The Duke's Disaster

by Grace Burrowes

  Also by Grace Burrowes

  The Windhams

  The Heir

  The Soldier

  The Virtuoso

  Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish

  Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal

  Lady Louisa’s Christmas Knight

  Lady Eve’s Indiscretion

  Lady Jenny’s Christmas Portrait

  The Courtship (novella)

  The Duke and His Duchess (novella)

  Morgan and Archer (novella)

  Jonathan and Amy (novella)

  Sweetest Kisses

  A Kiss for Luck (novella)

  A Single Kiss

  The First Kiss

  Kiss Me Hello

  The MacGregors

  The Bridegroom Wore Plaid

  Once Upon a Tartan

  The MacGregor’s Lady

  What a Lady Needs for Christmas

  Mary Fran and Matthew (novella)

  The Lonely Lords

  Darius

  Nicholas

  Ethan

  Beckman

  Gabriel

  Gareth

  Andrew

  Douglas

  David

  Captive Hearts

  The Captive

  The Traitor

  The Laird

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  Copyright © 2015 by Grace Burrowes

  Cover and internal design © 2015 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art by Jon Paul Ferrara

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

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  eBook 1.0

  Contents

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Epilogue

  An excerpt from Tremaine’s True Love

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  To the newly wed

  One

  “I am not a nice man,” Noah Winters, eighth Duke of Anselm, pronounced.

  Lady Araminthea Collins merely lifted a graceful feminine eyebrow at his self-assessment.

  “Perhaps, Your Grace, a gentleman’s veracity is more worthy of note than his niceness,” she observed.

  Noah silently applauded the lady’s composure; but then, her sangfroid was one of the qualities that had drawn his notice.

  “I am not nice,” he reiterated, “but I am titled, wealthy, and in need of a wife.” Direct speech was necessary if the blasted pansies bordering the garden bench weren’t to provoke him into sneezing.

  Noah’s last disclosure didn’t even merit a raised eyebrow.

  “Hence your attentions to my employer,” Lady Thea murmured.

  “Marliss isn’t your employer,” Noah countered. “If we’re to be truthful, her papa is, and now that she’s announced her betrothal to young Cowper, you will no doubt be looking for another position.”

  That comment was a small display of his lack of niceness, but patience and posturing had never been Noah’s greatest attributes, particularly when his nose was starting to tickle.

  “You’ve heard an announcement, Your Grace?”

  “Endmon was rather jovial at the club last night.” Rather loquacious and rather drunk, like a papa was entitled to be when his darling girl had found another account to charge her millinery to.

  Noah’s solicitors had warned him that Cowper’s man of business was in negotiations with Viscount Endmon, Marliss’s papa. All Noah had felt was a fleeting frustration, to have wasted weeks squiring the young lady about in hopes of concluding his bride hunt.

  “If you’ll excuse me.” Lady Thea grasped her skirts in both hands as if to rise. “I’m sure there’s much to do, for Marliss will have throngs of callers—”

  Noah wrapped a bare hand over Lady Thea’s wrist. His forwardness earned him a two-eyebrow salute, but also had her subsiding back onto the bench.

  That wrist was delicate, particularly compared to Noah’s.

  “A young lady’s companion,” he said, withdrawing his hand, “is little more than a finishing governess, Lady Thea. You are in want of a position, I am in want of a duchess, and I am offering you that post.”

  No eyebrows, no gasp of shock, no reaction at all as she regarded him out of puzzled green eyes. “You’re serious.”

  To a fault, according to most women who’d ventured an opinion, including Noah’s most recent mistress.

  “Your papa was an earl,” he said. “You’re comely, quiet, past the vapid stage, and from good breeding stock. You are every bit as much duchess material as that giggling twit you supervise.”

  “Marliss is merely young,” Lady Thea said repressively. “But because you are not nice and I am not a giggling twit, you think we would suit?”

  A fair summary. “I do, at least as well as I would have suited Marliss or any of her ilk.”

  The morning sun caught red highlights in Lady Thea’s dark hair, and confirmed that she eschewed cosmetics. Marliss had been overfond of them, in Noah’s opinion.

  “Marliss will be happier with Baron Cowper,” Lady Thea said. “What makes you think I would be happier as your duchess than in another companion’s post, Your Grace?”

  Not the you-do-me-great-honor-but speech, which Noah had been prepared for—he did her a very significant honor indeed—but not a meek capitulation either. She managed to reprove without being rude—for which Noah admired her, of course.

