by Darcy Burke
The Duke of Kisses
Darcy Burke
Contents
The Duke of Kisses
Prologue
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
Epilogue
Thank You!
Books by Darcy Burke
The Jewels of Historical Romance
About the Author
The Duke of Kisses
Frances Snowden can hardly believe her good fortune when she’s whisked away from her boring life by her sister who is now a duchess. Instead of becoming the third wife of her parents’ stuffy neighbor, she can be anything she wants: a doting aunt to her newborn niece, a debutante in London, or even an independent spinster. But when she meets and kisses a mysterious man on a walk in the countryside, she knows exactly what she desires—him.
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David Langley, Earl of St. Ives, is resigned to marrying the dull woman his parents chose when he was a child. His future is suddenly, and happily, diverted when he encounters a captivating young woman who shows him everything he’s been missing. Ready to embark on a blissful life together, a long-buried feud between their families makes their marriage impossible. Nothing is more important than duty and family, but can he turn his back on love?
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The Duke of Kisses
Copyright © 2018 Darcy Burke
All rights reserved.
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ISBN: 194457641X
ISBN-13: 9781944576417
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Book design: © Darcy Burke.
Book Cover Design; © The Midnight Muse Designs.
Book Cover Font Design: © Carrie Divine/Seductive Designs.
Cover image: © Period Images.
Editing: Linda Ingmanson.
All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the author.
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Prologue
Stour’s Edge, Suffolk, England
December 1817
Frances Snowden glared at the rabbit hole but quickly acknowledged she was angry with herself, not the tiny animal she’d foolishly followed through the copse and up the hill and over an icy stream.
Blast, she was an idiot. She’d seen the rabbit hunkered down near a tree. It had seemed to be shivering, and so she’d decided to scoop it up and take it home before it succumbed to the elements. But as soon as she’d moved close, the animal had scampered away.
Satisfied the rabbit would be fine, Fanny watched it run until it stopped. Then it sat down and began to quiver again. That had started what seemed to be a game of cat and mouse as Fanny went after it, and it ran away, then stopped again. Over and over until it had disappeared down its hole.
“Well, I suppose I did see you safely home,” Fanny muttered. “You’re welcome!”
She pulled her woolen cloak more tightly about her and looked up at the muted sky as the first snowflake struck her square on the nose.
“Oh, to be that snowflake.” A masculine voice rent the quiet, drawing Fanny to spin about toward the source of the sound.
A tall gentleman lounged against a tree as if he frequented hills in the middle of a snowstorm with careless ease. Er, possible snowstorm. Fanny squinted her eyes toward the heavens once more and wondered just how far from Stour’s Edge she’d strayed.
“Miss?”
There was that voice again, reminding her that the snow and her unknown location were perhaps not her most troubling problems at present.
“I’m on my way home—to Stour’s Edge,” she added hastily.
A single dark brow the color of the chocolate she’d taken to drinking each morning since coming to live with her sister arced into an upside-down V as he pushed away from the tree and sauntered toward her. The wide brim of his hat shaded his features, but they were clearly visible, from the chocolate hair visible at his temples to the strong line of his jaw. “I see. You must be the Duke’s bride.”
“I am not.”
The man’s dove-gray eyes flickered with appreciation. “I see. How nice.”
Was he flirting with her? Fanny had next to no experience with that. Mr. Duckworth had tried such nonsense with her, but his efforts always seemed far more…lascivious. She would forever thank her sister for saving her from certain doom. Without Ivy inviting her to come live at Stour’s Edge, Fanny would undoubtedly have found herself the next Mrs. Duckworth. The third, in fact.
Best to just let this gentleman know she wasn’t the sort of woman he might think. “I’m afraid I’m not adept at flirting, nor do I have any interest.”
“Was I flirting?” He moved closer, his athletic frame moving easily. “I didn’t intend to. But I never do, and then a beautiful woman happens across my path, and I simply can’t help myself.” His lips curved into an arresting smile.
Fanny’s breath caught. He was the most handsome person she’d ever clapped eyes on. And he was looking at her as if he maybe thought the same thing about her.
Except, he’d just said he flirted with all beautiful women, which meant this wasn’t a singular event for him, as it was for her. And really, she wasn’t beautiful. Far from it. She had freckles and her lips were too full, as her mother was fond of pointing out. “You’re definitely flirting,” she said warily.
