“The thing is, I cannot prove I have not cheated just as you cannot prove I have.” She narrowed her gaze at him. “Unless you do have proof? And neglected to provide it when you accused me?”
He glared at her, two red spots of color on his cheek. Still seated, the ultimate insult when a lady was addressing a gentleman in conversation.
“If I were my sister, I would have used my actions instead of my words,” she said, spotting Vortigern in the distance and shooting him a conspiratorial wink, “as when Isabella punched you for saying things about me.” Several members of the crowd gasped, and turned their scrutiny to Lord Collingwood, as she’d intended. “And yet it seems you have not learned your lesson not to talk about me, even though I have refused your suit and have made my own way in the world through my own skills since my parents have refused me because of you.” Of course it still stung, but she would get over it, especially now that she had someone to love who also loved her.
“But it seems you like to bear a grudge, my lord, so I will tell you now, and forever, that I will not have you, no matter how much you might accuse me of cheating. Nor will I waste one more thought on you, since there are other people who deserve my attention.” She caught Vortigern’s gaze again and smiled, just for him. “So if you wish to accuse me of cheating, please go ahead, but keep in mind that proof will be required, and that your past actions regarding me are bound to be considered when people are hearing what you have to say.” She glanced around the room, smiling at Lord Gantrey until finally resting her gaze on him. Her love. The man who was able to render her inarticulate through his actions, which he’d proven multiple times already.
If the gossips knew of that, she would definitely deserve her scandalous reputation. But since she was shortly to be his duchess, it wouldn’t matter much anyway.
He stepped forward, her proud, layered, difficult, intelligent, sensual husband-to-be, and took her arm, leading her out of the ballroom without saying a word. As it should be.
Dear Lady Margaret,
Normally I do not intrude on your writing, since it has done so well in our little paper, but I and some of our readers are concerned about Georgiana’s fate. We are worried she will be eaten by the dragon, or that she will want to stay a dragon. Wouldn’t it be preferable to have the dragon save her from some dangerous situation, and then have them both spend the rest of their days as humans?
Signed,
Mr. Garrett, Editor in Chief
Dear Mr. Garrett:
No, it would not be preferable.
Signed,
Lady Margaret Sawford (aka A Lady of Mystery)
Georgiana and the Dragon
By a Lady of Mystery
“This feels tremendous!” Georgiana shouted to him—his name was George, oddly enough—as they flew above the city, scouting for the best places to find water for Georgiana’s family. As she’d been doing when she first met him.
Her father hadn’t been delighted that she’d chosen to become a dragon, but then they’d pointed out the benefits—easily accessible fire, travel was easier (if not precisely comfortable), and nobody would dare not pay him for his work, given who his son-in-law was.
They did turn back into humans every so often, just to check that they truly did prefer dragondom, but inevitably got tired of walking on two legs after about a day and switched back.
It wasn’t the ending many would have chosen, but then again, only one person was Georgiana, and that was Georgiana herself.
And she chose her dragon.
Epilogue
“It’s not so bad. Not as good as the ices, but still, not so bad.”
Vortigern considered his eel pie, which he’d eaten half of already, whereas Margaret had only gotten through a few bites.
He’d expended considerable energy that morning, waking her to take her in a quick, rough burst of lovemaking, then spent considerably more time and effort after that to bring her pleasure.
She could still feel the ripples of it through her body. She shivered in reaction.
“Are you cold?” he said in a concerned voice.
She shook her head, laughing. “No, just remembering.”
“Oh,” he replied in a knowing tone.
“Duke, Mrs. Duke.” Two of Sally’s girls, now employed at a factory Vortigern had investments in, approached them, matching smiles on their faces.
“Good morning, girls.” Margaret returned their curtsey. “How are you today?”
The younger one gazed at Vortigern’s half-eaten pie. “Hungry.” Her elder sister elbowed her, her face turning bright pink.
“Let’s do something about that, then,” he said, gesturing to the eel pie shop.
They’d begun spending Saturday mornings here, and now the inhabitants of the neighborhood were nearly not frightened or intimidated at seeing him in their midst. It helped that Margaret “unduked” him, which meant removing his cravat, messing up his hair, and making sure he was in his oldest clothing—a fact his valet did not yet appreciate. And now she was pleased to see a few changes in the area; the women walked with their heads held higher, the men had more work, the children even seemed to play more loudly.
