A Heart of a Duke Regency Collection : Volume 2--A Regency Bundle

by Christi Caldwell

  Genevieve gave her head a slow shake. “I do not understand,” she said with a calmness she did not feel. All the while praying that the long travel and fatigue muddled what he truly meant.

  “You need to be reintroduced into Society.” That handful of words conjured a foreign beast removed from its natural habitat and reinserted into its proper home. Then, is that not how my own parents see me? “Society needs to see you are a proper lady now. Once Society’s fascination with you has died, then your sister can resume a normal life and find a suitable husband. It worked for the Moore chit after she was jilted and it will work for you.”

  The least of import to that speech pertained to a young lady she did not know. For with the long-case ticking loudly, she stared unblinking at her father. That was his plan? Thrusting her back into the scornful world which had sharpened their claws on her once hopeful, whimsical self? She gave her head a shake. “No. That will not work.” For so many reasons. Too many to even enumerate. “Furthermore, who would marry me?” she blurted, interrupting him, just as he made to speak. No one. No one unless he was truly—

  “A desperate gentleman,” her father supplied. “One who requires a wife.” With cool, methodical movements, he pulled open his desk drawer and withdrew a note from inside. He laid it on the table.

  Even as she did not want to know what was contained on those pages, Genevieve craned her head and quickly skimmed the page.

  Lord Tremaine?

  She knew that name. Her mind muddled through. How did she know that name? Genevieve froze. Lord Tremaine, one of Father’s friends from his Oxford days. Widowed twice, with a bevy of daughters. She shook her head. Surely he was not suggesting…? Surely…?

  “Tremaine’s wives never birthed him an heir.” The muscles of her stomach tightened reflexively. “He will be arriving in London within a fortnight to assess your suitability.”

  “My suitability?” she choked out. As though she was a bloody broodmare.

  He continued as though she’d not spoken in horrified shock. “He is not opposed to marrying a girl with a scandal, as long as she can be a proper wife and bear him an heir,” he said, tapping the page. “He’ll overlook your sins and restore this family to respectability.”

  As the shock of his words abated, a healthy, seething rage built within her. “My sins?” She shook from the force of her fury. Layering her hands to the side of the chair, she gripped it to maintain calm. Yes, she had been a flirt. A shameful, wicked flirt. If she could go back and not be the coquette who’d seduced with her eyes, then she would have happiness, a family, and stability. But that had been the extent of her crime. She’d never been the whore the ton whispered of. Nor the liar her betrothed and his bastard of a brother had proven themselves to be.

  “You are to conduct yourself with dignity and honor and proper decorum,” her father went on. He peeled his lip in a sneer and raked a hard stare over her, and she sank back under the force of the revulsion there.

  As much as she despised herself for caring, how could a daughter not feel shame at such open loathing?

  “You will wear colorless skirts.”

  Did he truly believe she gave a jot about the fabric of her gown? “Would you have me don white or ivory?” she asked in a smoothly emotionless tone as she angled her chin up.

  Either he failed to note or care about her mocking response, for he continued as though she’d not even spoken. “I’ll not have you batting your lashes at rakes and rogues. When you go out, you are to take your maid and a footman. When you attend ton functions, you are to sit primly on the sidelines with the matrons.” He ran through his perfunctory list with such precision her head spun. “You are not to attract any notice, whatsoever.”

  Why, he thought her incapable of proper behavior? Despite his ill-opinion and her own flirtatious ways years earlier, Genevieve, in five years, had buried that spirited part of her soul. She had carefully crafted a reserved, proper figure in her stead. Then, her father would have had to speak to her through the years to know as much. “Am I permitted to take meals with the family? Or am I to be confined to my room, then?” There was, however, still the matter of her loose tongue.

  The marquess pounded his fist hard the desk, rattling the crystal inkwells and she jumped. “By God, this is not a matter of jest,” he thundered. “You have forever marked this family. The least of what you can do is make this right, as much as you are able, for your sister.” And the fight was sucked out of her. “Is that understood?”

