Duke of Disgrace (Dukes of Destiny Book 3)

by Whitney Blake

  “You may,” he said, “because I don’t feel that prevaricating or anything less than the truth would suit us at this juncture.”

  He often fell into incredibly formal speech when he felt threatened. She did enjoy her power to keep him on tenterhooks. She realized that he did not know how she would react to his proposition. He probably expected a fight and did not want one.

  Well, if this was the one time in their marriage that she pleased him by being gracious and calm, then so be it.

  “Then?”

  “I have not been at all happy, and I daresay you have not been, either.”

  “Unhappiness isn’t grounds for a special act of Parliament.” Or for a case in the ecclesiastical courts, or for a criminal conversation about anything at all, she added silently.

  She was no expert, but knew roughly what was expected.

  He gazed at her with the tiniest of smiles. “No, of course it isn’t. But adultery is.”

  Undaunted, she met his eyes. “You realize that would be making me a criminal. More or less.” The idea did not unsettle her. She was, effectively, already as damned as a woman could be.

  “One of your lovers. You’re my property, precisely speaking.”

  She leaned back on the settee. “What makes you believe one of them would fall on his sword for me?” She endeavored to sound blasé. But her heart was beating quickly from excitement and she was positive she blushed. Walter had neither the dignity nor gravitas, nor the senseless need for equilibrium, that Jeremy did. Walter would. She could put the sword in his hand and he’d fall upon it.

  The pragmatist in her knew it was impossible to say until it happened what effect such a thing would have on his professional and business life. But it would help that Walter was not embedded in the ton as deeply as she and Jeremy.

  “You tell me.”

  “Fine. What makes you believe I’d ever allow my reputation to be sullied by such a grueling process?”

  “What makes you think you have any good reputation left?”

  Touché.

  Tearing her own reputation apart had not entirely been her intent these last few years, but she should probably acknowledge what protection being a duke’s wife had given her. People, even the people who mattered, could not entirely dismiss a duchess. They could do her damage. She could be given the cut direct by some or the cold shoulder by others. But good manners dictated that the majority of invitations be sent to her, that nobody ignore her completely.

  Besides, Isabel had always held that, secretly, the ton enjoyed having someone like her around. She was not the first nor would she be the final fast woman to flounce across ballrooms and linger in dark alcoves. But to her knowledge she was one of a very few aristocratic women who’d behaved so badly without being taken to task by her husband. In a word, she was singular.

  “Well, even if I haven’t, nobody had the courage to freeze me out entirely, did they?” She beamed at Jeremy.

  He nodded just slightly, his air quizzical. “How are you so calm upon hearing me say things like this?”

  “I imagine you think I’m mad.”

  “I have never thought you were mad, Isabel. You have always perplexed me, but I’ve never made the mistake of thinking you were mentally incompetent. Otherwise I would be trying for an annulment. It would be far easier for everyone.”

  She chuckled, less with good humor and more with approval for his dry wit. In another lifetime, she imagined they could have been friends. Or lovers. There were small flashes of the Duke of Bowland that did appeal to her, sometimes.

  “Why, thank you,” she said, “for I do rather think it would be.”

  “I used to feel sorry for you, but now…” His smile grew twisted. “Now, I just want us to be done.”

  As she thought through how different this direct attack, or if not an attack then a route of conversing, was, Isabel arrived at the one thing that had changed in his life.

  “It’s Miss Masbeck, isn’t it? You don’t just want to bed her.”

  She didn’t see why not. If she could be in love, then she supposed he could be, too. Jeremy seemed like the least romantic person on God’s vast earth. On the other hand, she knew most of society probably did not believe she was capable of romantic attachment, either. Who was she to judge?

  Jeremy wrinkled his nose. “What do you mean?”

  Ah, it was. Few men could sidestep such a topic with much grace, and Jeremy was not going to be the one who broke the pattern. He’d had so little practice at lying. Not in general, but about something like this.

  “I mean, dear Jeremy, that we have gone years without you once complaining about my behavior. You have never taken another woman to bed. Yet, suddenly, this conversation is occurring? Something has changed, and the only thing that has materially changed is the introduction of a certain woman into our household.”

  “My household, I should think. You hardly look after it and you’ve given the servants the propensity for nervous fits.”

  “There’s no need to be surly.”

  “There’s no need to think you can divine my motivations,” he retorted.

  “I’ll tell you a truth if you tell me.”

  “Just a truth?”

  “It will explain why I am so calm.”

  “Then, by all means, divulge it.” Jeremy leveled her with what she imagined he thought was his most ducal look.

  “I am in love, too. I have been for quite some time.”

  He did not react past his chiseled mouth giving a very small twitch. “Felicitations.”

  She elaborated, abruptly quite fed up with the resentment and fear that kept her from declaring the truth of her feelings far earlier in their marriage.

  “I believe that if you want to haul him into court, he would view it as my bride price.” She studied her perfectly manicured nails. “Of course, he will not necessarily be able to pay as much in fees as a man of your esteemed station would. But you need someone to confess to committing adultery with me, do you not? He will confess, and it would not be at all fabricated.”