“And you are on your guard. As you should be. You’re a bit far from Stour’s Edge, however. Are you certain that is where you are from?”
He doubted her? Actually, perhaps it was best that he did. This was a scandalous encounter, and it would behoove her to keep it from becoming known. Which meant she couldn’t tell anyone about it, and she didn’t want him telling anyone about it either.
“I think I’ll just be on my way.” She turned from him and started down the hill. She made it about twenty feet before she stopped and frowned. She had absolutely no idea where she was going. Blast it all.
“Are you lost?”
The question came from far too close behind her, and she jumped. She quickly turned and backed up at the same time, moving quickly and without care for her location near the top of the hill. Just enough snow had accumulated that she slipped.
And tumbled down the hill.
She landed in a heap at the bottom, her eyes closed and her body smarting from rolling over a few times on the way down.
“Hellfire!”
>
The proximity of his deep voice made her open her eyes. The concerned, yet still unbelievably handsome, face of the stranger hovered over hers.
“Are you all right?” he demanded, his gaze darkening to the color of iron.
Fanny moved her fingers and toes. “I think so.” Her backside stung most of all, and she was acutely aware of the frigid temperature of the ground beneath her. “It’s quite cold down here.”
He knelt beside her, but quickly clasped her waist and pulled her to stand, rising to his feet in front of her. “Better?”
And now she was acutely aware of his hands on her and the delicious, almost entirely foreign sensation of being held.
She quite liked it.
“Yes,” she said rather breathlessly, realizing she sounded like a ninnyhammer and not caring in the slightest.
“I insist on seeing you home.” He looked up at the sky as the snow seemed to be falling in larger flakes than it had just five minutes before. “Stour’s Edge, you say?”
She was cold and now wet, and for some reason, she felt safe with him. “Yes.”
He gave a firm nod, then wrapped her arm over his. “We’ll walk briskly. If you can.”
She nodded, then wiped at the dirt and grass that seemed to cover her cloak. He helped her, his hand moving over her hip and then her backside. The moment he made that contact, their gazes connected.
“Sorry,” he murmured before averting his gaze.
They walked in silence for a few minutes, a hundred questions tumbling through her head and an equal amount of sensations coursing through her body.
He glanced over at her, a snowflake landing on his dark lashes and melting almost immediately. “I know we haven’t been properly introduced, but it seems we should take care of that.”
“It’s a bit scandalous, isn’t it?”
“No more so than my caressing your backside.”
Caressing. Oh dear. Those hundred sensations doubled.
“I’m Frances.” She decided it was best to just keep things simple. He didn’t need to know she was Fanny Snowden, sister-in-law to the Duke of Clare.
“I’m David.”
“Pleased to meet you, David.” For all she knew, he was a footman at a neighboring estate. She doubted that, however. While her experience with anyone outside her tiny town of Pickering in Yorkshire and its environs was limited, she could tell he was Quality. Or at least good at mimicking it.
“What brought you so far from home?” David asked.
“Providence, thankfully.” She realized belatedly he didn’t mean that home. She blamed the fact that she’d just been thinking of Pickering. Though she’d been at Stour’s Edge for nigh on six months, apparently she could still think of her lifelong home as home.
He gave a soft laugh. “Because you met me?”
Now she realized how that may have sounded. “No, I didn’t mean that. I meant… Oh, never mind. I am abysmal at polite conversation. I’ve almost no experience with it.”
“Are you in service?” he asked, voicing about her what she’d just been thinking of him.
She seized on the opportunity to mask her true identity and have a way to explain why he couldn’t escort her to the house. “Yes, I’m a housemaid.” She looked at him askance. “What about you?”
“In service?” He started to shake his head but then stopped. “Not precisely. I’m serving as apprentice to a steward.”
“That sounds exciting.”
He turned his head toward her. “Indeed?”
“Oh yes. To be responsible for so many things… You must be quite intelligent.”
He shrugged. “My father always told me so.”
“My father always told me I was a featherbrain.”
“Well, that sounds rather rude. Also, I find that hard to believe—that you’re a featherbrain, I mean.” He said this with utmost certainty. “Although, you did wander far from home in a snowstorm.”
“It wasn’t snowing then, and I was trying to save a rabbit.” She exhaled. “I’m afraid I’m terribly softhearted when it comes to animals. My father also told me I was far too kind. Once, he made me abandon a litter of puppies after their mother died.”
David gasped. “That’s atrocious.”
