Claiming the Heart of a Duke: Sweet and Clean Regency Romance (His Majesty's Hounds Book 1)

by Arietta Richmond

  Dreamstone Publishing © 2016

  www.dreamstonepublishing.com

  Copyright © 2016 Dreamstone Publishing and Arietta Richmond

  All rights reserved.

  No parts of this work may be copied without the author’s permission.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-925499-16-2

  Books by Arietta Richmond

  His Majesty’s Hounds

  Claiming The Heart of a Duke

  Intriguing the Viscount

  Lady Harriet’s Hero

  (and another 4 books to come – I am working on the titles....)

  The Derbyshire Set

  A Gift of Love (Prequel short story)

  A Devil’s Bargain (Prequel short story - coming soon)

  The Earl’s Unexpected Bride

  The Captain’s Compromised Heiress

  The Viscount’s Unsuitable Affair

  The Count’s Impetuous Seduction

  The Rake’s Unlikely Redemption

  The Marquess’ Scandalous Mistress

  A Remembered Face (Bonus short story – coming soon)

  The Marchioness’ Second Chance (coming soon)

  A Viscount’s Reluctant Passion (coming soon)

  The Duke’s Improper Love (coming soon)

  Other Books

  The Scottish Governess (coming soon)

  The Earl’s Reluctant Fiancee (coming soon)

  The Crew of the Seadragon’s Soul Series, (coming soon

  - a set of 10 linked novels)

  For everyone who had the grace to be patient while this book, and every other book that I have written, were coming into existence, who provided cups of tea, and food, when the writing would not let me go, and endured countless times being asked for opinions.

  For the readers who will come to know these characters, in this new series, well, as they have come to know the characters in my other series well, and who inspire me to continue, by buying my books!

  For my growing team of beta readers and advance reviewers – it’s thanks to you that others can enjoy these books in the best presentation possible!

  And for all the writers of Regency Historical Romance, whose books I read, who inspired me to write in this fascinating period.

  Be sure to check out the free sample chapter of the next book in this series – Intriguing the Viscount – you’ll find it at the end of this book – here.

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Epilogue

  About The Author

  Your Preview of Book Two - Intriguing the Viscount

  Chapter One of Book Two

  Having broken his fast at the inn that morning, Hunter Barrington, tenth Duke of Melton, had decided that he would ride for the last leg of his journey, because he was heartily sick of the stuffy carriage and of his valet’s mournful mien.

  This worthy, whom he had hired following his friend Raphael’s advice (for it seemed that his business was a source of excellent information, not just imported goods), had vainly tried to turn him into a dandy during their short stay in London. Hunter smiled thinking of Bulwick’s dismay when he had flatly refused to use the cane that Bulwick had tried to foist upon him, or to buy the inordinate number of fobs, which it was fashionable to attach to one’s watch chain. After years in the field, his taste in dress was so simple that it could be called austere. Not so long ago, a day with clean clothes had been worth savouring, so all of this fuss seemed rather ridiculous to him.

  Poor Bulwick had been horrified when he had declared his intention to ride.

  “You can’t possibly do that, my Lord,” he had whispered.

  “You will reach Meltonbrook Chase in a dishevelled and mussed condition. You will get a head cold, of a certainty. And, my Lord, if I may presume to comment further, the road is in very bad condition and frozen all over.”

  “Fustian!”

  Hunter had exclaimed, shrugging away his valet’s concern.

  “It will do me good. Look after my luggage, Felton. I’m off.”

  The road, in his opinion, was quite good – certainly a vast improvement on trampled battlefields and roads in a war zone!

  So, without further ado, he had swung onto his horse, leaving the bewildered valet with his mouth still open in protest.

  For the first few miles, the ride had been exhilarating. Warmly clad in his greatcoat, beaver hat and fur lined gloves, astride his dapple grey stallion, he had delighted in the cold wind and in the speed-blurred landscape, as he let the stallion run off his energy.

