The Duke's Second Chance

by Jen Geigle Johnson

  “Wise.” He cleared his throat. “Should I be concerned that you seem to have a particular desire that I meet them?”

  “Not at all.” Gerald smiled to himself. Making his friend the happiest of men while at the same time ridding himself of one of the sisters would be just the thing. “You know, they’re very well connected. As far as tenants go, I’ve acquired some of the best. Pleasing to look upon and friends with the Duke of Norfolk, did I tell you?”

  Lord Morley did not answer but Gerald wasn’t concerned. He’d soon see for himself.

  They arrived at the front door earlier than was typical for callers, but Gerald gave the hour no mind. He was lost in a new hope that involved Amelia in his life. In what manner he had not yet decided, but he knew that it had become vital to his well-being that she be a part of whatever future plans he might have.

  The ladies were all up and dressed, remarkably, and greeted him at the door. Miss Standish stepped forward. “Oh, you came quickly. I imagine so, the situation being what it is.”

  “Miss Grace leaned forward. And Gerald cleared his throat. “Perhaps we might converse in private?”

  “Oh, certainly.” Her face colored a little.

  “We can ask a maid to attend, or better yet, Lord Morley, would you join us?”

  He started, but then recovered and said, “Certainly. Lead the way.”

  Gerald felt the eyes of the sisters on his back as they made their way to the study. In truth, he didn’t need to discuss much with Miss Standish. But he did enjoy seeing his friend discomfited. For the ladies were, each of them, some of the most beautiful he’d seen.

  When they were situated and the door shut, Gerald leaned forward. “I thank you for your timely express. You cannot know how very fortunate I feel in having received your news.”

  She nodded, waiting.

  “I’d like to ascertain how you came by the information and to know if there have been further developments?”

  “We stopped by the first day to pay a social call, as I said we would.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And I noticed on that visit that something was odd about this particular footman. He seemed far too familiar with Lady Rochester, but also with us. The servants of course were asked to discover what they could. And all of us were of the same opinion that something about him was simply off.” She looked out the window. “I do not wish to speak so plainly and so ill of another, but I happened upon them in the garden and they were…” She looked away. “in an embrace.”

  “Unbelievable.” Lord Morley grimaced. “And I do apologize that yours must be the eyes to witness such a scene.”

  “Oh, thank you. I feel it is the least we can do to help when the duke has been so kind.”

  She shook her head. “I must continue this sordid tale. For the servants then inquired and one became more of a friend to their footman.” She shrugged. “It was he that revealed the history between himself and Lady Rochester.”

  “The embrace is proof enough, but the tale from his own lips only helps strengthen my own relief of conscience that ending our betrothal might in some way harm her.”

  “You can rest assured that I don’t even believe her to be mentally incapable. I suspect her to have contrived such a situation, that all of her emotional distress was but a facade.”

  Gerald gritted his teeth in annoyance. “So that she might carry on with her footman in privacy? With no pressure from her brother to remarry?” Did she even merit a visit from him? He thought not. “Perhaps I shall write her a letter detailing our new terms. How can I abide to look upon her, hearing her true nature revealed?”

  “But to hear her agreement to your terms. I think you must.”

  “So be it.” He noticed an increasing amount of glances between the two of them, so he made his way to the door. “If you could spare a footman, I shall leave you to it, go and return without anyone further encumbered.”

  “What? Surely you’d like some company?”

  “No, a footman will suffice.”

  Lord Morley eyed him as if he’d grown an extra set of arms, but he stayed with Lady Standish, and Gerald hurried to the home of Lady Rochester, his own cottage, to deliver his terms.

  15

  Perhaps Amelia had been a bit rash in her decision to run from London. But who could blame her? The duke had disappeared for days. The mistreatment by the lady customers persisted, and her father could tell something was amiss. Her grandparents had written many a letter inviting her to stay, alerting her of coming engagements, but she’d answered none of them.

  And now, sitting on the front porch to their charming house in the country, she could only feel a twinge of guilt. She and her father were happy in the country. At least she told herself so. They’d saved money, and something she hadn’t known, her mother had a substantial dowry that her father had been keeping for Amelia to use when the time came. And from it, they were able to have a small income, if they chose.