  Though he hadn’t planned on having the Anselm tiara so thoroughly inspected before the lady tried it on.

  “You will never know material want,” Noah said, studying the privet hedge rather than her ladyship’s plain gray gown. “You will never be forced onto your brother’s dubious charity, and once the obligation to the succession is met, you will have as much freedom as discretion and independent wealth allow.”

  Though if Noah had any say in the matter, Lady Thea would not order the gardeners to plant pansies beneath her window.

  “You believe the obligation to the succession will be easily met?”

  Lady Thea fired off the question crisply, but Noah wasn’t sure what she was asking. His br
eeding organs were as happily devoid of restraint as the next man’s, and the lady was comely enough he ought to be able to fulfill his duty.

  “My father produced only two legitimate sons, despite taking three successive wives,” he said. “Your parents managed one son in three tries, so no, I am not boasting of an ability to control all aspects of our union, but I am hopeful Providence will be accommodating. You had a number of uncles on both sides, after all.”

  Her ladyship fell silent, no pithy rejoinder, no troublesome questions.

  Noah had sat across from her in many a carriage as he’d escorted Marliss on the usual rounds and knew that silence was one of Lady Thea’s many gifts. She was also quietly pleasing to the eye. She did nothing to draw attention to herself, but any man would notice that she had lustrous sable hair, good bones, a figure politely described as suited to childbearing, and green eyes with a hint of an exotic tilt to them.

  She’d do, though this revelation had come to Noah only two days ago, when his informants had learned Marliss was no longer on the hunt for a groom. The idea had popped into his brain out of whole cloth, with the same lack of warning that characterized some of his most profitable commercial gambits.

  A proposal to Lady Araminthea was worth a try in any case, because the Season would soon be over, and that meant another year before the next crop of giggling twits was presented at court. Another year of sitting backward in his own carriage, another year of strolling through colorful, troublesome gardens.

  “I will think on this,” Lady Thea said. “I have no one to speak for me, so you will provide me any draft settlement documents.”

  Provide them to her? The notion offended Noah on her behalf. “What about your brother?”

  “If you and I can come to terms,” Lady Thea said, “you may send him a copy of the contracts as a courtesy, but I gather you seek to have matters timely resolved, and decisiveness is not in Tim’s nature.”

  Sobriety was not in Timotheus Collins’s nature, or temperance. Even a man who was not nice could keep those observations to himself.

  “I can have drafts sent around to you by the end of the week,” Noah said, though dealing with Lady Thea directly on marriage settlements left him uneasy. “You have no one else to negotiate on your behalf—an uncle, or even a widowed aunt?”

  “The Collins family tends to live with more intensity than stamina, Your Grace.” She rose, and this time Noah rose with her. “I am the eldest surviving exponent thereof. Will you walk with me?”

  Yes, he would, provided they moved away from the infernal posies.

  Noah offered his arm, content that Lady Thea would give him an answer within the week. Because she had no dowry, Noah could easily ensure the settlements favored her, though in the face of the lady’s hesitance, he turned his thoughts to the further inducements he could offer.

  She would be his duchess, after all, and duchesses, even prospective ones, were due every courtesy.

  “Your sister would of course be welcome in our home,” he said as they ambled away from the house—and the dratted flowers. On an early June morning, Viscount Endmon’s gardens were peaceful, pretty, and softly scented—like the woman whose arm was linked with Noah’s. They followed a gravel walk into a shaded bend in the trees where Lady Thea dropped his arm.

  “I have a request,” she said.

  Noah was prepared to bargain politely over a long engagement or a fancy wedding, though neither was in his plans. “Provided it’s reasonable…?”

  “Kiss me.”

  They were out of view of the house and the stables, which was fortunate, for Noah sensed this additional, unanticipated request was the key to winning Lady Thea’s hand. Kissing was a pleasant enough undertaking, usually.

  “What sort of kiss would you like?” he asked, for Noah’s expertise comprised the usual repertoire, plus a few extras.

  Now she took a visual inventory of their surroundings, as if she either hadn’t known or hadn’t admitted to herself there were different kinds of kisses.

  “A husbandly kiss.”

  Women. “Because I have never been a husband, we must refine on the point. Is this to be the kiss of a husband greeting his spouse in the morning, parting from her, offering her amatory overtures, or…claiming her?”

