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

by Christi Caldwell

Daphne limped over to the desk. With her spare hand, she grabbed the handful of respected names—friends of her departed parents who could serve as a character reference, but wouldn’t do more than that; like hire her for their cherished daughters. “Mrs. Belden,” she said flatly. Useless page in hand, she lurched across the room. Her neck burned with the woman’s stare.

  Yes, one who’d committed herself to instructing ladies on the effortless way with which to glide over marble ballrooms would never look with anything but revulsion on a woman who moved like a lame pup just learning to walk.

  When she exited the room, closing the door behind her, Daphne did not break her stride. Instead, she marched ahead at a brisk pace that strained every last muscle and ligament from her ankle up through her knee, and higher up to her thigh. Sweat beaded her brow and she dusted the back of her forearm over it.

  If her limp appalled Mrs. Belden, she would, no doubt, find a lady perspiring as a punishable offense. Not all were as ruthless as Mrs. Belden, however. For the men and women of all stations who viewed Daphne and the other imperfect girls and women as useless to Society, there were those that believed in their capabilities.

  With her spare hand, she dug out the single, neat scrap she’d snipped from an old copy of the Herald Gazette and scanned the page. Even though she’d read it enough times that she’d burned the words on her mind.

  The Marchioness of Guilford, founder of Ladies of Hope, a distinguished institution for girls and women with disabilities, seeks the most experienced educators and doctors as candidates for work with those living within the institution. Only those with a belief in the ideology and principle of the establishment, as well as experience and glowing references will be considered for employment. It promises to be unlike any other respectable institution for ladies, etc, etc…

  Daphne gripped the edges of that sheet so hard, her fingers turned white. The same hope that had filled her since she’d first read of Lady Guilford’s held her motionless. There was a place. A place that existed for women of all walks and ages where they were valued. A place where only the best, most qualified were hired for the people who called that institution their home. Alas, her hopeful query to that distinguished proprietress had been met with a gracious, if perfunctory, declination on the merits of Daphne’s lack of experience. She rested her cane against the wall and, through her gown, kneaded the muscles of her thigh.

  Society was a riddle wrapped in a conundrum. To obtain honorable work, she required experience and references. And yet those gifts that would grant her security could not be earned without experience or references.

  Marriage was not an option for a woman such as her.

  With fiery red hair and too many freckles, she’d never be considered a great beauty but even as such, had she the use of her limb and a modest dowry, she could have married a respectable gentleman. Not that she dreamed of marriage. Not any longer. She’d long ago come to appreciate the perils in giving her affections to a gentleman.

  Now, a woman of nearly eight and twenty years, she yearned for a control of her own future. She dropped her gaze to the page once more, with a sigh, and stuffed it inside her pocket. Opportunities, however, were limited and far and few between for cripples.

  Shoving aside useless self-pitying, Daphne grabbed her cane. She took one step, when a hushed conversation from the closed door across the hall reached her and halted her forward momentum.

  “…Lady Alice is certainly not the first lady who… Lady Clarisse Falcot—”

  An inelegant snort cut off whatever words that employee now said of Lady Clarisse. “This is entirely different. This is not Christmas.” Not wishing to listen any further on the instructors’ gossip about the students who attended these hallowed halls, Daphne resumed walking, when the next whispered words halted her mid-step. “She is being thrown out.”

  Thrown out? Of Mrs. Belden’s? Lady Alice, the Earl of Montfort’s sister—Daniel Winterbourne’s sister—would be… Her mind raced—sixteen. Mayhap seventeen years of age. What offense found a lady dismissed from finishing school? She furrowed her brow. Though once best friends with the girl’s older brother, Daphne had only a few interactions with his much younger sibling.

  “Nor is Lady Alice Winterbourne Lady Clarisse Falcot. But each lady’s brother is rumored to be something of a rake.”

  At that, Daphne frowned. Yes, years ago Daniel had gone to London and made quite a splash on the scandal pages through the years for the reputation he’d garnered as rake.

