Romance: Regency Romance: A Lady's Powerful Duke (A Regency Romance)

by Matilda Hart

  I ran down the staircase towards the wing where all of the ladies staying at the villa were housed. I hoped that no one would see me, but thankfully, the hallways were deserted. I could hear music coming from the salon as I ran by, but I didn’t pause to see who was playing. I shut the door of my room tightly behind me and turned the key. I couldn’t bear to have Sophie burst in on me. Not like this. I threw the Duke’s dressing gown onto the bed and hurriedly splashed some water from the washing bowl over my face and body. I shivered from the cold, but it helped brace me for what I knew I had to do. I dressed quickly and tied a bonnet over my wildly messy hair. I could send for my things later.

  After shoving a few essentials into a small valise, I stopped to look at myself in the mirror. At my throat, the Duke’s necklace winked at me. The necklace. I unclasped it and held it in my hand, running my fingertips over the exquisite diamonds and admiring the delicate craftsmanship. This was a love token, something I could never keep. I set it delicately upon the marble surface of my dressing table and without another glance, I left the room, and then the house.

  As my feet crunched over the gravel path I felt my heart breaking. It had broken for George months ago, and now it was shattered, breaking into smaller and smaller pieces with every step I took. The things I had felt while in Duncan’s embrace were beyond anything I had ever known, and now that I was leaving those feelings behind, their power hit me even harder.

  It was a long walk back to the village, and by the time I reached my house, my feet were bleeding and raw inside my slippers. I unlocked the door with fumbling fingers, unsure of what I was going to do with myself now that I was here. The door creaked open, and I saw that His Grace’s men had covered all of the furniture as though I would be gone for a long time. A thin layer of dust covered everything, and I coughed delicately. It would take some time to bring the house back to livable, especially now that I was on my own and had no help, and no way to hire any helps should it come to that.

  I would write at once to my uncle, perhaps he would take me in, in the north no one would know of my shame and I could leave all of this behind.

  Chapter 13

  A month had passed since I had left Barclay House. Letters arrived almost daily, from Duncan, from Sophie, from the other ladies staying with His Grace… but I burned them all unopened. Visitors called on the house, knocking on the door frantically. But I opened it for no one. I cleaned one of the smaller rooms to make it livable, making small fires in the grate to warm my toes. I delayed sending letters requesting my things to be returned… no sense in filling the wardrobe with things I wouldn’t need. I managed just fine alone, or as fine as I could under the circumstances. I went to market and bought small things with the money I had found in George’s desk. It wasn’t much, but it was enough to keep me fed and to purchase a seat on a carriage on its way north in a few days’ time. A letter had finally come from my aunt and uncle, they would take me in, but only until I found myself another husband. It was enough. A new start was a new start, after all.

  On my way back from the market the next day, my small basket laden with a few meagre supplies to make up my food for the carriage ride, I saw two men waiting at my door. I slowed my pace, suddenly nervous. They didn’t appear to be soldiers, but one could never tell any more.

  “Can I help you, sirs?” My voice betrayed my nervousness, and my heart stopped as they turned to look at me. Immediately, I dropped to my knees in the muddy street. “Your Grace!” It was the Duke, on my doorstep once more. I heard footsteps and then saw the tips of his boots in the mud before me. His strong hands lifted me to my feet, and I looked up into his deep blue eyes. I wondered if he was here to rebuke me for leaving, for not answering his letters… I wanted to run away, to run and hide inside the house until it was time to leave this place forever.

  “Mrs. Rutledge… my Charlotte. I’ve been so worried about you. I’ve sent letters, I’ve sent men… money… But you have rebuked me.” He held up a letter. The letter I had received on the day I left Barclay House… In my haste to leave, I must have forgotten it in his chambers. “Charlotte. I know everything.” My eyes filled with tears at the sight of it, and of the memory of my night spent in his arms. I turned my face away from him, too ashamed to look him in the eye.

  “You must forget me, Your Grace, forget me and pretend that night never happened. I am going north to stay with my family. They will help me find a suitable husband… it will be difficult for me, especially now, but maybe if it happens quickly…” I let my voice trail away. His Grace reached out and gripped my chin with gentle fingers and wiped away my sudden tears with his delicate handkerchief.

  “My darling Charlotte. You don’t have to go away.” I pulled my face away from his hands and shook my head.

  “You don’t understand. How could you understand? My reputation is in tatters. George’s mother has told everyone that I stayed at Barclay House, the rumors are everywhere. I will never have a chance at happiness unless I leave this place.”