  The feeling of freedom, however, did not last long and had already vanished when Meltonbrook Chase appeared in the distance.

  It was the first time he had seen his family estate since his father, the late Duke, had purchased a commission for him, as was traditional for a second son.

  Hunter could remember, perfectly well, his father’s stern admonitions, imparted before sending him on his way to London, and hence to the Peninsular and war.

  “Honour first of all, my son. Honour means more than life to our family. Never tarnish it, never demean yourself, never show a streak of the yellow. Remember, an officer and a nobleman must be an example for his men. England must stand against the French tyrant. Your commitment must be wholehearted. Your days as a dissipated and wild young buck have ended. Do you understand?”

  ’I thought I understood, Father, but I didn’t. Only later, I did. Oh, yes, later I understood, all too well, what you meant.’ Hunter’s thought was wry, and a little sad.

  He was so absorbed in his musings that he was barely registering the landscape. It took some time for him to realise that he was inside Meltonbrook Chase’s expansive park. He reined in his horse, and stopped to look at the wintry landscape around him.

  The silence was profound, broken only by the cawing of a crow, somewhere in the woods, and by the soft murmuring of the nearby brook.

  The grounds were immaculate under the heavy pall of snow, the ice-traced tall poplars, which surrounded the lake, shining like silver filigree under the setting sun’s slanting rays.

  “I’m home.” he thought, steeling himself for his first meeting with his family, after so many years.

  Riding into the deserted stable yard, it seemed surreal that he was actually here – and even more surreal that his father and brother were gone, that all of this was his now.

  He dismounted, the icy gravel crunching under his feet, as a brawny groom, in a leather coat, came running toward him.

  “Master Hunter! Master Hunter! Is it you? Is it really you? At long last you’re home again!” The man suddenly checked and lowered his head.

  “Begging your pardon, Your Grace. I’ve been overfamiliar, but me happiness made me tongue run away with me, it did, old fool that I am.”

  “Never you mind, Nick. Master Hunter it is, if you wish it, as long as you keep it just between us. You know how stuffy my mother can be… Now, this is Nuage.…“ he gestured to the horse, which snuffled curiously at the old groom. “I bought him in France, and a valiant fellow he is. Take good care of him, will you? Go with Nick, my boy, he’s a good one.”

  Nick stroked the horse’s silky coat and took the reins.

  “Always been a good judge of horseflesh, Master Hunter. Since you was a stripling, you was. Come along Nuage,
a good rubdown is what you need right now. And what about some clean straw to lie on and some oats to chew?” Talking to the horse, the head groom disappeared around the corner toward the stable, as the carriage, bearing his valet, and his meagre luggage, drew up before the house.

  ~~~~~~~~

  Nerissa looked at her reflection in the tall mirror and sighed.

  She would never be an Incomparable, and that was that. Her colouring was all wrong, she was too tall and her face was too angular.

  In the pale pastel colours that were deemed fashionable for young ladies, she faded into insignificance.

  She sighed again, thinking of her sister Maria, an acknowledged Beauty, who had cut a triumphant swathe through the ton during the previous Season. It had been fashionable to be in love with Maria, with her flashing amber eyes, rich auburn hair and flawless creamy complexion.

  Thus, Maria had had the opportunity of choosing from amongst a veritable army of suitors and was now betrothed - very advantageously betrothed, to be sure, to a wealthy Earl, to their parents’ delight.

  Donning her fur lined pelisse and her velvet bonnet, Nerissa crossed the hall and stepped into the carriage with her maid, bound to Meltonbrook Chase, where she was to have tea with her bosom bow Alyse, the Duke of Melton’s daughter.

  No, not daughter, sister, she amended her thought. Hunter was Duke, now, after the untimely demise of his father and his elder brother.

  She blushed. They hoped that Hunter would be home soon, for he had sent his family a message from London, but with the deep snow on the roads, he was likely delayed.

  Would he recognise her? She did not think so. He had had scant interest to spare for her, to begin with, when he was a young man just back from his term in Oxford, and she was just a shy ten year old, all angles and elbows and not even a promise of feminine allure.

  Nerissa leaned back on the carriage seat, closing her eyes. ‘Much good it does me to wool-gather like that’, she chided herself. ‘I’ll be lucky if I don’t find myself married to some gouty old man before the Season is over.’

  She shivered, and not because of the sharp wind blowing and howling through the naked trees.

