by Darcy Burke
The Desires of a Duke
Historical Romance Collection
Darcy Burke
Grace Callaway
Lila DiPasqua
Shana Galen
Caroline Linden
Erica Monroe
Christina McKnight
Erica Ridley
La Loma Elite Publishing
Copyright
Copyright © 2018 by La Loma Elite Publishing
Cover Image by Period Images
Cover Design by The Midnight Muse
All rights reserved.
ISBN-10: 1-945089-28-8 (Electronic Book)
ISBN-13: 978-1-945089-28-2 (Electronic Book)
La Loma Elite Publishing
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the author, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.
[email protected]
Contents
Darcy Burke
The Forbidden Duke
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Books By Darcy Burke
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Grace Callaway
The Duke Who Knew Too Much
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Epilogue
The End
Books By Grace Callaway
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Lila DiPasqua
The Duke’s Match Girl
A Historical Tidbit
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Epilogue
Glossary
Books By Lila DiPasqua
About the Author
Shana Galen
Waiting For A Duke Like You
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Epilogue
Books By Shana Galen
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Caroline Linden
When I Met My Duchess
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Books By Caroline Linden
About the Author
Erica Monroe
I Spy A Duke
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Covert Heiresses
Books by Erica Monroe
About the Author
Christina McKnight
The Misfortune of Lady Lucianna
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Also by Christina McKnight
About the Author
Erica Ridley
The Duke’s Accidental Wife
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Books By Erica Ridley
Acknowledgments
About the Author
The Forbidden Duke
Darcy Burke
The Forbidden Duke
Copyright © 2016 Darcy Burke
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1944576002
ISBN-13: 9781944576004
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Book design: © Darcy Burke.
Cover design: © Carrie Divine/Seductive Designs.
Photo copyright: Couple © Novelstock.com
Photo copyright: Stairs © Stanisla
v Bokach/Depositphotos.com
Editing: Linda Ingmanson.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
Created with Vellum
For Mr. Wright
Thank you for making middle school survivable
and for making the study of history such an important part of my life.
Chapter 1
St. Ives, England, February, 1811
Miss Eleanor Lockhart stared at her father in open shock. “You have nothing left?”
Davis Lockhart pulled at his sleeve, a familiar gesture that practically screamed his discomfort with this interview. “Not nothing, but not enough to support this household.” He turned apologetic, murky brown eyes on her. “And not enough to support you.”
Nora stared at him from the recesses of the ancient settee, whose broken leg was propped up with a stack of books. He’d lost all his money—or almost all, apparently—to a bad investment scheme. “What was it again?” she asked, shaking her head.
Father had always been a bit of a scatterbrain, but she hadn’t realized the depth of his ineptitude when it came to financial matters.
He coughed. “A building situation in Sussex.”
That sounded terribly vague. Unfortunately, she suspected he couldn’t provide a more detailed description, likely because he didn’t know one.
“What am I to do, then?” She asked the question plainly, without emotion, despite the thundering of her heart and the fear spreading through her limbs as she contemplated what her future might be. With no husband and nothing but a scandal-laden past to her credit, Nora had few options.
Father straightened and turned toward the window overlooking their small property on the edge of town. He leased the cottage and its surrounding garden. It was home—where Nora and her sister had grown up, where they’d plotted their exciting futures as countesses or duchesses, where Nora had returned, defeated, after leaving London in ruin in the midst of her second Season. It was where Nora had presumed she would live her spinster life, until such time as she had to find her own smaller cottage with the modest income her father left her. However, that was not to be.
“Your sister would surely take you in,” Father said without looking at her.
Nora doubted it, not because Joanna wouldn’t want to, but because her husband, the vicar, would likely disallow it. Nora was a pariah, a loose woman who’d been caught kissing a gentleman who wasn’t her husband or her fiancé. She was not the sort of woman Matthias Shaw would invite to live in his vicarage.
“I find that unlikely,” Nora said softly, her mind working even as her spirit was failing.
“Perhaps Cousin Frederick’s wife will take you in.”
