The Accidental Duke (The Mad Matchmaking Men of Waterloo Book 1)

by Devlin, Barbara

  The Accidental Duke

  Book One in the

  Mad Matchmaking Men of Waterloo

  By Barbara Devlin

  © Copyright 2021 by Barbara Devlin

  Text by Barbara Devlin

  Cover by Wicked Smart Designs

  Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.

  P.O. Box 7968

  La Verne CA 91750

  ceo@dragonbladepublishing.com

  Produced in the United States of America

  First Edition April 2021

  Kindle Edition

  Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.

  All Rights Reserved.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notes:

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.

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  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Publisher’s Note

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  London

  April, 1816

  The sweet stench of blood mixed with sweat and damp earth weighed heavy in the air, an acrid pall thick as evening fog on the Thames. Mangled bodies, some bearing no recognizable features, littered the once resplendent countryside, which now manifested a seemingly infinite makeshift gravesite. The remaining survivors, beaten and butchered, their cries merging to form a morbid audial tapestry of misery and pain, stumbled to their respective camps, oblivious to the herald’s cry declaring the winner, as if anyone could claim victory amid such massive human devastation.

  Crawling along the verge, a lone soldier, a mere shadow of a man, confused and afraid, shook himself alert and dragged himself toward safety. At least, he thought he headed in the right direction, but he didn’t understand why he failed to advance. Instead, he struggled in place. After rolling onto his back, he sat upright and wiped his brow. Shielding his eyes from the sun’s rays, he peered down. It was then he discovered the lower half of his left arm missing, and he screamed.

  Venting an unholy howl of horror, British Army Major Anthony Erasmus Hildebrand Bartlett, 7th marquess of Rockingham, woke with a lurch and glanced from side to side. With his eyes focused on the canopy of his four-poster bed, as his heartbeat hammered in his chest and his pulse pounded in his ears, he gasped for breath. At last, he realized he prevailed in London.

  After a few minutes, he pushed from the mattress, and the fear wrenching his gut subsided. With questionable balance, he staggered to the washstand. At the basin, he fought with the heavy pitcher but managed to fill the porcelain bowl. Then he splashed his face with water. Studying his reflection in the mirror, he frowned and shook his head.

  How long would the nightmares terrorize his sleep?

  How many times would he venture to that awful place?

  The Battle of Waterloo may have ended the war with France, but it left behind a trail of victims still engaged in conflicts, real and imagined, nonetheless brutal as the original skirmish. While England celebrated Napoleon’s defeat and exile, and life returned to normal on the streets of London, full of frivolous balls, promenades, and musicales that marked the start of the Season, Anthony remained imprisoned in the past.

  At the Mont Saint Jean escarpment where he lost his limb and so much more.

  “Anthony, are you there?” Father knocked and then opened the door. “I thought I heard you.” Without invitation, he strolled into the bedchamber. “Are you all right, son?”

  “Aside from the fact that I have no left hand, I suppose I am fine.” Summoning composure, Anthony buried his nose in a towel and braced for another lecture, a predictable succession of which occupied his daily routine and chipped away at the last vestiges of his patience. There was a time when he considered his father a friend, but that changed when Anthony became the heir to a dukedom he did not want. Second sons required no regular reprimands on the importance of honor and duty. Tossing aside the cloth, he stared at the empty sleeve pinned to his shirt, which reflected a far greater loss than the absent appendage. “And I apologize if I disturbed you.”

  “You nap as you did when you were a babe, and that is what concerns me.” And so the familiar discourse commenced, as dependable as the sunset, and his father frowned. “You have been home these eight months, yet you do not resume your normal activities. The war is over, yet you maintain the fight. Why do you shut yourself away from the world? Why do you not go out with your friends?” he asked in a sharp tone. “You are a war hero, distinguished by your courage displayed under Wellington’s command. Why do you not celebrate—”

  “What is there to celebrate?” His rapier retort cut through his father’s impossible hopes, because Anthony had no desire to rejoin the world. At least, not in his current state. “The very suggestion inspires naught but disgust, and my friends are similarly battered and impaired.” With a huff of frustration, Anthony speared his fingers through his hair and stomped to the window. As the familiar clamor of war filled his ears, he flung open the drapes. Gazing at the sky, he mourned the many casualties. How could he go on, waltzing through the ton’s ballrooms, as though nothing happened? “John is dead, or did you forget him, already?”

  “I forget nothing about my firstborn and your elder brother, but he is gone, God rest his soul.” Tugging at the lapels of his coat, Father stood tall with his usual pomposity. “What use is there to dwell on a future that no longer exists?” he as
ked, with nary a hint of emotion. “And you are here, to take up the reins and ensure the continuation of our legacy, so all is not lost.”