  “…What manner of brother forgets his sister?”

  She covered her mouth to stifle a gasp. He’d forgotten Alice?

  “…One who is deep in dun territory,” the other woman replied.

  Most of the ladies who attended Mrs. Belden’s were lofty nobles who’d either little interest in having a daughter or sister underfoot or a lack of funds to hire the proper governess. Her frown deepened. In Lord Montfort’s case, it appeared to be a mix of the two.

  Annoyance with the boy she’d once called friend stirred. Then, they’d not been friends for many, many years. Not since his mother had died. What use did noble sons, set to inherit an earldom, have need of a crippled lady without noble connections? Especially a noble son of whom she’d once, as a young girl, thought to marry and live happily with forever and ever. What a bird wit she’d been.

  “…They say he’s returned from a wicked party he hosts in London…”

  Daphne gave a disgusted shake of her head. The village had been set on its ear four years earlier when carriages of courtesans, widows, and whispered-about rakes and rogues had arrived for a hunting party at the young earl’s estate to do more than hunt at his now severely crumbling estate. Scandalous gossip of the particular feasts enjoyed by the gentleman in attendance had spread throughout the village that still set Daphne’s ears to burn.

  It would seem, by the young instructors’ gossip, that those parties hadn’t ceased, but rather their locale moved.

  “…I also heard…” The door suddenly opened and Daphne stumbled back as the two young women’s gazes landed on her. Shifting her cane, Daphne forced a smile, and resumed her trek down the hall.

  As she made her way by, her skin pricked with the always familiar, open stares. Looks she’d grown accustomed to through the years. After all, crippled ladies were an oddity in a world that valued flawlessness in every way for women. Even with that, even knowing people ogled and pitied and talked, her insides twisted. No person wished to be the object of pity.

  Daphne reached the front foyer and a servant came forward with her cloak. Balancing her cane against the front of her skirts, with some difficulty she struggled into the worn wool garment. The same servant spared a glance at the aged fabric and then rushed to draw the door open.

  The cleansing spring air filled her lungs. She paused on the front step, focusing on the familiar comfort of the country air. Fixing on that prevented her from thinking of returning to her small cottage that would soon be turned over to a distant relative whom she’d never even met.

  Laughter trilled around the immaculate grounds and she looked wistfully to the young ladies with baskets on their arms as they snipped and gathered gold and orange chrysanthemums. She paused and appreciated the beautiful simplicity of that act. One she’d performed so very many times as a girl alongside her mother.

  When had she snipped a bud for the pleasure of it? Since her father’s passing eighteen months earlier, her life had moved on, driven by survival and necessity.

  “Miss Smith, is that you?”

  Daphne whipped her head toward that excited call. The abrupt movement caused her leg to buckle and she steadied herself with her cane.

  Several ladies giggled, earning a quiet rebuke from the instructor attending them. Basket in hand, Alice sprinted over with an ease and agility Daphne would have traded a sliver of her soul for. “Oh, Miss Smith, it is so wonderful to see you.”

  Daphne smiled and attempted a curtsy, her body screaming in protest. “My l
ady—”

  The young lady with flawless cream skin and golden ringlets made a sound of protest. “Oh, surely after all these years you might still call me Alice.” She followed her insistence with a beatific smile that dimpled her right cheek. “Though I am hardly the child you so graciously held in your arms when my Father passed.”

  Sadness filled her breast. “No, you are not.” How deeply and how very quickly the Winterbournes had been shattered. With the death of Alistair, the eldest brother and heir, the family had slowly and methodically crumbled until they were mere shadows of the family they’d once been. Then, having lost her own parents, Daphne appreciated the finite quality of death and all the pain it wrought. “I should allow you to return to the other ladies,” she said with another smile.

  A smattering of giggles filled the gardens. Alice’s cheeks turned red and her effervescent smile dipped. “Are they staring at me?” she whispered.

  Daphne furrowed her brow.

  “The nasty creatures in pale blue skirts.”