  ~~~~~~~~

  As Hunter approached the door, the butler, a delighted expression lighting his usually impassive features, opened it. Immediately regaining his formal demeanour, Jermyn schooled his expression to a more serious face, better suited to the Butler of a great house.

  “Welcome home, my lord. The ladies are in the drawing room. Follow me, please.”

  “No need, Jermyn, I know the way”, answered Hunter, secretly amused by the butler’s display of self-restraint, and almost ran to the drawing room doors, suddenly unable to wait any longer to see his family.

  He opened the doors, and an instant of shocked silence followed his entrance.

  Hunter scanned the tableau – a morning visit frozen before him. All of his family were there (although part of his mind still expected to see his father and Richard as well), and there was someone else.

  A woman he did not know, a woman who was more beautiful than any he had seen.

  She had burnished golden hair, surrounding her face with a profusion of waves and ringlets, a honey and gold complexion; long, almond shaped green gold eyes, fringed by thick burnished golden eyelashes and emphasized by high cheekbones, and a tall, shapely body.

  The only feature detracting from perfection, but greatly adding to character, was a rather large, mobile mouth, much more capable of expressing feelings (and temper, he suspected!) than a proper prim little rosebud. He was captivated. Her eyes met his across the room, and for a moment, everything else faded away.

  He was brought back to the moment when the silence was broken by his sister Alyse, who cried out: “Hunter! Hunter, you are back! Is it really you, Hunter?” and, without any further ado, threw herself at him. His eye contact with the woman was broken, and he forgot her in the chaos that followed.

  Hunter’s mother, the Duchess Louisa, half-fainting, reclined on the sofa, fanning herself and calling for her vinaigrette. His sister Sybilla, almost jigged around the table, before forcing herself to behave with greater propriety. His brother, Charles, obviously tried to be the cool gentleman, but could not help but step forward and embrace Hunter, his eyes shining with held back tears.

  “At long last, my son,” sobbed his mother.

  “Come here, and let me look at you. Last time I saw you, you were a boy. Now you are a man. And what a man! Your father, God rest his soul, would be so proud of you…”

  Moved despite himself, Hunter gathered his weeping mother into his arms.

  “Shush, Mother, I’m here to stay. I’m so sorry I was not here when it would have really mattered. I feel that I have failed you all, yet it was at the time of Waterloo, and I did not even hear the news for months! I’m so sorry…”

  The Duchess brushed her tears impatiently aside.

  “I’m a foolish old woman, my son. This is not a time for weeping, but a time for rejoicing. God knows, we have been mourning long enough. And look who is here, Hunter. Do you remember Lady Nerissa Loughbridge, Lord Chester’s youngest daughter?”

  A faint recollection of a meddlesome brat, always trying to follow him around, vaguely stirred in Hunter’s memory.

  He turned his head and froze again, caught by her appearance.

  Brat? She was not a brat anymore, she was a woman, and a very beautiful woman at that, more so because of her unusual colouring.

  It was all he could do not to stare at her with his mouth agape. He tried to react in some polite way, and smiled, suddenly recalling one of Nerissa’s youthful misdeeds.

  “Nerissa? Was it you who hid inside your brother Kevin’s portmanteau, because you wanted to come with us when we went to our hunting lodge near Cottesmore? And did we not discover you because you sneezed? Do you remember, Charles?”

  Nerissa had not heard a single word.