  “I don’t want anyone’s money.”

  “Everyone will expect that you do.”

  “Hang everyone. Hang you, too.”

  “That’s the spirit.”

  “Is this man the father of my son?” Jeremy hissed.

  “Yes.”

  She’d grown to think that there was little she could do to truly shock her husband. But if she had her guess, she had stunned him now. He sat with a defiant expression on his face, the sort that she’d always longed to see but never had. Still, he had not raised his voice. If this wouldn’t lead him to, she didn’t know what would.

  Of course he thought of Luke. She rarely did, herself. That was because he was a reminder of what she could not have, and not because, as she was sure Jeremy believed, she was a heartless shrew. She wondered what would happen to the child if she got what she wanted. Luke couldn’t be the Bowland heir if that were the case, but she did not think Walter would want to raise him.

  Isabel was prepared to bet that Jeremy would still want him.

  “Good Lord.” The defiance on Jeremy’s features eased into derision, then resignation. He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. He said nothing else. He merely stayed in that position, looking roughly in her direction but not quite at her.

  “I know you must believe I am entirely unlovable and I don’t blame you. After all, I’ve worked very hard to get you to hate me. I suppose it says wonderful things about your character that you never—”

  “Never struck you? Never confined you?” he demanded through a mirthless laugh. “Never disowned an innocent child?”

  “You never so much as shouted at me, Jeremy.” She looked at him with wonder, though it was not terribly complimentary on her part. “You never sent me away. You’ve never even spoken about a separation until now. That means you must love her. Although I have despised you, I cannot say I want to deny you love. Not for the sake of acce
ssing your wealth, or the sake of keeping a good name that I no longer possess, anyway. Let me go.”

  “If you are in love, why on earth have you taken so many lovers? Does your paramour know that you have?”

  Well, not every man she’d come home with in the early hours was a lover, especially of late, but it was so like another man to assume that they all were. “The majority of them weren’t my lovers.”

  “Oh, I see. You were just chastely embroidering before their fires until morning?”

  “Or playing cards, or going to the theatre, or talking, or drinking, until the small hours. Society would call that improper, too, but I have not slept with every person you’ve seen me with. Not at all. It just suited me to let you—and everyone else—believe it.”

  It was rather fun to watch Jeremy try to process that, his jaw moving minutely as he stared at her like she had started speaking in tongues.

  Isabel was not worried about having means. She was not even terribly concerned with missing out on the brunt of the ton’s season. After she’d had her pressured come out, she discovered that the luster of seeing and being seen, for that was all the season was, tarnished quickly. There was plenty else with which she could divert herself. And this time when, no, if, she married, she would be marrying someone she loved.

  They sat in absolute silence for at least a minute. She was not uncomfortable with it, for once.

  “Why?” he then asked, so quietly that it could have been muffled by the popping of a log.

  She did not follow. “I don’t understand,” she said flatly.

  “Why were you so unhappy from the start? I did not wish to make you so miserable.”

  “I wasn’t immediately, at least, not in the way that I have been,” she reflected. “But I felt trapped. My father was bullying me—no, acting as a father has the right to, especially with a girl—and your father was looking at me like I was the last piece of mutton on earth and he’d been starved for years.”

  She shook her head and quieted. This must all be nonsense to Jeremy. He’d had no experience with being a woman. But he was looking at her with more pity and understanding than she’d expected.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, with a tight jerk of his head that could pass as a nod.

  She shrugged away his apology and delved back into the matter at hand. “Do what you need to do.”

  Epilogue

  Spring 1818

  London, England

  A foppish young lord had caught his wife’s eye.

  Primal jealousy tore through him, leaving very little room for any finer emotions or rational thoughts.

  It took him a few moments to calm down and remind himself that Lottie was not at all like that, and the man must have attracted her attention for another reason. Jeremy peered across the ballroom at him. He was lingering in front of the supper room with a gaggle of well-heeled friends who all seemed to revel in the fact that they were at the height of what society deemed well-dressed, fashionable, and handsome.

  He was blond, lean, and rather tall, wearing attire of some kind of azure fabric with gold buttons that emphasized his hair. As he spoke, a cocky smile kept breaking out on his animated face. He gestured too much with his hands. Overall, even if Lottie had not been staring at him, he gave off the sort of impression that made Jeremy instantly annoyed with him.

  He glanced at Lottie. She’d never known someone before he had, not in this sphere of society. It had taken some time after his divorce—the whole awful process, printed declarations and all—and their wedding for them to start receiving any invitations at all. The affair was considered quite a spectacle by the ton. Not just because the Duke of Bowland was marrying a common woman, but also because he was legally remarrying and his first wife was still alive and well.

  Jeremy had nearly been barred from White’s due to the small commotion that met him in whatever room he chose to occupy during the criminal conversation, then again during the session in which he obtained the act.

  Since it was a club and not a dancehall, the fuss never rose above the volume of incensed conversation. In the end, it was Lord Wenwood and Lord Renarde, of all people, who spoke up in his favor. That helped him keep his place, though it did not stop the mutterings. Or the caricatures.