  “I see. Charlotte, you must know my own reputation has never been a polished one, I have tarnished it willingly, but something has changed. I once had a mind to give my heart to someone, but that was not to be – but now, I believe that I am ready to try again. I want to right some old wrongs and heal some family hurts, and I have a feeling that a marriage to a good woman will do just the trick.” He pulled something from his pocket and held it out to me. The Devonshire Star twinkled at me from his gloved palm. My breath caught in my throat. “Charlotte Rutledge, I find myself in love with you and I must wait no longer. Would you be my wife?”

  I felt my legs give way beneath me and I reached out to steady myself on the Duke’s arm. He stepped closer and slipped his arm around my hips to catch me. I stuttered, not knowing how to answer. I stared at him with wide unbelieving eyes, could he really mean it? A Duke marrying someone like me? I watched a small smile creep across his leonine face.

  “All you have to do is say yes, Charlotte. Say yes and all of your dreams will come true.” His voice was soft in my ear and I closed my eyes, savoring every last syllable.

  “Yes.” My reply was a whisper, “yes.” He kissed me then, his lips pressing sweetly against mine. I loved him, I knew that now, I knew that my life would be changed forever as soon as I had slipped my hand into his that night, but I could never have imagined it would be changed like this. The Duke’s hand roved chastely over my stomach as he pulled me closer to him, and all at once he pulled away and looked down at me in surprise. “Charlotte… are you?” I smiled at him shyly and nodded. My body had only just begun to change, my waist thickening and my belly just beginning to round, but it was true, I was pregnant. The Duke, my soon to be husband, smiled down at me with eyes full of love and adoration before he took my breath away with his joyful kiss. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him with equal joy and passion. I was to be a Duchess, and no one in the world could be as happy as I was at that moment.

  THE END

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  Seduced By a Duke

  Introduction

  ”You are worrying about things, which aren’t happening for many months. You must let your mind rest and take ease that
our daughter has many happy years ahead of her. You say that no hand played in our meeting, but I believe you are too quick to brush off the one belonging to fate. If our daughter is truly unhappy with the match, then we shall see to end the agreement, but until then, how are we to know whether or not this has been fate’s plan all along?”

  ”Do you mean that?” his wife asked him, as her big ocean blue eyes looked up to meet his. She let herself get lost in the warm treacle that she found inside his. ”If she is unhappy, you will call off the agreement?”

  ”What do you take me for? Of course I mean it.”

  Chapter 1

  Alexandra pulled the thick, softened blanket up to her shoulders and smiled at her mom. Night had dropped through the sky some time ago, but the fire was throwing out enough light for Alexandra to see, even the smallest details of her mom’s face. She was beautiful. It was something that Alexandra often thought, when she looked at her mother. It was followed almost always by the hope that one day, she might be so fortunate. “Mother, will you tell me about when you and father met?” she asked, when her mother had kissed her gently on the forehead.

  Her mother laughed softly. “Now, haven’t you heard that story enough? I’m sure if you hear it, even more one time, then you will be able to tell it, better than I.” She sat down on the end of the bed, and Alexandra knew that even though, her mother had protested, the story would still be told. “You put your head down on the pillow and close your eyes,” her mother instructed and Alexandra quickly did, as she was told.

  “Many years ago now,” she began, but Alexandra quickly interrupted.

  “How many years ago, is many years ago?”

  A soft frown pulled her mother’s eyebrows together. “Now, shush. You are meant to be listening to the story, not adding to it.” She waited until Alexandra’s eyes had closed again, before she continued with her story. “Many years ago, when I was only sixteen years old, there was a winter’s day, so cold that I was sure we would all freeze solid, until summer. Snow was falling thick from the sky. My coat had been soaked through, when a carriage had driven passed too quickly and splashed me with the slush from the roadside. I was miserable. I still had over a mile to walk home and I was sure that I wasn’t going to make it. That’s when your father pulled up at the side of the road. His carriage was the fanciest thing I’d ever seen and he opened the door and offered me his hand.” Alexandra’s mother paused to see whether her daughter had fallen asleep.

  “What happened next, mother?” Alexandra asked in her soft, tired little voice. Her mother smiled and softly stroked through her daughter’s golden ringlets that fell down her back like silky rays of sunshine.

  “Well, I got into the carriage. Your father tried to introduce himself. He said something like, Hej, du så ud, som om du havde brug for hjælp, and of course I had no idea what that meant! I just looked at him in confusion and he broke into the brightest smile I’d ever seen. I managed to explain to his driver where I lived and when we arrived at my home, I expected to never see him again.”

  ”You did, though didn’t you?”