  “Ah, yes.” At the prospect, Anthony swallowed hard, given he never desired the title and its myriad responsibilities. Indeed, he preferred the relative invisibility associated with the life of a second son, and he longed for the bygone simplicity. Could he not just be himself? “There is that, Your Grace.”

  Yes, he deliberately goaded his father, as he did before the war, but his father didn’t take the bait, much to Anthony’s disappointment. Could they not return to the old days, marked by good-natured ribbing and morning horse races along Rotten Row?

  “You will check your tone, sir, because I raised you better than that, and you will not speak to me thus.” The formidable patriarch, unerring in his focus, emerged, and Anthony’s knees buckled, because he would rather cut off his other arm than fail his father. In an instant, Father bent and drew Anthony into a reassuring hug. “Easy, my boy. I do not pretend to understand your obsession with what is done and cannot be undone, or the invisible scars you carry as a blockade, of a sort, to exclude those who would provide succor in times of heartache. While I am proud to have sacrificed my sons on the altar of freedom from Napoleon’s tyranny, I know you cannot persist in this fashion. I will no longer permit you to linger in this pitiful state.”

  “What do you intend?” As Father brushed Anthony’s hair from his forehead, he arched a brow. “A spanking?”

  “Something much worse, but do not tempt me.” Father chuckled, and Anthony walked to the armoire, in search of distraction, that he might gather his wits and counter whatever hair-brained scheme his father proposed next. Could he simply not let Anthony mourn the loss of his arm? “A missive is just arrived from Lord Ainsworth.”

  “What has that to do with me?” He retrieved a yard-length swathe of linen and sighed, because the item represented another in a series of tasks Anthony could not perform for himself, given he had only half a left arm. Instead of seizing a diversion, he only reminded himself of his deficiency, and he cursed his miserable hide. “Lord Ainsworth is your friend, is he not?”

  “Indeed, Ainsworth is my oldest and dearest childhood chum, dating to my tenure at Eton, when I still wore shortcoats.” Father flicked his fingers, and Anthony dragged his heels as a petulant child. While his father tied a perfect mathematical, he sniffed. “Tomorrow, you and I shall journey to Upper Brook Street and pay call on your fiancée, Lady Arabella, because it is past due for you to renew your acquaintance. By the by, I plan to announce your engagement at the ball, in a fortnight.”

  “I beg your pardon?” A shudder of pure dread gripped his spine, and the room seemed to pitch and turn. Anthony hobbled and tripped, and in the floor an imaginary, fiery chasm opened wide, threatening to consume him. He fell to the carpet. The resulting jolt thrust him, headlong and without warning, into the grip of a gruesome reverie he could not defend against.

  A rapid salvo echoed in his ears, accompanied by the telltale caustic fetor of gunpowder, which permeated and burned his nostrils. In a delusory flash of cannon fire, he transported to the bloody field and the infamous day that destroyed so many lives and with them the dreams borne of youthful ignorance and naiveté. Amid the black vortex, which threatened to swallow him whole, a faint summons beckoned.

  “Anthony.” Father’s voice came to Anthony, as if from afar. “Anthony, I am here, son. Please, don’t do this to yourself. You must let go of the past.”

  Of course, his father would assume Anthony controlled the vicious, unrelenting memories that caught him in their unforgiving trap without notice. In truth, he had no command of the tortuous curse that plagued his consciousness. Slowly, Anthony emerged from the horror. His lungs screamed for air, and he discovered he remained in his room, in London. The instruments of war faded into the background, and he returned to the present.

  That was the cruelest aspect of his disability—the loss that seemed never-ending. What no one understood was that he didn’t lose his arm just once, on that hill. Indeed, he lost it in countless different times and ways. Again and again, he suffered the injury in a seemingly agonizing cycle of the everyday trivialities of life that he could no longer perform: the inability to cut his own food, the helplessness when he struggled to dress himself, and the half-empty sleeve forever pinned to his coat, which all but screamed impotence. Little, if anything, of his former confident self endured. As the tattered remnants of his world crumbled to the ground, he collapsed in his father’s arms and vomited on his pristine coat.

  “Shh.” Sitting on the floor, Father rocked, to and fro, and patted Anthony’s back. “I am with you, my son, and you have my solemn vow that, together, we will rally again and survive this terrible tragedy.”

  “How?” Anthony pondered the bleak revelation and snorted. While he wanted to heal, he knew not how to go about it, and no one offered help. “By shackling me to some poor, unfortunate creature I haven’t seen in more than fifteen years and can scarcely recall? How old is she, now?”

