Nothing Like a Duke

by Jane Ashford

  He still wished he could thrash the fellow. Durand hadn’t seemed nearly sorry enough for what he’d done. And society decreed that it was a man’s place to do such things. What would his father think of the way he’d stood back? His brothers? Robert felt the beginning of a cringe at the questions, and then a word floated up from the depths of his mind. “Restraint,” declared Papa’s voice in his head, “and knowing when to exercise it, is a far more arduous discipline than unconsidered action.” Robert repeated the sentence silently. He couldn’t recall when he’d heard it, but the sentiments echoed and unfurled inside him. Perhaps he was something like a duke after all, Robert thought.

  He pulled Flora closer against him. Whatever the case, he’d had to cede the satisfaction of beating Durand to her. She’d needed to strike the telling blow. He’d merely wanted to. It was a fine but important distinction. And who would have predicted he would ever have a thought such as that.

  “What are you laughing about?” asked Flora.

  “I’m…bemused,” he answered. He looked down at her as a burst of light from a rocket gilded her lovely face. His, she was his, exulted an eager inner voice. “I was thinking about…hierarchies of motive.”

  Part of him smiled sardonically at the phrase. What idiot would say such a thing when he had a lovely woman in his arms, fireworks bursting above? One who held Flora Jennings, another part answered.

  His incomparable, intellectual love looked interested. “Some being stronger than others, you mean?”

  “More exigent,” he replied. “More important for the…well-being of the person in question.” Flora turned a little more toward him, sending a spike of desire through his frame.

  “And so to be given precedence?” she said.

  “Exactly.” There was no one on Earth quicker or sharper, he thought. Or more delectable.

  “So it’s a matter of recognizing this hierarchy and…trading, perhaps.”

  “Well, I don’t think one can measure it in terms of trade.”

  “Too common for your aristocratic sensibilities?” Flora interjected, only half playfully.

  Robert shook his head. “Not what I meant. I think it might not be that kind of…exchange. Keeping accounts, you know. Watching for a return.” How did one balance the needs of two strong-willed individuals? Perhaps he’d ask his mother about that. Sometime. He suspected she would know the answer. Or one answer, at least.

  “But one must consider fairness,” Flora objected. “It can’t be all on one side. That would cause resentment.”

  “Not if there was a clear understanding of the stakes.”

  “I’m not sure you’re right.”

  “Are you ever?” Robert asked with a smile. He adored her tenacity. “So, you would say that I am owed a…concession?”

  Flora smiled back. “You said it wasn’t a trade.”

  “And you held that fairness was vital.”

  Their smiles widened in tandem as they gazed at each other. Colored light washed over their faces as another rocket burst high above.

  “Shall we be married in London?” Robert said. “Next week, say.”

  “That’s not much time to prepare.”

  “I am entirely prepared. How much fuss do you require?”

  “I care nothing for such things. But our families might like a bit of pomp.”

  “Mine has had enough weddings to surfeit a regiment of maiden aunts,” Robert replied.

  “Well, Mama has not. And I am her only child. She will have…views.”

  “So we do the thing in Russell Square. Invite all your father’s old friends. Send out the announcements in cuneiform symbols.”

  Flora laughed. “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  Robert admired the exquisite planes of her face, the line of her neck. “Will we never stop arguing?” he wondered.

  “Is that what you want?” She cocked her head at him. “Isn’t it rather…stimulating?”

  She was right. It was. “There’s one area where I hope we will always agree.”

  “What?”

  He bent his head and kissed her—tenderly, passionately, quite thoroughly.

  “Oh,” Flora said breathlessly when at last he drew back. “That area. Yes, absolutely.” She pulled him close and kissed him back with riveting enthusiasm.

  Quite a time passed in a delightful demonstration of their concurrence. Garments were loosened. Hands roamed. They slid off the boulder into a recumbent position.

  “Shall I stop?” asked Robert when it was clear that matters were reaching a crucial point.

  “Under no circumstances,” Flora ordered.

  He had no argument there.