  She slid her gaze over to the girls now staring in their general direction. Another round of laughter followed. And more chiding from the instructor. It was invariably Daphne who was the gawked at one. In this, however, the three students in blue stared baldly at Alice. Had the news that the young lady had been forgotten already leaked out? Having been the recipient of unkind glances and whispers, Daphne’s heart pulled. She’d wish that ugly on no one. And especially not a girl of Lady Alice’s kind spirit. “I’ve no doubt it is me who’s earned their unkindness this day,” she reassured.

  “Lady Alice,” the instructor called, the stern underlying edge hinting at disapproval.

  “That is lovely of you to say,” the girl said softly, ignoring the young woman in hideous brown skirts. “But it is me. I’m being turned out and Daniel forgot me.”

  Daphne opened and closed her mouth several times. Over the course of her life, she’d cursed Daniel Winterbourne, the Earl of Montfort, numerous times. As a girl, when she should have never uttered those scandalous words. Then years later, after he’d disappeared from her life. And then after that, when she’d read and seen the manner of man he’d become. Never had she cursed him more than she did in this instance. “I am certain he did not forget you.” The lie slid forth easily.

  “That is kind of you to say,” Alice murmured, fiddling with her basket. “But the instructors have been less than discreet.”

  Daphne’s fingers curled reflexively on the head of her cane. No, for all Society’s dictates on politeness and proper discourse, most people were not careful with their words. They belonged to a Society that was a backward mirror image of itself.

  “Lady Alice,” the instructor called again.

  Blatantly ignoring that sharp command, the young lady waggled her eyebrows. “Though, one of the benefits of being tossed from finishing school is you really don’t have much of a care as to what your former instructors have to say.” They shared a smile and then the troubled glimmer returned to Alice’s pretty brown eyes. “If you’ll excuse me. I should return, at least until they determine what to do with me.”

  “It was lovely seeing you again, Alice,” she said softly.

  The young lady nodded and then with slow, reluctant movements, rejoined the small group of assembled ladies.

  The spring wind tugged at Daphne’s cloak as she started down the stone walkway. With each faltering step that carried her away from Mrs. Belden’s and toward her temporary home, her frustration and fury grew, blending together in a potent mixture that fueled her awkward, lurching movements.

  And not for the first time since she’d broken her leg and discovered the truth of the ugly in the world, resentment consumed her. Anger at a world where women were subject to the whim and whimsy of distant relations. Negligent brothers. Unkind ladies. Even unkinder headmistresses and temperamental peers.

  Ultimately, she would be tossed out of her cottage. Her prospects limited. Her funds even more so. Terror licked at the corner of her consciousness, threatening to consume her, and she forcibly thrust it aside. There would come a time to lament her circumstances and panic over her future later.

  Daphne shifted direction and began the long, slow march away from Mrs. Belden’s and away from her cottage to the largest, sprawling, if now crumbling country estate in Surrey. No, she might not be able to help herself this day, but there was something she could do for Alice. In helping the young girl, Daphne would have some control. If she could not save herself in this moment, she could at last protect another.

  Firming her mouth, she continued the trek to the Earl of Montfort’s.

  Chapter 2

  There was nothing Daniel Winterbourne, the Earl of Montfort, wanted more after an exhausting night of lovemaking than mindless sleep.

  And never was that truer than after his evening with the naughty, insatiable, and more than anything, tempting widow, Mrs. Stillwell. Mrs. Stillwell, whose Christian name might have or might not have been mentioned. Either way, it eluded him. It mattered not.

  A satiny soft caress whispered along his naked chest. “Surely you do not want to sleep, my lord.” That voice marred by desire, purred in his ear.

  “Actually I do,” he drawled lazily, his arm stretched and bent above his head. Countless women believed they mattered more than others. Believed themselves more inventive. More passionate. Those egos prevented them from seeing the obvious truth—they were all the same. All fools who’d somehow deluded themselves into believing he was a man worthy of an extended affair.

  The young widow dragged her nails around his navel and he flinched at that cold caress sharp enough to draw blood.

