He braced himself with a palm against one wall, lifting his injured foot. “You might wonder,” he drawled, “what I said to Lady Frederick upon concluding my performance.”
“That is not the first question that came to my mind.” She motioned for him to hop to a chair near him. “Sit, Nicholas, before you topple over. Then tell me what you said, since you obviously wish to.” She sat in another chair facing him, across the fireplace. Like an adversary—or maybe a new audience.
He shifted his weight in the chair, frowning at his bandaged ankle. “This is most annoying.”
Eleanor laughed. “You are too hard on yourself. It wasn’t a typical performance, but I was not annoyed by it.”
“Ha. I mean that having a sprained ankle is annoying, but thank you for the reassurance.” He extended both legs toward her. His feet were shod in shoes of identical make, but one was much larger than the other. “When she said I needed more lessons, I agreed that I needed a lifetime’s worth.”
“You weren’t that bad.” She still felt as if she were pounding up the stairs to the ballroom, knowing she was missing something but not sure what.
“Ellie, for God’s sake, I am being figurative.” He sat up straight again. “Maybe. For this is the kernel of all the sense and all the realizations I’ve had knocked into my head: there is no one dearer to me than you, and I wish for nothing more than your happiness. The form that will take is for you and you alone to decide.” He took a deep breath. “I am sorry that I kissed you before the eyes of society, because I do not wish to embarrass you. I am sorry I spoke as though I doubted your judgment, for in truth I do not. I will support you in your marriage to Barberry. I hope he will love you as you deserve.”
Ah. As he spoke, her heart hammered, flipped, engaged in other strenuous activities—and then thumped heavily, chastened. “That is what you wish for me?”
“Yes. I wish your happiness.”
“Thank you for your kind speech, but my happiness won’t come from Lord Barberry.” She cast her gaze downward. Her hands, still ringless, were strong. “I broke off the engagement to him. When he arrived at Athelney Place to escort me here, we…mutually agreed that we would not suit.”
Poor man. He had looked so puzzled at the sight of her, with her hair bound and pinned up, but still curling riotously. “Are you unprepared?” he had asked. And she had said no, that she was perfectly ready.
He had understood at once. Their engagement was dissolved with the same courtesy with which it had been formed.
She stood from her chair, then paced the small distance to Nicholas and back. “I am not so eager for a husband that I will take just any, as it turns out. I want a loving family, but I have that already. Just not in the form I expected.”
Sidney. Little Siddy. Mariah. Even, she thought, Nicholas. Perhaps someday his wife, if he wed someone pleasant. It was a good full life. She would find ways to be happy in it.
Nicholas’s reply came after a long silence. “I didn’t know you were no longer engaged. This…changes rather a lot.”
The firelight in the otherwise dim room made her eyes water. “I realize that. Otherwise, your ridiculous gesture of support would have gone undone. As it is, I am sorry it was wasted.”
“Ellie!” Did he roll his eyes at her? “It was never wasted. Had I known you and Barberry were no longer planning to wed, I’d have dragged you into this parlor at once instead of forcing a room full of people to endure me playing I Sowed the Seeds of Love. I shall have to apologize to the lot of them.”
She was still missing something. “All right. You have wished me happy…I think. Do you not want to learn to play the pianoforte?”
“I have always wanted to learn. And if you’ll teach me, I’d be honored. If that’s all you want of me, I’ll understand. And if—”
“Shh. Shh. You are babbling. What do you really want to tell me?”
“Ah. That.” He looked abashed. “As it turns out”—he echoed her words—“I am not so eager for a wife that I will take just any.”
Her heart was a boulder.
“My parents had a dutiful marriage. They probably thought, when they wed, that it would be perfect. But it was often contentious and unhappy.”
“I remember.” So many times, she and Sidney had walked over to his family home to play, only to walk right back to their own house with him.
“From them I learned that family life will inevitably be disappointing, so you might as well do whatever you want.”
“I have never heard such sentiments from you before,” she teased. “You, a duke, doing what you wish?”
“Such sarcasm!” He tilted his head. “It suits you. Minx.”
She lifted her brows. “So, what of your courtship of Miss Lewis? If you’re not eager for a wife, then she is…”
“Happily in the arms of Lord Barberry’s eldest son, if my servants’ gossip is to be trusted.”
“Servants’ gossip is always to be trusted.” She plumped into her chair again.
“If so, then the lady was observed—by Lord Barberry’s servants—to meet his heir’s eyes and smile, which is more than she ever did for me.”
“A shame.” It was not a shame. “I was proud of having found you someone perfect, all blonde and blue-eyed and meek.”
She was not proud of this. She had regretted it almost at once. But she valued Nicholas’s happiness, just as he said he did hers.
He did not reply for a long while. When she looked at him curiously, she noticed a tremor in his hands. “That is not perfection to me.” He steepled his hands beneath his chin, then drew in a deep breath. “I find that I prefer green eyes and brown hair. Brown with a hint of red in it, that looks rich and wild by the light of a candle and like spun copper under the noon sun. But it is not the green eyes and the brown hair that I truly prefer. It is the lady who possesses those features.”
