by Grace Burrowes, Shana Galen, Miranda Neville, Carolyn Jewel
Dancing in The Duke’s Arms
Copyright
“May I Have This Duke” Copyright © 2015 by Grace Burrowes
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 or excerpts for the purpose of critical reviews or articles—without permission in writing from Grace Burrowes, author and publisher of the work.
“Duchess of Scandal” © Copyright 2015 by Miranda Neville
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 or excerpts for the purpose of critical reviews or articles—without permission in writing from Miranda Neville, author and publisher of the work.
“Waiting for a Duke Like You” Copyright © 2015 by Shana Galen
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 or excerpts for the purpose of critical reviews or articles—without permission in writing from Shana Galen, author and publisher of the work.
“An Unsuitable Duchess” © Copyright 2015 by Carolyn Jewel
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 or excerpts for the purpose of critical reviews or articles—without permission in writing from Carolyn Jewel, author and publisher of the work.
Published in the four-novella compilation, Dancing in the Duke’s Arms, by cJewel Books, PO Box 750431, Petaluma, CA 94975-0431.
ISBN: 978-1-937823-40-5
Cover design by Seductive Designs.
Cover images:
Dancing Couple: Jenn LeBlanc / Illustrated Romance
Other images: Liliana Fichter/Depositphotos.com, Claudio Giovanni Colombo/Depositphotos.com
Mariusz Patrzyk/Depositphotos.com, Luibov Kondratenko/Depositphotos.com
Table of Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
May I Have This Duke?
Grace Burrowes
Waiting for a Duke Like You
Shana Galen
Duchess of Scandal
Miranda Neville
An Unsuitable Duchess
Carolyn Jewel
From the Authors
May I Have This Duke?
by
Grace Burrowes
Dedication
To the care givers
Contents – May I Have This Duke?
Dedication
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Author’s Note
Chapter One
‡
“You wished to see me, Your Grace?”
Gerard Juvenal René Beaumarchand Hammersley, Eighth Duke of Hardcastle, pretended for one more moment to study his list of tenants, because he emphatically did not wish to see Miss Ellen MacHugh. The woman destroyed his focus simply by entering a room, and when she spoke, whatever remained of Hardcastle’s mental processes came to an indecorous, gaping halt.
An indecorous, gaping, sniffing halt, because Miss MacHugh had the great temerity to carry about her person the scents of lavender and lilacs.
The duke rose, for Miss MacHugh was a lady, albeit a lady in his employ. “Please have a seat, Miss MacHugh. I trust you’re well?”
They’d perfected a system, such that they could dwell in the same house for much of the year, but go for days without speaking. Weeks even. Hardcastle’s record was thirty-three days straight, though admittedly, he’d been ill for part of that time.
She, by contrast, had the constitution of a plough horse. She never lost her poise either, while he fumbled for words in her presence or prosed on about the weather.
Or some other inanity.
“I am well, Your Grace. Thank you for inquiring. Christopher is well too.”
“If he were unwell, and you had failed to notify me, you’d be without a post, madam.”
She dipped her chin, a rather stubborn little chin. Her hair was dark russet, and her height was sadly wanting, but that chin could be very expressive.
Miss MacHugh was not willowy, she was not blond, she was not subservient, she was not—oh, her faults were endless. She wasn’t even entirely English, her mother hailing from the Scottish region of Peeblesshire.
“Did you summon me for a reason, sir?”
Hardcastle clasped his hands behind his back, marched to the library window, and attempted to recall what lapse of sense had prompted him to summon—ah, yes.
“I’m to attend to a house party up in Nottinghamshire,” he said. “Christopher will accompany me, and you will accompany the boy.”
“When do we leave, Your Grace?”
“We leave Tuesday. Please ensure Christopher has everything he might require for a two-week stay in the country. You and he will share the traveling coach, and I will go on horseback. Thank you, that will be all.”
She rose to her inconsequential height, and yet, such was Ellen MacHugh’s presence that Hardcastle remained by the window, yielding the rest of the library to her.
“Has Your Grace considered tutors to take over Christopher’s education?” she asked.
What queer start was this? “He’s barely six years old, Miss MacHugh. Unless I mistake the matter, the boy is learning what he needs to learn from you. I hadn’t any tutors until I was eight.”
She flicked a gaze over him that nearly shouted: And look how well that turned out. “Christopher is exceedingly bright, Your Grace, and eager to learn.”
“As was I. Unless you believe a six-year-old boy’s education to be beyond you, this conversation has reached its conclusion.”
More and more often, when Hardcastle spoke, his grandfather’s voice emerged, condescending, gruff, and arrogant. Had Robin lived, he’d have laughed himself silly at his older brother’s metamorphosis into a curmudgeon-in-training.
“I’ll take my leave of you then, sir. I’d like to call one other item to Your Grace’s attention, though.”
Hardcastle knew that tone and knew what it portended. Miss MacHugh was preparing to scold her employer.
