A Scottish Duke for Christmas (The Duke of Strathmore Book 4)
Page 1
A Scottish Duke for Christmas
Sasha Cottman
Copyright © 2017 by Sasha Cottman
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, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
To those of you who are on Santa's naughty list.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Epilogue
The Duke of Strathmore Series
Letter From a Rake
28. Letter From a Rake - Chapter One
Chapter One
London, April 1789
Dear Reader,
Your intrepid correspondent has it on good authority that a certain duke, with lands north of the Scottish border, has had the unfortunate luck to be jilted by his lady love. Rumor also has it that the lady in question, the eldest daughter of a lesser nobleman has done a moonlight flit and fled London to be with a secret lover. Members of London’s elite are said to be in total disbelief at the news...
Ewan Radley, Duke of Strathmore, screwed up the scandal sheet and threw it headlong into the fireplace. He watched as the flames hungrily ate it up.
He didn't need to read anymore. All that mattered was that the rest of London society now knew the scandalous secret he had managed to keep hidden for the past month.
Lady Beatrice Hastings had called off their engagement and disappeared. His life was in complete disarray.
'I'll be the laughing stock of the ton,' he muttered.
In drawing rooms and at breakfast tables in the very best homes in London, he would be the main topic of discussion this morning.
By rights, he shouldn't care. It wasn't as if theirs had been a love match. Lady Beatrice was the eldest daughter of an old family friend. Of fine bloodlines and burdened with a substantial dowry, she had been the perfect candidate for the position of his duchess. The only other candidate with as impeccable a background was her younger sister, Caroline.
Events were still too recent for him to fully comprehend, but he sensed that at some point soon the full extent of the damage caused by his rash decision to bed Beatrice, would be laid bare before him.
He pushed his breakfast plate away, food offered no comfort to the cold pit of his stomach.
'Shall I have your carriage brought around your Grace?' asked his butler.
The House of Lords was sitting that day. As Duke of Strathmore, Ewan had responsibilities that even a scandal such as this could not hold at bay.
'Yes, Hargreaves. Let us get out into the maelstrom as soon as we can,' he replied.
With the House of Lords soon to rise for the Easter break, he only had a week in which he would have to maintain a low profile. Once Parliament was in recess, he could escape London and seek refuge at his castle in Scotland.
And knowing London society as he did, by the time he returned, yet another scandal would have taken the place of his in the public mind.
Chapter Two
London, November 1789
Lady Caroline Hastings sat and stared at her cold toast. She had long given up on the decision as to whether she should put butter on it or not.
At the other end of the table her parents, Lord and Lady Hastings, were having their daily discussion.
The Beatrice Briefing, she had privately dubbed it. Every morning for the past eight months, her father had received a daily briefing from his agents as to the search for her older sister.
'The lead in Newquay down in Cornwall has turned into another dead end,' Lord Hasting remarked.
His wife closed her eyes before letting out a dejected sigh.
Caroline silently gave her mother her dues. Without fail, the countess left the house every day and went about her business as a leader of London's ton. Not once; since Beatrice's disappearance had she missed a single event or declined an expected invitation. She had maintained the stiff upper lip so valued by the elite class.
No one but the immediate Hastings family knew the truth. That, in the months following Beatrice's disappearance Lady Hastings had come close to a full emotional breakdown. But, fighter that she was, she had managed to keep her tears and pain private.
Caroline excused herself from the table and headed into the hallway intent on retiring to her room. Her fervent hope being that her mother did not expect Caroline to accompany her to any social gatherings this day. She did not need another day of having to endure the spiteful whispers at social gatherings wagering as to whether the wild nature of the eldest Hastings daughter would someday surface within the younger one.
It hadn’t taken long for acquaintances, and then disappointingly, friends to begin avoiding her company. No one wanted to be associated with an unmarried young woman who had a fallen sister.
It wasn't the first, nor she expected, the last time that her sister would make life more than a little difficult for her.
As she reached the bottom of the staircase which led to the second floor of the elegant townhouse, there was a loud knock at the front door.
Caroline stopped and waited. It was most unusual for anyone to call this early in the morning unless it was a matter of grave urgency.
Her breath caught in her lungs as she saw the Duke of Strathmore cross the threshold and hand the family butler his hat and cane.
The man Caroline had loved and once thought she would marry. The man her sister had stolen from under her nose.
