by Eva Devon
If I
Were a
Duke
A Dukes’ Club Novel
By
Eva Devon
Bard Productions
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters, and incidents are either the work of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events, or locales are entirely coincidental.
If I Were a Duke
Copyright © 2017 by Máire Creegan
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. No redistribution is authorized.
All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any electronic or mechanical means—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without written permission.
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
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
Other Books by Eva Devon
Prologue
Lady Eleanor Paisley could not wait to run away. Oh, not from the beautiful Highlands bens, glens, and lochs that had always been her home. No, she could not wait to run away from Archibald Andrew Winthrop, Duke of Ayr.
Fifteen years of being ignored, shunted from house to house in poorly-maintained coaches, being treated as little more than a servant was quite long enough, thank you very much. So, when the braw young Captain of His Majesty’s Army had shown an interest in her, not only had she been overjoyed, she’d been surprised. After all, she had no beautiful gowns, no particular skill at the pianoforte, and no gift for flirtatious conversation.
For all her life, she’d been rather reserved, a result of always protecting her lonely, broken heart.
There was no way to pretend otherwise. Being an orphan was no easy thing. She had been reared by a guardian who left her to the care of the servants and the governess, except, of course, for when the duke needed her to run his estates and organize his parties. That had not been conducive to gregariousness or merrymaking.
But Captain James Farrel had smiled at her with a winsome grin, swept her over the heather with long walks and an understanding that she had never known before. He did not seem to mind that she was best with plants, books, and organizing lists for the larder.
Within weeks of the tentative courtship, she knew her heart was won. Perhaps, it was not the grand passion she had read of in novels. But what of that? Fiction was fiction, not real life. No, what she had with her bonnie captain was real, good, and true.
To her dismay, she had yet to meet her majority and Captain Farrel had received orders to join Lord Wellesley in Spain. Without the permission of her guardian, they chose to wait and wait and wait. Days crawled by. Months passed with the speed of cold treacle.
Even so, with each letter she received, with each day that passed, her love only grew. That love grew until, at last, she made James promise that when he returned on leave, he would run to the nearest kirk and make her his forever.
Yes, she could wait no longer. She was done with being at the whim of the Duke of Ayr.
Soon, James would be home and, at long last, she would be happy and loved.
But when the appointed day came for his return, Eleanor was left wandering the halls of the sprawling ancient castle perched on Loch Linnhe, waiting for word of his return. Waiting for anything that would send her out of the castle, small valise in hand, for she had few personal possessions, in the dead of night to finally begin her new life.
Each day that slipped by without word sent her wringing her hands, a thing which she had never done before.
When the letter came, she was standing on the ramparts, gazing to the south, to the village where surely news would come from. Her lady’s maid stepped out on the high walk, a missive in her hands.
Eleanor crowed with joy, her eager heart expanding with joy, but then she noticed that Margaret bore no sign of pleasure. Quite the opposite.
A grim expression tightened the young Scottish woman’s pleasantly plump face.
Eleanor swallowed then, walking towards her maid as if through water, her feet mired in sludge. She felt neither the wild wind which whipped in off the North Sea nor felt the heat of the late summer sun. The scent of the saltwater was gone. All she could see or notice was the letter in Margaret’s hand.
As she grasped it, her maid whispered, “Och, I’m so sorry, my lady. So very sorry.”
The parchment felt rough in her hand as she opened it. Then she slowly read the scrawled, jetty ink written by James’ best friend.
It is with the deepest regret that I must inform you, my dear friend and your intended, Captain James Farrel was killed in action at the Battle of Vimeiro. He died bravely and was mentioned in dispatches. . .
Eleanor read no further. There was no need. Her grip on the paper and her happiness, simply let go. The letter flew from her fingers and danced away into the Scottish air, along with all her hopes. And as she watched it go, she made a vow.
Love was too dangerous. For everyone she had ever loved had died.
No.
Lady Eleanor Paisley would never love again.
It was safest for everyone.
Chapter 1
Anthony Burke, bastard son of the Duke of Aston, loved women. Well, he loved life really. Everything about it. In his opinion, life was one great, never-ending banquet and the difference between those starving and those guzzling wine and having a merry old time of it was largely in how they viewed the world.
Some might find this a disagreeable view, but there it was.
In his rather wide experience, those who were always moaning about it had quite a squinty view of life. Now, he recognized that many had a very rough time of it. But his life had not been one of roses and gilded silverware throughout his entire existence. The first half of it had been wrought with poverty and a glimpse into a world which could turn violent in an instant.