  Hunter’s sudden appearance had completely stunned her.

  All her childhood emotions flooded back, crowding her mind, amplified with new meaning and significance. A rosy blush washed upon her face as she dared to smile back.

  “She’s not a child anymore, Hunter,” broke in Alyse.

  ”She is a dear friend to us all, and I really don’t know how we would have managed without her. She is a sensible young woman, with a good head on her shoulders, and she gave us invaluable help when Mother was so ill after…” Alyse’s voice faltered “…after the accident…”

  Hunter looked at his family: his sisters, pretty, vivacious, eager to try out their wings during the London Season, his mother, with her gentle face marked by loss and sorrow, his brother, suddenly scowling and dark browed, and the enchanting stranger in their midst. He felt rather like he had stepped into the centre of a whirlwind.

  Suddenly he felt mortally tired, in dire need of rest and solitude.

  He went to his mother and kissed her gently on her cheek.

  “Will you please excuse me, Mother? I have had a long and tiring journey and I’m much fatigued. I believe that, if you will forgive me, I will have a bath drawn and a tray sent to my room. I am not really up to a formal supper. Tomorrow, we can all begin to catch up.”

  “But of course, my dear. How thoughtless of me not having foreseen your needs… my happiness at seeing you again quite overwhelmed me. I have not all my wits about me, I’m sure… Jermyn, please, see His Grace to his apartments and make sure that his valet attends him.”

  “Yes, my lady. Please follow me, Your Grace.”

  To his chagrin, Jermyn did not lead Hunter to his bachelor’s quarters as he had unthinkingly expected, but to his father’s apartments.

  That was the precise moment at which the full import of his new condition crashed in upon him like a dark and overwhelming wave.

  He was the Duke of Melton.

  Not his father, nor his elder brother, both now dead after a freak carriage accident. Himself.

  He had not wanted it, he
had not coveted it, truth to tell, he had no idea how to go about being a Duke, but there it was, with all its implications and obligations, including the need to marry, and to sire heirs to the title.

  It was like a bad dream, but it was not going to disappear at dawn.

  Hunter rode along a rutted track, across a barren and ravaged landscape, under a dark and menacing sky. The stench of burned and rotting flesh, of death and decay was all pervading, a leaden overcoat on his shoulders. Far away, one could hear the great, long-distance artillery guns roaring, more like a muted vibration than a real noise.

  Around him, there was nothing but destruction - bloated carcasses, untended fields, ruined buildings and skeletal trees - where once cattle had grazed, wheat had ripened and orchards had blossomed. Suddenly something, a white rag fluttering in the rank wind, half-hidden by the ditch, attracted his attention. He was drawn toward it, almost without volition, but stopped dead in horror when he was near enough to see.

  Beatriz lay lifeless, among rubble and sundry discarded items, her skin beaten and bruised with the imprint of vicious hands, her body broken and bloody, her mouth still half open in a hopeless scream, her lovely dark eyes fixed, and staring in a desperate appeal into the eternity of death.

  Beatriz. His love.

  Beatriz, on whose grave he had cried until his throat was raw. Beatriz, whom war had wrenched from him and who had died alone, in shame and terror, ravished by French troops in rout after the battle of Vitoria.

  Beatriz, one of the countless casualties of war.

  Suddenly, something shifted, and a flickering image of another face, in a soft green and golden light, like a sunbeam on new leaves, flashed into his mind, and broke the grip of the dream.

  Hunter woke, drenched in cold sweat, lurching to his feet, his heart beating wildly against his ribcage.

  At first, he stood bewildered, unable to recognise his surroundings, still gripped by the horror of his recurring nightmare, then, gradually, he calmed down, his heartbeat steadied and his anguish receded.

  It was not real. He had never seen Beatriz like that, he had only seen her grave, been told of her death. He did not know, could never know, how terrible that death had been – but his imagination was all too able to present him with the ghastly possibilities. As it did – almost every night.