The lady who…
He meant…
Her heart, her breath, even the very fire, all seemed to pause.
“I…” She trailed off. Tried again. “Say some more things like that.”
Did her hair really look like copper? Was it rich and appealing? Just now, it seemed a weight on her head, keeping her from thinking straight.
“There is but one more thing to say. I love you.”
The fire gave a cheery snap. Her heart cautiously beat. Her breath was still caught. “As…as a friend, you mean? A lifelong friend? Whose happiness you value?” This was her comeuppance for toying with the truth of her feelings when he’d asked.
“No.” He dragged his hand through his hair. “That is—yes, but as more than that too. As a man loves the woman who is the better half of his heart. The claws don’t matter anymore, because I’m not empty in the middle.”
Deeply, slowly, she let out her breath. In the space left behind, bright joy began to grow. “I don’t know what that bit about the claws means, but you say it as if it is quite a good thing.”
“A very good thing. Very good indeed. I’ll tell you all about it some other time, but for now just know that it’s because of you. My love. When you started looking for a husband, I couldn’t stop thinking about that. When you went out into the world, I couldn’t stay away from your side. In short, I think you might be perfect for me, and I hope you’ll entertain the possibility that I could be for you as well.”
Her hands fluttered, as if trying to pluck his words from the air. Why was it so dark in here? She wanted noon light on him, full and strong, so she could read his every lineament. “I cannot believe it.”
“Is it so hard to credit? You have always been essential to my happiness, and I hope I have given you some as well. For so long, I have loved you; I have just been too much of a fool to realize it.”
“Dukes,” she said faintly, “can be fools sometimes.”
“They can. I freely admit it. I will never deny that again.” He held out his arms to her then, and she all but flew into his lap.
“You said a great many things,” she said
. “I have only a few words in reply. I love you, and I think I always have.”
“Thank God for that,” he said.
Thereafter, the two of them discovered that this was not only the sort of space in which Eleanor might take her hair down and shake it free. It was also the sort of space where a man—a dear, clever, strange, and wonderful man—might loosen his cravat, take her in his arms, and become her lover.
Sort of. As best as one could become a lover in a chair made for one, while he had an injured ankle. The possibilities were limited but intriguing, and Nicholas was relentless. There were whispers, laughter, and kisses after kisses; then the shifting of clothing by questing hands. Pleasure quieted their voices, brought them together new and delighted, until it all tightened into a glorious burst and Eleanor collapsed against his chest with a soft cry.
They were both breathing hard. Together. Heartbeat against heartbeat, they settled into an embrace that felt, to Eleanor, like the embodiment of love.
She caught her breath first, though raggedly. “We must try this again on a larger piece of furniture.”
“And soon, I hope.” Nicholas stroked her back, currently covered by a very loosened bodice. “This is not a good beginning to convincing you that I can be proper and responsible.”
“You are most responsible! I have never doubted your fitness as a duke for a moment.”
“And as a lover?” Oh, that wicked twinkle in his eye.
She blushed furiously. “I am impressed by my experience so far.”
“I am not too scandalous, as you once called me?”
She pretended to think about this. “You love me?”
“I love you.”
“And you respect me?”
“Enough to make sure the door was latched before I put my hands up under your skirts.”
She laughed, helpless at the force of her joy. “Then that is precisely the right amount of scandal. Let’s wed as soon as we can get a license, and I shall be your scandalous duchess.”
Thank You
Thank you for reading My Scandalous Duke! I hope you enjoyed Nicholas and Eleanor’s story. If you have a chance to leave a review, I’d appreciate that so much. Reviews help other readers decide what to read next.
To find out when my next book will be out, please sign up for my newsletter at http://theresaromain.com. I also love chatting with readers on Facebook and Twitter.
At my website, I run a monthly giveaway of romance novels and swag. Visit http://theresaromain.com/contest/ to enter! With your entry, you’ll be added to my newsletter list so you can keep up with new releases and special sales.
Read on for an excerpt from my upcoming Royal Rewards novel, PASSION FAVORS THE BOLD, which features Regency treasure-hunters and more than a few secrets.
About Theresa Romain
Theresa Romain is the bestselling author of historical romances, including the Matchmaker trilogy, the Holiday Pleasures series, the Royal Rewards series, and the Romance of the Turf trilogy. Praised as "one of the rising stars of Regency historical romance" (Booklist), she has received a starred review from Booklist and was a 2016 RITA® finalist. A member of Romance Writers of America® and its Regency specialty chapter The Beau Monde, Theresa is hard at work on her next novel from her home in the Midwest.
To keep up with all the news about Theresa’s upcoming books, sign up for her newsletter here.
