Forbidden Desires of a Seductive Duchess: A Steamy Historical Regency Romance Novel

by Violet Hamers

  “What did you just pick up?” The older of the two asked.

  Charles pulled the watch out, presuming that they were searching for it, themselves. Perhaps Lord Diggar had contacted them himself. The older one accepted it, turning it over in his hand.

  “J.M.,” he remarked. “As in, Josias Montagu.” The two constables shared a look. Charles frowned, suddenly on his guard.

  “The Earl of Diggar is a client of mine,” Charles explained. “I was going to return it to him.”

  “You know him?” The one raised a bushy eyebrow.

  “He’s a client of mine,” Charles repeated, wondering what was going on. They were acting odd, almost as if they suspected him of something. “I’m his barrister.”

  “You’re under arrest, Sir,” the constable said, gruffly.

  “Whatever for?” Arthur demanded, cutting in to the conversation. Charles glanced over, to find that there was an entire crowd of drunken barristers standing beside him. It made him feel a little better, but not much.

  “The murder of Josias Montagu,” the constable said, causing Charles to panic.

  “But he was with us, the whole evening,” Arthur insisted. “We were in the Black Dog.”

  “The Earl was murdered on the second floor of the Black Dog,” the younger constable said.

  “Nice of you to cover for him, but we’re going to have to take him in,” the older constable replied.

  Charles’s mind was reeling. The idea that Lord Diggar had been murdered…and that Charles was suspected of it…He couldn’t process—his head was spinning.

  “You don’t have any reason, aside from the fact that he picked up the pocket watch from the street,” Alistair said. “He clearly found it—he didn’t take it off of Lord Diggar’s body.” Alistair was in criminal defense.

  The constable scowled at Alistair, who stared back at him steadily. “Come on. You can’t actually place him on the second floor,” Alistair pressed, expertly. “He was down on the first floor, and I have an entire room full of people who can corroborate. Including the barkeep, who I know for a fact is stone sober.”

  They all watched as the constable deflated. “We’ll take the watch as evidence,” was all that he said.

  Charles and his friends all walked away. He turned to Alistair. “Thanks,” he said.

  “It’s my job to assist those who are being wrongfully accused,” he replied. “I would make sure that you have alibis going forward. At least until the killer is caught.”

  Charles nodded. He had a bad feeling about all of this. He was supposed to have met Lord Diggar at his office that week.

  “Pleased to meet you, Your Grace,” Arabella said, dropping into a curtsy.

  “And you, My Lady,” Lord Alexander Sutton, the Duke of Longmire replied. “I’ve heard much about you.” He smiled at her. He had brown hair, which did a bit of a wave as it fell over his leonine eyes. She noted the straightness of his aquiline nose and the shape of his lips—how they twisted in disapprobation.

  She watched his eyes take in her cream-colored silk dress with its blue ribbons and French lace trim. Her hair had been arranged in a high elegant bun.

  “Only good things, I hope.” She raised her eyebrow. The Duke was certainly attractive. She knew why he had been invited to her mother’s intimate little luncheon—her father approved of the Duke of Longmire.

  Simply because he was an eligible bachelor and a Duke.

  “Mostly. I’ve heard that you ride astride, My Lady.” He was frowning a little.

  “And do you disapprove, Your Grace?” she asked arching her brow. This conversation was tiresome. She’d had it often, ever since she was a child, and she’d learned how to ride in this manner. It was her opinion that a side-saddle was useless.

  He sputtered a little bit, like an elderly gentleman. His frown deepened and even then he was still handsome. “Well, um…”

  Arabella smiled serenely folding her hands in front of her. She knew how to get rid of him. “Have you also heard that I am skilled at archery, as well as swordplay?”

  “Are you really?” His eyes widened as his finely-shaped eyebrows shot upward.

  “Indeed. I am also skilled at needlepoint, dancing, drawing, and can speak four languages, fluently.”

  “How truly impressive,” he said. He was recovering, relaxing in to the conversation.

  “Interesting,” she mused.

  “What is that?”

  “It sounded like you were all set to disapprove of me,” she replied. “Your Grace.”

  “Apologies, My Lady,” he said. “I have never met your like.”

  “I can tell.” She scowled at him, briefly, then beamed angelically. The Duke of Longmire blinked at her.

  “If I may ask, why have your studies included so many masculine pursuits?” he asked, clearly preparing to fight for her.

  Has Pappa already granted him permission?

  The Duke of Tiverwell, the Duchess, and Arabella had only made Lord Longmire’s acquaintance the other day, at Lord Drysdale’s engagement party.

  She opened her mouth to speak, when she was cut off.

  “Because, Your Grace,” Arabella’s father said, cutting in. “My wife and I were only blessed with one child. My daughter has been raised as both son and daughter to us. She was interested in all of her pursuits. We decided to acquiesce.”