Ewan Radley was still as handsome a man as he had been the first time she set eyes on him some five years earlier. His dark brown hair having been ruffled by his hat, stood up in places. Ewan, being a man not given to vanity, made no effort to bring it under control.
While the butler went into the breakfast room in search of his master, Ewan waited in the foyer.
Caroline indulged in a private study of her sister's former fiancé. The man she had long loved from afar.
A soft smile crept across her lips as she watched him pick a piece of lint from his long black greatcoat. He rolled it between his long fingers.
Fingers she had once dreamed would touch her naked skin. Caress and stroke her as Ewan taught her the pleasures of the flesh.
'Lady Caroline.'
She blinked away the sensual dream and composed herself before taking an uncertain step toward him.
'Your Grace, how good to see you. I trust that you are well?'
Ewan dipped into a gracious bow as Caroline reached his side. She offered him her hand, making every effort to still the tremble which always threatened to overcome her whenever he was close.
'I am well, thank you for asking. I have come to see your father,' he replied.
The door behind her opened and her father stepped out into the hall.
'Strathmore. I take it you have a purpose in visiting at this unsociable hour?'
'My apologies for the early hour of my visit, but I have news which could not wait until a more civilized time, Ewan replied.'
He glanced at Caroline.
'Lord Hastings, is there somewhere that you and I could discuss matters in private?'
A grey pale appeared on her father's face. Her father kept his gaze locked on Ewan. Caroline clenched her hands together as fear of the impending news gripped her.
'Caroline, go sit with your mother.'
Chapter Three
Lord Hastings closed the door of his study behind him, and for a moment stood with his back to Ewan, head bowed.
When he did finally turn, there was a stiffness in his bearing. His shoulders were pulled back, his spine ramrod straight. He looked for all the world like a man about to receive a dozen lashes.
Pity threaten to overwhelm Ewan; Beatrice's father did not deserve the news he was about to receive. He forced a deep breath into his lungs and pulled a letter from out of his coat pocket.
'I received this earlier this morning. It came from Lady Beatrice's maid, by way of Manchester.'
Lord Hastings glanced down at the paper in Ewan's hand before looking away.
'A moment if you don't mind Strathmore. Let me savor the last brief seconds before you confirm my darkest fears. Until you speak, I still have two daughters.'
Ewan stood silent, remembering that he too had experienced a similar feeling of dread only an hour or so earlier when Hargreaves handed him the letter.
'Is she dead?'
Their gazes met once more before Ewan nodded his head.
Lord Hastings staggered to the nearest chair and slumped down into it. He covered his eyes with a trembling hand and wept. Ewan took a seat in the chair opposite and quietly waited.
'This will be the death of my wife. She has only managed to maintain her sanity up to this point because she has been holding onto the fervent hope that Beatrice would come to her senses and walk back through our front door. Lord knows what will become of my family now,' said Lord Hastings.
Ewan unfolded the letter.
'There is more.'
Several minutes later, Lord Hastings sat back in his chair. His hands gripped the leather arms.
'A child you say?'
'Yes, a child she died giving birth to some two weeks ago. The blackguard she ran away to be with, abandoned her when he discovered she was with child,' Ewan replied.
'But why? If he loved her why did he abandon her? I don't understand,' Lord Hastings replied.
This was the moment Ewan had been dreading. His role in the death of Beatrice.
'Because the child is mine.'
Chapter Four
'Thank you for undertaking the long journey to Manchester, Caroline. I know it must be hard for you having just lost your sister.'
Caroline gave Ewan a controlled smile. She didn't have the heart to tell him the truth.
That she had tried to mourn her sister. Even managed to shed a genuine tear or two. But that had been her limit. Any sisterly affection between the Hastings sisters had died long ago.
The best she could manage was to keep up appearances for the sake of her parents. Her mother was busy following all the socially accepted conventions of mourning. While Beatrice had pointedly refused to follow society’s rules during her life, Lady Hastings was at pains to ensure that at least in death her daughter would adhere to social expectations.
Black curtains in the windows and reeds laid out in the street in front of their Mayfair townhouse to soften the sound of passing horses hooves gave ceremony to the process of grief. Structure and rules brought comfort to Lady Hastings.
Lord Hastings, in turn, had turned to stone. Locked within his own grief, he simply went through the motions of life.
'Mama felt it best that I come. A female member of the family should be present to assist with the babe,' she replied.