  Her father resisted the notion, but she insisted, at least for the time. They could sell the London shop and purchase one far away from there, perhaps even near their cottage. She told herself she was content, if not happy even; but she could never be so, not with things left unsettled the way they were, not knowing she’d never see the duke just happen upon her one evening. Was she running away? Certainly. She preferred the quiet real conversations of the shop owners and working class who she was raised knowing. The duke had that same sincerity, goodness, his friend, Lord Morley also. Perhaps there were members of the ton she could admire and enjoy. Her grandparents were lovely. She stood. “I believe I need a good walk about the grounds. We’ve no idea if the fences are well and mended.”

  “Don’t be long. Would you like to bring Jasper?”

  Their dog belonged to the house. They asked the maid to feed it while they were away. They weren’t sure how it happened upon them but allowed him to finish out his days in his home. “I don’t think he’d make it.”

  Her father chuckled. And she waved to him as she rounded the back of the house. The further she walked out into the open fields, the easier she breathed, the freer she felt and a certain boldness overtook her. “And why can’t I be happy?”

  Horse hooves sounded behind her. She whipped around, startled. A man, a gentleman, rode a tan horse with a black mane, white socks on his two front legs. She couldn’t make out much else but curiosity rose up to the surface, and she waited while the newcomer rode closer. But the more she studied him, something familiar jogged her mind and her heart skipped when she recognized a certain tilt of the head. The rider made his way closer and the sound of his laugh rose like a wave inside, racing through her in a crazed crashing of white frothy happiness. “What!” she waved her arm.

  He at last skidded to stop in front of her, leaping from his horse and rushing to her.

  She wasn’t sure what to expect, from his actions she thought for certain he would pick her up and spin her around in his arms, but at the moment such an action would have been expected, he stopped in an awkward lurch and held out his hand, “Miss Amelia.”

  He placed her hand in his. He bowed over it, allowing his lips to linger on her knuckles for the briefest of moments. Or had she imagined it?

  “Your grace. What…”

  “I’ve come. I mean. I found you. You left.” His accusing eyes made her look away.

  “I—” Her words came out breathless. “I thought it for the best.”

  “You did?” He tipped his head. “That cannot be so. For how could being apart from someone so linked to your very soul be a wise move?”

  She gasped. “You’ve felt it too?”

  “Most certainly. How could it be otherwise? I know I come with a partly broken heart so what I offer might not be whole.” He paused.

  She watched him. “What you offer?” Hope refused to lighten the way, for now.

  “Yes, Amelia, oh my lovely Amelia, somehow this broken heart still functions. And it has learned how to love again. For I
love you. And I cannot imagine my life without you. I thought perhaps visiting you at the tea room might suffice, but that’s an awful manner in which to spend time with the one you love. And besides, you’d left.”

  She refused to acknowledge the joy that was trying to overflow into her common sense. “And what about Lady Rochester?”

  “She’s gone. She’s recanted all of her previous nonsense, and broken off our engagement… Which brings me to my offer. He lowered himself to one knee. “Miss Amelia Dickson, I am quite without a duchess, and a mother to my son…”

  Her heart pinched in a touch of sorrow. Is that all he wanted from her? What he’d hoped from Lady Rochester?

  He held up his finger. “And my soul longs for its missing part, which I found in you. I love you. When I thought I could never love again, I discovered the heart’s infinite capacity to love. And now I cannot even recognize my life without you in it. Please, my dear Amelia, consent to be my wife.”

  She stepped closer. Could they make a happy life together? “What would happen if I did this?” She stood as close as she could, as close as she dared. Then reached up to run a hand down the side of his face. He closed his eyes and the smile of enjoyment encouraged her.

  He wrapped an arm around her back and stood, their faces close. “Or this.”

  She reached her hands up to his shoulders, loving the feeling of his arms around her. But uncertain how he would respond, knowing that she shared moments like this one with ghosts of his first wife. She stood on tiptoe. “I wonder how you would feel about…” As her lips moved closer to Gerald’s, he surprised her and closed the distance immediately, covering hers with his own. Warmth and happiness filled her, a sense of completion and wonder raced from her head to her toes, while his mouth explored hers in a growing intensity. She pulled him tighter. Could it be? Was he free to love again? Could they have a happy marriage?