  ”Well, of course I did. He came back exactly one week later and introduced himself. He told me in perfect English that he was a dignitary for Denmark and that he wanted to spend some time with me. We spent the following months growing and learning together. At first, it was hard because our languages were so different, but as time went on and his English got better I realized that I’d quite possibly met the one man on earth who had been created, as my perfect equal and how incredibly lucky I was.”

  Her mother stopped again. Alexandra’s gentle snores had alerted her to the fact that her daughter was asleep. She stood up quietly and walked over to the door. She let herself glance back once, before she left, so that the image of her sleeping child was fresh in her mind.

  She headed down the stairs and knocked on her husband’s study door. ”Come in,” he called through the heavy wood. She pushed open the door and walked in quickly, before closing the door behind her. The room was warmer than the rest of the house. Her husband always kept his fire high, because he liked the intense heat that it threw out into the smallish room that was lined with books and freshened with the scent of leather binds and spilt ink. ”Has she fallen asleep?” he asked, when he looked up and saw the saddened look in his wife’s eyes.

  ”She has. She asked to hear our story again, before she would close her eyes, though,” she said with a bittersweet smile. ”I swear, I’ve told that story to her a thousand times, but she never seems to tire of it.”

  ”Does that surprise you, dear?” her husband asked with an amused twinkle in his eyes. ”She is your double in every way. Why would she not want to hear the fairy tale that bled into reality?”

  She let her eyes meet her husband’s. She loved him. She had never doubted it, but it was in moment’s like that, when she really knew it. ”Are you sure that we’re doing the right thing?” she asked him, as she thought about how she would have felt, if it was happening to her. ”Are you sure that sending her away is going to be the right thing for her?”

  Her husband stood up and walked around from his desk. He held out his arms, so that they could wrap around his wife’s waist and he held her close for a moment. ”I haven’t a doubt at all, that this is what is best for her. She is going to stay in London, the city where we met. How can you have any doubt that this isn’t what is best for her?” his voice was reassuring. It had a warm, silky feel that slipped into his wife’s ears and seemed to warm through the cold doubt in her chest.

  ”I suppose you are right,” she said somewhat reluctantly. ”I just feel uneasy about the matching that you have made for her. We met each other by chance not because someone played a hand in our meeting.”

  ”You are worrying about things, which aren’t happening for many months. You must let your mind rest and take ease that our daughter has many happy years ahead of her. You say that no hand played in our meeting, but I believe you are too quick to brush off the one belonging to fate. If our daughter is truly unhappy with the match, then we shall see to end the agreement, but until then, how are we to know whether or not this has been fate’s plan all along?”

  ”Do you mean that?” his wife asked him, as her big ocean blue eyes looked up to meet his. She let herself get lost in the warm treacle that she found inside his. ”If she is unhappy, you will call off the agreement?”

  ”What do you take me for? Of course I mean it.”

  *******

  Chapter 2

  Alexandra sat down on the musty smelling mattress and looked around her new room. It was bigger than the one she’d had at her parent’s house, but she’d expected that. Her grandmother still held a great deal of the family’s fortune, which included the London estate. All of the unused space had obviously been too much for the housekeeping to keep on top of though, because she could still smell the lingering dirt in the air.

  A freestanding mirror by the window caught her eye and she walked over to it. She’d been travelling for days and she was sure that the miles would be showing on her skin, but she was pleasantly surprised to find her complexion was just, as fair and clear, as it normally was. She stood back and really took in her whole reflection. She was tall for her age, but not in a freakish way. Her legs were long and her stomach flat. The childish softness to her cheeks was starting to fade into hard cheek bones, which would be softened by her plump and naturally red lips. She was sure by the time her birthday came and her age increased sixteen that she would look like the woman she had always been destined to become.

  A knock on the door disturbed her shallow thoughts and she called for whomever it was to enter. The door opened slightly and a nervous looking maid popped her head around the door. ”I’m sorry to disturb you miss, but supper is about to be served in the dining room and the mistress wishes to know whether you’ll be taking it with her or whether she should have some sent to your room.”

  Alexandra smiled warmly at the maid. ”I’ll take
supper with my grandmother,” she informed the maid. ”Might I ask that tomorrow this room is seen to again by the maids. I’m sure you have all done your best with my impromptu arrival, but it certainly isn’t to the standard that I’d expect for a house such as this. I’d hate to think that other guests have suffered with the lingering scent recently removed dust in the air.”

  The maid’s cheeks burned red. ”I’m so sorry miss. I’ll make sure that there is someone in your room the moment you have left it,” she said, as she bowed her head and dropped her eyes to the floor. ”I’ll go and tell the mistress that you’ll be dining with her,” she added and then she quickly pulled the door closed, so that there was a barrier between Alexandra and the maid’s embarrassment over the condition of the room.