And whenever she would worry that he didn’t have time to come here with her, he’d tell her she was showing him another adventure, and he wouldn’t allow her to miss out on it.
So far their entire married life was an adventure, juggling how to be a nearly proper duchess with being a responsible woman and an author.
She hadn’t had to give anything up, not that he would ask.
She waited on the street as he paid inside for the pies, appreciating the symmetry of the eels laid out just so in the window.
The girls tumbled out of the shop, both of them with delighted expressions on their faces, pies clutched in their hands. “Thank you, Duke,” they both said.
The younger one paused in her devouring of the treat. “How did you lose your eye then, Duke?”
“Allow me to tell the story,” Margaret said with a smile.
“. . . And then the bear approached him, and to save his life, he held a piece of chicken in front of his face, which the bear swiped his paw at, but he also took his eye,” she finished. Vortigern shot an amused glance her way as she spoke, but didn’t say anything. “It was a terrible tragedy, but at least the duke—my husband—survived,” she said.
Margaret thought the bear story was one of her more inventive—thus far, he’d lost his eye fighting pirates in the South Seas (which was far too clichéd for her liking), in a duel fighting over a lady’s honor (raising the question which lady, which just made Margaret jealous, even though it was a mythical lady), in a horse-riding accident (too dull and messy), and as a result of a broken window (How did the window break? Was anyone punished, given that it was an aristocrat’s eye that had been lost?).
And anytime Margaret offered up another story, her husband—her love—just smiled at her and didn’t say a word, instead showing her just what he thought of his imaginative wife later, when they were alone.
She glanced at the one-eyed man in question. “I suppose we should be getting back now,” she said. “We have to go meet with some ladies who have never had eel pie in their lives,” she said to the girls.
Their eyes widened as though that were an impossibility.
She was due to speak at a fund-raising effort to help more of the poorer London neighborhoods. The fact she was now a duchess meant that Society ladies were tumbling over themselves to attend, and give, so they could say they knew the Duchess of Lasham.
It wasn’t as bad as she had thought it might be. It was much better, in fact, especially since she had him.
“I suppose so,” he replied, holding out his arm.
Author’s Note:
About the Accident
All of us have heard, at one point or another, an admonition to be careful or you’ll lose an eye (perhaps the most well-known one is in A Christmas Story, where Ralphie is warned about the dangers of
the air rifle he wants for Christmas).
And every New Year’s Eve, the media has stories about the dangers of losing an eye from a champagne cork, which is how Vortigern, the hero of One-Eyed Dukes Are Wild, lost his eye.
It might seem like an apocryphal story, but one of our modern-day inventions, the interval windshield wiper, came about because of such a real-life accident, which my husband, Scott, told me about, which then inspired Vortigern’s injury.
Robert Kearns, an engineer, lost his eye to an errant champagne cork on his wedding night in 1953. He was then inspired to develop the wiper, which mimics an eye’s blinking motion rather than the constant back-and-forth that was the standard.
Don’t miss the other delightful and sexy stories in
the Dukes Behaving Badly series
by Megan Frampton!
THE DUKE’S GUIDE TO CORRECT BEHAVIOR
and
PUT UP YOUR DUKE
Available now from Avon Books!
WHEN GOOD EARLS GO BAD
and
NO GROOM AT THE INN
Available now from Avon Impulse!
About the Author
MEGAN FRAMPTON writes historical romance under her own name and romantic women’s fiction as Megan Caldwell. She likes the color black, gin, dark-haired British men, and huge earrings, not in that order. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her husband and son. You can visit her website at www.meganframpton.com. She tweets as @meganf, and is at facebook.com/meganframptonbooks.
www.avonromance.com
www.facebook.com/avonromance
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By Megan Frampton
Dukes Behaving Badly
ONE-EYED DUKES ARE WILD
NO GROOM AT THE INN (A NOVELLA)
PUT UP YOUR DUKE
WHEN GOOD EARLS GO BAD (A NOVELLA)
THE DUKE’S GUIDE TO CORRECT BEHAVIOR
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
ONE-EYED DUKES ARE WILD. Copyright © 2016 by Megan Frampton. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
EPub Edition JANUARY 2016 ISBN: 9780062412775
Print Edition ISBN: 9780062412782
FIRST EDITION
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One-Eyed Dukes Are Wild Page 27