by Archer, Kate
The Peer’s Roguish Word
The Dukes’ Pact Series
Book Five
By Kate Archer
© Copyright 2021 by Kate Archer
Text by Kate Archer
Cover by Wicked Smart Designs
Dragonblade Publishing, Inc. is an imprint of Kathryn Le Veque Novels, Inc.
P.O. Box 7968
La Verne CA 91750
[email protected]
Produced in the United States of America
First Edition May 2021
Kindle Edition
Reproduction of any kind except where it pertains to short quotes in relation to advertising or promotion is strictly prohibited.
All Rights Reserved.
The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.
License Notes:
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook, once purchased, may not be re-sold. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or borrow it, or it was not purchased for you and given as a gift for your use only, then please return it and purchase your own copy. If this book was purchased on an unauthorized platform, then it is a pirated and/or unauthorized copy and violators will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Do not purchase or accept pirated copies. Thank you for respecting the author’s hard work. For subsidiary rights, contact Dragonblade Publishing, Inc.
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Additional Dragonblade books by Author Kate Archer
The Dukes’ Pact Series
The Viscount’s Sinful Bargain (Book 1)
The Marquess’ Daring Wager (Book 2)
The Lord’s Desperate Pledge (Book 3)
The Baron’s Dangerous Contract (Book 4)
The Peer’s Roguish Word (Book 5)
Table of Contents
Title Page
Copyright Page
Publisher’s Note
Additional Dragonblade books by Author Kate Archer
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
About the Author
Prologue
White’s, 1818
The six elderly dukes had once more gathered in their favored room at the club. When the dukes had arrived, they’d found a gaggle of younger gentlemen occupying the room, these presumptuous cubs imagining their card game to be of vital importance. Those youthful and very mistaken fellows had been chased out as if they were of no more account than a group of clerks. Servants had scurried to move the furniture and set up the room as the dukes liked it—six chairs round a cheery fire with plentiful claret and a tray of meats and cheeses piled high on a side table.
The dukes did not engage in idle chatter, that was never their habit on these occasions. The discussion would revolve around the pact between them to ensure their sons found wives so that grandsons might be produced. Before any further actions could be debated, they waited patiently for the Duke of Wentworth to settle his gouty foot and claim his recent victory.
After much rearranging of pillows on a stool, the duke and his foot were finally in place. “Well, gentlemen,” he said, “I hardly dared imagine it, but my son has married. You will know by now that it was Mendbridge’s daughter, Penelope Darlington. The two of them have ridden off to Dorset, where I suspect they are riding still. Naturally, I hope the lady will dismount her horse at some point and produce an heir.”
“We congratulate you, Wentworth,” the Duke of Gravesley said. “In the meantime, I never imagined we would actually have to take the thing so far, but the two scoundrels that are left have been entirely cut off from their funds. It appears we have arrived at a far steeper hill to climb.”
The dukes nodded at one another, as if this were a fact well-known amongst them.
“There are two hills left, though—do you hint that Bainbridge’s son or my own is the steeper of them?” the Duke of Glastonburg said.
“It is mine,” the Duke of Bainbridge said. “Dalton may be scarred and sullen, but he does not spend half his life dressing himself and is not one of the most unfortunate scoundrels to ever grace London. My eldest spawn is getting a reputation for breaking hearts, although his own is never amongst them.”
“Then let us hope,” the Duke of Carlisle said, “that a new season brings a new lady who may finally capture our lothario and tie him down.”
“I’d tie him down myself and point the girl to his location if I thought it’d help,” the Duke of Bainbridge said.
Chapter One
Katherine Dell, or Kitty as her friends knew her, debated what could be brought with her to London for the season. It was not anywhere near the amount of things she would like to bring, but then there were only so many trunks, and only so many times the carriages would make the trip back and forth from Devon. Most young ladies might be singularly focused on their wardrobe, but those decisions had long been dispensed with. The current question was, how to move the telescope and precisely how many books could she fit into the luggage carriage? While there was a perfectly good library in their house in town, she was just now in the middle of upwards of sixteen books and had her eye on a few dozen more.
“We are not bringing the telescope,” a laughing voice said at her doorway.
Kitty turned to find her brother, Frederick, leaning against the doorframe and appearing highly amused. He was tall and handsome and they were only two years apart. They had been great friends and great combatants since their days in the nursery.
“So says Martha, too,” Kitty said. “Though she calls it the contraption.”
“Then your maid has more sense than you do,” Frederick answered. “Nobody takes their telescope to London.”
