Someday My Duke Will Come

by Christina Britton

  “You’re a sight for sore eyes,” Peter exclaimed.

  “Air!” Quincy managed.

  Peter merely chuckled, squeezing a bit tighter—how was that even possible?—before releasing him. “When last I heard from you, you had just sold off the remaining business and were setting sail. What are you doing in England, man?”

  Quincy grinned, the restlessness of the past year—no, he had been restless for much longer than that, hadn’t he?—beginning to ease. “I thought I’d visit with my dearest friend before starting my travels in earnest.”

  Though Peter rolled his eyes, Quincy couldn’t fail to see the smile tugging on his lips. “I’m sure my charms pale in comparison with the wonders you’ll see. You must be ecstatic to finally be setting off.”

  “You’ve no idea. If only my father had been alive to join me.” A vision of his father’s face swam up in his mind, that long-ago grief tempered by the distance of time, and by the knowledge that he was finally realizing their shared dream. He had worked hard over the years, surviving, building an empire to be proud of with Peter. Now, however, it was time to return to that promise he had made so long ago when leaving his family’s house.

  He gave Peter a considering look. “You made a pretty penny in the liquidation of our assets. I don’t suppose I could ever tempt you into joining me, even for a short while?”

  Peter grinned. “Not on your life. But I do plan on enjoying your company while you’re in town. How long before you start off?”

  Quincy smiled, satisfaction coiling within him. “I’ve booked passage for Spain a fortnight from now.”

  “You will stay here at Dane House, of course.”

  “Certainly not,” he said in mock horror before grinning. “I’m a bachelor in London. If you think I’m going to miss out on cavorting to my heart’s content, you’re sorely mistaken.” He laughed as Peter rolled his eyes heavenward. “But Mivart’s is just a street away, so you may see me much more often than you’d like. Though”—he cast a glance about him, taking in the richly carved bookcases, the deep-blue-silk-covered walls, the towering windows looking out onto a verdant garden—“I admit to feeling more than a bit of regret now that I’ve seen your London residence. The place is amazing, man. Is Danesford even half as incredible?”

  “Even more so.” A quiet pride shone from Peter’s eyes. “I thought I would forever despise the place, that I would be glad to see it fall to ruins. Yet now my feelings could not be more different.”

  “And I suppose having Lenora by your side has not aided in that about-face,” Quincy murmured with humor.

  “Laugh all you want. I don’t mind telling you that she’s had everything to do with it.” Peter chuckled.

  Quincy shook his head, grinning. “I cannot believe the change in you, man. When last I was here, you were in the throes of despair for love of Lenora. And now look at you, happily married, master of all this.” He swept his arm out. “And a damn duke. Don’t tell me I have to start calling you Your Grace now.”

  “Arse,” Peter muttered. “If I hear those words from your lips, I’ll gladly trounce you. Sit, while I pour us something to celebrate this visit.”

  As Quincy settled himself into an overstuffed chair, his friend went to the small cabinet in the corner. “Never tell me you’re drinking strong spirits now.”

  Peter chuckled. “I’ve not changed that much. Though,” he added, his tone turning rueful as the sound of clinking glass echoed about the room, “there are times I wish for a small dose of something stronger than lemonade or wine.”

  “Has it been much of an adjustment then, taking over the dukedom?” Quincy asked, stretching out his long legs.

  Peter’s lips twisted as he turned and made his way to his friend, a glass of whiskey in one hand and something that looked suspiciously like ratafia in the other. “Transitioning from commoner and self-made man to a duke has been…difficult,” he said. “There are so many people’s well-beings and livelihoods I’m responsible for. It boggles my mind. Without Lenora by my side, I don’t know that I would have taken to the position with any grace.”

  Quincy snorted as he accepted his glass and Peter settled across from him. “Grace. That is one word I would have never associated with you. But how is our dear Lenora? I look forward to seeing her again after so long.”

  At the mention of his bride, Peter’s face lit up. That was the only phrase to describe it. It was an expression Quincy had never witnessed before in his normally stoic friend, a softening of features typically held tight against the rest of the world.

  “Lenora is wonderful. She’s out with Clara and Phoebe just now.”

