Sins of a Duke

by Suzanne Enoch

  “Of course not. But the thing is, you haven’t shown the slightest interest since Charlotte died.”

  “I believe that to be my affair. To you I’ll admit that Princess Josefina surprised me last night. From now on I’ll stay out of slapping range.” Sebastian forced a smile. “And I won’t be sorry to see her gone, something which will hopefully come about sooner rather than later.”

  Shay spent another moment gazing at him. Sebastian didn’t know what he might be looking to see—regret? Evidence of prevarication?—but he wouldn’t see anything his older brother didn’t wish him to.

  “Fine,” Charlemagne finally said, walking down the hallway. “You’re the one who can read minds, not me. You can hardly blame us for wanting to see you happy, though.”

  “I am content,” Sebastian returned diplomatically. “And at any rate, bedding a mad woman would not be conducive to my continued peace of mind.”

  “I’ll write Prask with our offer. I imagine he’ll accept it, since you’re right about the price.”

  “I’m always right.”

  As he walked Shay out the front door, he could feel the relative emptiness of Griffin House pushing against his shoulders. Peep was there, and servants aplenty, but it was a bloody large house for just Penelope and him to rattle around in.

  “Melbourne?”

  He started. “Apologies, Shay. What were you saying?”

  “I just asked if you were still going to Almack’s tonight.”

  “Prinny sent a note asking me to escort the Costa Habichuela contingent there, so yes, I suppose I am. I had to cancel my visit to Vauxhall with Peep. Lord and Lady Bernard are taking her and Mary Haley.”

  “I wager it was a close choice, though, Lady Margaret Trent or Her Highness.” Shay shot him a brief grin. “You might want to put on Great-grandfather Harold’s suit of armor before you go.”

  “I’ll consider it.”

  Chuckling, Shay clapped him on the shoulder and made his way down the front steps to his horse. A moment later he was gone down the street. Sebastian watched for a moment, then turned back inside.

  “Any letters, Stanton?” he asked, as the butler closed the door behind him.

  “Yes, Your Grace.” Stanton lifted the salver off the foyer table. A pile of hand-delivered missives and invitations and calling cards awaited his attention. His secretary, Rivers, would have taken the business correspondence, which meant all of these here were social.

  He scooped up the lot of them. “Thank you.”

  “Very good. And Your Grace? I was instructed to inform you that Lady Penelope requests an audience at your earliest convenience.”

  Sebastian grinned. “Where is she?”

  “In the music room with Mrs. Beacham—and an unnamed friend.”

  “Unnamed?”

  “At Lady Penelope’s request, Your Grace.”

  Dropping his correspondence off in his office, Sebastian climbed the stairs to the first floor. Even from the far end of the house and through the closed door he could hear the pianoforte. Either Peep’s playing had vastly improved since yesterday, or the unnamed friend was playing—and quite well.

  “Please don’t let it be Lady Margaret Trent,” he muttered, and pushed open the door. “You wanted to see me, P—” he began, and clamped his mouth shut.

  His daughter danced a jig across the floor, but she wasn’t what caught his immediate, startled, attention. Sitting at the pianoforte, an easy smile on her face as her fingers flew nimbly across the keys, was her. The lunatic. Princess Josefina Embry. The low tug began again in his gut.

  “Papa, look!” Peep gestured toward the instrument. “She’s a princess.”

  “Yes, I know. We’ve met.” Belatedly he sketched a bow. “Your Highness.”

  Still playing, she inclined her head. “Melbourne.”

  “If I might ask,” he said, sending an annoyed glance at Mrs. Beacham, “what are you doing in my music room?”

  “I came to see you, actually.”

  “I saw her at the door,” Peep took up, “and told her you were closeted with Uncle Shay. And then she said she was Princess Josefina, so I invited her to come listen while I took my music lesson. She grew up in Jamaica, and she knows pirate music.”