  Order Jane Ashford’s next book

  in The Duke's Sons series

  The Duke Knows Best

  On sale December 2017

  Keep reading for a sneak peek of the

  next book in the Duke’s Sons series

  THE DUKE KNOWS BEST

  Lord Randolph Gresham attracted more than one admiring glance as he walked along Grosvenor Square toward Bond Street on a Tuesday morning. And indeed he felt unusually dapper. His dark-blue coat had arrived from the tailor only yesterday. His dove-gray pantaloons outlined a muscular leg. His hat sat at a jaunty angle. He’d often been told that he was the best looking of the six sons of the Duke of Langford—tall, handsome, broad-shouldered men with auburn hair and blue eyes—and today he thought he almost deserved the accolade. He breathed in the early April air, invigorating with a tang of spring, and listened to the birds calling in the trees. For the next four months, in the interval between parishes, he was not a vicar or a model for proper behavior. He had no special position to uphold and no clerical duties. He was free to enjoy the London season, and he fully intended to do so.

  A familiar shape caught his eye in passing. He turned, then went quite still. His feet had taken him automatically into Carlos Place. How odd. His body had somehow remembered what his brain had passed over. He would not have come here consciously, although in an earlier season, six years ago, he’d walked this route nearly every day.

  Randolph went a bit further and stopped again to gaze up at a narrow brick house. Behind those tall, narrow windows he’d wooed Rosalie Delacourt, asked for her hand, and been delightfully accepted.

  A vision of her laughing face assailed him. She’d so often been laughing, her lips curved in the most enticing way. Her hazel eyes had sparkled like sunshine on water. She’d been elfin slender, with chestnut brown hair and a few hated freckles on her nose. She was always trying to eradicate those freckles with one nostrum or another.

  From the moment they met, introduced by a friend of his mother’s at a concert, he’d thought of no one but Rosalie. The fact that she was eminently suitable—by birth and upbringing and fortune—was pleasant, but irrelevant. He would have married her if she’d been a pauper. She said the same. It had all been decided between them in a matter of weeks. Life had seemed perfect to a young man freshly ordained, with a parish, ready to set off on his chosen path.

  Gazing at the unresponsive house, Randolph felt a reminiscent brush of devastation. Why had he come here? His grief was muted by time. He didn’t think of Rosalie often now. The Delacourts no longer lived in town. Indeed, he’d heard that they rarely came to London. And who could blame them?

  Not for the first time, Randolph was glad that only his mother had known about his engagement to Rosalie. Randolph had enjoyed keeping his courtship private, away from the eyes of the haut ton. His brothers had been busy with their own affairs. And so, in the aftermath, he’d been able to stumble quietly off to Northumberland and what he’d sometimes thought of as exile, though of course it wasn’t. He’d found solace in his work and the good he could do, and gradually his pain had eased.

  Randolph took a moment to acknowledge the past with a bowed head and then walked on. He wouldn�
��t come this way again.

  A few minutes later, Randolph reached his original goal, another place he hadn’t been in years, Angelo’s Academy on Bond Street, next to Gentleman Jackson’s boxing saloon. Entering, he heard the familiar sounds of ringing steel and murmured commentary. Pairs of men fenced with blunted foils, guided and corrected by the famed proprietor and his helpers. Others worked on their stance or observed. Randolph joined the latter until he was noticed, and the owner of the place hurried over. “It’s been far too long since we’ve seen you, Lord Randolph,” said Henry, scion of a dynasty of fencing masters.

  “And I’ve probably forgotten most of what you taught me,” replied Randolph. “But I thought I’d try a match if it could be arranged.” The clash of blades filled him with pleasant nostalgia. He’d spent many a satisfying hour surrounded by that sound. Angelo’s was a fashionable gathering place where gentlemen socialized as well as learned the art of swordsmanship.

  “Of course. I’d like to see how one of my best pupils has kept up his skills.”

  “You mustn’t be too harsh,” replied Randolph with a smile. “I had no opportunities to fence in Northumberland.” He had practiced the moves, now and then, but he’d found no partners in the North.