  She sat there trembling; not unlike the same girl she’d been five years earlier. Do not be that girl. Not anymore. Except, for the pleasure Genevieve found in exerting herself over her father, she loved her sister more. “Abundantly, my lord,” she bit out. Her father would order her return to London, with neat plans to order her life and bind her forever to a gentleman. Given the oppressiveness she’d known at her own father’s hands, did he truly believe she’d marry one of his aged friends?

  “You are dismissed.”

  Genevieve came to her feet. The click-clack of her father’s pen indicated he’d returned his attentions to matters which were of import to him.

  And just like that, she was dismissed once more.

  Chapter 2

  “By God, where is he?”

  Lying on the leather button sofa of the library in his bachelor’s residence, Cedric Falcot, the Marquess of St. Albans, turned his head and looked to the entrance. A small grin hovered on his lips as he rescued the bottle of brandy from the foot of his seat. Turning on his side, he filled his empty snifter and then set the crystal decanter back on the floor.

  “Y-Your Grace, His Lordship is otherwise busy.” The thick walls muffled the stammering of his inexplicably loyal butler. He really deserved an increase in wages.

  “…busy.” The Duke of Ravenscourt’s snort penetrated the wood.

  The door flew open, with such force it bounced off the back wall. His father stuck his leg out to keep it from slamming in his face. The Duke of Ravenscourt took in the jacket hung haphazardly over the back of the sofa, the nearly empty bottle, the full glass, and then he settled his icy blue stare on Cedric. “Get out.”

  It spoke volumes to Avis’ foolish devotion that the hard, unyielding command of the duke did not send him immediately fleeing. Instead, he gulped, looking hopelessly to Cedric.

  Taking mercy on the young servant, he swung his legs and settled them on the floor. “That will be all,” he assured the man.

  Avis dropped a respectful bow and then backed quickly from the room but not before Cedric detected the flash of relief in his eyes. Yes, that was long the effect the ruthless Duke of Ravenscourt had on all. Reviled, feared, and hated by even his own children, there was not a sliver of warmth in the bastard’s hardened heart. Only, over the years, Cedric found that his father was just a man…a man with the same weaknesses and vices as him. That realization had broken down the myth of invincibility around the old duke.

  “Father,” Cedric drawled. Taking a sip of his brandy, he shoved lazily to his feet. “To what do I owe the honor of—?”

  “Shut your goddamn mouth, Cedric.” The duke shoved the door hard and it slammed closed with such force it rattled the doorjamb. He stalked over and skimmed his stare over the bottles littering the floor. “I don’t give a damn if you drink yourself to death—”

  “How heartwarming,” Cedric murmured, touching a hand to his chest.

  “—but not before you do right by the Falcot line.”

  Ah, yes, because nothing had ever mattered more than that distinguished title that went back to the time of great conquerors. Not even the man’s children, certainly not his bastards, and never the long-dead wife who’d dutifully given him two legitimate issues before conveniently leaving the duke a young widower.

  Cedric took a sip of his drink. “Isn’t it rather early in the day to have this conversation?”

  His father snapped his blond eyebrows into a single line. “It is four o’clock in the goddamn aft
ernoon.”

  Cedric glanced over to the tightly-pulled curtains. “Is it?” God, how he’d delighted in taunting the old bastard. It was one of the true enjoyments he found in life.

  In a not uncommon show of temper, the duke swiped his hand over the long table positioned at the back of the sofa. He sent the bottles and snifters tumbling to the floor in an explosion of glass. “I have been tolerant of your carousing and womanizing. I’ve indulged your excess wagering.” A vein throbbed at the corner of his eye. “But if you think you’ll shirk these responsibilities, I’ll see you cut off without a goddamn pence.”

  He grinned wryly and propped his hip on the arm of the sofa. Ah, the cut-you-off-without-a-pence threat. Cedric made a tsking sound. “Come, Father, I’ve merely sought to live to your esteemed reputation. Everything I learned about being a future duke, I learned from you.” Placing his own desires and interests before all else, living for his own pleasures, drinking, wagering. All of it had been learned at the foot of this bastard. The most important lesson inadvertently handed down, however, was the selfishness in saddling oneself with a wife and children—either legitimate or illegitimate. And in that, Cedric would have the ultimate triumph over the driven duke.