  If he were to count his blessings, he would admit that the frenzy of reactions to his divorce kept his second wedding, which occurred last year, charmingly intimate and small. He did not need to mind the expense, but also had the sense that it had all worked out for the best in other respects. Lottie, as accustomed as she was to navigating complex legal documents, was still uncomfortable in her role as a duchess. He would have hated for her own wedding to intimidate her.

  He said into her ear, “My love, you are looking most intently at a man who is not me. Did I spill something on my coat at supper? Have I turned into an old man since we have arrived here?”

  Lottie tore her eyes away from the fop. “No, not at all.”

  “Who is he?”

  “I thought he looked familiar,” she said lightly, “from Lady Wenwood’s salon last week.”

  It was a lie and he knew it. “Oh? A poet, is he?”

  “No, no, darling,” Lottie said, endeavoring to sip her lemonade as though she were perfectly unbothered, “last week was all the essayists.”

  He was glad, then, that he had not accompanied her. “I see.”

  Cocking his head and considering, he scanned the crowd for Paul, who must be swanning about and pretending he was rather stupid, somewhere. They’d come together, after all. He couldn’t have roamed far away.

  Unless he’s in the garden with a— no, there he was, standing with Lady Stanley by one of the floral centerpieces. It framed him brilliantly, the bright orange flowers appearing from behind him at different, yet becoming, angles. He’d worn his best tonight and not for the first time, Jeremy wanted to know who he was trying to impress in his mallard-colored coat and pants.

  When Lottie excused herself to speak with Lady Wenwood, who was drawing near with two younger ladies Jeremy did not know but decided seemed friendly enough, he kissed her on the cheek and set his mind to asking Paul who that blasted fop was.

  Satisfied that he had not left his wife in company that would mock her, he did not care that an older gentleman nearby appeared scandalized when Lord Hareden dared kiss his second Lady Hareden on the cheek in public. He wanted all to see that this was a love match, and while he would not court controversy too much, he’d be damned if he let convention dampen such an innocent show of warmth.

  “Brother, I must ask you a question.”

  Lady Stanley had shown herself away with a friend, giggling. As soon as she was out of sight, Paul dropped his entire rakish persona.

  “Dear God, please, Jeremy. Talk sensibly to me.”

  “Lady Stanley is reputed to be quite kind.”

  “She is bored of her husband and far too obvious about it.”

  “So it’s not her intellect that you find issue with?” Jeremy smirked.

  “No, although from the way she believes she is engaging in witty repartee, I do question that, too. Awful conversationalist. What is your question?”

  “Do you see that blond man near the supper room?”

  “Which?”

  Jeremy looked with him, but took care not to appear too obvious. “Not the one with hair that’s almost white. The one in blue. Gold buttons.”

  Casually, Paul assessed the small group of men until he found the man Jeremy was describing. “Oh, my. That’s something of a surprise.”

  “How do you mean?”

  A range of tensions played out on Paul’s handsome face, and Jeremy wondered why he was hesitating so to tell him who the man was. “He, dear brother, is Lord Thomas Rowling, recently an earl. His father passed several months ago. You’d never know by looking at him, would you? He seems quite happy. No signs of mourning at all.”

  *

  Paul knew that he had two choices before him.

  He coul
d accompany Jeremy across the ballroom, which was crowded, or he could try to make Jeremy remain where he was—on the other side of the crowd from the man who’d lied to his wife and raped her. Neither was preferable, but the latter would possibly defray the utter fury he saw rising in Jeremy’s countenance. He glanced at his brother’s hand, which was clenching and unclenching.

  In the past, Lord Rowling would not have been here in the Aldridges’ home, but Paul supposed that because of his reasonably new title he had received an invitation. This was a large enough gathering. It was not one of the more exclusive, intimate ones. The Aldridges, he was sure, had simply opened things up to nearly everyone. Lord Terence Aldridge and Jeremy had always been somewhat friendly, so he wasn’t surprised that Jeremy had been invited. Decency had to transcend some of that “Duke of Disgrace” lark, didn’t it?

  “Jeremy, think.”

  “No.”

  “Jeremy. You can’t make a scene.”

  “Why not?”

  He’d never seen his older brother so infuriated. Not once, not even when he, Paul, had been in scraps or turned things into a sow’s ear. It was nothing short of alarming.

  Flustered inwardly, but with a calm enough voice, he said, “Because Lord Jeremy Hareden probably shouldn’t make any scenes, should he?”

  Perhaps Lord Wenwood could eject Lord Rowling, but Jeremy needed to let sleeping dogs lie.

  It had been months since they’d seen anything nasty printed about the “Duke of Bowland” or “Lord Hareden” or the “Duke of Disgrace”, even though the sobriquet had still stuck if one was among certain circles.

  Paul listened to everyone and most everyone thought he was pleasant, if insipid, so he knew much more than he ever let on. Largely, “Duke of Disgrace” was not uttered by anyone of the ton who really mattered. Those with influence had collectively seemed to decide that Lady Charlotte Hareden was a kind, intelligent soul, if common, and after all Lady Isabel Hareden had put her husband through, he was in the right. The Act of Divorcement had been passed. Nothing was underhanded.