearly killed him. He’d needed doctors’ care and a place to heal before he could return to his post.

  Love had been immediate for both of them, she’d been so certain of that then. Both had helped heal the other, with Maxwell accepting her help in mending his physical wounds and Belinda relying upon his strength and resolve when she learned that her father was dying. When she was with Maxwell, she’d felt healed, whole… loved. They’d given each other hope for a brighter future, one with a happy home and loving family. Together. But fate had had other plans, and less than one year later, their future was over.

  Maxwell Pennington Thorpe … Heavens, what was she going to do?

  Because the problem wasn’t speaking her mind and telling him what she thought of him and his plans. Oh, she’d done a fine job of that!

  No. The problem was that even now, despite the hell he’d put her through, a part of her still loved him. And always would.

  “There you are!” Eugenia swept through the open French doors of the town house into the garden. Diana followed closely behind.

  When the three of them had decided to share the town house this season, escaping London for the seaside with her two oldest and dearest friends had seemed like a godsend. The perfect way to put distance between her and the Duke of Pomperly until he found another woman to cast his attentions upon.

  Now it felt as if she’d been tossed from the pan into the fire.

  A distraught expression marred Diana’s pretty face. “I just heard—Maxwell Thorpe? How are you holding up?”

  She forced a smile. “I’m fine. There’s nothing to worry about.”

  But the two joined her at the bench, with Diana reassuringly clasping her hand. Her throat tightened with emotion at their concern.

  “Truly. He’s here only for military business.” When the two women exchanged dubious looks, Belinda reminded them, “I deal with military officers all the time. I know how to hold my own against them.”

  Neither woman replied to that. They’d been friends since their school days, and they knew each other well enough to spot when one was dissembling. Or, in this case, outright lying.

  Then Eugenia arched a brow in silent recrimination.

  Belinda sighed and, biting her lip, admitted quietly, “There is more to the story.”

  “I knew it!” Diana clapped her hands, then turned toward Genie. “I told you that something was amiss. That Maxwell Thorpe just happened to be in Brighton at the same time as she is. That he just happened to be there when she needed to be rescued from Colonel Woodhouse—”

  “I did not need to be rescued,” she ground out in aggravation, then felt immediately guilty over poor Colonel Woodhouse and the spurious stories being spread about him already. Apparently, the Brighton rumor mill was operating at breakneck speed. And as inaccurately as ever.

  “Oh, I think we all need to be rescued by tall, dark, and handsome men in uniform,” Genie drawled.

  “Especially when we don’t,” Diana finished with a smile.

  Belinda rolled her eyes. “And do we need to surrender as well?”

  Genie’s smile faltered. “He said that? That he wanted you to…”

  “Surrender?” Diana whispered breathlessly.

  “Of a sort.”

  She stood and stepped a few feet away, presumably to study a bloom on the rosebush, but more because she simply couldn’t sit still. Her heart pounded too hard, her breath came too ragged. Maxwell’s unexpected arrival had flustered her, and it wasn’t just the confusion and anger that set her trembling. Because he’d looked good. Very good. The years had matured him into a man who was very much confident in himself, one used to getting what he wanted.

  She straightened her spine with as much courage as she could muster. “Maxwell is here in Brighton to close the hospital.”

  Shock flashed across their faces, yet they listened silently as she told them about the meeting. Both were remorseful when she explained what really happened with Colonel Woodhouse, and neither reacted at all to Maxwell’s caress of her cheek… because she conveniently forgot to tell them.

  “He’s truly going to do that?” Diana paled, her hand going to her throat. “Turn the hospital into an academy?”

  She grimaced. “If I cannot find a way to stop him.”

  “Then he’s just as terrible as before, isn’t he?” Genie’s question was a statement.

  More like sisters than friends, they both knew what had happened between her and Maxwell. They’d been at her side during those wonderful months when he’d said that he wanted to marry her—only an understanding, not a formal agreement. But at the time, she’d thought that had been for the best. After all, he’d been at the start of his career and off on a bad foot at that. Or rather, on a bayoneted chest. It might have been years before he rose in the ranks high enough to provide a home for her and the children she’d dreamed of having, but she had been willing to wait… sort of. Because she’d gone to her father, to ask Papa to use his influence to help Maxwell with his career. It had worked, and he was assigned to Fort St George in India, where he would be able to quickly distinguish himself while staying out of the fray of the wars.