  “Lady Arabella is eight and ten, old enough to stand as your wife. She is of excellent stock and will bear you many healthy sons to carry on the dukedom.” Father rested his cheek to Anthony’s crown, and he savored the comforting support. “You are my only surviving child, and I will not allow you to continue on this sullen path to ruin, because your torment devastates your mother.”

  His torment devastated her?

  “And you honestly believe that Lady Arabella is the answer, when she was promised to my brother?” The mere thought gave Anthony a wicked case of collywobbles, because he had no desire to wed in his condition, which inspired a fresh series of dry heaves. “How do you know the lady is willing, given she was promised to John? What if her affections are engaged?”

  “Lady Arabella is bound to the marquessate of Rockingham, regardless of who holds the title. Her preference never entered the equation, and she will do as she is told,” his father stated with characteristic arrogance. He offered his handkerchief, which Anthony used to daub his mouth as he shrugged free. Balancing on a knee, he steadied himself and then stood. “And love is of no consequence in contracted unions, but you know that.”

  “Is that how you feel about Mama?” he asked with more than a little sarcasm, because nothing about his parents’ union struck Anthony as felicitous. Mulling the prospect, he supposed it would have been better to suffer an honorable death on the battlefield than endure the hollow prison of matrimony, with its protracted demise over the course of untold years, which his sire proposed. “Or would you have me believe you covet a genuine attachment for my mother, when I suspect otherwise?”

  “Your impudence tests the limits of my patience, and our beginning was as nondescript as any other, I suppose.” Stretching to full height, Father doffed his spoiled coat, as Anthony rolled his shoulders and inhaled a deep breath. “But over the years we have developed an understanding and an authentic friendship. I would never do anything to cause her shame or angst, yet neither of us brought any illusions of sentimental love to the altar. If you are wise, you will approach your nuptials with similar expectations and common sense.”

  Neither Lady Arabella nor marriage manifested the source of Anthony’s concern. Indeed, he remained numb to the pedestrian pleasures of everyday life. Billiards, cards, chess, and evenings at White’s, once favored pastimes, inspired naught but apathy. The simple truth was he found no joy in anything. If only he could escape what now resided in the annals of history, he just might find a way to cope with all the tomorrows. “Father, as much as it grieves me to defy you, I cannot marry Lady Arabella, because I am in no condition to care for a wife.”

  Silence weighed heavy in the room, and palpable tension hung in the air. Even the bright sunlight from the windows could not dispel the chill of doom.

  “It is regrettable that you are so quick to throw away what could be a chance at regaining a measure of happiness.” Given Father’s statement, Anthony
breathed a sigh of relief. “Be that as it may, you were born into a position of power and privilege, and you will fulfill your obligations to this family, as the next in line,” his father stated with grim finality. After adjusting the folds of Anthony’s cravat, Father strode to the door. With his hand on the knob, he peered over his shoulder, and his nostrils flared. “In the morning, you will present yourself, groomed and garbed as a gentleman, whereupon you will accompany me to Upper Brook Street and gift a betrothal ring to your bride-to-be, so you had best reconcile yourself to it.”

  In that moment, Anthony ran to the basin, bent, and retched.

  *

  Dress, primp, preen, and pose; such was the life of a proper English lady. After a series of seemingly endless days spent in study of scintillating topics that focused on the finer points of menu planning, ledger tallying, etiquette, posture, and embroidery, a debutante embarked on the second chapter of her existence as a wife and a mother, where the sum of her worth rested on her ability to be seen and not heard, her voice forever silenced, perforce yielding to her husband’s commands.

  For Lady Arabella Hortence Gibbs, only child of the earl of Ainsworth, that would never suffice.

  Garbed in a modest morning dress of pale yellow sprigged muslin with long sleeves and a lace collar, she lounged on the chaise and awaited her doom—and it was her doom. Although she appeared calm and reserved on the outside, inside she wrestled with her prepared speech, because she would take no mate without issuing her terms. If the new Lord Rockingham did not agree with her conditions, she would not accept him. Yet, even as she made her silent declaration of independence, she had no real choice in the matter.

  That was the harshest blow of all.

  Defined by society as an object, as property, as a plaything for men, women measured their future in the lack of opportunity, given they could control nothing of their own fate. If Arabella acquiesced, she would exist as a reflection of her future husband’s predilections. Like it or not, her name, her freedom, and her fortune belonged to her prospective husband, yet she reached for something more, if only to remind herself that she was a person with a mind and a will of her own.