She nodded, glad for his support. “Yes, but I sneaked back out to where they were and rescued them anyway. One of the neighbors had a dog who was almost finished nursing her pups, and she was more than glad to adopt the four little babies. Ironically, my father took one of those dogs several months later, never realizing it was one he’d left for dead.” She shook her head. “He loved that dog more than any of us, I think.”
“What an astounding tale. I would say you have a kind heart, not soft. There’s a difference, I think.”
She swung her gaze to his. “Do you?”
“I do.”
They stared at each other a moment before she nearly tripped over a rock. He caught her, his free hand clasping her hand while he gripped her arm. “All right?”
“I’m also rather clumsy.”
“Then allow me to assist you over the stream, though I gather you made it across by yourself earlier.”
They’d arrived at the slender but swift-moving brook. “It was a miracle, really.”
He laughed, then withdrew his arm from hers. “I’ll go first and help you.” He leapt over the water with ease, and she decided she could watch him do that a thousand times. In her mind’s eye, she would.
He held his hand out to her. “Ready?”
She clasped his appendage, and he brought her over the stream with a fluid grace she didn’t possess on her own. “I’ll wager you’re a fine dancer,” she said.
He grimaced. “Barely passable, I’m afraid.”
She grinned at him. “I’m a disaster.”
His eyes gleamed as he chuckled. “You’re a treasure, Frances.”
Heat rose in her face, but she suspected her cheeks were red from the cold and was relieved he couldn’t see her blush.
He tucked her arm over his once more and they started on their way, keeping up their rapid pace. “Do you often get lost?” he asked.
Only when she struck off in a new direction and then only sometimes. Snowstorms were particularly helpful if one wanted to lose one’s way. “No, but then I just left home for the first time less than six months ago.” She wished she hadn’t revealed that much. But he was so easy to talk to.
“You’re new to your employment, then?”
“Yes. What are you doing out in the middle of a snowstorm?” she asked, hoping to divert the conversation away from herself lest she bore him with the story of her life.
“I was just taking a walk. Then I saw you running up the hill, and I was curious.”
“So you followed me?”
“Guilty.” But the look he cast in her direction didn’t reflect even a tinge of regret.
She was glad and more than a little…tantalized. “Well, I suppose I must be grateful since without your help, I would be lost and cold.”
“But dry. I can’t imagine you would have fallen without my intervention.” Now she detected a dash of remorse.
“That’s a nice theory,” she said wryly, “but I did tell you I was clumsy.”
“I suppose we’ll never know,” he mused. “Come, let’s move a bit faster, or we’ll both be soaked to the skin.”
She had a sudden vision of him in clothing that was plastered to his muscular, athletic frame. Muscular? Yes, she could tell from his arm and the way he’d lifted her effortlessly from the ground and assisted her across the stream. Athletic? Evidently, given how quickly he’d made it down the hill after she’d fallen and the fact that he hadn’t lost his balance as she had. Besides all that, she had eyes, and she could see he was broad-shouldered and long-legged.
“Do you often go for walks?” she asked, thinking he must.
“Every day. At least once. Like you, I have an affinity for animals. In my case, it’s birds.”
“Indeed?
What are your favorites?”
“It’s very hard to say.” His response was solemn, as if he were deeply considering her question. “I find myself drawn to birds of the marsh—it’s their long legs and long beaks, I think. There’s something very graceful about their composition and demeanor. Avocets are beautiful. As are godwits.”
“I know next to nothing about birds.” But she suddenly wished to correct that and planned to scour West’s library for every book on ornithology she could find.
“I could teach you,” he offered softly.
It was the nicest, sweetest, most alluring offer she’d ever received.
Too bad she couldn’t accept. He was a steward’s apprentice, and she was the sister-in-law of a duke, destined for a grand Season and probably a marriage to a prince. Or at least a duke. That was what she and Ivy joked about, at least.
Ivy! She had to be worried sick.
“How far are we from Stour’s Edge?” Fanny asked.
“About a quarter mile, I should think.” He pointed in front of them. “There. You’d see it if not for the copse of trees and this thickening storm.”
She recognized the copse from earlier and from the walks she’d taken since coming to Stour’s Edge. When they reached the trees, she stopped. “We should part here, I think.”
“You probably don’t want to be seen arriving with me,” he guessed accurately.
“I don’t think that would be wise. I’ve been gone too long as it is.”