  “Not overtures.” Her ladyship checked the watch pinned to her bodice, a small, plain gold trinket apparently of more interest than Noah’s kisses. “A kiss to inspire trust.”

  Was that the same as a kiss to seduce? But, no. She didn’t mean a kiss to inspire misplaced trust, but rather, a kiss to inspire the genuine article. Noah hadn’t taken Lady Thea for the fanciful sort, but kisses likely did not come her way often enough that she could allow an opportunity for one to pass by.

  “Over here.” He took her hand and led her a few steps deeper into the shade. “Close your eyes.”

  She had trouble with that, but eventually complied, giving Noah a moment to study her downcast, tense expression. He stepped closer and slipped a hand around her waist, bringing her against his taller frame.

  The fit was pleasing, the lady’s martyred expression a trial.

  “This isn’t kissing, Your Grace.”

  “Hush,” he chided, “and no peeking. This is part of it, but I’m waiting for you to behave kissably.” He rested his chin on her crown, more so she’d know where he was than anything else, but that presumption allowed him to inhale her sweet, meadowy fragrance, and to brush his cheek over the silky warmth of her hair.

  To prevent her ladyship from fussing him for his opening maneuvers, Noah grazed his nose over her cheek, then used his lips in the same gesture.

  She stiffened in his arms.

  Well, damn. So their marriage was to be candles-out, under-the-covers, nightclothes-all-around when it came to conjugal duties, emphasis on the duties. Noah sighed against her temple, and what should have been a kiss to inspire trust became a kiss of longing on his part for what would not be.

  * * *

  For six days, Thea held out, and on the seventh day she sent the Duke of Anselm a note. She’d been all set to politely reject his proposal, for she’d already contacted the employment agencies before he’d made his startling offer. She should not be his duchess. Anselm was too intelligent, too assured, too cold, too…large for her to consider his suit seriously.

  The match would be appropriate though, and the temptation to accept had loomed mightily when he’d offered his home to Nonie too. Then there had been that kiss, not like any Thea had experienced, not in any way.

  His Grace had given her the first kiss she’d asked for, the first one she could say in some way she’d initiated, and his kiss had been so unexpected, so sweet, coming from such a taciturn, dark man. More than anything, that kiss had assured Thea she was no match for the duke. Her insides still went fizzy when memories of his kiss intruded on her thoughts, which they did frequently.

  So the kiss had done its job, and weighed in against the notion of holy matrimony with Noah Winters, Duke of Anselm. Not the way Thea had thought it would, true, but effectively nonetheless.

  And now this. The settlements were generous, including a dowry for Nonie, however delicately described. Provision for Nonie was more than Thea could have hoped for, and the sum enough that one day her younger sister might have the happily ever after every girl had a right to wish for.

  This generosity meant Anselm was even more shrewd than Thea had thought—or more perceptive. In any case, with Nonie’s future in the balance, Thea’s decision became more difficult. She was not the least bit confident she could carry off marrying the duke, and if she failed in her role, the consequences would be severe.

  Still, those consequences would not devolve to Nonie, and thus Thea wavered.

  “He’s here.” Marliss bounced through the parlor door, blue eyes shining, golden curls severely confined with myriad pins. “This will kill Mama, positively kill her, Thea. You’re snabbling a duke, and one with pots and pots of lovely money. Shall I go down wit
h you? I promise to giggle at all the wrong times.”

  “Bother you,” Thea said, enduring Marliss’s hug. “You had sense enough to know you’d be happier with Cowper, and you’ll make Cowper happy too.”

  Marliss dimpled becomingly. “He’s dear, and he’ll grow into the barony, whereas Anselm never will be dear and doesn’t care a whit for his title. Maybe you can smooth off his rough edges, Thea, but he’s not my cup of tea. Regardless of his expression, one has the sense Anselm is always scowling.”

  “I still haven’t accepted him,” Thea reminded Marliss—and herself.

  “You are too sensible not to. I’ll give you fifteen minutes. If you want more, take him to the gardens or the mews. The staff is dodging work this morning because Mama has a bad headache.”

  Thea finished the thought. “And the sound of pruning shears will overset her.” Marliss’s mama was easily overset, hence the need for Marliss’s companion to be of a sturdier constitution. “I’ll keep my conversation with Anselm most civilizedly quiet.”

  Marliss escorted Thea to the top of the stairs, then blew her a kiss, and Thea was still smiling when Corbett Hallowell, Marliss’s older brother, pushed away from the wall on the second landing.