  Maxwell had been away less than a year when her father’s debts became so out of hand that creditors began beating at the door, when Papa’s illness grew worse and death became a certainty. In desperation, she’d written to him, begging him to come home and help her… only for him to reply that his future lay with the army. In India.

  But out of the ashes of that love came salvation for her family, if not for her heart. Lord George Collins offered for her, and she married him. He saved her family from ruin, taking them in after Papa’s death and paying off their debts, and eventually, he made her a duchess when his brother died. Overall, it was as good a Society marriage as could be hoped. Winchester was kind and generous, dedicated to his position in Parliament and to his family… but she never loved him, not the way she once loved Maxwell.

  Inhaling a jerking breath, Belinda answered, “It appears so.”

  “I don’t mean to defend him,” Diana said delicately, “but he does have a good point about the soldiers needing better training.”

  He did, drat him. “But at the expense of the pensioners’ home?”

  “Perhaps you could talk with him,” Genie interjected. “Convince him that the hospital isn’t at all the kind of facility that cadets in training need.”

  “Yes!” Diana’s face lit up at the possibility. “Surely he’s receptive to reason.”

  “He’s a brigadier who will most likely be promoted to major-general in recompense for starting this new academy.” She shook her head. “I don’t think logic matters.”

  “But he wasn’t always a brigadier,” Genie reminded her.

  Belinda knew that well. Despite the agony he’d caused her, she still hadn’t been able to bring herself to let go of him completely in the intervening years. She’d followed him as best she could through newspaper reports and shared acquaintances, knowing every place he’d been stationed since leaving England… first at Fort St George, then stints in Egypt and Nassau, before heading back to the Continent to help restore Europe after the wars and ensure the peace. Just as she knew every heroic act he’d committed to save his men in battle, every promotion he’d received that raised him from lieutenant to brigadier. She couldn’t help herself. He was an addiction she couldn’t quit.

  Yet he’d picked now to reappear, when she was least prepared for him. How had she managed to keep from screaming from the searing pain at the sight of him? No idea. But she would never let him know how much he’d wounded her. Or that the reason
she clung so fiercely to the pensioners and worked tirelessly on their behalf, both here and in London, was because they reminded her of that summer when she was in love and happy… before everything turned black.

  “He loved you once, I’m certain of it,” Genie assured her.

  Belinda was far less certain.

  “Perhaps he still holds a soft spot in his heart for you and will listen.”

  Her shoulders sagged wearily. “He chose the army over me—”

  “Ten years ago,” Diana reminded her.

  “And is even more firmly entrenched in the ranks now.”

  Nothing that she’d seen in him today proved otherwise. Yet her foolish heart held out hope… and her past experience quashed it.

  She shook her head. “What guarantee do I have that he’ll listen?”

  Her two friends pondered that for a moment. Then Diana conceded, “None, I suppose.”

  That was the crux of it. He’d shattered her heart ten years ago, brutally breaking her trust. If he wounded her a second time, how would she survive it?

  “I’m not certain you have a choice but to try,” Diana said somberly. “And quickly.”

  A dark smile tugged at her lips. “Knowing Maxwell, I’m certain he’s already prepared for siege warfare.”

  “Unfortunately, you don’t have time for a siege.”

  No. She had less than a fortnight. “I’ll just have to—”

  “His Grace has arrived in Brighton.”

  Cold dread shivered through her at that quiet announcement.

  “Pomperly?” she breathed, barely louder than a whisper. The earth tilted beneath her as aggravation added to the confusion and frustration already swirling inside her.

  Genie confirmed that with a nod. “The Duke of Pomposity.”

  Belinda rolled her eyes. She disliked that nickname. Yet she also had to admit that, in his case, it certainly fit.

  Oh, Pomperly meant well, she supposed. But a more arrogant man she’d yet to meet, which was saying a lot, considering she knew King George. And one she had no intention of letting court her.