The woman excelled at scolding her employer. She’d been in the nursery for nearly three months before Hardcastle had realized what her gentle, polite, well-reasoned discourses were. He’d been slow to catch on, because a duke of mature years had little to no experience being scolded.
By anyone.
“Unburden yourself, Miss MacHugh. What item remains for us to discuss?”
She had the most beautiful complexion. All roses and cream, with a few faint, delicate freckles across her cheeks. Hardcastle knew better than to stand within freckle-counting range, because when he got that close to her, his thumbs ached to brush over her features.
Aching thumbs on a duke were the outside of absurd.
“I’m giving notice, Your Grace, of my intention to quit my post. I thought you might like some warning. If we leave on Tuesday, and the house party lasts two weeks, you should expect my departure from your household at the end of the house party. I leave it to you to explain the situation to Christopher at the time and place of your choosing. Good day, sir.”
She offered him a graceful curtsey and bustled off toward the door.
Hardcastle
strode to the door as well, and because his legs were significantly longer, and his resolve every bit a match for Miss MacHugh’s, he was first to reach their destination.
“Miss MacHugh, after living under my roof for three years, caring for my heir, and otherwise functioning as a member of this household day in and day out, you simply announce an intention to leave?”
Of course she’d want to leave him. He was a demanding, ill-tempered, patently unfriendly employer. Hardcastle could not fathom how she’d leave the boy, though.
“This is how it’s done, Your Grace. The employee gives notice, the employer writes a glowing character. You wish me well, and I thank you for all you’ve done for me.”
She peered at him encouragingly, as if willing him to repeat that sequence of disasters back to her.
“All I have done is pay the modest wages you tirelessly earn, madam, but this giving of notice will not answer. In Nottinghamshire, I’ll be expected to socialize morning, noon, and night. The entire region is infested with dukes, thus its unfortunate style, the Dukeries. Because I myself am a duke—lest you forget that detail—I am obligated to exchange courtesy visits with half the shire.”
He kept his hand on the door latch, in case she took a notion to flee before he’d made his point. “How can I find a replacement for you if I’m dodging the hopeful young ladies?” Hardcastle went on. “Shall I interview your successor when I’m playing cards until all hours with the fellows? When I’m rising at dawn to ruin good boots tramping about in the fog, shooting at pheasants, drunken viscounts, or other low-flying game?”
Miss MacHugh turned her smile on Hardcastle, proving once again that she had no conscience. Her smile would make small boys confess to felonies and large boys long for privacy, preferably with her, a freshly made bed, and a few bottles of excellent spirits.
“Your Grace is an eminently resourceful fellow,” she said. “If you turn your mind to locating a successor for me, then I’m sure a parade of candidates will materialize in the servants’ parlor in an instant.”
Ellen MacHugh was a temple to mendacity, pretending to compliment him, while instead mocking his consequence.
“My agenda for this house party, Miss MacHugh, is to locate a candidate for the position of Duchess of Hardcastle. Her Grace, my grandmother, claims I have forgotten to tend to this task and must address the oversight before I’m a pathetic, graying embarrassment, falling asleep over the port and importuning the housemaids. I’m to parade myself before the debutantes and matchmakers, sacrifice myself once again on the altar of duty, and for good measure, be a good sport about surrendering my bachelorhood.”
And in the depths of the ducal heart, Hardcastle suppressed a plea as honest as it was dismaying: Don’t let them take me. Ellen MacHugh wouldn’t deride him for that sentiment either, for she was a woman who treasured her independence fiercely.
The corners of her serene smile faltered. “Her Grace is a formidable woman. I can understand why you’d make her request a priority. But tell me, sir, how does one forget to get married?”
One became a ducal heir at age seven, a duke at thirteen, and arrived to the age of three-and-thirty with one freedom, and one freedom only, still intact.
“I expect, Miss MacHugh, I neglected to marry the same way you did. I occupied myself with other, less disagreeable matters. Doubtless, you will now admit that your departure from the household would be most inconsiderate, particularly at this juncture. I will regard the topic as closed until further notice.”
Russet brows twitched, a gratifying hint of consternation from a woman who was the soul of self-possession.
“You have my leave to return to the nursery, madam.” They stood near the door, within freckle-counting range. The fragrance of lilacs and lavender, like a brisk, sunny morning, provoked Hardcastle into opening the door for his nephew’s governess, as if he were a common footman.
“Your Grace, I do apologize for the timing of my decision, but this once, I cannot change my plans for your convenience. I have reason to believe another situation awaits me. You have just shy of a month to replace me, sir. If you do find a lady willing to be your duchess, she will certainly take an interest in choosing Christopher’s next governess.”
Then Miss MacHigh-and-Mighty was gone, gently pulling the door closed behind her.
The voice of the previous duke nattered on in Hardcastle’s head, about good riddance to a woman who’d never known her place, and governesses being thick on the ground, and small boys of excellent station needing to learn early not to grow attached to their inferiors.