  Her father beamed at the Duke of Longmire in a way that confirmed Arabella’s suspicions.

  “My father can explain further,” Arabella said, curtsying. “Excuse me, Your Grace.”

  She made her way over toward the table, where a large pot of hot coffee rested. She helped herself to a cup. It smelled divine.

  At the other end of the table, just beside the plates of tiny petits-fours, two ladies were talking in low voices. “Did you hear?” Lady Linton, the Dowager Countess, was saying. “Constables stopped Mr. Charles Conolly last night. They questioned him out in the street.”

  Arabella’s blood ran cold when she heard Charles’s name. She listened in, pretending to be very involved in adding sugar and cream to her coffee. She stirred it with a spoon, clinking against the porcelain of the cup.

  “What is he accused of?” Lady Tindall asked.

  “Murder,” Lady Linton said. Arabella’s mind seemed to go blank.

  “Whose?” Arabella demanded, turning toward them. Both ladies looked at her in surprise. She, too, was surprised that she’d spoken.

  “The Earl of Diggar,” Lady Linton replied.

  “He couldn’t have,” Arabella stated firmly. “Mr. Conolly couldn’t have.” He wouldn’t have murdered the Earl of Diggar, either. The two of them got on remarkably well. Charles had assisted the Earl of Diggar on numerous occasions.

  “It appears that Mr. Conolly can be placed at the scene of the crime,” Lady Linton said, shaking her head so her auburn curls bounced off of her cheeks. “To think that we’ve all trusted him.”

  “What proof?” Arabella asked, seething with anger and fear.

  “He had the Earl’s pocket watch in his possession,” Lady Linton replied.

  “That’s hardly proof of murder.” Arabella wasn’t about to back down.

  “It’s only what I’ve heard,” Lady Linton said, shrugging with one silk-swathed shoulder.

  Arabella turned back to her coffee. She was horrified. She had seen Charles only a few days before, at Lord Drysdale and Lady Violet’s engagement party. He had seemed his usual self. She glanced over at her father, who was watching her reaction closely. There was an icy look on his face, as if to say, I told you so.

  Her hands were shaking, so she carried her cup over to the window, where she could be alone. His disapprobation of Charles was well-known. The news certainly wouldn’t help to change it. Her father wanted Arabella to marry for love. Except, he had forbidden her from marrying Charles on account of that he was not of the ton.

  She wouldn’t believe it. Couldn’t.

  Charles? A murderer? Never.

  She
knew him, almost as well as she knew herself.

  Arabella sipped her coffee, moving across the room, where she might have a few moments to collect herself.

  She paused by the window. Outside, the sun was shining down on the street. There in Kensington, there were well-dressed ladies and gentlemen, out for strolls and riding in their fancy carriages.

  Her mind was full; her heart was terrified. She’d known Charles since the past summer, and had become even more intimately acquainted with him through months of correspondence. She thought back to the first time that she had seen him.

  He’d been dressed in a dark blue coat, which brought out the blue in his eyes. His raven black hair fell over his forehead, just so. She had been smitten, when instead of being utterly aghast at the fact that she’d been dressed for fencing lessons in a pair of breeches and a vest, had discussed her choice of rapier over epée.

  They had secretly stolen moments together. It had been utterly improper. For Arabella, that’s what made it worth it. She would happily spend the rest of her life as a barrister’s wife, if it meant that she would be spending it with Charles.

  Outside, on the street, a carriage pulled by two soot-black horses stopped in the road. Even though Arabella was forbidden from marrying Charles, she still loved him. She hadn’t wholly given up hope. Then, she was terrified for him. His father had been executed by mistake. Now that the son was in the same position, she was so frightened that she felt sick.

  Chapter Nineteen

  There were wrongs which needed to be redressed. The gentlemen of the ton never saw consequences for their actions. Nemesis acted, demanded, ordered the world, so that everything went accordingly.

  The Murderer walked along the Thames, where a cold wind blew across the river. It smelled of dirt and muck. Nemesis wondered if any bodies had floated up. Nemesis peered down at the water, so dark it was almost black.

  Anyone could be crushed beneath the solid tread of the ton’s well-heeled boots, and they would never think twice about it, so long as they had everything just as they wanted it.

  No more.

  I won’t let it happen to others, like it happened to me.

  Over and over again. They were all the same, and in the end, they all must die.

  The Murderer pulled the knife from the pocket, turning it so that the blade glinted in the light. That blade had been wetted by blood.

  That night, it would drink more. The Viscount of Drysdale was the Murderer’s next appointment. He had plans to attend the theater that evening. The Murderer planned to waylay him whilst he walked back from there to his stately townhome.

  “Tha’s a nice blade ya got there,” a man said, smiling at the Murderer. He was missing most of his front teeth.

  The Murderer slipped it back into the pocket. “It does the trick,” Nemesis assured him with a smile.