  A young man nearby stepped forward. “I’d be happy to oblige.”

  Henry’s smile went slightly stiff. “Unnecessary, Mr. Wrentham,” he said. “I’ll take on Lord Randolph myself.”

  “Oh, but I’d like to try my chances against one of your best pupils.”

  The newcomer spoke with a belligerent edge, as if Henry had angered him somehow. Randolph eyed him. A well set-up fellow in his twenties with dark hair and eyes, he looked familiar. “We’ve met, haven’t we?”

  “At Salbridge,” the younger man agreed. “Charles Wrentham.”

  “Of course. You acted in the play.”

  Wrentham grimaced as if he’d criticized him. “So, shall we have at it, then?”

  Randolph understood from Henry’s stance and expression that he would prefer otherwise. But Wrentham’s face told him there was no way to refuse without giving offense. Randolph agreed with a bow.

  Donning fencing gear brought back more memories. Randolph relished the feel of the canvas vest and wire mask. He took down a foil and swished it through the air, feeling old reflexes surface. It was said that physical skills learned as a youth stayed with you, and he didn’t think he’d lost his touch. He tried a lunge and parry. Fencing had fascinated him from the moment he’d picked up a sword. The combination of concentration, precision, endurance, and strength exactly suited his temperament, and he’d picked it up quickly. Faster than any of his brothers, which added to his enthusiasm, he acknowledged. Here was one area where he outshone them all. Well, except Sebastian, who had a cavalryman’s fine slashing style with a saber from horseback. That was quite a different thing, however. No one fought to the death at Angelo’s.

  Randolph moved to an open space on the floor. Wrentham faced him, raising his foil in a salute. Noting that Henry was hovering, and wondering why, Randolph matched Wrentham’s gesture and took his stance. Muscle and mind meshed in the old way. He smiled behind his mask.

  Randolph let Wrentham make the first move, to get a sense of his style and skill. The young man came in with a lunge. He overextended, and Randolph parried the thrust. Wrentham pulled back and slashed downward. Randolph blocked the blow. And so it went for some minutes, Wrentham attacking and Randolph easily fending him off. The younger man had some ability, Randolph noted, but he lacked control. And he didn’t seem to pay much heed to his opponent. Divining your adversary’s next move was half of winning.

  Satisfied, Randolph went on the offensive. He knocked Wrentham’s blade aside with a ringing clang and scored a hit on the younger man’s chest with a clever riposte. Wrentham sprang back, then surged forward again. Randolph feinted left. Wrentham reacted. Randolph struck through the resulting gap in his defenses, scoring another hit.

  Wrentham reacted with a flying lunge, a move usually reserved for saber matches, leaping and thrusting all at once in an effort to surprise.

  Randolph dropped low, touching the floor with his free hand for balance. Straightening his sword arm, he stabbed upward and scored a third hit to Wrentham’s ribs before drawing back under his opponent’s blade.

  Something seemed to snap in Wrentham at this clever exhibition of superior skill. He went wild, beating the air with his foil like a windmill. Randolph met his slashing blows—above, left, right—with a clang of metal that he felt all the way down his arm. He could hear Henry commanding them to stop, but he couldn’t spare an instant’s attention. The blunted foil wouldn’t stab him, but a great whack to the head or shoulder would nonetheless hurt. He’d seen men knocked silly by flailing like this. Nothing for it but to fight him off. Randolph blocked and parried over and over again, waiting for a chance to end it.

  At last, Randolph found an opening and used a move Henry had taught him, twisting and flicking his sword to disarm Wrentham. The younger man’s foil went flying across the room, hit, bounced, and skittered over the floorboards to a stop.

  With a curse, Wrentham jerked off his wire mask and hurled it against the wall. A flake of plaster came loose and dropped with it. He stalked out, chest pumping, teeth bared.

  Silence filled the academy. All the other fencers had stopped to watch this unusual bout. “Well done,” called several of them.

  Randolph removed his own mask. He was breathing fast but not panting, he was happy to see.

  Henry took his foil. “Very well done,” he said quietly. “You’re as skilled as ever, my lord.”