The seventh duke had been an arrogant old windbag. With a couple of bottles of port in him, he’d had the verbal stamina of a Presbyterian preacher amid a flock of adulterers.
The eighth duke didn’t care for port. He liked Ellen MacHugh’s self-possession, her good opinion of herself, her boldness before her betters, and her infernally alluring freckles.
Hardcastle had never admired or desired a woman more than he did Miss Ellen MacHugh. She had no use for him, though, so perhaps he’d best find a replacement for her after all.
*
“He’s growing worse,” Ellen said, hems whipping about her boots in the confines of the housekeeper’s sitting room. Two days after her interview with the duke, she was still upset with him. “I didn’t think Hardcastle could grow worse. He informed me that accepting a post in the north would not suit his convenience. ‘Doubtless,’ sayeth the duke, ‘you will now admit that your departure from the household would be most inconsiderate.’ God help the poor woman who must conceive children with him. She’ll suffer frostbite in a delicate location.”
“Ellen, that is unkind and unladylike.”
Dorcas Snelling had been housekeeper to the Duke of Hardcastle since the present titleholder had been in dresses. She was the closest thing Ellen had to a friend, but when it came to ducal infallibility, Dorcas might as well have been a papist discussing an especially virtuous pope. Dorcas was at that moment embroidering golden flowers on the hem of a curtain that would hang in the ducal dressing closet, for pity’s sake.
“I barely exaggerate Hardcastle’s sangfroid,” Ellen rejoined. “He can’t even bring himself to look down his nose at me, and he has a deal of nose to look down.”
On the coal man such a nose might have been unfortunate; on Hardcastle, it was splendidly ducal. Shoulders broad enough to do a Yorkshire ploughman proud were also ducal on Hardcastle. Dark eyebrows that put Ellen in mind of a pirate prince were—on Hardcastle—ducal.
His stern mouth was ducal, and his silences were nearly regal. The only feature that defied the title was Hardcastle’s hair, which was as curly and unruly as Christopher’s, albeit much darker.
“You’re determined to leave?” Mrs. Snelling asked, knotting off a gold thread.
“I never meant to stay this long, but Christopher has wrapped his grubby paws around my heart. Now His Grace is determined to marry, and Christopher will have an aunt to look after his welfare.”
To be fair, Hardcastle was a conscientious guardian. Christopher’s material needs were met in every particular, and when the head footman had raised his voice to the boy for sliding down the front banister, His Grace had sent the man to a lesser estate in East Anglia.
Christopher had been denied any outings on his pony for a week. Only a duke would fail to see that the governess was the one punished by such a scheme. Christopher’s abuse of the banister had happened on Ellen’s half day, but she’d made sure his unruly behavior hadn’t reoccurred.
“Miss MacHugh!” The boy himself came charging into the housekeeper’s sitting room. “I’ve found you. Nurse says I mightn’t have to come in if you’re willing to walk with me in the garden, but I had to come in to ask you. I found a grasshopper, and eleven ants, and four butterflies. That’s a lot.”
“It’s a pretty day,” Ellen said, extending a hand to Christopher. “A walk in the garden will help us settle to our French when we come in. How many insects did
you see in all, Christopher?’
“A lot?”
“Let’s count, shall we?”
While Ellen walked the child through a basic exercise in addition, she also tried to memorize the garden where she’d spent many peaceful hours over the past three years. The roses were beyond their glory, but the perennials—daisies, hollyhocks, foxglove, salvia, verbena, lavender—were still in good form.
Come Tuesday, Ellen would leave this place, despite His Grace’s fuming and pouting.
She’d miss Hardway Hall, miss the routine and orderliness of it, miss the child she’d come to love ferociously, and even miss the duke. He was predictable in his severe demeanor, he paid punctually, and he didn’t intrude into the nursery. Without intending it, Hardcastle had provided Ellen a place to heal her wounds and mourn her dreams.
Many women hadn’t even those luxuries.
“Why do roses have thorns?” Christopher asked, sniffing a rose without touching it anywhere. He was a careful boy, but not a worried boy. Ellen would miss him until her dying day.
“Thorns protect the roses from being grabbed carelessly,” Ellen said, “from being eaten by passing bears, from being handled without respect.”
Would to God young ladies were given a few thorns before the young men came sniffing about.
“I like daisies better,” Christopher said. “They aren’t the color of blood, and they don’t make you bleed if you touch them. Daisies are happy.”
Christopher was happy, curious, and full of energy. He ran down the length of the rose border, made a turn past the end of the laburnum alley, and was pelting back in Ellen’s direction when he came to an abrupt stop.
Where an exuberant little boy had stood, a ducal heir appeared, suggesting His Grace was approaching from the stables. Christopher drew his shoulders back, swiped a hand over his hair, and drained all animation from his features in the time it took for a breeze to set the laburnum leaves dancing.