  “And you’ll not have to abandon those pleasures.” His father tightened his mouth and moved on to his pragmatic explanation. “I understand your aversion to saddling yourself with one woman, but you can take a proper bride, do right by the line, and still warm every whore’s bed you so wish.”

  Cedric tightened his fingers on his snifter. “How very practical,” he drawled, earning another frown. Yes, that was what the miserable bugger had done with Cedric’s own mother. He’d wed a flawless English lady, given her two legitimate babes, the requisite heir, and then she’d even done him the service of dying in short order. Why, it was everything a heartless, miserable letch like his father could have hoped for in a ducal union. Unfortunately for the old Duke of Ravenscourt, there was one slight, but very important, difference between them. Cedric didn’t give a bloody jot about the ancient title. It could go to the grave with his father and Cedric would quite gleefully kick dirt upon both as they were lowered into the ground.

  “I expect you at my goddamn ball.” The duke jabbed a finger at him. “The bloody affair is for you.” It had never been about Cedric. None of it. It had only and ever been about the dukedom. “Find a sweet, biddable bride, or—”

  “You’ll cut me off,” Cedric put in with a half-grin. “Of course. How can I forget?”

  His father sputtered and flared his eyes. After all, no one taunted, baited, or denied this man—except Cedric. Then as quick as the flare of emotion had come, it was gone, and the duke smoothed his unwrinkled features into an un-moveable mask. “You’ve gone through a good deal of the funds left you by your mother.”

  He stilled. Yes, with the recklessness of youth, he’d wagered too many of those funds, lavished expensive mistresses with jewels befitting a queen.

  A slow, triumphant smile devoid of all amusement turned his father’s hard lips. “I can see every creditor called in. One word, and not a single credit will be extended you. This residence,” he waved his hand. “Gone. Then where will you be?”

  Forced back into that long-despised townhouse where he’d endured relentless training and schooling on all things pertaining to the dukedom as a boy. To the place where he’d received such caring tutelage under his father. That house of ugliness and learned depravity. “Go to hell,” he said at last.

  His father stuck a finger out once more. “Be at the ball this evening. My threats aren’t idle. Surely you know that, by now?”

  …I told you. One mistake, and you’ll not see light outside this office…

  The old memory slapped at the corners of his mind and he fisted his hands. He’d not let the duke know the influence he’d once yielded and that the memories sometimes crept in. No, Cedric had buried those oldest hurts and pains long ago and shaped himself into a man incapable of feeling anything.

  The duke peered at him a long while and then gave a slow, pleased nod. “I see you understand.” Without giving Cedric another moment to reply, he spun on his heel and stalked over to the door. He yanked it open. “Be there.”

  “A pleasure, as always,” Cedric called after him.

  His only living parent slammed the door behind him.

  Cedric stood, unmoving, and stared at the mahogany panel the duke had left through. With tension thrumming inside him, he looked to the broken bottles littering the floor from his father’s outburst. He scrubbed a hand over his beard-stubbled face. Glass in hand, he went over to the window. Drawing back the crimson brocade curtain, he peered down into the street.

  His father exited the townhouse and paused outside to adjust his elegant Long Eaton top hat. The late morning sun glinted off the blond and silver strands of his hair. With his expensive cloak whipping about his tall, commanding frame, he evinced power and control. Odd, how one could look at a person and see regality and, yet, that was just a fine veneer of a black, ugly soul and depravity that ran in his veins. A depravity he’d passed easily to the son he’d taken under his wing as a boy of five and schooled on everything from future ducal responsibilities to the immoral pleasures granted men of their stations.

  As the duke climbed into his carriage, Cedric released the fabric and let it flutter into place. He carried his drink over to a leather winged back chair and sank onto the edge. He stared over the rim to the mess left in his father’s violent fit.