  “That’s not pirate music,” Sebastian corrected. “It’s a sailor’s jig.” He returned his gaze to the princess, aware that he didn’t like having her in his house—which was odd, considering the number of parliamentary members whom he personally detested but had welcomed in over a brandy simply to gain their support on some matter or another. “Where did a royal princess learn a jig, if I might ask?”

  She finished with a flourish. “I wasn’t always a princess. My father was only granted Costa Habichuela and proclaimed rey by its people two years ago.”

  He took a step closer as she stood. She’d worn a white sprig muslin dotted with a rainbow of spring flowers, a green cross sewn onto the left sleeve. “And what were you before you became a princess?”

  “The daughter of a much-decorated and well-beloved army colonel, and the granddaughter of a Venezuelan viceroy,” she returned, lifting her chin. “What were you before you became a duke?”

  “A duke’s son.” And the Marquis of Halpern, but that didn’t signify at the moment. He knew the point she was attempting to make.

  “Hm. So my father earned his royalty by acclaim, and you inherited your title.”

  “And what did you do to gain yours, Your Highness?”

  She sniffed. “And to think, I came here with the idea of asking for peace between us, and you only continue to insult me.”

  “Did you insult her, Papa?” Peep asked from beside Mrs. Beacham, where both had been watching the exchange, wide-eyed.

  “Not until she slapped me.”

  “You hit my papa?” Peep exclaimed, her gray eyes narrowing. “He’s the Duke of Melbourne—the greatest man in England!”

  Princess Josefina’s gaze hadn’t left his face. “England is a very small country, my dear.”

  “You—”

  “Mrs. Beacham,” Sebastian interrupted, “please remove Lady Penelope and yourself immediately.”

  The governess gave a hurried curtsy and pulled Peep to the door. “At once, Your Grace.” As the door swung to behind them, he heard her continue. “And that is why we do not invite strangers into the house, young lady.”

  “But she said she was a prin—” The door clicked shut.

  Sebastian took a deep, hopefully steadying breath. “Since you are unchaperoned, Your Highness, allow me to escort you outside. I will provide my coach for you if you wish, and then I will send a note to Prinny explaining that for personal reasons I must decline his offer of a position aiding your country’s government.”

  Considering that as head of the Griffin family he could probably buy and sell her little country, he expected a swift apology and a hasty retreat. Instead the princess stalked up to him, hands on her hips. “Good! I’m certain your Regent could find someone more qualified than you by looking in the nearest brothel!”

  “Enough,” he snarled, striding forward. She would stop insulting him.

  Sebastian grabbed her by the shoulders. He yanked her forward. And then he kissed her.

  He wasn’t delicate about it, either. The princess shoved against his chest, then groaned and swept her arms up behind his neck, tangling her fingers into his hair. God, her lips were soft and warm, melting against his. Heated arousal swirled down his spine. Holding her hard against his body, he nudged her mouth open with his tongue, tasting and plundering.

  With another shuddering moan from her that had his cock straining at his trousers, Princess Josefina abruptly pushed him away so hard that he stumbled. “Maldita sea!” she exclaimed, her gaze focused on his mouth. “What the devil do you think you’re doing?”

  Christ, what was wrong with him? “It seemed the most effective way to shut you up,” he panted, wiping the back of his hand across his mouth.

  “You—for my father
’s sake, I will say nothing of this,” she managed, straightening the front of her gown and belatedly backing away from him. “You had best do the same.”

  “Don’t fret about that,” he returned feelingly.

  “But you now owe me a good turn,” she stated.

  “How is that?”

  “You assaulted me!”

  “I did no such thing.”

  “Bah! My father has set an appointment to see Sir Henry Sparks today, and he asks that you join him at the Bank of England at three o’clock. I do not wish to have to tell him why you chose to decline, so I will expect you to be there, Duke.” She retrieved her reticule from the seat of the pianoforte. “Is that clear?”

  Ruthlessly he squelched his flaring desire. If he grabbed her again, he wouldn’t stop at a kiss. “Abundantly clear. I can only hope, however, that you will be elsewhere.”