  Ah, yes, the Ladies Clara and Phoebe, Peter’s cousins, daughters of the previous Duke of Dane and now under Peter’s protection. Lovely girls, both of them. Or rather, Lady Phoebe was a lovely girl. Lady Clara, on the other hand, was most definitely a woman, and a stunning one at that.

  Most women were pretty in some way to him, of course. He found something to admire in every female he came in contact with. But Lady Clara had captured his interest much more than he’d expected.

  Not that anything could come of it. She was under Peter’s protection, after all, and the man would have Quincy’s head if he so much as looked at the lady wrong. And so any attraction he might possess for Lady Clara would have to be kept under strict lock and key.

  But Quincy’s imagination was a healthy thing, often manifesting at the most inopportune times. So it was a blessing when Peter spoke, breaking him from thoughts of a freckled, round face and dark blue eyes. Unfortunately, it was to ask about the very last thing Quincy wished to discuss.

  “Doesn’t your family hail from London?”

  Quincy pulled a face and took a healthy swallow of his drink, his mood souring in an instant. “Yes. Not that it brings me an ounce of pleasure to realize just how close I am to them. I hope you comprehend how much you mean to me,” he said with a severe look his friend’s way, “that I would willingly find myself in the same city as them.”

  “I shall take the compliment, and gladly,” Peter regarded Quincy over the rim of his glass. “Do you plan to see them while you’re in town?”

  “You truly know how to put a damper on a moment, did you know that?” When Peter merely arched a gold brow, Quincy let out a harsh breath and rolled his eyes. “For your information, yes, I am planning on seeing them and putting the past behind me once and for all. Are you happy now?”

  “Oh, quite,” Peter said with a grin. “After all, you were more than willing to feed me to the wolves, so to speak, in forcing a reconciliation I had no intention of indulging.”

  “I don’t see you complaining now that you’ve got the sweetest woman in all of Christendom as a bride,” Quincy drawled.

  “That is true,” Peter said with a happy sigh. He gave Quincy a sly look. “But you never know, you might be just as fortunate.”

  “If you think I’ll come away from this with anything other than a headache, you’re sorely mistaken. Besides, I’m not the least bit ready to settle down. A wife is not in the cards for me just yet.”

  A commotion in the hall blessedly interrupted whatever sarcastic comment Peter had been about to make. In the next moment Lenora sailed through the study door.

  “Peter, darling,” she said, tugging off her gloves, “your aunt has bid me to tell you—Oh! Mr. Nesbitt, what a wonderful surprise!”

  Quincy surged to his feet and offered a deep bow that he quickly ruined with a wink. “Your Grace.”

  Her laugh was like bells. “Oh, none of that. Lenora, please,” she said with a warm smile.

  “Lenora,” he repeated with a grin. “I do hope you don’t mind me dropping in unannounced.”

  She laughed again, accepting a kiss from her husband before taking Quincy’s hand. “Why, you make it sound as if you were merely in the neighborhood and did not have to sail for weeks across an ocean to get here. But we never received word that you intended to visit.”

  “I adm
it, I had hoped to shock this fellow here.” He jerked a thumb in Peter’s direction.

  “I do wish I had seen that. For though I try my hardest, not much surprises my husband.” She sighed happily. “But this is just splendid. I’ll have Mrs. Ingram prepare a room right away.”

  Before he could lay waste to that generous offer, a sweet voice carried from the hall. “Prepare a room for whom, Lenora?” And then Lady Clara was there, filling the doorway and his vision.

  The breath caught in Quincy’s chest. She was just as lovely as he remembered, if not more so. Rich brown hair in a riot of curls so soft his fingers itched to dive into their depths. Pale skin with a smattering of freckles across the bridge of her nose. A willowy figure, accentuated by the light blue of her dress.

  And those eyes. Damnation, those beautiful clear blue eyes that widened when she saw him. Her full lips parted on a soft gasp of air.

  He bowed a second later than was polite. What the devil was wrong with him? “Lady Clara, it’s a pleasure to see you again.”

  The delicate rose of a blush spread up her neck and settled, bright and warm, on her cheeks. She gave a quick, shallow curtsy. “Mr. Nesbitt. How lovely to have you back in England.”