Cousin Frederick who had died five years ago? He and his wife, the daughter of a baron, had sponsored Nora ten years earlier. They’d been kind and generous, and Nora had dreadfully and mortifyingly humiliated them with her scandalous behavior. They’d shipped Nora back to St. Ives immediately following her fall from grace with the explicit instructions that they would not be sponsoring Jo.
Since Cousin Frederick’s death, his wife Clara had remarried, and Nora couldn’t imagine she would reopen her home to the woman whose behavior had utterly embarrassed her. Perhaps when the gates to the Underworld were coated in frost.
Nora didn’t even bother responding to her father’s ridiculous suggestion. Instead, she tossed him a glower and gritted her teeth behind tightly closed lips.
He smiled in return. Rather it was a pained stretching of his mouth which only underscored how much he disliked confrontation, especially with his daughters. “I suppose you could find a position as a lady’s companion or perhaps a governess.”
He made the comment blithely, as if such employment grew on trees and were ripe for the picking. “Just how am I to do that?”
His brow pleated, and his eyes darkened. “How am I to know? You’ll work it all out. You’re a smart gel, like your mother was.” His tone softened. He wasn’t a particularly sentimental father, but Nora knew he’d loved her mother and still missed her, though it had been twenty years since her death.
Nora stood, intending to go and speak with her sister at once. Jo might not have any suggestions, but she at least possessed a sympathetic ear. The only one Nora had.
The afternoon was cool and overcast, but Nora was quite warm from her walk by the time she reached the vicarage on the other side of the village. Jo’s housekeeper, Mrs. Kettler, showed Nora to the small sitting room to await her sister.
A moment later, Jo entered, her dark brown hair swept into a neat style, her hazel eyes sharp and assessing. “I wasn’t expecting you today.”
What she didn’t say was that her husband didn’t like surprises, particularly from Jo’s outcast sister. “I know. I needed to speak with you urgently. We can go for a walk if you’d prefer.”
Jo’s brows dipped. “What’s the matter?”
Nora saw no need to prevaricate. Jo knew their father’s flaws as well as anyone. “Father has lost his money in an investment scheme. He is moving to a small cottage on his brother-in-law’s farm in Dorset.”
Jo’s eyes flashed surprise. “Indeed? I didn’t think Aunt Polly cared for Father.”
Polly was Father’s younger sister, and they did not get on well. Nora and Jo had met her all of four times in their entire lives. “He’s going to live in a tiny cottage on the far reaches of their sheep pasture. I daresay she will avoid him as much as possible.”
“Still, it’s kind of her to take him in,” Jo said.
That was true. And while the cottage they were allowing Father to live in wasn’t large enough to accommodate Nora, perhaps they had room in their house. Furthermore, they had children. Perhaps they needed a governess. Nora nearly laughed at that thought. They weren’t the sort to have a governess. They lived in the country because they preferred a simple life.
Jo gestured for Nora to leave the sitting room with her. “Let’s take that walk.” She went into the entryway, where she donned gloves and a hat. “Will I be warm enough?”
Nora was wearing one of the few serviceable gowns she owned—a light wool—and nothing else for added warmth. “You’ll be chilly at first, but you’ll warm up.”
Jo nodded and opened the door for Nora to precede her outside. “Are you going with him to Dorset?”
The sun was now peeking through the clouds. Nora tipped her head down so that the rim of her bonnet shaded her eyes. “There isn’t room for me. I have to find another arrangement.”
Jo stopped in her tracks, turning to stare at Nora. “You can’t mean—”
Nora touched her younger sister’s arm gently. “No, I do not expect to live with you. I know Matthias would never allow it.”
Jo exhaled, her expression pained. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It’s my fault you’re married to such a stiff-neck anyway.” Because Nora’s ruinous behavior had ruined her chances for a Season.
Jo frowned as she glanced back toward the vicarage. “Don’t say that. I know you see him as unforgiving and judgmental, which I agree are not the best traits for a vicar,” she said wryly. “However, he’s a kind husband. I could do far worse.”
I could be unmarried like you.