  She stopped halfway to the music room door. “I go where I please. And no mere duke or one…amateurish kiss can convince me otherwise.”

  “‘Amateurish’?” he echoed, moving up behind her. “You knew it would happen. That’s why you came here in person instead of sending a note.” Reaching past her, intentionally brushing her bare arm with his hand, he pulled open the door. “You’ve been attempting to seduce me since the moment we met.”

  “Mentiroso,” she snapped. “Liar.”

  “Mm-hm. You wanted me to kiss you,” he murmured into her ear, blocking her way with his shoulder. “You want me to do so again.”

  “I cannot be responsible for your flights of imagination, Melbourne. Now move aside.”

  He stepped sideways, letting her pass. Sebastian watched her hips sway as she descended the stairs. “Stanton, hire Her Highness a hack,” he instructed. Whatever she was up to, it seemed to have something to do with connecting herself to him. He would therefore take steps to minimize that.

  “Right away, Your Grace.”

  For a second she turned to stare back up at him, her brown eyes glinting. “Bah,” she finally muttered, and stomped out the door behind the butler.

  As he turned around he caught sight of another of the footmen, taking firewood into the drawing room. “John, when Stanton returns to his post, please inform him that I am not to be disturbed,” he grunted, and clomped down the stairs to his office without waiting for an answer.

  He’d thought that—well, he hadn’t thought at all, in the music room—once he kissed Josefina he would understand her nature, seductive and demure one moment, and a direct, confrontational force of nature the next, and be able to set her aside. After kissing her, though, the foremost thought in his mind was that he wanted to do so again. Badly.

  Chapter 4

  Josefina lowered the magnifier and looked up at her father. “Are you certain Mr. Halloway hasn’t done this all his life?” she asked with a smile in the clerk’s direction. “Father always said you were a fine army clerk, but I believe legal documents are your forté.”

  The clerk blushed. “Thank you, Your Highness. I’ve been studying English property law.”

  “It shows.”

  “We’ll have nearly a hundred of the bonds for our meeting this afternoon.”

  The clerk made a quick calculation on a piece of scrap paper. “One hundred thirty-seven, by three o’clock, Your Majesty.”

  “Splendid.”

  Josefina took her father’s arm as they left the back rooms of Colonel Branbury’s house. “Who would have thought that making a country would require so much ink?”

  He chuckled. “I never would have, if I hadn’t watched so many other movements rise and fall. It’s all well and good to declare independence from Spain and set up a government based on strong principles. But Spain has principles, as well, and even more importantly, they have an army.”

  “An army you’ve fought on numerous occasions.”

  “Under Diego Rivera and Simon Bolivar—who both have failed with nothing but principles and conviction to back them up. This is now my great project. And at the moment I have a personal guard and some poorly armed volunteers. It’s logical that we raise capital. I think the Bank of England will see that. Once Sir Henry Sparks accepts our proposal, his own people can take over the printing of the bonds, and our people can concentrate on stirring interest in buying them.”

  “What if Spain steps in before you have your capital? Or what if England refuses to invest?”

  “You worry too much. King Qental gave me the land, and Spain is presently much more concerned with Bonaparte than with the Rey of Costa Habichuela. And I did a great deal of research before I requested that we be introduced to the Duke of Melbourne. He knows if we aren’t successful here we’ll have to go to Prussia or to France. England wants another toehold in Central America, and even more than that it doesn’t want France to have one. We are a very low-risk proposition, Josefina, with a very great opportunity for reward and profit.”

  “You are brilliant, Father, if I haven’t told you so recently,” she returned. It made a great deal of sense. Her father was a master strategist, and even without his abundance of wit and charm, Sir Henry, the Bank of England, Melbourne, and anyone with a few extra pounds to invest would be foolish to pass the opportunity by.

  “Thank you. And of course if the daughter of the rey were to marry the head of one of the oldest, most respected, and wealthiest families in England, that would help the cause of Costa Habichuela more than any words possibly could. As I said, I did my research.”