  He kissed her again and again. And then, when he paused for a moment, his mouth still hovering near hers, he repeated, “I love you Amelia. I can’t believe it is so, but I love you and want you to be my wife.” He pressed his forehead against hers and waited, with eyes closed.

  “Gerald?”

  He opened his eyes.

  “Yes. I love you too. I have from the moment I first met you.”

  His smile grew and he kissed her once more on the lips, then the nose, then the forehead. “You’ve made me the happiest of men. Can this really be so?”

  It was most definitely…so.

  Epilogue

  Gerald pulled his wife closer, the waltz his most requested dance of late.

  “Isn’t such a thing scandalous?” Amelia raised an eyebrow in pretend dismay as only she could.

  “If I can’t create a little scandal with my own wife then I don’t know what more to do for these people.”

  “I guess scandal with one’s wife is appropriate? Yes?”

  “Of course it depends entirely on who’s speaking, but I will always find any activity with you appropriate no matter what anyone says.” A protective warmth filled him as he watched the light dance in his wife’s eyes. His arms circled about her more closely and he moved them to the more secluded parts of the ballroom floor.

  She melted into him. “I love it when you hold me like this.”

  “Like I can’t be close enough?”

  “Well, yes.” Her reddening cheeks warmed him all the more. “But more as if this dance were an embrace.”

  Pleased, he searched her face. “And so it is. And now, all this talk of closeness, scandal and embraces makes me think we should pay a visit upstairs.”

  Amelia gasped and looked around.

  “To visit our son.”

  “Oh you are too much. Such a tease.”

  “And if I kiss you on the stairs, so be it.” He danced them to the rear of the room where an exit would allow them easy access to a back stairwell. Once they’d slipped from the room, he pulled her close, “Or here. We could even take a small break and I could kiss you right here.”

  A small gasp interrupted and a maid hurried past, fighting a smile.

  “Look what you’ve done.”

  “What? More scandal with my own wife? I thought we’d covered this.”

  “Oh, all right. Let’s have some of that scandal, then.” She moved closer.

  “Now we’re talking.”

  After thoroughly kissing his wife, he tugged her hand and they raced upstairs and into the nursery.

  “Father!” Richard raced to Gerald and was swung up into the air. Then Richard pulled on Amelia’s hand. “Mother come see.” Gerald winked at her upturned face and then watched as his son showed Amelia his work in the school room. Gerald had worried about how he’d feel when his son called Amelia mother. What would Camilla think? But as he looked up at her smiling portrait, he couldn’t help but think she’d be pleased.

  Amelia came to stand beside him, and he pulled her closer once more. “ I love you my wife.”

  “I love you too.”

  ***

  Read on for the introduction to Lord Morley’s story, Book Two, The Earl’s Winning Wager.

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  The Earl’s Winning Wager

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  The Nobleman’s Daughter

  Two lovers in disguise

  Scarlet

  The Pimpernel retold

  A Lady’s Maid

  Can she love again?

  Spun of Gold

  Rumplestilskin Retold

  Dating the Duke

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  Charmed by His Lordship

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  Tabitha’s Folly

  Four over protective Brothers

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  The Earl’s Winning Wager

  Gerald smiled until his cheeks hurt.

  “How can you smile when you’re losing abominably?” Lord Morley frowned at him.

  “I have leave to be happy so soon after my own wedding.”

  “But you don’t have leave to gamble away your living, even to your best friend.”

  “I’m hardly close to losing a living.”

  Lord Morley raised his eyebrows. The other lords at the table stared greedily at the back of Gerald’s cards. But even though Lord Morley was shaking his head, none too subtly, Gerald pushed all the remaining chips and his slips of paper into the center. “Included in this are some holdings in the South.”

  Lord Morley narrowed his eyes.

  Gerald fanned out his cards. “Good, but — he smiled even broader—"Not good enough.” Then each of the men laid out their cards. He’d beat Lord Oxley soundly, as he knew he would. Then Lords Harrington and Parmenter were also out. Everyone turned to Lord Morley, and Gerald couldn’t help the victorious feeling that rushed through him. Lord Morley had beat him. He knew he had. And exactly according to plan, the Earl’s winning wager had won just who the duke was hoping this carefully planned wager would.

  To be continued in Book Two in the series: The Earl’s Winning Wager. The Earl’s Winning Wager