  Charles remained at home, for the next few days. In the wake of Lord Diggar’s murder, he knew that everyone was whispering. Most of his clients had cancelled their appointments. The tide of rumor was often a courtroom of its own. He stood in his parlor, in front of his window, looking out over the street. There was a parade of passersby, all of them going about their lives.

  How truly fitting this is. Just like my father. Unjustly accused, and likely going to be executed, as well.

  He knew better than to presume that his innocence would be found out.

  It’s a good thing that Mother isn’t around to see this. She would have been beside herself.

  His mother had passed on, five years prior. She’d seen him graduate from University, and begin his life as a Barrister. She’d become ill, passing away not long after. His father’s death had almost broken her. He knew that she had held on just long enough to see him safely to adulthood.

  The same went for Arabella. At the very least, her father had denied him the permission to court her. Now, she wouldn’t have to worry about him. No scandal would touch her—as false as it was.

  Yet, he knew, too—she had likely heard about it, and was worried. He recalled the last time that he’d seen her, at the Viscount of Drysdale’s engagement party. It was the only thing keeping him from losing his mind.

  She had waited, until the very end, when everyone else was busy saying their goodbyes. He had been getting ready to leave himself, and was waiting for a footman to bring him his coat.

  “I miss you, Charles,” she’d whispered to him. Their eyes had met. Hers were soft. The candlelight had made her chestnut hair glow like copper. The soft gray silk dress that she wore. Her lips which dreamed of often recalling their one stolen kiss at her birthday party.

  “And I you, My Lady,” he replied, the familiar ache in his chest. She could never be his, no matter how much they both wished it. It was a hurt which would not go away.

  “If only—” she’d begun.

  “Don’t,” he had said, stopping her. His heart couldn’t bear the thought. He wasn’t a Duke. He was just a simple London barrister. He could offer her a comfortable home, but—he couldn’t offer her a title, or a vast array of wealth, as she was accustomed. She would be lowering herself, by marrying him.

  She had smiled, holding out her hand for him to shake. He had done so, looking into her eyes, which were glistening with tears. She’d turned away from him, then walked away, disappearing into the crowd.

  “Sir?” Mrs. Osbourne called out from the door, bringing him back to the present day. He turned around to face her. She held out a letter. “It’s from Mr. Hinkley, sir.”

  “Thank you,” he said, accepting it. He looked up at her. She remained in the doorway. “Something the matter?”

  “There’s been news,” she replied. “Lord Drysdale’s been found murdered, sir.”

  Charles stared at her in shock. He couldn’t believe it. He looked down at the letter, quickly breaking the seal and unfolding it.

  Charles,

  Please assure me that you have an ironclad alibi for last night. Lord Drysdale was found dead in an alleyway near his home in Mayfair.

  Arthur.

  Charles refolded the letter, letting out a deep breath. Mrs. Osbourne could attest that he had been home. But she had, as she always did, retired to her room early. She could not account for his whereabouts between ten o’clock the previous night until seven o’clock that morning. Not for certain. The only thing that he could hope was that the constabulary had a different lead.

  Arabella closed her eyes. Her elbow was on the arm of the settee, her cheek resting in the cup of her palm. Her parents were both involved in their individual pursuits—her father, with a letter. Her mother, with a bit of embroidery.

  Arabella imagined what she would do, should Charles be arrested. Although, she hoped it wouldn’t come to that. She imagined storming the prison, riding a horse astride, her rapier in hand, to rescue Charles. She would remain on her horse, holding out her hand to him, hauling him up behind her. They would ride off, his arms wrapped around her midsection. Her stomach fluttered, her skin heating up at the idea—his body close to hers, fitting around her.

  Then, they would both run away, and be married, without her father’s permission. Her mind drifted, as it often did. Charles leaning in to brush his lips against her temple. His fingers trailing over her skin…

  “Arabella?” her father asked. She opened her eyes, turning toward him.

  “Yes, Pappa?” she asked, the very picture of innocent femininity. Her father didn’t suspect the…interesting, yet slightly lustful thoughts of the very individual that he had forbid her from marrying. There was an Arabella that he didn’t know. Nor would he ever.

  “I’ve quite gotten to the bottom of all these rumors that Mr. Conolly has committed the murders of our friends,” the Duke said. “Apparently, he has alibis for both instances.”

  “Oh, good. I didn’t think him capable of committing such an act.” She kept her voice steady. Not one clue of her affection would slip from her lips. She was awash in relief. “Didn’t you require his services?”


  “Indeed. I need him to revise the entail in my will.” The entail stipulated that the Duke’s estate would go to her cousin. Lord Norton and Arabella’s father were often at war amongst themselves.

  Lord Norton didn’t approve of Arabella’s pursuits. He no doubt planned that she would not wed, and then still be around for him to bully into polite, feminine submission upon her father’s demise.

  “How so, Pappa?” she asked, instantly curious.