  For years, he’d thrilled at taunting his father. He’d lived for his own pleasures, and with the debauched clubs he attended, and parties he hosted, had earned a reputation of rake. When other respectable noblemen would disapprove of those ignoble escapades, Cedric’s had been accepted, even applauded, by his father. His lips pulled in an involuntary sneer. Then, would one expect anything else from the man who’d sent a whore to the schoolrooms to administer Cedric’s lessons when he’d been a boy of thirteen?

  Regardless of fatherly approval or disapproval, he’d lived for himself. All the while he found a secret relish in knowing that the one task his bastard father expected of him was one he’d never grant. For the control he’d exerted over Cedric through the years, this had been the secret, but ultimate, show of power and triumph. Yet, ironically, as a young man out of university and now nearly in his thirtieth year, in his base living, he’d run through funds that had once seemed limitless. A gift given him by the mother who’d correctly seen little worth in her only son.

  Now, his father dangled a not unfamiliar threat over Cedric’s proverbial head. He swirled the contents of his glass and stared into the burgundy depths. The rub of it was…he’d no doubt his father would ultimately make good on his promise and cut him off if he were to fail the Falcot line.

  His lips hardened into a tight line. Yet, Cedric would sooner lob off his right arm and left hand than enter into a union for the purpose of propagating the world with legitimate issue bearing his tainted blood. For all the ways in which he had been a selfish bastard through the years, he was not the complete one Society believed him to be. He’d not destroy a wife and ruin a child the way he had been at his parents’ hands. For ultimately, blood let, and blood will tell, and every other cliché statement made about the power of blood.

  Cedric, however, did not require those cleverly written words to indicate what he’d learned long, long ago. He was his father’s son. And as such, he would never fill the world with miserable bastards like himself.

  A knock sounded and he looked up blankly. Thrusting aside the memories of long ago, he called out, “Enter.”

  Avis opened the door and the introduction died on his lips as he took in the crystal mess littering the floor. “The Earl of Montfort to see you, my lord.”

  Daniel Winterbourne, the Earl of Montfort, his only friend, another miserable blighter who possessed a dark soul, scowled. From the hard glint in his brown eyes to the notoriously shocking reputation, the earl matched Ce
dric in his world of wariness and cynicism. “Montfort,” he greeted as the other man entered the room.

  Montfort stalked over to the sideboard and then paused. He eyed Cedric’s jacket and gaping shirt, and then the mess left in the duke’s wake. “I see you’ve had company.” A sardonic smile formed on the man’s lips. “Next time you’re with an inventive whore, tell the lady to spare the brandy. Not even a whore should come between a man and his good spirits.” With a chuckle, the earl swiped a bottle of whiskey. He poured two glasses and then with one outstretched, made his way over to the seat opposite Cedric.

  Cedric waved off the offering and set down his still full drink. The lure of spirits had, of late, lost their potent dulling of thought and emotion.

  His friend waggled his eyebrows. “More for me then,” he lifted both in salute and with a grip on both glasses, proceeded to drink.

  “Well?” Cedric drawled, sitting back in his seat.

  Montfort froze, the glass midway to his mouth. “Well?”

  Cedric lifted an eyebrow. “So what is the reason for your visit?” After all, life and time had long proven that no one did anything without specific reason or personal benefit; and that included those one considered friends.

  The earl flashed him a hurt stare. “I am offended, chap. Can’t a friend simply pay a visit to…” At the pointed look shot his way, a chuckle rumbled past the other man’s lips. “There is wagering going on at Forbidden Pleasures.”

  The more scandalous of the gaming hells, it was a place frequented by lechers, scoundrels, and rakes. All were men bent on their personal gratifications in a place devoid of even the façade of politeness or decency. As such, it had proven the perfect place for a man of Cedric’s ilk.

  When he remained silent, a sound of annoyance escaped Montfort and he put one snifter down. “Bloody hell, man, would you have me say it? The wagering is about you and your intentions for this evening.”