“Oh, I am not so certain,” Kitty said, with a mischievous look. “It is my guess that people may wish to bring all sorts of unusual things to London. I might even imagine that a dear brother would not mind packing a certain Miss Crimpleton in one of his trunks.”
Frederick straightened a cuff. “You would be wrong,” he said. “Miss Crimpleton has a particular delicacy of feeling and would scream like a stuck pig if I attempted it.”
“You will miss her, though?”
“Enough of that, Kitty,” her brother said brusquely. “She will have her season next year, not a hundred years from now. I can easily wait.”
>
Kitty shrugged, well knowing when not to take a thing further. Her brother was perfectly amenable to a teasing…up to the point he was not. When it came to Miss Crimpleton, he was generally not.
“In any event,” Frederick said, “your telescope is emblematic of what I wished to speak to you about.”
Kitty crossed her arms and prepared for battle.
Seeing his sister donning her armor and ready for a war, Frederick sighed. In a kinder tone, he said, “Kit-cat, you are going up for your launch season, not to give a speech at the Royal Society. I understand your interests, but there are practicalities to consider.”
Kitty turned away at the mention of the Royal Society. Had she been a man, induction into that great institution would have been her primary aim in life. Had she been a man, she’d already be a member. Through rigorous experiments, she had proved that Cornish eyebright was hemi-parasitic on Western Gorse. Men had been inducted for less. In truth, men had been inducted for nothing at all, though the great Caroline Herschel might discover a slew of comets and be excluded.
She bent and looked through her beloved telescope; it stood in its permanent place on the wide window ledge. It was afternoon and so no stars were to be noted and it was an overcast and drizzly sort of day. The most interesting thing she could discover was a herd of cows huddled together against the weather on a far hillside.
“You sound very like mama with your scoldings,” Kitty said, “though you are more roundabout than she is. She does not remind me of practicalities—she calls it marriage.”
“Marriage is very practical,” Frederick said. “Dinners and balls and routs are the most established way to achieve that very practical aim. Please put aside your intellectual pursuits for a few months at least. You cannot wish to be an old maid. I know you cannot wish it. You shall want children and your own house.”
Kitty knew that was perfectly true. And yet, she was not eager to leave her father’s house. Her dear papa treated her as his intellectual equal. How was she to transform herself into somebody’s wife, only responsible for seeing that the right calls were made and a house ran smooth and dinner parties came off well? She suspected those mundane tasks would be the height of her wifely career—she had not the skill or temperament to be as her mother was. The baroness was the vital root of the family, keeping her various offshoots supplied with sunlight and water.
Kitty understood what was expected of her. She understood that most gentlemen did not wish to have a serious discussion with her about the advancements of the day. She supposed they all had lively debates at their clubs. Lively debates where new questions, or even conclusions, were posited. But nobody seemed to wish to discuss with her Herschel’s fascinating paper on telescopes, or Carlisle’s examination of the peculiarities of the arteries in slow-moving animals, or Henry’s experiments on muriatic acid. She had suspected that it would be the case all along, but she’d been thoroughly convinced of it after she’d visited Penny Darlington at Newmarket.
Though she’d not been technically out, she’d been allowed certain entertainments under the watchful eye of Lord Mendbridge and Mrs. Wellburton. Along with the entertainments had come the gentlemen. It appeared, through those conversations at dinner or at dancing, that her sole value was her looks. And, she supposed, her dowry too. She might have arrived with complete emptiness between her ears and it would not signify. None of those gentlemen had shown her the truth more clearly than Lord Grayson.
Oh, she had been so struck by his person when she’d first seen him in the drawing room at Mendbridge Cottage. Tall, the sort of cheekbones a sculptor might dream up, and looking so urbane. His dress was impeccable and he wore it with such ease. She was not so foolish as to deny any reaction she might have had involving a fluttering of the stomach.
It was a pity he’d ruined the sensation by being so patronizing! Each time she’d attempted to discuss anything rational, he’d looked at her as if she were a puppy doing something charming. It was near-enraging—as he condescended to her, he at the same time proved himself to be the most uneducated person she had ever encountered. Even her maid was better read than he. Of course, one who spent as much time as he on his person would have little time for education. His neckcloths were a veritable building of the pyramids and likely took just as long.
She had pretended good humor over his condescension and had appeased her feelings by torturing Lord Grayson with questions he had no hope of answering. She had given him a book on Cardinal Wolsey and quizzed him on it ruthlessly. For all the entertainment of it, she still could not help but be offended at how he viewed her. How they all viewed her.
Lord Grayson had taken every opportunity to steer the conversation away from anything approaching the intellectual to land firmly on her person. As she had listened to his ridiculous compliments, she had thought it was a shame he was so handsome. An injustice, really. Those chiseled features had been better suited to a learned man and not wasted on the dandified Lord Grayson.