So, he did understand the propensity to look at the world as if it meant everyone harm. But he? Well, he’d always embraced the vagaries of this life with wide-eyed wonder. Even now, he could hear his mother’s lilting Irish voice, For even in the darkest cave, there are glorious things to see, darling boy, if only one can simply look about and find them.
It was a sentiment she’d expressed in his very first memories and repeated often with a glorious smile on her never downtrodden face.
The adoption of this way of seeing things did make him irritating to the skeptics of this world, but he didn’t mind. What cared he for people who insisted on misery? He felt sorry for them, but he would not be brought down by them either.
No. Nothing ever really got him down. He’d been through fire and emerged, phoenix lie, stronger. Yes, his childhood had been a brutal one, despite his loving mother. There was little cruelty that he hadn’t seen at some point in his youth. He’d known hunger, cold, deprivation, and violence. But, he’d been given a great gift from his mammy. Hope. Hope was the thing that drove Tony’s heart.
Perhaps, it truly was all d
ue to his Irish traveler of a mother who’d always moved on to the next village when things grew perilous, never letting the world press her optimism to dross. Or perhaps. . . Just perhaps, it was his father, too, who he had not known until he was four and ten years of age, who had a passion for life that most could hardly ever dream.
Whatever it was, Tony absolutely loved to live and loved to see others live well, too.
So, when he was very calmly informed on an early Sunday morning that the king had decided to settle a title on his shoulders, he hadn’t felt undeserving or hesitant. What was the point in that?
In fact, he’d clapped his hands together in his father’s sumptuous study and decided that he was going to be the best lord that had ever been seen.
As the sun spilled in through the beautifully polished, diamond pane windows of the Aston London house, dancing a rainbow pattern across the elaborately woven red and blue Axminster rug, he asked cheerfully, “A baronet is it?
His father, the Duke of Aston, and Lord Blakemore, one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the country, stared back at him, their expressions full of burgeoning information.
The two men were quite a pair. One was a model of civic duty, clean cut, dark-haired, hawk-eyed and dressed in an austere black coat adorned with silver buttons, his cravat tied to perfection. Then there was his father, a veritable lion of a man with his black hair that brushed his impossibly wide shoulders, knowing eyes, and a face which dared one to punch it. His dress was the opposite of austere. No, it was rich, embodied in a red velvet coat, gold buttons, and embroidered waistcoat. Tony knew the outrageously billowing linen shirt beneath hid tattoos.
They were as opposite as night and day, these two powerful men. Yet both of them were determined to see the same changes in their country.
Tony glanced from one powerful man to the other, stunned but thrilled to be so honored. With a title, there was really quite a lot he could do that he couldn’t as a bastard. For one, he could make changes in government.
It had been difficult in the last months, watching his father reach out to other powerful men in England to make change in the world. But, Tony had understood. He might have a great deal of money in the bank and proximity to a powerful family, but he, in the sense that English people valued, did not have political sway. Bastardy came with certain limitations that could not quite be scaled.
Their silence stretched.
“Not a baronet then?” Tony nodded, happy to accept anything which might allow him to enter the arena of genuine change. “Perhaps then a—”
“A duke, Tony,” his father said softly, proudly, his lips quirking in a pleased grin. “A duke.”
Tony, who had achieved thirty years now and was, in many ways, his father’s equal, felt suddenly amazed. For never had he thought he would be in equal status with his important father. Never. Tony’s hands fell to his sides as he did something he wasn’t wont to do.
Tony gaped.
Given his rather varied background and his general attitude towards life, Tony did not ever gape but took things in stride. But this? This was something altogether different. ’Twas as if the proverbial rug had been whipped out from under him, and it was all he could do to keep on his well-made, polished black Hessians.
“I beg your pardon?” he finally managed.
His father quietly turned to the grog tray in his study, poured out three excessively large brandies at eleven in the morning into Irish crystal snifters, and handed first one to his guest Lord Blakemore, then one to Tony.
“A dukedom,” Lord Blakemore repeated. He wore a dangerous smile on his usually unreadable face as he palmed the ornately-carved snifter and swirled the dark liquor around and around.
“How the devil did that happen?” Tony asked, as he lifted the brandy snifter to his mouth and took an indelicate gulp. The spicy and layered notes of French brandy washed over his tongue but he barely felt the burn, he was in such shock.
When neither man immediately replied, apparently happy to let him draw his own conclusions before they were forced to explain, Tony lowered the glass and groaned. “It’s about that bit with the king three months ago, isn’t it?”
Blakemore said nothing. His dangerous smile widened as he gave a nod.
Tony groaned again and took another drink. He swung his gaze to the window which overlooked St. James Park. The last notes of summer were in the air and the flowering trees outside the window danced prettily.