Visit Theresa on the web at http://theresaromain.com * Facebook * Twitter * Pinterest
Books by Theresa Romain
Royal Rewards
Fortune Favors the Wicked
Passion Favors the Bold
Romance of the Turf
The Sport of Baronets (novella)
A Gentleman’s Game
Scandalous Ever After
Stand-Alone Works
A Gentleman for All Seasons (anthology)
Those Autumn Nights (novella reissue)
My Scandalous Duke (novella)
The Matchmaker Trilogy
It Takes Two to Tangle
To Charm a Naughty Countess
Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress
Holiday Pleasures
Season for Temptation
Season for Surrender
Season for Scandal
Season for Desire
PASSION FAVORS THE BOLD
Copyright © 2017 Theresa Romain
Chapter 1
Late May 1817
London
As one would expect of a young woman raised in a bookshop, Georgette Frost was accustomed to flights of imagination. But not even in her most robust fancies could she have dreamed her present situation.
Not because she was garbed in boys’ clothing. Many the blue-blooded heroine of a conte de fée had disguised herself to escape the cruel predations of a wicked relative.
True, Georgette’s veins ran with the ink of her family’s longtime bookshop rather than blue blood. And Cousin Mary was not wicked; merely overwhelmed by the ceaseless demands of the shop and her multitude of children.
Nor was Georgette dismayed to set out on her own, with all her worldly possessions in a small trunk. Freed from the endless shelves of the shop, the constant questions of starched-collar customers, she had felt gloriously unfettered as she sought a coaching house and prepared to join her elder brother on his travels for the first time.
There was only one problem, but that problem was a significant one: six feet tall, hawkish of feature and stuffy of temperament. Lord Hugo Starling, the youngest son of the Duke of Willingham. Friend of Georgette’s elder brother, Benedict. Representative of everything chill and sterile about the life of the mind: study, solitude, and sternness. Every time he had visited Frost’s Bookshop, he had demonstrated this anew, curt and exasperated by the world outside of the latest book on which he had his eye.
Unfortunately, Lord Hugo didn’t remain confined to bookshops. He had encountered Georgette at the coaching inn before she could take her seat on the stagecoach. After a public spat, which did credit to neither of them—though far less to Lord Hugo, who ought to have kept his high-bridged nose out of her business—Georgette had grudgingly scrambled into his carriage.
She now faced him, glaring, as he settled against the soft velvet squabs. “How can you say what I want is impossible? You asked where I wanted to go.”
“I asked, yes. But I didn’t say I would take you there. It would be wrong to send you to the wilds of Derbyshire.”
The wilds. She almost snorted. Likely Derbyshire, all grasses and livestock, did seem wild to a London-bred noble with a perfectly knotted cravat. Georgette was London-bred herself, but with an elder brother once in the Royal Navy, she felt she’d seen a bit of the world, if only through his letters.
This carriage, though, came from a world of luxury she’d never known. Unmarred and sleek, the wood shone with lemon-scented oil. Within sparkling-clear glass globes, the wicks of the unlit lamps were trimmed. The velvet squabs were brushed clean and soft.
Her secondhand jacket and cheap boys’ shoes had seemed the perfect disguise when she was outdoors. Now she felt shabby and false, her pale blond hair falling in drab strands from beneath the cap.
Rapunzel, back in a different sort of tower. Cendrillon, doomed to a new sort of drudgery.
In retrieving her—no! abducting her—Lord Hugo had been splashed with mud and cheap liquor, his fine coat stained and reeking. Somehow he still managed to look confident and unbending. Like the carriage, he was tidy and elegant except for his encounter with Georgette.
She set her jaw. “I wish you’d left me alone. I was going to find my brother.”
He muttered something that sounded suspiciously like fool’s errand. “You want to seek the royal reward, don’t you? Your brother is sure he’ll find it, and you want to help him.”
She waved a hand. “Of course. Who wouldn’t want five thousand pounds?”
For such was the reward offered by the Royal Mint to anyone who located fifty thousand missing gold
sovereigns. New coins, not yet circulated, they had been stolen from the mint in a mysterious and violent rampage some weeks before. Four guards had been killed, and six trunks of the sovereigns stolen. Since then, no evidence of them had been found—until one gold sovereign was spent in a Derbyshire village, drawing the curious and the treasure-mad from all corners of England.
That village—called Strawfield—was where Benedict had gone as soon as he returned to England from his latest voyage. And so that was where Georgette would go to find him, and her fortune.
“Until I can write your brother, I shall take you to stay with my mother,” Lord Hugo decided. “You shall be the guest of the Duchess of Willingham. Won’t that be . . . er, nice?”
She could almost hear the gears of his mind grinding. Smile! Present single option as though it were appealing while giving no choice!
“No.” She folded her arms. Rude, yes; but he had been rude in taking Georgette away from her coaching stop. Her ticket, purchased with scraped-together savings from her salary at the bookshop, was now money wasted. “None of your behavior has been nice at all. I cannot believe you told a crowd of strangers that I was your criminal nephew who had stolen silver from my dying mother.”
Instead of looking chastened, the cursed man shot her a grim smile. “Turnabout is fair play. You told them I was drunk. And you told your own cousins at the bookshop that you’d been invited to stay with my family. Won’t it be agreeable to convert one of your lies into the truth?”
My Scandalous Duke Page 9