  Forcing his eyes open, he winced as the sun pierced the crack in the curtains, blinding and bright, and devilishly unwelcome. “Have a care, sweet,” Daniel said tightly and captured her wrist in a hard grip.

  The voluptuous beauty pursed her mouth. That tightening around her slightly too narrow lips gave her a pinched look that showed a woman who was no longer in the blush of her youth. “I expected far more interest from a gentleman with your reputation,” she said, shrewish in her determination.

  He stretched his arms. Nothing repelled him more than clingy interest from desperate ladies. “I had you and now I intend to sleep.” Then he closed his eyes, dismissing her.

  The persistent widow ran clever fingers up the inside of his thigh and his shaft stirred. “I see you are not as immune to me as you pretend,” she breathed teasingly against his ear and then closed her palm around him.

  What the lady failed to realize was after more years than he could remember of availing himself to the pleasures of women who were equally wicked to his own licentious self, she was just another warm body. He could respond to her soft touch and efforts to arouse, but she was no different than any other. There was no emotion; there were no feelings or sentiments beyond the gratification of two like beasts sating mutual desires.

  Daniel shifted quickly, startling a gasp from the widow, as he brought her under him.

  “I see you are interested, after all,” she said triumphantly, lifting her lips to his.

  He lowered his mouth to claim hers—

  RapRapRap

  The beauty in his arms frowned.

  “Go away,” Daniel bellowed. The handful of loyal servants who remained on knew better than to interrupt him—particularly when he had a woman in his bed.

  Mrs. Stillwell spread her legs and he positioned himself between her welcoming thighs.

  RapRapRap

  “My lord,” his ancient butler interrupted, “you have a visitor.”

  “There is no one I’m expecting,” Daniel said impatiently. His man-of-affairs was not due to discuss the increasingly dire state of Daniel’s finances until next week when he returned to London. Mayhap it was an irate husband? “Tell him to—”

  “It is a lady, my lord,” the butler said on a loud whisper. “It is—”

  “Splendid,” he called out. He really didn’t require
a name. “Show her in.” Mrs. Stillwell giggled.

  A long pause stretched out, and then: “Uh…she is not that manner of lady, my lord.”

  Then he was otherwise uninterested. “Let the lady know I am not receiving visitors, Haply.” One’s proper reputation was safer with the Devil himself than Daniel Winterbourne.

  The widow in his arms stroked his back and arched her hips in invitation.

  “The lady insists, my lord. Demands a meeting.” Demanded a meeting? His curiosity stirred. But for a spot in his bed or the exchange of sexual favors, women didn’t demand anything of him. “Insists it is a matter of urgency.” He had long since become immune to the undercurrent of disapproval in a person’s words. Yet, to Mrs. Stillwell’s cry of protest, he rolled off her frame and sprawled on his back.

  He may be a rake with no morals, but even he would have trouble sustaining an erection with the same butler who’d teasingly chased him around this very household as a child carrying on outside his chamber doors. Daniel dragged a hand over the day’s growth on his cheeks. “I will be down shortly,” he called out and reluctantly swung his legs over the side of his bed, settling his feet on the cold floor.

  “Should I show her to the parlor, my lord?”

  Bloody hell, Haply and his temerity. “No.” He climbed to his feet and gathered his wrinkled breeches. “Leave her in the foyer.” Mayhap she was one of those naughty ladies offering payment to be debauched by him. He’d never bothered with virgins, regardless of their hot eyes and eagers hands. Regardless of what had brought the woman here, she wouldn’t be staying long. Daniel stepped into his pants, tugging them up.

  “Is there anything else you require, my lord? A visit from your valet?” Poor Haply. He’d even less hope of curtailing Daniel’s outrageous ways than when he’d attempted it years earlier.

  “Must you go?” His now forgotten bedpartner pouted, rolling onto her stomach, so her lush buttocks were on display.

  “We’re done here, sweet.” Daniel returned and slapped her sharply once on the arse, eliciting a squeal. “Haply?”