He’d always known that those flowers, those trees, this part of London never really belonged to him. He was an accepted guest. But now?
If this was true, there wasn’t a door that would be closed to him, not a place where he did not belong. In fact, he would be the center of prestige in almost any group he was in.
“Cabinet owes you a great debt of gratitude,” Aston said, leaning against his hulking mahogany desk. “Many men may have lost their sway that day had you not intervened.”
Intervened. Tony barely suppressed a snort. That was one way of framing it.
Given his status as a bastard, one would have thought that being within a few feet of the King of England was unlikely. But when one’s father was the Duke of Aston, and when one got on as well with his father as he did, well. . . There were only a few places he could not go. Being a bastard was the devil, but being a bastard of someone who was virtually one step down from a Royal, wasn’t so very terrible. Visits to Hampton Court, the king’s preferred residence and seat of governance, were regular occurrences. That was wonderful, for he loved the old Tudor pile. On more than one occasion, he’d felt the echoes of Henry the VIII and Anne Boleyn. Not to mention poor, old Cardinal Wolsey.
On this particular instance not so many months ago, his father had been petitioning a minister on the cause regarding the importance of slave ships being intercepted by the Royal Navy. Tony wasn’t allowed into the actual cabinet meetings. So, he had headed into one of the painted halls off the most important receiving rooms, whereupon he had come face to face with the king.
Face. . . To face was actually putting it quite nicely. It had actually been naked, old monarch to young, Anglo bastard.
He wasn’t entirely sure who had been more shocked.
The king had stopped dead in the middle of his activity, hopping on one bare foot. For the king had been merrily taking off bits of clothing, leaving a trail of expensive garments behind him.
It seemed he was making a mad dash straight for the very crowded presentation chambers which were where people were kept while they waited to hopefully gain access to the more hallowed rooms. It was a room that was always full to the brim of avaricious, desperate, gossipmongers.
The side hall that they were in was somehow miraculously unpeopled.
Tony, realizing the king was about to do something that would ensure a Regency with that idiot Prinny in charge, had gone into full traveler mode. A jaunty smile, tilted his lips, he’d taken on a joyful and familiar swagger and he’d marched right up to the king as if they were the dearest of friends.
Now, there was something Tony had confessed to very few people. He’d told his father, of course, but the truth was, he was an exceptional confidence man. One had to eat after all, and he’d supported himself and his mother for quite a few years.
And he was always very, very persuasive. So, he hadn’t hesitated as he made ready to play the clearly deranged king into his hands.
As the king whipped down his breeches and tugged them off his ankles, Tony had thrown out his arms, offered a merry bow to his majesty. Tony then proclaimed how happy he was to see the king, and how delighted he was that they were going for a swim.
The king had furrowed his brow like a child unable to remember what he’d planned on doing next. But then he’d nodded, called Tony “Osborne”, and then as happily as a small boy, had gone off with Tony down another hall which led out of doors. The king had declared how lovely a day it would be for a swim and perhaps they might see a few ladies splashing about, too.
Tony was certain a helpful event would occur. And it did. Just before they reached the doors which led out to the gardens, one of the king’s men, the Earl of Trowbridge, had come running down the hall, his face ashen with sheer panic.
The naked monarch had gone off with the Master of the Bedchamber in some consternation, professing that, though he could not today, that they would have go swimming very soon.
As the memory dimmed, Tony shoved a hand through his thick hair.
“I should have let him wander into the hall in all his kingly splendor,” sighed Tony.
“Should you have, indeed?” his father asked, his lips twitching. “If you must know, that particular act of noblesse oblige was combined with the fact it’s become known what you did to three French frigates off the coast of Spain four years ago.”
Tony whipped towards his father, alarmed. “How?”
“Rumors were made fact by several eyewitness accounts,” Blakemore said simply, no further explanation needed, apparently.
Tony looked at his father carefully, but the duke gave a barely perceptible shake of his head. Tony’s actions were not always exactly legal. Truth be told, he and his father had been privateers for a good many years in the West Indies and some in government might particularly approve of all his methods. He had not engaged the ships to receive acclaim. He’d had his reasons and a title wasn’t one of them.
“You’re about to be lauded as a veritable hero,” Blakemore declared.
Tony drank deeply then flung himself down into a deep, brass-studded, leather chair before the banked wood fire, trying to make sense of it all. “I like my bad reputation quite a lot, thank you.”
“You needn’t give it up entirely,” his father said, happily crossing over and clapping him on the shoulder. “I don’t think anyone would imagine you to turn out as boring as the Duke of Devonshire.”