  Quincy, please. He just managed to hold the words back, knowing such familiarity would be ill advised. If there was anything he didn’t need right now, it was more to tempt him with this woman.

  Her blush deepened as his silence crept on. She looked to Lenora. “Shall I have Mrs. Ingram make up that room then?”

  Before Lenora could answer, Quincy stepped forward, his hand raised. “No need, my lady. I’m staying at Mivart’s.”

  Was that relief in Lady Clara’s eyes? Or disappointment? Before he could wonder at it, her expression shifted, taking on a pleasant if blank expression.

  “Oh, but we have more than enough room,” Lenora said. “And Lady Tesh will be ever so disappointed. She always speaks fondly of you.”

  Quite an accomplishment, that. Peter’s irascible aunt, the Dowager Viscountess Tesh, was as plain-spoken and opinionated a woman as he’d ever had the pleasure to know. And he adored her.

  “That is because she has wonderful taste,” he teased. “But I shall be about so much, you’ll no doubt grow sick of me.”

  “Very well, you stubborn man,” Lenora grumbled. “But you shall be the one to tell Lady Tesh.” Suddenly her expression changed, her mouth falling open in dismay. “Oh! But I have quite forgotten. We’re expected for tea at Lord and Lady Crabtree’s and are already running behind schedule. Phoebe is recently engaged to their son, and this shall be our first informal meeting with them. They are quite the sticklers for propriety,” she added ruefully.

  Peter groaned. “I had forgotten.” He gave his wife a pleading look. “I don’t suppose I can stay behind?”

  Quincy couldn’t help but grin at his great beast of a friend, who looked more the part of Viking than duke, begging his wife for a respite from tea. In the next moment he was hard-pressed to keep from laughing out loud as the small and delicate—and utterly unterrifying—Lenora leveled a stern look on her husband. Especially as she had to crane her neck to do so.

  “Peter, you know you must attend. This meeting is important.” She turned to Quincy. “You are, of course, welcome to join us. You’re family, after all.”

  Warmth filled Quincy at that, and he nearly relented. Especially when Peter gave him a look that fairly begged for his company.

  But he knew, deep inside, that accompanying them on their outing would only be a way of delaying the inevitable. As much as he wished he could postpone forever, it was time to visit his family.

  Now that the moment was at hand, he felt the beginnings of panic settling in his gut. Still, underlying the anxiety was a sense of relief. In short order it would be over and done with. And he could move forward.

  Filled with a new determination, he smiled at Lenora. “Alas, I have an errand to attend to.”

  “You will return this evening?” Lady Clara asked. Her cheeks bloomed with bright color. “To make certain we have enough places set for dinner,” she explained. “And to mollify Lady Tesh. She’ll be livid she missed you.”

  The anticipation Quincy had begun to feel at the thought of returning to this house suddenly increased. “Yes,” he replied, unable to look away from the deep blue of her eyes, “I’ll be back.”

  Chapter 2

  There should not be a single thing distracting Lady Clara Ashford from her sister Phoebe’s upcoming nuptials.

  Yet Clara could not focus. Seated in Lord and Lady Crabtree’s drawing room, her family discussing with the groom’s a possible time line for the wedding, Clara’s mind wandered to inky black hair and eyes as dark as the night sky. Mr. Quincy Nesbitt. Goodness, she had not thought to see him again. Yes, Peter talked of him often, read his letters aloud when they arrived, and voiced his hope that his friend would once again grace English shores. But she had not believed the man would return.

  No, that was not exactly true, was it? She peered into the milky depths of her tea, swirling the remaining liquid about with her spoon until it created a small cyclone in her cup. She had hoped he would not return. A selfish thing, she knew, when Peter loved him so well.

  It was self-preservation, really. She had nothing against the man. He was one of the loveliest people, both in face and in spirit, she had ever had the pleasure to meet.

  But from the moment she’d met him a year ago she’d found herself taken with his incredible good looks and sparkling manners. And each meeting thereafter, as few as there had been, had only increased her attraction to him, making her long for things she could never have.