What her mother had in fact instructed Caroline to do, was to get out of London for the foreseeable future. This new scandal surrounding her sister threatened to derail any hope the Hastings had to see Caroline properly settled into a society marriage. Once word got out that a bastard child was now in the frame, society matrons would be gently steering their eligible sons in the direction of other less tarnished girls.
'Forget spending any more time in London this year my dear. Go to Manchester with your father and then retire to Hastings Hall until he has to return to the House of Lords in January. You and I shall stay out of society until the beginning of the Season in May.'
Only when the Season’s balls and parties began would Caroline know the true extent of the damage to her marital prospects.
She shifted on the hard leather seat of the travel coach and tried to stretch the stiffness out of her back and shoulders. A pang of guilt added to her worries. It was wrong to think of herself at such a time. Beatrice, for all her many faults, was dead. And somewhere in a boarding house in one of the poorer parts of the city of Manchester a motherless child now lay waiting for someone to claim him.
'We shall stop at Loughborough to change the horses. You will be able to take a walk and get some fresh air,' said Ewan.
As he sat in his seat opposite and looked out the window, Caroline noticed a sadness about Ewan she had not noted earlier in their long journey north. Until this moment, she hadn’t tried to think how difficult this terrible turn of events must be for him. That he too may be suffering.
She had once thought she knew Ewan's mind, but that foolish notion had been dashed when, to her heart's dismay, he had chosen Beatrice over her. He was but a handsome stranger to her now. One she was best to try and forget. She feared her heart would never fully mend from having been so suddenly torn to pieces.
An uncomfortable thought entered her mind. What if he had truly loved her sister; and was now facing the awful truth that his dreams of winning Beatrice back to his side were gone forever? Her parents may not be the only ones lost in the depths of grief.
Her own feelings were of little consequence under the current circumstances. It was time to offer a piece of socially acceptable pity, an olive branch of sorts.
'I am sorry for the heartache you must be feeling Lord Strathmore, this must be a very difficult time for you. I do hope your son is able to give you some consolation for the loss of your beloved,' she offered.
The words had barely left her lips before she was regretting them. Ewan looked across at Lord Hastings who was fast asleep in the coach next to Caroline.
'She was not my beloved. I think you and I can share that much honesty with one another. I let myself be dazzled by Beatrice's magic and sexual charms. Our marriage would have been a travesty of the institution.
Your sister at least had the decency to throw me over for someone she loved. She could very well have married me and then made me a cuckold,' he replied.
He was calm, but Caroline caught the bitterness of his words. He had been a fool and they had all paid dearly for it.
Lord Hastings stirred in his sleep and the jolt of the coach hitting a deep rut in the road brought him awake.
Caroline and Ewan exchanged a look of understanding. The conversation was at an end.
Chapter Five
They reached Manchester mid-morning two days later.
Ewan offered to take Caroline to their hotel near the cathedral gates, but she refused.
'Beatrice was my sister; and therefore, I am this child's closest living female relative. I didn't come all this way to be set aside,' she said.
Her words cut through Ewan like a knife. Whether Caroline meant them as a criticism of him or not, they hit home. He had set her aside and chosen her sister. If she was bitter she had just cause.
Little over a year earlier he and Caroline had shared enough
ballroom dances to have onlookers commenting on what a handsome couple they made. He had invited the whole family to his private box at the Theatre Royal and sat next to Caroline all evening during the opera. London society had begun to buzz with rumors of an expected engagement announcement.
And then Beatrice had turned the full heat of her sexual presence on him and he had been lost. Caroline had every reason to hate both Beatrice and himself. Her sister had stolen what by rights should have been hers, and he had been complicit in the extreme.
Watching as she climbed down from the coach and stood in the cool northern air adjusting her skirts, Ewan longed to tell her how truly sorry he was. How much he regretted letting his lust dictate his future. He should have followed his heart and married Caroline. She would never know how much he still loved her.
'This is the address?'
He looked to Lord Hastings who was pointing toward a narrow alleyway which led off the main street.
'Yes, number twenty-three,' Ewan replied.
Number twenty-three Blackbird Lane was a thin grey stone building which towered some three floors up. The front of the boarding house hung somewhat drunkenly out by several feet over the street. Ewan hazarded a guess that it dated from somewhere around the fourteenth century.
The lane itself stank of a stomach churning mixture of horse manure, urine and rotting dead fish. Ewan couldn’t think of a more wretched place for Beatrice to have spent her final days. The sooner he retrieved their child, the better.