  And that very person had kissed her only an hour ago. Melbourne kissed like the devil himself—all heat and no quarter given. He’d practically devoured her. Her pulse sped at just the thought of it. “A good fit for our needs or not, Melbourne isn’t a fool. He will know the two of us are being thrown together, if he hasn’t realized it already.”

  “And what’s wrong with that? He’s a duke, and you’re a princess.”

  “Two years ago I wasn’t a princess. A Griffin has been a duke practically since before Caesar.”

  “And yet he is a man, and you, my dear, are a very attractive young lady of two-and-twenty.”

  “Five-and-twenty.”

  “Previously married dukes, I’ve found, prefer their brides to be young and virginal. For Costa Habichuela you can lose three years.” He smiled at her again, his blond moustache curving. “Even when I was Captain Embry in George the Third’s army, even when I was Colonel Embry under General Bolivar, you were a princess. Wherever we went, do you think your mother and I provided you with the best education, the best tutors, so you could marry a farmer or a shopkeeper? I’ve always said that everything happens—”

  “—for a reason,” she finished, smiling back at him. “So you were meant to be the Rey of Costa Habichuela.”

  “Yes, I was. It’s the second greatest achievement of my life, after you.” He kissed her forehead again. “And you were meant to marry a man so great that in my youth I wouldn’t have dared look him in the eye.”

  A shiver ran through her, though she wasn’t certain whether it was one of anticipation or of dread. Melbourne kissed well, but if he ever blinked and realized that he’d been led somewhere he didn’t want to go, the consequences could be disastrous. “Before his wife died she gave him a daughter, you know.”

  “I know. And you’ll give him a son. And a country to rule.” He pulled out his pocket watch as Captain Milton appeared at the foot of the stairs. “Ah, it’s time. Let’s go meet a banker, shall we?”

  The impression they made this afternoon with Sir Henry Sparks would be the most important of their trip to England. Josefina knew her father had rehearsed his arguments for weeks, though he hoped they wouldn’t be necessary. As for her, she was ready to be regal and confident, whatever insults Melbourne might throw at her. She had a good head for figures, and she’d done her own research, as well.

  As the coach stopped at the foot of the wide steps leading up to the Bank of England building, she leaned past Mr. Orrin, her father’s business advisor, to look through t
he window. A short, portly man with a sparse peppering of gray hair stood there. Beside him and wearing dark blue and gray, stood the much taller and leaner figure of Melbourne.

  “Right on time,” her father muttered, stepping to the ground and offering his hand. “A very good sign.”

  She hoped so. As Melbourne faced their approach, she could practically feel his dark gray gaze on her skin, even through the elegant emerald-colored gown she’d worn for the occasion. Josefina resisted the urge to touch the small silver tiara woven into her hair—she’d only worn it once before and considered it a bit much, but as her father had said, this was the meeting that would dictate the course of their future.

  “Your Majesty, Your Highness,” the duke said, inclining his head, “may I present Sir Henry Sparks, director of the Bank of England? Sir Henry, Stephen, Rey of Costa Habichuela and his daughter, Princess Josefina.”

  The bank director bowed low, much more respectfully than Melbourne had. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Your Majesty, Your Highness. His Grace tells me that you have some business you wish to discuss.”

  “Indeed we do,” her father said with an easy smile.

  “Then let’s go inside to my office.”

  As they followed Sir Henry into the large building, employees and clients alike stopped to watched them pass. They probably recognized Melbourne, but she and her father and their advisor and two bodyguards must have made an impression, as well.

  They sat in front of a large mahogany desk set in the middle of the small but well-appointed office. Sir Henry offered the seat behind the desk to Melbourne, but the duke declined, instead leaning a haunch against a low credenza. Orrin stood directly behind her father.

  “Now, Your Majesty,” the banker began, “what may I—and the Bank of England—do for you?”

  “Before I answer that,” her father returned, “perhaps I might give you a little information about myself and Costa Habichuela.”