She did wish to marry, to an intelligent man who would be intelligent enough to recognize her own intelligence. A man she could debate things with, as two equals. She could only pray that such a man existed. If he happened to be as handsome as Lord Grayson, so much the better. Though, it was not an absolute requirement.
“You will find somebody you like, Kitty,” her brother said. “Mendbridge says Lord Grayson was an admirer at Newmarket. I do not know the fellow and he is part of that ridiculous dukes’ pact, but on the other hand, he’s a Marquess and will be a duke. You could do worse than duchess, is all I say.”
Kitty turned away from her telescope and stared at her brother. “You are quite mistaken, Frederick. I am convinced I could in fact not do worse than Lord Grayson.”
“Never mind him, then,” Frederick said. “The town will be teeming with suitable fellows. If only you would put your thoughts wholly on the matter at hand.”
Kitty knew well enough that it would not be possible to put her thoughts wholly on dressing and making calls and going to parties. On the other hand, she was not oblivious to the expense of a season, she would not insult her parents with outright defiance, and she did like dancing. Naturally, she was also not opposed to a good dinner. There must be some middle ground they might all comfortably stand on.
“Frederick,” she said, “I will be the dutiful young lady just out, if you do not attempt to suppress my natural inclinations altogether. You know of what I speak.”
“Lackington & Allen,” Frederick said.
Kitty nodded. Mr. Lackington ran the largest bookstore in London. No, not just the largest. It was the Temple Muse and carried over eight hundred thousand volumes. Lackington’s was the sun and the world revolved around it.
Over the past two years, she had maintained a correspondence with Mr. Lackington. She would write him a letter and give it to her father. Her father would review the letter, enclose a note of his own, and send it off to Mr. Lackington. Then a letter would come back to her father and be passed on to her. In that way, she’d had rousing debates on a variety of subjects and got important recommendations on books she ought to own. Kitty was determined to experience the establishment for herself and be introduced to the great man.
“You shall find me remarkably good humored and compliant if I have my visits to Lackington and Allen,” Kitty said, her chin jutting out in rock solid stubbornness.
“Finsbury Square it is, then,” Frederick said.
*
Giles Dermot, the Marquess of Grayson and eldest son of the Duke of Bainbridge, hurried down the stairs. As his funds had been entirely eliminated thanks to the devilish pact his father and his old cronies had dreamed up, he was entirely at the mercy of Dalton’s hospitality. This should have necessitated being prompt for a drink before going to the theater, but nobody could hurry LaRue. If his valet was not satisfied with the fall of his neckcloth, and he rarely was, then it would require starting over again with a fresh one. The lord did not own above forty-five cloths on a
whim, it was a necessity when one employed such a temperamental scoundrel.
He passed Bellamy in the hall and the old butler stared at him as grim as ever. Giles had been in the house long enough to know that Bellamy’s annoyance had little to do with if his master would be inconvenienced by his houseguest’s tardiness. Bellamy would be irritated that Bellamy was inconvenienced. The old fellow had one aim in life—get the lords out of the house so he and his footmen could vandalize the wine cellar and make merry. Should one require anything late at night in Dalton’s house, one might do best to get it oneself. Ringing the bell would only bring a swaying and bleary-eyed footman to the door. LaRue called Dalton’s retinue the barbarians and claimed he would not dignify the horde by using individual names.
Giles entered the library, that being the preferred room in the house for gathering. Dalton had already a glass in hand. “Prompt as ever,” his friend said.
“I’ve told you over and over, LaRue has his own timetable,” Giles said. “There’s no use trying to hurry him, I did it once and he descended into some sort of French madness. I did not get the whole of it, but crimes against mankind were thrown about.”
“Why don’t you just give him the wrong time?” Dalton asked. “Tell him you’ve got to be out the door an hour before you actually do?”
“I do not see how that will work,” Giles said. “He’ll know, somehow.”
“He did not somehow know this evening. I said we would depart at eight, but we do not in fact go until nine. Here it is at half past the hour and for once you are arrived in good time. I suspect not all of the blame for your shocking habits can be laid at your valet’s door.”
Giles shrugged. He supposed Dalton was right, he could be undecided about which coat would suit. “Well, in any case, very jolly that I am not late, is it not?”
“It is about the only jolly thing I can think of just now,” Dalton said. “We are reduced to attending parties to get a good dinner these days and I do not even have the funds to open my house in Brighton this summer. If we are not invited to a series of country house parties, we will broil alone in London. Or, God forbid, we’d have to fly to our respective family’s coups.”