  “What the deuce is wrong with Wrentham?” Randolph asked.

  “He’s an overly dramatic young man,” said Henry. “With a tendency to lose his temper at the least obstacle. I’ve been trying to teach him there’s more to fencing than the win.”

  “Can you teach that?”

  Henry shrugged. “Sometimes. Mr. Wrentham was doing much better before he went out of town for the winter.”

  Randolph unbuckled the straps of his fencing vest and pulled it off. “I can see why you tried to discourage that bout.”

  Henry bowed. “Discernment was always one of your greatest strengths, my lord.”

  This remark came back to Randolph later that day, as he sat in his room at Langford House. He was in London, in fact, to acquire a wife. A churchman was expected to have a partner in his parish work, and it was past time for him to find one. He’d waited long enough for another love. He was reconciled to the idea that he’d had his chance with Rosalie and lost it. There would be no other grand passion for him.

  This was no huge hardship, Randolph told himself not for the first time. Or the twentieth. He would find a young lady who shared his values, and they would come to an agreement. During a London season, he’d be surrounded by eligible girls eager to find husbands, a plethora of choice. What more could a man ask?

  Randolph rose and went over to the cheval glass. He gave himself an encouraging nod. He’d been invited to an informal evening party, a mere nothing before the season truly began, the hostess had claimed. It sounded like an ideal opportunity to ease his way into the haut ton.

  * * *

  Verity Sinclair looked around the opulent drawing room, drinking in every detail of the decor and the fashionable crowd. She had to resist an urge to pinch herself to prove she was actually there, and not dreaming. It had taken her five endless years to convince her parents that she should have a London season. They hadn’t been able to see the point of it, no matter what advantages she brought forward. Papa and Mama were quietly happy living in a cathedral and being held up as models of decorum for the whole bishopric. Verity, on the other hand, often thought she’d go mad within those staid confines.

  Verity sighed. She loved her parents dearly, but for most of her life she’d felt like a grasshopper rea
red by ants. Indeed, at age eight, she’d shocked her parents by asking if she was adopted. She hadn’t meant to hurt their feelings, or to imply any lack of affection. Their differences had just seemed so marked. Mama and Papa relished routine; she yearned for adventure. They read scholarly tomes; she pored over Robinson Crusoe and the voyages of Captain Cook. They preferred solitude or the company of a few friends; she liked a large, lively company. They took sedate strolls; she tried to teach herself knife throwing, which would come in very handy if—when—she required food in the wilderness.

  Her mother was watching her with the expression that gently suggested skepticism. Verity smiled at her and turned toward the chattering crowd. She was in the capitol at last, in position to carry out her plan. Surely this room was full of men who were not clergymen—who were, or were acquainted with, far more intrepid types. Indeed, from some news she’d picked up recently, it appeared that 1819 might be the perfect year for her purposes, even if it meant she was twenty-four and seen by some as practically on the shelf. She would succeed, despite the misfortune of possessing hair the color of a beetroot and milky skin that freckled at the least touch of sun. Despite the fact that nature had chosen to endow her with a bosom that seemed to positively drag men’s eyes from her face and her arguments. Which was not her fault, as her father sometimes seemed to think. It was a reasonably pretty face, she thought. Her features were regular; she’d been told her blue-green eyes were striking.

  “Miss Sinclair.”

  Verity turned to find her hostess beside her, along with a tall, exceedingly handsome man. He had wonderful shoulders and intense blue eyes. Compared to the fellows she knew, he looked polished and sophisticated. More than that, he met her gaze, with only the briefest straying to other regions of her anatomy. Verity smiled. This was promising.

  “May I present Lord Randolph Gresham,” the woman continued. “Lord Randolph, Miss Verity Sinclair.”

  A lord, Verity thought. Not a requirement from her list, but nothing to sneeze at either.

  “I think you will have much in common,” their hostess added. Addressing each of them in turn, she said, “Lord Randolph is vicar of a parish in Northumberland. Miss Sinclair is the daughter of the Dean of Chester Cathedral.”