  Which was something she would not think about. With Phoebe marrying and beginning her new life with Oswin, the last of Clara’s responsibilities was going off with her. She cast a surreptitious glance around the room. It was time to become useful elsewhere, to find her new place within the family. She refused to be a burden on these people she loved so very much.

  The only question now was, where did she fit in with the new family dynamic…if she even fit in at all?

  The sharp voice of Aunt Olivia—the formidable Lady Tesh—cut through Clara’s morose thoughts and brought her back to the conversation at hand.

  “We shall need six months at the very least, perhaps eight, to plan a wedding appropriate for a duke’s daughter.” She thumped her cane on the floor, spearing Lady Crabtree with a stern look. Aunt Olivia’s small white dog, Freya, jumped at the sound before huffing and settling more firmly into her mistress’s lap.

  “Better yet,” the dowager viscountess continued, “let us plan for a spring wedding. That way we may be certain that everyone who is anyone is in town for the event.”

  “I agree, my dear Lady Tesh, that we should take the time to plan a proper wedding,” Lady Crabtree stated officiously. “However, Lord Crabtree and I insist on the wedding being held at our country estate. It is the only proper venue.”

  “Proper?” Aunt Olivia’s nostrils flared, making it look as if she had caught a whiff of manure in the silk cushions of her chair. “To have half of society trek north for days? No, I will not allow my great-niece to be insulted by a sparse guest list.”

  “I hardly think the guest list will be sparse. My husband is a marquess, after all, and my Oswin is in line for the title. No one would dare turn down an invitation.”

  “Not to mention, of course,” Aunt Olivia replied with all the silky danger of a snake about to strike, “that Phoebe is the daughter of a duke.”

  A triumphant gleam entered Lady Crabtree’s eyes. “So we are in agreement then. The wedding shall be held at Hedley.”

  “Over my dead—”

  “Perhaps,” Clara broke in, laying a staying hand on her great-aunt’s arm, “we should ask the couple what their wishes are. After all,” she continued with a serene smile, “nothing matters more than their happiness. Isn’t that right?”

  Both women’s faces settled into identical lin
es of rebellion. Yet they muttered their agreement, like recalcitrant children being called to the carpet. Clara let loose a small sigh of relief.

  “Quite right,” Mrs. Margery Kitteridge, Clara’s cousin and Aunt Olivia’s granddaughter, said with a bright smile. “Phoebe, have you and Oswin discussed where you would like the wedding to be held?”

  Phoebe cast a nervous glance at Aunt Olivia and Lady Crabtree. Clara gave her an encouraging nod, to which Phoebe seemed completely immune. It was only when her intended laid a comforting hand on hers, giving it a squeeze, that the tension in her face eased.

  The pang of sadness that rose up in Clara stunned her breathless. She had seen proof before, of course, in the past months in London that her sister did not need her as she used to. But this was the first time it had been brought so harshly into focus.

  It was as it should be, she told herself stoutly. Phoebe was moving on with her life, and her first thought should be for her future husband. Yet the pain of being left behind did not abate. All the more proof that Clara’s usefulness was at an end.

  “Actually, Oswin and I had hoped to be married in a month’s time.” Her eyes drifted to her intended, her hand turning over to grip his. “And we had hoped to marry at the chapel at Danesford.”

  “Danesford!” Lady Crabtree sputtered. “I shall not hear of it.”

  “Though I take offense at Lady Crabtree’s tone regarding my childhood home”—Lady Tesh speared the woman in question with a stern glare—“for once I have to agree that such a scheme is unthinkable. Why, we shall have to leave London almost immediately.”

  “I don’t have a problem with that,” Peter muttered.

  “Well, I do,” Aunt Olivia shot back. “After all, there are still…unfinished things to take care of here in London.” Her eyes drifted to Clara.

  It was the briefest of glances, but Clara felt the brand of them on her very soul. Her face flushed hot, and it took all her willpower to keep her expression serene. The hints that Clara should secure a husband were not new; they had begun years before, and at a time when Clara had not yet been considered a spinster firmly on the shelf. At the advanced age of nearly one and thirty, she should have plenty of practice ignoring her great-aunt’s increasingly pointed remarks. Though no amount of time seemed to take away the sting of them.