The Worst Duke in the World
Page 35
After that quite a few other people in the county came to Jane asking for her help with their tangled accounts, which she very much enjoyed untangling, and Anthony said that she really ought to offer her services to the Crown whose finances were tangled beyond belief, and if anyone could get the Prince Regent to stop spending money on things like his bloated cadre of French chefs, that silly Pavilion in Brighton, garish spangled jackets, and kangaroos, it would be Jane.
Flattered, Jane thanked him, and said that if anybody in Parliament could persuade (or force) the Crown to take her on, it would be Anthony, who had, not long after taking his seat, gained a reputation as a brilliant and fiery speaker whose opponents cowered nervously when he took the floor. This satisfying response, along with his general and exuberant happiness in life thanks to his family and friends and dogs and pig, enabled Anthony to finally stop worrying about what sort of duke he thought he should be, and instead settle in comfortably into just the sort of duke he was, which wasn’t, he thought, half-bad. So he never felt obligated to crop his hair to suit someone else, or to wear shoes that made his feet hurt, although he did occasionally let the faithful Evans polish his boots, if only to keep the poor fellow from lapsing into a terrible melancholy.
When Wakefield was twelve, he decided that he wanted to go away to Eton for school, which he did, and learned a considerable amount, played every sort of sport, made a great many friends, got into countless scrapes, and altogether had a marvelous time. He had stopped scrambling his multisyllabic words by then, which secretly made Anthony and Jane a little sorry although they realized it was more because it reminded them that Wakefield was growing up fast, a wonderful and slightly sad inevitability that all parents must accept.
Wakefield went on to Oxford, by then having grown nearly as tall as his father, and (aided by a vocabulary which really was stupendous) he began writing essays and articles which were soon being published in all the local periodicals and occasionally the national ones as well, a pastime he enjoyed so much he thought with real seriousness about making writing his vocation, as it enabled him to speak his mind about things he viewed as important and also allowed him to fulfill his childhood dream of becoming a menace to society, which was even better than being a highwayman or a clown.
And speaking of clowns, neither he, nor his younger brothers and sister, or his father and stepmother whom he all loved very much ever, ever went to the circus, a circumstance they never regretted and which, in fact, made them extremely happy and excessively contented, a delightful state of mind that they each and every one entirely deserved.
Acknowledgments
With oodles of gratitude to these amazing people:
Lucia Macro
Sophie Jordan
Julia Quinn
Leslie Ruder
Frauke Spanuth
And to you, dear reader.
Thank you! ♥
About the Author
LISA BERNE read her first Georgette Heyer book at fourteen—it was the effervescent Lady of Quality—and was instantly captivated. Later, she was a graduate student, a grant writer, and a teacher, and now writes witty, beautifully nuanced historical romance for Avon Books, set mostly in Regency-era Britain.
Lisa would love to hear from you! Say hi on Facebook, pop onto Twitter, and of course feel free to visit her website, where she blogs about quirky memes, comics that make her laugh, and all things bookish.
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By Lisa Berne
The Worst Duke in the World
Engaged to the Earl
The Bride Takes a Groom
The Laird Takes a Bride
You May Kiss the Bride
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.
the worst duke in the world. Copyright © 2020 by Lisa Berne. 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 Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition JANUARY 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-285238-0
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-285237-3
Cover design by Amy Halperin
Cover illustration © Anna Kmet
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HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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